The laughter was barely discernible.
After dessert, the waiter arrived with the check. I subtly asked him to hand it to me. But as he stretched his arm across the table, Dad snatched it from his hand.
“Don’t worry about it, Dad. I got this.”
He looked me straight in the eye. “No, Alex. You’ve been worrying about your papa for far too long. I’m doing well. Real well. I got this.”
I smiled and sat back, thinking about the last time I’d seen him in person. We were sitting in a diner in downtown DC. He had been fooled by a cold-blooded killer to share some of my personal background, and then she openly challenged me to find her and a hostage through some live streaming video site. I wasn’t sure about Dad’s health or his integrity a few months ago, but tonight he seemed like a new man. Gold grill and all, maybe Carly had been good for him.
I took a final sip of my iced tea and glanced over Erin’s shoulder. I literally froze. I pinched the corners of my eyes, not believing what I was seeing. I recognized someone with whom I used to work. A man with a notable afro—what I called the Mike Brady fro. I told the family I’d meet them at the front door and walked to the corner of the restaurant.
“Archie Woods, I thought you’d still be stapling papers in DC. How are you doing?”
I’d been forced to co-lead a joint task force with my CIA counterpart. Archie and I worked side by side as we hunted a female serial killer down the East Coast. He was the most annoying person I’d ever encountered, but as it turned out, he wasn’t a bad guy. Well, at least he’d stood up to his CIA bosses and essentially told them to shove their secretive, non-collaborative mode of operations up their collective asses. He was thrown off the task force. After that, we lost touch. Seeing him in Texas, in little Port Isabel, was surreal.
He calmly set down his napkin and held up a quick finger to his dinner mate, an anxious-looking guy who wore a dirty T-shirt and dirty jeans. Apparently, he’d been working all day, unlike the rest of us.
“I’m sorry, I don’t recall you.”
Archie was always trying to one-up everyone around him. “Right, Archie. I’m surprised the agency let you out of the doghouse so soon,” I said with a smile.
He lifted from his chair, got to within six inches of my face. “I’m sorry, miss, but you must have the wrong person. Please don’t harass me, or I’ll have to get the manager.”
My pulse did double time, and I put a hand on my hip. I realized I didn’t look that intimidating in my white blouse and blue and white skirt that fell just above the knees. “Archie, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re about to be on my—”
“Mom, let’s go. I want to climb to the top of the lighthouse.” Luke tugged me away, but I kept my eyes on Archie until I hit the door.
A few minutes later, Luke and Erin were standing on the deck of the Port Isabel Lighthouse, seeing how far their voices would carry. Dad, Carly, and I huddled in the shade of the one live oak tree, just across the street from the restaurant.
“It’s been fun, but we need to get going.” Dad gave me a hug, and it felt good.
Carly offered me a fake kiss on the cheek.
“Let’s get together again in the next day or two. Then again, I might be busy tomorrow.” He and Carly headed toward a row of cars across the street, suddenly in a rush to leave, it seemed.
“Okay, Dad. I’ll call you,” I said with a wave.
He extended his arm, and I heard a beeping noise to unlock the doors of a…shiny, late-model Cadillac Escalade? I almost shouted to ask if he had the right car. Was this the real Donald Troutt, my dad? The one who, since being forced out of the Coast Guard for drunken insubordination, had only worked a few odd jobs here and there? Earlier, over dinner, he had mentioned something about captaining a fishing excursion boat, which he said kept him busy and paid the bills. I figured that was electricity and groceries, not a six-hundred-dollar lease payment. Maybe Carly owned it, but I thought she only worked as a hairdresser.
With my excited kids’ voices echoing over downtown Port Isabel about three hundred feet above me, the front door of the restaurant opened, drawing my eyes in that direction.
A moment later, shots ricocheted off buildings and broken glass sprayed like it was fired out of a water cannon.
The next few seconds came at me in slow motion. Orange flashes pumping distorted air from the main cross street, bodies lurching forward, blood splattering like mist from an ocean wave, and the piercing scream of my daughter. I spun around and looked up at the lighthouse, screaming at my kids to get inside and lie down.
The thundering boom of a pistol sounded from just outside the front door. It was Archie returning fire, even as bullets destroyed the outdoor lamp just above his head. Quickly shifting my eyes in the direction of Dad, my heart exploded—I could see the shoulders of a man sprawled out on the concrete on the other side of the Cadillac, a trail of burgundy draining from the body.
I had no gun, but I didn’t care. I dropped my purse and ran like hell toward the row of parked cars. Almost immediately, a bullet took a chunk out of the concrete, blowing fragments in my face. I held up an arm but kept running, scanning the many parked cars along the street. And then I saw the shooters, their faces covered with black and gold bandanas. They were using a fatigue-green, older-model car for cover. One was firing a semi-automatic rifle, his shoulder trembling from the kickback. The other man was switching out his magazine. Then two more loud booms from Archie’s weapon, and the second shooter took a bullet to the side of his head. His screams distracted his partner, who briefly looked away from his semi-automatic.
I made it to the row of parked cars, pausing for a second behind a red pickup. A single breath, then I darted out of my stance. The automatic weapons pumped more bullets through the air. I hunkered lower to the ground and turned my head to ensure the kids were still inside the lighthouse. All good on that front.
As I made my way down the row of cars, I could just make out the top of the Escalade, but couldn’t see Dad or Carly. All the windows had been blown out. I could feel a wave of emotion starting to creep into my eyes, wondering if I’d lost my dad in another crazy death, just as I’d lost my mom to a drunken driver when her car was slammed off a bridge.
AT Dawn (Book 4) Now Available
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John W. Mefford Bibliography
Redemption Thriller Series
The Alex Troutt Thrillers
AT Bay (Book 1)
AT Large (Book 2)
AT Once (Book 3)
AT Dawn (Book 4)
AT Dusk (Book 5)
AT Last (Book 6)
The Ivy Nash Thrillers
IN Defiance (Book 7)
IN Pursuit (Book 8)
IN Doubt (Book 9)
Break IN (Book 10)
IN Control (Book 11)
IN The End (Book 12)
The Ozzie Novak Thrillers
ON Edge (Book 13)
Game ON (Book 14)
ON The Rocks (Book 15)
Shame ON You (Book 16)
ON Fire (Book 17)
ON The Run (Book 18)
Other Thriller Series
The Booker Series
BOOKER – Streets of Mayhem (Volume 1)
BOOKER – Tap That (Volume 2)
BOILERMAKER – A Lt. Jack Daniels / Booker Mystery (Volume 2.5)
BOOKER – Hate City (Volume 3)<
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BOOKER – Blood Ring (Volume 4)
BOOKER – No Más (Volume 5)
BOOKER – Dead Heat (Volume 6)
The Greed Series
FATAL GREED (Greed Series #1)
LETHAL GREED (Greed Series #2)
WICKED GREED (Greed Series #3)
GREED MANIFESTO (Greed Series #4)
Alex Troutt, Books 1, 2, and 3
Copyright © 2016 by John W. Mefford
All rights reserved.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book (not just the sample) and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Formatting by Bob Houston eBook Formatting
Table of Contents
Alex Troutt Thrillers
Books 1, 2, and 3
Table of Contents
ALSO BY JOHN W. MEFFORD
AT Bay
Book 1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
AT Large
Book 2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
AT Once
Book 3
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
ALSO BY JOHN W. MEFFORD
Next In The Redemption Thriller Series
Excerpt from AT Dawn (Book 4)
1
2
3
AT Dawn (Book 4) Now Available
Get John W. Mefford’s Starter Library – for FREE
John W. Mefford Bibliography
Other Thriller Series
The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 1-3 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 78