The Boat Man: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 1) Read online

  The Boat Man

  A Reed & Billie Novel, Book 1

  Dustin Stevens

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Sneak Peek

  Welcome Gift

  About the Author

  Dustin’s Books

  The Boat Man

  Copyright © 2015, Dustin Stevens

  Cover Art and Design:

  Anita B. Carroll at Race-Point.com

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden, without the written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Crystalline spatters of slushy snow hit the windshield, a scattershot pattern spread across the clear glass. Each time they connected the distinct ping of their semi-solid state smacking against the surface could be heard, the only sound inside the car. One by one they accumulated until the outside world was almost completely obscured from view before the wipers rose and shoved them to the side, the rubber letting off a moaning whine as they retreated back into position.

  Seated behind the wheel, he waited motionless, his gaze never wavering as the precipitation gathered and was cleared in equal thirty second increments.

  Parked in the third row, he knew he was virtually invisible as he sat and stared at the front entrance to the chapel. Slumped low behind the wheel, the windows fogging over around him, there was no way anybody could have seen him. If not for the occasional burst of the wipers there would be no indication at all that someone was seated inside, his car just another anonymous sedan in a lot full of them.

  One by one he watched as the other automobiles around him emptied of their passengers, people jogging to the front entrance, using umbrellas or handbills to protect themselves from the falling slush. Once they reached their destination they lingered only a moment, greeted by a solitary man in dark hues before disappearing inside, not to return again.

  Sliding his backside forward to the edge of the seat, he sat and let the cold chill inside the car seep into his bones. It passed through his thin suit and brought goose pimples to his skin, the tiny bumps visible on every exposed surface. On the seat beside him rested an unopened bottle of Jim Beam Devil’s Cut whiskey and a loaded .38, both of them calling with equal intensity.

  Ignoring everything, he remained where he was, watching as the last few stragglers from the parking lot made their way to the door. As they passed inside the guard stood and waited, seeming to look directly at him in the third row, imploring him to come forward. When no movement came a bow of concession was offered before disappearing, the door closing without a sound.

  Throughout he remained seated in the third row, watching, waiting, before reaching out and turning over the ignition. Without a second glance he drove away, his tires leaving twin tracks across the pavement behind him.

  Chapter One

  From his perch in the alley, the Boat Man had a perfect view of his target.

  Crouched low on the second floor fire escape, his body pressed against the cool brick of the building, he sat and stared through the iron bars at the small house across the street, waiting. He had been in position since ten minutes after nine, a full four hours earlier, not once moving as he stared at his destination, an exercise in form and discipline.

  After an hour, the first bits of cold had started to pass through the flattened cardboard box he was seated on. An hour after that, the jacket he wore gave way to the cool brick behind him, his spine tightening from the chill.

  Just before midnight a thin mist had passed through, cloaking the world in dampness, his clothes sticking to his skin. Still he sat and waited, letting the beads of moisture collect atop his head and drip from the front of his hood, paying them no attention as he stared across the street.

  As targets went, there was very little to distinguish it from a thousand other identical ones around Columbus. A single story tall, constructed entirely in red brick, it sat on a postage stamp sized lot. Most of the lawn was reduced to nothing more than mud, tufts of dead grass sticking up in the corners. An old pizza box served as a makeshift covering for a broken window, light shining out around it into the night.

  It was the fourth night in the preceding few months the Boat Man had sat on his perch observing the house.

  There wouldn’t be a fifth.

  Just shy of one o’clock in the morning a pair of headlights appeared, refracted up from the wet asphalt of the street. Feeling his pulse rise just slightly, the Boat Man drew his feet up beneath him, his knees groaning in protest.

  Ignoring the objections of his body, the Boat Man pressed his back hard against the wall and pushed himself upright, watching as the lights drew closer. There was no doubt they contained what he had been waiting on, the only thing that would possibly be out at such an hour.

  Without waiting for visual confirmation, the Boat Man swung himself over the wrought iron railing encasing the fire escape and dropped to the ground, his shoes falling silent against the wet earth. Keeping himself tucked into the shadows of the building he jogged forward, his body bent in half, moving as fast as his crouch would allow.

  In the dead of the night, the headlights cut a stark beacon through the quiet neighborhood as they drew closer, the pounding of a stereo system growing louder in accompaniment.

  The Boat Man made it to the corner just as the car came into sight, confirming what he already knew. He watched as it turned into a driveway and the bli
nding glare of the front lamps fell away, revealing their source to be a faded burgundy Cadillac Coupe.

  A hint of a smile crossed the Boat Man’s face as brake lights flared, the car easing its way off the street.

  Tonight had been a long time coming. Too long, in fact. The kind of thing slowed first by inability, then by indecision. Only once both were overcome was he able to move forward, this the first step in what would be many.

  On the opposite side of the street, no more than twenty yards away, the Cadillac came to a stop. A moment later the dull throbbing of the bass receded to nothing, the silence noticeable in its wake.

  From his hiding spot, the Boat Man drew in one final breath. Never before had he been in a situation like this.

  Not ever had he felt more certain of anything in his life.

  There was no tremble from his hands as he reached back over his head, gripping the braided handle of the sword strapped there. In one movement he slid it from its scabbard, the polished steel coming free without a sound.

  An inch at a time the Boat Man rotated it from side to side before him, letting the slightest bit of ambient light from the street outside refract from its surface, his own reflection flashing across it.

  Sixty feet away, the driver’s side door of the car burst open, a spray of cans and bottles hitting the pavement, released from being pent up inside. A moment later their owner spilled out behind them, his gait uneven, the streetlight above flashing off his exposed arms and clean-shaven head.

  The Boat Man watched for a moment as the man kicked at the debris scattered across the driveway, his uneven flailing giving away the fact that he had a few too many on the night. Just as fast he gave up on the venture, muttering a string of obscenities that was audible along the street before slamming the door shut behind him.

  Using the sound of the door as cover, the Boat Man sprang from his spot, crossing the roadway in eight long strides, covering the small front yard in half that many.

  There was no sound from his feet as he moved, no pause from his body as he covered the distance to his target.

  Chapter Two

  “On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. Bridge.”

  The narrator’s voice was deep and rich, bringing to mind images of James Earl Jones, minus all the heavy breathing used during his stint on Star Wars. Without even thinking about it, Reed Mattox reached across the front seat and took up the plastic CD case, flipping it over in search of a picture.

  “He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase.”

  Unable to find anything more than a one sentence blurb for each the author and the narrator, the two as far apart as could be, Reed tossed the container away, watching with disinterest as it hit off the seat and landed along the floorboard.

  The noise brought a stir of life from the backseat, Reed glancing into the rearview mirror as a pair of pointed ears came into view. Beneath them was a matching set of chestnut colored eyes, two moist discs staring back at him.

  “Easy, girl,” Reed said, his drawl allowed to slide out in full, one meant to placate. It seemed to work as the creature met his gaze a long moment before dropping back out of sight, her size shifting the car as she moved.

  “This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary-“

  Three paragraphs was as far as Reed made it before reaching out and shutting off the tape, letting silence fill in around him. Once more a whine could be heard from the backseat, though this time no eyes appeared to stare back at him.

  Shifting onto his right haunch, Reed twisted his legs beneath the steering wheel, resting his elbow on the middle console. He jammed a thumb into his mouth and gnawed on the nail as he again checked the clock on the dash, watching the minutes crawl by.

  Everything about the situation he now found himself in - the car, the dog, the CD’s - all of it, was new to him. Even after two months it felt odd, things seeming just a bit left of center, not quite attuned to what he was used to.

  Little by little things were improving, but they still had a long way to go.

  “Detective Mattox?” the dispatch radio on the dash called, the metallic din of the voice reverberating through the interior of the car. “Detective Mattox?”

  Reed waited a long moment before drawing the thumb from his mouth, spitting a bit of nail onto the adjoining seat and reaching out. He took up the mouthpiece hanging on the side of the radio and drew it over to him, his movements slow and deliberate.

  “Hey, Jackie.”

  By day, the procedural protocol for handling the radio was a tightly regimented exercise in tedium. In the preceding months though Reed had become intimately aware with the fact that most such procedures were cast aside in the dead of night.

  “How you doing out there this evening, Sugar?” Jackie asked.

  A flicker of mirth passed over Reed’s face as he imagined Jackie on the other end of the line, her feet propped up on the edge of the desk, a half-eaten box of powdered donuts beside her. On her lap was most likely the latest gossip rag, picked up on the way to work at the local CVS.

  As humorous, if not clichéd, as the mental image might have been, Reed was long past commenting on it. Everybody had their own way of passing the hours in the middle of the night.

  Jackie preferred pastries and smut mags. He was now trying books on tape.

  “Living the dream,” Reed replied. “What’s going on?”

  As much as he didn’t mind Jackie, and knew she meant well, he was fast coming to loathe the way she called to check in on him. It grated his nerves in a way he couldn’t quite pin down, making him feel defective, like there was a flaw obvious to everybody around him.

  “We’ve got reports of a possible 187 in your neck of the woods,” Jackie said, her voice as bored and detached as if she were reading the weather.

  187. Police code for homicide.

  Reed pulled himself up straight in the seat, his bottom moving flat onto the cushion beneath him. In the backseat, the dog sensed his change of demeanor, rising to full height, just her ears visible behind his head in the rearview mirror.

  “Where?” Reed asked, his voice belying a bit more of an edge than intended.

  There was a pause long enough to let him know it was heard and wasn’t appreciated before Jackie said, “The Bottoms. You want it? Or should I call and wake up Ike?”

  The starter whined in protest as Reed cranked on the ignition, the car rumbling to life.

  “We’re already en route,” Reed said. “Just send me the address.”

  Chapter Three

  The flashing lights of his car refracted off the front of the house as Reed pulled to a stop, the fluorescent flickering passing from the left headlight to the right every few seconds. Given the hour and the lack of traffic on the roads he had opted to run without the siren, letting the front lamps clear away what few other drivers there were on the road.

  Parked on the curb, Reed let the strobes bathe the front in neon light a long moment, taking everything in.

  The house was a simple ranch affair, the kind filling a thousand neighborhoods in the greater Columbus area. He himself had grown up in something similar on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, had seen the same thing in towns ranging from Atlanta to Portland.

  Somewhere inside he knew there was a family room with a connected kitchen and dining room. Two or three bedrooms were spaced off a hallway extended away from the main living area, one and a half baths sprinkled throughout.

  The front lawn was nothing more than a dustbowl that had been turned to mud by the passing rains, the outward condition of the windows and front door showing the place was in a state far past disrepair.

  Flipping the lights off, Reed took a quick glance down the street, confirming what he knew about the area, even if he had never been at this particular location before.

  The house was one in a line of sin
gle family dwellings, all equally spaced, all having the same basic design. On the opposite side of the road were a handful of multi-story buildings that looked to have at one time been apartment complexes but now appeared deserted.

  Like the houses they stood facing, everything was done in red brick, splashed liberally with aging graffiti.

  “Stay here,” Reed said, leaving the keys in the ignition and stepping out of the car. A thin mist enveloped him as he did so, clinging to his hooded sweatshirt, beading up on the badge hanging from his neck.

  A single blue-and-white patrol car was parked at the edge of the driveway a dozen feet in front of Reed’s sedan. Halfway down the asphalt drive sat a burgundy Cadillac, make and model appearing to be from the mid-80’s.

  Everything he’d seen of the block so far, it seemed to fit in perfectly.

  Huddled together in front of the patrol car was a pair of officers, both turning to stare as Reed approached. Neither one seemed enthused to be standing there, neither making a move forward as Reed drew near.