The Fourth Option

by Matt Hilton

  THE FOURTH OPTION

  A Joe Hunter Thriller

  By

  Matt Hilton

  The Fourth Option

  By

  MATT HILTON

  First published 2020

  Copyright © 2020 Matt Hilton

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Matt Hilton has exerted his right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Cover images used under standard license from Pixabay.com/AlemCoksa

  Cover design © 2020 Matt Hilton

  Matt Hilton worked for twenty-two years in private security and the police force before writing full time. He is a 4th Dan blackbelt in Ju-Jitsu. He lives in Cumbria with his wife and two dogs.

  www.matthiltonbooks.com

  Praise for Matt Hilton’s JOE HUNTER thrillers

  “Matt Hilton delivers a thrill a minute. Awesome!”

  Chris Ryan

  “Vicious, witty and noir…a sparkling new talent.”

  Peter James

  “Check the edge of your seat – it’s where you are going to spend most of the time when in the company of Joe Hunter.”

  www.thrillers4u.com

  “Roars along at a ferocious pace.”

  Observer

  “Action-packed from start to finish.”

  Heat

  “Electrifying.”

  Daily Mail

  CONTENTS

  THE FOURTH OPTION

  Verso

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  2

  3

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  6

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  11

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  44

  45

  Author's Note

  About The Author

  Books by Matt Hilton

  1

  ‘It’s good to have you back, brother,’ said Jared ‘Rink’ Rington as I dragged my suitcase towards him. Having crossed the Atlantic, I’d just disembarked a connecting flight from Orlando at Tampa International Airport. I’d been on the move for almost fifteen hours. I was stiff, tired, and hot, but seeing my friend brought a grin to my face.

  Rink was a man of contradictions. Sometimes he was as still and centred as a Zen master, on others he was magnanimous with his affection. On this occasion he was the latter; he caught me up in an unashamed bear hug that almost had me on tiptoes as he squeezed the breath out of me.

  ‘It’s good to see you too, Rink,’ I wheezed.

  He set me down, held me at arm’s length and said, ‘Let me have a look at you.’

  ‘I’m still as ugly as ever,’ I reassured him.

  ‘Uglier,’ he decided. ‘You need to get a bit of colour back in your cheeks, Hunter. You’re lookin’ kinda grey.’

  ‘Grey’s the colour of my homeland,’ I said.

  He held out his hands, a question in his eyes.

  ‘OK,’ I said, acknowledging that I was back in sunny Tampa, ‘this is home.’

  ‘Darn tootin’,’ he said. ‘You’ve no option other than to stay here now. There’s less for you in the Panhandle than there was back in the Old Country.’

  ‘It’s that bad?’

  ‘Didn’t you check out the photos I sent ya?’

  ‘I couldn’t bear to look.’

  I was lying.

  It wasn’t long ago that armed mercenaries made an incursion of my home. Luckily my beach house had withstood the ensuing battle, and it had only taken minor repairs and a lick or two of paint to make it habitable once more. But from Rink’s photographs I’d seen my house was now no more than a pile of sticks.

  Hurricane Michael had made landfall and devastated the small Florida Panhandle city I called home. The category four hurricane hit Mexico Beach with winds of one hundred and fifty-five miles per hour, wiping out all but the most sturdily built beachfront structures, including the house in which I’d dwelt these past few years. Since the armed attack, I’d been contemplating a move closer to Tampa, the base from which I worked, but hadn’t yet committed to the idea. It’d be egotistical to suggest Mother Nature was giving me a motivational kick in the arse or think she cared a jot about me when she’d ripped the homes and livelihoods away from my neighbours as well: I was truly gutted for their losses.

  I’d avoided the devastation wreaked by the hurricane, because I was thousands of miles away in northern England at the time. It’d been years since I’d returned home to Manchester, and a visit with my mother had been long overdue. Ours had never been a close relationship. After my dad died young, and my mother remarried, I’d always felt like a loose end tagged onto her new family, but that isn’t to say I didn’t love her. I’d also dropped in on Diane, my first and greatest love — and now ex-wife — because although our marriage had ended we’d stayed friends. Besides, she still looked after my dogs, Hector and Paris. At fourteen years old, Hector had already outlasted the life expectancy of most German shepherd dogs, and Paris wasn’t far behind him, and I wanted to hug them before it was too late.

  The visit with my mother had lasted longer than anticipated. I’d stuck around a few days more until I felt we’d made our peace. My mother and stepfather didn’t blame me for the loss of my half-brother John, but I sensed that they thought I could have tried harder to save him. Apparently it wasn’t enough for them that I’d fought tooth and nail to protect him, or that I’d stopped the demented murderer hunting him. That I later also saved his wife — the mother of their grandchildren — after the same killer resumed his mission to end John’s life, won me slight gratitude but I still felt they’d rather it was me who’d perished and not their favourite son. When the news arrived that the hurricane had wrecked my home in Florida it earned me some sympathy. My mother had tears in her eyes when I announced I should return to Mexico Beach to assist with the clean up but she gave me her blessing to leave. I’d wondered if she was glad of the excuse to get shot of me, but I think she was being genuine when she reminded me that I still had a bedroom there to come back to if I needed it.

  Rink kind of echoed her sentiment. ‘Mi casa es tu casa, brother,’ he said. ‘Or if you prefer your own space you can set up in back of the office.’

  ‘I’ll avail you of your couch for a day or two, if that’s OK?’

  He didn’t answer. It was a done deal.

  Rink has an office in downtown Tampa, an official shop front for Rington Investigations. Behind the office he has a room equipped for when his workload keeps him late. There was a time when an armed incursion took place there too, and a woman I fel
t strong feelings towards died in that room. I’m not suggesting her restless spirit haunts the place, but the memory of her death troubles me to this day, so I doubted I could sleep there without suffering nightmares.

  Rink had left his Porsche at home, choosing instead to collect me in a cab. The driver had kept it running at the kerb in the queue of other taxis and vans collecting the holidaymakers that’d accompanied me from Orlando and beyond on my flight. Rink grabbed my suitcase off me and slung it in the back, and we climbed inside. The air-con was on, and welcome. I’d only been over in the cool of Blighty a fortnight or so, but would need to reacclimatize to the blistering heat currently pounding Florida in the wake of the storms. The cab took us out onto the interstate, and then East Busch Boulevard past the famous theme park and on to Rink’s condominium in Temple Terrace. Sweating my arse off, I lugged my suitcase inside, and Rink didn’t pause before heading for the refrigerator and grabbing a couple of cold beers. We took them out onto his balcony where I unbuttoned my shirt and kicked back on a comfortable chair. The birds were singing and when the gentle breeze blew in the right direction I could hear the distant, delighted shrieks as people rode the rollercoasters at Busch Gardens. We sat in companionable silence for a while. Making the pilgrimage to England had been a necessary distraction, because the last time I’d sat there on Rink’s deck I’d struggled with where I really belonged: I concluded that it was good to be back, because Rink was as much my family as any of my loved ones across the Atlantic.

  2

  Sometimes the old saying “seeing is believing” is true. Other times you doubt what your eyes are telling you, especially when you know they must be lying. Your eyes can be deceived: fact. But then there are times when you simply must trust your gut and go against everything your other senses are telling you.

  It happened to me three days after returning to Florida. I’d been back in Mexico Beach a day and a night. In that time I’d barely rested, first working hard to sift through the wreckage of my beach house to salvage the few personal belongings I could find, and then helping some of my neighbours to do the same. I’d booked into a hotel spared from the storm, slept like the dead for a few hours, and then got back to the task of clearing up. Sweating and powdered with dust, I’d taken a break at one of my favourite oyster bars on Highway 98, where you could buy T-shirts emblazoned with the legend “I Got Shucked!”. It had been beaten up by the storm, but the owner had got it back in decent shape again and opened for business. I’d eaten a breakfast of eggs and bacon and then nursed a large black coffee as I gathered myself for more toil. I was seated in the shade of a porch out of reach of the glaring sun but not the stifling atmosphere. I kept gazing out to sea, or observing the vehicles passing by on the highway, or the customers coming and going to the adjacent parking lot. I should have paid more attention to my coffee and I would have missed that fleeting glance I took at a man getting into the front passenger seat of a steel-grey Mercedes Benz SUV. I saw him for no more than two seconds, and from an angle where he didn’t even present his full profile. I caught a glimpse of the curve of his jawline, his deformed right ear, and the silvery hair curling on the back of his head that failed to conceal a crescent-shaped scar. But I knew him. Recognition sent a slither of ice knifing through my guts, and the breath hitched in my chest.

  A driver already had the SUV’s engine running, and I saw the reverse lights glow. I stood, craning for a better look, but the windows were tinted and denied me a clear look at the passenger. The SUV swung out of the parking bay, presenting a view of the driver’s side, and this time the window was open a few inches. I could make out the vibrant red hair of a woman, swept up and back into a ponytail. I dodged around my table, taking a few steps along the porch, but already the Mercedes was moving for the exit and I could see nothing of either of the car’s occupants.

  I disbelieved what my eyes told me, and should have shaken off the uneasy feeling in my gut, let them go and have done. But it wasn’t in my nature. I threw a handful of dollar bills down on my vacated table, and rushed for my Audi that I’d parked within spitting distance of where the Merc had previously sat. By the time I’d clambered inside and got it moving the SUV had gone right towards Mexico Beach. I went after it.

  As I drove through the post-apocalyptic scenes of town, I kept telling myself it couldn’t be him.

  It couldn’t be.

  But I had to make certain.

  I was tempted to put my foot down, maybe even force the SUV off the road and pull the passenger out so I could stare him in the face. But what if I was wrong? In fact, I had to be wrong, so I denied my natural instincts and fell in a few cars behind the Merc and followed through Mexico Beach and on towards Panama City. As we forged on adjacent to the Sound I contemplated ringing Rink on my cell phone, but again decided against it. I had to confirm an identity before bringing Rink on board; otherwise my friend would think I’d finally lost it.

  Bypassing Tyndall Air Force Base we got on to Dupont Bridge where it spanned the eastern wing of Saint Andrew Bay, and then entered the outlying neighbourhoods adjoining Panama City. For all I knew I could have a long journey ahead, but I doubted it. I trusted that they called somewhere in or near Panama City home. My assumption was rewarded a short time later when the Merc pulled into a residential neighbourhood, driving only a couple more blocks before it pulled up at the foot of a short driveway. I parked about fifty yards shy of them, watching while the woman hopped out of the driver’s door and went up the drive. She was pretty, and a flowery dress floated about her shapely legs as she strode for the house. I expected the man to follow, but he didn’t.

  I was itching to confirm that my eyes hadn’t deceived me, and almost got out of my Audi, but if the passenger was who I thought then I’d have to do something. This sunlit residential street wasn’t the right place for a confrontation. So I waited instead and after a few minutes watched the woman come back down the drive and climb in the SUV. For all I knew she’d only made a brief visit to an acquaintance’s home, but I doubted it, because before she got in the car I noticed she’d changed out of her summer dress into jeans and a T-shirt and was now carrying a large tapestry bag. She’d made a brief stop to change and the way I saw it the house had to be hers. I committed the address to my memory, the way I’d already subconsciously done with the SUV’s license tag.

  When she drove away, I followed again, and this time was led into downtown Panama City. At a red light the Merc drew to a halt, and I was tempted to pull up alongside them in the next lane, maybe get a clearer look at the face of her passenger. But the tinted window would foil me, and allow the passenger a clear look at my face if he happened to glance down. If it was the person I believed, I didn’t want our first reunion to be on those terms. I held back, and again played tail. When the woman pointed the SUV towards a subterranean parking lot beneath a glass- and steel-fronted office block I pulled into the kerb and watched as the SUV slipped for the first time out of sight. Following them down the ramp would be a mistake, because it might be unavoidable that I’d be spotted and identified.

  I mentioned earlier that if I fronted him I’d have to do something about it. The same could be said for if he recognised me in the parking garage, and again it wasn’t the right place. There was a security guard at the barrier, and most likely CCTV cameras inside. But my need to confirm my eyes weren’t playing tricks was too much to ignore. I left my Audi illegally parked, and jogged across the portico to the front of the office block. There were various plaques on the wall, denoting that the office building was used by a number of companies. Good and bad. Good because it offered me the anonymity to enter unchallenged, but bad that it didn’t tell me whom those in the SUV were visiting. I entered a foyer area, and ignoring the reception counter I went to the right where I’d spotted a number of chairs and sat down. Some magazines had been supplied to keep visitors entertained while they waited to be collected for appointments, or to be called forward to the elevators and sent on up. I picked up a wel
l-thumbed magazine and made like a bored appointee, despite the fact I was still dressed in dusty work clothes.

  Luck was on my side. At least it was partly favouring my decision to sequester myself in the lobby, because I had a good angle on the elevator doors when they slid open to allow access to another visitor heading up. The couple I’d followed here was standing inside, and the man moved aside to allow the visitor to join them in the car. He was partially hidden by the man stepping aboard, but he was that much taller so that I got a look at him from the bridge of his nose to the top of his head. His gaze lighted for the briefest second on me, before slipping away. But in the next instant his eyes snapped back on me, and recognition lit them up. That was all the confirmation I required. I quickly dipped my face as if squinting at the magazine, and before he could get a better look at me the doors slid shut. I got up, ready to move away, half expecting him to hit the button to open the doors. But the indicator panel above the elevator showed the car was in motion.

  I chucked down the magazine, and hurried back to my car. Thankfully it hadn’t been towed or ticketed. Getting in, I allowed myself a moment’s reflection, sinking low in the seat, exhaling deeply. Then I reached for my cell phone and hit Rink’s number.

  ‘You aren’t going to believe who I just seen,’ I said once Rink picked up.

  ‘Kim Kardashian?’ he asked hopefully. ‘Tell me, brother, is her butt as deliciously curvy as it looks on TV?’

  I ignored his question, and he must have sensed that this wasn’t a time for jokes.

  ‘C’mon, Hunter. Just tell me.’

  ‘Jason Mercer,’ I said, and if I hadn’t seen him with my own two eyes I wouldn’t have believed me either.

  ‘Can’t have been.’

  ‘Trust me, Rink. It was Mercer.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been,’ Rink said, stating exactly the same as my own mind had been telling me. ‘You were there when I put two rounds in that frog-gigger’s skull.’

  3