Cold Revenge

COLD REVENGE DAN DECKER Copyright © 2023 by Dan Decker All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. Published by Grim Archer Media, a publishing imprint of Xander Revolutions LC. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. For my family. Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 The Killer's Club Free Short Story Books by Dan Decker Author’s Note About the Author 1 Jason Maxfield didn’t hesitate when the bus door opened and he got off in Moscow, Idaho. It had been more than ten years since his last brief visit home, and it didn’t seem like much had changed about the Podunk little town. It still had the same small-town feel, though there were a few more stores. The bus dropped him off in front of the University of Idaho. There were few places it could have left him that weren’t in front of the university since it seemed to take up more than a quarter of the town. Jason expected FBI agents to swarm out of nowhere and arrest him. Or perhaps a local police officer might stop to talk with him, thinking he looked familiar from a wanted poster. But nobody noticed or even glanced his way. Was Jason tempting fate? Perhaps there had been some local chatter after his escape. Maybe pictures had been put up on telephone poles just in case he returned. It’s not too late to turn back, he thought as he hitched his backpack over both shoulders. But he pushed forward into the cold, buttoning up his flannel shirt. He’d have to take out his jacket if it got much colder. He was here. He might as well make the most of it. His parents’ place was a few miles from town. It would take a while to walk there along Highway 8. He soon came to a bicycle path he could follow almost the entire way. He passed many people. Walking, riding, skating, and jogging. He was careful to avoid eye contact with everybody, keeping his hat low. Nobody seemed to recognize him. Every step he took made him wonder if he was making a terrible mistake. There had been few letters and phone calls during the final years of his time in prison, even though he’d written home at least once a month. His parents had rarely come to visit. It had been a year and a half since he’d escaped custody, and he’d been on the run ever since, somehow continuing to get by while having only minor brushes with trouble. He’d covered a lot of ground but had done little. On the day he’d escaped, there had been a vague notion of proving his innocence, but he had no idea how to do that. Phil Taft was now in prison. There had been no mention in the news of how Taft had framed Jason. Jason doubted if anybody in law enforcement had even looked into it. The only thing they wanted was to put Jason back in prison. And this time, it would be for a long time. After Billings, Jason had gotten the idea he wanted to help people in need. That he was a man looking for a mission. At least, that’s how he thought of himself and justified his status as a fugitive. He’d done some of that, but it brought peril. There was always the risk somebody might recognize him and turn him over to the cops. He helped when he discovered somebody with a problem, but more often than not, he found himself washing dishes at some run-down restaurant for a night or two, hoping to make a few extra dollars on top of a meal and bed before heading back to the road. He always felt safest on the move. He checked the news as often as possible and hadn’t found any mention of him or what he’d done in Billings. The last time he’d looked was a month back at a public library in Provo, Utah, so maybe he’d find something the next time he checked. He assumed law enforcement had covered up the story, thinking he might get comfortable and would make mistakes that enabled them to locate him. So he tried not to think he was a step or two ahead. He assumed he was running several steps behind. Perhaps that was why he was so slow to make this trip to northern Idaho. Maybe that’s why he’d been reluctant to even attempt the journey. But he had to know why his parents had stopped writing to him before his escape. He needed answers. And there was only one way to find them. He also wanted to figure out where his ex-wife and daughter had gone. He’d never met his daughter, and he wanted to at least do that