Chapter One

While he knew the Internet opened a doorway to the world, Walt Tanner had no idea that it would also allow evil to slip in through the back . . . The raw night was typical of the Texas panhandle in late fall. Swirling leaves and grit chafed the curbside. Tanner, a tall, almost handsome salesman in a powder blue suit, sniffed at the smell of the coming weather and wiped a protective tear from his eye. His hotel, a Ramada Inn, was run-down and seedy, but there was a comforting familiarity in the lobby’s musty smell. He’d been making calls on a plastics manufacturer in Stratford for the past seven years, and after a marketing dinner at Calvin’s Steak House, this was where he always spent the night.

But tonight wasn’t going to be the same as every other. The false promises of the plastics man still ringing in his ears didn’t make his stomach churn the way they normally did. Tonight he had a date with destiny. For weeks, he had courted over the Internet, hurrying back to his hotel rooms throughout the Southwest to get on-line and link up. After a time, he was able to convince her to send him a picture, and what a picture it was. There were flaws, yes. At the age of fifty-three, Tanner no longer expected ... read full excerpt from Letter of the Law ebook