He didn’t see that face right away. Nearly every table was occupied and the pair of waitresses on duty scurried around at double speed, working even harder than usual, which was saying something. Edie didn’t have a lot of employees, but the ones she had were fiercely loyal to her and, like their boss, recognized the value of hard work.
After a moment Jack spotted Edie, her back turned, in the kitchen helping the overworked Three Squares cook deal with the morning rush. She was buttering toast like there was no tomorrow, and Jack grinned as he approached the cash register.
He raised his voice to be heard over the din of the busy restaurant and said, “What does a guy have to do to get a little service around here?”
Edie Tolliver spun on her heel, eyes flashing as she glared out toward the source of the complaint. “Just one moment, sir, and I’ll—”
A broad smile replaced her look of impatient annoyance. She turned back to the beleaguered cook and said something Jack couldn’t hear. The man nodded without looking up and Edie abandoned her post—just for a moment, Jack knew; he had seen this act played out before—and hurried through the swinging door to the register.
“Well, well, well,” she said, wiping her hands on an apron that had somehow managed to remain snowy white despite her hard work in the kitchen. “If it isn’t our very own world traveler. Decided to return to the scene of the crime?”
“I just couldn’t stay away, the coffee’s too good,” Jack answered as Edie stretched up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Fringe benefits aren’t so bad, either,” he said, mildly embarrassed by the attention but loving it.
The diners at the nearest tables, who had heard their exchange, chuckled and returned to their meals as Edie grabbed Jack by the elbow and turned him to face her straight on. She gasped and took a step back, concern clouding her beautiful blue eyes. “What the heck happened to you?” she said, tracing the gash lightly with her finger.
Jack had finally gotten the injury sutured last night after returning home, and the eighteen stitches it had taken to close the wound were joined by a nasty array of multi-colored bruises to make the right side of his face look like he had jammed it into a food processor.
“What, this little scratch?” he said lightly, removing her hand from his face and holding it in his. “Cut myself shaving, that’s all.”
“What do you shave with, a weed whacker? That looks deep.”
They shared a laugh and Jack said, “It’s not as bad as it looks, I promise. I can almost guarantee I’ll survive. As long as I can get one of your world-famous omelets in me ASAP, that is.”
Edie had begun squeezing his hand harder as their fingers were intertwined and it occurred to Jack out of nowhere that kissing this tiny, fiery, beautiful woman might be about the most important thing in the world right now.
So he did. He leaned her back on her heels, supporting her small body with his arms, and kissed her. It was hard and passionate, and after a half-second of undisguised shock—this was clearly not what Edie Tolliver had been expecting when preparing for work this morning—she returned his kiss with a fervor at least equal to his own.
They remained locked in an embrace for what felt to Jack simultaneously like hours and the barest fraction of a second. He became dimly aware of all sound fading away in the busy restaurant as patrons and workers alike stopped what they were doing and gazed in stunned surprise at the display unfolding at the front of the restaurant.
Approving whistles and a smattering of applause swept the dining room, and from a nearby table an elderly man with a head of hair nearly as pure white as Edie’s apron piped up and said, “Does that come with the breakfast service? Because I was only having coffee, but if it does I’ll take an order.” He ducked as his wife swiped at him good-naturedly with one hand.
They finally pulled apart. “I suppose this might be a good time to ask if you’d be interested in dinner and a movie this weekend.”
“I can’t,” Edie answered instantly, her face a blank. “I’m seeing someone.”
Jack’s heart fell into his stomach and then Edie burst out laughing. “Of course I’ll go out with you! I’ve been waiting for this for years; I was beginning to think I’d have to kidnap you to get your attention.”
He shook his head and grinned. For such a tiny woman, Edie Tolliver had an oversized personality and he loved it. “Well, you have my attention now. I’m pretty sure I won’t be thinking about anything else for the rest of the week.”
Edie laughed and Jack said, “Maybe we can find out what’s playing that a seven-year-old would enjoy and bring Janie along.” Jack had met Edie’s daughter several times at the diner and the little girl was the spitting image of her mother, right down to the big personality.
Edie’s eyes moistened, just a little. If Jack hadn’t been standing so close to her he would never have noticed. “That sounds wonderful,” she said.
He nodded happily. “It’s a date then,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ll repeat my original question. What the hell does a guy have to do to get some service in this joint?”
He turned away, laughing, as Edie took a swing at his shoulder. She missed and nearly corkscrewed herself into the floor. “Now, now,” he said. “None of that until at least the second date.”
She grabbed his hand and led him through the crowded restaurant to an open table. He was still just as hungry as he had been when he walked through the front door, but Jack realized he felt better at this very moment than he had in a very, very long time.
Epilogue
The man sat alone at a table in the rear of the dining room, sipping coffee and picking at his breakfast. He had been sipping coffee and picking at his breakfast for over an hour, had accepted refills on his coffee twice and had been ready to call it a day and try again tomorrow when the target came strolling through the door.
Finally.
The man had been hanging around town for days, waiting for his target to show. He’d never been to this town, knew nobody in the diner. But he guessed his presence here wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. A restaurant with food as good as this, located just a stone’s throw off Interstate 93, likely saw a steady stream of strangers and near-strangers all the time.
And he had figured right. After three straight days of breakfasts, and after more than an hour spent loitering at his table today, not a single person had looked at him crosswise, fortunately for them.
He sat with his black trench coat folded neatly over his lap, his fedora placed on the table next to the wall, and watched his target as the man got chummy—extremely chummy—with the owner of the Three Squares Diner. It was a heartwarming sight, one that brought tears to his eyes and a half-smile to his hawk-nosed face.
The man with the black trench coat was a sucker for a happy ending, although he would never have admitted it to anyone except his ex, and nobody who knew him even peripherally was likely to believe it, anyway.
But the facts were the facts, and he had a tendency to cry at the end of even the most pedestrian love stories. It got to the point where his wife, back when she still was his wife, nicknamed him “The Faucet,” a moniker that had annoyed the shit out of him but one that he had to admit, even now, had been justified.
So the man with the trench coat enjoyed this little impromptu love-fest as much as everyone else in the diner, even joining in the spontaneous applause that erupted during the enthusiastic lip-lock the couple shared way up by the front door.
This was interesting.
Very interesting.
And not just because the man firmly believed in the importance of love. It was interesting because all indications were that these two were either already a couple or were about to become one.
And that was a development of which the man had been previously unaware, despite what he believed had been exhaustive research into Jack Sheridan’s personal and professional history, research that had included classified government documents supposedly destroyed years ago.
The man sm
iled and sipped his coffee as the obviously smitten owner of the Three Squares Diner took Sheridan by the hand and led him to an unoccupied table. He made a mental note to delve back into his Internet research the moment he left here. It was suddenly critical he find out all he could about this beautiful young woman.
All in all, he thought to himself, this apparent budding romance had to be considered a positive development. It was better than nearly anything he could have hoped for, in fact. If true, it would certainly make his job easier.
Because a lifetime of professional experience had taught the man that a person with nothing to lose is virtually impossible to control. And that made sense. Someone unconcerned with his own fate would have no incentive to respond to threats.
But a man in love, well, that was a different story entirely. A man in love would do just about anything to save the people he cared about, even if—maybe even especially if—he didn’t care what happened to himself.
Very interesting, indeed.
The man with the trench coat drained his coffee and reached for his fedora, never taking his eyes off the happy couple trading barbs and smiling at each other no more than ten feet away. Sheridan had wrapped his arm protectively around the young woman’s waist as they walked and she was looking up at him with shining eyes.
He dropped a twenty on the table and turned toward the door, squeezing past Sheridan and the unknown woman with a polite nod. He had work to do—specific work relating to this small business owner and her relationship to his target—and there was no time like the present, as his old man used to say. Before long he would know all there was to know about this suddenly important young woman, and then the plan he and his employer had hatched would begin coming together.
The man walked out the diner’s front door into the bright May sunshine, trench coat folded over one arm. He thought about the impromptu reunion between Sheridan and the young woman and found himself tearing up again. It wasn’t often you got to witness a truly spontaneous, loving moment like that. It had been a happy ending straight out of a Hollywood movie.
And he really did love happy endings.
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Jack Sheridan returns in his second novel, Trigger Warning: A Jack Sheridan Pulp Thriller. To be the first to learn about new releases, and for the opportunity to win free ebooks, signed copies of print books, and other swag, take a moment to sign up for Allan Leverone’s email newsletter at AllanLeverone.com.
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Acknowledgements
I cannot state strongly enough how grateful I am for the love and support of my family. My wife Sue and my three grown children—Stefanie, Kristin and Craig—have been behind me fully and unquestioningly in my journey as a writer, and their support makes the toughest days bearable and the best days magical. My granddaughter Arianna isn’t quite sure what to make of me writing books, but she loves reading them, and that’s good enough for me.
Editor Dan Persinger is a no-nonsense guy. He’s also knowledgeable, prompt and professional, and a man of the highest integrity. If you find an error in spelling, grammar or usage in this book, I guarantee it’s either because I missed one of his edits, or I ignored it like the damned fool I am.
The cover art for The Organization was designed and rendered by Kealan Patrick Burke of Elderlemon Design. Kealan’s a talented and award-winning author in his own right who also has been doubly blessed with incredible design skills. I told him I wanted a throwback cover, something that could have graced a pulp paperback genre novel from half a century ago. He delivered everything I asked for and more.
Last but never least, I want to thank you, the reader. Trying to carve out an audience in the minefield that is modern fiction writing can be a soul-crushing experience, but readers like you who shell out their hard-earned cash to give my work a chance are always in the forefront of my mind when I’m writing. You owe no writer anything, and I’m always humbled and appreciative when you consider my work worthy of your time.
Thank you for your continued support, and I’ll talk to you again soon.
__________
Also from Allan Leverone
Thrillers:
Parallax View: A Tracie Tanner Thriller
All Enemies: A Tracie Tanner Thriller
The Omega Connection: A Tracie Tanner Thriller
The Hitler Deception: A Tracie Tanner Thriller
The Kremlyov Infection: A Tracie Tanner Thriller
The Bashkir Extraction: A Tracie Tanner Thriller
Final Vector
The Lonely Mile
Trigger Warning: A Jack Sheridan Pulp Thriller
Death Perception: A Jack Sheridan Pulp Thriller
Horror/Dark Thrillers
Mr. Midnight
After Midnight
Paskagankee
Revenant: A Paskagankee Novel Book Two
Wellspring: A Paskagankee Novel Book Three
Grimoire: A Paskagankee Novel Book Four
Linger: Mark of the Beast (written with Edward Fallon)
Novellas
The Becoming
Flight 12: A Kristin Cunningham Thriller
Story Collections
Postcards from the Apocalypse
Uncle Brick and the Four Novelettes
Letters from the Asylum: Three Complete Novellas
The Tracie Tanner Collection: Three Complete Thriller Novels
The Organization Page 17