Niles had a level of cardio achievable only through obsession. He didn’t hesitate at all, firing off a lead hand at my liver into a high backfist into a lead hook. His continuation into a scything back elbow into an uppercut was when I realized how I had miraculously survived the onslaught. There was only one guy I had ever known who employed that specific combination.
Me.
Niles Endsworth wasn’t only dressing the part. He was imitating me in Near Death, mimicking all my moves, down to crushing throats. Everyone he had killed, he had killed playing Ken Allen.
I was experiencing the hypothetical situation every aging athlete played out in their heads. Could you beat a past version of yourself? Did the experience you’d gained outweigh the vigor of youth? The truth was, unless someone invented a time machine, you’d never know.
I was about to find out.
Niles came off his uppercut with a sweeping gesture intended to force my guard aside for the rear hand knockout. Knowing what was coming helped time his blur of a punch. I rolled an elbow over it, forcing it down. My follow-up back fist connected. There wasn’t a lot behind it. Niles was so damn fast I didn’t want to strike out swinging for the fences.
I might as well have slapped a statue for all the reaction I got. If Niles was cycling, which with his body-fat percentage you better believe he was, he was going to be nigh impossible to drop. On top of that, he was basking in the extreme self-confidence of being undefeated. When you had never been beaten, you fought without fear.
I swept my left hand to cover the line of attack as I circled out. Niles did the same and our arms crossed like swords, except my blade had a crack in it. I snapped my hand down, testing his guard. Niles soaked it like a tempered spring and a numbing shock ran from my fingertips to my elbow. We circled, wrists crossed, our rear hands loose under our chins. The mirror was reflecting back better than what I was giving it.
I tried to think about all the guys who had cleaned my clock over the last twenty years. What were my weaknesses back then? What lessons had I learned at the end of a fist?
Niles went for a low kick. I yanked his arm to hiccup the kick and checked it with my back foot. Ducking under Niles’s follow-up high kick, I spun into a sweep aimed at his knee. Niles’s rear leg supported all his weight. If my sweep landed, it was over.
But Niles whirled his kick into a butterfly twist. I used to be able to pull that combination off, way back when. His rear leg brushed my hair as my sweep passed under his airborne body. If you were choreographing a fight, you couldn’t have hoped for a cleaner exchange.
Our left legs clashed as we threw low round kicks at the same time. Then our right legs, as we high kicked. I caught the ghost of a wince on Niles’s face as our shins collided at full speed. So I had one advantage: a lifetime of taking damage. My nerves were deader, my bones more ragged. I knew how to fight hurt. How to keep going on an empty tank.
If Niles were me, I’d throw a side kick to preserve distance and reset. On that theory, I launched a leg on an intercept course. Our knees clashed like charging rams. I was ready for it, Niles wasn’t, and a grunt of pain escaped before he could silence it. When Niles threw a knife hand toward my eyes I met it with my own, the ridge of my hand slamming into the pinkie he fused shooting Raid the Roof. The one reminder he had that he was human.
Niles withdrew the crippled digit on instinct. I used the opening to put a right hook into the brick wall of his abdomen. I missed a follow-up uppercut, but in a moment of inspiration I reversed direction and chopped him on the Adam’s apple.
It was a short, quick tap, but Niles recoiled like he’d been stabbed.
I put a finger in his face. “You aren’t Jove Brand.”
Good and pissed off, Niles tried to slap my hand away. I circled under the attempt and chopped the side of his neck. I’ve hit people harder with pillows, but it made him stagger back.
“You aren’t even a second-rate Ken Allen.”
Niles absolutely lost it. He issued a blistering series of punches and kicks, jumping and dropping, twisting and spinning. If I hadn’t dreamt up all the combinations, if I hadn’t relived them every time I tortured myself by looping Near Death at a hundred pop culture conventions, I would be dead.
Still, I was plenty busy, slipping and checking, circling and soaking, waiting for my moment. Niles slowed down a hair. When he attempted my patented flying backfist into a midair direction change spin-kick, I clotheslined him across the neck. He went down hard, the back of his skull slamming into the stone floor.
I thought it was over, but Niles kipped up, launching to his feet without using his hands. Right into the chop I had waiting for him. It caught him under the chin and he went back down.
I tried to end it then, but Niles rolled away and vaulted into a back handspring before I was able to bury a knee in his windpipe. That he still had enough gas in his tank to pull off a floor routine was terrifying. His eyes were wild as he tried to comprehend what was happening, madly rewriting his story to fit the changing narrative.
Fighting to keep my breath even, I committed to belief in my character. If ever I needed to deliver an authentic performance, the time was now.
“No, not Jove Brand. Not even close. Just Niles Endsworth. And Niles Endsworth is done. I saved Dean. It’s over for you. The end.”
Niles looked over my shoulder, then over his own, toward the terrace.
“Freeze!” Stern yelled. “Get your dicks in the dirt, both of you.”
I smiled at Niles as I took a knee. I’d won by running out the clock. The bastard grinned right back. Except my expression was coy and his was feral. He turned and sprinted toward the terrace.
“I’ll shoot!” Stern yelled at his back.
Niles didn’t listen. There was no time for the para-suit. He vaulted into the night sky like he expected something to catch him. A giant eagle maybe, or a passing hot-air balloon. But nothing did. His leap hit an apex, then he dropped like a rock.
Stern ran to the terrace to look over the railing. I hobbled after to join her, staring down into the dark, rolling water.
Stern looked at the platinum pistol prop in her hand. “Guess he thought it was real.”
“Yes, he did,” I replied. “All of it.”
We watched the water for a while, searching for any sign.
“You know the rule,” I said. “If there’s no body, we’ll see him in the sequel.”
As if on cue, the waves pounded Niles Endsworth’s corpse against the cliffs. His body was swept out and back until one of his legs got lodged in the rocks. His head stayed underwater.
I should have been worried about Dean. About there being any evidence at all Niles was the killer. I should have been praying that when Bryce Crisp heard Niles was dead he would come forward with everything he knew. I should have been on the phone with Mercie Goodday, preparing a defense.
But all I could think about was what a movie this would make. I wondered who they would get to play me. Someone who looked the part. Blond hair and blue eyes were a must.
My vote was for Daniel Craig.
Epilogue
What could a million bucks buy you in This Town? Not much, but it made for a decent down payment. Layne Lackey could have croaked in his condo and it wouldn’t have brought the price down, not in a city where so many endings are self-inflicted. But after his sister heard me out, she sold it to me at market value. She even gave me a deal on his collection.
Dean was doing okay. Looking back, he’d had a strong hunch about me but didn’t trust his gut enough to voice it, which made him a chip off the old block. You didn’t live in the gym because of your mother. When a young man strapped gloves on, his father’s touch tightened the laces.
I wish I could say Missy got her happy ending, but she wasn’t in that kind of tale. Hers was a tragedy. Some people get lucky and find their one person. God help them if they lost them. At least she got closure. The suspicions haunting her had been real. She was finally free to enter her next
act.
I could have gone back to my old gig, got more money for fewer clients, but I was done being a bit player in someone else’s vehicle. So I hung out a shingle and waited for word to spread. Despite how everything turned out—or maybe because of it—Dina helped me with the license, like she said she would. She also issued me special usage rights. On paper, I was a parody. She stopped short of officially endorsing me, which was fine. When everything came out, I figured it would be all the PR I needed.
Instead Stern got a lot of attention she didn’t want. She was the only cop on the scene and therefore the hero who had saved Ken Allen, damsel in distress. Now she was a celebrity cop, put on the sort of fluff cases she spent her whole career avoiding. She was not amused. At least she didn’t arrest me at the scene. Probably because she wanted me healthy for the rematch.
Seven weeks went by while I lived off the sale of my condo and refused book deals for the story of the Jove Brand murders. It was easy money. I’d be set for life and the main attraction at all the cons. I’d be liked and favorited instead of roasted across all platforms.
If I wanted, I could finally make the story all about me. Have my big redemption moment. But it meant airing the dirty laundry. It meant turning people into characters and making their deaths plot-points. I’d have to make my bones displaying their skeletons.
No way.
I had never talked. And I never would.
Dina took advantage of all the free media to announce a new Jove Brand had been chosen and the old screenplay scrapped. Layne Lackey’s lifelong dream was coming true. Calabria Films bought Ungentlemanly Warfare from Layne Lackey’s estate. It was garbage, but it had a great title. The rest could be fixed in rewrites.
Ray helped renovate my new digs. And by helped I mean he did everything while I played gofer and blended a lot of smoothies. Knowing how he felt about my privacy, I slept in full pajamas, rolled up in a sleeping bag, but I wasn’t about to criticize how my guardian angel went about his business.
Among other renovations, he set up a musical cue in place of a bell when the front door opened. It gave me time to hit my mark.
Clutching a locked attaché, Mercie Goodday was dressed for business. “You’ve got your desk backwards.”
Backwards was a matter of perspective. I didn’t belong in Tender’s seat. The person behind the desk offered the assignments, he didn’t accept them.
“Yeah, it’s pretty heavy,” I said.
“But you have so much free time,” Mercie replied. She set the attaché down on the desk and took a seat. “Maybe you should consider lowering your rates.”
I didn’t take the bait. Missy had taught me otherwise. She probably learned it from Mercie in the first place. I wasn’t out to troll the stream. I wanted the big fish.
“I can’t speak to your competence, but my clients love your concept, and based on your prior vocation, they attest you can be discreet,” Mercie said.
“I’m definitely discreet.” I knew better than to claim competence.
Mercie studied me for a while but failed to locate the mess she’d met in a jail cell. She opened up the attaché and took out an NDA. I signed it without being asked, making sure to use the button on my pen which produced ink. All of Ray’s housewarming gifts had the potential to burn the place down.
Mercie confirmed my signature before breaking the silence. “I have a client who has been accused of a sexual assault she did not commit. She has an airtight alibi but employing it would end her career.”
“What’s the alibi?”
“She was big-game hunting.”
“Yeah, that’ll do it.”
“My client wants to employ you to prove her innocence while maintaining her reputation. Operating under me will provide privilege, but time is a factor. We are prepared to compensate you for round-the-clock action and pay any expenses you incur.” Mercie sat back and crossed her legs. She was good at it. “What do you say, Mr. Allen?”
When I opened the file and saw who was staring back at me, I let out a whistle. Jove Brand could have kept his composure, but Ken Allen would never be that level of cool.
“That’s PI Allen, Miss Goodday. And I say let the games begin.”
* * *
The End
Acknowledgments
Each and every person who touched this book made it better.
In chronological order:
To my mother, who passed on a love of reading. Look Ma, I did it!
To my wife, who was there every day and has never, ever gotten sick of me agonizing over every last word.
To NaNoWriMoTown and Owen Bondono, for keeping that first draft flowing.
Next comes Rick Marshall, who caught many, many errors no one else ever had to see. Mel Pinsler pointed out character shortcomings and possible plot holes. Rob Reeve performed a detailed editorial pass before it went out into the world.
I owe a tremendous debt to Pitchwars. Special thanks to Gigi Pandian, the best role model a writer could have. Gigi helped me believe in my writing, which is the greatest gift anyone can give a writer.
Tina Chan, Tiffany Liu, and Irene Reed provided insights regarding cultural nuances in the text. Thank you.
To my agent Lucienne Diver, for believing. There is insufficient space here to sing her praises. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
The book owes its razor edge to the expertise of my editor, Helga Schier. I am incredibly fortunate to have her in my corner.
Thanks to the CamCat team. Sue Arroyo, whose love of books shines through, Laura Wooffitt marketing maven, and Maryann Appel, who created an image that crystalized a complicated concept.
As always, any mistakes or shortcomings are mine, and mine alone.
About the Author
J.A. Crawford wanted to grow up to be a superhero. He studied Criminal Justice at Wayne State University, specializing in criminal procedure and interrogation.
Despite what his family thinks, Joe is not a spy. When he isn’t writing, he travels the country investigating disaster sites. Before that, he taught Criminal Justice, Montessori Kindergarten, and several martial arts. Joe is an alum of the Pitchwars program.
Joe has too many interests and finds every topic under the sun absolutely fascinating. He especially loves the stories behind the stories. Joe splits his time between Michigan and California. He is married to his first and biggest fan, who is not allowed to bring home any more pets.
* * *
Check in on Joe at www.jacrawford.net
* * *
For more Jove Brand lore, visit
www.jovebrandfan.com
For Further Discussion
What drew you to the book? Did the book deliver?
Which fictional character is Ken Allen based on? How are they alike? How are they different?
In mystery, what do you think is more important, plot or character?
What is going on behind in other character’s heads during the scenes? For example, what do you think Dean is thinking when he is talking to Ken? What is Dina thinking when Ken Allen shows up asking questions about her dark secret?
What do you think is the big secret in Ken Allen’s personal life?
What hints are laid for future books in the series in this book? Which characters do you want to see again?
How relevant are martial arts and the philosophy behind them to Ken’s character?
Which one of Ken’s gadgets is your favorite? Why?
Ken Allen’s dead pan humor is relevant to the story. Which one is your favorite line? Why?
If this were turned into a movie, who should play the main characters?
If you enjoyed
Jove Brand Is Near Death by J. A. Crawford,
then try this excerpt from
Beneath the Marigolds by Emily C. Whitson.
Beneath the Marigolds
Prologue
I knew too much. On that island, on that godforsaken singles’ retreat.
I knew too much.
I rum
inated on that thought, chewing it carefully, repeatedly, while Magda the makeup artist transformed me into a life-size, porcelain doll of nightmares. Ghastly white face, penciled-in eyebrows, blood-red lips. I’d look beautiful from a distance, she had told me, leaving the other part of the sentence unspoken: up close, it’s frightening. She tsked as she dabbed my damp forehead for the fourth time, her Russian accent thickening with frustration.
“Vhy you sveating so much?”
I worried my voice would come out haggard, so I shrugged, a little too forcefully. Magda shook her head, her pink bob sashaying amongst the grand, all-white bathroom, as she muttered something foreign under her breath. My eyes danced across the various makeup brushes on the vanity until they landed on one in particular. I shifted my weight in the silk-cushioned chair, toyed with my watch.
“Magda, what do you want out of this retreat?”
No response.
Did she not hear me, or did she choose not to respond? In the silence, I was able to hear Christina’s high-heeled footsteps outside the bathroom.
Click, clack. Click, click.
When I first met the host of the singles’ retreat, I was in awe of her presence, her unflappable poise. Shoulders back, she walked with a purpose, one foot in front of another, and though she was a couple inches shorter than me, she seemed larger than life. Her icy eyes, which were colored with only the faintest shade of blue, seemed to hold the secrets of the world—secrets she intended to keep. But I had stumbled upon them, just a few short hours before, and I was now afraid her gait represented something more sinister: the march of an executioner.
Click, clack. Click, clack.
Her stride matched the even tick of my watch, and a drop of sweat trickled down my back. Was I being ridiculous? Surely Christina wouldn’t hurt me. She had been reasonable with me earlier, hadn’t she?
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