"We once had a cocker spaniel my husband swore would stop what she was doing to go sit by the door 10 minutes before I came home. It could be any time of day or night since I didn’t have a regular schedule; that dog just knew I was coming.
He is like that with Kitty; I watched it wash over him today about 5 minutes before she arrived in the squad room. That subtle shift of him becoming her lover as he sensed her presence downstairs the same way our dog used to do with me. He softened with one deep breath, and then stared at the door as he prepared to greet her.
She held back when their eyes met, but they smiled across the room at each other with a certain amount of heat…..It is not just sex, although their relationship is certainly sexual, but there is more to it. Love, yes, they definitely love each other, but the connection is deeper and more visceral. Even now, at 48 and 50, when their relationship works, they cannot keep their hands off each other."

Caroline on Kitty and Danny's relationship in Chapter 4 of J'S GIRLS.

Now that I’ve got you a little afraid, both the first novel and the new project are scary stories; tomorrow I’ll introduce another aspect to J’S GIRLS, the romance between Kitty and Danny.
In the meantime, I have now typed up nine pages from Danny’s new monologues, of which there are over a hundred pages, that may work better in J’S GIRLS instead. Need to proof it and think about places where pieces of it will blend nicely into the first novel. I also have an idea that ties in with this new work that Fiona can talk about in one of her J’S GIRLS chapters as well.
So, once again, I get to go back to a place I really enjoyed being, that little fictional world I created last year. I recently read Stephen King will put his novels away once he thinks they are finished and then get them back out six months later to is see if they need to be revised or rewritten. Can’t argue with that, he seems to know what he’s doing.

"I was on my way home the other night when this bottle-throwing derelict chased me down the street into a deli. The first bottle flew passed my head and crashed on the sidewalk about ten feet in front of me. Choosing to ignore it, I try not to engage in street drama, I didn’t turn around as the second bottle just missed my shoulder and I realized I might be a target.
It was still fairly early and lots of people were out, so I moved into a group of them as I hurried to get around the corner. Another empty bottle whizzed by, missing all of us but startling my companions. I was almost at the door of the deli where I knew the countermen had big knives and might protect me. I slipped inside and was halfway up the aisle before I saw my assailant. A white man, scruffy, maybe a junkie, in a tattered plaid shirt, he was swinging one last bottle over his head and screaming I’d stolen his radio."

Opening to the untitled new project I'm currently working on.

Been busy typing the untitled story, deep into the factual account of the incident; am about to start the part of going to see the line up. My counselor at the DA’s office says she’s happy I am looking at the future. Which is much better than how I was 2 weeks ago.
It was rough going for a while, things are still pretty rocky, but my attitude has changed. I think it’s because I’m writing again, although I couldn’t write because of the stress; the chicken or the egg thing, I suppose. Took some pictures down there today, and will post them on Maureen Donegal this week.
Had a revelation about J’S GIRLS, which apparently isn't quite long enough yet, word count wise. Danny is the cop in the new piece too and in it he talks about what led up to the situation in J’S GIRLS, and I now think, since nobody in publishing has read it, I should figure out a place to insert some of his new monologues into J’S GIRLS instead.

"Hate police stations. Always the same. Same sounds, same dinghy walls needing to be painted. Just like jail, same desperation. I was in the middle of a sale when Fiona called not an hour after she left to see Danny. Told Tash we should come right away, so as soon as I was done, we closed and went up. Tasha made a scene kissing Fiona then immediately freaked out over what was on the walls and the drawing the sketch artist did with Fiona.
Not that I can blame her, I had had better sense than show her what had come in the mail, but Danny’s stuff was even more horrible. Morgue shots with blue lips and hideous stitches, bodies wrapped in muddy plastic.
Took me a minute to realize they were the same girls.
Tash knew all of them, the three victims, she also knew the man in the drawing. Hissed at it.
Then I saw it, that awful drawing.
It was J.
I had to sit down."

Opening to chapter 7 of J'S GIRLS, where Kitty speaks about seeing the sketch which resembles J, who has been dead for many years.

My guess is Kitty, the last character I’ll be introducing, is be the one most readers will identify with; maybe not the men, but definitely the women. She is certainly the one I know best. And Danny loves her, which makes my little fictional world perfect.
She overcame a difficult childhood and has been in jail, as have both Fiona and Tasha, but turned her life around to become a successful art gallery owner. She had help, especially from Caroline, and Danny of course, but still struggles with her insecurities.
Her biggest problem is losing herself in her relationship with Danny, who tends to be overwhelming. Or perhaps not, it may be more about her evaporating, which is how he describes it, and why, in spite of how much she loves him, Kitty resisted contacting Danny about those terrible photographs she has recently been receiving at the gallery.

"They sat me down with a sketch artist and while I was describing the guy, I heard Danny and Caroline talking about how their fingers weren’t burned in Kitty’s pictures and how they weren’t wearing the jewelry they had on in her pictures when their bodies were found either.
I couldn’t get over how casual the cops were, especially Danny. I’d never really ever seen him in action before; he’s always just been Kitty’s boyfriend. He was even wearing a gun in a holster, and winked at me when he saw me staring at it.
Caroline was pointing out how the weird bruising on one girl’s neck had been caused by the pearls she had on in the images Kitty sent. And the ones on the other girl’s wrists were from the tasseled drapery cord she was tied to the bed with.
Oh, look at this, oh, look at that. I did too; I couldn’t help myself, until I thought I’d be sick. Then Tasha blew in with Kitty and turned everything upside down."

Excerpt from Chapter Five in J'S GIRLS as Fiona talks about bringing the photos Kitty received to Danny at the police station.