SYCAMORE BLUFF (Prequel to THE JACK REACHER FILES: ANNEX 1) (A Nicholas Colt Thriller Book 8)

by Jude Hardin

  “It looks that way. I was about to make some inquiries into their exact whereabouts right before you called.”

  “Make your inquiries, and then call me back. We need to nip this thing in the bud, DD. We have commercials going on the air a week from tomorrow, and we have two million bottles of product in the warehouse ready to be shipped. If word gets out about Sycamore Bluff, we’re ruined.”

  “I know,” Colonel Davidson said. “You, me, and our friend and resident genius, Leonard W. Daehl.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Leonard W. Daehl—Lenny, to his friends—didn’t think of himself as a genius, although many other people, from world renowned psychologists to television talk show hosts, had used the word to describe him since he was a small child.

  It was true that his IQ scores had always been off the charts, and it was true that he had become a respected leader in the notoriously esoteric world of chemical engineering, but Lenny never really felt that he was smarter than anyone else. He had a knack for solving problems, that’s all. Some people were good at playing a horn, or throwing a ball, or finding the beauty in a block of stone with a hammer and a chisel. Lenny was good at seeing the big complicated picture and whittling it down to a formula that any reasonably intelligent sixth grader could understand.

  Lenny worked hard, and he achieved things, but he was convinced that the truly smart people of the world made a lot of money at a young age. They made a lot of money, and then they went out and had a good time spending it. That’s what Lenny wanted to do. He wanted to make a lot of money, and he wanted to have a good time.

  Forget the Nobel Prize. That wasn’t going to happen now. A hundred different shades of bureaucratic red tape had gotten in the way of that dream, so Lenny had chosen a different route, one that would not only make him famous, but rich as well. Lenny’s contribution to humanity would be a shiny gray pill, the delivery system for a patented formula that would undoubtedly change the nutritional supplement industry forever. With all the data on the human trials complete now, and with pre-orders through the roof, Lenny finally felt that his place in entrepreneurial history was secure.

  And his place in the history of science, even without winning the Nobel.

  It hadn’t come easy. There had been plenty of setbacks along the way, and difficult decisions galore, the foremost of which had involved a former business partner named Rex Poindexter.

  Poindexter was a first-rate con artist, the kind of guy who could sell wool mittens at a Fourth of July picnic. He’d been a great pitch man when it came to securing business loans and corporate sponsorships and all, but as it turned out he’d used the same skills to screw Lenny as he had to help him.

  It all started with the sublingual vitamin B12 tablets. Rex Poindexter had talked Lenny into developing a unique formula for those, and then he’d talked him into investing in a series of late-night infomercials to hawk them. The TV spots were hosted by a 1980s television star trying to make a comeback and a physician with a severe drinking problem. The doctor, whose license had been suspended on three different occasions in three different states, made a very compelling argument, reading from cue cards written by old Rex himself, that taking sublingual B12 on a regular basis would guarantee everything from youthful vigor to an elevated libido. He promoted sublingual B12 with words like amazing and revolutionary and groundbreaking, all with multiple exclamation marks.

  And, if the good doctor’s promises weren’t enough to close the deal, Rex had recorded dozens of statements from regular people all across the country, testimonials designed to sway even the toughest bleary-eyed skeptics.

  The company Rex had set up, a shell called CheapeRX, had moved a lot of product on the nights those slots ran, enough to coax the banks into doling out more and more money. Rex’s five-year business plan included expanding the product’s distribution to big box stores like Walmart and Target, and to other brick-and-mortar outlets in foreign markets like Canada and Mexico. After years of professional disappointments, it finally looked as though Lenny was poised to score in a big way, at least financially.

  But looks can be deceiving.

  Profits started trickling away a little at a time, and it finally got to the point where Lenny was forced to audit the accountants. But it wasn’t one of the pencil pushers with a hand in the cookie jar. It was Lenny’s own partner, Rex Poindexter.

  Lenny had secretly hired a team of private investigators to monitor Rex, along with everyone else involved in marketing, suspicious that someone was doing something, but he never would have believed what was really going on if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.

  Surveillance tapes don’t lie.

  Rex had been working with a new supplier, paying slightly less per pound for raw materials than he’d been paying the previous company, which was business as usual for Rex, always looking for an angle to shave expenses. But, as it turned out, the new outfit was substituting 100% pharmaceutical grade synthetic B12 with a much cheaper compound, one that consisted of two parts magnesium oxide, five parts powdered beet sugar, and three parts crushed cow hooves from an animal rendering plant. CheapeRX was selling what amounted to garbage, selling it to customers who thought they were getting the highest grade of vitamin available, and Rex Poindexter was taking kickbacks from the supplier in the form of cash—big fat stacks of hundred dollar bills that came out of the corporate account and went directly into Poindexter’s pocket.

  But that was only the tip of the iceberg. Rex probably never would have come under suspicion if he’d been happy with that arrangement. The books were still balancing, the company was showing a steady increase in profits, and the compound still had enough vitamin B12 in it—from the hooves—to turn blue when subjected to a dropper full of testing solution.

  The customers were the ones getting screwed on that deal, not CheapeRX. The patrons were being defrauded out of a quality vitamin while the company kept raking in the dough. The name of the outfit should have been CheateRX.

  Everything looked good on paper, until Rex let greed and horniness get the best of him. He started siphoning off cases of the supplements and giving them to an unnamed man, a man with connections to some drug runners in South America. In exchange, the Unnamed Man with Connections gave Rex a fair amount of cash, along with a password for a website where Rex could order the “escort” of his choice up to three nights a week. The cases of B-12 ended up in Colombia, where lower echelon members of a large cartel ditched the original contents and filled the capsules with heroin to be shipped back north.

  Everybody happy.

  Everybody, that is, except Leonard W. Daehl.

  Rex was a full partner in the business, so Lenny’s hands were somewhat tied. He couldn’t terminate Rex’s employment, and a lawsuit would have taken years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lenny couldn’t have had Rex arrested for pilfering product, because the truth about the bogus B12 tablets would have inevitably been revealed, and Lenny’s reputation as a scientist would have sunk faster than a boat anchor in a bathtub.

  After weighing all his options, Lenny finally decided that the best way to get rid of Rex Poindexter was to kill him.

  But Lenny couldn’t do it himself. It wasn’t that he had any qualms about pointing a gun at Poindexter and pulling the trigger, or sliding a knife across his throat, or taking him out for a cocktail and slipping something into his drink. He could have done any of those things without hesitation and without losing any sleep. But Lenny knew that as a business partner he would be a prime suspect in Poindexter’s death. Therefore, it was imperative that he be as far removed from the murder as possible.

  Enter the Unnamed Man with Connections.

  Lenny was able to obtain his contact information from the surveillance tapes and phone bugs, and from there it was a simple matter of paying the Unnamed Man with Connections more than he was getting from Rex Poindexter.

  More than he would ever get.

  Way more.

  It was a lot of mo
ney, but Lenny was sitting on a sizable inheritance, and he looked at getting rid of Poindexter as an investment. It was cheaper than a lawsuit would have been, cheaper than allowing Rex to continue his thievery and deception, and cheaper than filing bankruptcy and liquidating the company. It was a one-time lump sum, and it only took a single meeting with the Unnamed Man with Connections for Lenny to know he’d chosen the right person for the job.

  “I have a proposition for you,” Lenny said.

  “What proposition?”

  “I want you to kill Rex Poindexter.”

  The Unnamed Man with Connections, who’d been slouching, sat up straight in his chair.

  “Are you crazy?” he said.

  “I’ll pay you a lot of money.”

  “How much?”

  Lenny gave him a figure. The Unnamed Man with Connections sat up even straighter.

  “I want it done as soon as possible,” Lenny said.

  “That’s no problem. I’ll take him out on my boat tonight and make it look like an accident. I’ll take him a few miles out and weigh him down real good so there won’t be any chance of him washing up on shore. And if you want, I know some guys who can make him hurt real bad before he drowns. No extra charge.”

  “Yeah, make him hurt real bad,” Lenny said. “And make sure he knows it’s from me. But not tonight. I’ll be up in Toronto next Thursday. Do it then.”

  So the Unnamed Man with Connections took care of business, and Rex Poindexter disappeared the following week, and after a brief investigation the death was ruled an accidental drowning.

  The body was never found.

  Lenny experienced no remorse for the killing. It was something that needed to be done, one of those seemingly big problems solved cleanly and expeditiously with a simple solution.

  And the Unnamed Man with Connections made it clear that he would be available for similar projects should the need arise.

  But Lenny didn’t anticipate needing those types of services ever again. With the new product ready to launch, one that truly was amazing and revolutionary and groundbreaking, it was going to be smooth sailing from here on out.

  Nobody could stop Leonard W. Daehl now.

  Just let someone try.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Nicholas Colt pushed the lever down with his thumb, lowering the bread into the toaster. He was tired and hungry and he wasn’t in the mood for anything that was going to get in the way of his eating and going to sleep.

  He took a sip of bourbon from the coffee cup.

  “Did you look in the bedroom?” he said. “Maybe there’s two twin beds in there. We can pretend we’re Ricky and Lucy Ricardo.”

  “It’s a queen,” Diana said. “You’ll just have to sleep on the couch.”

  “Why can’t you sleep on the couch?”

  “Wow. Whatever happened to chivalry? I thought you would insist that I take the bed.”

  “Chivalry went out with middle age. It went out with the kind of crippling back pain I’ll have if I sleep on that sofa.”

  “Don’t make me pull rank on you,” Diana said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re on assignment, and I’m in charge here. I thought that went without saying.”

  “You’re not in charge of me,” Colt said.

  “Actually, I am.”

  Colt poured another shot of Old Fitz into his cup and topped it off with a few ounces of steaming black coffee. He took a sip. It might have been the best thing he’d ever tasted.

  “I want a divorce,” he said.

  Diana reached into her pocket and pulled out a quarter.

  “Heads or tails?” she said.

  “I’m not sleeping on the couch.”

  “Look, I’m trying to be fair here. I’m giving you a fifty-fifty shot at sleeping in the bed tonight. After tonight, we’ll just take turns.”

  “What are you afraid of?” Colt asked. “Are you afraid you won’t be able to control yourself in bed with me? I know I’m incredibly irresistible and all, but—”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Then don’t worry about it. We’ll share the bed. You stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine. Just like a real married couple.”

  “Unbelievable,” Diana said.

  The bread popped up. It was golden brown and it smelled delicious. Colt pulled all four slices out of the toaster and slathered them with butter. He loaded them onto a saucer and set the saucer on the table. He plated the eggs and the bacon and filled two glasses with orange juice.

  “Let’s eat,” he said.

  Diana took a seat at the table. She glanced at Colt’s coffee cup.

  “I thought I made it clear there was no alcohol allowed here,” she said.

  “Are you still trying to be in charge? Give it a rest, Di. The only way this thing is going to work is if we treat it as an equal partnership. If you start trying to order me around, it’ll just—”

  “You have a real problem with authority, don’t you?” she said. “There’s not much I can do right now, but when this is over you’re going on full report to The Director. Full report. And that’s a promise.”

  “Great. Now shut up and eat.”

  They finished the meal in silence, and then Colt got up and rinsed the dishes off and loaded them into the dishwasher. He took his shaving kit out of his suitcase, walked to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. By the time he made it over to the bedroom, Diana was already lying there snoring softly.

  Colt noticed that the butt of her 9mm was protruding slightly from the edge of her pillow. Who did she think she was? James Bond? Colt never liked the idea of having a gun that close to his head, even with the safety on. He unbuckled his ankle holster and scooted his own pistol under the bed a few inches. He climbed in beside Diana and switched off the bedside lamp.

  He lay there on his back for a few minutes, staring at nothing, his eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness enough to see the texture on the ceiling. Diana Dawkins was a beautiful woman, and Colt would be lying if he said he’d never entertained the notion of getting next to her. Any man with a pulse would at least think about it. He was in love with Juliet, loved her with all his heart, and would never intentionally do anything to hurt her, but with every day that passed, the chances of her ever waking up grew slimmer and slimmer.

  Their sex life hadn’t been the best before the shooting, but Colt had never strayed. Not once. Now it had been months, and he still remained faithful, even though it was doubtful she would ever recover. A million to one, the doctors were saying. Technically, Juliet was still alive, but with odds like that, wouldn’t she want him to move on? He thought she would.

  Not that there was any real chance of making it with Diana. Not after her little tirade earlier. But he longed to be with someone. Lying there beside her now, listening to her breathing, smelling her scent, he longed to turn over and slide next to her and put his arm around her. Maybe just hold her for a few minutes. He didn’t dare, but he wanted to.

  When Colt closed his eyes, the digital clock on the nightstand said 5:14. When he opened them again, it said 9:37.

  Daylight was streaming in through the windows, and someone was banging on the door.

  It took Colt a few seconds to remember where he was. When he did, the first thing he noticed was that Diana Dawkins was no longer in the bed beside him. He looked under her pillow. Her gun was gone.

  “Di?” he shouted, hoarsely.

  No answer.

  He got up and slipped into his jeans. He grabbed the Ruger from underneath the bed, slid it into the back of his waistband, and padded to the front door barefoot. He looked through the peephole. It was Brad Washington. The jeans and flannel shirt and brown work boots had been replaced with a dark blue suit and a gray overcoat. He wore a white shirt, and a tie with red and yellow and white stripes. He was holding a black leather Bible that matched his shoes.

  The Kia was gone. No other car in the driveway, and nothing parked at the curb. Apparen
tly Brad had walked.

  Colt opened the door. The outside air hit his shirtless chest like a bucket of ice water. He wasn’t used to waking up in Indiana in January. His nipples were so hard they hurt.

  “Good morning,” Brad said.

  “Yeah.”

  “May I come in?”

  Friendly eyes, big toothy smile. Just incredibly, inordinately happy. Like some kind of floppy-eared puppy or something. Eager to please, eager to be loved.

  Brad Washington gave Colt the creeps. This whole place gave him the creeps.

  “I was still in bed,” Colt said. “Can you come back a little later?”

  “Oh, my. I’m so sorry to have bothered you. I just wanted to invite you and your wife to church this morning. The main service starts at eleven, and it’ll give you a chance to meet some of the people here.”

  Colt yawned, rubbed his eyes. “My wife must have stepped out for a minute,” he said. “I don’t know where she is. Anyway, I think we’ll have to take a rain check on church. Maybe next week.”

  “There’s a service tonight at seven, if you would prefer that,” Brad said.

  “Okay. Maybe.”

  “Great! Give Mrs. Millington my regards. Oh, did the two of you have a chance to look over your work schedules yet?”

  “Not yet,” Colt said. “We’ll look at them this morning.”

  “That’s fine. It’s a simple schedule, really. You’re both on day shift, you at The Hardware Store and Mrs. Millington at The Factory. Nine a.m. to nine p.m., Monday through Saturday.”

  Colt did the math in his head. It added up to seventy-two hours a week.

  “That’s insane,” he said.

  Brad laughed. “Well, it takes a little getting used to, but The Monitors feel it’s best to keep us all as busy as possible. Idle hands and all. You know about The Monitors, right?”

  “The Monitors? Yeah, sure. Everyone knows about The Monitors.”

  Colt had no idea about The Monitors, but he was fairly certain he didn’t like them. Twelve hour shifts, six days a week. He wondered what else Diana had failed to fill him in on.