Race
With Danger
Run
for Your Life Trilogy Book 1
by
Pamela Beason
Genre:
YA Suspense, Action, Adventure
Champion
runner Tanzania Grey, 17, has to win the Verde Island Endurance
Race's million-dollar prize to save the life of her friend Bailey.
The treacherous five-day race traverses a remote volcanic island
that's home to beasts that slither, fly, swim, and slink through the
jungle. But the wildlife turns out to be the least of Tana's problems
when she draws the name of Sebastian Callendro as her partner.
Sebastian's personal life has put him in the national spotlight, and
his nosy followers are the kind Tana can't afford. Her name isn't
really Tanzania, and everything else in her biography is invented,
too. She’s been running for three years─from the men who murdered
her parents. If her cover is blown, she could be next.
**Only
.99 cents!!**
The cameras swivel in my direction. As I approach the glittering bowl, I take a deep breath and pray for inner calm and fantastic luck. I’m not usually a team player, so this partner element makes me sweat even more than usual. But this is the biggest race of the year with a grand prize of a million dollars, and I will win this even if I have to drag my partner up every hill and through every river on this steamy tropical island.
I have to win.
A life depends on it.
I swim my hand around the giant fishbowl, trying desperately to feel magic. Maybe I should have sanded my fingertips to make them more sensitive. Please God-If-There-Is-One, give me a little zing when I touch the name of the right partner. Give me a sign.
The slips of paper, rolled into tight little cylinders and tied with red ribbons, all feel exactly the same. No zing. As the seconds tick past, the matching blond Barbie Doll attendants standing guard at each end of the table start to shoot sideways glances at me. Their camera smiles stiffen into grimaces.
Magic, magic, magic, I chant in my head. I finally pull one slip out and hand it to the emcee, whose features beneath his dripping makeup are so perfect and bland that he looks like he came here directly from an Intense Botox workshop.
With a practiced flourish, he unties the bow and unfurls the note. He scans it for a second. Then he faces the camera, flashes his uber-white teeth and shouts, “Sebastian Callendro!”
My heart does an immediate crash dive. It lands on the hard ground in front of my toes and shatters into a dozen pieces. I want to fall to my knees, shake my fists at the relentless sun overhead, and scream, “No fair!”
Instead, I smile and walk a few steps forward to meet my new teammate halfway. Every camera in the place focuses on us. Callendro and I shake hands as we size each other up.
Although he’s thousands of miles away right now, I can feel waves of jealousy radiating across the airwaves from Private Emilio Santos. I know he will watch this if he can. Emilio is tall, with hair like a river of ink, eyes like bittersweet chocolate, and a swagger that everyone notices even when he’s standing still. His blue-black sheen of whiskers makes him look older and more dangerous than his nineteen years, and he likes that. His almost-beard is one reason I nicknamed him Shadow, and he likes that, too.
But here, on Verde Island in the blazing sunlight of early morning, nothing is shadowy. Sebastian Callendro is maybe three inches taller than I am. I’m wearing my trademark gold tee shirt with the galloping stallion logo of my sponsor, Dark Horse Networks, on the back. Callendro’s blue tee has three emblems across his chest, like a row of military medals. There’s a jet zooming through a circle, then a sports car logo, then what looks like a couple of crossed test tubes, maybe an insignia for one of those monster pharma companies like the one my mom worked for. No doubt there are more designs all across his back. Holy guacamole, there’s even a row of logos marching down each side of his black running shorts. Does he have decals on his butt? It’s the only space left.
I guess it makes sense. Now that the word is out, Sebastian Callendro has so many sponsors that all their names won’t fit on his shirt. He probably flew to Verde Island on a private jet with a real bed and real food, too.
But right now, we both have identical drips of sweat streaming down our temples. Sebastian’s hair is scraped back in a ponytail, like mine, but his is a rich walnut brown, while mine is ebony with only the tiniest hints of red. The skin on the back of his extended hand tends more toward the copper spectrum than my own caramel shade. His green eyes, too light under such thick black lashes, stare into my hazel ones. His gaze is laser-intense, and just a little creepy, like he’s trying to see under my skin.
Of course I’ve seen Sebastian Callendro before, but never so close that I can count his eyebrow hairs. He’s more than a year older than I am, which makes him eighteen or maybe even nineteen. Together, we make up the youngest team in this contest—could that be an advantage?
Catie Cole is the other seventeen-year-old runner. She’s the favorite golden girl—literally, because she has long blond hair and that evenly sun-kissed skin that comes from a tanning bed. She has a zillion sponsors and a modeling contract. But unfortunately, she’s not just a pretty face; she’s six feet tall and she runs like the wind. She’s real competition.
So is Madelyn Hatt. Predictably, all the reporters call her “The Mad Hatter,” although “The Mean Hatter” would probably be more accurate. Madelyn has been accused, but never convicted, of dirty tricks like putting laxatives—or was it sedatives?—in her rivals’ food. She just turned nineteen. Her parents made a really big deal of it, holding a pre-birthday party before the last race we were both in. They scowled at me when I refused to wear the stupid pointy hat for the camera.
Except for Marco Senai, a perpetually emaciated runner from Kenya whom I was hoping to land as my partner, I don’t know much about the men in this race. Maybe my new partner can at least contribute some usable intelligence about that. And I sure as hell hope he can keep up. Sebastian Callendro often places near the top of the men’s division, but he’s not a champion like me.
“I hope I don’t have to drag you,” I whisper, too softly for the microphones to pick up.
“And I’m not carrying you,” he hisses. His smile does not extend to his eyes.
The Barbie Dolls drape numbered medallions strung on red, white, and blue ribbons around our necks. We are Team Seven. Holding up our joined hands for the camera, we step forward.
Behind us, at least two men are also stepping forward. They’ll be wearing identical suits and mirrored sunglasses, and they’ll have communication sets on their wrists and listening devices in their ears. Their hands will hover near the pistols holstered on their belts.
I didn’t feel the magic, but I definitely got zinged with my choice.
Sebastian Callendro is The President’s Son.
Race
to Truth
Run
For Your Life Trilogy Book 2
Champion endurance
racer Tanzania Grey, now 18, is haunted by disturbing email
messages from the mysterious P.A. Patterson, who seems to suspect
her real identity as Amelia Robinson. Four years earlier, she
was the only one to escape when the Robinson family was
professionally “eradicated” in Bellingham, Washington.
When Tana receives
an invitation to compete in an extreme version of the Ski to Sea
relay in her home town, she decides to use the race as a cover
to gather information about who killed her mother and
father, and what became of her then-nine-year-old brother.
Tana soon discovers
clues that hint of something terribly wrong in the company her
mother helped to create, Quarrel Tayson Laboratories. Worse, her
sleuthing attracts the attention of a very frightening man in
Bellingham, who knew both her parents. It now seems more a matter of
“when” than “if” she will be the next to be killed. Can she
turn the tables and reveal who was behind the death of her
parents before she becomes their next victim?
Xavier holds out my PFD. I jam my arms through the holes. He’s still pulling on a tab to tighten it as I jump into the boat. As we push off, I remember to unsnap my bike helmet and toss it at him, and then we are off.
My right buttock cheek plops down on an energy gel pack and as we back away from the bank, I take a second to squeeze some gel (cherry) into my mouth, followed by a squirt of water from the bottle at my feet.
Then I drop everything and paddle hard. We pass by the trees overhanging the river and zigzag between a couple of rocks and branches that I don’t remember from two days ago. The river is moving just as swiftly as it was then. The weather yesterday was warm and the snow has been melting in the mountains, so maybe the current is even faster.
“Strainer ahead!” JJ yells from the back of the boat.
At least now I know to look for a log jam. It might be my imagination, but I think the damn thing is even bigger than it was during our practice run. It is a colossal obstacle that reaches halfway across the stream, and the Nooksack is swiftly sweeping us toward it.
We nearly upset the canoe as we frantically paddle on the same side to pass the log jam. But just as I think we’ll make it, our back end starts swinging in the direction of the strainer like a nail pulled toward a magnet.
“Damn it, Zany, paddle like you mean it!” JJ shouts.
What the hell does he think I’ve been doing? I want to yell back that I ran ten miles and then I biked forty-two miles before I even got into this canoe, but what good would that do? So I switch sides and dig in, but the current has us in its clutches, and we slam broadside into the logjam of debris. I swear that this farrago has tripled in size since I last saw it. It’s a gigantic dam of branches.
“No, no, no!” JJ bellows as we hit. And then we both lean right to dig our paddles into the water.
It’s a fatal mistake. The canoe tips sideways and the current pushes the icy water inside.
Jason goes into the river first, and although I try to hang onto the upward side of the boat, I get only a second more of air before I’m sucked under the surface, too.
Race
For Justice
Run
For Your Life Trilogy Book 3
When
champion runner Tanzania “Tana” Grey receives a mysterious
invitation to the Extreme Africa Endurance Challenge, she fears it
might be a trap. The multi-day race is in Zimbabwe, the
violence-prone homeland of her brilliant biochemist mother, who was
murdered along with Tana’s father. The killers, never apprehended,
seem to suspect that Tanzania Grey is actually Amelia Robinson, the
girl who escaped their deadly grasp. But when Tana sees a Mom
Lookalike in the promotional video for the race, she can’t say no.
She doesn’t know whether to be alarmed or delighted when her former
race partner Bash Callendro, the “love child” of the U.S.
President, arranges to run with her. Tana’s determined to find any
remaining family in Africa, and expose the secrets that led to her
parents’ deaths. As the clues pile up, Tana realizes that her quest
for the truth could destroy not only her and Bash, but will also
endanger the lives of everyone she cares about back home.
The email message includes a link to a website. When I click and go there, I am bombarded with advertising about wonderful accommodations for racers and media and fans—exotic game lodges and luxury hotels. There’s even a video. I click the play button and watch a trio of lean dark-skinned runners lope along an exotic course. Zebras graze in the distance. As the runners pass a checkpoint, the camera zooms in on the smiles of enthusiastic fans clustered together behind a barrier tape. Among them is a woman photographer with curly chestnut hair pulled up into a ponytail. With her eye pressed to a camera, she turns with the crowd, tracking the racers. The crowd then disperses, leaving the photographer, who lowers her camera and looks directly at whoever is filming this vid. It feels like she’s staring into my eyes.
My heart stops. My whole body throbs with a sudden longing to throw myself into that woman’s arms. I play the vid over and over again, stopping it every few frames to stare at her straight nose, her curly brown hair. When she looks up, she’s smiling, just a little with her lips closed, like my mother did when she had a secret.
Could it be? I found my brother last year, after four years of believing he was most likely murdered along with my mom and dad.
I saw my parents’ bodies lying in a pool of blood on our living room floor. Could it be possible that my mother didn’t die that night? Could she really be alive?
The woman turns away, following the crowd, and I’m not sure. Her hair is longer and several shades lighter than my mother’s. She’s wearing a khaki uniform that implies she’s working there.
Mom?
I know it’s too much to hope for. Maybe I no longer remember what Mom looked like. The only picture I have is small and grainy, a photo of her with her colleagues at work.
Videos can be altered. If my enemies suspect I’m Amelia Robinson, then they know I have a personal connection to Africa. This P.A. Patterson could be luring me to Zimbabwe, where I’ll be eaten by a lion or ambushed by armed thugs, and die an easily explained death. This might be a setup by the black-clad ninja invaders I escaped from four years ago.
I know this might be a trap designed especially for me.
But I also know that my next race will be in Zimbabwe.
Pamela
Beason, a former private investigator, lives in the Pacific
Northwest. When she's not hard at work on another book, she explores
the natural world on foot, on cross-country skis or snowshoes, in her
kayak, or underwater scuba diving.
Pam
is the author of eleven full-length fiction works: RACE WITH DANGER,
RACE TO TRUTH, and RACE FOR JUSTICE in the Run for Your Life YA
suspense trilogy, THE ONLY WITNESS, THE ONLY CLUE, and THE ONLY ONE
LEFT in the Neema mysteries, ENDANGERED, BEAR BAIT, UNDERCURRENTS,
and BACKCOUNTRY in the Summer "Sam" Westin series, and the
romantic suspense novel SHAKEN. She's also the author of the romantic
adventure novella CALL OF THE JAGUAR, and nonfiction titles SAVE YOUR
MONEY, YOUR SANITY, AND OUR PLANET and SO YOU WANT TO BE A PI? She is
currently working on a sequel to SHAKEN and the next Sam Westin
novel.
As
an avid nature and animal lover, Pam challenges the human assumption
that we are the superior species. Each of her titles takes readers on
an adventure while reminding us that drifting through life is not
enough; you have to live it.
Pam
writes and tweets about writing, animals of all sorts, outdoor
adventures, and the value of being present in the moment. She looks
forward to connecting with readers on her website, Twitter, or
BookBub.
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