Fatalis: A Novel by Jeff Rovin

Author:Jeff Rovin [Rovin, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Horror
ISBN: 9780312981204
Google: dtli27UZzzYC
Amazon: 0312981201
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2001-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

34

As he raced to the Upper Santa Ynez River Canyon, Sheriff Gearhart thought about the call he'd just received. Screams and gunshots had been heard by a ranger near the Juncal campsite. It had happened less than a half hour before— probably a camper who had had too much to drink at dinner and went a little bonkers. Things like that had happened before. Though he wanted to be sure, Gearhart didn't see how this situation could be related to the others.

The highway patrol had checked out the Hobie Cat serial number and found that it was owned by a Patrick Vlaskovitz, a student at UCSB. He and two friends were seen going out in the late afternoon, so they were probably killed when they came ashore early in the evening and the beach was deserted. Poor guys at the wrong place, wrong time. But if other attacks were a model, the killer needed more time between kills than an hour or two. And the killer tended to tackle isolated persons, not groups. A campsite just didn't fit.

His flashing lights lit the surrounding slopes as he headed into the hills. The siren was muted by the closed windows and the whir of the air conditioner driving icy air through the vent. He needed the cold air to stay alert. He wasn't a young Marine anymore. Being on the go for two days straight with only a few hours sleep was rough. And it wasn't just the work itself that was exhausting. It was dealing with people like Hannah Hughes.

She had no idea, Gearhart thought angrily. She had no mortal foggy notion what it was like.

Hannah Hughes ran a self-indulgent newspaper. If it failed, she still had her multimillion-dollar trust fund to live off. Even Professor Grand probably didn't get it. He taught college kids and solved mysteries that were thousands of years old. If he failed to figure them out, no one got hurt. Neither of them knew the burden of protecting lives and property, order and security, sanity and peace. And Hannah just didn't know how to cut him any slack.

Gearhart didn't particularly like either of them, but that wasn't the issue. As a Marine, he'd learned to look past personality and talent. What would help them realize a goal, complete a mission, and get out alive? Hannah and Grand were both smart, resourceful, and relentless and if Gearhart thought they could help he'd be happy to listen. But Hannah wanted to sell newspapers and Grand probably wanted to write papers. Whatever else Gearhart wanted, he wanted above all to perform the job he was elected to perform.

Yet as sprawling as Hannah's net tended to be— or because of that— she had managed to be right about one thing, though. Gearhart knew more than he was telling about this case. While he wasn't willing to buy the idea of a saber-toothed tiger, he wasn't dismissing the notion that some nutcase was murdering people in the fashion of a saber-toothed tiger.

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