Officer Down (A Digital Short Story) Read Online Free
Author: David DeLee
solitary key slaps into the palm of his hand.
The porch light is on. He goes to stab the key in the front door lock, but the door swings open. Bright light spills out onto the porch, the interior ablaze with warm, inviting light.
“Oh, baby. There you are. Thank God. I was so worried.”
Karin Powell’s luscious, full-figure form fills the open doorway. Her soft blonde hair is pulled up and off her neck. She wears only a touch of make-up—the way he likes—and is dressed in a thick, white terrycloth bathrobe, and he hopes, nothing else.
She leaps into Gil’s waiting arms, wrapping her full legs around him and smothers him with kisses. Her scent is intoxicating. “It’s over, Gil? Really over?”
He nods. “Kip’s dead. Stevie’s dead. And I fed the investigators the whole story. Dave’s obsession over Kip, his thinking Kip and you were having an affair, his hiring Stevie to kill Kip. The whole thing. Dave’s been arrested. He’s charged with two counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He’s never getting out, honey,” he assures her.
Everything had gone exactly as they’d planned.
#
If you enjoyed Officer Down,
you won’t want to miss the first, full-length novel featuring
bounty hunter, Grace deHaviland
on sale now
FATAL DESTINY
David DeLee
Read on for a preview…
Chapter One
God must hate me.
Here it was, just the second week of October and a cold snap had moved into the area, plunging the temperatures to near freezing already. Unseasonably cold, the TV weather people said. A stalled Canadian cold front, they explained. Yeah, right. I knew what was really going on. It was God. I could hear him up in heaven, telling the angels with a laugh: Grace deHaviland’s doing surveillance. Let’s make it cold as a cadaver’s crotch down there.
I cupped my hands and blew into them. Damn.
Parked in the Grandview Heights section of Columbus, I’d been sitting for hours in my beat-up cargo van in the shadows of an overhanging elm tree down the road from the only working lamp post, my full attention on a dilapidated old colonial across the street. The house was one on a block of rundown homes earmarked for demolition, something the city never seemed to get around to. In the meantime, they became havens for drug dealers, users, crack whores and the homeless.
This one had a large front porch. The paint on the wide steps was worn to the wood and the once-white railing had so many spindles missing it looked like a boxer’s punch-drunk grin. A rusted glider was set off to one end and an old, moldy couch sat under the large front window. The cushions on it were so worn out, they sank. Broken crack vials, fast food wrappers and a busted up tricycle littered the yard. An old box spring and rusted iron headboard leaned against the peeling siding. Junked.
I covered the light of my cell phone and checked the time: 6:30 a.m.
The darkness before the dawn.
A lone figure rounded the corner, coming from Avondale Avenue, and walking in my direction. His hands shoved in his pockets, he had his hoodie pulled up over his shaved head to ward off the chilly, pre-dawn breeze. I checked him against the mug shot I had of Tyrell Parks. It was my guy.
I opened the well-oiled van door without a sound. The dome light remained off because I’d removed the bulb months ago. The van’s decrepit appearance—I’d picked it up at auction about a year ago—its dings, dents and splotches of matte-black primer paint were deliberate, all carefully applied so no one looked twice at it. Yet mechanically, its care and maintenance was top shelf, as good as money could buy. The perfect decoy vehicle.
Jogging across the street, I avoided the splash of piss-yellow streetlight, and carefully navigating my interception point, I jammed my hands into my jacket pockets too, returning the mug shot of Tyrell Parks to one pocket and wrapping my hand tightly the stun gun
The porch light is on. He goes to stab the key in the front door lock, but the door swings open. Bright light spills out onto the porch, the interior ablaze with warm, inviting light.
“Oh, baby. There you are. Thank God. I was so worried.”
Karin Powell’s luscious, full-figure form fills the open doorway. Her soft blonde hair is pulled up and off her neck. She wears only a touch of make-up—the way he likes—and is dressed in a thick, white terrycloth bathrobe, and he hopes, nothing else.
She leaps into Gil’s waiting arms, wrapping her full legs around him and smothers him with kisses. Her scent is intoxicating. “It’s over, Gil? Really over?”
He nods. “Kip’s dead. Stevie’s dead. And I fed the investigators the whole story. Dave’s obsession over Kip, his thinking Kip and you were having an affair, his hiring Stevie to kill Kip. The whole thing. Dave’s been arrested. He’s charged with two counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He’s never getting out, honey,” he assures her.
Everything had gone exactly as they’d planned.
#
If you enjoyed Officer Down,
you won’t want to miss the first, full-length novel featuring
bounty hunter, Grace deHaviland
on sale now
FATAL DESTINY
David DeLee
Read on for a preview…
Chapter One
God must hate me.
Here it was, just the second week of October and a cold snap had moved into the area, plunging the temperatures to near freezing already. Unseasonably cold, the TV weather people said. A stalled Canadian cold front, they explained. Yeah, right. I knew what was really going on. It was God. I could hear him up in heaven, telling the angels with a laugh: Grace deHaviland’s doing surveillance. Let’s make it cold as a cadaver’s crotch down there.
I cupped my hands and blew into them. Damn.
Parked in the Grandview Heights section of Columbus, I’d been sitting for hours in my beat-up cargo van in the shadows of an overhanging elm tree down the road from the only working lamp post, my full attention on a dilapidated old colonial across the street. The house was one on a block of rundown homes earmarked for demolition, something the city never seemed to get around to. In the meantime, they became havens for drug dealers, users, crack whores and the homeless.
This one had a large front porch. The paint on the wide steps was worn to the wood and the once-white railing had so many spindles missing it looked like a boxer’s punch-drunk grin. A rusted glider was set off to one end and an old, moldy couch sat under the large front window. The cushions on it were so worn out, they sank. Broken crack vials, fast food wrappers and a busted up tricycle littered the yard. An old box spring and rusted iron headboard leaned against the peeling siding. Junked.
I covered the light of my cell phone and checked the time: 6:30 a.m.
The darkness before the dawn.
A lone figure rounded the corner, coming from Avondale Avenue, and walking in my direction. His hands shoved in his pockets, he had his hoodie pulled up over his shaved head to ward off the chilly, pre-dawn breeze. I checked him against the mug shot I had of Tyrell Parks. It was my guy.
I opened the well-oiled van door without a sound. The dome light remained off because I’d removed the bulb months ago. The van’s decrepit appearance—I’d picked it up at auction about a year ago—its dings, dents and splotches of matte-black primer paint were deliberate, all carefully applied so no one looked twice at it. Yet mechanically, its care and maintenance was top shelf, as good as money could buy. The perfect decoy vehicle.
Jogging across the street, I avoided the splash of piss-yellow streetlight, and carefully navigating my interception point, I jammed my hands into my jacket pockets too, returning the mug shot of Tyrell Parks to one pocket and wrapping my hand tightly the stun gun
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