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

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything else. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get going.”

Cooper headed toward the basement stairs with Dawkins right behind him.

“Great. I’m sure Judge Johnson won’t mind issuing a search warrant for Walker’s house, seeing that we have plenty of probable cause—and the fact that the Judge is my uncle.”

Cooper stopped his march up the basement stairs.

“Look. Please don’t start causing any trouble. You have no idea who you’re messing with. If you jeopardize this operation, I have my own ways of dealing with you. And I promise you won’t like them.”

Dawkins bowed up.

“Is that a threat? Because you’re in my town now, not some big fancy city where the FBI walks all over local law enforcement. We’re the law here.”

“It’s your grave, Barney.”

Cooper chose to make that his parting salvo and continued ascending the basement stairs.

Dawkins made his final appeal, which came out more like a threat.

“Boy, it would be a shame, Agent Cooper, if you got arrested for trespassing.”

Cooper didn’t look back as he reached the top step and opened the door. He began sprinting for the front door.

“Let’s go,” Dawkins said to Warren as they scrambled after Cooper.

By the time Dawkins and Warren made it to the front yard, all they saw were the taillights on Cooper’s Cadillac Escalade.

Dawkins kicked the ground in disgust. Cooper’s arrogance grated on his last nerve. He had untied Cooper only to be mocked, lied to and humiliated.

But Dawkins didn’t really need a definitive answer from Cooper. He was no Barney Fife. He now knew that Walker was a federal agent, too.

Chapter 45

While on the run since lunch, Cal feared his next encounter with Guy. But when he saw Guy’s face after he busted through the door, feelings of terror gave way to relief.

Guy ran over to his only two staffers worth more than a pile of two-day-old newsprint and ripped the duct tape off their mouths.

“Thank God you found us!” Cal said. He hugged Guy, who never looked like he wanted a hug—and still didn’t in this tense moment.

“Enough with the mushy gratitude. What have you two have gotten yourselves into?”

“We’re still trying to figure it all out,” Cal said.

“Tell me what you know so far, starting with why you’re in Buddy Walker’s barn.”

“We’re in Buddy Walker’s barn?” Kelly asked what Cal was thinking.

“I once considered buying this property when it was up for sale three years ago. Ten secluded acres on the edge of town. What’s not to love? I remember this place well, so I just figured if something shady went down, it would happen out here. You can’t see this structure from the house. Besides, I saw Dawkins’ squad car at the house when I drove by.”

“Dawkins? Here?”

“He was when I drove by, but he’s a worthless deputy and wouldn’t think of checking here. But talk fast just in case.”

Cal wasted no time in recounting the events of the past six hours in efficient broad strokes. Regurgitating the who, what, when, where and why for every school board meeting and middle school girls basketball games enabled him to spell out the big picture without wasting words. He figured since Guy was a newspaper man, he could fill in the blanks himself.

Just as Cal was about to tell Guy about finding crystal meth at the Cloverdale plant, he stopped.

“What is this place?” he asked.

Lost in the excitement over their rescue, Cal and Kelly had hardly noticed their surroundings. Guy’s revelation that they were in Walker’s barn satisfied their initial curiosity to their whereabouts. They didn’t even inspect the room.

The room was a sizable 20 feet by 20 feet, likely a large tack room at one point. With dirt floors and wooden walls, the décor was rustic. A mirror framed in an old saddle hung on the far wall, a relic that probably survived from the property’s previous owner. But it wasn’t the mirror that arrested Cal’s attention. It was the out-of-place dry erase boards.

Each wall had at least two boards with chemical equations scribbled all over them. It looked like gibberish to Cal. He hated organic chemistry. Equations and rudimentary molecular structures appeared like ancient hieroglyphics. What did all of this mean?

While Cal stood staring at the board, he hoped something from that class would come back to him. It didn’t. Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one in the room.

“Uh, Cal, this is big stuff,” Kelly said. She stood slack jawed, staring at the boards and awaiting Cal’s response.

“I was hoping either you or Guy would know what this is, because I don’t remember a thing from college chemistry class.”

“This is really big stuff, Cal.”

Cal was growing annoyed with Kelly’s foreboding and redundant statements.

“Spit it out, Kelly!”

“I think I might know how those kids died.”

“What? They overdosed on drugs?”

“Nope. It probably wasn’t an overdose—and it wasn’t an accident either.”

Chapter 46

Gold hated feeling out of control, yet at this moment, it was as if his hands were tied behind his back while in the driver’s seat of a speeding sports car headed for a 45-degree turn. Off-road danger was imminent. Could he survive?

Statenville had survived plenty of scares under his watch. New snooping citizens. Disgruntled employees. Curious trespassers. They could all be persuaded. Brandish a handgun or flash some cash—whatever the situation called for. In most situations, the person developed an immediate case of amnesia. There was an unused rocky quarry in a secluded canyon for everyone else.

But a federal agent? Working at Cloverdale Industries? With access to every room? This was far beyond a simple breach.

Gold had implemented rigorous “background checks” for all new employees. He even checked his current employees at the time. Everyone understood the sacred secret that they kept. Should it get out, it not only meant that they lost their healthy paychecks, but they would also likely go to federal prison for a long time. He underscored the serious nature of their “business” every opportunity