Dark Places of the Soul: Dark Soul Trilogy - Book 1 Read Online Free Page A

took the payment for a deed
well done, fulfilling a chance meeting with the man wearing the
Tiger’s Eye ring.
    He watched, while placing the handful of
bills in his pants pocket, hoping the count was close enough to
being right.
    And he continued watching even when more
blood than he had ever seen painted the woman’s face with a mask of
death.
    Tiger’s Eye flaunted a gun and Noah ran with
a heart pumping gallons of blood each second. A fired shot, its
sound tearing through the old warehouse. He witnessed the sound of
murder.
    A second shot, muffled and followed by a
silence much too long. He knew the second bullet of death had been
one of suicide.
     
    ***
     
    Oncoming headlights danced on the windshield
between swipes of the wiper blades. James Lansing pursued another
dream. The dashboard clock read twelve-o-five, it was ten minutes
slow. Keri slept in the bedroom. He had checked on her at the last
service station, dead to the world, stretched out on her stomach.
He hadn’t meant to spy on her sleeping habits, but in the
illumination provided near the gas pumps, he could see the sheets
kicked onto the floor along with her jeans. The light reflected off
the thin white panties covering her small rump and James traced her
backside with lonely eyes.
    She had decided to come along for the ride,
since there seemed to be nothing better to do. He told her he was
heading east, toward the Boston area. Persuading her to come with
him seemed easier than expected. The dreams had convinced him of
the importance of her company, as well as that of the other two he
had yet to seek out.
    The direction he traveled took him back
toward his home, from where this summertime journey began. He
merged onto Interstate 90, south of Erie. His destination before he
would give in to sleep was about thirty miles east of Buffalo, a
small KOA campground just off the Interstate.
    The Winnebago slipped through the night like
a phantom, witnessed by none on the desolate stretch highway. Soon
the traffic would rise up from where it had slept off the previous
day and the road would no longer belong to him.
    His stomach rumbled. He ignored it. The
clock had moved ahead four minutes. He knew he wouldn’t get to
close his eyes until about three o’clock, by then his waking hours
would have totaled twenty-two straight. A part of his subconscious
didn’t want to sleep. Slumber, no matter how brief, brought dreams,
and dreams directed him to realities he’d rather not pass through.
A dream is what brought him to the small town south of Washington
Pennsylvania. In the dream he witnessed the red haired woman’s
death, the glass and brick spread out across the sidewalk and the
willowy blond who he protected in his arms, embraced somewhere
between life and hell.

Chapter 4
     
     
     
     
    It wasn’t right. She knew it. The dinner was
given all for her glory and not for those who worked so hard to get
her into the public eye. Among her peers, Candice Goddard had
finally achieved the top tier. The road through stardom was being
paved for her, all falling into place as she’d hoped. After seven
years of nothing more than bit parts and commercials, Candice had
landed her second role in an upcoming movie, a thriller where she
portrayed a heroine rather than a victimized mouse.
    Zak Wells, the director of her break-through
film, good friend and lover, had thrown the party to celebrate
Candice’s thirtieth birthday. The gathering also commemorated her
first leading role, one which came with the complimentary nude
scene, a sign that she had arrived among the elite. The road to
this plateau hadn’t been easy. Five years ago she divorced the love
of her life, after deciding her newfound career outweighed his. She
walked away squeaky clean, while her lawyers made her ex look like
an abusive tyrant. Her newly acquired single status made it
possible for her to sleep her way to the top without being an
unfaithful wife. Sixty-six year old Zachary Wells was the