The Lonely Mile
Page 23
He reached up to catch the football one-handed, wrenching his injured arm, and nearly falling backward out of his chair onto the lawn, when a plain-blue Chevrolet Caprice turned into the apartment parking lot. Gravel crunched under the tires as the driver pulled the vehicle into an empty space and killed the engine.
Bill lofted the football toward the vehicle, and its driver leapt out of the car and caught it on the fly like the tight end he had once been. Instead of passing it back, though, Mike Miller tucked the ball into the crook of his arm and carried it toward Bill and Carli, stopping in front of them with a grin. “I was afraid to pass it to you. Don’t want to get sued for knocking you onto your back and busting your stitches while I’m on duty,” he explained.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Bill shot back. “I took on two psychopaths with guns, remember? I can handle one Feeb.”
“Remember? How could I forget? The entire Bureau will have to sit through lectures and training films about your little adventure for years.”
“Hey, don’t forget about me!” Carli chimed in. “I helped, too.” She bounded up behind Miller and wrenched the football out of his arms.
“Care to join us for dinner?” Bill asked. “I just happen to have an extra steak in the fridge upstairs. It might take me a while to get it with these crutches, but maybe my hero, the young lady who pulled my butt out of the fire, would be willing to handle that chore for me.”
“That would be great!” Carli enthused. “Join us! It will only take a second to get the third steak, and we just started cooking, really!”
Bill laughed. His daughter’s attraction to the agent was obvious, both to him as well as to Miller, and he waited a moment, enjoying the man’s obvious discomfort. Finally, he said, “You know, Carli, Agent Miller just told us he was still on duty. He probably only has a couple of minutes to spare.”
“Yes!” Miller agreed. “Just a couple of minutes. Maybe another time, though,” he added quickly when he saw Carli’s dejected expression.
“So, what can we do for you?” Bill asked, knowing already what the answer would be.
“I thought you might like an update on the case.”
“Yeah, we would. Shoot. No, wait, let me rephrase that. I don’t think I like that expression anymore. Let’s try this one: Go ahead.”
Miller laughed. “Remember I told you we had a very young-looking agent from the Albany Field Office who was going to be our decoy during the exchange?”
“Of course,” Bill and Carli answered in unison.
“Well, Agent Adkins played the part of the teenage damsel in distress perfectly.” Carli playfully slapped at his arm and he ducked out of harm’s way. “She acted completely helpless. Nothing at all like Carli,” he added as he dodged another body blow.
“That’s more like it,” she sniffed indignantly.
“Anyway,” Miller continued, “Two men came to gather ‘Carli,’ arriving at the storage area about two hours after our fake Krall tied her up and left her inside. One of the men stayed in the car to cover the storage shed’s entrance while the other went inside to collect their prize. We disabled the man outside the shed as soon as the other one disappeared from view and took the second man down without incident immediately afterward.
“The whole operation went off without a hitch and took no more than three minutes from beginning to end, once the bad guys got there. It was really pretty boring compared to what you two went through.”
“Boring is good,” Bill said simply.
“Absolutely. The best part, though, is that the two men we apprehended were just foot soldiers, hired muscle who have absolutely no interest in taking the fall for their employers. They’re singing like proverbial canaries. We believe we will be able to use the information they are giving us to take down a lot of very bad people.
“Do you remember what I told you in the hospital?” Miller asked Bill. “You know, about more cockroaches crawling out from under more rocks to take the place of the ones we capture?”
“I remember,” Bill said. “And it still ticks me off.”
“Amen to that. And I’m still certain it will happen, eventually. But we’re in the process of knocking a very big hole in this particular venture. It’s going to be a long, long time before anyone can ramp up a similar operation. We owe you a debt of gratitude, not that you’ll ever get it from the Bureau. If my bosses find out I said this, I’ll deny it, but last week, you two saved innumerable young women from suffering lives of untold misery. You should be commended. Unofficially, of course. Officially,” Miller said, grinning at Bill, “what you did—going after a serial rapist-slash-murderer on your own—was foolish and irresponsible and cannot be condoned under any circumstances.” He sounded like he was reading from a script.
Bill laughed. “‘Foolish and irresponsible.’ Now you sound like my ex-wife.”
“Speaking of ex-wives…” Carli interrupted.
“Yes?” Bill said. “Do you have a deep, dark secret you need to confess? Perhaps an ex-wife of your own stashed away somewhere?”
Carli laughed. “No, silly, I was referring to your ex-wife, specifically. You know, my mom.”
Agent Miller began edging toward his car. “This sounds personal. I should probably be going.”
“No, stay, just for another couple of minutes,” Carli begged. “I want you to hear this, too.”
Miller stopped backing up, and he and Bill waited expectantly for more. Carli took a deep breath and continued. “I’ve decided what I want to do with my life.”
“Awesome. But what does this have to do with your mom?”
“I need you to convince her I’m serious.”
“Okay, fair enough. Serious about what, exactly?’
“I want to get into law enforcement.”
Bill smiled as Miller whooped. “Hey,” the agent said, “Welcome to the team!” He gave her a high five. “How soon can you start?”
“Uh, I think I need to graduate high school first. Unless—”
“There’s no ‘unless,’” Bill laughed. “Yes, you need to finish high school. Then, get a college degree. Then, after that, if your goal is to pursue a career in law enforcement, I’m sure we can convince your mom to go along.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Carli said. “She hasn’t stopped hovering since I came home.”
“That’ll change,” Bill said. “You were incredibly, unbelievably lucky to escape with your life, and it’s going to take some time for everyone—your mom especially—to come to grips with what happened to you. But I guarantee that, if you decide you want to dedicate your life to a career in law enforcement, your mom will be just like me: crazy proud, and supporting you all the way.
“In the meantime,” Bill said, “I believe these steaks are just about grilled to perfection. And in light of this big news,” he winked at Miller, “I’d like to extend our offer of dinner one more time to Agent Miller. We’ve got ice-cold soda inside, not to mention coffee, and baked potatoes, and corn on the cob. What do you say?”
“You had me at ‘steak.’ Besides, I think I’d better start getting to know my future partner a little better. I’m in!”
Carli beamed, and Bill expertly speared the steaks with a long grilling fork, flipping them onto a serving tray in one smooth motion. He handed the platter to his daughter and settled onto his crutches, ready to tackle the narrow stairs up to his tiny apartment where they would add another place setting at the small kitchen table. The place was cramped and hot, and it was the scene of a memory of Angela Canfield that he would just as soon forget.
But, right now, none of that mattered. Carli was alive, and she was going to be fine, and that was all that mattered.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I’ve been fascinated by the power of the written word my whole life, penning my first thriller somewhere around the age of ten. In this short story, a young man gets lost in the woods during a fierce winter snowstorm and his body is found months
later huddled against a tree, a single teardrop frozen onto his dead cheek. I suppose this gives you a fairly accurate insight into my genre sensibilities.
I attended the University of Notre Dame with the intention of majoring in newspaper journalism before changing direction after my freshman year and majoring in Business Administration, a degree I received in 1981 and have to this day never put to use.
After graduation, and despite having never set foot inside an airplane, I was hired by the Federal Aviation Administration and began training as an air traffic controller, a job I have held ever since, working in Providence, Rhode Island, Bangor, Maine, and, for the last twenty years controlling traffic at Boston’s Logan International Airport.
I am a proud member of the International Thriller Writers, New England Horror Writers and Short Mystery Fiction Society, I live in Londonderry, New Hampshire with my beautiful wife of nearly thirty years, Sue, our three children, one granddaughter, and Midnight the Miracle Cat, who has survived more adventures than the rest of us combined.
Electronic Edition Copyright ©2011 by Allan Leverone
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.
StoneHouse Ink 2011
StoneHouse Ink
Nampa ID 83686
http://www.stonehouseink.net
First eBook Edition: 2011
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover design by Fuji Aamabreorn
Published in the United States of America
StoneHouse Ink
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FRONT MATTER
Praise for Allan Leverone
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FRONT MATTER
Praise for Allan Leverone