by Dan Taylor
I put my hand on my chest, just checking. And not just for the signs of a high-intensity electrical pulse penetrating my heart. Nope, it isn’t broken.
And it looks like I’m keeping that secret. At least for now.
The End
Personal Message from the Author
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Dan Taylor
About the Author
Dan Taylor is an English dude stranded in Oslo, Norway. His girlfriend, a Norwegian national, captured him, but he doesn’t require rescuing. He’s the author of the Jake Hancock series and doesn’t take himself seriously as an author, though he works his ass off to make his readers and himself laugh. He doesn’t like skiing, probably because he sucks at it, but he can build one hell of a snowman. He’s silly, but you already knew that. You can read his blog at JakeHancockBooks.wordpress.com
The Jake Hancock P.I. series
Kiss Hidden Lies
Out of Crime
Served Ice-Cold
Saving Grace
Our Little Secret
Hancock Six (coming soon – click to find out when)
Excerpt from Our Little Secret, the fifth Jake Hancock novel
Prologue
BRADLEY HOVERBROOKE’S ABOUT to find out there’s no worse place to wake up on a Tuesday morning than in a Port-a-John. And one whose door’s secured with five lengths of Highland bungee cord, to boot.
But he hasn’t learned that much yet.
All he’s learned since waking, is that the room he’s in is far too dark to be his bedroom, and that he’s probably pissed his pants. Shat them too, if the smell’s anything to go by. Which in this case, it isn’t.
He stands up and bangs his head on the ceiling before his legs have chance to straighten.
“What the fuck…?” he says, then his voice trails off.
There’s a sliver of light shining through the small gap created between the door and the main body of the Port-a-John, which he notices shining onto his chest. He waves his hand through it a few times.
Then he pushes on the door, and finds that it doesn’t open, only gives a little.
Exploring, he extends his arms out to the side, finds and pats the lightweight molded plastic walls.
“A porta potty?” he says to himself, then thinks a second. “Kurt, Pete…? This isn’t funny, guys. It smells like a gas station restroom in here.”
He waits a second, hears nothing but the faint sound of passing traffic.
“Guys?”
Panic hits when he remembers he’s out of town, on vacation by himself. And now that he thinks about it, all the shit that led to him going to Vegas by himself seemed like horseshit at the time. But who could turn down Vegas for free?
The next ten seconds, Bradley, overcome by claustrophobia, finds out that lightweight molded plastic is much tougher than the name gives it credit for.
A sob almost escapes him, but he gets a hold of himself before it can escape, which involves taking a deep breath. The average Port-a-John has a tank with a capacity between fifty and sixty gallons. This one has nearly reached full capacity, and is holding twenty pounds of decaying excrement, the aroma of which Bradley inhales while calming himself down.
The smell catches the back of his throat and his stomach scrunches up like a frightened hedgehog, sending bile shooting up his throat. He drops to his knees and aims the vomit at the place where he’d expect to find the toilet bowl, but he falls short, caking his lap with the contents of his stomach.
He clenches his teeth, waiting for the nausea to pass, when he hears the chorus of…
“‘Every Breath You Take?”
A cell phone. But not his cell phone.
He pats down his pockets and finds a bulge in his left pants pocket. His hands shake as he takes it out. He takes a second to look at the screen. Number withheld. He fumbles for the ANSWER key, but presses the REJECT button accidentally, in his haste.
“Fuck!”
He stares dumbly at the screen a second, before he starts to try and navigate his way through this antiquated cell phone’s menu.
But he needn’t have bothered, as it starts ringing a second later.
“Hello?” he says.
There’s silence a second, before a voice he vaguely recognizes says, “Brad, buddy. I’m hurt. Don’t you want to speak to me?
“Who is this?”
“We’ll get on to that. First I want—”
Bradley interrupts him. “Are you the one that put me in here, you sick fuck?”
The guy sighs theatrically. “I’m about to hang up, Brad. We can have this conversation in an hour or so if you’d like?”
“No!”
“No what?”
“No, I want to speak now. Not in an hour.”
“Then let me do the talking, Brad.”
He sighs silently. “Okay.”
“Where was I? Oh yeah. I want you to do something before I tell you who I am.”
“What…what do you want me to do?”
“Put the hand that isn’t holding the phone on your stomach. Flat.”
“Done.”
“Now you’ll have to put down the cell phone for this next part. But if I were you, Brad, I’d make sure I didn’t drop it in the can.”
He didn’t like the way the guy had spoken that last sentence. There was subtext, which made Bradley’s anus pucker up tighter than a vacuum-packed walnut.
But instead of asking exploratory questions about what the subtext was, meekly, he says, “What do I do after I’ve put down the phone?”
“You put your other hand on your head. Now, I’ve hidden something in your shirt. Sewn in there, just for kicks. You’ll be able to locate it with your left…your left hand is the one on your stomach, right?”
“Right.”
The guy laughs. “Right as in correct?”
Bradley thinks a second. “Right.”
“You’re dumber than an out-of-work garbage man, Brad. But I know what you meant.” He pauses. “Now, you’ll be able to locate the item I’ve sewn into your shirt if you move your right hand in an up and down motion on your head.”
“Like patting it?”
“Exactly like patting it, Brad.”
“Okay, I’m going to put down the phone now. You won’t go anywhere, will you?”
“I won’t.”
Bradley puts down the phone carefully, heeding the man’s advice. Then puts his right hand on his head and starts patting his head, as he searches with his left hand for the item the guy says he’s sewn into his shirt. After a few rotations, he doesn’t feel anything, just his shirt buttons.
He’s interrupted by a sound coming from the phone.
When he picks it up, it’s the guy laughing his ass off.
He says, “I can’t believe you did that, Brad.”
Bradley realizes what he was tricked into doing. “You think this is funny, you sick fuck?”
“Actually, Brad, I do. I wonder what else I could get you to do.”
Inside the Port-a-John it’s hotter than an Indonesian whorehouse, which brings on another bout of claustrophobia in Bradley. He pulls the phone away from his ear and starts screaming “Help!” over and over.
He waits a second, but only hears the faint sound of traffic that he heard before. Reluctantl
y, he puts his phone back to his ear.
The guy says, “I can hear you breathing, Brad. Is your cry for help over?”
Bradley sobs a little before regaining relative composure. “What do you want from me? Why have you put me in here? If it’s about money, I’ll give you any amount you want.”
“Money can get most people out of most situations, but it won’t get you out of this one.”
“Then what will?”
“Honesty, Brad, and cooperation. They’re the two currencies I deal in. They just so happen to be the two currencies you’re deficient in, if your past behavior is anything to go by, and I think it is.”
“What past behavior.”
“That’s not important right now.”
“Then what is important?”
Silence a second. Then he says, “Do something for me, Brad. Stand up.”
“Fuck you!”
“It’s not a game this time. I promise.”
“I’m not standing up. Go fuck yourself.”
The guy sighs. “I think we can reconvene this conversation in an hour’s time. I’ve never spent more than the time it takes to go two in a Port-a-John, but I can imagine the next hour will go a lot smoother for me than it will for you. I’m sitting at home drinking a cold Belgian beer, while watching an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. Oh, and I don’t use gallons of human waste as potpourri to fragrance my home.”
He thinks back to all the mistakes he’s made in his life and comes up with the one thing that the guy might be angry about. Sweat starts to accumulate on his upper lip.
The guy interrupts his thoughts. “Your shouting for help told me two things: One, you’re not nearly as tough as you act when you’ve got a hard-on. And two, you don’t fully understand the desperation of the situation you find yourself in. We’ll speak in an hour.”
“Don’t go! I’ll stand up.”
“Good, Brad.”
“Okay, I’m standing. What next?”
“Turn around so that the light shining through the gap shines on your chest.”
He does. “What now?”
“Look down at your chest. You should see six shadows intersecting the light.”
He looks down. “I see them.”
“One of those is the uppermost hinge. The other five are unbelievably strong bungee cords. They’re the reason you can’t open the door.”
“I see them. What about them?”
“You’ve got a better chance of putting your fist through the walls of the Port-a-John than forcing that door open. And something tells me a guy that likes to use his fists as much as you do has already tried that approach.” He pauses. “Let’s talk, Brad. You’re not going anywhere. Tell me about your hobbies in Hickston.”
The mention of hobbies confirms Brad’s suspicion about what the guy referred to. But instead of playing ball, he says, “Fuck you! I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“What’s a matter? Have I struck a nerve?”
He turns away from the door and wipes the sweat away from his top lip. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where did you say again?”
The guy sighs, almost groans. “Wow, Brad. I’ve come across some bad liars in my time, but you take the cake, you really do. But I’m going to humor you. Let me start listing some names: Deputy Sheriff Hoverbrooke, Annabelle English—”
“I’ve never heard of those names in my life.”
“They’re pretty distinctive names, and one of them’s your dad, dummy. You wanna take a second or two to think about them again, see if they ring any bells?”
Bradley remains silent, indignant.
A second later he hears a whirring sound. A couple seconds after the whirring’s stopped, a wave of intense shit-smelling air hits him like a fart from hell. He pulls the phone away from his ear and moves as far away from the toilet bowl as he can—which is only a couple inches in the direction of the door—and concentrates on breathing through his mouth. Neither of these actions prevents Bradley from vomiting again. This time it doesn’t matter how hard he grits his teeth, he isn’t able to quell the nausea. He starts dry heaving, until the whirring begins again, which lessens, but doesn’t eliminate, the stench of decaying feces.
He puts the phone back to his ear.
The guy speaks. “You with me again, Brad? I can hear your nose whistling into the receiver. You should really get that looked at. You might have a sinus problem.”
“What the hell was that?”
“Attached to the covering of the waste tank is a remote-controlled motor. I used a long-wave radio transmitter to send a message to it, telling it to lower the covering. I decided you’d been unappreciative of the luxury I generously afforded you, by not exposing you to the full force of the collection of shit down there. Are you ready to talk?”
“Talk about what?”
The guy full-on groans. Then says, “Brad, help me to help you.”
“I would if I knew what you’re talking about.”
“I’m usually a patient man, Brad. I waited a year or so for a divorce from my wife, and if you’d met her, you’d understand the level of patience I’m talking about. But you’re not nearly as pretty as my ex-wife, and you don’t have a cleavage deep enough to hold an ice-cream cone without one of the scoops falling out. In short, I’m not nearly going to be as patient with you as I was with her. So let’s cut the shit.”
Bradley thinks about the traffic he heard. “I’m not saying a word to you about Annabelle English. I’ll wait it out. Someone’s bound to come along and notice there’s a Port-a-John secured with bungee cords a stone’s throw away from the road.”
“Sounds like we’re making progress, with you at least acknowledging you’re aware of who Annabelle English is. But it’s not good enough. I’m not going to speak for the next minute. I want you to listen to the traffic you heard.”
He does. A second or two into listening, he hears what sounds like a truck horn, first one short beep, and then two long beeps.
Despite the guy saying he wouldn’t speak, he says, “You hear those, Brad?”
“I did.”
“Good. Now carry on listening.”
Bradley listens to the sound of passing cars for the next forty-five seconds. He’s about to speak, having grown impatient, until he hears the truck horn again. One short beep, followed by two long beeps.
The guy says, “There they were again. Funny coincidence, huh?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, Brad, that if you were able to get out of the Port-a-John—which you won’t—you wouldn’t find yourself anywhere near a road. You’d find a tape recorder playing a loop of traffic I recorded by Highway 359. And surrounding that tape recorder is miles of sand.” He pauses. “You do know what the sand indicates, right, Brad?”
Bradley thinks a second. “That I’m in the desert?”
“Seems I underestimated you. That’s right, Brad. The desert. Can you spell desert?”
“Sure. G-O-F-U-C-K—”
“Go fuck myself? That’s cute, Brad. We’ll see how cute you are when midday hits, and the temperature inside the Port-a-John is upwards of one hundred degrees.”
Guy has a point. Bradley’s shirt’s already soaked with sweat. But he’s thought of something. “When it does, the Port-a-John will start to melt. I’ll be able to force the door.”
“You seem pretty happy with that assumption, Brad. I’ve got news for you. I already thought of that. I painted it gloss white. By my calculations that should keep the Port-a-John temperature below the point at which it becomes malleable. Anyhow, you’ll be so dehydrated at that point you’ll barely be able to tie your shoelaces, never mind force the door open.” He pauses. “You ready to talk? Or are there any other ideas of how you might escape that I need to address before you fully understand just how fucked you are?”
He thinks a second, comes up with bupkis. “What do you want to talk about?”
The guy sighs. “About how we’re go
ing to rebalance your portfolio. What do you think, Brad? I want you to talk about Annabelle English.”
“You want some sort of confession?”
“Desert and now this level of deduction? I guess a person with an IQ of eighty-two can be intelligent.”
“How do you know my IQ?”
“I know many things about you, Brad. But now’s not the time to bore you with them. Stop changing the subject.”
Bradley allows the phone to drop away from his ear as he sighs deeply and looks around the Port-a-John. He takes a second to think, then puts his phone back to his ear. “Okay, I give in. I want out.”
“You’re doing the right thing, Brad.”
“There’s no need to console me with condescending shit like that. What I’m about to tell you will benefit you in some way, and fuck me in one or more obvious ways.”
“My apologies. Now tell me what you know about Annabelle English.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“The beginning’s always the best place to start, Brad. Any dummy knows that.”
Bradley sighs. “Here goes nothing.”
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