80 Proof (The Rose Garden Arena Incident, Book 3)

80 PROOF

THE ROSE GARDEN ARENA INCIDENT

Book 3

80 PROOF

THE ROSE GARDEN ARENA INCIDENT

Book 3

A Serial Thriller in Seven Parts

Michael Hiebert

Contents

Introduction

Previously in Rose Garden

Sunday, April 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Coming Up Next

Book 4: BALLADS

Sneak Preview

Acknowledgments

About Michael Hiebert

80 PROOF

(THE ROSE GARDEN ARENA INCIDENT, BOOK 3)

Copyright © 2016 by Michael Hiebert.

All rights reserved.

Published by Dangerbooks, British Columbia, Canada.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblances to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Edited by Dawn James Walker

Cover Design by / © DangerBoy & DogMan, Inc.

Cover image © Dimj

ISBN-13: 978-1-927600-13-9

ISBN-10: 1-927600-13-8

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Dangerbooks Smashwords Edition

First Printing, November 2016.

RG3-013

Also by Michael Hiebert

Sometimes the Angels Weep—Short Fiction

Nashville Beaumont (and The Hyperbole Engine)

DOLLS

Alvin, Alabama Mystery Novels

Dream with Little Angels

Close to the Broken Hearted

A Thorn Among the Lilies

Sticks and Stones

Previously in The Rose Garden Arena Incident

Mosh Pit

Media Frenzy

Introduction

BOOK THREE. 80 PROOF. Best cover and title in the series so far. At least, so says me.

This one’s a rocky ride, so buckle up. Things are starting to take off. Knots are unraveling. Secrets are surfacing. We’re digging into the good stuff, and it’s only going to get better and better.

One of the problems with writing a serial novel like this one is keeping up the tension and constantly raising the stakes over a hundred and eighty thousand words. That’s more than twice the length of my debut novel, Dream with Little Angels. The secret with The Rose Garden Arena Incident lies in the number of characters. There are more than a dozen key cast members, each of whom is on his or her own tangent to the story and they all weave in and out of each other. That’s where the tension comes from, out of the interactions between the different stories. The Marshall/Reggie plot reacts with the Reggie/Jonesy plot as well as the Uncle Joe/Aunt Fanny plot, just as the Sang-mi/Dennis Martin plot disrupts to the Martin/Benedetti plot which is threatening to interfere with the Reggie/Jonesy plot. The Lewis/Karma plot mixes with the Lewis/Trinity and also bumps heads with the Karma/Trinity plots. And so it goes, on and on, and on and on. From the Posey Dolls to Dakota Shane to Tommy Houston to Josef Hyatt. It’s a crazy, finely mapped labyrinth of stories that, trust me, took a long, long time for me to figure out. And these don’t stop here. Eventually, everything comes full circle and we wind up at Dakota’s concert Saturday night at the Rose Garden Arena. You already know some of what happens, but don’t worry⎯even that, what you know (or at least what you think you know) is up for negotiation when the chickens come home to roost, as they say. Or probably, at least, how Reggie would say. Ha.

I thoroughly enjoy writing books such as these. They are really the sort of thing I do best and, honestly, much more reflective of the majority of my work when compared to something like my Alvin, Alabama Mystery novels. Not that I don’t get a kick out of writing about Abe and Dewey, they’re great. I just like the variety that comes with a story like Rose Garden. It allows me to still throw in the humor, but at the same time come up with original themes full of action, emotion, pathos, and all that other junk. You know, the stuff that makes you want to keep reading. Well, at least the stuff that makes me want to keep reading. As I’ve said elsewhere, when I’m writing my best, I don’t really know what’s going to happen next. I read it as it’s written. I mean, I have a general idea where things are headed, but the line-by-line beats are a complete surprise to me until they hit my keyboard. And if I don’t enjoy what I’m reading, I stop writing and shift to something else.

I’m happy to say, so far, this one’s kept me engrossed. I hope, in this case, your mileage doesn’t vary.

I like ensemble casts with well-defined characters, all sort of thrown into a soup pot together. Once I’ve finished penning this story, I plan to release another I’ve been working on for a number of years, a book called Lab Rats. It’s another fairly big book (although, I doubt it will finish up anywhere near as big as this one will. Few do.), with a large assortment of voices. Much, much different in theme, style, texture, and everything else.

But that’s for another time. For now, let’s just concentrate on the story at hand, and one that’s about to take off running. I bring you, 80 Proof . . .

Michael Hiebert

British Columbia, Canada

September, 2016

Previously in Rose Garden

DETECTIVE DENNIS MARTIN HAS been partners with Detective Tony Benedetti at the Portland Police Department for some time. They talk, so Martin knows a fair amount about Benedetti’s personal life. Things like the fact that Benedetti’s wife, Dawn, is eight months pregnant and hoping for a boy. He also knows her birthday’s coming up and that Benedetti got her tickets to her favorite performer: Dakota Shane.

The concert’s this coming Saturday.

Dakota Shane’s newest CD may be burning up to the top of all the music charts and her popularity may be higher than ever, but that doesn’t change the fact that, for her, things are falling apart fast. She arrives in Salt Lake City for her show tomorrow night, even more paranoid that her road manager, Tommy Houston, feared. She thinks she’s being stalked, but the problem is nobody but Dakota’s ever seen the stalker. But she’s convinced he’s out there and has been throughout this concert tour. In fact, she’s convinced it’s the same man responsible for the death of her baby, Billy Ray, during her last tour when the fourteen-month-old toddler somehow tumbled from the twenty-fifth floor balcony of Dakota’s hotel room.

Josef Hyatt is the owner of Dakota’s record label. The man is a marketing genius who most people simply refer to as the Admiral. Tommy’s amazement, the Admiral not only managed to spin Dakota's pregnancy so that motherhood didn’t contradict the super-sexual pop icon he’d already spent millions molding Dakota into, he even managed to exploit Billy Ray’s untimely death.

Only now, a new problem has surfaced. Someone claiming to be close to Dakota has come forward and unleashed a media