Then he saw the long-legged female body lying on the leaf-strewn ground. The head and shoulders were covered with a black leather jacket. He recognized the distinctive silver buttons.
The jacket belonged to Morgan.
He gave a cry of anguish as he ran forward and dropped to his knees beside the body. He gently eased the jacket away, even though the woman was apparently dead. And swallowed the sob that erupted as he realized…it isn’t Morgan!
This must be his attacker’s wife. But who had covered her dead face with Morgan’s jacket? And where was Morgan?
“Nash.”
His name came as a whisper on the wind. He felt his heart surge with joy as he called into the darkness, “Morgan! Where are you!”
Equally quiet, a ghostly warning, “Look out!”
Nash whirled and rose in one motion and found himself facing a Colt.45 automatic.
“Where the hell is she?” the stranger said in a harsh voice. “That bitch killed my wife!”
“What’s your connection to the woman who owns that leather jacket?” Nash asked.
The stranger sneered. “She saw me dump a body. Couldn’t leave her out here after that. Sent my wife to pick her up. And that bitch crashed my car.”
Nash glanced at the car and realized how desperate Morgan must have been. And how brave. And how precious she was to him.
“She killed my wife!” the stranger ranted.
Nash glanced at the dead body. He knew Morgan must have done everything in her power to save the woman. It was what she did.
“When I’m done with you, I’ll find her, and she’ll pay.” The stranger was distracted by a crash in the underbrush.
The instant he turned his head, Nash leapt. He was nearly deafened by the gunshot, but the bullet shot past his ear into the night. He made short work of disarming the stranger. This time he used the man’s own weapon to knock him out.
When the short life-and-death struggle was over, Nash shoved himself onto his feet and said in a calm, quiet voice, “Where are you, Morgan?”
A faint voice said, “I’m here.”
He followed Morgan’s voice to a spot in the bushes behind the sycamore tree. She was sitting up with her back braced against a red maple. He kept his flashlight lowered, so it wouldn’t hit her in the eyes. But he couldn’t help noticing her blood-soaked shirt. And her bloody, lacerated face.
His knees surprised him by buckling, and he dropped onto the leaves beside her. “What kind of shape are you in?” He was afraid to touch her. She was covered in blood.
“Cracked rib, I think. Sprained-maybe fractured-ankle. Whiplash. Multiple cuts on my face and arms. Broken finger.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s enough!” she said with asperity. “You took long enough getting here.”
“I was waiting for your call.”
She avoided his gaze and said matter-of-factly, “I lost my phone. And the dead woman’s phone got broken in a million little bits in the crash. I was afraid to go out on the road, because I knew that killer would come hunting his wife. So I’ve been hiding.” She paused, met his gaze and said, “Waiting for you to find me.”
Nash brushed the knuckles of his hand across her blood-crusted cheek. “When I saw that body, I thought you were dead.”
“When I saw that tree coming at me-”
“I’m sorry, Morgan.”
“I know. So am I.”
“I’m leaving the country in a few hours. If you need me-for anything-leave a message on my phone and-”
She moaned as she lifted her arm to brush her scraped knuckles across his cheek. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she said, “Goodbye, Nash.”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand what she was saying. He couldn’t fight for her. Not when she loved his brother. He had to let her go.
“So, do I call an ambulance?” he said at last. “Or can I just pick you up and drive you to the nearest hospital?”
She managed a tenuous smile. “Call the cops to come get that murdering son of a bitch. Then take me to the nearest hospital.”
JON LAND
“Killing Time” has all the earmarks of international bestselling author Jon Land. A tense situation in which time is your enemy. Impossible odds. And a villain you’re not likely to ever forget, even if he happens to be on your side.
The main character in “Killing Time,” Fallon, is a sociopath. He’s a professional killer who-after a kill goes horribly wrong-hides out by murdering and impersonating an English teacher at Hampton Lake Middle School. Jon got the idea for this story after the tragic events that happened in Chechnya when terrorists seized a school-killing and wounding hundreds of students. It fascinated him to think about what would have happened if the terrorists had come across someone as demented and violent as they were. “Killing Time” is the answer to that question. And it’s not pretty.
KILLING TIME
“We’re glad to have you aboard, Mr. Beechum,” said Roger Meeks, principal of Hampton Lake Middle School, rising from behind his desk. “I think you’re going to be most happy here.”
Fallon thought about how he’d killed the last man he shook hands with and released the principal’s flaccid grip quickly. That man’s name was Beechum and he’d had the misfortune to pick up a sodden, weary Fallon hitchhiking on the side of a lonely interstate. Poor Beechum also had the misfortune of being in the process of relocating to a new state to take a new job and for having a passing resemblance to Fallon. Passing in that they both had dark hair and features, close enough to allow Fallon to effortlessly fool principal Meeks with only minor modifications to his own appearance.
“Your résumé is quite impressive,” Meeks continued, retaking his seat and looking up from the pages before him. Their eyes met and for just a moment Fallon thought the principal was studying him, perhaps noticing the anomalies with the face of the now-dead teacher clipped to the top sheet. But then he smiled. “I think you’re going to be very happy at Hampton Lake Middle School. Let’s show you the building.”
The “tour,” as Meeks called it, was important to Fallon. Though he smiled through its course, careful to ask all the right questions, he was actually cataloguing various routes of escape and hiding. That his former employers were after him was not in doubt at all, any more than the fact they would eventually be successful. Because Fallon had failed them. Worse, Fallon had misbehaved by executing those sent to make him pay for his failure.
His former employers would have been wise to let him go and be done with it. But they couldn’t take the chance Fallon would come after them. Here he became a victim of his own well-deserved reputation. His background in Special Forces had taught him to not just accept killing, but embrace it as a skill to be mastered like any other: with practice. The means-knife, gun, bare hand, explosives-mattered not at all, only the result. And with Fallon the result was always the same.
Except once. And now because of that he was on the run. Killing time in the guise of a middle-school English teacher. Or Language Arts, as they called it these days.
Meeks continued the tour of Hampton Lake Middle School in perfunctory fashion, Fallon nodding and smiling at all the appropriate times. The building was T-shaped with two long hallways separated by an enclosed courtyard adjoining a perpendicular two-story wing at the building’s front end located farthest from the road. A gym and presentation room were located in the back end, the cafeteria in the front. Fallon noted a drop ceiling heavy enough to support a man’s weight, accessing a crawl space that ran the length of the building on both sides. The location of the subbasement, containing the electrical and heating elements, was more difficult to pin down at this point.
Normally, Fallon would look for places to stash weapons, as well. Here he didn’t consider that to be a factor. If he was found, escape would be the thing, not confrontation.