Wounded Animals (Whistleblower Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page B
Author: Jim Heskett
answer is still no.
The little dots danced across the screen, meaning she was composing her reply. I waited at least two minutes for the response.
Hey honey! Just got done with my swim class and now I’m going to settle in with a book.
That made me sit up in bed. If there was such a thing as typical Grace , that reply wasn’t it. I had no idea she was taking a swim class, and I’d never known her to be much of a reader. Plenty of reality television, maybe a magazine or two here and there, but a book?
I wrote back:
Swim class?
No reply came back this time, so I tapped on her contact record to call her. No answer. I stared at the phone, waiting for another text. A few moments later, she wrote back:
Oh, silly me, I meant spin class. Fat-fingered it.
And that was all. Fat fingered? Seemed like a strange phrase for my wife to use. Maybe she was finally getting that pregnancy brain thing I’d heard people mention.
I tried to call her again, and still she didn’t pick up. Not that it was unusual for her to be unreachable by phone, but I was quite curious to find out what book could have possibly caught her interest so much that she’d decide to actually read one.
When I tried to sleep that night, it seemed like a pointless exercise. Left side didn’t work. Right side didn’t work. On my back didn’t work. I think I must have caught a few minutes somewhere because I had a slim memory of a dream about spiders bursting out of cracks in the walls. I wasn’t crazy about spiders, so I didn’t rush back to sleep after a dream like that.
At around four, I decided to give up and review my training slides for the day. I helped myself to an orange juice and a muffin from the mini-fridge, and watched the sun rise over the highways and glass buildings of Las Colinas. Grace still hadn’t returned my call.
CHAPTER FIVE
Since the hotel was only a couple blocks from the office, I decided to walk there. I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing in summer when the temps rarely dipped below triple digits, but the air felt cool and the sun was shining and I felt like walking off a bit of the tension I’d accumulated in my body, not being able to sleep so well. Spider dreams. Is there anything worse?
I tried to call Grace, but she didn’t pick up. Again. Texted her to call me as soon as possible. I felt that tension creep into the back of my neck, but told myself I was overreacting, because it was normal to go a few days without talking to her when on these trips.
The walk to the office only took a couple of minutes, and I listened to some mellow Iron & Wine songs to ease into the morning. Something about those singer-songwriters made me nostalgic for events I’d never experienced.
Then I stopped short when I saw something I hadn’t expected to see: Darren, my bushy-eyebrowed, evil-eyed trainee, in a tie and slacks, digging in a dumpster. The dumpster was at the end of the office lot. He had one hand over the edge, fishing around, and in a few moments, he withdrew the hand, holding a small object. He touched it, and then held it up to his ear. I was at least a thousand feet away, but I was almost positive he was holding a phone.
I ducked back behind a telephone pole but kept my eyes on him. He spoke for about thirty seconds, then glanced left and right. I made sure I was hidden, as well as I could be behind a foot-wide pole. Eventually, he put the phone back into the dumpster, but he didn’t toss it. He placed it carefully before brushing off his nice clothes as he walked away.
A chill ran down my spine. Not that dumpster-diving was so weird, but a guy in a tie, taking something out, then putting it back in the dumpster? I’m sure he had his own cell phone, so grabbing one out of the dumpster was about the strangest thing I could imagine.
I watched him as I crossed the parking lot. He sat down on the steps in front of the building and tightened
The little dots danced across the screen, meaning she was composing her reply. I waited at least two minutes for the response.
Hey honey! Just got done with my swim class and now I’m going to settle in with a book.
That made me sit up in bed. If there was such a thing as typical Grace , that reply wasn’t it. I had no idea she was taking a swim class, and I’d never known her to be much of a reader. Plenty of reality television, maybe a magazine or two here and there, but a book?
I wrote back:
Swim class?
No reply came back this time, so I tapped on her contact record to call her. No answer. I stared at the phone, waiting for another text. A few moments later, she wrote back:
Oh, silly me, I meant spin class. Fat-fingered it.
And that was all. Fat fingered? Seemed like a strange phrase for my wife to use. Maybe she was finally getting that pregnancy brain thing I’d heard people mention.
I tried to call her again, and still she didn’t pick up. Not that it was unusual for her to be unreachable by phone, but I was quite curious to find out what book could have possibly caught her interest so much that she’d decide to actually read one.
When I tried to sleep that night, it seemed like a pointless exercise. Left side didn’t work. Right side didn’t work. On my back didn’t work. I think I must have caught a few minutes somewhere because I had a slim memory of a dream about spiders bursting out of cracks in the walls. I wasn’t crazy about spiders, so I didn’t rush back to sleep after a dream like that.
At around four, I decided to give up and review my training slides for the day. I helped myself to an orange juice and a muffin from the mini-fridge, and watched the sun rise over the highways and glass buildings of Las Colinas. Grace still hadn’t returned my call.
CHAPTER FIVE
Since the hotel was only a couple blocks from the office, I decided to walk there. I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing in summer when the temps rarely dipped below triple digits, but the air felt cool and the sun was shining and I felt like walking off a bit of the tension I’d accumulated in my body, not being able to sleep so well. Spider dreams. Is there anything worse?
I tried to call Grace, but she didn’t pick up. Again. Texted her to call me as soon as possible. I felt that tension creep into the back of my neck, but told myself I was overreacting, because it was normal to go a few days without talking to her when on these trips.
The walk to the office only took a couple of minutes, and I listened to some mellow Iron & Wine songs to ease into the morning. Something about those singer-songwriters made me nostalgic for events I’d never experienced.
Then I stopped short when I saw something I hadn’t expected to see: Darren, my bushy-eyebrowed, evil-eyed trainee, in a tie and slacks, digging in a dumpster. The dumpster was at the end of the office lot. He had one hand over the edge, fishing around, and in a few moments, he withdrew the hand, holding a small object. He touched it, and then held it up to his ear. I was at least a thousand feet away, but I was almost positive he was holding a phone.
I ducked back behind a telephone pole but kept my eyes on him. He spoke for about thirty seconds, then glanced left and right. I made sure I was hidden, as well as I could be behind a foot-wide pole. Eventually, he put the phone back into the dumpster, but he didn’t toss it. He placed it carefully before brushing off his nice clothes as he walked away.
A chill ran down my spine. Not that dumpster-diving was so weird, but a guy in a tie, taking something out, then putting it back in the dumpster? I’m sure he had his own cell phone, so grabbing one out of the dumpster was about the strangest thing I could imagine.
I watched him as I crossed the parking lot. He sat down on the steps in front of the building and tightened
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