SUPERHERO DETECTIVE
FOR HIRE
By Darius Brasher
Though this is a standalone novel which can be enjoyed without reading the other books in the series, you can check out the other books here:
THE MISSING EXPLODING GIRL
KILLSHOT
HUNTED
Click below to sign up for Mr. Brasher’s e-mail newsletter for exclusive information on his new releases. His novels are often sold at a discount for only a few days when they are first released. Newsletter subscribers are the first to be able to snap up these deals and discounts:
DARIUS BRASHER’S NEWSLETTER
Superhero Detective For Hire Copyright © 2015 by Darius Brasher
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
EXCERPT FROM THE MISSING EXPLODING GIRL
EXCERPT FROM CAPED
CHAPTER 1
I walked across the campus of Astor City University with a spring in my step, a song in my heart, and a gun in my holster. I probably would not run into any hardened super-criminals on the tree filled suburban campus, but one could never be too sure. It was better to have a gun and not need it than to not have a gun and need it. If a professor of linguistics got lippy with me, I would be ready.
I looked and felt good. My slip-on loafers sparkled with shine, my khakis and white dress shirt were crisply pressed, and my sports coat from which peeked a stylish pocket square capped off my sporty, yet professional, look. I was on my way to meet with the president of the university. Perhaps if she decided she had no need for my detective skills after all, she would instead hire me as a lecturer on fashion.
Three young coeds approached me from the opposite direction I was walking. I examined their young, tanned bodies and tight clothing closely as the distance between us lessened. After all, they could have been supervillains. It was best to remain vigilant.
I smiled at the young women as I passed by them. I gave them a half smile. Fully mature women have been known to pass out or disrobe under the wattage of my full smile. My half smile was probably as much as these youngsters would be able to withstand.
Bizarrely, they walked right by me with barely a glance in my direction. I shrugged mentally and continued walking. Perhaps they were lesbians.
I walked into the administration building and took the elevator to the appropriate floor. In keeping with the academic setting, I tried to carry myself like a man who was deeply pondering the writings of John Locke or the mating habits of the velvet ant. I could have been pondering Girls Gone Wild for all the people I encountered seemed to care.
I used my keen investigative skills to locate the office of the university president, Dr. Eileen Rothbury. Only a seasoned detective such as I would have known when he found it. The sign outside her office that read “Office of the President, Dr. Eileen Rothbury” helped.
I announced myself to the young, blonde, attractive, and bespectacled secretary, telling her I had an appointment with Dr. Rothbury. I had a seat while the young woman consulted with Dr. Rothbury on the phone. I saw her examine me obliquely as she announced my presence to the good doctor. She was probably not used to being in the presence of such sartorial elegance. That, or she was not used to seeing men with cauliflower ears and flattened noses have appointments to meet with Dr. Rothbury.
“Dr. Rothbury will see you now,” the young woman said, pointing to a closed door past her desk. She said it like she was announcing an audience with the Pope.
I got up and walked towards the door. I winked at the blonde as I walked by her. She blushed prettily and followed me with her eyes.
Truman Lord, you sly old dog, you’ve still got it, I thought. That confirmed it: the coeds I had seen earlier were definitely lesbians.
CHAPTER 2
Dr. Rothbury stood up and came around her desk to greet me when I walked in.
“Mr. Lord, I’m Eileen Rothbury. Thank you for taking the time to come see me,” she said. She extended her hand to shake mine. Her handshake was firm and her hand was smooth.
“Not a problem, Dr. Rothbury,” I said. “But please call me Truman.”
“I will as long as you call me Eileen.”
“It’s a deal,” I said.
We smiled at each other, happily on a firm name basis. Eileen’s eyes were green and the corner of her eyes crinkled a bit when she smiled. I had a feeling she did so often. Her smile was friendly and warm and had no doubt charmed many a state legislator and separated countless alumni from their hard-earned dollars. Behind the smile lay a hint of anxiety, though. I suspected the source of that anxiety was why I was there. People did not ask a superhero and private detective to call on them because I was a sparkling conversationalist.
Eileen was older than I, and probably in her late forties. She had dark hair with streaks of grey she had not bothered to dye. Perhaps she wanted to appear older. She was a relatively young woman at the head of a major university, after all. She needed to command respect. Not me, though. If someone did not give me the respect I deserved, I could just shoot them.
Eileen wore a cream blouse and a brown leather pencil skirt that extended slightly below the knee. She had on snakeskin print toe cap high heels and nude pantyhose. She had good legs. I suspected he had a tight backside as well. My suspicion was confirmed when she turned her back to me to go sit behind her desk. I could not help but to look closely at her body. I was a trained observer after all.
Although Eileen was older than I, she was just the kind of woman I normally went for: accomplished, fit, mature enough to not be annoying, but young enough to not be afraid to try new things. I would not have minded being one of those new things. But, alas, being a trained observer, I could also not help but notice her wedding ring and an engagement ring above it. The engagement ring sported a rock that looked only slightly smaller than the Hope Diamond.
I sat in one of the chairs in front of Eileen’s desk. She examined me quite openly. I waited patiently. I was used to being examined by people who knew what I could do. She would get around to telling me why she asked me there eventually.
“Wow,” she finally said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been face to face with a superhero before. Are they all as big as you?”
I smiled modestly.
“My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure,” I said.
Her smile widened. I decided I liked it and her. She was not full of herself and smugly self-satisfied the way too many people in academia were.
“Wow again,” she said. “Can you recite the whole poem?”
“I believe
I can,” I said. I took a breath to begin. Eileen held up a manicured hand to stop me.
“Please don’t,” she said. Her eyes twinkled with mirth. “It’s bad enough I have an English department full of blowhard show-offs. I don’t need a superhero to add to the pretentiousness on campus.”
Despite her words, Eileen looked at me with newfound respect.
“A superhero who reads? Will wonders never cease? But, aren’t you supposed to be in costume?” she asked.
“You mean like a mask, tights, and a cape?” I asked.
She nodded. I grinned.
“My tights are at the dry cleaners and I seem to have misplaced my cape,” I said.
That was a white lie. I did not wear tights or a mask or have a codename or go around fighting random crimes like some of my fellow licensed Hero brethren. I did have a cape, though. All licensed Heroes did. When someone became a licensed Hero by passing his Trials, he got a ceremonial cape from the Heroes’ Guild. As the Bar and the Bar exam were to lawyers, the Heroes’ Guild and the Trials were to Heroes. The ceremonial cape was a sort of badge of office. But, other than my Hero swearing-in ceremony, I had never worn the damned thing. It was buried in the back of my closet. I hoped the moths got more use out of it than I did.
“In all seriousness, the whole costume thing is a common misconception,” I said to Eileen. “As you no doubt know, all Metahumans are supposed to register with the federal government under the Hero Act of 1945. Only Metas who plan on actually using their powers have to attain Hero status. Those of us who become Heroes are under no obligation to wear a costume or fight crime or do any of the things people usually think of superheroes as doing. A lot of Heroes get licensed just in case they think they might need to one day use their powers as power use by a Meta who is not a licensed Hero is against the law. Most licensed Heroes don’t fight crime or wear a mask, and they wouldn’t be caught dead in tights. Costumed Heroes like Amazing Man, Millennium, and Avatar are the exceptions, not the rule.”
“And what are you, the exception or the rule?”
I smiled again. I used the full wattage one this time. I thought Eileen was tough enough to withstand it.
“I’m in a class all by myself: a private detective and professional thug who happens to have superpowers. Wanna feel my biceps?” I asked.
Eileen laughed.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass. That offer is more enticing than the poetry recitation one, though,” she said.
She looked me over again. I resisted the impulse to flex.
“I went to college with Deputy Police Chief Warren Higgins,” she said. “He recommended you to me. He said you were smart, tough, resourceful, and would not quit something just because the going got rough.”
I tried to look modest.
“Deputy Chief Higgins has long been an admirer of mine,” I said.
“He also said you aren’t as smart as you think you are, you are stubborn as a mule, terrible at following directions, a wiseacre, and, I quote, ‘a royal pain in the ass.’”
I shook my head in mock sadness.
“Even one’s admirers are susceptible to jealousy,” I said.
“How tall are you?” Eileen asked.
“Six feet, two inches and change. More if I put lifts into my shoes,” I said.
“Do you wear lifts often?” she asked.
“Only when I want to kiss a giraffe.”
“I fear you are not taking this entirely seriously,” she said.
“Life is far too serious to be taken too seriously,” I said.
“How much do you weigh?” she asked.
“Somewhere over fourteen stone. How much over, I don’t know. If I did, it might make me stop eating doughnuts. I like doughnuts.”
“Stone?” she said. “Are you British?”
“No, but if I instead say I weigh over two hundred pounds, it makes me sound fat,” I said. “Saying fourteen stone instead makes me feel svelte.”
“Deputy Chief Higgins also tells me you used to fight mixed martial arts. Why did you stop?” she asked.
“I was good enough to compete, but not good enough to contend for a title. Professional fighting is not the place to be the second, third, or fourth best. If I kept it up, I would have been risking brain injury,” I said with a shrug. “So, I stopped.”
“And then you were in private security for a while Higgins tells me. You were fired. What happened?” she asked.
“They said I was insubordinate.”
“And were you?”
I grinned.
“Most definitely,” I said.
Eileen asked me how much I charged. I told her. Her eyes widened.
“Wow, that’s a lot more than everyone else has asked for,” Eileen said.
I shrugged.
“Then you should hire one of them,” I said.
She just stared at me for a moment. Then, she asked me some more questions. We were talking about everything except why Eileen had asked me to meet with her. I knew she would get around to it eventually. I got the impression she was keeping me talking so she could assess me.
“Do you carry a gun?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Can I see it?” she asked. Her face was suddenly that of a curious twelve-year-old.
“No.”
“Why not?
“Because if I showed my gun to everybody who asked, eventually someone would shoot me with it,” I said.
“Why would you think that?”
“As incredible as it might sound, there are people who don’t particularly like me.”
“Well, what about you? Have you shot anyone with your gun?” she asked.
“Yes. But generally I just use it to scratch the places I can’t quite reach with my bare hands,” I said.
“You’re teasing me.”
“A bit.” I eased forward a little in my chair and looked at Eileen. I felt we were slowly circling the reason why she had asked me there. “Did you ask me here so I could shoot somebody?”
“No. Maybe. I’m not sure,” she said. She drummed her fingers on the desk nervously. “I’ve never been in this situation before.”
Whatever the situation was, Eileen was taking her sweet time in getting down to it. But, my seat was comfortable, I was looking at a pretty woman, and I had no place else to be. I could afford to wait. Patience was my middle name.
“Can I trust you to be discreet?” Eileen asked.
“Think of me as a more handsome, less Catholic priest you are giving confession to. Your secrets are safe with me. Discretion is my middle name.” I had a lot of middle names.
Eileen nodded. She visibly steeled herself, and then let it out.
“I’m being blackmailed.”
“By whom?” I asked. I was glad it came out as the correct “whom” instead of “who.” I was at an institution of higher learning, after all. I was minding my Ps and Qs.
“My lover. My former lover,” she said, correcting herself.
“Tell me about him.”
“His name is George Chase. I met him at the gym a few months ago. He came up to me one morning while I was stretching after my workout. He struck up a conversation with me,” she said. Though Eileen was still ostensibly looking at me, she was in fact looking far off into the distance, no doubt replaying in her mind’s eye the events she was recounting. “George was handsome and charming and he was clearly attracted to me. I was flattered by his attention. Though I am no old woman, I’m no college coed anymore either. Have you heard that expression men age like wine, women age like milk?”
“I have, though I don’t necessarily agree with it. It all depends on the person. You hardly look like sour milk to me,” I said.
Eileen smiled wanly.
“Thanks. I look okay for my age, but it seems like with each year, the looks I get from men become fewer and fewer. I know I shouldn’t care. I’ve been happily married to my husband Paul for over twenty years. Our fifteen-year-old daughter Erin is a joy. Well, mostly
. She is a teenager, after all.” Eileen made a slight face. “I have a PhD. I have an important job I love, and I’m good at it.”
She paused.
“Why is it, then, there are days I’d trade all that in for no responsibilities and a tight nineteen-year-old body again?” she said. It seemed like a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer it.
“Let me guess: our man George made you feel like that carefree nineteen-year-old,” I said instead.
Eileen nodded.
“Exactly. It started off innocently enough. I agreed to go out to dinner with him. ‘What is wrong with dinner and a little harmless flirtation?’ I thought at the time. Even then I knew in my heart I shouldn’t have gone, but George made me feel so . . . so . . . I guess alive is the word I’m looking for. In my everyday life I am primarily a wife, mother, and school administrator. George made me feel like a woman—and just a woman—for the first time in far too long.”
“I take it you did not just have dinner with him,” I said.
Eileen smiled ruefully.
“You would be correct. Dinner was followed by dessert in a hotel room. I had never cheated on Paul before, and never thought I would have. But, being with George seemed so natural, so right.”
“So how many times have you had, um, dessert, with George?” I asked.
“Over the course of the past couple of months, more times than I can remember. It got to the point where I had convinced myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong. ‘Who is it really hurting?’ I asked myself. George was having a good time, I was having a good time, my professional life wasn’t suffering, and my family was none the wiser. Hell, having George around actually jump-started my sex life with Paul. George made me feel like a kid again, and that carried over to life with Paul.”
“Until the other shoe dropped,” I said.
She nodded.
“Exactly,” she said. “Last week, George showed me some recordings of me and him together. He told me that unless I paid him off, those recordings would make their way into the hands of my husband, the university’s board of trustees, and the local media.”
Superhero Detective Series (Book 1): Superhero Detective For Hire Page 1
