THE MYSTIC GAMBLER: A thrilling crime mystery full of twists by Joshua Brown

Author:Joshua Brown [Brown, Joshua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-07-12T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Jack

I spent the next few days trying to figure out where I might find Firefly if I needed to get in touch with him. Going through the file that Aaron laid out, reading about his life before death, and trying to gauge where a man like him might go. There wasn’t really much to go by at the end of it, and I thought I’d approach the situation with fresh eyes the following morning.

I got home to an excited Skylar when I stepped in through the front door of my apartment. She was a ball of energy and I thought it best to burn some of it off with a walk around Central Park.

We took the usual loop around, stopping at the little park overlooking a lake, and I took a seat on the bench. On Skylar’s extender-leash, I let it out as far as it’d allow, so she could run around and frolic however she pleased. But while I sat losing myself to thoughts of all the chaos I created, a woman walked over to me and sat down at the bench.

I was surprised to some degree; not used to strangers taking a seat beside me. I didn’t have anything against it, but not a few feet away, another open bench waited. I supposed maybe this person just needed the company of a stranger, even if there wasn’t much talking to be had.

That was until she spoke to me. “It’s a beautiful day, wouldn’t you agree?” she asked with a southern twang.

“Very nice day, yes,” I replied. The orange sun hung in the distant horizon, half-dipped below the towering buildings of the New York skyline.

The woman wore a light blue dress that made her blue eyes shine. Long strands of wavy, orange hair danced beneath the remnants of the sun. She had a broad smile on her face from the second she sat down, and it didn’t look as though it would fade.

I was jealous of her, of that smile, the way she looked so carefree. While my world collapsed around me, she seemed so happy. Her smiling was contagious and soon enough, I felt the corners of my lips tugging without even thinking about it.

“You come to the park often?” she asked, looking on with unblinking eyes at the sheer beauty of this section of the park.

“I stay just opposite,” I replied. “Me and Skylar come out every morning and most afternoons for a little exercise. How about you? You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

“You could say that, sure,” she replied.

I leaned back in my chair, got comfortable, and turned back to the water ahead. As good as it was to talk to someone that wasn’t a part of my office or the cases I was working on, I didn’t want to come off as some creep staring at her.

“Yeah, I haven’t been this side of the world in… well, it’s gotta be at least a few decades now.”

I chuckled at her comment, turning back to her.

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.