Susan Bischoff - Hush Money: A Talent Chronicles Novel

Hush Money

Kindle Edition

Copyright 2010 Susan Bischoff

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

http://www.susan-bischoff.com

Copyright of excerpt material is held by the individual authors.

Cover Art by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.

Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If youre reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Authors Note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

What Readers are Saying About Hush Money

X-Men Meets Smallville Meets Awesome

~AM Harte, Quills and Zebras

Ive been in kind of a reading slump lately. No, really. I havent been able to get into a book and have had to force myself through them for a couple of months now. Its not the books Ive been reading, because theyve all been good, but I just havent been yanked into a story and kept there.

Until Hush Money.

From the very first sentence, I was drawn in and I literally couldnt put the book down. Even knowing that I had to get up at the crack of dawn the next day, I stayed up until 2am reading this book.

~MamaKitty, Mama Kitty Reviews

Just think if X-Men and Heroes (the first season of course, which was the best) met and had a story baby, this is what it would probably be.

~Jessica Armenta, Goodreads member

I love the world that Ms. Bischoff has created, and her characters are wonderful. Gosh, Marco is just SO EVIL! I'm very excited to see how this story progresses and how the characters will grow. I think it has the makings of a fantastic series that people will fall in love with.

~Miss Havoc, Cry Havoc Reviews

I don't read a lot of YA books. They have to be really special to keep my attention. This one was good! I could relate to the characters, even though they were young enough to be my kids. Susan Bischoff did a great job building those characters. And the action scenes...VERY believable. The only complaint I have is that it left me wanting more. :) I would recommend this book to young adults and not so young adults.

~Lauralynn Elliot, author of Starfane

Chapter 1

Joss

I already knew it had happened again.

Not like Im psychic, not really, but you dont have to have any special mental Talent to see the signsif youre paying attention.

Stacy Scarpelli had had her hand in the air for, like, five minutes. Eventually she was doing that thing where you lean one elbow on the desk, and your other elbow in your hand, like youre going to collapse from the exhaustion of trying to get the teachers attention. But the teacher was paying attention. She was paying a lot of attention to checking off names on the roll; or supposedly taking roll, but totally not looking at that whole side of the room where Stacy was flinging her hand limply about on her wrist.

And leave it to Stacy to be so wrapped up in Stacy that she didnt notice how quiet it was this morning in first period English and how everyone just kind of sat there. The whispering would start later, as the shock wore off. Later, people would be saying how long theyd suspected, and how much theyd never really liked Krista anyway. But just then we were all looking around at each other and wondering who else was keeping secrets, and who would be the next one to disappear.

Ms. Carter looked up and set her pencil down very carefully on her desk, lining it up precisely next to her planner, and finally raised her eyes to Stacy.

Yes, Stacy?

You assigned me Krista to be my partner for the project. And its not like I wanted to leave it to the last minute, but she was always later later later, you know? And finally I said we gotta get together this weekend, and we were supposed to meet on Saturday morning before my tennis lesson? So I waited and waited for her, but she didnt show up, and I had to get to my lesson, right? And then I called her house after, but no one answered. No one answered all weekend, and now shes not even here today, and I dont know if she did any work at all on it. I did some, but I was kind of waiting to find out what she had, you know, compare notes, because there was no point in us doing the same thing, right? But I couldnt cause she wouldnt answer her phone and then I didnt know what to do, and I was going nuts all weekend trying to get a hold of her

Ok, Stacy. See me after class and well work something out.

I mean, I dont think I should be penalized because she was too busy to work on the project. Which she probably didnt anyway, which is probably why she didnt show up Saturday, and dodged my calls all weekend, and shes probably ditching school today so

Shes not ditching; shes just gone.

All eyes slid toward Dylan. He sat sideways in his chair, the back of his leather jacket against the chalkboard along the side wall, long legs stretched out in front of him, his expression unreadable.

In the seat behind him, Marco tipped back in his chair. NIAC hauled her off. His voice was laced with the kind of satisfaction over other peoples tragedies that made me think about his chair tipping too far and his skull bouncing off the linoleum.

Ms. Carter glanced nervously around the room. I felt bad for her. Hows a teacher supposed to handle this subject? Encourage open discussion? Answer questions? Should we all share our feelings about the fact that we were never going to see Krista Pace again? It just seemed to me that the faculty probably knew about it earlier. Hell, the National Institutes for Ability Control probably sent out some kind of official letter to the school, wouldnt you think? Our regular teacher should have been there for support and guidance instead of leaving the poor student-teacher to the wolves. But then, what would Mr. Krause have done differently?

[cough]Freak![cough]

Shut up, Marco. Dylan continued to bounce his pencils eraser on the desk and examine his boot-tops.

Why, did you and freak-girl have something goin on? Need a new date for Homecoming now that NIACs locked her up?

Enquiring minds want to know. My mind was particularly interested, unfortunately.

Thanks, but youre not my type, Dylan sneered back at his friend.

Ok, people, thats enough, Ms. Carter finally gathered the courage to enter the conversation. The topic of Krista Pace is off-limits in this class. If you have questions regarding her disap If you have questions, you may take them to Assistant Principal Simson your own time. Meanwhile, I believe we have some oral presentations to hear today. Stacy, you can see me after class about your project. Who wants to go first?

Personally, I think the school system is pretty messed up. I mean, if Krista had been hit by a bus or if shed died of some terminal disease shed been bravely fighting in secret for years, thered be announcements, a moment of silence over the PA, maybe a memorial assembly. And wed probably have some kind of shrine where people would leave pictures of Krista with flowers and little teddy bears and stuff like that. Out front somewhere, where the TV news cameras could see it clearly, and give it lots of attention, and call it a makeshift memorial fifteen times a freakin day. Like youve got to spend $5000 on a friggin stone pillar or fountain with an engraved placard on it because anything else is just makeshift.