Welcome back to 'My Character's Favorite Quote.' This week's guest is Jack Slaughter from Slaughtered by K.A. Lugo.
Jack doesn't really have a saying, quote or motto, but he is adamant about finding the person or people who took his family from him. In his mind, without his family, his life is useless. This is his internal monologue.
Without Leah and Zoë, he had nothing to live for.
Character Info
Jack Slaughter was once one of San Francisco's most decorated cops. Working in homicide, he and his partner and best friend, Ray Navarro, had taken down some pretty nasty characters. But the night his family had been taken from him—his two-year-old daughter and the family dog had been murdered and his wife is missing—he's been unable to keep himself from falling deeper and deeper into despair. He left the force and got his private investigator license so he can dedicate as much time as possible into finding out what happened to his family. And now, he has a stalker who tortures Jack every three months with texts telling him where to find his wife. Everyone of them a dead-end.
The Texter
Fallen San Francisco homicide detective, Jack Slaughter, closes the door on the home where his perfect family has been brutally snatched from him. Moving across the city, he works as a private investigator to fund his own investigation into what happened to his family—who killed his little girl, Zoë, and where is his wife, Leah?
Every three month for the last three years, Jack receives a simple text telling him where he can find his missing wife. There’s a body at each location, but none of them are Leah.
Jack hates missing person’s cases, but they’re his bread and butter. He only takes the case to find Carl Boyd's missing wife because the details of her disappearance closely match Leah’s. He hopes by finding Bonnie Boyd, he'll find his own wife.
The Butcher
Following the leads in the Bonnie Boyd case, Jack discovers someone has been killing women all over the city for the last three years, a fact Jack’s ex-partner and still best friend, Ray Navarro, has neglected to tell him. The city has a serial killer and officials haven’t been able to find a single lead on the person they’ve dubbed The Butcher.
Could Bonnie Boyd’s disappearance be linked to The Butcher? More important, was Leah one of The Butcher’s victims? Could he have gone so far as to murder a child?
With every clue Jack weaves together, the more his own life unravels.
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Excerpt
As a private investigator, he had never needed to carry a weapon. As proficient as he was with a gun, he was equally as lethal with his fists. Fortunately, he also had rare cause to use them. Physical violence was rarely called for when he was searching for missing spouses and lost pets. And when he worked security jobs, he opted for a baton and pepper spray over a gun every time. Less paperwork that way when taking down assailants.
Inhaling deeply to steady his nerves, Jack pulled the box toward him. The small dial built into the lid glared up, as if taunting him. Beside it were two small lights. The red shone now, telling Jack the box was securely locked.
Could he remember the combination? Of course, he could. How could he ever forget the date his life had changed forever?
He held his breath as he spun the dial one way, then the other, and back again until the red light turned green, telling him he’d got it right.
He hesitated before lifting the lid. He’d only ever planned on using the weapon three times—the first for the range qualification in order to keep his CCW permit up-to-date, the second when he found the person who’d killed his daughter and taken his wife. The third and last time he would make the ultimate sacrifice to be with his family again. Without Leah and Zoë, he had nothing to live for.
Author Bio
K.A. Lugo is a native Northern Californian who grew up in Carmel-by-the-Sea, part of a larger community founded by artists and writers, including John Steinbeck, George Sterling, and Jack London. Over the years, she's worked with several Carmel notables, but it was in 1997 she left the employ of Clint Eastwood to live in Ireland for six months. It was during this time she met the man she would marry, and relocated to live in Ireland.
While always writing since a very young age, K.A. earned her keep in Ireland as one of the country's foremost travel consultants who also wrote travel articles about Ireland.
Since 2005, K.A. has published fourteen titles in genres including romantic suspense, erotic romance, and cozy mystery as Kemberlee Shortland, and now thrillers.
Slaughtered is the first in the new highly acclaimed Jack Slaughter Thriller series, set in San Francisco, a city close to K.A.'s heart. Witness to Slaughter will be available summer 2020.
