Dark Luck (A Suspense Thriller) Read Online Free

letter in stainless steel time capsule and bury it at +34° 20'
2.63", -118° 26' 32.64."
    Nick finally took the initiative. Now Ted could see
that Nick Duplass had brains.
    The coordinates—what else could those numbers
be?—pointed to a spot in the middle of Wilson Canyon Park, which was located
twenty miles north of Encino in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Ted
was beaming with satisfaction. He liked the fact that Nick had picked a place
just half an hour away from his house. Ted was fine with Nick’s choice of
medium, too; a written note could last for several centuries in a metal box.
Although paper sounded like a flimsy material, there were plenty of books in
libraries that were over five hundred years old.
    Why did Nick decide not to take advantage of the
Internet to store Ted’s messages to him? Perhaps he didn’t want to rely on
servers and Internet companies. Two hundred years was enough time for computer
data to be lost twice and for a dot-com company—even a giant one—to go bankrupt
a dozen times. It was also possible that they did not use the Internet at all
in 2223.
    Wasting no time, Ted opened the word processor and typed
his message to Nick:
    ‘I want to know when and how I die. My name is Ted
Duplass, I was born in Seattle, WA, on March 10, 1970.
    Ted Duplass.’
    It was not an epistolary masterpiece, but it would do
the trick. Short and to the point.
    When he was about to send the document to the printer,
Ted decided to add his social security number. The more details, the better, he
thought. There could be more than one Ted Duplass born on March 10 th ,
1971 in Seattle, WA.
    Then he went online and ordered two time capsules on the
site called Future Preservation. He paid for expedited shipping; he couldn’t
wait to see if Nick’s idea would work.
    Later that day, he drove to Home Depot and bought a
shovel. As he placed the shovel in the trunk of his Range Rover, he asked
himself how deep a hole he was going to dig, assuming he would bury the time
capsule upright. According to its description, the capsule was eleven inches
long, so Ted figured that two feet should be deep enough. 
     
    11.
    Two days later, Ted went to Wilson Canyon Park and,
when it got dark, buried the capsule with his letter at the spot indicated in
Nick’s email. The hole he dug was two feet deep, just as he had planned.
    He couldn’t stop thinking about death as he shoveled
the earth.
    How old would he be when he left this world? How was he
going to die? Would it be a heart attack? Cancer? An accident? Or maybe he was
going to be murdered?
    Suicide?
    No, Ted was positive he would never consider killing
himself.
    By the way, would Wilson Canyon Park still be a park in
two hundred years or was it going to be turned into a residential area? That
burial spot could very well be located in Nick’s backyard in 2223.
    When he finished filling the hole with soil, Ted was
giddy with impatience. He had no doubt that Nick would receive his message, but
nevertheless he wanted to see clear and positive proof of that. As Ted walked
to his car, it dawned upon him that he probably wouldn’t have to wait too long.
He might not have to wait at all. You see, Nick knew the location of the capsule
two days ago, the minute he sent Ted the last email. He might have replied
yesterday.
    Ted took his cellphone out of his jacket pocket and
opened the email application. A jolt of adrenaline shot into Ted’s system:
there was one unread message in the [email protected] inbox.
    The email was from Nick. It was brief and to the point,
as usual. 
    ‘Ted Duplass was killed by his wife Nora on September 30,
2013.
    I found your time capsule.
    Nick Duplass.’
    Ted stopped walking and reread the email. What the
fuck? Nora was going to kill him? Why? How?
    September 30th. Two weeks from today.
    What the fuck?
     
    12.
    “Did Nick tell you when you’re going to die yet?” Mike
asked when Ted handed him his allowance check. It was September