Missing by Bill Noel

Author:Bill Noel [Noel, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781938908538
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2013-10-02T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

TO SAY THAT I HAD A RESTLESS NIGHT WOULD BE LIKE saying there are a lot of grains of sand on the beach. I couldn’t get comfortable. My back hurt whenever I turned, and I turned a lot. My mind flashed back to the person lifting the rebar to attack Charles and how close he came to being gravely injured or killed—and for what? What did my friend know? What had he stirred up? If his attacker was the person who had killed the two women, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who could stand in his way. Charles and I were within inches of him, but we didn’t see his face. The frightening thing was, he didn’t know that we didn’t see him.

I told myself that the police, particularly Detective Burton would be unlikely to take us seriously and would do as little as possible to investigate. I found it ironic that it might take Charles getting killed to raise the issue to a level where someone paid attention. I then wondered if I was in danger. Would Charles or I be as lucky if the assailant tried again?

Since the death of my ex-wife earlier in the year, I’d been haunted by the thought that I could have done something to save her life. Everyone told me that I couldn’t have prevented what had happened. It didn’t help. I couldn’t help my ex, but friends were now in danger. Could I help them?

The clock slowly rolled around to six a.m., and sleep didn’t return. I walked to Bert’s for coffee and hopefully a friendly conversation with a clerk. My back still hurt, but it felt good to stretch it by walking.

Eric, who camouflaged a keen wit and intellect behind the appearance of a hippy who had forgotten to leave the 1970s, greeted me with a cheerful welcome and the latest gossip. He shared a couple of funny stories about a dyslexic tattoo artist he knew and his latest adventures on the river in his small sailboat. What he didn’t share was anything new about the two dead women.

I was carrying my coffee in my right hand with a copy of the Charleston Post and Courier and a small bag of donuts in my left when I nearly collided with Marc Salmon. Coffee sloshed from my cup and splashed onto his shoes but missed his slacks.

“Not where I prefer my morning coffee,” said Marc. He smiled when he said it.

I gave a halfhearted apology, and he patted my shoulder. “No prob,” he said. “I’d been meaning to run into you anyway—get it, run into you?”

I grinned, and he seemed satisfied that I appreciated his rapier wit. “Got a minute?”

“Sure,” I said.

He waved for me to step outside. Apparently Eric’s presence in the otherwise empty store wasn’t private enough for what he had to say. I followed him to the side parking area. A supersized likeness of Bert stared down at us from a mural on the building. The only other living things present were hundreds of bugs attracted to the lights.

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.