Excerpt Monday: Currents Deep and Deadly by Arleen Alleman

Currents Deep and Deadly 
by Arleen Alleman

For a full excerpt please visit: Arleen Alleman's Web Site

In three intertwining chronicles blended into one fast-paced journey, Darcy Farthing offers tidbits of history and geography from her travel log of South American seaports, spins a tale of murder and madness aboard a cruise ship, and reveals her own devastating but enlightening personal crisis. A pragmatic scientist by nature, she has given up all belief in a spiritual component to life. That is, until a series of unbelievable coincidences challenges her non-belief…

Through a series of unbelievable coincidences, Darcy meets the man who could be her soul mate, battles a psychotic shipboard killer, and runs headlong into her carefully hidden past—a past she has worked so hard to forget. She breaks free of her emotional prison—but at what price? The wondrous and terrifying events of this monthlong adventure meld together in ways that threaten to destroy her entire belief system…and her life.

Filled with page by page of nonstop action and adventure, you won’t be able to stop once you immerse inCurrents Deep and Deadly.

Darcy screamed, but it was only inside her head. She started to get up to leave but simply slid off the couch onto the floor. Mick was immediately down at her side holding her hand. "Are you all right? Darcy, here let me help you up." His voice broke as he tried to pull her up from under the small cocktail table that had been placed in front but a little to the side of the sectional. He was feeling nauseous himself and could only imagine how she must be feeling.

Darcy allowed herself to be hauled up, her long legs stiff as she drew them up past the table. She sat on the edge of the sofa and lifted her head, looking around in a daze. Suddenly Ray was there right in her face causing her to lean back abruptly, but he just handed her a glass of something much stronger than water. Gulping it down resulted in a fit of choking and coughing, but after a minute or two she opened her watering eyes and looked up at the three faces staring at her with matching looks of concern.

"I have to go now," she whispered as she pushed herself up into a standing position, and willed herself to stop swaying. Marianne stood up too, and Darcy towered over both Alosas. She didn't want to spend any more time in their presence, but as she stepped around the corner of the table, Mick took her elbow and whispered into her ear, "Darcy, I'm right here. It will be all right. Listen to what they are saying.

Maybe the thoughts you've had about coincidences that are not really coincidences have some merit. Obviously, something is going on here that we need to understand. You have to hear these people out. Listen to what they have to say about their daughter."

"I do not have to listen!" she yelled. "This is crazy. No one knows about my Rachael except me . . . and you." Darcy glanced at Mick, and her expression told him that he had lost her trust, again.What is she thinking, that I had something to do with orchestrating this?

She bolted toward the door causing the cat to jump up with a screech, nearly tripping her as it flew between her legs and out the door ahead of her. She turned left and ran through the foyer, directly into the beautiful table they had passed in the entryway. Almost unconsciously, she thought she had narrowly missed it as she swung her hips around, but she heard the crash of glass behind her. She didn't care. She only knew that she had to get back to the safety of the ship and away from these crazy people, even if she had to walk all the way back to the dock.

Under no circumstances could she listen to Marianne, who was clearly threatening to destroy everything she had worked so hard to build--and to hide. She was approaching the point of completely breaking down as she tried desperately to block out the gist of Marianne's comments.

Arleen Alleman is a former analyst with the Government Accountability Office where she wrote extensively on many diverse topics including satellite systems, senior health care, postal operations, endangered species, and plant biodiversity.  Despite an education in biology, she is a self-described generalist who also worked as an insurance adjuster, fashion model, and jewelry designer.  Her current interests include travel, health and fitness, religious history, and running her own home décor shop and boutique.  Born in England and raised in New Hampshire and Las Vegas, she now lives in Colorado with her husband, Tim and their cat, Xena.  Currents Deep and Deadly is her first novel.

Just as she ran out the door and across the porch, a young woman was approaching up the circular drive on a bicycle. She arrived and dismounted at the bottom of the steps, dropped her bike on the grass beside the driveway, and stood looking up at Darcy. Then she started to climb, never taking her eyes from Darcy's face.