FURLOUGH by Jacob Moon

Author:Jacob Moon [Moon, Jacob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-08T22:00:00+00:00

AS HE SAT parked in a fast-food lot, Paolo took a bite of his sandwich and listened to the police radio chatter. He’d been listening to calls for the past hour, formulating ideas about where Grassle may currently be. After a period of inactivity, a brief two-way transmission came across the channel. An otherwise innocuous report of a 911 cancellation. A farm owner on the edge of town had thought she’d had a trespasser on her property, until it had turned out to be a varmint. Paolo chewed his food slowly, paying no mind to the rest of the call as he pondered his next move. Frustrated by the lack of leads given by the police, and unsure of exactly where he should begin his own search, he shoved the remainder of his dinner back into the paper bag. Clicking on his penlight, he spread a map open across his lap. Despite the routine aspect of the service call he’d just heard, he kept to his own rule by following every lead, however mundane.

Starting from a point just east of the jail where Grassle had first traveled, Paolo slid his finger north then south to where a dirt road met a paved highway. The bloodhound had lost the trail at this point. If Paolo’s theory proved correct, Grassle had also managed to cross the river and make his way closer to the outer edge of Springwood. As a matter of routine, Paolo listened for the address where the 911 trespass call had originated. The location itself seemed nondescript. But ever the hunter, he had made a habit not of just following his human prey, but of becoming them. Grassle’s ruse with the horse had impressed him. Although rudimentary and desperate in its execution, the ploy had nonetheless fooled his police pursuers. Despite their blunder, the Calusa County Sheriff’s Office remained a trained, professional force. They would be embarrassed at the fact Grassle remained at large after the prescribed time the sheriff had assured his capture. As such, what at first had appeared to Paolo to be a simple, almost mundane assignment had turned into quite the opposite.

Hunches were a funny thing. Sitting outside Grassle’s apartment had been more about getting a feel for how the man thought than actually believing he’d show up there. Paolo knew that only a complete idiot would dare come anywhere near their own residence after escaping. The police would know it too. Yet it hadn’t stopped them from setting up surveillance, and it hadn’t stopped Paolo from surveilling the police in turn. The insight he sought had been more about feeding into Grassle’s energy. It helped clear his mind and allowed him to do as he did now, re-tracing the points he’d drawn on the map. It also reinforced his hunch that Grassle, contrary to police opinion, would attempt to escape into the more populated areas of Springwood instead of the countryside. Paolo’s hunch had specified an area several square miles around his ex-girlfriend’s neighborhood as a possible ending point.

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