Killer Waves Read Free Page B

staring at me with distaste.
    "Well, there's a problem with that," I said. "And what's that?"
    "This happens to be a state park. Public property. Perhaps I like it here."
    "Perhaps you do. And perhaps if you don't leave, I'll ask my associate here to escort you off."
    Now the burly man had a little smile on his face, as if he had finally been told he could do something he liked. I looked at him and then at the woman. I said, "Your associate may find it might be harder to escort me than he thinks."
    She said, "Oh, I doubt that. Tell you what. Would you please leave then as a personal favor to me? Please?"
    I looked over the scene again and then felt tired. There are times to fight and times to call it quits and go home. By now a stiff breeze had come up and my face and hands were getting cold. Maybe I was wrong, but I could tell by their attitude and self-confidence that these people were in fact the feds, maybe the FBI or something. A long time ago I had been in the middle of their little world, and I didn't want to go back. The woman wanted to play games. Good for her. I had seen all that I was going to see this early morning, and now I wanted to go to bed.
    I shifted, managed a smile. "Oh, all right then. As a personal favor to you, and your smile. How's that?"
    I think I embarrassed her, if only for a moment. "That would be fine. Thank you, Mr. Cole. I trust we won't see you again, will we?"
    "Not tonight, that's for sure."
    Then she nodded crisply and said something to the bulky man, and I turned and started walking away from the parking lot. I went back onto the field and up the slight hill, and then I looked back. It was a busy scene, with the dead man's rental and the three Ford LTDs and the ambulance and two cruisers. I walked up the hill and when I noted a large boulder, I squatted down so that I couldn't be seen by the sharp people back down at the parking lot.
    With the small flashlight held in my mouth, I opened up my reporter's notebook and quickly wrote down three license plate numbers I had memorized when the LTDs had come barreling into the parking lot.
    She had said something about not seeing me again. Maybe she was right. But maybe I had other ideas.
    I shut off the flashlight and put the reporter's notebook back in my coat, and when I emerged from my little hiding place I looked down to the lot.
    One by one, the blue and red lights that had brought me to this place were being switched off.
    I shivered again and headed home.
     
     
    Chapter Two
     
    The offices of The Tyler Chronicle are set on one floor of a two-story white clapboard building near the center of town, right by the town common. The newspaper office shares space with a dentist, a legal firm and a realtor, and on this late morning I parked out back, near a set of old B & M Railroad tracks. I noted Paula Quinn's Ford Escort was there, and I ducked in through the rear entrance, the door usually reserved for staff. I didn't want to go through the front door and the hassle of dealing with whatever receptionist happened to be working this month.
    Once inside, I went past the subscription area and piles of bundled newspapers and found Paula at her desk. There were no cubicles or private office areas, just a wide area of industrial strength green carpet and metal and wooden desks that didn't have a chance of being matched. A couple of other female reporters-freelancers whose names I forgot about thirty seconds after meeting them-worked at their desks, typing hesitantly on the Digital computer terminals. Paula was on the phone as I came up to her, and sat down at a spare chair and looked around
    Up toward the other end of the large area, near a closed for the conference room, something new was hanging from the tile ceiling. I folded my arms and looked it over. It was the front pages of the two local daily newspapers that the Chronicle was competing against, the Porter Herald and Foster's Daily Democrat , and each front page had been mounted on