Strike moved out of Keene’s sight and stood next to him.
They waited outside in silent reflection until the sun went down and the stars sprang to life in the black and blue sky. The lake threw back reflections of the crescent moon.
Then they walked inside, ready to embrace whatever fate—life by any other name—had in store for them next.
End of Book 2
Book 3 - The Silver Songbird
1 | Interruption
The woman in the flowing crimson dress nodded along with the pop music playing on the radio. Even though the words were in a foreign language, she hummed along, her sonorous voice wavering with melody. She shivered and looked at the stars hovering high above the endless fields whipping past the sedan’s window. The night air smelled sweet, like freshly cut grass.
Fox’s senses were overwhelmed by the gravity of the moment. After so many years of waiting, she was only miles away.
She swallowed and nodded, unable to gather her thoughts. The digital clock hit 9:04 PM. A crescent moon flickered in the distance. The glittering lights of Guangzhou beckoned in the distance.
She brushed the strands of red hair sticking to her cheeks away and peered forward at the road. What awaited her on the horizon? The city’s skyline grew closer.
This was why she had to go. This is why she had left instructions for Kip Keene to stop the Timekeeper and undo whatever damage he had done. She could not do it herself. Playing with fate had made her tired, and she yearned for her reward.
She thought of her little boy’s face—so long had it been since she last seen his smile. Would she see him again? Or would she return to the same bleak existence that she had tried to escape from, but never could?
Fox looked up and saw a large vehicle silhouetted by moonlight. A full-sized American pickup truck was parked in the middle of the two-lane road without its hazards on. By instinct, Fox swung the wheel, sending her own car skidding into a roadside ditch.
Her forehead banged against the wheel. Blood seeped into her eyes, blurring her vision a strange shade of red. A hooded figure stepped out from the pickup truck, boots slamming against the pavement.
Fox’s fingers tugged against the seatbelt, her mind forgetting how the apparatus worked.
She glanced up, the figure now standing by the driver’s side window with crossed arms.
Her survival instincts kicked in, and she yanked free of the tangled fabric.
“Fox.” The hooded woman spoke in a surly monotone. “You’re responsible for everything that’s happened to me.”
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am.” The figure stepped closer to the sedan, spiky black hair visible beneath the hood.
“You,” Fox said with a gasp. “But how?”
“Phones aren’t too secure these days,” the woman said with a malicious grin. She reached into the back of her jeans. “Everyone’s tracking everything.”
“Please,” she said. “Please don’t.” Fox raised a hand against the window and placed her palm against the glass.
A silver pistol flashed in the moonlight.
Fox flipped the center console open and clawed through the debris, searching for her emergency re-locator. For use only in times of extreme peril. She had planned to use it to return home. But that ship had sailed. Now she needed to activate it just to survive.
A bullet ejected from the gun barrel at high velocity, shattering the window.
Fox slumped forward against the wheel. The horn blared. The hooded woman opened the door and pushed the body into the muddy grass. Rooting around the sedan, she found the prize in the center console, extracting a clicker with a smooth silver button from the jumble of coins and debris.
“Now I can fix everything.”
She holstered the pistol, glancing down at the prone body in the ditch.
Then she returned to the pickup, speeding off into the night.
2 | Hiatus
Kip Keene rubbed his eyes, trying to get the dust out of them. This was an impossible endeavor in the middle of the Nevadan desert, but it didn’t stop him from fruitlessly trying. Dirt was everywhere—his clothes, his mouth, his hair. Keene smelled dust when he went to sleep, felt the grains on his face when he washed his face in the morning. Everything he had eaten for the past few weeks even had a gritty aftertaste.
Nothing could be done. He just had to live it for a couple more hours, then they could jet with the money.
“I think you need some goggles, bud,” Damien said. The portly crew chief waddled by and flashed Keene a smile. “It’s gonna be like that all summer.”
“I’ll manage.” An ATV whipped over a nearby sand dune, sending a wave of dirt down on the pit. Keene coughed and waved his hands to clear the air. Out in the desert, that was like trying to put your finger in a dam to stop a flood.
Working as part of the maintenance crew had been a miserable, back-breaking experience. Hauling tires for a few hundred bucks a week and some cardboard meals wasn’t Keene’s idea of fun. And out here, in the broiling sun, the owners of the team didn’t even see fit to set up an umbrella or tent.
Another ATV sped by, but this driver took the corner with more grace. A light plume of dust kicked up in the air and settled on the maintenance pit. The crew cheered and clapped, complete with faux-reverential bows and exultations.
“Thank God for small favors,” Keene said.
“Don’t thank God,” a familiar voice whispered in his ear, “or destiny, or any of that fairytale shit.”
A hand rubbed his short black hair, and he brushed it away. “Cut it out. I’m working.”
“I thought this was supposed to be a little hiatus.” Samantha Strike stepped into Keene’s line of sight, blocking his view of the off-road race. Her blue eyes shone in the burning sun, her blonde hair reflecting enough light that Keene was happy to be wearing shades. She’d been getting a lot of sun, and tan lines peeked out from beneath the edges of her clothing. Subtle veins and shadowy lines around her shoulders indicated an impressive, lean musculature. “Recovery after almost drowning at the bottom of the sea.”
“A working hiatus.”
She wore a black tank-top and jeans. He stared at the intricate tattoo on her right arm that stretched from wrist to shoulder. The pixie cut made her look like a posh punk rocker, a stylish rebel—if James Dean were a woman and had existed in the 21st century.
Keene had caught Rebel Without a Cause on an old movie channel back in his trailer. Earth wasn’t such a miserable place, after all, even if it paled in comparison to his home on Apollus some 200,000 years in the past.
“Shouldn’t you keep that out of the sun?”
“I wear sunblock,” Strike said, glancing at her tattoo with a carefree shrug. “It’ll be all right.”
“Wouldn’t want it to get damaged.”
“Stop fishing.”
“Just tell me what it means.”
“It means nothing. Everything.”
The ink cost a lot of money—at least that much was certain. Even after knowing Strike for the better part of a year—and two insane adventures—Keene knew nothing about its origin. He continued looking at the serpent, one of the centerpieces of the extravagant design.
“Helpful,” Keene said.
“You’re getting some color,” Strike said. “You don’t look like a goddamn sheet any more, at least.”
“So what brings you to our lovely pit?”
Strike glanced around to make sure none of the other maintenance crew members were listening. “I found it.”
“No kidding. Where?” Keene’s mood instantly lightened. They’d come here to rip off an obnoxious European aristocrat by the name of Kurt Johannes, and Keene was beginning to worry that all this manual labor had been for naught. But the plan was moving right along schedule—all they had to do was slip into the prick�
�s office while he was off pretending to be a race car driver.
“Let’s go,” Strike said. Her eyes gleamed. Although she was the less greedy sort, the prospect of being able to eat a decent meal and take on better, less humbling jobs in the future was clearly appealing to her.
“It’s the middle of the race.”
“Don’t tell me you like this crap now,” Strike said. “They’re literally going around in a sandbox.”
“I was kidding.”
“This is our window. Stop screwing around.” Strike crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.
“What happened to my hiatus?”
“Funny. Let’s go, Captain Keene.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Keene walked over to Damien, Strike following behind. “I need a break.”
Damien glanced up from his tablet with a confused look. “It’s the middle of the race.”
“We’re gonna win this thing, anyway,” Keene said. He gave Damien a faux punch in the shoulder, which felt like touching a particularly wobbly water bed. “I’ll be right back. Trouble at the office.”
“This is the Offroad Super 4 x 4 Dry Terrain World Championship.” Damien said the words like the reward for winning would be a combination between the Holy Grail and the Nobel Prize.
“I know what it’s called, Damien,” Keene said.
“Who’s she?” Damien shifted his gaze between the tablet and Keene, trying to multitask.
“She’s from the office.”
“Dude, we need you—”
“His wife just went into labor. Huge kid. Like, fifteen pounds huge.” Strike put her hands shoulder width apart, like she was illustrating a fish she’d caught. “A monster. And he needs his daddy.”
“I had no idea, Johnny. You should have said something.”
“He’s shy. Right, Johnny?” Strike elbowed Keene in the gut.
Keene nodded and tried to smile.
“Go, go. We’ll send you a picture. He’s gonna cross that finish line and we’re gonna party later.”
“Right,” Keene said. “Party.”
“Name your kid after me,” Damien said with a wink. “It’s a good name.”
“Will do, boss.” Keene hurried across the sand, toward the patch of trailers and pre-fab buildings on the horizon. He was tempted to remove the sweat-drenched red polo with the Team Johannes insignia embroidered over the shirt pocket, but thought better of it. This type of sun could cook a man alive.
“I see you’re making friends,” Strike said. “Johnny.”
“I guess Johnny’s just a friendlier guy than me,” Keene said. He wiped his brow and stared at his small trailer. Three weeks he’d called that place home, preparing for this ATV race in the Mojave. The sun beat down on the back of his neck.
The dry heat he wouldn’t miss.
But the guys, having a crew, being part of something again…maybe he’d miss that. Just a little. Definitely not Kurt Johannes, though. That guy was a certified narcissistic ass.
“Hey, space cadet,” Strike said. “You got the login and card in your trailer?”
“Yeah.” Keene pulled the flimsy door open. An arctic chill smacked him in the face, not so much because the trailer’s AC was powerful but because the desert was about a hundred degrees and rising.
He stepped inside and walked to the back. At a hurried pace, it only took a second to travel from the kitchen to the bedroom.
“Jesus, and I thought the cot in the supply closet sucked. I think my room’s actually bigger.”
“You get a kitchen, though?” Keene tossed a pile of books into the corner.
“No. And shared bathrooms. Reminded me of college.” Strike made a gagging sound.
Keene flung the mattress off the bed frame, sending it flying against the wall. He lifted a strongbox off the green shag carpet and typed in a code.
“Ooh, fancy,” Strike said.
“Only the best.” Keene dumped the contents of the box on the ground and picked up a keycard and torn scrap of paper. “Let’s go.”
“You sure those are gonna work?”
“Lifted them right before the race,” Keene said. “Our motocross champion won’t even notice they’re gone. Kind of a shame. I think I might miss this.”
“Nothing like a couple weeks in a dirt bowl to change your view on life.”
“Just saying. It’s got an all right vibe out here.”
“You sound like a high school girl who smokes too much kush.” Strike hopped out of the trailer, kicking up a cloud of chalky dust.
Keene stepped down behind her and paused to check his watch. “We got an hour before this thing wraps up.”
“We’ll be sipping mojitos in—I don’t know, where the hell is refreshing in this state?”
“Vegas, maybe.”
“Eh, let’s go to Hawaii,” Strike said. “They have actual green stuff there, right?”
“Got to get the cash first.”
Keene and Strike walked across the desert until they hit an asphalt parking lot. A brand new sign announced that this was the headquarters for the world’s most prestigious desert off-road racing championship.
The pre-fabricated building had been blistered by the heat and elements, its white paint peeling and fading despite being little more than four years old.
Keene had heard all about the history of the circuit from Kurt Johannes, a wealthy investor, entrepreneur and international businessman turned global thrill seeker and professional ATV rider. The handsome forty-two year old had retired on a giant sack of money and then used it to fund his various racing endeavors.
Getting hired by his team had been a cinch with the help of Wade Linus, whose computer skills had helped Keene and Strike craft false online personas with tremendous credentials. Keene—or Johnny Stevens, as his resume stated—was now a master mechanic and genius technical engineer.
Strike instantly became an excellent typist and data filing “expert.” Whatever the hell that meant—Keene still wasn’t sure those qualified as actual skills, but apparently the secretarial arts were in high demand.
She had taken a little exception to her undercover position as secretary, but that had been necessary. She was, after all, much better looking than Keene, and, as such, stupid men were more than willing to give her access to high-level information.
Like Mr. Johannes’ bank accounts and social security number—for depositing his winnings and filing the necessary payroll and tax forms.
Strike ran her entry card through the reader, and an electronic lock clicked open. She wrapped her hand in the bottom of her tank top and opened the door.
“What was that—ow, shit!” Keene pulled his hand away from the stainless steel knob. The skin was already red and peeling.
“Yeah,” Strike said. “Terrible design. Got me twice on the first day. Never again.”
Keene shook his head and slipped inside the main office. The interior wasn’t much to look at. A reception desk, where Strike worked and filed reports all day, with two doors behind it—presumably the supply closet and the bathroom. They hadn’t been conferring or visiting much, since they weren’t supposed to know one another, and incognito meet-ups were a pain in the ass.
Keene glanced up at the particle board ceiling. “Nice digs.”
“If I never see this place again it’ll be too soon.” Strike pointed to a third door, off in the left hand corner. It was different than the others—instead of being plain white with a silver handle, this one was cherry, crafted with a gold knob.
“And I thought his trailer was ridiculous,” Keene said.
“I hope you lifted the right card from that sack of shit.”
“I hope you have the right account numbers.”
“Touché.”
Keene walked over and slid Johannes’ master card through the reader. A green light flas
hed. He tried the knob and was reminded of his blistered palm. Wincing, he turned the handle and opened the door, which groaned.
His phone rang.
He silenced it and stepped inside. Rows of monitors streaming footage from the race hung on the back wall. Posters of Johannes in his racing gear lined the other walls. Trophies and medals took up the rest of the free space.
The man had turned his office into a massive shrine for his idol. Who was, of course, himself.
“Modest guy,” Strike said. “You know what he called me?”
“Can’t be worse than Linus.”
“He called me Next.”
“Next?”
“Next on his bang list.”
Keene stared at the smirking man on the wall with the perfect stubble and well cropped hair. The gleaming smile.
He ripped the photo down.
“Bravo,” a familiar voice said.
Keene whirled around. In the doorway stood Kurt Johannes, a devilish grin on his face. Despite spending the past two hours in white-hot heat atop a tiny four-wheeled vehicle, his appearance was completely unblemished, each hair impeccably placed.
He sipped from a bottle of expensive water imported from Antarctic springs—Keene suspected this was a sham marketing ploy—and looked almost bored, like he was sick of being two steps ahead of the entire world.
“Uh,” Keene said. “Hi?”
Two armed guards filed in behind Johannes, their pistols leveled at Strike and Keene.
“And I thought we were friends, Johnny.” He wrinkled his eyebrows and focused his stare straight at Keene’s chest. “Or should I call you Kip Keene?”
Keene’s phone rang again. He ignored it and tried to match Johannes’ stare. Strike, for her part, sat in the man’s chair, wheeling around like she had expected this outcome, matching his measured nonchalance blow-for-blow.
A thin bead of sweat crept down Keene’s forehead.
“Guess I made a wrong turn somewhere,” Keene said. He let out a dry, empty laugh. “Silly me.”
“Yes, Mr. Keene,” Johannes said, his eyes narrowing. “And now you’ll find out just how silly you were.”
The Kip Keene Box Set: Books 1, 2 & 3 Page 32
