Gabriel's Revenge (The Adventures of Gabriel Celtic Book 2)

by J. T. Lewis

  “I’ll take care of the costumes if you get the weapons,” Abby mumbled tiredly. I nodded and grabbed up the guns to deposit into the safe. I figured that cleaning them could wait until the morning.

  Abby took the clothes we used for our disguises and deposited them into the washing machine, everything except my ratty gray wig. She lovingly deposited this on the head of a plaster bust of Caesar, patting it playfully with a smile before reentering the kitchen.

  “I’m beat!” she exclaimed as she came over and gave me a peck on the cheek. “I’m going to bed.”

  I reached around her shoulder with one arm and gave her a quick hug.

  “Ok kid, see ya in the morning.”

  I had invited Abby to live at the house with me when we had started our business. She had happily accepted, setting herself up in the unused downstairs bedroom. Having been apart for most of her life, we both still relished any time that we could spend together.

  Her sometime guest and boyfriend, Nathan Stafford, was not here tonight, as we had not known when we would return. When he was here however, he was a welcome addition to the family. The old house hadn’t known this much activity in years.

  Heading into the office from where we ran the agency, I contemplated making a pot of coffee. Looking at the clock, I realized that it was almost 10:00, and decided against it. Not that I ever had trouble sleeping after drinking coffee late, I just didn’t have the energy to make it.

  Deciding quickly to just go to bed, I began to turn toward the stairs when the phone started screaming at me.

  What the hell?

  I couldn’t imagine who would be calling this late at night, and was not happy as I retraced my steps back to the desk.

  “Celtic,” I almost yelled as I picked up the receiver.

  There was silence for a long few moments, and I was contemplating hanging up when I heard a soft voice say, “Gabe?”

  “I’m sorry to call so late, but I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day.”

  I glanced down at the answering machine, noticing finally the fast blinking indicator. Since Abby usually took care of returning calls, I very seldom paid it any attention.

  “Anyway,” the voice continued, “I’ve been trying to contact you because I believe I may be in need of your services…if you have time that is.”

  There was something very familiar about the voice but I couldn’t place it. Normally I may have let the person talk until I could figure it out, but I was majorly tired and had very little patience left for the day.

  “Who is this?” I finally asked, a little too gruffly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” A nervous giggle crossed the phone line. “I guess I was just assuming you would know who it was. This is May… May Lassiter.”

  ***

  May Andres Lassiter was my best buddy from before I could remember. I had also longed for her to be my girlfriend for many years, but it just hadn’t been in the stars. She had married a fine man out of college, moved to Indianapolis, and had a couple of boys if I remembered right.

  We had communicated less and less as the years progressed, with her Christmas cards being our only real contact anymore. I felt a little guilty over my lack of keeping up my end of the friendship.

  “May? This is a surprise…”

  I detected what I thought was a sniffle before she answered.

  “I know, I’m sorry Gabe…life just seems to get in the way of old friendships.”

  “I’m not complaining May…we all do the best we can. So what’s up with you these days?” I asked as I tried to remember any details from her last Christmas card.

  “I need to hire you Gabe…can we meet tomorrow?”

  I readily agreed to meet her and wrote down the address, a local address I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I determined that I would figure it out tomorrow as we said good night.

  I was puzzled. I couldn’t fathom what she would possibly need my services for, but I was looking forward to seeing my old friend nonetheless.

  As I made my way up the stairs to get ready for bed, I thought about my old pal and our times together.

  We had been through a lot.

  But an even stranger thought was nagging at me. Having thought of May less and less over the years, it was strange that she should call at this point in time.

  As I lay down, I hoped that the dreams I had been having would not keep me awake most of the night as they had been…the dreams of May.

  Copyright 2013-2014 by J.T. Lewis

  *****

  And now…..a preview of the new series…The Artifact Hunter!

  *****

  The

  Artifact

  Hunter!

  By

  J.T. Lewis

  Copyright 2013 by J.T. Lewis

  March 1777

  New York Colony

  The man in the red uniform glanced around nervously, noticing the horse’s breath freezing in wisps of mist in the early morning light.

  The night had turned cold again, dropping down below freezing after the sunny spring weather of the previous day. Sergeant James Turner pulled his wrap tighter around himself, breathing his hot breath into his gloved fists to try to warm his frozen hands.

  “Blimey! Will this trek never end?” he mumbled to himself for the hundredth time.

  Turner’s old mare tripped suddenly on a frozen clod of soil. Tensing quickly, the Sergeant gripped his legs tightly around the horse as he pulled back on the reins.

  “Whoa Gertrude…steady there old girl.”

  Regaining control, Turner glanced to his right, shivering at the thought of dropping into the partially frozen bog beside him.

  Blasted country! he thought angrily as he tapped his heels into Gertrude’s flank, getting her moving again. Although he was dreadfully cold, James Turner was thankful for the frozen ground below him, preferring it to the slimy mud of the previous day.

  Ordered by his major to make his way north along the Swamp Road for this special mission, he quietly questioned the logic of the plan and the sanity of the officer. The major had calculated that he would be less likely to be observed in the swamp, but he had to know that this route would take three times as long to traverse.

  Didn’t he?

  Turner shrugged his shoulders while trying to get comfortable on the saddle. He hadn’t obtained the rank of sergeant by questioning his superior’s orders, but sometimes he wondered why he cared.

  The pompous and elitist Royals and their clans ruled the Army by the mere fact of their lineage. It was a system that had been in place for centuries, and even God himself couldn’t seem to change that fact, Turner thought testily.

  His thoughts turned to the colonies and the people that lived within. He now believed that the citizens of this country must be the most determined lot he had ever run across, and he was in awe of their fortitude.

  They call themselves Americans, he reflected with a smile, and they had the bollocks to challenge the king himself!

  And don’t forget about the land!

  Discounting his current location of course, the abundance of the beautiful and fertile commodity was mindboggling!

  When the news had hit that the colonials were seeking independence from the mother country, his whole regiment had laughed at the thought. They had been certain that a quick foray across the Atlantic would quickly squelch such a notion.

  So far however, this expedition had been anything but short. Now Turner himself was starting to have second thoughts on the matter.

  Maybe these backcountry hill climbers had something going on here after all!

  Turner continued to reflect on the vast expanses of farmland that could be had for a fair price, something unheard of in England. He had also noticed the industriousness of the people in the cities, proudly starting their own businesses and working at them with a fervor that seemed lacking back home.

  But the biggest implement of change in Turner’s thinking were the actions of his army’s officers thems
elves. The longer the regiment stayed in the colonies, the farther the commanders of his unit seemed to slide away from reality.

  “The colonials wouldn’t fight according to the rules,” he had heard them exclaim more than once.

  Used to a standard of living based on royal privilege and comfort, the officers were now spending months at a time in the field. Being this far from the palatial estates where they were raised seemed to be more than any of them had bargained for.

  Turner suddenly stopped his horse to listen.

  Hearing something off to his left, he quietly eyed the sparse vegetation around him. Years in the field had taught him that even the smallest noise could be a threat. After a few minutes of hearing or seeing nothing however, he nudged Gertrude forward along the thin path.

  He dismissed the thoughts of his idiot officers as he let a smile draw on his lips. He realized that he could do much worse than making a home here in the colonies. Though they had been in the back of his mind for weeks, this was the first time that he had allowed these treasonous thoughts to come to the fore.

  If he lived long enough to make it back home, he would put in for separation from his unit and begin drawing his meager pension. He definitely had enough time, and no one would fault him for getting out after serving with distinction in the Colonial War.

  Sergeant James Turner grinned. For the first time in his life he had a reason to look past his time in the service of the king!

  While lost in these joyous thoughts, Turner didn’t hear the faint noise to his left.

  The click that should have alerted him to the danger of the rifle’s hammer being cocked was ignored. Nor did he notice the flash of the primer in the pan as the hammer came down into it and filled the air with light. The old horse took yet another step before the boom of the ignited gunpowder escaped the muzzle, the hot gasses propelling the lead ball into the side of Sergeant Turner’s head.

  In those last fleeting moments, as he was sliding off of the side of the horse his thoughts didn’t linger on regret. Instead, his final thoughts were of the newfound joy he felt over his decision.

  Quietly slipping into the bog, the lips retained the smile. The now eerie grin was all that remained of the newborn freedom that he had so recently claimed during the last seconds of his life.

  ***

  Present Day

  Jesse Flanagan was in high spirits as he pulled in front of the old shop.

  The mysterious voicemail he had received from his cantankerous friend late last night sounded promising, if not a bit cryptic.

  Come down to de shop in the mornink me boy, I do believe aw have some good noos for you on both counts! I keep your package safe, heya in my shawp overnight, buried under Atlantic Avenuse.

  Abraham always reverted to a weird combination of Hebrew- and New York-accented English when he was excited, but good noos in this business almost always meant good money. The cryptic reference to Atlantic Avenue still had Jesse stumped, however.

  Jesse shrugged his shoulders. He usually dismissed most of Abraham’s rantings as a rule of thumb anyway. His friend’s advancing age combined with the large portion of time that he had spent alone had left Abraham Kohen more quirky than normal.

  But Jesse had indeed left a package with Abe the previous day to see if the old man could come up with a value for two items of interest. One was an old document, the other a picture of a desk.

  The aging Jewish antique dealer loved doing that kind of thing, plus he had a lot more patience than Jesse could ever muster for it.

  Of course, Jesse paid him well for his valuations, as nobody did anything for free in this business. Truth be known however, that wasn’t the only reason he continued to bring work to the old man. Over the years, Jesse had actually come to truly like the cantankerous old man, seeing him as the closest thing to a father figure that he had ever had.

  Humming happily as he turned off the van, Jesse unfolded his 5’10” frame out the driver’s door and made his way around the front of the truck. Flexing his lean muscles as he walked in an attempt to overcome the previous hour’s drive, Jesse saw something that caused him to stop in his tracks.

  A small, jagged hole in the shop’s front door glass put him instantly on alert. Looking up and down the sidewalk to make sure he wasn’t being observed, he then crossed the sidewalk and slowly pushed inside the shop.

  The place was a mess!

  “Somebody’s cleaned him out,” Jesse exclaimed under his breath, knowing that it was but one of the many plagues of big city life.

  Shrugging again, he called out to his friend.

  “How bad of a hurt did they put on you, Abe?” he yelled as he walked farther into the front room of the store. Glancing around, he saw that several of Abe’s antiques had been severely damaged.

  He was never going to hear the end of Abe’s ranting now!

  “Hey Abraham! Where ya at, you cantankerous old sot? We already agreed on a price for the valuation you know, so don’t be expecting a bonus just because someone broke up all of your stuff!”

  Although spoken with a smile, Jesse was beginning to get a little worried as he continued to walk through the front part of the severely damaged store. Having scoped out the whole of the shop, he decided to head to the rear of the store.

  “You hiding out back here?” Jesse called out before making his way through the old fabric that Abe used as a door to the back room.

  “Don’t be hitting me with that old baseball bat of yours either!”

  He was laughing as he spoke this, but as the curtains dropped away from his face he almost lost his breakfast at the sight before him. Sitting on a stool in front of him sat Abe with his shirt covered in blood!

  “Abe!” Jesse shouted as he moved quickly toward the old man. Laying his finger on the cold, dead neck of the man, he then realized Abraham was many hours past hearing him.

  Jesse jumped back quickly with the frightening realization that he had touched a dead body.

  It was his first.

  “Aw Jesus, Abe,” he whispered softly as he backed away slowly, “Who’d ya piss off this time?”

  Copyright 2013-2015 by J.T. Lewis

  *****

  Enjoy these other titles from J.T. Lewis in both e-books and paperback , available @ Amazon!

  The Adventures of Gabriel Celtic Series:

  Murder! Too Close To Home http://getbook.at/murder

  Gabriel’s Revenge http://getbook.at/Gabes_Revenge

  In Case Of Death http://getbook.at/In_Case_of_Death

  The Book of Gabriel http://getbook.at/BookOfGabriel

  Murmansk http://getbook.at/Murmansk

  The Nick Behr Mysteries: Being crazy is all fun and games…until someone dies…

  kidNAP Inc. http://getbook.at/kidNAPInc

  Falcon’s Pray http://getbook.at/Falcons_Pray

  The Artifact Hunter:

  The Artifact Hunter http://getbook.at/artifact_hunter

  The Snowdon Chronicles: A down-to-earth Homicide Detective in Portland, Hank is unprepared to accept the sudden realization that he is…in fact…a wizard!

  Ever Dead http://getbook.at/Ever_Dead

  (Also part of the Dark Faerie Tale, Young Adult series by Alexia Purdy)

  Acknowledgements

  There are so many people that I owe so much to in completing this project!

  Firstly of course to my wonderful wife Susan, whose constant support and patience is a real inspiration.

  I would like to credit my subjective Beta Reader, Christine Taylor, for keeping me on track and never falling in love with my stories. The mechanics of the book wouldn’t be there without her, and I will be forever grateful for her dedication to the craft.

  My other fantastic Beta Readers are a mixture of authors and friends, and I take something from each and every one of them as they review the work. Listed in the order of their feedback:

  K.R. Jordan (River)

  Susie Burkhart

  Tonya Waite Powell

  Ale
xia Purdy

  Amy Conley

  Garden Summerland

  Thank you all for your time and your inspirational feedback!

  J.T. Lewis

  *****

  Thanks for taking the time to read Gabriel’s Revenge,

  a murder suspense novel by JT Lewis; we hope you enjoyed it. As always, if you enjoyed this story, please leave a review and let the author know!