Bill Eidson Adrenaline (retail) (epub)

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.Yes, that would be entirely acceptable for a guy who hadn’t yet reached thirty-five.Geoff tuned back in to Harrison, who was saying, “So I told Voss, ‘Uh-uh, you got the wrong idea.Try again.’ Face went red as a frigging beet, I thought we were going to have to do CPR on him, and then I figured, what the hell? Maybe I should lock the conference room door, come back an hour later with a wreath.” Harrison began to laugh.Geoff said quietly, “What’s for breakfast tomorrow?”Harrison cocked his head.“I … breakfast?” He reached absently for his breast pocket and pulled out his phone to check his calendar.Geoff said, “Jansten’s called me out for breakfast.With Steve Dern.What should I be expecting?”Harrison looked genuinely confused.“I don’t know anything about it.With Dern?” Harrison’s face was red, and Geoff thought of the story about Voss.“I’m sorry, man,” Harrison said.“I talked to Jansten just yesterday, and he said his secretary was making all the arrangements to welcome you into town.In fact, I thought the first time we’d see you would be at the executive committee meeting on Monday.There has been a rumor of one of Jansten’s godawful team-building things.Going on a retreat.”“Tell me about Steve Dern,” Geoff said softly.Harrison lifted his shoulders.“Don’t know him that well.Wish I could tell you he was a scumsucker, but he’s a good guy.Smart, calm, knows his business.”Geoff sighed internally as Harrison slid into the background.Most of it was stock company propaganda about Dern’s success with the Blue Water line.Jansten liked to brag about it.Probably figured it was one of the few lines Jansten Enterprises actually earned, rather than bought.“Boats?” Geoff said, scornfully.“You think Jansten could be taking Dern seriously?”“You’ve got no argument from me,” Harrison said.Never do, Geoff thought.“Sure, boating is strictly a small-potatoes industry.But, if you go to any marina, you’ll see that Dern’s line has rivaled the best of Boston Whaler and Mako—and he’s got a better price.”“What’s he doing back here?”Harrison grinned.“Dern’s making us some money.No doubt about that.”“How’s our boy doing himself, financially?” Geoff asked this, hoping that somewhere Dern wasn’t asking some toad to pull up the same information on him.“Got me.Probably stretched somewhat, though.He’s just been in Boston the past two months, you know.Building a house outside of Route 495.He and his wife are living on their sailboat in the meantime.”“What’s that?” Geoff was genuinely surprised.“He’s building a house?”“Oh, yeah.He’s here to stay.Jansten pulled him out of Charleston to run his division from here.Same as you.” Harrison winked over his beer.“Now you tell me it’s the two of you for breakfast.Rumor is that Barry Lerner slammed the door so hard after his private session with Jansten that he broke glass.And Phil Rudden hasn’t attended a meeting or made a decision since Monday.So maybe it’s going to be neck and neck between you and Dern.I’m counting on you coming through, buddy.”Geoff leaned forward and put his hand on Harrison’s shoulder, mimicking Harrison’s earlier gesture.He said with quiet intensity, “Then you better come through with some better information than this.Next time I call you, be ready.”“Geoff …” Harrison shook his head, and started to sip his beer.Geoff surprised both of them by slapping the mug out of his hand.It crashed on the floor inside the bar, and the bartender yelled, “What the hell?”Without looking, Geoff took a twenty out of his change and tossed it to the bartender.To Harrison, he spoke in a low whisper, “Why didn’t I know this two weeks ago?”“None of it had happened two weeks ago!” Harrison kept looking at his smashed mug and back to Geoff, his face blotched with color.But Geoff was no longer in the listening mode.“That’s what I pay you for, you fat-assed shit.Now get out of here.Next time I call you, bring me something I can use.Or tell Geena to start packing for Des Moines.”Harrison started to speak—and then looked at Geoff more closely.He shut his mouth and left.* * *Geoff sat breathing quietly after Harrison was gone.Feeling his heart beating harder than before.Pumped.Feeling it in his hands, how close he had come to hitting Harrison’s plump face rather than his beer mug.Knowing that his actions were inappropriate.Knowing that, once again, he had gone too far.It was one thing to have a reputation for being a wild man, quite another to be seen as a nut.But he enjoyed the power in himself anyhow.He had enjoyed it with Kelly, too.She had threatened him.“You’re bored,” she had repeated.“Because you’re bored that boy can’t walk.You think you can’t fall too? You think you can’t land on the street?”“I don’t worry about it.”This infuriated her.“You think you can’t get hurt? Maybe I’ll give you a taste of it.Maybe I’ll just go to the police and let them know who ran that boy off the road.”That pulled Geoff up short.Kelly smiled, thinking she finally had his complete attention.Geoff reached over for his jump rope on the nightstand and looped it around her neck.He hauled her off the bed kicking and fighting him and he threw the handles over the pull-up bar in his doorway.Naturally, she tried to yell.But all that came out was a cawing sort of sound, nothing that would make it to the next condo.And within seconds, he had hauled her to her toes.He spoke into her ear, feeling incredibly alive and excited as she clawed her throat.He said, “Good news and bad news, Kelly.The bad news is that I really do not know if I’m going to let you down.I may just hold you up here until you stop breathing.The good news is that I know you better than you know yourself.You’re weak.Your whole life has been nothing but easy, and it’s all you know.So killing you is simply an option.If I decide to let you live, you will never, ever, carry out that silly threat, because you’ll be looking over your shoulder for me the rest of your life.You understand?”She tried to nod.He let go of the jump rope, and she dropped to her knees.She was terrified, gasping for air.He knelt down and smoothed back her hair so he could speak into her lovely ear.She flinched.He said, “As for me landing on the street, I think I just might like it.”Chapter 4Geoff was thinking about the hooker when he left the bar.He had never paid for sex in his life, but he was charged up thinking about that time with Kelly.And the money problem kept on intruding into his thoughts, worming its way past the mental barriers he had carefully stacked.He would have missed her, had the man not raised his voice [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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