The Amber Pendant --- a Time Travel Murder Mystery
an excerpt

CHAPTER1

Callie Cooper woke up grasping something that belonged to someone who was murdered twenty years before.
She didn’t know what it was at first. She was just waking up when she felt something in her right hand. She was still in that part of sleep where you know you’re getting up but you’re not quite there yet. She did know that when she went to sleep there wasn’t anything in her hand.
Then she noticed that it was sticky.
When she opened her eyes the room was still dark, but there was some light coming in through the blinds. She was looking up at the ceiling.
And her hand was till tightly clamped onto whatever it was that she was holding.
She turned to look at her alarm clock. It was six o’clock. She hadn’t planned to be up until at least some time after nine or ten. This was Saturday.
She wanted to go back to sleep but that sticky object was still tightly in her fist. She was more curious than tired. At least for the moment.
Turning away from the alarm clock she looked at her hand but all she could make out was the shape. If she was going to be able to see what she was holding she was going to have to turn on a light. The stickiness was started to bother her. With her left hand she reached out and turned on the lamp by her alarm clock.
Her eyes clamped shut at the bright light and she felt the object in her hand press into her palm. Whatever it was had an edge to it. She forced her eyes open and looked at her hand. Holding her hand palm up she slowly opened her fingers.
At first, all she saw was the reddish sticky gunk that coated her palm and fingers, then she noticed there was a small, flat hard object that lay in her palm.
The gunk started flowing down her wrist.
It looked like blood.
She closed her fingers as she sat up, being careful not to get anything on her blanket. She rolled out of bed and stood next to the lamp to examine the contents of her hand better.
It was blood.
She didn’t see any cuts and the amount of blood was about the same. If she was going to find out what happened and what it was she was going to have to wash off the blood.
One thing she was sure of, she didn’t own anything like what was in her hand.
Holding her left hand under her right, she hurried to the bathroom, turning on the light with her elbow. She wasn’t going to make any more mess than necessary. She let the object fall into the sink, it was to big to go down the drain, and turned on the cold water. Holding her hand under the water, she couldn’t see any sign of cuts.
Then where did the blood come from?
The object in the sink was a thin piece of metal. It was embossed with something, but the letters were reversed and not very clear. She picked it up and turned it over.
She wished she hadn’t.
But she had.
She looked at it again. It was a military dog tag.
She couldn’t get past the first line: Jonathan H. Amber.
Impossible.
Jonathan Amber has been dead for more than twenty years.
Everyone in town new that. They knew that because his sister, Angela Amber, had worn it for several years after his death. And she was murdered twenty years ago. It was the town’s most famous murder. Angela was a descendant of the town’s founder.
And when she was murdered the dog tag was never found.
It had been missing for twenty years.
And seventeen-year-old Callie woke up with it in her hand.
Covered in blood.