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

“Kelly, grab your stuff and follow me right now,” Cal said in a low calm voice.

“Why, Cal?”

“Just do it,” he barked in a whisper.

Cal slipped his iPhone in his pocket. Kelly crammed her camera back into her backpack and they exited on the south side of the restaurant and headed for the Vmax.

He turned back to locate the man – and he was gone.

“Hurry, Kelly. We’ve got to leave now!”

Chapter 54

“Thwack!”

Cal was just about to put on his helmet when a forearm shiver knocked him to the ground. Disoriented and lying face down on the pavement, Cal began looking for Kelly.

“Run, Kelly! Run!”

Had Cal been more aware, he would’ve seen that his instructions were meaningless. Kelly’s legs dangled off the ground as Yukon wrapped his meaty arms around her body that suddenly seemed frail. She shrieked and struggled. Her actions were futile – and she knew it.

Yukon cast an ominous shadow over Cal.

“Get up, kid. … You ever heard of a deadline?”

Cal rolled over to see the long-haired man clutching Kelly in one hand and a crowbar in the other. Groggy from the blow, Cal moved slowly. It wasn’t fast enough for Yukon.

“Let’s go now,” Yukon bellowed as he snatched Cal into the air and began shoving him around the back of the restaurant to the other side of the parking lot. The truck was their destination.

Cal wanted to fight and be Kelly’s hero, but he knew he didn’t stand a chance.

Just be smart and stay alive. You’ll think of something.

Yukon snatched Cal by the back of his collar and hoisted him a few feet off the ground before pushing him into the back of his pickup bed. Cal had almost fully recovered from the earlier blow, but decided to play the part of a wounded animal. He did as he was told.

“Don’t go tryin’ to be a hero, kid,” said Yukon, who maintained his tight grip on Kelly. “You just might end up dead sooner rather than later.”

Cal nodded and sat still, awaiting his next instruction.

Yukon then grabbed Kelly with both hands and lifted her into the pickup bed as well. He ripped her backpack off, confiscating the damning evidence. He took some rope out of his toolbox in the truck bed and began securing Kelly’s feet together. He then pulled her hands by her side and ran the rope around her midsection a few times. The last touch was the gag, though by this time Kelly had stopped hurling insults. Cal got the same treatment.

***

Yukon covered the reporters with a tarp, securing it on all four corners with bungee cord. This is better than the time I killed two elk in one day. Yukon was reveling in the fact that he would get to keep his way of life after all.

Time to report the good news. Yukon called Gold.

“I got ‘em,” Yukon said before Gold could utter a word.

“And the evidence?”

“It’s sitting next to me on the front seat. And those two aren’t going anywhere, except on a quick trip to Cold River Canyon.”

“Well done. Dump the bodies and bring me what evidence you confiscated.”

“You got it, boss.”

Yukon’s F-250 began rumbling. Statenville justice had to be served.

***

Neither Cal nor Kelly made a sound for the first two minutes of their ride to an eventual murder scene. Cal glanced over at Kelly after he heard what sounded like a muffled sob. Tears were streaming down Kelly’s face.

When Cal begged Kelly for help on this story a day earlier, he certainly didn’t think that they would be bound, gagged, and headed for their deaths less than 48 hours later. But as a professional reporter whose business was dealing in facts, Cal had to recognize them. There was no cavalry coming. No one was going to save them. No one wanted to hear the truth – and they wouldn’t. The truth was about to be buried with them.

Cal grew sick thinking that he was going to die next to the woman he now had feelings for.

But that wasn’t a fact. Not yet, anyway. There was still time.

Chapter 55

Mercer sat in his parked car, a couple houses down and across the street from Guy’s house. He wanted to talk to Guy and warn him that Gold was tying up all his loose ends – and Guy would be considered one of them. But it looked like he was too late. Gold’s car was already parked outside when Mercer had arrived.

Finally, there was movement outside of Guy’s house. The front porch light went dark. Then the outside flood light on the side of the house went dark. Mercer could make out Gold’s shadowy figure sneaking out of the house and to his car.

As soon as Gold’s car disappeared down the street, Mercer opened his car door and sprinted down the street to Guy’s house. Careful not to leave any prints, Mercer smashed the windowpane closest to the door knob and reached through the remaining shards with a handkerchief to open the door from the inside.

As soon as Mercer stepped inside, he saw Guy’s body with blood pooling around him. He checked for a pulse. Nothing. Gold had eliminated a possible whistle blower. There was little doubt in Mercer’s mind that he would receive a call in less than ten minutes to take Gold’s body and move it to another place, make it look like an accident. Mercer knew the drill far too well.

Acting quickly, Mercer put on a pair of latex gloves and began combing through Guy’s personal effects.

He went straight for Guy’s computer. No password lockout. Just an open window of Guy’s home email inbox. Mercer saw a response from two email accounts, one ending in seattletimes.com and the other ending in sltrib.com. Guy had been communicating with other newspapers. Mercer opened the sent folder and read two emails to two editors who were acquaintances, informing them about an impending story that may come from a reporter named Cal Murphy.