Thicker Than Water (A Leo Waterman Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page B

for a living, it’s best to operate from the assumption that somewhere out there somebody’s still holding a grudge. Lots of people in this world just aren’t able to take responsibility for their actions, so they decide that the only reasonable thing to do is to shoot the messenger. That’s how private investigators end up with their skulls cracked and their noses broken, or worse yet, gunned down by some out-of-his-mind, about-to-lose-everything husband or wife.
    Since I stopped working, I’d gotten out of the habit of looking over my shoulder. I told myself that was because I was in the best physical shape of my life and therefore ready for anything, even if I wasn’t paying attention. Truth was, I went to the gym every day in order to fill time rather than to exercise any sense of professional responsibility. No doubt about it, I’d lost whatever edge I’d once possessed, presuming, of course, I’d ever had one to lose.
    I wanted to make it all the way downtown to the King County Coroner’s Office before everybody went home for the day. Going through the middle of the city at that time was out of the question, so I planned to get myself up onto Capital Hill, just far enough from the I-5 to avoid the commuters, and then make my way south through the neighborhoods.
    If I’d taken any other route I’d never have noticed them. My mind was in outer space. I was bellyache-worried and not paying the slightest attention to the world around me as I turned right off Fairview and started up Eastlake.
    The derelict smokestacks of the old Seattle City Light steam plant seemed to be giving me the finger as I rolled up the grade, past ZymoGenetics and the back of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, up to the top of the hill, where a forest of concrete pillars suddenly sprouted on my left and the roar of the freeway began to seep into the car’s interior.
    As I crested the grade, I checked the surrounding area. Three blocks down, along the front of REI, a knot of traffic shimmered in the rain. Brake lights threw jagged shafts of red on the asphalt. I slowed to a crawl. A moment later the light changed and suddenly the street was empty. I fed the car a little gas.
    I checked the rearview mirror. Back at the bottom of Eastlake Avenue, a white Cadillac Escalade with British Columbia plates was moving uphill inside a self-generated cloud of mist, its otherworldly white halogen headlights bouncing this way and that as it navigated the minefield of potholes.
    I crested the hill and veered hard into the right-hand lane, getting as far from the concrete divider as possible,before swinging back to the left, gritting my teeth hard as I swung across three lanes, barely avoiding the concrete traffic island designed to prevent precisely this grossly unlawful maneuver.
    I made it with an inch to spare and was halfway up the ramp, driving over the freeway, congratulating myself, checking the mirrors for cops, when I saw that the Cadillac had not only performed the same illegal maneuver but had also closed the distance between us by half.
    I had a “hmmmm” moment. The first time I’d seen them, they had their lights on, and now the driver had turned them off. And it wasn’t like visibility had improved either. Quite the contrary. It was getting darker and drearier by the second. A steel ball bearing rolled down my spine. Why no lights?
    I could understand how my scofflaw maneuver might have nurtured the worst instincts in my fellow citizens and I sorely regretted being such a poor role model, but the lights? The lights made no sense at all unless somebody was trying a little too hard to not be noticed. The
Twilight Zone
theme began to toot in my head.
    A dry laugh escaped my throat as I eased up to the stop sign. “A bit paranoid or what?” my inner voice asked. Hell, on my worst day it took me several hours to piss somebody off enough to be following me over hill and dale. I’d been looking for Rebecca for only an hour.