by Jim Heskett
“Yeah, yeah, kid, I get it. It’s always the pretty ones. So what now? Did you need something from me?”
Micah left the neighborhood and paused at a red light. A taqueria across the street promised 99 cent breakfast burritos. He didn’t know which way to turn. “This guy, he knows who you are. He threatened you.”
Frank laughed. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I know his address, so I can find out everything about the guy in five minutes. Easiest skip trace ever.”
Micah listened to Frank sucking on his teeth on the other end of the line. “I don’t think so. You need to leave this one alone.”
“Why?”
“You’re too close to it. With the girl involved and all that, it’s way too personal for you. Maybe you should get out of town for a few days and let me work on it. Go take a little vacation.”
“But,” Micah said, “I have other projects I’m working on.”
“Don’t worry about the time off work. Things usually slow down this time of year, anyway, and I’ll handle anything outstanding.”
Micah chewed on his lower lip. Disappearing seemed like a short-term solution, but maybe Frank was right.
Frank cleared his throat again. “Do you have somewhere you can go?”
“Not really.”
“What about that sister of yours up in the mountains?”
Micah sat at the intersection, considering it. Then the light flicked to green, and a car behind him honked. He turned out onto the street, headed west. “I’m not supposed to contact her.”
“Come on, kid. The feds could have put you anywhere. You chose Colorado because of her, and don’t tell me you planned on never seeing her again. You could go up to Estes Park or Breckenridge and hole up in a motel for a few days, but maybe this was supposed to happen. Maybe this is God’s way of telling you it’s time to go make amends to your sister.”
Micah knew exactly where she was, in a house on Caribou Road in the little town of Nederland, a half hour up the mountain roads past Boulder. As usual, Frank’s grumbly insights cut Micah right to the bone. No, he wasn’t supposed to contact Magdalene McBriar for any reason. And yes, a part of him had known he would, at some point, break that rule.
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If you want a sample of Micah Reed book #2, Sallow City, tap ahead to the next page…
Sallow City Preview
And now, please enjoy this preview of book 2 in the series, SALLOW CITY.
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Danny Garaffalo shed his latex gloves and sunk into the chair in the tiny break room at the rear of the morgue. Back aching. He’d been on his feet for nearly three straight hours, bagging and tagging. But that’s what happened when they didn’t double-check vacation time requests, leaving him the only forensic tech—out of three—in the Genesee County Mortuary for this entire week. He’d always thought late shift would be the slow shift. Not so much.
Danny pondered his half-eaten hoagie, nestled in the waxed paper next to his laptop, and decided his stomach wasn’t up to the task of finishing it. Maybe later.
The screen saver sent swirling colors and patterns across his laptop, lulling him into drowsiness. Danny wondered how long he could sit here, letting his unfinished tasks languish until the guilt of laziness would strike him. Those forms weren’t going to complete themselves.
Before he could find his answer, the door at the far end of the room opened. Lights bounced off a dozen stainless steel surfaces. Those harsh and buzzing fluorescents. The latch shut with a clack and in front of the door now stood a rotund black woman with tidy rows of gray braids clenched to the top of her head. Despite the severe hair, she wore a kind and wrinkly smile, with black eyes like marbles. Looked mid-fifties, maybe. Sixty, tops. She was also wearing a red visitor badge around her neck.
Visitors at this time of night meant someone official. Most families of the deceased came during the day when the medical examiner was present. Danny got to his feet, trying not to grunt from the aches in his back and legs. “Hello.”
She stretched, grimacing. “Always think the flight to here from DC is going to be a hop and a skip, but it ends up feeling like I’ve been pushing a boulder up a hill all day.”
“If you flew into Detroit, I can understand. It’s hell getting out of that airport. I fly in and out of Bishop when I can.”
She grinned, and a rollercoaster of weird silence followed. Obviously, she wasn’t here to talk about airport convenience.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
She dug into her purse and flipped open an ID. Department of Justice. “Are you the medical examiner?”
He eyed the badge. “I’m just a tech, Mrs—”
“Please, call me Anita.”
“Well, Anita, the examiner leaves around five most days, or after noon on Friday, if she’s had a wet lunch.”
Danny felt stupid for saying that, but Anita smiled politely. He cleared his throat. “Is there something I can help you with?”
She put away the ID and adopted a serious face. “I’m with Missing and Unidentified Persons. You have a John Doe I’d like to see.”
Danny didn’t know if he was supposed to do that, but he supposed a DOJ badge gave her the right to do whatever she wanted. He didn’t mind, though, because this Anita woman seemed on the level. Had a kind of folksy air about her. Like someone’s grandmother, baking pies and setting tea in the sun to brew.
“You flew from DC to check out a body? We could have sent you the paperwork, if that’s what you wanted.”
“Thank you, but I would like to see him personally.”
Danny’s stomach yawned. He suddenly decided he wanted that hoagie, after all. “Sure, Anita, that’s no problem. Do you have a reference number?”
She handed him a folded piece of paper with the number on it, and he escorted her to his workstation. He tried to log into the system, but for some reason, she was making him nervous, and he fat-fingered his password a couple of times. Felt a little weird as she watched over his shoulder. Maybe she wasn’t technically supposed to see this without a written request, but Danny made the executive decision. If they were going to leave him here alone, that meant he was in charge.
“Got it. He’s right over here,” Danny said as he pointed at Cold Chamber C. He guided her back through the maze of steel gurneys and opened the door. A fog of wet and frigid steam rushed out, quickly dissolving into the air. “This one’s been here a while. We were about to get rid of him. Transfer to a bigger facility.”
“I’m here just in time?”
Danny nodded. “You sure are. Chamber D is unusable because of the power outage last month. Capacity issues.”
“I understand,” she said. “Have the police concluded their investigation?”
“Cops haven’t been by yet at all.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that normal? He’s been here for days.”
Danny emitted a little chuckle. “You don’t know Genesee County.”
The body was on top of a steel gurney in the back left of the chamber, wrapped in a white bag. He put a hand on the bag, then paused before rolling it back. “I should warn you, Anita. His face is intact, but the rest of him is… I don’t know how else to say it. He’s in rough shape. Your John Doe was torn to pieces. Burned, cut, shot, the whole nine yards. I haven’t seen too many chewed up this bad before.”
Anita smiled her kind and toothy smile. “I’ve been doing this a long time, dear. I don’t think you’ll be able to shock me.”
He wasn’t sure about that. But one way or the other, they would both know in a moment. Danny peeled back the bag over John Doe’s face. Tried his best to hide the mass of meat that constituted the body from the neck down. Maybe she could handle it, but he didn’t want to have to see it again.
He got an eyeful of the ch
arred flesh around the neckline, and he changed his mind about his half-eaten hoagie. Wasn’t often that a body could make his stomach squirm.
Anita bent over, her face scrunched up in concentration. Dark eyes flittered over the man’s features. The body she was examining was approximately thirty, with brown hair and brown eyes. Caucasian. Good-looking guy, or, at least, he had been before someone had drained the life out of him.
Anita took a business card from her purse and slipped it into Danny’s shirt pocket. “If the police do get off their butts and come by to investigate, please call me.”
“No problem. I can do that.”
She then sighed as she slipped a cellphone from her pocket.
“Bad news?” Danny said.
“Not so much for me, but for someone else, yes. I was really hoping I was wrong about this one.” She dialed a number and lifted the phone to her ear. Gave Danny a glance before the call connected. “Frank? It’s your little sister… yes, yes, but that’s not what I called you for. I’m in Michigan. Flint, exactly. That young man who works for you, what’s his name? The one you introduced me to last Christmas.”
Danny crossed his arms, intrigued. So this woman had some personal connection to this body. It had seemed strange for someone in the DOJ to come all the way from Washington to identify some random John Doe. But the more Danny thought about it, the more he understood how everything lined up. The way this kid was torn to pieces, it had to be a mafia killing or something like that. Terrorist, maybe. Or perhaps the government themselves had done it. Wouldn’t have surprised Danny one bit.
“Right,” she said into the phone. “Micah Reed, that was his name. Something caught my eye on a standard MUP search yesterday, and I came out here to Flint to examine it.”
She paused, nodding as she listened. Her fingers gripped the edge of the gurney as she pursed her lips.
“That’s the thing, Frank. I know this will be hard for you to hear, but I’m staring at Micah’s dead body in a morgue right now.”
Enjoy this sample? Get Sallow City now at www.jimheskett.com/sallow.
Or, get the first three books in the series at a discount by visiting www.jimheskett.com/mrbox1
All material copyright 2015-2016 by Jim Heskett. No part of this work may be reproduced without permission.
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Published by Royal Arch Books
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Www.RoyalArchBooks.com
For Jack R, Jonathan K, and all those other once-hopeless guys from Sooner, New Hope, and Miracles who saved my life more times than I can count.
Books by Jim Heskett
For a full list of all Jim Heskett’s books, please visit www.RoyalArchBooks.com
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If you like thrillers, you’ll want to take a gander at my Whistleblower Trilogy. The first book, Wounded Animals, follows the story of Tucker Candle, who meets a mysterious stranger who warns him not to take a business trip. Candle goes, however, and when he comes home, he discovers a dead man in his bathroom and his wife has gone missing.
Afterword
Airbag Scars began its life as a screenplay, many years ago. The original story was much different from the version you’ve found here. Only bits and pieces of those original plot points and characters remain.
The old version was a story about a man trying to put his life back together after a drunken relapse, while a parallel story chronicled a woman whose life was falling apart. At some point, their stories intersected, and they affected each other’s lives.
It was boring.
Fast forward a few years. I’ve been wanting to write a series about an intriguing character for some time. But I’ve had enough of ex-cop stories, ex-detective stories, ex-Navy Seal stories. I wanted to write about a guy who was more akin to a regular guy, but still compelling enough to be the hero of multiple books. And that’s how I came to the version of Airbag Scars you’ve now finished.
Before Micah had a name, I called him “Remorseful Hitman,” because his series would be about him trying to atone for his sketchy past after entering Witness Protection. Since then, of course, his story has become much more, and it has many directions in which it can go.
More answers about Micah’s past are coming. You’ll learn about his time in the cartel, and meet the dead best friend that has caused Micah to grieve so fiercely. Be a little patient, though, because Micah’s full backstory will play out over several books.
I hope you’ll continue on with Micah’s journey, and see where it goes from here.
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Jim Heskett
August 2015
About the Author
Jim Heskett was born in the wilds of Oklahoma, raised by a pack of wolves with a station wagon and a membership card to the local public swimming pool. Just like the man in the John Denver song, he moved to Colorado in the summer of his 27th year, and never looked back. Aside from an extended break traveling the world, he hasn't let the Flatirons mountains out of his sight.
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He fell in love with writing at the age of fourteen with a copy of Stephen King's The Shining. Poetry became his first outlet for teen angst, then later some terrible screenplays, and eventually short and long fiction. In between, he worked a few careers that never quite tickled his creative toes successfully, and hasn't ever forgotten about Stephen King. You can find him currently huddled over a laptop in an undisclosed location in Colorado, dreaming up ways to kill beloved characters.
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He blogs at his own site and hosts the Indie Author Answers Podcast. You can also scour the internet to find the occasional guest post or podcast appearance. A full list of media appearances can be found at www.jimheskett.com/media. He believes the huckleberry is the king of berries and refuses to be persuaded in any other direction.
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If you’d like to ask a question or just to say hi, stop by the About page and fill out the contact form.
for more info:
www.jimheskett.com