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  STONE COLD

  © 2015 Dean Crawford

  Published: 2015

  ASIN: B00TOXIPTC

  Publisher: Fictum Ltd

  The right of Dean Crawford to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Dean Crawford Books

  Also by Dean Crawford:

  The Atlantia Series

  Survivor, Retaliator

  Aggressor, Endeavour,

  Defiance

  The Warner & Lopez Series

  The Nemesis Origin

  The Ethan Warner Series

  Covenant, Immortal, Apocalypse

  The Chimera Secret, The Eternity Project

  Independent novels

  Eden, Holo Sapiens,

  Stone Cold, Revolution

  Soul Seekers

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  With thanks to Lt. Jack Allen and Capt. John Schaffer of the Great Falls, Montana Police Department, for their assistance during the writing of this novel.

  I’m like you. And you’re like me. Like you, I’ve made mistakes.

  Like you, I just wanted to escape them.

  We were both enslaved to our pasts, to the tragedies and histories of other people, not by our own choosing but by events neither of us could do anything about.

  I suppose that’s what all of us want to do, in our own way, shake off our histories and start afresh. Sometimes it seems to me that people are not really meant to spend their lives together, that enduring life’s rigours is easier when there’s only yourself to worry about. I didn’t always think this way. Maybe it’s because I’m an orphan, but I used to dream of the perfect life. Team Family, I used to call it, the perfect little bubble that a fortunate few find themselves cossetted inside, like those charming old couples who have been together since the Dawn of Time and seem effortlessly to sail life’s turbulent seas before cruising on into an afterlife of eternal peace. That was all I really wanted.

  But in reality it’s all a damned sight harder. We all want that perfect life, but none of us really know what a perfect life should look like. We all want do the right thing, and yet we all want to be free. And what is the “right thing” to do anyway? We struggle to adapt to each other, and when a thousand tiny irritations finally blossom into enraged conflict, where no compromise can quench the anger that courses like acid through our veins, so begins what so many of us call “the rest of our lives”.

  I made a stand. I decided that “good enough” wasn’t good enough, that I had one life and I would damned well make sure it became the best I could ever live because life isn’t a rehearsal and I’ll never get another shot at it. If I failed, I failed.

  Don’t tell me you’ve never dreamed of doing it too.

  1

  It was a faint breath of air, the touch of it on the back of her neck that let Sheila McKenzie know that she was not alone in the house. Her skin tingled and she felt the fine hairs on the backs of her arms rise up as she stared at her own reflection in the bedroom mirror, seeing nothing as her mind focused on the sensation.

  The air had moved in the house, as it sometimes did when the front door was opened.

  Her gaze flicked to the clock on the bedroom wall, outside the walk–in wardrobe where she had been slipping on her shoes. Her husband was not due back until the morning, and the night outside the broad windows was as black as hell and every bit as turbulent, rain squalls hammering the glass as though trying to get inside.

  Sheila turned her head, listening for a moment. It was possible that the bad weather had forced her husband to turn around and come back home, but he would normally have called ahead to let her know. He was somewhat fastidious like that, the kind of man who always liked to know where she was and what she was doing. She had used to figure that he was just a little concerned for her whereabouts, that he was a little paranoid and insecure. Now, she wished that he was here.

  She turned, her long blonde hair piled delicately up on her head and her pale cream skirt–suit immaculate as she stepped out of the wardrobe and listened intently. The bedroom was large, a King–size double–bed dominating it, and beyond the open door was a broad hall that descended via two opposing spiral staircases to the entrance hall and the front door. No sound came from downstairs that she could hear, further confirmation that her husband had not returned home early. She was about to search the house for any open windows that might have caused the faint breeze when she heard a tiny beep. She recognised the sound the moment she heard it.

  The alarm being reset.

  Sheila stood in the bedroom doorway and listened. Only she and her husband knew the code for the house alarm, neither of them having any other family members. Her husband would never have given the code away and he would never have crept into the house in this way.

  She turned and walked across to her bedside cabinet where her cell phone was charging. She unplugged it and picked it up, dialling 911 as she pressed the cell to her ear. A dull hiss emanated from the phone, a scratching sound. Sheila frowned and looked at the display and realised that the cell was not picking up a signal. Sheila tossed the cell phone onto the bed as she grabbed the land line and picked up the receiver.

  Dead.

  Sheila set the receiver back into its cradle and stood for a moment beside the bed. She glanced out of the window and saw the trees lining the quiet cul–de–sac gusting in the wind, the street lights across the street glowing as the rain lashed down. She could see the lights of other houses, neighbours, people who could help her if she could just get out of the house.

  Sheila slipped off her heels and crept across the bedroom to the doorway. She peered out toward the hall and the nearest staircase. No sounds reached her from downstairs but she knew by instinct now that she was definitely not alone, that somebody had snuck into the house and must surely know that she was inside.

  Sheila moved around to her husband’s side of the bed and pulled open a drawer. Inside, concealed beneath a pile of handkerchiefs, was a loaded .38, one of two in the house. The other was downstairs in the closet, just off the kitchen. She hefted the pistol out of the drawer, unfamiliar with its weight. Despite her husband’s assertions that she should learn to handle the weapon, Sheila had refused: she had always disliked guns and had never really considered the fact that one day, someday, she might have to use one.

  For a moment she recalled her husband telling her how to use the pistol, and she clicked open the chamber to see six rounds all ready for use. The chamber clicked shut with a satisfying snicker and she turned again for the bedroom door. Her confidence bolstered by the weapon in her hand, she eased her way out onto the hall and peeked over the bannisters toward the entrance hall below.

  The curved staircase meant that she could only see a small portion of the large lobby, but having made certain that the staircase was clear Sheila crept onto the first step and began descending.

  Sheila had lived in the house for over five years, and in that time she had become intimately familiar with its sounds and quirks. Although a fairly new property, the staircase still had a few spots where it creaked softly under a person’s weight. Sheila detoured around those spots, each foot placed carefully and silently as she descended toward the entrance hall, the .38 held in both hands out in front of her.

  The staircase unveiled the broad lobby before her, devoid of any human presence that she could see. She spotted the alarm keypad on the wall opposite, a small red light indicating that it was armed. To her right and below her a corridor turned back on itself toward the kitchen, mirroring an identical corridor on the other staircase, while to her right a
door way led into the living room: on the left across the far side of the lobby, another door led into the dining room.

  Ahead, a wide oak door led outside.

  Sheila stood in silence on the third step of the staircase and leaned over the banister to look back toward the kitchen. The light was off, the entrance to the room enshrouded in darkness. A doorway off that corridor led to a small study and computer room located beneath the staircase itself, also in darkness.

  Sheila turned and looked at the front door. Emboldened by the gun in her hand and the silence, she stepped into the lobby and turned away from the front door, crossing instead toward the living room. She had left the light on before heading upstairs and she was able to peek around the doorframe and check the room.

  Empty.

  She turned and looked across the lobby. The dining room was darkened, but she crept across and with the gun still aimed before her she reached around and fumbled for the light switch. An ornate chandelier glowed into life over a long, polished oak table as Sheila rushed in and swept the room with the pistol.

  Empty.

  She turned and looked at the lobby. Tiled in a black and white checkerboard design, she realised that anybody entering the house would have left wet footprints wherever they had walked, not to mention at least a minor gusting of rain on the polished tiles. Maybe the weather was cutting off her cell’s signal, and the rain and wind outside might well have caused deadfall that could have snapped the telephone wires outside the house or even down the street. Montana got itself some real winds during the winter.

  Sheila lowered the .38, but naturally cautious she turned toward the kitchen and kept the gun in her hand as she strode down the nearest corridor.

  She reached out for the light switch, one hand creeping around the wall and resting on the switch as she hit it and strode into the kitchen as the light flickered on.

  Empty. Sheila sighed and turned to head back for the front door.

  The figure lunged for her.

  It rushed out of the study and she opened her mouth to suck in air to scream with as she glimpsed a large, bulky figure wrapped in a winter coat, the face hidden behind a black mask, black gloves covering the hands and heavy boots on their feet. Sheila raised the pistol as she staggered backwards but the figure smashed the weapon aside and something hard slammed into the side of Sheila’s head with enough force to blur her vision.

  The kitchen tilted sideways in front of her as she toppled over and fell without pain onto the floor. The figure filled her vision and a strange, chemical odour tainted her senses as something was shoved over her face.

  Moments later, everything went black

  ***

  2

  Captain Dale McKenzie was exhausted.

  The night shift consisted of several flights, labouring back and forth through turbulent skies between Great Falls International Airport and McCarran International, Las Vegas. Most pilots grabbed sleep between routes, slumbering on sagging couches in tiny staff rooms that smelled of stale coffee and cheap deodorant. There was no glamour left any more for a regional airline pilot, the prestige lost amid the dense air traffic and long, unsociable hours. Rough weather off the mountains, pitch–black zero–visibility flying conditions and increasing fatigue completed the nightmare. Only now was the horizon dimly illuminated by the glow of a new dawn, preceding a day of which he would miss most in the blissful oblivion of sleep. Dale knew of at least four colleagues who had to drive almost a hundred miles to reach home when their shifts ended. He felt lucky that his own home was in the same city.

  The twinkling lights of the airport runway shimmered in the darkness as he walked from the terminal toward a private parking lot reserved for staff, the fresh morning air cold upon his skin beneath his shirt as it swept away some of his lethargy. The sound of engines passing overhead made him look up, navigation lights blinking as an aircraft sailed down through the inky blackness and touched onto the runway with a faint squeal of stressed rubber.

  Dale pinched the corners of his eyes with finger and thumb as he walked toward a titanium–coloured Mercedes parked in the executive area of the lot. Gusts of faint drizzle dusted the cold air that whipped across the airport, a hint of sleet whipping by on the uncaring wind. Dale opened the car’s door and slumped into the driver’s seat. There would be little respite. In twenty–four hours he would be expected back here, ready for his next shift.

  Dale switched on the engine and primed himself mentally for the drive home. Already the nearby freeways were a river of headlights snaking their way toward the city, straining his eyes as cold rain spilled down from uncaring clouds tumbling through the sky above to smear his windshield. The only consolation was that he was headed in the opposite direction, away from the twinkling galaxy of city lights behind him and out into the darkness, the traffic easing as he left the urban sprawl behind.

  The pale dawn revealed sprawling plains and distant mountain ranges wreathed in ribbons of tattered cloud, the road ahead a thin strip of dark asphalt stretching away into infinity and unbroken but for tiny towns scattered like beached ships across endless rolling seas of wheat and rye. Empty and silent. Dale cruised to the edge of the city, a suburban moat around the castle of civilisation separating it from the lonely wilderness beyond. He saw an old water tower and a wind turbine spinning on the cold air, convenience stores and the high school.

  The cul–de–sac in which he lived was a leafy paradise tucked down on the city’s south side, only a few of the impressive houses showing any activity at this early hour as Dale pulled onto his drive. The double–garage door rose automatically as it detected the car’s presence and Dale eased the Mercedes inside, the garage lights blinking on of their own accord. His wife’s Laguna was parked inside the garage, shining a pristine electric blue.

  Dale climbed out of his Mercedes and walked into the house through the interior garage door, switching off the alarm as he tossed his keys onto a shelf in the hall. The house was dark and silent as he slipped out of his shoes and strode through into the lobby. He wondered if his wife was awake yet.

  He stopped when he saw the front door.

  A pile of mail sat where it had fallen, probably delivered that morning but not collected. A pulse of alarm shivered through Dale’s chest as he picked up the mail and sifted through it. Clearly Sheila had not been home, and yet her car was still in the garage and showing no signs of having been driven in the incessant rain that had been falling for the past couple of days.

  Dale picked up the mail as he called out.

  ‘Honey, you home?’

  A long, empty silence filled the house. Dale walked back through the house toward the kitchen and hit the lights, and immediately he saw the light speckle of blood staining the floor tiles and a brown envelope left on the dark granite kitchen counter.

  Dale opened the envelope and unfolded the piece of paper folded within. A photograph fell out and landed in his palm. His wife, Sheila, walking down a street in the city, all flowing blonde hair and mile–wide smile, talking on a cell phone. As he read the accompanying note his heart stuttered through a couple of beats and cold flushes washed his skin.

  We have her already. We require $10 million in untraceable bonds. Await further instructions. If you contact the police, she will suffer. If you fail to deliver, she will die.

  Dale stared at the printed words as though he was in some kind of bizarre dream and he could change them by force of will. He dug his fingertips into his eyes, squeezed hard and blinked before reading the note once more.

  The words did not change.

  The note fell from his hand and drifted gently down onto the deep carpet beneath his feet.

  ***

  3

  First day at a new job.

  Nerves pulled taut, stretching the lines on her face and straining the muscles in her jaw. She must have been grinding her teeth in her sleep again. Relax, damn it.

  Kathryn Stone hurried about her tiny apartment, checked her hair in a mi
rror on the way into the bathroom, then checked it again on the way back out. Blouse smart and buttoned up sensibly high, skirt not too short, heels not too high. Hair looks okay. First impressions count. Don’t forget purse and car keys.

  ‘Do you think my makeup is too heavy?’

  Kathryn heard a faint murmur from the bedroom and hurried through. Her boyfriend, Stephen, had arrived home just as she was getting up. An insurance salesman, he spent hours travelling by car and airplane securing deals and restructuring corporate assurances. The last drive home had been a long one, right through the night he had said. She had to admit that he looked thoroughly exhausted. He glanced at her through one open eye, the other half of his body apparently already asleep. She wondered if he drove like that.

  ‘You look fine, honey,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Sure?’

  Both eyes were now closed. ‘Sure, perfect.’

  Kathryn refused to let Stephen’s disinterest mar her day. Truth was in his current state she could have taken a blow–torch to her hair and his response would likely have been the same. She had worked damned hard to support their tiny apartment while Stephen travelled to the ends of the Earth for his meagre commission and she had studied equally hard for her diploma. Now, finally, she too would be earning again.

  Kathryn walked back into the kitchen as though riding a gentle wave of coffee fumes, bacon and egg. She placed everything that she had cooked on a plate and tray, careful not to splash her crisp white blouse, and carried it through into the bedroom.

  Stephen was flat on his back beneath the sheets, eyes still closed beneath neatly trimmed black hair that framed a wide, lightly shadowed jaw. He was annoyingly attractive even when exhausted, or at least he was to Kathryn.

  ‘Breakfast is served, sir,’ she said as she rested the tray beside him on the bed.