Release date: June 5, 2020
Subgenre: Supernatural thriller
About Hollis Whittaker:
It changed the course of WWII. In 1945, it was stolen. Now a
ten-year-old boy has found it, and the government will kill him to
get it.
When ten-year-old Hollis Whittaker stumbles upon a medallion on the
edges of a stream, he begins exhibiting signs of brilliance,
eventually discovering the solar system’s Planet X, and astounding
the astronomical community. The awkward, overweight fifth grader
with heart problems is an instant sensation, but all is not well.
The genius-making medallion bonds to only one person for life and
the U.S. government has been searching for it since World War II,
which means they’re prepared to kill Hollis to exploit its power.
After a thwarted hit job by two military agents, the boy treks
cross-country with the aid of his best friend Kirby and a Navajo
woman, Cha’Risa, whose family possessed the medallion more than
seventy years ago. They are hoping her aged grandfather will be
able to help. Unfortunately, the whole country believes she has
kidnapped the boys and the agents who tried to kill him have the
system on their side.
Excerpt:
And with those words, all hope faded. Kirby had just offered up the
medallion. Hollis’ face began to turn a shade of pink. He wanted to
reach across the table and rap Kirby upside his stupid head. “Oh
yeah,” he finally replied, pulling the seat back under his rump. He
grabbed the back of his necklace and pulled the medallion from
under his shirt, handing it across the table to Agent Grey. She
studied both sides of the artifact while her partner pulled a phone
from an inside jacket pocket and began swiping. “It looks right,”
Agent Grey said as she offered the object to her partner.
Agent Breiner stepped toward the table and snatched it out of her
hands with a dead look on his face. He scanned the medallion front
and back and checked his phone again. “That’s it,” he said, placing
both the phone and medallion inside his jacket pocket and stepping
to the opposite side of the table, a few feet behind Hollis.
“We’re going to need to take it for evidence,” Agent Grey said, her
eyes narrowing. “I hope you understand.”
That was exactly what Hollis feared would happen. From this point
on, he would never see the item again. These people shouldn’t have
even known he had it. Did they see it on the message board before
it got deleted? Or worse yet, were they the ones who deleted it ...
and killed Mrs. Mori?
“Do I get it back?” he asked.
Agent Grey either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore the question.
“Can you tell us where you found it?”
“When am I going to get it back?”
“We’ll need to see if it had anything to do with the murder of Miss
Mori. And we’ll run it against a list of stolen artifacts,” Agent
Grey said. “If everything checks out, we’ll make sure to get it
back to you.”
“How did you know I had it?”
Once again, Agent Grey sidestepped the question. “Did you find it
around here?” she asked.
Hollis looked at his mother, who didn’t seem at all put out that
Agent Grey had taken his medallion. She nodded for him to answer.
“Out in the woods out back,” he said.
“In the woods,” she repeated.
“Yeah, out by a stream or something.”
Lonnie leaned back in her chair, jaw dropped. “You don’t really
think this is the reason Mrs. Mori was shot, do you? Was someone
looking for that medallion? Was Hollis in danger?”
Once again, Agent Grey didn’t answer. She rose from the table,
glancing back at Agent Breiner. He produced a handgun that had been
holstered inside his jacket. With a stony focus, the man aimed the
gun at the back of Hollis’ head as an involuntary gasp escaped
Lonnie’s lips.
The crack of the gunshot amplified to deafening levels inside the
compact kitchen.
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