STILETTO, new mystery novel
Stiletto is a timely, fast-paced mystery told in two diverse voices — a tense, erotic duet between the sharp, intuitive Detective Anna Crane and her prime suspect, the brilliant biochemist Eleanor Kiernan. Both women are haunted by the tragic loss of a sibling, but Kiernan’s twin brother died of an overdose of the opiate she helped to create.
Quitting (read an excerpt from the new novel.)
Seattle was afloat in a dense, spring fog that shrouded and silenced her cries, when Eleanor Kiernan discovered the body of her twin brother. Frankie was curled in a fetal position beside empty opiate bottles. Collapsing onto the floor on her knees, Eleanor wept, as she had not since childhood. Since the first time the twins had ever been separated when Frankie was sent to military school; since her brother had first overdosed when they were still in university. After enduring the misery of Franklin Kiernan’s many stints in rehab, Eleanor had stopped crying over her brother. Until today.
Finding Frankie in the chaos of his cluttered studio, his forearms pocked with track scars, his bare feet betraying needle marks even between his toes, Eleanor bent, sobbing inconsolably. She didn’t care that no one heard her cries; her twin would never hear her voice again. Nor she, his.
The last time she’d seen her brother, Eleanor had issued him her final, desperate ultimatum. “I’m done, Frankie,” she’d sworn.
He’d embezzled from their mutual trust fund, broken into her house to steal her jewelry, and refused another rehab stint. His sixth. She’d pleaded with him, reaching out to touch his spiky, red hair, his generous brow, so like her own. But gaunt now. Then she’d angrily warned him before she left, “Be sure to write your social security number on your arm in magic marker . . . so they will know who you are . . . when they find your body.”
Those last words horrified her now as Eleanor knelt over her brother, touching his head. There, behind his ear, was his social security number tattooed in the cold, fragile skin. His dilated eyes stared blankly up at her. In their expression Eleanor read remorse and blame. She lifted his limp, skeletal body, carefully — as if he were still wracked with pain,needing opioids just to make it through another day.
Frankie, a dreamy entrepreneur, wasn’t always an addict. Several of his start-up businesses had thrived until Frankie broke his leg falling into an ice crevasse in 2016 on one of his many climbing expeditions. Doctors had freely prescribed opiates, though Eleanor warned him off the painkiller. She knew too well the drug’s long-term, daily dangers. Eleanor also knew her brother’s vulnerabilities — his low tolerance for pain, his habit of feigning that all was well, when it obviously wasn’t.
“Frankie,” Eleanor had urged, “Let’s get you on something short-term that will help dull the pain, but not keep you addicted.”
“I can handle it, Sis,” Frankie shrugged her off with a laugh. “You’re being overprotective, as usual. You’re just guilty because you and your drug company make a fortune on other people’s pain.”
“Of course, I feel guilty,” Eleanor said, a blush rising from her heart to her face. “But I’m doing everything I can to change things . . . working from the inside . . .”
“Quit your job, Ellie,” Frankie said simply. “You’ve made a deal with the Devil and Big Pharma. Stop taking drug money. Maybe then, I’ll quit.”
Eleanor hesitated. For the first time, she was making progress persuading her CEO to recognize the disastrous addiction their drug had spawned. Because of Eleanor’s influence, the CEO was feeling the first glimmers of guilt and remorse that had driven her the last several years. If she left the drug company, who would help guide her boss into doing the right thing — reversing the opiate’s label to specify short-term use, leading Big Pharma back to some semblance of accountability?
“Are you serious, Frankie?” Eleanor demanded. “If I quit my job, you’ll quit painkillers?”
Frankie hesitated for just a fraction of a second. It was enough of a pause to convince Eleanor that this mutual deal, like his many rehabs, would also fail. “You think I’ll fail and not honor my part of our deal to quit, right?” Frankie snapped.
Eleanor did not answer. That was her answer.
Write your social security number on your arm in magic marker . . . so they will know who you are . . . when they find your body.”
Frankie moved out of her home that same day. Sometimes Frankie didn’t bother to return her calls. Eleanor, fearing the worst, would drop everything and cross the busy bridge to his studio, only to find him either high or gone. When Frankie swallowed his last and fatal dose of opiates, Eleanor didn’t have any premonition to stop him. Another reason for blame and guilt. Now, she would spend the rest of her life in his shadow. And there was no painkiller for that dark chill.
As a twin, she’d never really felt the haunting solitude that other people talked about. I’m all alone, they’d confess. Eleanor pitied them. She’d never really spent much time searching for an elusive and illusory soulmate. Eleanor had deftly avoided three marriage proposals, preferring serial monogamy with a few men, most of whom Frankie didn’t like. Whenever she’d had to choose between her twin and a mate, she’d always chosen Frankie.
As they mourners respectfully left her to her solitude, Eleanor surrendered to a new and unfamiliar pain that throbbed throughout her body. She might do anything to stop this bone-marrow ache. What was it? Ah, loneliness. She’d lost the great love of her life. Frankie was her fix.
Stiletto: A Novel
Amazon.com: Stiletto: A Novel: 9781647424305: Peterson, Brenda: Books
www.amazon.com
Brenda Peterson is the author of over 20 books of fiction, natural history, and memoir. Wolf Nation was chosen as “Best Conservation Book of the Year” by Forbes magazine and her novel, Duck and Cover, was a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year.” Her novel, The Drowning World will soon be in audiobook. This excerpt is from her new novel, Stiletto, due out May 1st. Every week this month, a new excerpt from Stiletto will appear here on Medium. For more: www.BrendaPetersonBooks.com
