* * * * *
When the big man in the leather vest finally came to, he found himself kneeling on the floor with his hands tied behind him, staring down at a toilet bowl that had been filled almost to the brim with water. When he tried to move his feet, he found that they were also tightly bound. A man was standing slightly behind him, keeping him from falling over by holding the back of his collar with one hand. The man leaned down and whispered in his ear, “Good morning, sunshine,” right before plunging his head into the water. Several seconds later, his head was pulled out, and he sputtered and coughed in an attempt to get the water out of his nose and breathe in fresh air.
“I don’t like surprises, sunshine,” the man continued. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Either you tell me who sent you, and what they told you to do, or I can continue to clean the toilet with your head. Personally, since I don’t take room service, the toilet needs to be cleaned, so I’m kinda hopin’ you don’t tell me right away what I wanna know.”
The man on his knees uttered a muffled, “Mmmmh,” while shaking his head from side to side.
His head went under the water again, this time for a slightly longer period. Once he was topside, he sputtered and coughed considerably before he started talking.
“I tell you, and he could kill me.”
“Well, sunshine, it’s like this. You tell me what I wanna know, and he may kill you. You don’t tell me, then – unless you’re part fish – you ain’t gonna have to worry about what your boss might do to you ever again. Capiche?”
Without any wait for a reply, the man’s head was plunged back under the water for another minute, before finally being allowed to come up for air.
“O.k., o.k., I’ll talk!” the man finally exclaimed. “His name is Banak. I’ve never seen him. He told me to keep you tied up until noon tomorrow, nothin’ else.”
“And how do I get in touch with this ‘Banak’?”
“I don’t know. He contacts me when he needs me to do something. I do it, I get paid for it. I swear I don’t know nothin’ else!”
Jimmy grabbed the back of the man’s hair and pulled him close enough so that Jimmy’s mouth was right next to his ear, and whispered to him.
“You know what, sunshine...? I believe you.”
He pushed the bound man down next to the tub and walked out of the bathroom, taking the phone out of his pocket and dialing a number as he went.
* * * * *
The Carlsons’ SUV was pulled up in front of the Westward Look Grand Resort and Spa. The valet got out and ran inside. Moments later, he was wheeling out a luggage cart, and followed by the Carlsons. The little girl was standing next to her mother, and she got into the back seat of the SUV on the passenger’s side when her mother opened the door for her. Mr. Carlson got into the driver’s side, and his wife sat in the passenger’s seat in the front.
A large delivery truck pulled up beside the SUV and stopped. The driver came around the back and opened the delivery truck’s rear doors, stacking two boxes on a hand truck and wheeling them inside the hotel. At the Carlsons’ SUV, the valet was just finishing the process of loading their luggage into the back. Once he loaded the last piece, he shut the back door and tapped twice on the glass. The luggage had been packed almost to the ceiling. Typical rich people, John thought to himself, always bringing too much luggage that other people have to carry around for them. He smiled as he thought about what was about to happen to the Carlson family.
Moments later, the SUV pulled away from the hotel and proceeded down the driveway to the main road. John Fitzgerald Robbins lowered his binoculars and put his car in gear. He began slowly driving towards the resort’s main entrance, timing it precisely so that he arrived just after the Carlsons’ SUV had pulled onto the main road. He settled in behind them about 100 yards back, following their every turn as they began making their way to the airport.
His plan was to hit them on South Kino Parkway, between East Aviation and I-10, right before the I-10 on ramp. Then he could jump onto I-10 and be gone before the cops arrived. He placed his right hand into the duffel back sitting on the seat beside him and caressed the Glock 19 nine millimeter handgun. With its standard 15 round clip, it would be more than enough to finish the job.
The Carlsons’ SUV turned off of East Aviation onto South Kino Parkway, and John began closing the space between them. He lowered the driver’s side window and began speeding up. The Carlsons were in the lane closest to the median, perfect for a kill shot at the little girl if she was still seated on the passenger’s side of the vehicle.
He pulled into the right hand lane and quickly scanned ahead of them. There wasn’t another vehicle between them and I-10 going in this direction. It was now or never. John could feel his pulse speeding up as he punched the accelerator. He felt the engine kick into overdrive as he pulled up almost even with the SUV, and then he grabbed the Glock, pointed it at the SUV, and fired three rounds into the back passenger door.
The SUV swerved slightly and then sped up. John floored the accelerator, moving in for another shot. He got off one more round before the SUV swerved into him, hitting the front of his car hard. The force slammed him into the door and he dropped the Glock. The SUV continued to push his car until his front tires went off of the road and into the dirt. The car was almost sideways now as John struggled to regain control of the vehicle. The speed he was traveling at, in combination with the sudden change of direction, caused the car to flip into the air. It rolled over twice before it finally came to a rest upside-down, a few hundred feet farther down South Kino Parkway.
The SUV pulled over onto the side of the road in the emergency lane. Detective Brian Johansen got out and began walking back towards the overturned vehicle. As he did, he took out his cell phone and dialed 911.
Chapter Eleven
There was a knock at the front door as Jimmy and Sarah were finishing up their lunch.
“I wonder who that could be?” asked his sister.
“I’ll get it,” Jimmy replied, already in the process of getting up.
He peered through the security viewer in the door and saw Detective Johansen standing outside the door.
“It’s for me, Sarah. I’ll be out on the porch for a few minutes,” he called back over his shoulder as he opened the door and stepped outside.
“Did it work?”
“Like a charm,” replied the detective. “I have to hand it to you. I thought you were full of it, to begin with. I didn’t think it would work.”
“So this degenerate is in custody now?”
“Well, in a manner of speaking. He’s on life support in the hospital. He had a nasty crash after I ran him off the road when he was shooting at me.”
“Good for you.”
“The au pair I.D.’d him as the perp who tried to drown Angelica the other day, so he’s not going anywhere except to jail, once he gets out of the hospital.”
“Are the Carlsons headed out of town now?”
“I dropped them off at the airport on the way over here. That was a good idea to have them exit the other side of the vehicle and get into the cab of the delivery truck. Even if this guy was watching them get in the SUV, he never would have seen the switch. Thanks for the idea.”
“Well, I’m just glad you caught the guy.”
“You take care, Jimmy O’Conner; I owe you one,” the detective said as he extended his hand.
“And don’t think I won’t remember that, detective,” Jimmy replied, shaking his hand in return. He watched the detective walk back to his car, and then went back inside.
“Who was that, Jimmy?” Sarah asked from the kitchen.
“Just a guy I know that I did a favor for. He wanted to thank me.”
* * * * *
The next morning, Jimmy woke up to the sound of Sarah’s phone ringing. He looked over at the clock and saw it was 4:30 a.m. A few moments later he heard Sarah walking down
the hall as she called out his name.
“Jimmy!” she called out excitedly, throwing open the door to his bedroom without remembering to knock, “they say they have a heart for me! We have to go to the hospital right now!”
* * * * *
The next few hours were a blur. Jimmy drove Sarah to the hospital, where she was prepped for surgery. He waited with her in pre-op until they came to wheel her into the operating room, and then he moved to the waiting room. Several hours went by before one of the surgeons came out to talk to him.
“Mr. O’Conner, I have some good news for you,” the doctor began. As he heard the words come out of the doctor’s mouth, Jimmy felt as if a huge weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. “Your sister made it through the surgery just fine, and there were no complications.”
“That’s great, doc. When can I talk to her?”
“She’ll be in recovery for a while before you’ll be able to speak to her. The nurse will come out and let you know when you can go back. I have to say, Mr. O’Conner, I’ve never seen a donor heart match so closely with a transplant recipient. It’s amazing that it came from a car crash victim, right here in Tucson. It’s a real miracle.”
“Thanks, doc. Thanks for giving me the good news.”
As the doctor left, Jimmy couldn’t help but wonder if the crash victim the doctor had been referring to was the man that Detective Johansen had run off the road. He took out the business card the detective had given him, and dialed the number on his cell phone. After three rings, he answered.
“Detective Johansen here.”
“Detective? Jimmy O’Conner here. Say, I wanted to ask you how that guy was doin’ at the hospital?”
“He didn’t make it. It was the head injury. They pulled the plug on him this morning.”
“I’d say that’s too bad, but I’d be lyin’.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Anyway, was there something else you needed?”
“No, nothing else. I was just curious an’ all. Have a good one.”
“You, too.”
* * * * *
In another part of the hospital, a records clerk approached the ICU ward nurse station.
“I’m here to collect the personal belongings for a Mr. John Fitzgerald Robbins,” she said as she looked at the name on the form in her hand.
The nurse at the desk stood up and walked to a small closet, returning momentarily with a plastic bag, which she sat on the counter in front of the record’s clerk along with a form on a clip-board.
“I need you to sign here,” the nurse said as she pointed to the signature line on the form.
As the record’s clerk reached for the pen to sign her name, she accidentally knocked the bag off of the counter and onto the floor.
“Ahh, clumsy me,” she said. As she bent down to pick up the items from the floor, she noticed the driver’s license had slipped out of the wallet. When she picked it up, she saw something else.
“Wasn’t this the guy that died, and they gave his heart to that lady here in Tucson?”
“I think so, why?” asked the nurse.
“Somebody messed up. The license doesn’t say he’s an organ donor. Boy, his family is gonna freak if they find out.”
The nurse took the license out of the clerk’s hand and looked at it, and then she began pecking away on the computer keyboard on the counter in front of her for several seconds.
“Sure enough, they have him down as an organ donor right here in the system. Somebody must have fat-fingered that. Anyway, he doesn’t have any family. His parents are deceased and he was an only child – looks like he’s unmarried, too.”
“Should we report it?” the clerk asked.
“A guy who was brain-dead with no family gave his heart to save a woman’s life. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see any license,” said the nurse, throwing up her hands in absolution.
“I probably just looked at it wrong anyway,” the clerk replied as she put the license back in the wallet. She signed the paperwork, took the bag with the belongings, and headed out the door.
* * * THE END * * *
The following is a preview chapter of
The Seer
Book #1 in the Paranormal Gift series
by C.L. Wells
Chapter One
Waves crashed against the rocks in a deafening chorus of nature’s fury as the sea lashed the Tillamook Lighthouse mercilessly. The storm had been in full force for about an hour now and Dan Moses was hoping the generator house wouldn’t get flooded again. Occasionally, one of the really big waves would hit and he’d feel the vibrations from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
He had retreated to the main keeper’s quarters where he sat in his favorite chair, waiting out the tempest that raged outside. He’d given up on reading, which was what he usually did to wait out the lesser storms that frequented the area. As the next big wave hit and he felt the ground beneath him shake, he remembered one of the stories he had read about in the history of the lighthouse, from the great storm of 1934. During that storm, the lighthouse had been repeatedly submerged by the onslaught of waves. Sixty-pound boulders had been spewed forth from the ocean and crashed through the roof of the lighthouse. The watch room had been repeatedly flooded, the water rising up to the necks of the watchmen before finally draining out of the entrance door to the tower below them. They had been unable to leave the tower for the duration of the storm, which had lasted four days. Dan hoped this storm wouldn’t escalate to that level. At almost sixty, he was getting too old for this.
Suddenly the violent assault of the waves ceased. The wind continued to howl as it forced its way around the buildings and he could hear the rain falling, but not a single wave could be heard hitting the shore or crashing into the lighthouse tower. Dan opened his eyes and sat up straight. He sensed a presence he hadn’t felt in decades and he was instantly afraid. Seconds before he would have laughed at the idea that there was another living soul on this island besides himself. Now he was just as certain that he was no longer alone. He strained to hear anything that might indicate where his visitor could be.
Dan slowly pushed himself up from his chair and backed up against the wall, looking from side to side as he did so. He startled himself as his back touched the wall and then exhaled in relief when he realized what he had done. When a knock came at the door, he snapped to attention once more.
Slowly crossing the room, he drew back the bolt on the door. He reached down and grasped the door handle. As he briefly closed his eyes, he inhaled and exhaled slowly to brace himself for what he was about to encounter. Reluctantly, but with finality, he opened his eyes and turned the door knob.
Before he could open the door of his own accord, the wind blew it open, hurling him back onto the floor. As he turned back towards the door, the lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating a hulking figure as it crossed the threshold and took a step towards where he lay. He brought an arm up defensively as he let out a startled cry, but the figure advanced no further. Instead, a large hand reached down and took hold of his own, effortlessly pulling him to his feet.
Dan stood and stared at the figure before him, unsure of what was going to happen next. It was the Keeper, just as he had suspected. Their first encounter had been a violent one that Dan wasn’t anxious to repeat. He stared at the Keeper’s face unblinkingly and waited.
The Keeper held Dan’s hand and stared back at him. At six foot seven, with shoulders wide enough to fill the largest of doorways, the Keeper towered over Dan. He was bald on the top of his head, with a white, closely cropped beard covering his face. His visage was stern-looking and his eyes were crystal blue. As the Keeper held his gaze, Dan suddenly felt as if this being could peer into his very soul. He felt naked, terrified, and mesmerized all at the same time, unable to look away.
After several seconds, Dan found the courage to speak.
&
nbsp; “Why are you here?”
“Another Seer has been chosen,” came the reply. The Keeper’s voice was just as he had remembered it. Commanding, firm, with a strange and other-worldly accent that he had never heard before anywhere else.
The Keeper turned and shut the door, locking the bolt in place. He turned back around and gently guided Dan back to the chair he had been sitting in previously and motioned for him to sit down.
“He will come to you seeking answers. Tell him what you know.”
“When… when will he come?”
“Soon.”
“What is his mission?” Dan asked.
“That is not your concern.”
“How will I know him?”
“He will tell you that he has seen me.”
As he thought back over the moment days later, Dan wasn’t quite certain what happened next. The only thing he knew for sure was that the Keeper was suddenly gone and the storm had returned in all of its fury. In the days following the storm, he wondered who the new Seer was and what he had been chosen to do.
* * * * *
The pictures spread out before him on the table were proof enough. Susan was cheating on him. A younger man, some would say handsome, was holding his wife the same way he’d used to hold her not so long ago. He should have seen this coming. But a drug dealer? Really, she should have been more discreet. He glanced up at the detective sitting across from him, wondering what was going through his mind.
“So, how much is she spending on the drugs every week?” he said, trying to direct the conversation away from the embarrassing photos.
“About a grand from what I can tell,” the detective replied.
“What is it?”
“The drug?”