Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (175 page)

EPILOGUE

WE SIT AROUND THE table in the 677 Prime steakhouse like one big happy family. Me, Roger Walls, and his lost-but-now-found son, Gregor Oatczuk. A fourth person chooses to stand while he raises up a glass of champagne to make a toast.

“Here’s to my newest powerhouse authors,” states literary agent William Craig Williams. “Congratulations on your present successes and your good fortune to come.”

“Yeah, yeah, Willy,” Roger laughs, taking a drink of beer from the open bottle of
Bud
set before him. “Like you won’t hesitate to drop one of us if we stop moving units. Sit your ass down before you embarrass us. And order more of those jumbo shrimp.”

Williams sits down and pours more champagne all around. He’s smiling and pretending to be good humored despite Roger’s assessment of literary disloyalty. But the agent has reason to celebrate. He’s not only succeeded at acquiring Roger a new three-book deal with one of the biggest houses in the land, he was also able to secure a tidy mid-six figure sum for an advance. He also sold Oatczuk’s, a.k.a. Ian Brando’s, most recent opus
Dancing with the Dead
, for an equal sum. He even sold
Moonlight Falls
for a nice advance that will keep me in food and beer for a year or more.

I feel kind of like a star being included in the company of real writers. Makes me feel kind of special. But I’m not about to give up my day job. Turns out private detecting is not only a way to make some money, it’s also a way to come up with a plot for the new book I’m now contracted to write as the follow-up to
Moonlight Falls
.

Who’d ever have guessed: Richard “Dick” Moonlight. Captain Head-case and author.

“Tell me, Gregor,” I say, after a time, “why did you decide to send you manuscript to Suzanne Bonchance under a pen name?”

He sips some champagne, sets the glass down, runs his hand over his trim black beard. A beard that now makes him look a lot like his father.

“I knew that she wouldn’t like it simply because she didn’t like any of the other books I’d sent her. She was clouded by poor judgment. I knew I had a good book and I wanted her to see not the name Oatczuk, but something hip and fresh. Turns out she really liked the story.”

“A little too much,” Roger adds. “She stole it. Thus began her downfall and the long and lurid tale that would climax with her death in the kitchen of my former Chatham home. A tale that you no doubt will be writing sooner than later, am I right Moonlight?”

“Do you have a title yet, Richard?” begs William.

“I’m thinking
Moonlight Sonata
,” I say.

“Has a good ring to it if I don’t say so myself,” Roger says, drinking down the rest of his beer, then holding up his hand to grab the waiter’s attention.

The talk and back-talk goes on like that for a while, everyone getting drunker, the mood getting lighter, William Craig Williams growing more enthusiastic about selling our movie and foreign rights. We talk about world tours, reviews in
People Magazine
, and about
Moonlight Falls
being a great vehicle for Clooney or Pitt. Williams makes real and mental notes and after a time, I simply tune out and fade away into the back of my own mind. Is this it? Is this what it’s all about? The literary life?

After a while I stand and excuse myself from the table.

“I need to make a phone call,” I say, and head back across the dining room to the restaurant’s front door. Stepping outside into the warm, moonlit night, I pull a cigarette from the pack inside my leather coat, and fire it up. I retrieve my cell phone from my pocket and speed-dial my son in Los Angeles. I wait for the connection while I listen to the rings over the sound of my pulse beating in my temples. When the connection is made, I hear the machine click on.

“You’ve reached the home of Lynn and Harrison Harder, please leave a message at the tone and have yourself a great day.”

I wait for the beep and when it comes I am left only with silence and nothing to say. I draw a complete blank. Me, the new author. The man of words. I can’t even work up a simple hello or I love you for my son. Instead I thumb End and stuff the phone back into my coat pocket.

When did Lynn drop Bear’s last name for her own maiden name? She never consulted me about it. But then, I suppose she considers herself much more of a father to our son than I am. But she has no idea how much I miss the little guy and what I wouldn’t do to get him back. Maybe now that I have a new writing job to go with my day job, I can afford to bring him back to Albany for a while.

I smoke and gaze through the windows into the restaurant.

I see my table and the men who occupy it, minus myself. Roger is holding court. He’s got a napkin draped over his head and he’s holding the champagne bottle by its neck. His son Gregor is laughing hysterically as is William Craig Williams and quite a few admirers who occupy the surrounding tables.

Roger Walls, local celebrity author. I found him and found out a lot more about myself in the process.

Tossing my cigarette to the macadam, I stamp it out. I begin making my way back to the front entrance. But I don’t get half way before something stops me. I turn and begin walking the opposite way, back toward the downtown and the colorful neon that lights up the juke joints and the dancehalls on lower Broadway, not far from my riverside loft where I live alone.

Pulling up the collar on my leather coat, I decide to walk away from it all to the sound of a heart that beats under a cover of brilliant moonlight.

THE END

About the Author

VINCENT ZANDRI IS THE No. 1 International Bestselling Amazon author of THE INNOCENT, GODCHILD, THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT FALLS, THE CONCRETE PEARL, MOONLIGHT RISES, SCREAM CATCHER, BLUE MOONLIGHT, MURDER BY MOONLIGHT, THE GUILTY, MOONLIGHT SONATA, CHASE, and more. He is also the author of the Amazon bestselling digital shorts, PATHOLOGICAL, TRUE STORIES and MOONLIGHT MAFIA. Harlan Coben has described THE INNOCENT (formerly As Catch Can) as “…gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting,” while the New York Post called it “Sensational … Masterful … Brilliant!” Zandri’s publishers include Delacorte, Dell, StoneHouse Ink, StoneGate Ink, and Thomas & Mercer. An MFA in Writing and graduate of Vermont College, Zandri’s work is translated into many languages including Dutch, Russian, and Japanese. An adventurer, foreign correspondent, and freelance photo-journalist for Living Ready, RT, Globalspec, as well as several other news agencies and publications, Zandri lives in New York. For more visit
www.vincentzandri.com

ALSO BY VINCENT ZANDRI

Permanence

The Innocent

Godchild

The Guilty

The Remains

Scream Catcher

The Concrete Pearl

Moonlight Falls (UNCUT EDITION)

Moonlight Mafia (A Dick Moonlight Short)

Moonlight Rises

Blue Moonlight

Murder by Moonlight

Full Moonlight (A Dick Moonlight Short)

TERMINUS

JOSHUA GRAHAM

Copyright ©,2013 Joshua Graham

All rights reserved.

First Edition published by Redhaven Books.

Cover Design by Go Bold Designs

http://www.coryclubb.com/

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www.joshua-graham.com/contact

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http://joshua-graham.com/newsletter

For Katie, my angel and my good thing…

“Death—the undiscover’d country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns...”

HAMLET (ACT III)
, William Shakespeare

PRELUDE

THREE SECONDS. THAT WAS ALL.

The man in the black leather jacket had looked down for just three seconds to read a text message on his phone. And in the interim, his five-year-old Houdini of a stepdaughter Chloe had unstrapped herself, climbed out of her car seat, and slipped out of sight—nowhere near the doorway of the office where he was to meet his contact.

Just three lousy seconds!

His mouth went dry.

He scanned the streets, sidewalk, between cars, to the left then right then a quick three-sixty. Despite the thorough sweep, which took all of two seconds, he didn’t see her.

“Chloe!”

She didn’t answer, but he spotted her. Way down the street, her auburn pigtails bouncing with each step.

“Chloe! Wait!” He slammed shut the back door of his Focus. Didn’t bother to lock it. Ran up the sidewalk—fast. But the little stinker was fixated on a black cat luring her across the imaginary border that separated the gentrified arts district of Carleton Village and the slums of East Brentwood.

The cat bolted around the corner at the sound of the man’s agitated shouts. Both hands outstretched, Chloe giggled and ran even faster.

“Kitty!”

He nearly tripped over an uneven seam in the sidewalk as he ran, his heart going faster than his feet.

A pair of SDPD squad cars with flashing red and blue beacons raced past Birch and came to a screeching halt somewhere around the corner of Lamont.

The little girl turned the same corner and vanished behind the red bricks of the apartment building. Straight onto Lamont.

“Stop, Chloe!” He’d gained but was still several steps behind.

The sound of a policeman shouting filled his head. Could things get any worse? He ran even harder.

It all happened within a matter of seconds.

Three lousy seconds.

That's what it took for him to round the corner and make out the figure fleeing the pimped-out Honda Civic that had crashed into a hydrant. The gunman shot at the cops, who now stood behind the open doors of their angled cars.

The man in the black leather jacket leapt at Chloe.

“Get down!”

Over his shout, the shouts of the police, the screams of frightened pedestrians, came a deafening
pop!
whose impact toppled him.

Chloe screamed.

A sudden chill overtook him as a crimson pool expanded around his face, now planted on the cold concrete sidewalk. He tried to speak, stretched his fingers towards Chloe. Felt nothing but the cold pumping though his entire body.

Life didn’t flash before his eyes.

He heard more gunshots.

The last thing he saw was Chloe lurching back, her pigtails flailing to the side. As though in slow motion, she was falling.

Falling
...

He never saw her hit the ground.