Dead Shot by Jack Patterson (adventure books to read .TXT) 📕

off her desk and into his pocket. Maybe I won’t be making some extra phone calls tonight.

The two walked in silence through the alley and into the employee parking lot located behind The Register’s office building.

Cal threw his briefcase on the passenger side floorboard and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed Kelly’s number.

“OK, so we know some crazy stuff is going on and Guy is acting weird, right?” Kelly began.

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, get this. I went to the break room to buy a soda and I saw the door to the outside was cracked. I went over to shut it when I heard Guy talking on his cell phone in a hushed voice.”

“What did he say?”

“I didn’t catch the whole thing, but I did hear him say, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got those two under control.’”

“You think he was talking about us?”

“Who else would he be talking about?”

“It could be two of anything that he has under control.”

“Yeah, but saying that and talking in a hushed tone so no one could hear him? Plus he was on his personal cell phone standing outside. It was not typical behavior for Guy.”

“That might explain why he’s been acting the way he has toward us. He certainly seems hell-bent on helping us avoid proper treatment of this story.”

“Well, something is up and I don’t like it. I’m starting to get a strange feeling about this whole thing, like we’re rattling the closet door to some big skeletons. And I feel uneasy about what might happen to us.”

“Seriously? Are you scared, Kelly?”

“A little, maybe. I sure would like to have a drink and throw darts at The Mill about right now. You up for joining me?”

Whoa! Is Kelly asking me out on a date? It sure sounds like it.

“Uh, sure. I want to run home and change first and then I’ll meet you there in say, 30 minutes?”

“Sounds like a date.”

Sounds like a date, indeed! Cal thought.

Cal and Kelly headed home in opposite directions to prepare for a rare post-work rendezvous. That is if Cal meeting Kelly once at the gas station McDonald’s near the I-84 exit one night counted as a rendezvous. Otherwise, it was a first.

The F-250 followed Cal.

Chapter 18

As dusk began to settle on the Idaho farm country, Cal turned on his headlights. He was lost in thought over the day’s events and the new possibilities for the night. Then he remembered something he had hoped to extract from his busy brain before the evening was over.

Earlier in the afternoon, Cal had received a call from Josh. But with all that was going on, Cal didn’t really have time to hear about how Josh’s fantasy league baseball team was crushing his. Josh seemed to win their league almost every year, while Cal’s team was mathematically eliminated by mid-June. He called his team “Cal’s Cubs.”

Josh’s message oddly enough wasn’t a gloating message regarding fantasy sports, but instead contained details regarding his flight information on Friday. Cal saved the message. He didn’t feel like testing his multi-tasking skills: typing on his iPhone while driving.

He put the phone down and began to mentally catalog the scant information he had gathered throughout the day. He entered a winding mile stretch of road about two miles from his apartment. That’s when he felt the first collision.

Bam!

Cal’s car lurched forward. So did Cal.

“What the—”

Cal turned around again to see a truck’s headlights roaring toward the back of his car. The truck slammed his car again and he lurched forward, bracing for the next hit.

Bam!

Chrome bumper met flimsy metal. This time Cal’s car suffered a bigger blow. His Civic began spinning across the road. Cal was helpless. The steering wheel. The brakes. Nothing was his friend at the moment.

The car spun around five times before slowing down and straightening out—just in time to go careening down a shallow embankment and into a patch of woods by the Snake River.

Rock. Tree. Boulder. Tree. Shallow stream. Tree. Rock. Rock. Tree. Bushes.

Cal’s car was playing chicken with the woods—and winning. No amount of strength exerted on the steering wheel would have made a difference at this point anyway. The wheels bounced the car as it gained speed.

Instead of wondering why someone would do this to him, Cal spent most of his time worrying about when his car might come to a stop. And his condition – and the car’s – once it did.

Then he didn’t have to wonder.

Thud!

Cal’s car came to a complete stop. One seemingly unstoppable object met an unforgiving one. Cal’s car was on the losing end.

Steam hissed from the front of his Civic. Mangled metal took the place of a functioning engine. Wedged between two pine trees, the car was stuck. The headlights served as obscure beacons in the dense woods.

Cal’s head rested motionless on the airbag. The rest of his body didn’t move either.

Chapter 19

Nathan Gold shifted in his leather reading chair. The dark oak walls with a custom-built bookcase encircled his study. They contained an extensive collection of rare books and literary masterpieces, all well worn. It was clear Gold was more interested in creating a suitable home for literature than he was for demonstrating opulence in his Tudor-style mansion. Extravagant pleasures could be found elsewhere in the house.

But tonight he wasn’t thinking about his books—he was thinking about his town. Like the safe haven he constructed for each shelved piece of art in his library, Statenville had been effectively cocooned through careful planning. And Gold enjoyed it. Just like he enjoyed reading John Milton’s Paradise Lost. But tonight his thoughts were distant, his gaze vacant.

His own paradise was teetering on vanishing at the hands of a pesky reporter bent on pulling back Oz’s curtain. Only he didn’t know he was in Oz. Gold knew that Cal didn’t see Statenville as a final resting place for his career. Outsiders working at The Register rarely did. Statenville was a blinking yellow light along a two-lane road to somewhere else. It was a