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R. Doug Wicker — Author
Category:
Action/Thriller
ISBN-10: B004183X3I
Type: Fiction
ISBN-13: 1026904280
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
A psychological murder mystery set in Fiji. Includes romance, humor, and personal drama.
Donovan Grant lost his mind, his wife, and his career. Now he may be losing even more. Lately, and with distressing regularity, he's been finding himself standing over dead people while holding the murder weapon. Even worse, he's his own prime suspect. And that new woman in his life? She may be next on his list . . . that's if he's not on hers.
Excerpt
Grant slowly rose. He held his temper in check. “That’s not quite accurate. She was in my bure last night, but she was there to take care of me. I wasn’t exactly lucid.”
“You’re a drunk.”
“Your information on me is a bit out of date. I do not drink to excess anymore. Haven’t in almost a year. That part of my life is behind me.”
Kelly stood and spun around. “Buzz off, Sheldon. Who I choose to spend my time with is no business of yours.”
“But Kelly, my dear——don’t you know who the infamous Mr. Grant is?”
“Of course I know. What makes you think he wouldn’t tell me?”
Grant’s eyebrow arched. I did? Damn. I didn’t tell her, did I? No, wait. I haven’t told her a thing. He wiped the quizzical expression from his face as he played along. “It’s your move, Mr. Larsen. What else do you have on me? Perhaps now would be a good time to bring up the fact that I was deemed psychologically unfit for my previous career, that I still suffer flashbacks and nightmares, and that my wife left me. Would making that public make you feel any better?”
“Left you…?”
Larsen started to say something more when he was interrupted by George Howland. “You really are a shit, Sheldon.” The director walked over to stand beside Grant. “Can’t you see the guy’s not all there?” He laid a hand on Grant’s shoulder.
“Stay out of it, Georgie. This doesn’t concern you.”
Howland raised a pointed finger into Larsen’s face. He opened his mouth, but Larsen cut him off. “Go find a table, Georgie. You can’t afford to have me negate our little director deal for my next three pictures, now can you?”
Howland froze for several seconds. He gave Grant an apologetic shrug and stepped back. He looked around. The rest of the guests turned away and resumed their discussions within their little cliques.
Larsen motioned for both Kelly and Grant to retake their seats as he settled into the chair between them.
Grant started to walk away, but he couldn’t will his feet to move. He lifted the drink from the table and took a sip. “Good stuff. You ought to try one, Larsen.” He settled onto the chair and crossed his legs. “Why the sudden interest?”
“In you?” Larsen laughed. “Don’t exaggerate your importance, Grant. It’s Kelly who holds my interest. You’re less than a pesky little mosquito to me. If you fancy yourself a rival, you really are way beyond reality. But then, reality hasn’t been your strong point of late, has it?”
“That’s what the shrinks tell me.”
“So how did it feel, watching that aircraft go in when there was nothing you could do about it?”
“It was the worst moment of my life. I’ve lost aircraft before but never like that.”
“And how many died?”
“You know full well what the final numbers were.” Grant took another leisurely sip and then slowly lowered the glass. “Care to know about the nightmares?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “The shrink thought she was helping me, but she only made the dreams worse. In the original dream I’m at my radar display. The Boeing 767 is flying across the screen. Its vertical stabilizer rises above the display like a shark’s dorsal fin. I can reach out and grab the fin, save those lives, but there’s a catch. The Grim Reaper is standing beside me. He’s cranking an electrical generator that runs leads to the tail. When I try to touch it, I get a shock. It’s a strong shock. I’m too weak, too undisciplined to overcome the pain. I let go. They all die, and all those on the ground die with them.”
Grant slowly turned to face his tormentor. “Does that make you feel like a big man, Larsen? I made life-or-death decisions every minute of my career for twenty years. I did it flawlessly. No accident or incident was ever attributed to any mistake by me. I was the best there was. All that came crashing down on my shoulders eighteen months ago, on national television, repeated over and over for the edification of the viewing public. Logically, I know that there was nothing I could do. Psychologically, the devastation was too great to deal with. Someday, I might return to normal. You on the other hand…”
“What about me?”
“Well, having never been normal, you have no frame of reference with which to correct your behavior. In other words, I’m potentially curable but you’re a terminal asshole.”
Larsen broke into a riotous laugh. He doubled over and slammed his fist into the table. “You slay me. You just slay me.”
“Not quite yet. Just give me time.”
The mirth vanished from Larsen’s lips.
“Is that a threat?”
“Let’s just say that when you’re dealing with a man who’s already lost everything, then it pays to keep in mind that he has nothing more to lose. Do you read mysteries?”
“What?”
Grant stood. He gestured toward the guests scattered throughout the room. His voice rose above the muffled conversations. “May I have everyone’s attention, please?”
Kelly LaBrecque stepped over and placed her hand on Grant’s arm. “What are you doing, Don?”
Grant ignored the question as he exchanged eye contact with the assembled guests. “Of those who accompanied Mr. Larsen from the U.S., many of you against your will, is there anyone among you who would not relish the thought of killing this lowlife fuck?”
Grant watched a sea of half-opened mouths stare back at him. Oh, Lord. It’s like I’m looking into a koi pond at feeding time. “Well? Doesn’t anyone have the guts to admit—— Hell, people, I’ve only known the fuck for a day and a half and I’d gladly waste his sorry ass.”
George Howland was the first to shake off the look of a fish in a sushi shop. “Sure, he’d look good to me dead. But murder is something else.”
Grant shrugged. “Perhaps. But an isolated tropical island, a hurricane approaching, cut off hundreds of miles from the authorities? If we were living a play by Agatha Christie, I couldn’t think of a better venue or a more perfect victim.” He turned to Larsen and smiled. “I do wish you a good night’s sleep tonight, asshole.”
A deafening thunderclap shook the floor in unison with a blinding flash at the windows. The lights winked off, casting the room into an inky darkness.
Grant stumbled back into the chair and fell into it. The demon returned to Grant’s mind as the nightmare took control. Kelly was saying something but he couldn’t make it out. He looked ahead, into the blackness. The radar display stared back at him. The Boeing 767 was in trouble and he knew it, for the exact same scenario had played out just minutes before. That’s why he was here, sitting in front of the scope. That’s why he had just relieved the previous controller. You always relieve the controller who just lost one. Standard practice.
The tail of the Boeing slowly rose from the face of the display. Two electrical wires ran from the tail to the hideous figure standing to his right. The cackle, strangely feminine, emanating from within the hood, raised the hair on the nape of his neck.
Grant’s shoulders shuddered. His shaking right hand slowly reached out for the tailfin. The grinding of the electrical generator and the infernal, maniacal laughter to his right further unnerved him. His fingers were perhaps an inch from the tail when the spark leapt towards them….
A scream, a female scream, came seconds, minutes, perhaps hours into the flashback, but Grant’s tormented mind remained trapped in its own hell. It seemed to him the screams of all those about to lose their lives.
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