Fort Lupton

Fort Lupton

Denver Cereal, Volume
Eleven

Claudia Hall
Christian

Cook Street Publishing
Denver, CO

by
Claudia Hall Christian
StoriesbyClaudia.com

The Denver
Cereal

The Denver Cereal
Celia’s Puppies

Cascade

Cimarron

Black Forest

Fairplay

Gold Hill

Silt

Larkspur

Firestone

Fort Lupton

Alex the Fey
Thrillers

The Fey

Learning to
Stand

Who I am

Lean on Me

In the Grey

Finding North

The Queen of
Cool

The Queen of
Cool

Seth and
Ava Mysteries

Tax Assassin

Carving Knife

Suffer a Witch

Suffer a Witch

Copyright © Claudia Hall
Christian

ISNI: 0000 0003 6726
170X

Licensed under the
Creative Commons License:

Attribution –
NonCommercial – Share Alike 3.0

SMASHWORDS

ISBN-13 :
978-1-938057-28-1 (digital)

Library of Congress :
2015913832

PUBLISHER’S
NOTE:

This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents either are either the
product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously.

First edition © serial
fiction March 31, 2014 – October 4, 2014

Cook Street
Publishing

ISNI: 0000 0004 1443
6403
PO Box 18217

Denver, CO
80218

For Rose.

_________________________________

What’s happened so
far

Denver Cereal
is an addicting, fun, sweet and crunchy serial
fiction filled with the tension, drama, and love of urban
life.

The best way to catch up
is to read
Grand
Junction
,
Denver
Cereal
Volume 1- 10 wherever eBooks are
sold or online at
StoriesbyClaudia.com
.

We used to write a section here that gave a
synopsis of all of the previous books. Frankly, the synopsis’
weren’t very good. More than anything, they deprived you of the
chance to hang out in Denver Cereal for a while. We were only be
spoiling your fun You deserve a chance to read all the twists and
turns, mischief, and wild adventures of Denver Cereal. These aren’t
books to be accomplished or checked off a list. They are stories to
be savored and enjoys.

Get to it. We’ll be here when you get
back.

TABLE OF
CONTENTS

Chapter
Three hundred and four
: Coffee
Cup

Chapter
Three hundred and five
: Good
Lover

Chapter
Three hundred and six
: Clear my
head

Chapter
Three hundred and seven
: Why you’re
here

Chapter
Three hundred and eight
: In the matter
of

Chapter
Three hundred and nine
: Too tired for
murder

Chapter
Three hundred and ten
:
Shield

Chapter
Three hundred and eleven
:
Badass

Chapter
Three hundred and twelve
: Tiniest
firefly

Chapter
Three hundred and thirteen
: Just a little
crazy

Chapter
Three hundred and fourteen
:
Special

Chapter
Three hundred and fifteen
: Need
me

Chapter
Three hundred and sixteen
: A whole lot of
hate

Chapter
Three hundred and seventeen
: Fairy
magic

Chapter
Three hundred and eighteen
:
Totaled

Chapter
Three hundred and nineteen
: Chocolate chip
cookies

Chapter
Three hundred and twenty
: In
motion

Chapter
Three hundred and twenty-one
: One day at a
time

Chapter
Three hundred and twenty-two
: Everything’s
new

Chapter
Three hundred and twenty-three
:
Absence

Chapter
Three hundred and twenty-four
: Take it
in

Chapter
Three hundred and twenty-five
: Sea of
Amber

Chapter
Three hundred and twenty-six
: Pink sparkly
pen

Chapter
Three hundred and twenty-seven
:
Protected

Chapter
Three hundred and twenty-eight
: Sun and
Earth

Chapter
Three hundred and twenty-nine
:
Fire

Chapter
Three hundred and thirty
: The serpent
returns

Glossary of
Characters

Coffee Cup

Tuesday morning — 6:25 a.m.

Yvonne touched Rodney’s shoulder, and he
looked up at her. She held out a Styrofoam cup of coffee to him. He
took it from her and went back to staring at the wall in front of
him. She smiled, kissed his cheek , and sat down in a cloth-covered
metal chair next to him.

“
Do you want to talk?”
Yvonne asked.

He looked at her and gave a slow shake of
his head. They were sitting in the waiting room of the animal
hospital while Mr. Chesterfield was in emergency surgery.

“
That usually means you
need to talk,” Yvonne said.

“
Oh yeah?” Rodney asked in
an amused voice.

She smiled at him and took Jabari’s favorite
soft elephant out of her purse. Rodney noticed the toy and nodded.
She rubbed the elephant’s big floppy ears and let the silence drag.
He sniffed and gulped down the tepid coffee.

“
That’s disgusting,” he
said.

“
Worse than prison?”
Yvonne asked.

“
Yes,
actually.”

He snorted something like a laugh, and she
laughed. Her laugh always sounded to him like the tinkling of
bells. He glanced at her. Even in moments like this, or maybe
especially in desperate moments like this, he liked to just look at
her. Her smile always made him feel like there was hope. His lips
went up in something like a smile before he turned to stare into
space again.

“
I’d be happy to go find
out . . .” she started.

He slipped his hand through her elbow and
held on tight.

“
Don’t,” he
said.

She smiled, and they sat in silence. Sam
Lipson came in with DeShawn. Sam checked in with Rodney and Yvonne
before talking to the woman at the desk.

“
Any word on Jabari?”
Rodney asked DeShawn.

DeShawn shook his head. Rodney nodded. Sam
came back from the desk.

“
What did the police say?”
Yvonne asked Sam.

“
Someone tampered with the
alarm,” Sam said. “It looks like they planned it well in advance.
The police think it’s possible they were there when you got
home.”

Sam raised his eyebrows as if to ask the
question, and Rodney shrugged.

“
If it was so well
planned, why didn’t they expect Mr. Chesterfield?” Yvonne asked.
“That dog has barely left the boy’s side since he
arrived!”

“
No one knows,” Sam
said.

“
And Jake?” Rodney asked.
“What does he say?”

Sam furrowed his brow and gave a vague nod.
Rodney sighed.

“
How is Mr. Chesterfield?”
DeShawn asked.

“
We don’t know,” Yvonne
said. “One of those nice policemen rushed him over here with the
siren on. The doctor was waiting for us. ”

“
He’s been back there
since we got here,” Rodney said. “We don’t know about the boy. We
don’t know about….”

Rodney completed the sentence with a sniff.
Sam sat down next to Rodney, and DeShawn went to the coffee
pot.

“
How does this happen?”
Rodney asked.

“
I don’t know,” Sam
said.

“
This type of thing…”
Rodney spit out. “It’s so foul, so horrible… Steal a boy, beat a
dog, . . .”

“
Who does that kind of
thing?” Yvonne shook her head for emphasis.

Sam nodded.

“
Bumpy and Dionne are with
Jeraine and Tanesha,” Sam said. “No one really knows what to say….
Or do.”

Rodney nodded. They lapsed into silence.
DeShawn came back with a few Styrofoam cups full of coffee. Sam
took one, but Rodney and Yvonne declined with a rueful shake of
their heads. Sam took a drink from the cup, scowled at the liquid
inside, and set it down on the floor next to his chair.