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Adventures in Writing
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: Createspace
ISBN-10: 1468094378
Pages: 340
Copyright: Jan. 7, 2012
ISBN-13: 9781468094374
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Andrea Wilton and Brian Strait, from Shuster Detective Agency, take on another case to find a missing person. This second book in the series introduces DJ Wiebe, a biker who rides with The Sons Riders, a Christian biker ministry. Another biker, a member of The Demons Raiders, is missing and presumed dead. DJ, his friend, hires Shuster Detective Agency to find him. He initiates Andrea and Brian into the biker culture, a world that encompasses motorcycles, leather, drugs and murder.
Thrown together when they search for the Michners, Brian and Andrea decide they work well together so they open a detective agency. Their first client is a biker from a Chritian biker club who hires them to find his friend, a drug enforcement agent who has been working undercover in an outlaw biker gang for two years. He's missing so Brian Strait and Andrea Wilton learn to ride motorcycles to fit into the culture. At the same time, worried parents hire them to locate thier missing fifteen year old. Their growing faith in Jesus Christ helps them handle the obstacles they face and surrounds their growing personal relationship as well.
Excerpt
Fear seeped from the pores of his skin like sweat from a fevered brow. It was a tangible passenger riding with its arms wrapped around his waist. His bike thundered toward freedom, as fast as the road conditions allowed.
Two years. It’s taken me two years. Now I’m running for my life. He swore loudly enough to cause the cattle standing along the fenced in field to scatter. He focused on the large hunks of crushed gravel covering his escape route.
The shiny black Kawasaki Vulcan’s front wheel wobbled. He fought to steady it and then looked toward the highway. He squeezed the throttle a little more. If I can just…
He felt the first impact. His eyes darted left and right as he searched his surroundings. No where to go. His pursuer was beside him. The man’s eyes held a murderous glint, one that he’d seen before. The renegade twisted his head and watched as his pursuer’s right leg kicked the back fender of his bike again.
He wrestled to keep the heavy motorcycle upright to no avail. The Kawasaki wobbled first right and then left. In a matter of seconds, metal and chrome screeched across the jagged gravel road dragging him toward the water-filled ditch and the electrified barbed wire fence that flanked it. White hot exhaust pipes sizzled when the bike hit the water but he heard none of it.
•
Belcher, his bulky frame an extension of his black and chrome Heritage Softail, skidded to a stop beside the downed rider. I trusted him. He’d been wrong. He watched his quarry’s large frame land with a thud on the roadbed and then careen into the ditch. The juice on the electric barbed wire fence had been turned up enough to disable the man but not kill him. A thin stream of water left over from a recent rainstorm filled the bottom of the channel where the victim’s feet landed.
Belcher hit the handlebars of his bike in satisfaction. Just as he planned. “No one rats me out, no one.” He cursed. The victim’s screams, covered by the wind whistling through a nearby corn field, fulfilled Belcher’s need for revenge. He watched the man’s body jerk. Belcher knew that every muscle down the length of his adversary’s frame was contracting painfully from the high voltage.
He’d researched electrocution. He knew that the betrayer’s red face was an indication that his body temperature was on the rise and that if his cohort, at the switch in the barn, left the current on long enough, the intense internal heat would destroy the traitor’s body proteins. He cursed again. “It could bake your organs.” He sneered and then watched as the man’s body flopped in a dead heap in the muddy ditch. The rise and fall of his chest indicated life but he was clearly unconscious. “Now we’ll see who you talked to and what you know for sure.” A noticeable odor of burnt hair and skin permeated the air.
With a nod of satisfaction, the assassin turned his machine toward the compound where loud party music filled the early evening air. He rode toward the sentry at the gate, his only witness, and nodded, comfortable with that man’s loyalty. He stopped his bike. “Lock him in the barn. We’ll deal with him later.” Belcher’s tone of voice delivered the right message. No one questioned the president of this club. Neither man smiled. The guard gave an answering nod.
Belcher rolled his bike down the road toward the farm yard, well hidden from the outside world by hills covered with the green haze of new spring growth. The crew is beginning to get noisy. “Let’s party,” Belcher spoke to the nearest member of the Demons Raiders.
* * * * *
Chapter One
“No, Brian! Absolutely Not! I do not ride, nor do I want to learn to ride a motorcycle. Why would I want people to align me with those dirty bikers? ” Andrea’s hands were pinned to her hips. Her eyes held a hardened glint of determination as she glared at her new partner. Brian Strait looked just as strong-minded. Andrea’s tirade continued. “Neither of us rides a motorcycle for that matter. Why do we need to ride in order to solve this case?”
“Just listen, Andrea. Do you remember when we were in Haiti? You didn't want to learn to scuba dive either but you did alright.” Brian chuckled. “In fact, you did better than alright. Now it’s time to learn another skill.”
Andrea Wilton whipped her hair out of her eyes. She turned and marched toward the fridge and grabbed a cold diet cola. “Do you know what my friends call motorcycle riders?” She popped the tab on the can and took a long drink. “They refer to them as crash test dummies. Motorcycle riding is dangerous.”
“Not if we learn to ride properly and defensively. Most motorcycle accidents happen because some driver, usually a car or truck, doesn't see the motorcycle or doesn't give the bike enough space on a highway. We’ll learn from the best.” Brian folded his hands over his chest. “As far as associating with bikers, just how do you think we’ll fit in, look inconspicuous, if we aren't riding as they do. Remember Jesus died for bikers too.”
“Harrumph. Yes well…what about motorcycles? We don’t have any.” Andrea sat down heavily into the chair behind her desk. She knew she was losing the argument.
“Well, I’ve thought of that too. We have a place in our budget for new equipment, don’t we?” Brian leaned his hands on her desk.
“Yes, of course. But when we made that addition, I was thinking office equipment, not motorcycles.”
“Andrea, didn’t we say that the reason we started this agency was to help people. Well, DJ is people. He rides with an organization that does a lot of good. We would be helping solve the murder of one of their friends, if that’s what this turns out to be. And maybe we would be helping put some very bad people behind bars. These outlaws do a lot of harm to anyone crazy enough to come into contact with them.”
Andrea shifted her weight, a clear indication she was reconsidering her position. She began to chew on her lower lip, and the tight grimace on her face began to disappear. “But...”
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