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Military buddies become private detectives. |
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Prologue I was dead. I was really dead. I don’t remember where I went while I was dead, but when I opened my eyes, Lance Corporal Simi Delgato was kneeling over me. He had his hands on my chest, CPR position. When he realized I was back, he started laughing, tears flowing down his scruffy face at the same time. “Jack, you son of a bitch, you scared the hell out of me. “ Much later, Delgato told me that my heart had stopped and he had administered CPR for a full six minutes. The last thing I remembered about that day was carrying Marine Corporal Daniel Horatio out of a burning aircraft. I had him slung over my left shoulder like a sack of flour. He had been shot in the chest. “You hang on Danny boy, I’ll get us out. Don’t you give up, God damn it!” I remember saying. He mumbled something, “Hopa Hey.” I wouldn’t learn until much later that it was a macho Cherokee Indian phrase that meant “it’s a good day to die.” I was alive, but Horatio’s blood was still wet and sticky on my uniform. I looked over to see him splayed awkwardly on the ground next to me. I knew he was dead. But he was dead for good. I had other friends still trapped in that God-awful, burning inferno of a helicopter. They were fighter pilots who had risked their lives for me. Delgato tried his best to hold me down, but I swung my elbow just so and hit his square in the jaw with a crushing blow. He fell backward. I pushed him off me and got to my feet. I intended to go back in there. I had to save someone. I knew I was injured. Even so, I moved toward that burning hellhole, but I stumbled. The clunk clunkety clunk sound of fifty caliber machine gun ammo sounded. “Get down, Jack” Delgato yelled. “Get the hell down.” I felt t he full weight of his 200 hundred pounds as he tackled me to the ground. Immediately after that the aircraft exploded. Delgato was still on top of me as I heard what seemed like a million pieces of metal falling around us. I felt the heat of the flames, and the pungent smell of oil as the copter burned. I was alive, Delgato was alive, but my other buddies were not. I can’t explain that feeling in words, but I would carry it with me for the rest of my life. I sear on everything holy, I would have traded my life for theirs in a second. I guess that says a lot about me. It explains a lot about the story I am going to tell. CHAPTER ONE You were adopted. That was a bombshell I will never forget. I’m sure I looked like a deer caught in the headlights as I stared at my “Mother”. I sat there, dumbfounded, just looking at her. I vaguely remember the waiter coming to the table with a pitcher of water. He left without a word after looking at my face. How could this be? “Why are you telling me now?” I had grown up thinking that Helen, the woman sitting across from me, was my Mother. I had endured a poverty-stricken childhood, Desert fucking Storm, law school and 4 years at the DA’s office. Now, I was known in this City for having some sort of 6th sense. I had solved and successfully tried a capital murder case, and I was up for election in the next race for District Attorney. You would think that I would have sensed that I had been adopted. “Why are you telling me this now?” I asked again. Apparently, I spoke louder than I intended because Helen “shushed” me. “Luke” she began tremulously, “It seems that your biological father has been following your progress as you have grown. The recent murder that your office has just started to investigate is that of your biological Mother. Your “Father” contacted me because he knows that you have targeted him as the prime suspect.” CHAPTER TWO Another body had been found. Darby thought the killings had stopped. It had be six months since the last teen boy had been found, bound and gagged with two bullet holes to the head. There had been six over the past year. This boy made seven. None of them had any sign of sexual assault. They were just found bound and gagged with their ankles and wrists tied to together. Damn it. Darby pounded the steering wheel causing the car to swerve on the wet street. She was driving too fast in the pouring rain. She thought this malady had stopped. There had been a boy killed each month for six months. Then, nothing. Not a god damned thing. Darby had felt some relief as she continued to work the case. She had hoped whomever it was had given up or had died. Apparently not. The malicious killer was back. Luke had called and asked her to go the site alone. He had something come up. He was vague about it and she didn’t press him. He had a strange sound in his voice. She sensed something was terribly wrong on his end as well. Why was she driving so fast to get to the abandoned warehouse where the body had been found? She didn’t want to see the boy, wrists and hand bound with a gag in his mouth. She didn’t want to see the pallid gray of his skin, or the vacant stare of his eyes. The eyes were always wide open as if the boy was looking at something terrifying just before he died. The forensic team had determined the boys were shot before they were bound and gagged. But that wasn’t what killed the boys. They had a knife plunged into their heart. Just a peculiar little twist to a very sick minded person. Someone was following her, and she hadn’t noticed. Whoever it was had been tailing her for miles. Darby was deep in thought when the car behind her suddenly accelerated, bumping her fender just enough to cause her to swerve. She overcorrected on the wet asphalt and felt the car roll off the embankment. She had her seatbelt on, but her head hit the steering wheel as the car continued to roll. That was going to hurt, was her last thought before the car hit something very hard and everything went black. |
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