Rumors of the Undead by Steve Niles & Jeff Mariotte

Author:Steve Niles & Jeff Mariotte
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Andy knew he’d have to dump Dan’s Crown Vic before too long. The license plate and car description were probably being broadcast to every law enforcement agency within five hundred miles by now.

He was barreling out of Sacramento, headed northeast on Interstate 80 toward Reno. Knowing that his bank accounts would be tracked but that it would surprise no one that he was still in town now, he had swung by an ATM near the on-ramp for Interstate 5, heading south, to give the impression that he was headed for Stockton or LA. There he withdrew the maximum three hundred dollars the machine would give him. If the bank was open he’d have gone in to withdraw everything, but he didn’t want to hang around town until ten in the morning. He had pitched Dan’s cell phone out the window near the ATM, then doubled back to the 80.

Instead of relaxing as Sacramento fell behind him and Nevada neared, he became more and more anxious. His palms were wet against the steering wheel and he kept wiping them on his pants. His hands quaked like a Parkinson’s victim’s.

Every mile that slipped under his wheels seemed to reiterate just how much trouble he was in.

If they caught him, Hector Flores would make sure he stood trial for the murder of his family. With an FBI agent watching the outside of the house, and plenty of evidence that Andy had touched all the victims—not to mention all the drinking, the assault on a superior, the erratic behavior—the case would be a slam dunk.

He longed for someone to call, someone he could confess his fears to.

But there was no one.

With Paul changed, the Bureau chasing him, and Monica and the girls gone, his support system had fallen apart.

He was as alone in the world as it was possible for a man to be.

Gripping the wheel to keep his hands from trembling, he found he could taste the booze on his tongue, a ghost memory that made the craving return with a vengeance. Just a swig to swish around in his mouth, to feel the flavor and the burn against his cheeks, he didn’t even need to swallow…

He caught himself scanning the highway ahead for a gas station that would have a mini-mart with liquor and smokes—the craving for nicotine was almost as bad as that for booze—and slapped his hand hard against the wheel. That kind of thinking wouldn’t help. It would only wind up with him drunk in some motel, which the Bureau would have surrounded by the end of the day. Staying sober was the only way to stay smart.

Not staying smart would get him dead.

The eastern horizon was gray by the time he parked in a structure behind Harrah’s. He hiked across a bridge into the casino, then out the nearest door. Two blocks away, practically still in the shadow of Harrah’s, he stepped inside a small print shop, Nat’s Reno Redi-Print.

Natan Cebulski looked up from a computer monitor behind the counter and offered Andy a phony smile.

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