Twisted Creek

Chapter 3

September 17, 2006

1100 hours

Twisted Creek

Luke Morgan swore as he stomped through the bush toward Jefferson Platt’s property.

He didn’t have much time. He’d been here two days, talking to residents, checking out the area for trouble, but he had put off going to Platt’s home.

Until now.

Much as he hated to acknowledge it, once he went inside, he’d have to admit the old man was dead.

Jefferson Platt had been a fixture in his life for as long as Luke could remember. Platt had taught him to fish when he’d been five. He had been his grandfather’s friend for forty years and in so doing Jefferson had watched first Luke’s father and then Luke grow up. Jefferson had been Luke’s safe house when a bullet almost ended his career five years ago. The smells of the lake ran as thick in Luke’s blood as his Navajo heritage.

Going into Jefferson Platt’s apartment would be like closing a door, and Luke had closed enough doors in his life lately. This was the one place on the planet Luke thought never changed…and now it had.

He circled near the lake, deciding it would be faster to plow through the muddy bank than try to fight the willows and pines that stood fortress-thick between his land and Platt’s. If he’d had time, he would have gone around to the road and walked over, but he could feel trouble coming as clearly as his Navajo grandfather used to say he felt storms brewing all the way to the edge of creation.

Reaching the lake’s shoreline, Luke stopped a foot before he stepped out in the open and pulled his Glock 9mm from his boot. He wasn’t in the mood to clean lake water out of the weapon again.

Pressing the gun in his vest pocket, he jogged down the shore to a long dock everyone called Jefferson’s Crossing. With a jump, he grabbed the side of the muddy dock and pulled himself up. From here on he would be in easy sight of any fisherman passing, so he walked slow, hoping they’d notice no more than they’d seen the past few days-a drifter circling the lake. With a week’s worth of growth across his face, he was a far cry from the efficient ATF agent who’d left his post in Austin for a leave he’d listed as “personal business.”

Within minutes he had slipped inside the kitchen window and climbed the stairs. Boarded up, the place he’d visited a hundred times seemed unfamiliar. Glancing down, he could barely make out the outline of the old potbellied stove in the center of the wide, empty room or the small safe no one had remembered how to open in so many years it had become simply a stool huddled beside the stove. The mismatched pair stood alone in the room that had been Jefferson’s store.

Luke smiled, remembering one summer when Jefferson had told him that the safe’s combination was someone’s birthday. Luke had spent hours trying every set of numbers he could put together. Jefferson had laughed at him, along with everyone else who wandered in.

Luke turned away, forcing his mind to present problems. He took the last half of the stairs two at a time and wasn’t surprised to find the second floor a mess. Jefferson’s no-doors apartment hadn’t changed since he’d been here years ago. His trained eyes missed little. He’d read the police report and knew Jefferson Platt had died in the water a few feet from the dock, but someone had walked across the dusty floor of his bedroom recently. Maybe someone looking for the same clues.

The sound of a car drew Luke to the window. From behind the curtain’s shadow, he watched as an old blue van with Tennessee tags rattled down the drive. It was time to move, and fast, but he hesitated. The blonde driving held his attention.

When she jumped out of the car, he thought her little more than a kid until she stepped into the sunshine and stared up at the house. Her hair might be in braids and her shorts barely covering her bottom, but her petite body was definitely all grown up.

“Hell,” he mumbled. The new owner had arrived and he was wasting time staring.

Luke smiled as he took another look. It had been a long time since he’d admired a woman without wondering if she had a rap sheet.

Too bad he had to disappear.