Woo Hoo!
Go get it! Book One in the new
Marilyn Club Series, Murder For By Dummies, is
available right this very moment for early download!!!
Place your pre-order at the Totally
Bound website and download your copy TODAY. If you have already placed your pre-order,
your copy is available NOW!
***** WINNER OF THE AFFAIRE DE COEUR COVER ART CONTEST *****
So, go…don’t delay…hurry…order your copy of
Murder
For By Dummies now and get the download today--almost a month before everyone else
on the general release date of August 15, 2017.
And just to whet
your whistle, here is a new excerpt…ENJOY!
Murder For
By Dummies
By Kayce Lassiter
Emily Redfeather
The office door swung
open and slammed against the wall. I
jumped an inch off the chair and almost toppled backward, chair and all. With both my feet straight out in front of me,
and arms wind-milling, I struggled to save myself. As I barely avoided a very humiliating upset
by regaining my balance, I stared hard at my boss, waiting for an explanation.
“Could you
come to my office? I need to talk to
you.” He wouldn’t make eye contact.
Not a good sign.
I took a deep, measured
breath and mentally counted to ten as he hurried from my office. Annoyed, I dragged my poor, tired body across
the hall and into his office, and slumped into the first chair I came to.
“Is this
going to take long?” I was too frayed to
hide my annoyance.
He raised his
brows. “It might. Are you in a hurry?”
“Sort of. It’s Friday afternoon and I’ve got almost
eighty hours in this week. I’m exhausted
and there’s a family emergency brewing. I
just want to go home and curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and pray for
good news. Can it wait?”
George stared at some
loose papers on his desk, still not making eye contact—which wasn’t
unusual. He was a short, bald man with absolutely
no people skills and beady little eyes that were always sneaking peeks like he expected
to catch someone doing something wrong.
“Uh, no. This can’t wait, and I’m afraid you’re not
going home early. We’re downsizing and
you’re being RIF’d.”
The clock on the wall
slowly ticked away the seconds as the silence hung thick in the air between
us. After a few moments, the wheels began
to slowly turn in my mind.
“RIF’d? What do you mean, RIF’d?”
“A Reduction
In Force—job cuts.”
I stared at
him as my heart began to pound. “I know
what it means. Why me?”
“Like I said, the company
is downsizing. Your department is being
outsourced. Your project is
cancelled. We’re sending the work offshore.” Before I could respond, he hurried on. “Don’t worry.
You’ll be compensated. We’ll give
you a severance package and help you update your resume.”
“Severance package? Help me update my resume?” My voice pitched higher as I slid closer to
the edge. “Do you know what I’m dealing
with right now?”
Sarcasm coated his
words. “I’m sorry if this comes at a bad
time.” He rolled his eyes and
sighed. It’s nothing personal, just a
cost saving measure.”
Wow. That
was heartfelt.
My stomach knotted
tighter as I felt my foot slip over the mental edge. “Nothing personal? Are you kidding me? This is my freaking job. It’s pretty damn personal to me. I’ve given this company two hundred percent
for the last four years and this is the thanks I get?”
RIFs happened and they
weren’t always selective, but some part of me always believed if I worked hard
and did a good job, I’d be rewarded. I
never expected to give so much of myself to my career, only to get kicked in
the teeth.
Unreasonable rage bubbled
up from somewhere deep inside and I began to shout. “You think a few lousy months’ pay and some
re-training will compensate for having this prestigious career of facilitating
the movement of garbage ripped out from under me?”
On a roll now, my
propensity for sarcasm kicked into high gear as I leaned forward in my seat.
“You think that’ll even
begin to compensate me for being thrown out of my corner cubicle and being
barred from the county dump? For the
humiliation of being supervised as I pack my personal belongings into the one
box I’m allowed to carry out? For the
loss of my insurance and the huge pension I was counting on when I’m old and
shriveled? You think you can come up
with enough compensation for all that?”
He stammered, apparently at
a loss for the right words, “Actually, it’s only two weeks’ pay, and no
training. But there are outplacement
services.”
“Two weeks’ pay? That’s it?”
Hanging off the edge of sanity by my fingernails, I surged to my feet
and stormed to the door. I jerked it
open, stepped through, and turned to glare at him. “Outplacement services?”
Heads popped up all over
the groundhog farm as everyone struggled to see and hear everything.
“You’ve got to be kidding. You’re offering me outplacement services? After four years of weekends, late nights,
working overtime until I couldn’t see straight, you tell me outplacement
services and two weeks’ severance is all I get?
Are you freaking nuts? Well, you
can kiss my outplacement services!”
Love,
Kayce
No comments:
Post a Comment