Those Who Wish Me Dead Read Online Free PDF

going to do it.”
    “So now I’m going to do it?”
    “You were always going to do it, Ethan. You just needed to go through the rituals. That way you can convince yourself it’s the right choice.”
    “You’re saying it’s not?”
    “No, E. I’m saying that I truly don’t know what will come of it. But I know you’re going to say yes.”
    They slept then, finally, and in the morning he told Jamie Bennett that he would take the job, and then they set about finding a tow truck to deal with the damaged rental. A simple mistake, he told himself, representative of nothing.
    But he couldn’t help thinking, after Allison’s warning, that the first thing Jamie had admitted to him upon her disastrous midnight arrival was that she had heard the forecast and ignored it, convinced she could beat the storm.
    Up at the Beartooth Pass, chains rattled and winches growled as they pulled that mistake free from the snowdrifts.

4
    I an was off duty when they came for him, but he was still in uniform and still armed, and usually that meant something to people. Badge on the chest, gun on the belt? He felt awfully strong in those situations. Had since the academy, could still remember the first time he’d put on the uniform, feeling like a damned gladiator.
    Bring it the fuck on, he’d thought then, and the years hadn’t eroded much of that swagger. He knew better than to believe he was untouchable—he’d attended too many police funerals for that, and he’d shaken a few too many of the wrong hands and passed cash to too many people he shouldn’t have—but day by day, hour by hour, he still felt strong in the uniform. People took notice. Some respected you, some feared you, some flat-out hated you, even, but they sure as hell took notice.
    The single most unnerving thing about the Blackwell brothers was that they didn’t seem to. The badge meant nothing, and the gun even less. Their pale blue eyes would just roll over you, taking inventory, showing nothing. Indifferent. Bored, even.
    He saw their truck when he pulled in. That black F-150 with blacked-out windows, an illegal level of tint. Even the grille was black. He expected they were still inside, and he got out of the cruiser and took a deep breath and hitched up his belt, knowing they were watching and wanting to remind them of the gun, even though they never seemed to care. He went up on the porch and flipped the lid on the beer cooler. Ice had melted but there were still a couple cans floating around in relatively cold water, and he took out a Miller Lite and drank it there on the porch, leaning against the rail and staring at the blacked-out truck and waiting for them to appear.
    They never did.
    “To hell with it,” he said when the beer was done. Let ’em sit, if that’s what they wanted. He wasn’t going to walk down there and knock on the damn door like he was ready to do their bidding. That wasn’t how it worked. They’d come to him, like it or not.
    He crumpled the can and tossed it in the recycling bin on the porch, which was so full the can just bounced off and fell to the floor. He ignored that as he went to the door and unlocked it, hating the uneasy feeling that came with having his back to their black truck. Then he opened the door and stepped inside and saw them in his living room.
    “What in the hell do you think you’re doing? You broke into my house? ”
    They didn’t answer, and he felt the first real chill. Shook it off and slammed the door behind him, trying to hold the anger. They worked for him. He needed to remember that in order to ensure that they would remember it as well.
    “You boys,” he said, shaking his head, “are going to get your asses in trouble someday, you know that?”
    Jack Blackwell was sitting on Ian’s recliner. Had it leaned back so he could stretch his legs out. He was the older of the two, a little taller, a little thinner. Neither of them had much in the way of visible muscle, but Ian had seen the strength in