Blood Sugar Baby: Lt. Taylor Jackson, #2

By J.T. Ellison

There's a new killer in town. And it's up to Taylor Jackson to stop him before he murders more of Nashville's elite.
 

Metro Nashville Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson is none too happy when the body of a high-profile Nashvillian turns up after a protest. But when her detectives find another body with the same, mysterious wounds, it's clear she has a psychopath on her hands—and records show he's been on the move, leaving chaos in his wake. Will this killer slip through Taylor's grasp, as he has slipped through grasps of so many, for so long?

 

"Blood Sugar Baby" was previously published in the three-part novella SLICES OF NIGHT with Erica Spindler and Alex Kava.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Two Tales Press
• Release date: Oct 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519944139

J.T. Ellison

J.T. Ellison is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 30 novels and the EMMY award-winning co-host of the literary TV show A WORD ON WORDS. She also writes urban fantasy under the pen name Joss Walker. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim and prestigious awards. Her titles have been optioned for television and published in twenty-eight countries. J.T. lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens, one of whom is a ghost, where she is hard at work on her next novel. www.jtellison.com

Book preview

Blood Sugar Baby

BLOOD SUGAR BABY

J.T. ELLISON

Two Tales Press

Blood Sugar Baby

© 2016 © 2023 by J.T. Ellison

ISBN: 978-1-948967-68-6

Cover design © The Killion Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For more, visit Two Tales Press.

ALSO BY J.T. ELLISON

Standalone Suspense Novels

It’s One of Us

Her Dark Lies

Good Girls Lie

Tear Me Apart

Lie to Me

No One Knows

Lt. Taylor Jackson Series

The Wolves Come at Night

Whiteout

Field of Graves

Where All the Dead Lie

So Close the Hand of Death

The Immortals

The Cold Room

Judas Kiss

14

All the Pretty Girls

Dr. Samantha Owens Series

What Lies Behind

When Shadows Fall

Edge of Black

A Deeper Darkness

A Brit in the FBI Series,

Cowritten with Catherine Coulter

The Sixth Day

The Devil’s Triangle

The End Game

The Lost Key

The Final Cut

CONTENTS

Author’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Epilogue

About the Story

What’s Next?

The Wolves Come At Night Sneak Peek

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

About J.T. Ellison

About Two Tales Press

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I’ve always looked at short stories as a way to have a bit of fun with my writing. In my day job, I write psychological thrillers. I’d written three novels before I ever tried my hand at short fiction. But when I did, I discovered an entirely new world.

I spent a great deal of time telling my peers I couldn’t write short stories. They kept pushing me, and pushing me, until I finally gave it a shot.

That story was Prodigal Me. I submitted it to Writer’s Digest and promptly forgot about it. You can imagine my surprise when I received an email from Chuck Sambuchino saying I’d won an honorable mention in their annual short fiction contest.

Perhaps I could write shorts after all.

Soon after, I attended my first writer’s conference, where I met a fabulous writer named Duane Swierczynski. I asked Duane about some short fiction markets, and he suggested I send a story to his friend Bryon Quertermous, who ran an e-zine called Demolition. I quickly wrote another story and submitted it. Bryon loved everything but the title, which we agreed to change to X. It was my first published piece.

My love of the short form grew from there. I began placing stories, writing for anthologies, the works. I grew to love the freedom and limitations of the form, and I still use it as a playground of sorts, a way to stretch my wings and explore genres I wouldn’t normally write in.

My short stories are little slices, vignettes. Crimes of the heart, the mind and the soul. The bits and pieces that fell from my mind while I was writing long-form novels, the ideas that didn’t have a place in my current work. Some are quite short, others bloomed into novellas.

With the advent of independent publishing, I decided to start my own house, Two Tales Press, in order to share these sweet little lies with you. I do hope you’ll enjoy them.

—J.T. Ellison

Nashville, 2015

BLOOD SUGAR BABY

J.T. ELLISON

Two Tales Press

1

Nashville, Tennessee

He was lost. His GPS didn’t take roadwork into account, nor roads closed to accommodate protests; he’d been shunted off onto several side streets and was driving in circles. He finally made a right turn and pulled to the curb to get out a real map, and as he reached into the glove box—shit, he needed to get that knife out of there—he saw her. She was on the concrete sidewalk, sprawled back against the wall, a spread of multicolored blankets at her feet, staring vacantly into space. Her dirty blond hair was past limp and fell into dreadlocks, matted against her skull on the left side. He drove past slowly, watching, seeing the curve of her skull beneath the clumps of hair; the slope of her jaw; her neat little ear, surprisingly white and clean, nestled against her grimy skin. Her eyes were light. He was too far away to see if they were blue or green. Light irises, and unfocused pupils. High, perhaps, or starved, or simply beyond caring.