Agent for a Cause (The Agents for Good)
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Authors: Guy Stanton III
Tags: #Romance Thriller
Agent
for a
Cause
Book Two
of
The Agents for Good
Guy S. Stanton, III
Words of Action
Copyright © 2013 by Guy S. Stanton, III.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com
Ordering Information:
Agent for a Cause
is currently available in the eBook format at
Word’s of Action, Amazon.com, and Smashwords.com
http://www.words-of-action.com
Agent for a Cause/ Guy S. Stanton, III. -- 1st ed.
ISBN 978-0-9910565-6-9
Table of Contents
Dedicated to the fight
against autis
m.
Chapter One
Stalker
I watched her from my end of the bar as she served the other patrons. There was really nothing special about this bar to keep coming back to it. Nothing special that is, except for her.
The food was terrible and the place was in a general lack of good upkeep, typical overall of your average street bar in Philadelphia.
The patrons were a boisterous lot and loud, too loud, but I could tune them out if I had her to look at. I didn’t really understand my fascination with her. Sure she was pretty, but there were a lot of pretty girls in the world, why her? I didn’t understand it, but I kept coming back to this seedy place to watch her for an hour or two. Okay, maybe it had already been over three hours tonight.
I’d been coming here for almost two years now and I’d learned a lot about her without really looking into her back story. It was the subtle things I learned about her.
The difference between a genuine smile and the mask that would fall into place when she was dealing with someone she didn’t like or found distasteful, which happened a lot in a bar like this. In general she got along with mostly everyone and she had a way of putting a stop to trouble before it got out of hand.
She had fire in her and I’d never seen her back down once from a situation. I doubted that there was a man in the place that wouldn’t have defended her if she had need of it.
She flirted a lot and had a frank quality to her that said she liked men, but she wasn’t a tramp. I’d never seen her go home with anyone; whether or not she had a boyfriend out of work I didn’t know and didn’t care. While I sat in my corner seat at the bar she was mine to look at and appreciate.
I never hoped for anything more than that. Chances were that I’d be dead tomorrow, but that was everyday in my life. For now I was enjoying one of the few pleasures in my barren life, which was watching her. She was so alive and vivacious that just being near her made me feel more alive somehow inside too.
She was talking with a woman down the bar from me, as she was polishing a shot glass and appeared to be talking about some topic she really liked. The reason I knew that was because her nose would crinkle up slightly when she was truly interested in a conversation. The conversation ended and the other woman left and Anna, that was her name, turned to place the shot glasses she had polished up onto a shelf above the bar.
She had to stretch up and stand on her toes to reach the shelf. That was another thing I liked about her, she was short. Tall women intimidated me as they reminded me of my own shorter stature. Anna by my calculations was a comfortable five inches shorter than my 5’8’’ height.
Her dress rose as she stretched up to place the glasses on the shelf and I admired the supple calf muscles that were revealed. My eyes continued to drift up her frame admiring the contours along the journey. She was slim, but full and curved in all the right places. My eyes met her cobalt blue gaze and I blinked.
She was looking directly at me!
To my knowledge she’d never directly looked at me before. I always got my drink from the bartender on down from her. In the almost two years I had been coming I’d maybe said five words to her and I had assumed that I was safely unnoticeable to her. I had been wrong.
The directness of her gaze was too much and I felt myself blushing and then of all things she winked at me! It wasn’t a little quick one either, but rather a bold down flick of one eyelid with the richness of her smile behind it. I looked down at the bar as the brim of my hat blessedly concealed my face from view.
Darn it!
My cover was blown and regret was already setting in. I wouldn’t be able to come and see her anymore. My sharply tuned senses told me that she was standing directly in front of me and slowly I glanced up. She stood there slouched onto one elbow against her side of the bar nonchalantly. Her eyes were mysterious, but her smile was genuine.
Her full lips moved, “Caught ya didn’t I?”
What could I say to that? It was time to go! I started to make the move to do just that, but she reached out a hand and laid it on top of mine in a gentle clasp. Her touch was paralyzing and I froze. Her other hand reached up and removed my fedora and set it down to the side on the bar top.
She’d completely invaded my space by removing my hat and I felt a surge of hot anger rise up within me. Her gaze was knowing as she leaned a little closer, “If you can undress me with your eyes then I should at least be allowed to remove your hat.”
She had a point there and I focused on relaxing under the feel of her touch, but it wasn’t easy. She smiled again and removed her hand, but she didn’t back away.
Her lips curved up as she with a conspiratorial look said, “April eleventh, 2011.”
I was a little shocked by her statement. It wasn’t a random date. It was the date of the first time I had come here and seen her.
She continued on, her eyes not leaving mine for a moment, “Since then you’ve been here a total of thirty two times, always the same routine. You come in after the rowdies have settled down, you get a club soda from Jim down the bar, never alcohol and then slowly, as to not attract attention, you make your way here to this spot where you commence to watch me from under the brim of this cute hat. For hours!”
She added the last part with emphasis. Despite what she may be thinking of me I did have manners.
I dropped my gaze as I said, “I apologize if I offended you. I...”
“Whoa! Hold the phone!” She said interrupting me as she held her hand up in a stop gesture.
I glanced back up at her, somewhat surprised.
Her gaze had a characteristic frankness to it as she said, “Did I say that I minded it?”
I blinked again. What exactly did she mean by that?
She glanced away for a moment and then back, her face more serious, “Some men use a girl with their eyes and yes I don’t appreciate that, but you? You’re different! You just like to sit there and admire me. I’ve never sensed anything derogatory in the way you look at me, ever. Actually I’ve come to find it quite flattering. I’ve never seen you look at another woman that’s walked into this place and there’s been much prettier women than me at that, but you don’t give them so much as a passing glance. Why is that?”
“I don’t know.”
She studied me curiously for a moment and then stuck her hand out, “The names Anna.”
I stared at the proffered hand for a moment.
“I don’t shake hands, no offense meant.”
She wiggled her slim fingers in the air, “Oh come on! I washed it this morning, I promise!”
She waved her hand back and forth in the air in front of me beckoningly.
“I don’t bite I promise. Well, I take that back. I have been known to bite on Mondays and the second Tuesday of every other month, but you’re safe because today is Saturday.” She finished her eyes alive with humor.
How could you resist someone like her? I grudgingly reached out and shook her hand.
A look of triumph passed across her pretty face and she asked, “Mr?”
“Tyre.”I said grudgingly.
She didn’t let go of my hand, “Well, Mr. Tyre I have a question for you.”
She leaned close over the bar top invading my space again. Gazing point blank into my eyes she asked in a throaty whisper, “Are you stalking me?”
I thought about it for a moment, “I suppose you could say that I am.” I admitted hesitantly.
Her smile broke free again from where she had been keeping it locked away.
“Good, that means I’ll be seeing more of you!”
She let go of my hand and stepped back and with a swish of her skirt she turned to go back down the bar to some customers that had been waiting.
She glanced back over one shoulder at me with a look that was patented seduction and said, “Enjoy the view Mr. Tyre.”
I blushed again. She was never that overt with anyone! Why me of all people? Was she crazy?
I’d just told her I was stalking her and she’d told me to enjoy the view! What woman in her right mind wanted someone stalking her? Had I misjudged her intelligence level? I was pretty sure that I hadn’t.
Why on earth had she said that and had the entire conversation with me that she just had? She must like me! How was that possible? She didn’t know practically anything about me and what she did know wasn’t good.
I should go now. Everything about my carefully managed infatuation with her had spiraled hopelessly out of control. I needed that control, without it my world could spiral out of control and then I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t want to know.
I’d spent so many years running from my emotions that I didn’t want to even dare see what would come out if I stopped suppressing them for even a moment. As bad as I needed to leave, for self securities sake, why then, did I so want to just stay here and continue in the peace that I felt while looking at her? I glanced up to see her looking at me again. Her face looked concerned and I realized that my grip on the edge of the bar was white knuckled and I focused on relaxing my hand.
I glanced at her again, as I started to get up to leave, drawn out by a need to see her one more time. To my surprise she was still looking at me and she mouthed two words, which I read easily off her pretty lips, “Please stay.”
Something inside of me seemed to settle down as I realized that like it or not I had to see where this road would lead. I gave a brief nod in response and relaxed back down onto my bar stool.
She smiled seemingly relieved herself by my decision to stay and inwardly I felt at peace grateful to still be here watching her. I looked at my hat on the bar.
My fingers fairly itched to put it back on, but that didn’t seem right somehow so I left it there. This was all uncharted territory for me and I really didn’t know what move to make next. I was hoping she’d give me a clue of some kind.
“So Mr. Tyre what do you do, when you’re not stalking me?”
She was back and she’d asked the one question that would tear her away from me. Should I lie to her? No, if a relationship was to be at all meaningful it should be based on honesty that much I knew.
I looked up into her teasing eyes and the seriousness of my gaze had the humor dropping out of hers within seconds, “I’m a wet man.” I responded simply.
She laughed nervously, “What’s that?”
“I kill people among other things.”
She took two steps back from the bar top visibly shaken. The fingers of her hand shook, as she reached up and curled several stray hairs of her blond hair back over one ear. She was speechless it seemed and abruptly turned away, but then stopped and I wondered what she would do next. She turned back to me; her hands were clenched together in front of her,
“Why?”
She wanted to know why I killed people. Truth was I did a lot more than just killing in my work, but killing did seem to play the major role.
“Some people need killing so that other people can live in peace the way God intended them to.”
“You justify what you do like that?” She asked incredulously.
“I’ll be judged like everyone else will be someday. I don’t believe I’ll get away with anything I’ve done wrong.”
“And knowing that you still do what you do?”