The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea by James Fenimore Cooper (best ereader under 100 TXT) 📕

“Yes, my time is very valuable, thank you.” The sheriff sits and leans back comfortably, putting his boot-covered feet up on the blotter on his desk in a power pose, his fingers knitting his hands together as he lets them rest behind his head.

“These robberies have been happening for quite some time now, correct?”

“A few here and there, but over the last four months things have been getting steadily worse. We think that whoever the culprit is, they’re getting bolder. He no longer seems afraid of getting caught.”

“And yet, there haven’t been any public leads published. Do you have your eye on anybody? I’ve talked to a handful of townsfolk today and they all have confided in me that they are very frightened for the welfare of their loved ones, their grandparents and elderly neighbors. What are you doing to keep the town safe?”

Nathan waits with his tape recorder poised, knowing full well that the only person he has spoken to today is Emma. Sheriff Crane knows it as well because he has been following Nathan, though the sheriff continues to play his part expertly.

“We are doing everything in our power to keep the citizens as safe as possible. Unfortunately this criminal or criminals have been very good at covering their tracks. So much information is available on the internet these days and TV shows, it leaves only very corrupted evidence. I have personally been taking patrol routes. We want to make sure the town knows we are out there every day and night with our eyes peeled.”

Nathan pauses, keeping his face carefully neutral. “So what you’re saying is that this single sadistic bastard is more intelligent than your entire police force? More powerful than you?”

Sheriff Crane’s eye twitches.

Nathan has put him in a very difficult position. Either he can remain the all-knowing police sheriffr or he can be this mastermind murderer, but he cannot be both. One role will cancel out the other and the only way to be as perfect at both roles would be to accuse himself and serve out a sentence. To be true to both sides of his personality that would be the only way, but his ego would never allow for it. There is not a chance of redemption in Sheriff Crane and Nathan knows it. He just needs to make the man enraged enough to become reckless.

“What sort of question is that?”

“What’s the matter, sheriff? You don’t like being questioned as to why you haven’t caught this psychopath that’s terrorizing your town? It’s my job to ask the tough questions and it’s your job as sheriff to solve this case. What leads do you have? You have to be better than this.”

“This interview is over.”

“Have I made you uncomfortable, sheriff?”

“Please leave my office or I will have you arrested for trespassing.”

“Trespassing? You invited me in here! You agreed to this!”

“I will not tell you again!”

The sheriff pushes himself out of his chair swiftly and that’s when it hits Nathan clear as day.

Each vision he gets is slightly different. Sometimes they are in color and sometimes they are in black and white but more often they are tinted in a sort of sepia haze. Nathan never knows beforehand just what role he will be placed into. Sometimes he’s the victim and sometimes he’s the killer. Very rarely is he a third party watching the event happen like he’s a fly on the wall.

This time he’s the killer; it appears that today he is Sheriff Thomas Crane, standing nearly hunched over a poor woman on the ground. Her face is a mess of running mascara and her thin, wrinkled skin is all bunched around her bone structure in pinched clusters of terror. All he can feel is rage. All he can feel is a burning hate that’s a ball of fire inside of his belly. In his right hand he holds a trinket that was likely some mantelpiece decoration at some time but now has been broken and splattered with blood to the point that it’s nearly impossible to guess what it might have once been. The woman below him is crying. She keeps trying to get her arms to pull her away from the man standing over her, but her arms won’t carry the weight of her body. Her legs are either broken or they were never working in the first place.

They are in her bedroom, the carpet is overly worn and her yellow floral-printed comforter is half off of her bed; her dentures are still floating in a jar with white tablets fizzing away on her nightstand. This was timed to have happened right after her nightly bath and when she would least have been expecting it. He can feel himself laughing. Not a mirthful sound but something dark and full of self-triumph as he advances toward her.

The vision shifts just before he has a chance to take a fistful of her hair and drag her to where he wants her.

Feet are hitting the worn carpet in soft thumps and his heart is racing a thousand miles a minute. He feels like he’s on drugs; he feels like he’s stuck in a runner’s high that he can’t come down from. So much better than being drunk, so much headier. Bloody, glove-covered fingers snatch a sting of freshwater pearls from where they have been hanging off of her mirror and he stuffs them into his pocket for safekeeping. He knows the rest of what he must do to make this look like just another break-in and a poor woman whose heart simply gave out over the fear of it all, though he supposes that’s not entirely inaccurate, her heart did give out all on its own. Only it was only partially from fear that she expired.

The vision ends as quickly as it began, having