Paperback ISBNs:
ISBN-10: 1-947606-00-X
ISBN-13: 978-1-947606-00-5
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Edited by Aaron Bearden
Designed by Tim Flanagan
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Books by Michael Lister
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(Remington James Novels)
Double Exposure
(includes intro by Michael Connelly)
Separation Anxiety
Blood Shot
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(John Jordan Novels)
Power in the Blood
Blood of the Lamb
Flesh and Blood
(Special Introduction by Margaret Coel)
The Body and the Blood
Blood Sacrifice
Rivers to Blood
Innocent Blood
(Special Introduction by Michael Connelly)
Blood Money Blood Moon
Blood Cries
Blood Oath
Blood Work
Cold Blood
Blood Betrayal
Blood Shot
Blood Ties
Blood Trail
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(Jimmy “Soldier” Riley Novels)
The Big Goodbye
The Big Beyond
The Big Hello
The Big Bout
The Big Blast
In a Spider’s Web (short story)
The Big Book of Noir
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(Merrick McKnight / Reggie Summers Novels)
Thunder Beach
A Certain Retribution
Blood Oath
Blood Shot
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(Sam Michaels / Daniel Davis Novels)
Burnt Offerings
Separation Anxiety
Blood Oath
Cold Blood
Blood Shot
(Love Stories)
Carrie’s Gift
(Short Story Collections)
North Florida Noir
Florida Heat Wave
Delta Blues
Another Quiet Night in Desperation
(The Meaning Series)
Meaning Every Moment
The Meaning of Life in Movies
Sign up for Michael’s newsletter by clicking here or go to
www.MichaelLister.com and receive a free book.
* * *
Sign up for Michael’s newsletter by clicking here or go to
www.MichaelLister.com and receive a free book.
Acknowledgments
Thank you for all your incredible, generous assistance in the creating of this novel”
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Dawn Lister, Aaron Bearden, Mike Harrison, Donnie “Spanky” Arnold, and Bobby “Banjo” Whitehurst
For Sheriff Mike Harrison
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Your generosity with your time, expertise, and great ideas makes each of my books immeasurably better.
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You honor the badge, your family, our community, and the WHS Class of ’86. Go Gators!
Author’s Note
Blood Shot is a sequel to both Double Exposure and the John Jordan series. The book alternates between “Then” and “Now” chapters. “Then” chapters contain selected passages from Double Exposure. The “Now” chapters contain John Jordan’s current investigation of the events in Double Exposure. If you have recently read Double Exposure, you might prefer to skim or skip over the “Then” chapters—though, of course, I hope you won’t. If you haven’t read Double Exposure, I hope you’ll not only read the “Then” chapters, but consider reading that novel after reading this one. Regardless of how you read this or any other of my novels, I truly appreciate that you are.
1
Then
* * *
Evening.
Fall. North Florida.
Bruised sky above rusted rim of earth.
Black forest backlit by plum-colored clouds. Receding glow. Expanding dark.
Deep in the cold woods of the Apalachicola River Basin, Remington James slowly makes his way beneath a canopy of pine and oak and cypress trees along a forest floor of fallen pine straw, wishing he’d worn a better jacket, his Chippewa snake boots slipping occasionally, unable to find footing on the slick surface.
Above him, a brisk breeze whistles through the branches, swaying the treetops in an ancient dance, raining down dead leaves and pine needles.
It’s his favorite time of day in his favorite time of year, his family’s hunting lease his favorite place to hide from the claustrophobia of small-town life increasingly closing in on him.
* * *
Screams.
He hears what sounds like human screams from a great distance away, but can’t imagine anyone else is out here and decides it must be an animal or the type of aural illusion that occurs so often when he’s alone this deep in the disorienting woods.
Still, it unnerves him. Especially when . . . There it is again.
Doesn’t sound like any animal he’s ever heard, and he finds it far more disquieting than any sound he’s ever encountered out here.
It’s not a person, he tells himself. It’s not. Can’t be. But even if it were, you’d never be able to find anyone out here.
The sound stops . . . and he continues.
* * *
One good shot.
Even closing the shop early—something his dad never did, particularly during hunting season—he has only the narrowest of margins, like the small strip of light from a slightly open door, in which there will be enough illumination for exposure.
The drive out to the edge of his family’s land; the ATV ride into the river swamp; the walk through acres of browning, but still thick, foliage—all close the door even more, but all he wants is to check his camera traps and get one good shot with his new camera.
He’ll trudge as far as he can, search as long as he can—capturing the image at the last possible moment, stumbling back in full dark if he has to. Given the circumstances of his current condition and the lack of choices he has, there’s nothing he’d rather be doing, no way he’d rather spend his few short evening hours than in pursuit of the perfect picture.
* * *
Loss.
Emptiness. Numbness.
His dad dying so young has filled the facade of Remington’s life with tiny fissures, a fine spider’s web of hairline fractures threatening collapse and crumble.
Facade or foundation? Maybe it’s not just the surface of his life, but the core that’s cracking. He isn’t sure and he doesn’t want to think about it, though part of him believes he comes alone to the woods so he’ll be forced to do just that.
He’s wanted to be an adventure photographer for over a decade, but pulling the trigger now, making the investment, obsessively spending every free moment in its pursuit, in the wake of his dad’s death, the wake that still rocks the little lifeboat of his existence, is a fearful man’s frenzied attempt at mitigating mortality—and he knows it. He just doesn’t know what else to do.
Heather could tell him.
2
Now
* * *
Some unsolved cases are like unanswered questions.
Not casual curiosities, but obsessive, relentlessly repeated questions nagging mercilessly at the edges of everything else.
Others are like open wounds.
Seeping, susceptible-to-infection lacerations incapable of healing without intense treatment.
Who killed Robin Wilson, the previous sheriff of Gulf County, and four of his men-- with their own guns-- has always been the unanswered question type of unsolved case, but why Remington James was hunted down like an animal in the woods and who killed him in cold blood has always been more of the open wound kind of unsolved case.
Both haunt me. But in different ways.
One is incessant questions.
Who’s the killer? Why’d he do it? How’d he do it? How’d he get away with it? Did he have help? Was there a cover-up?
For those of us charged with answering questions, with bearing witness, with giving some sort of narrative cohesiveness to the seemingly arbitrary and accidental elements of an unfinished story, the unanswered questions of an unsolved crime stalk us, mock us, gnaw at us.
The other is an open, unhealed wound.
Since I joined the Gulf County Sheriff’s department, I have been obsessed with one unsolved case more than any other. What exactly happened out in the unforgiving swamp during Remington James’ long, dark night of the soul troubles me in a way that few mysteries have.
Who killed Remington James? Not who pulled the trigger. Who was behind it? And why?
One possible answer—and one that only adds to the enigma—is that he witnessed the murder of a young woman out in the swamps where he had his camera traps set up—something he claimed to have happened in a message he left behind—but no evidence of such a crime has ever been found.
Did Remington make up the story about the murdered woman? If not, why hasn’t she been found? Or was she? If she was, who found her and what’d they do with her body?
* * *
Everything changes with a single phone call.
For nearly a year I have been pleading with Heather James, Remington's widow, to talk to me, to help me find out what really happened to Remington and who was really behind it.
She declined each and every request I made—politely at first, but later with forceful rudeness, and eventually with complete silence.
And then after ignoring me for months, she calls me.
“I’m in town,” she says. “I’d like to talk.”
“Okay. When? Where?”
“I’m emailing you a manuscript. I’ve been working with a local writer to tell the truth about what really happened to Remington. Take a look at it and we’ll talk. How’s tomorrow?”
“Fine,” I say. “Why now? What changed?”
“I’ll explain when we meet.”
“Okay.”
“The manuscript is based on everything I’ve been able to piece together from the evidence, the original investigation, and what Remington left behind. We don’t have an ending yet. Not really. Not one that explains things in any satisfactory kind of way. I’m hoping you can help with that. I know you’ve been working on the case.”
“I have, but the original investigation was . . .”
“A fuckin’ joke,” she says. “You figured out whether it was ineptitude or cover-up?”
“I have some ideas.”
“I look forward to hearing them,” she says. “Talk to you tomorrow.”
Without saying goodbye or anything else she hangs up.
3
Then
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Heather.
Like longing for home while being lost in the woods, all his thoughts these days lead back to her.
She had called when he was driving the ATV off the trailer, preparing to venture farther in the forest than his dad’s truck could take him. Like the truck and trailer and the life he’s now living, the ATV belongs to his father. Had belonged. Now it’s his.
He was surprised by the vibrating of the phone in his pocket, certain he was too far in for signal. Another few feet, another moment later, and he would’ve been.
When he sees her name displayed on the small screen—Heather—he feels, as he always does lately, the conflicting emotions of joy and dread.
—Hello.
Light, photography’s most essential element, is bleeding out; the day will soon be dead. Time is light, and he has little of either to spare. Still, he has no thought of not answering the phone.
—You okay?
—Yeah. Why?
—For some reason, I just started worrying about you.
With those few words, the day grows colder, the forest darker. Heather gets feelings—the kind that in an earlier age would get her staked to the ground and set afire—and they’re almost always right.
—You there? she asks.
—I’m here.
In his mind, she is wearing lavender, and it highlights her delicate features in the way it rests on the soft petals of the flower she’s named after. She smells of flowers, too, and it’s intoxicating—even within the confines of his imagination.
—Where are you? I can barely hear you.
—Woods. We’re hanging by a single small bar of signal, he says, thinking it an apt metaphor for their tenuous connection.
He pictures her in the small gallery just down from the Rollins College campus in Winter Park, the sounds of the Amtrak train clacking down the track in the background, the desultory sounds of lazy evening traffic easing by her open door, and it reminds him just how far away she is.
—I’m sure you think that’s some kind of metaphor.
—You don’t?
—I don’t think like you. Never have.
—Never said you should.
—You’re okay?
—I’m fine. Just here to check my traps and try out my new camera.
—Well, be careful.
—Always am.
—Good.
—Got one of your feelings?
—I’m not sure.
—Either you do or you don’t.
—Not always. Sometimes they have to . . . how can I put this . . . develop.
—Funny.
—Just trying to speak a language you understand.
He needs to go, but doesn’t want to.
—Be extra careful, she says, and I’ll call you if anything develops.
—I won’t have signal.
—’Til when?
—’Til I get back. Hour or so after dark.
—Maybe you shouldn’t go.
—You tell me. I don’t have a feeling one way or the other.
—I’m so glad you’re lensing again. Don’t want to stop you.
She had always been encouraging of his photography, including letting him take nudes of her starting when they met in college and continuing into their lives together. Even when he wasn’t taking pictures of anything else, he was taking pictures of her.
They are quiet a beat, and he misses her so much, the day grows even colder, the vast expanse of river swamp lonelier.
—We gonna make it? she asks, her voice small, airy, tentative.
—You don’t have a feeling about that?
—I’m not ready to let go. I can’t.
—Then don’t.
—But . . .
—What?
—I don’t know. We’re not gonna figure it out right now, and you’re losing light. Call me when you get home.
As is her custom, she hangs up without saying goodbye.
He smiles. Glad. Grateful. Goodbye is something he never wants to hear from her. Back when they first started dating, he’d asked her why she never said it. Because, she’d explained, we’re in the midst of one long, ongoing conversation. I don’t want that to end.
She didn’t say amen after her prayers either.
4
Now
* * *
“I want to reopen the Remington James case,” I say.
“I thought you already had,” Reggie says.
We are in her office in the back of the sheriff’s department, which is behind the Gulf County Court House in Port St. Joe, on a laid back Monday morning in early April, the AC on.
Reggie Summers is the sheriff of Gulf County and my boss. She was appointed by the governor after Robin Wilson, the previous sheriff, and four of his men were murdered. She is smart and tough and honest and the reason I took this job. A natural beauty, no drama cowgirl, she has smooth skin the color of river clay that she never ever covers with makeup, long, straight brownish hair perpetually in a ponytail, and mesmerizing eyes.
“I mean really reopen it,” I say. “Give it priority until we s
olve it or something comes up that pulls us off of it.”
“What else are you working on right now?”
“Not much. Testifying in court in a few upcoming cases, looking for Daniel and Randa, still tracking down records on the Alison fraud case. It’d be a good time for me to really dig into it.”
She purses her lips and seems to consider it, her gray-green eyes narrowing in focus on things I can’t see.
For reasons that remain a mystery to me, she has always seemed reluctant to let me really investigate this case—though not half as reluctant and actually resistant as she is about the Robin Wilson case, which is why I’m not even going to mention that I plan to investigate both of them together because I think they could be connected.
“Is there some reason you don’t want me to?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Why would there be? Just comes down to managing the department and its resourses.”
Reggie’s office remains bare, only half-moved-in, and I wonder if it’s an expression of her oft-stated feeling that this is a temporary gig, that she really doesn’t feel at home here. I know she believes the citizens of Gulf County won’t elect a female sheriff, and she may be right, but something about her refusal to really move in and make this her office and her department makes it seem like she’s not sure she’ll even make it to her first election.
“You’re my best investigator,” she says. “Is this the best use of your time?”
The Remington James Box Set Page 18