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Praise for the Reed & Billie Series by Dustin Stevens:
Must love dogs. Great story and great characters. I hope there will be many more about Reed and Billie. It took a while for me to figure out the why, but I like a good mystery and this is one. Thanks again Mr. Stevens. I look forward to reading the next one. – Amazon Customer
Thrillers are some of my favorite reads because I love to be pulled into a story and through intense situations, all in the safety of my own home. I've read some pretty good ones lately and can now add to that list author Dustin Stevens' "The Boat Man". The story of Detective Reed Mattox, who is attempting to lay low after the death of his partner, yet is pulled into a pretty intense serial murder investigation. The killer is called The Boat Man and is name after Charon from Greek mythology, who carries souls across the rivers Styx into the world of the dead. This is essentially a story of vigilante justice and the mystery involved is a very good one. I found the read to be both intense and very enjoyable. Would definitely recommend and I now plan on checking out some of this author's other novels. – Top 500 Amazon Reviewer
One of the best books I have read since getting my Kindle. The book is very suspenseful while dealing with a subject that has generated a great deal of controversy through the years. While reading the book there is a definite struggle between your heart and your brain over how you should be reacting to the events in the book. I wish every book I read was close to the quality I found in this book. – Kindle Customer
Best book I've read in a long time and I read for hours every night. It was so good to read a police thriller without the main character being "saved" from himself by some hot woman. Fantastic character development and being a dog lover, loved that he is K-9 cop. The book held my attention and I didn't figure out what was going on until the end. I read so much that I rarely leave reviews but I want the author to know how much I enjoyed his work. I highly recommend this book. – Amazon Customer
It certainly was a Thriller. I was intrigued by the complexity of sub-plots, the difficulties experienced by Maddox just trying to do his job; trying to do the right thing. Because doing the right thing is all we have to define our character once the cards are dealt. And in what was left of The Boat Man's mind he believed in his cause, too. First exposure to this author's excellent, engrossing work of art. – Amazon Reviewer
I had never put much thought into the work life of highly-trained military and police dogs, and found it quite fascinating. Billie, along with the human she has trained to supply her with food, was an interesting character. The most interesting character was the Boat Man himself, both because of what he was doing and why and how he was doing it. It was impossible not to feel empathy for him. There were several other interesting people who helped make this book very readable. – Kindle Reviewer
Praise for work written as T.R. Kohler:
The twist and turns the writer uses keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. I love the way the characters are revealed. I also love the way the reader is allowed to follow all the characters. A book I would highly recommend. – Amazon Customer
5 Stars ! Well done, well written. Great character development and suspense. Look forward to more by T.R. Kohler. – Kindle Reader
Very well written and interesting plot. Making a clear statement about the misguided actions of a nation poignant. Forgoing the standard parades and eternal gratefulness of the nation is another unique touch. Thank you T.R. Kohler – Kindle Unlimited Reviewer
Just finished 'Shoot to Wound' virtually in one sitting. It's that sort of novel so be prepared. Well drawn characters, another vengeful veteran and a clean writing style that is easy to read. Highly recommend. – Kindle Customer
To me the mark of an excellent thriller writer is me having my idea of who the REALLY bad guy (because even some of the "good" guys are a bit bad sometimes) and getting to the end and being really surprised. This is that kind of author and this is that book. T. R. had me guessing the whole way through and just when I had it figured out - BAM! - I was wrong. Way wrong. – Amazon Reviewer
Other works by Dustin Stevens:
One Last Day
The Debt
Going Viral
Quarterback
Scars and Stars
Catastrophic
21 Hours
Ohana
Be My Eyes
Twelve
Liberation Day
Just a Game
Ink
Four
The Zoo Crew Novels:
Moonblink
The Glue Guy
Tracer
Dead Peasants
The Zoo Crew
The Hawk Tate Novels:
Fire and Ice
Cover Fire
Cold Fire
The Reed & Billie Novels:
Justice
The Partnership
The Kid
The Good Son
The Boat Man
Works Written as T.R. Kohler:
The Ring
Shoot to Wound
Peeping Thoms
The Subway
A Thriller
Dustin Stevens
The Subway
Copyright © 2017, Dustin Stevens
Cover Art and Design: Paramita Bhattacharjee, www.creativeparamita.com
Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden, without the written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.
Hide nothing, for time, which
sees all and hears all, exposes all.
-Sophocles
It’s not the future you are afraid of.
It’s the fear of the past repeating
itself that haunts you.
-T.M.W.
The government will tell you just about anything when they’re trying to convince you to enter Witness Protection.
Like your testimony is absolutely vital.
Or that the country will be better off without whoever it is they want you to squeal on walking the streets.
That you and those you care most about will be safe and protected, the program having never lost a single person under their care.
Even more extensive is the list of things they don’t tell you.
The infinite number of things that will never be the same, the sorts of decisions that are made for you in an instant, never to be reneged on.
The inability to ever visit your old home. Eat a meal at your favorite restaurant. Even visit the gravesites of your parents.
For six long years I trod through the program, checking in when I was required to, going through the motions of putting my life back together someplace new.
Trying to avoid being angry about the fact that while the prosecutor got his conviction and skyrocketed to a new position, the program got another victory to add to their tally and another story to sell on the next poor schmuck, all I got was a life I never wanted and damned sure never asked for.
A place with a name I despised and a morning ritual of staring into the mirror at a face I barely even recognized anymore.
An existence that could be shattered by something as simple as a phone call, just thirty seconds needed to deliver a lightning bolt from the clear blue sky, changing everything that had taken more
than a half-decade to put into place.
Not until that very moment, standing in the kitchen of my apartment, naked save a pair of boxer shorts and a cross swinging free from my neck, bent forward with my hands pressed into the side of the sink, gasping to catch my breath, did the biggest omission the government made really come into stark relief for me.
No matter how hard they tried, no matter what strictures they put into place, reassurances they tried to give me, nobody could hide forever.
Because forever was a really long ass time.
Part I
Chapter One
“Freddy!” Peg Bannister called, her voice rolling over the calm surface of Lake Edstrom. In the early morning light, a thin mist could just be seen rising above it, dawn no more than a few minutes past.
Within an hour, the summer sun would have burned it all away, another descent into hellish temperatures on tap, but for the time being, everything was at peace.
Precisely the reason she had rustled her black lab from his slumber, no matter how unhappy he had been about it.
“Freeeeeeddy!” she called, extending the name several syllables in length, raising her voice as much as she dared.
As one of just a few year-round residents on the waterfront, she wasn’t concerned with bothering her neighbors. All having been present for more than a decade, she saw them at least twice a month for a planned social and knew that, like her, they would be up early to avoid the oncoming heat.
It was the scads of vacation rentals dotting the shorefront she more feared, the people they drew in from the cities cut from a much different cloth. Ignoring that this was a place where people actually lived and worked, they saw the lake as their own personal resort, expecting it to come with all the usual trappings.
Like observed quiet hours in the morning.
And unfettered access to be loud until the wee hours of the night.
Just weeks into June, the combination of the unwanted visitors and the even less wanted heat had Peg in a sour mood, her mouth twisted up into a scowl as she pushed along the shoreline. Polished river stones made for uneven footing as she went, a hand to her brow, her eyes pinched tight as she surveyed the landscape.
With each passing morning, Freddy had been a bit more vocal about his disdain for the early hour and the forced exercise. Taking off at a dead sprint, tearing away from her without a second glance the moment they were off the back porch, this morning was just his latest attempt at fully displaying that.
An act she would have to be certain to show her equal distaste for later when it came to doling out treats.
“Freddy!” she snapped a final time, one quick and agitated word, the echo of it across the water making her irritation clear.
“Where the hell are you, you damn dog?” she muttered, shaking her head as she lowered hand from her eyes. Shifting her gaze to the ground beneath her, she picked her way over a pile of charred wood, a few fresh beer cans scattered around it.
One more reminder of the visitors that had descended on her home for another year.
Feeling the distaste she felt for the entire situation rising like bile along the back of her throat, she shifted her attention to the right. Despite being able to see nothing but dense pine, she knew that just one hundred yards away was a two-story cabin, a structure her friend Tom Jansen had built ages before.
Upon his untimely death two winters prior, his children hadn’t been able to sell it off fast enough, the place snapped up by a property management company bent on pawning it off to the highest bidder each weekend.
Which, apparently, included those with no regard for the land or the environment they were now staying on.
With just such a barb on the tip of her tongue, a combination of factors shoving aside any inhibition she had, Peg was cut short by the din of Freddy bawling nearby.
Low and clear, the sound drifted in from down the shore, as plain as if she were standing just a few feet away.
After more than eight years together, there were few things in life she knew as surely as the cadence of Freddy calling out to her.
Just as certainly, it was clear by the pitch and the rapid-fire delivery that something had him stressed.
Gone was any of the previous animosity, whatever bits of vitriol she might have felt. In their stead, Peg forgot about the litterers and the cabins and the summer heat, her sole focus on the few feet in front of her.
Picking her way up and over the uneven shoreline, her breath rose, sweat dotting her forehead. Beside her, a light breeze managed to push a ripple across the top of the water, the muddy brown liquid lapping up just inches from her shoes.
One time after another Freddy sang out to her, an audible beacon pulling her forward, beckoning her along the shore. As she went, scads of possibilities as to what had him so worked up passed through her mind, all of them ending badly, causing the panic she felt to rise precipitously.
For all their various forms, though, not a single one rose anywhere near what she found waiting for her.
Chapter Two
Standing in front of the mirror in the makeshift gym of her basement, there seemed to be little reason for Talula Davis to towel away the droplets of sweat collected on her skin. Situated as individual beads, they began just short of her hairline, covering her forehead, streaking down over her lips and cheeks.
From there, they only grew more pronounced, balanced atop her bare shoulders, following the carved lines of her abdomen in thick rivulets.
No sooner would she wipe them away – these the results of another early workout – than the wicked morning heat would bring them back even heavier.
Most years in East Tennessee, that was an inescapable truth that didn’t come to bear until mid-August, the schedule seeming to have been accelerated by more than two months this time around.
What it would have in store by the time the dog days arrived was an eventuality she would rather not deal with for the time being.
Or ever, if she could avoid it.
Standing in front of the mirror, Davis worked the towel over her skin, her focus on the cracked piece of glass three feet away and the reflection on display.
At thirty-three years of age, she found herself now on the cusp of the point where life begins to start stripping things away. No longer could she run for miles on the pavement outside, a long basketball career having caught up with her, tendonitis nagging at her joints.
Ditto for any form of overhead weight training, the doctors telling her repeatedly that the frayed labrum in her left shoulder was nothing more than one awkward jolt away from tearing for good, an injury requiring surgery.
That one she could chalk up to her career since leaving the hardwood, a livelihood she never anticipated, still couldn’t quite believe she’d backed her way into.
Rotating slightly at the waist, Davis tensed her core, seeing the ridges stand out beneath her light brown skin. Starting wide on either side, the striated muscles and ribs funneled everything inward, a series of diagonal lines disappearing beneath the bottom of her sports bra and top of her gym shorts to either end.
She might not be able to run, may not be able to lift as she once did, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t still beat the hell out of a punching bag whenever the mood struck her.
As it seemed to be doing with increasing frequency lately.
Allowing herself just a few more moments, Davis kept her focus away from the bags beneath either eye, ignoring the way the overhead bulb seemed to accentuate her drawn features, cheekbones protruding on either side.
Instead, she focused on her core, on the veins running the length of her biceps, on the wraps pulled tight around her knuckles and wrists.
Her own definition of feminine beauty, free of whatever society might have her believe.
Content for the morning in what she saw, Davis reached out and tugged on the string hanging down from the ceiling, extinguishing the light. Once it was gone, she remained rooted a moment, hearing the faint creak of the metal
chain the bag behind her hung on, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dark.
Thirty seconds later, she turned and began her trudge up the stairs, another day stretched out in front of her, a carbon copy of the week before, and an untold many prior to that.
The sort of small-town thing that could stand as both a blessing and a curse.
One stair at a time, Davis rose from the basement, the bare steps moaning in protest beneath her weight. Attention aimed at her hands, she unfurled the long wraps as she went, the material damp with sweat.
By the time she reached the vinyl of the kitchen, both were free from their bindings, Davis clenching her fingers, the world already ten degrees warmer than it had been in the basement.
Paying the heat no mind, Davis looped the straps over the back of the closest chair and went to the coffee maker. Drawing a fresh k-cup from the drawer beneath it, she tucked it home and slammed the top shut, the machine kicking to life to do the rest.
Turning away, Davis went back for the straps, the shower already calling for her.
She made it no more than a few steps before pulling up short, the sound of her phone erupting from the kitchen table stopping her progress. Feeling a ripple pass through her core, Davis’s eyes slid shut, her nose rising toward the ceiling.
“Jesus, already?”
Standing in place another moment, she waited until the third ring before making her way across the floor and taking up the phone. Without bothering to check the caller ID – knowing full well who it was without needing to – she thumbed the phone to life and pressed it to her face.
“Hullo?”
Against the sweaty surface of her cheek, the phone slid twice before settling in along her ear.
The Subway Page 1
