An Unequal Defense (David Adams) by Chad Zunker

Author:Chad Zunker [Zunker, Chad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

Pounding on the main office door woke David from sleep. It wasn’t so much the steady knocking out front as it was the dog now growling on the sofa at his feet. David reached down, snagged his phone from the floor. Six forty-five? Who was out there this early? He tried to shake off the fuzziness of his mind, which was probably more a result of the punches to his head last night than the early hour. Although he’d taken a handful of Tylenol, his head was still throbbing. Had he walked into the middle of a robbery? Had one of his street clients gotten that desperate? Or was it something else? His gut said it was something else. Although his personal office was a bit ransacked, David couldn’t find a single valuable missing. He’d thought of calling the police but decided against it. What would be the point? He couldn’t identify the guy in any significant way.

More knocking out front. Whoever was out there had to know David had been sleeping at the office, or they wouldn’t go to so much trouble. Probably one of his street friends, hoping Lori had put something new to eat in the mini fridge. A couple of the guys seemed to watch their office night and day in anticipation of Thomas’s wife showing up with a fresh batch of homemade goodness. David couldn’t really blame them—Lori was one hell of a cook.

Cursing, David swung his bare feet to the floor. He looked down at his right hand, which was wrapped in white bandages. Although the cut from the glass shard hurt like hell, he didn’t think he needed any serious medical attention. He certainly didn’t want to spend money on an emergency room visit right now. He grabbed his jeans, pulled them on, and then stumbled down the hallway to the front room, the dog following at his heels.

More steady knocking, which was really annoying him.

“Hold on!” David yelled, unlocking the door.

He swung it wide-open, ready to berate whoever thought it was a good idea to come by the office at this ridiculous hour. However, his anger was quickly replaced by shock. Neil Mason was standing in the hallway, wearing his usual high-dollar suit, hair done perfectly, as if he’d already been at the office for several hours.

“Morning, sunshine,” Mason said with a snarky grin.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Waking you up, clearly. We need to talk.”

“You couldn’t call first?”

“We need to talk in person, David. Can I come inside?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

Opening the door, David allowed Mason into the entry room, offered him a chair at the round table. The dog began investigating the man’s ankles. David wouldn’t mind if Sandy raised a leg on Mason’s shoes.

“They let you keep a dog in here?” Mason asked him.

“Belongs to a friend. You want some coffee?”

“Sure.”

Walking to the back room, David stepped up to the coffee maker on the foldout table and found the glass carafe still half-full from the previous day. It would do.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.