Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

My head thundered home into Caulfield’s belly just as his automatic barked, and at the same instant, his head rocked as Dehan’s shot slammed home right between his eyes.

We crashed to the floor. I heard her scream, “Stone!” and I looked up, sick with terror for a moment that she’d been hit. She was rushing at me with fear in her eyes, shouting, “Are you OK? Are you hit? Did I hit you?”

I smiled at her. “How many rounds did you fire?”

“One!”

I grinned. “How’s Caulfield doing?”

She glanced at him. “Not so good.” Then she scowled. “But I was aiming for his arm, you asshole! I had to shift when you charged, you great lummox! I could have killed you!”

I couldn’t stop smiling. “Oh… It’s just, you look so…”

The Alpha Two team had put down their wooden swords and were now slowly establishing order. The huge sergeant Lewis hoisted me to my feet and Harry undid my cuffs. Lewis said, “I heard your little speech, sir. Very inspiring. Thank you.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

Dehan held up her cell and handed it to Harry. “You have the whole exchange here.”

He smiled and took it. “You are a marvel, Carmen. This silly sod doesn’t deserve you.”

She winked at me and, ever loyal, she said, “Yeah, he does.”

He laughed. “If you say so.” Then he was on his radio again, telling Alpha One to set up a perimeter, and calling for a meat wagon, a SOCO team, which is the Brits’ version of a Crime Scene team, and a forensic IT team, because they had found Katie Ellison’s laptop, her pen drives and her notebooks.

The proverbial was about to hit the fan, and it was going to be the shitstorm of the century.

EPILOGUE

We were sitting in the VIP lounge at Heathrow Airport, waiting for our flight to be called. We were there courtesy of Lord Chiddester, who had also upgraded our flights, seeing as we had refused to take payment for helping to solve his daughter’s murder. Our luggage was all checked in and we had an hour to kill, so we figured we might as well drown it in martini as shoot it with an AK-47.

Dehan, now dressed in jeans and a demure blouse, was bobbing her olive up and down in her drink, looking pensive.

“It’s hard to believe,” she said at last, “that something like that could happen in a country like Britain today.”

I nodded and ate my olive instead of bobbing it. “The world is changing. I don’t know if there ever were certainties. I guess after World War II, everybody thought there were certainties, until Kennedy and Vietnam, and Watergate… It was only a very short time when we felt more or less sure about who we were, in the West, and what we were about.”

She gave a short laugh that was more like a snort. “I read once that every new century actually starts one or two decades in. You know, the twentieth started in 1916, the eighteenth in 1812. I wonder if we are getting a first taste of what the new century is bringing us.”

“That’s a kind of scary thought.”

She nodded. “On a happier note, Stone, I have decided that in this new and uncertain world, I have acquired a taste for the good life. So we are going to become international consulting detectives to the Crowned Heads of Europe and world governments, uncovering coups and conspiracies and charging exorbitant fees for it.”

I frowned at my glass and signaled the barman to refill it. “Stone & Stone, Consulting Detectives, no fee too great, most jobs too small. I like it. However, Dehan, I insist that in all of our investigations, you wear a minute black dress and carry an AK-47.”

She shrugged. “I can do that.”

We were quiet for a while as the clock hands moved on toward departure time. After a bit, Dehan voiced my own thoughts. “I wonder what’s next in the box?”

The box was our collection of cold cases back at the 43rd Precinct.

“I seem to remember it was the Vince Wolowitz case. They found him tied to his bed in his house on St. Lawrence Avenue.”

“Oh yeah, Clason Point, near the Catholic church. His dog had got busy on his foot.”

“That’s the one. Neighbors said he had a hundred grand in a cardboard box under the bed.”

“But it was never found.”

“What was that, ’97?”

“August ’97. I remember it. You know? I wondered at the time about his family…”

“Yeah, I wondered that too…”

And the hands of clock moved on, toward departure.

What'd you think?

First of all, thank you so much for giving my work a chance. If you enjoyed this adventure, then I would be extremely grateful if you would consider writing a short review for the book on Amazon. A good review means so much to every writer, but means even more for self-published writer like myself. As it allows new readers to find my books, and ultimately allows me to spend more time  creating stories that I love! :)

You can do so directly down below:

US Review Link

UK Review Link

CA Review Link

AU Review Link

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Ready for the next mission?

If you are ready for the next adventure in THE DEAD COLD SERIES, then you can save another few bucks by purchasing the next Omega Box Set (free for those in Kindle Unlimited). Here are the links:

US Link – DEAD COLD BOX SET #4: BOOKS 13-16

UK Link – DEAD COLD BOX SET #4: BOOKS 13-16

CA Link – DEAD COLD BOX SET #4: BOOKS 13-16

AU Link – DEAD COLD BOX SET #4: BOOKS 13-16

That's it for now :)

Take care,

Blake Banner

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