Blood Cell (23 page)

SECOND EPILOGUE

A man named Alden Colgate sat in his favourite booth in his favourite diner in Watertown, South Dakota. This place was great. They were around the corner from Alden’s apartment and served breakfast all day. In creating this identity, he had decided that Alden Colgate was a fan of breakfast for dinner.

He felt the presence of someone else and assumed the waitress had finally brought him his eggs and hash browns.

It wasn’t the waitress. A pretty blonde woman slid into the other side of the booth.

“Hello,” he said with a deep voice.

“Hi.” She offered a handshake. “Mr. Colgate? Mr. Alden Colgate? Did you just look at a tube of toothpaste when you needed a new name?”

“I think you might be confused—“

“I’m here about a job.”

The woman slid a stack of papers across the table. On top was a photo of a fancy old building.

“This is the Ram’s Club in Ottawa. We’re going to break in.”

“Lady, I don’t know who you think I am, but—“

“I think you’re Joshua Farewell, one of three surviving inmates from the Pittman Penitentiary riot.” She flipped to another photo. “This is you.”

The photo was of Josh and Williams pressed up against a window. They were straining against something the photo didn’t show.

“When I took that, I could see the man you were holding in the sunlight. I watched him burn.”

Josh kept his poker face.

“Tell me Josh, what sort of a person burns in sunlight and can’t be captured by photograph?”

“What do you want?”

She flipped back to photo of the men’s club, and tapped it with her finger.

“I don’t do burglary and I’m not crossing the border again.” Josh crossed his arms.

“Yes you are. Because I’ve been investigating this whole mess and something tells me this place is connected to all of it. You think a thing like that just happens to arrive when the prison goes over the boiling point? Someone was watching, and someone tipped that thing off. Someone in this club.”

Josh shook his head. “Who are you?”

The blond smiled and offered a handshake. “I’m Virginia Elliot. I was a reporter before I tried to publish what I saw. Now I’m on my own.”

Josh stayed quiet while the waitress delivered his breakfast. He took a bite of the potatoes and found them bland. The reporter pulled another page to the top of the pile. It was a photo of a framed watercolour painting. A man with white skin and silver eyes. Josh recognized the man, despite the poor resemblance.

“I took this in their lobby. It’s hanging next to a photo of their members from 1910. Look familiar?”

Josh set his fork down and buried the portrait at the bottom of the pile.

“If we’re going north,” he said, “I’ll have to stop and pick up my girl.”

THE END

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Also by Shaun Tennant:

Stray Woods- A Short Story
(Sequel to Blood Cell)

After his escape, Josh Farewell returns to his hometown and discovers a new kind of undead.

Enemy Agents

After a secret branch of the CIA is compromised by someone leaking dangerous information, young agent Chris Quarrel is brought in to root out the traitor. The job is even harder than it seems, because the only people who could be the mole are also the greatest spies in the world: 
A master thief. A nameless assassin. A reformed criminal. An amnesiac. A Cold War spymaster. A woman of action. An American patriot. A suave British legend. 
One—or more—is a traitor. However, the only agents capable of hunting such dangerous prey are also the very same suspects on his list. So Quarrel does the only thing he can: he sends the world’s most dangerous spies to chase each other down. 
May the best spy win.

Killing Machine Series:

Former Assassin Theo Daniels seeks bloody revenge in this five-story series. Try the first story for free.

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