J. Black - The Survivors Club

His back was arched. His arms were straining. His neck was tired. His fingers and hands were slippery with blood—cut to ribbons.

He looked down.

The ground rushed up, faster and faster. Ants became people, and then people became people-with-horrified-faces. He was going in undeployed—again.

Six hundred feet.

He forced his eyes back up to level. He wasn’t done yet. Pulling, shoving, hitting, grabbing, shaking the reserve rig—he’d go down fighting. But at the same time as he fought to save himself, Alec could feel his mind shift into pure acceptance mode.

I’m going to die.

No way he’d survive something like this twice.

The twenty-third psalm flitted through his mind—“Yea though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will fear no evil—”

Because I’m the Craziest SOB on God’s Green Earth. That was the saying.

But this time it was different.

Evil was the exact thing he feared.

Alec awoke to the ringing of the phone. It took him a moment to swim out of his dream and realize where he was: Tucson, Arizona.

The last thing he’d seen before waking was something dark hurtling from above slamming into him—hard.

But the image that stuck with him when his parachute didn’t open wasn’t the shattering memory of the disastrous free fall into the slough in Florida, which left him with a fractured pelvis, splintered ribs, a broken collarbone, and a stopped heart.

No. This time when his canopy didn’t deploy, Alec Sheppard saw the face of a stranger.

The stranger was a good-looking man, about Alec’s age, mid-to-late thirties. He wore a jumpsuit. He was about to jump, or he’d already jumped. He sat at one of the café tables at the SkyView Jump Center, a cup of Starbucks coffee on the round table in front of him. The man appeared to recognize him; his eyes lit up and a smile played on his lips. Alec had never seen him before—at least he didn’t think so, but he’d jumped a lot of places and interacted with a host of people he’d never meet again.

What puzzled him was the thing the man did next. He pointed his finger at Alec, like he was shooting a gun.

Sun streamed through the sheer outer drapes of the hotel’s window.

Alec had beaten the Reaper twice. The second time he’d literally landed on his feet—no injuries at all.

As he reached across the hotel bed for the phone, he thought about the man at the SkyView Café in Houston. The man who shot the finger gun at him right before he jumped three weeks ago in Houston might have been the same guy as the jogger on the roof in Atlanta last September.

Both of them were strangers. Both of them had targeted him. The jogger with the red tag had smacked him on the chest. The other guy had sabotaged his rig or found someone to do it for him. The cables to both the main canopy and the reserve canopy had been cut.

The phone stopped ringing. It was probably Steve, calling to remind him about their breakfast downstairs in the hotel restaurant.

Alec turned on the TV, still thinking about the guy who had plastered the red tape with the number five to his chest. He hadn’t been hurt, but it did qualify as an assault.

And the other guy. The Starbucks Guy, as Alec had come to think of him. Sitting there with that strange smile on his face, shooting the finger gun at Alec approximately thirty minutes before he almost fell to his death. If the jump master hadn’t been able to pull the ripcord on Alec’s reserve canopy at the last possible moment, he would have cratered again. As it was, he’d landed unscathed.

Alec took a shower, dressed, and called Steve, but got his voice mail. Looked at his watch.

A half hour later, he left the room and took the elevator down to the restaurant.

Steve was a no-show.

Alec called Steve again, and once again, got his voice mail. He left another message and ordered breakfast.

He ate alone.

After breakfast, Alec called again. He left another message. He tried not to sound annoyed. A half hour later, just as he was headed for the hotel gym, he got a call from a number he didn’t recognize.

Alec answered—he had a bad feeling. “Hello?”

“My name is Detective Sergeant Dave White of the Tucson Police Department. Would you mind telling me why you’ve been trying to reach Steve Barkman?”

CHAPTER 17

Tess was halfway back to Nogales when she got the news.

By coincidence, she’d been asking a friend of hers, Terry Braithwate, with the Pima County Sheriff’s Office, about Steve Barkman.

“Just a minute,” Braithwate said. “You won’t believe this.”

Tess could hear the scanner in the background—Braithwate was monitoring the TPD frequencies.

“Small world—there’s a possible 01-01 at 5425A East Ft. Lowell Road.”

Possible homicide .

Tess heard it, and knew immediately. “That’s Steve Barkman’s residence.”

“Jesus.” A click of computer keys. “I’m looking…oh, I didn’t know that. The place is officially owned by his mother—Geneva Rees.”

“So what’s the nature of the 01-01? Do they know?”

“Still trying to figure it out.”

“But the deceased is…”

“Let me check—hold on.” He came back on a moment later. “Shit. It is Steve.”

“They don’t know if it’s a homicide?” Tess said.

“Not yet. Ds are at the scene though.”

Tess got off the horn with Braithwate and called Danny.

“Barkman? The guy you had to apologize to?”

“Yeah.” Tess told him how Barkman had seemed to be obsessed with George Hanley’s death.

“There might be something there,” Danny said.

Tess said, “I’m going back.”

“Hey, guera —I’ll meet you there.”

There he goes with the white girl comment again.

Sometimes it was such a pain in the ass to be Anglo.

Tess parked on Ft. Lowell Road. The dirt road into Barkman’s mother’s property was jammed with vehicles. She saw four TPD units—one of them a D car and another belonging to a detective sergeant—and a crime scene unit, TV satellite truck, and a regular TPD unit. All of which were parked either in the long driveway or along the side of the semirural stretch of road.

She waited for Danny. When he appeared, they walked toward the property.

The officer guarding the crime scene tape looked like he’d give them trouble, and he did.

Danny badged him. “We have an ongoing investigation involving Mr. Barkman—”

“Nobody can come in here.”

Tess glanced at the crowd beyond the tape and spotted a woman with a blonde ponytail in conversation with a crime scene tech and another detective. She wore a long-sleeved blouse, tan slacks, her weapon in plain sight, and most important, a silver shield clipped to her belt.

“Cheryl Tedesco!” Tess called out.

Cheryl Tedesco looked up, shading her eyes against the bright Arizona sun. She detached herself from the group. “Tess! Holy cow, girl! What’re you doing here?”

Tess introduced her partner. “We think your case links with ours.”

“I’m all ears.” Cheryl lifted the tape, and Tess and Danny ducked under. “Tell me what you’ve got.”

Three months ago, Tess and Cheryl had roomed together at an interrogation methods course in Lake Havasu City. Not only did they hit it off right away, but they shared an experience that bonded them. On their way to dinner the first night, they witnessed a car accident that nearly wiped them out and did knock down a pedestrian. Fortunately, the pedestrian survived with cuts and bruises, but the driver had to be cut out of her car. The woman was in a panic, because her dog was in a crate on the backseat. Tess and Cheryl took turns directing traffic and placating the woman as they waited for the paramedics. Between them, they were able to get the small dog carrier out and show the woman her pet was all right. This enabled her to calm down and cooperate, and eventually she was freed of the wreckage. She only went off to the hospital after they promised her the dog would be taken care of. And a day later, the woman and her dog were reunited.