All Chapters of Elding: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The drive from Sonoma to Kissimmee was forty-two hours without traffic and without stopping. I made the trip in sixty hours, stopping to sleep and eat when I needed to. I phoned Jules every time I stopped for gas and when I pulled into a motel to sleep. We would talk for a few minutes, but most of the time I was so exhausted from riding that I needed to crash almost immediately.Before leaving that morning, I’d given Mary an envelope for Jules and asked her to give it to her the night after I’d left. Jules would only get it the day after since she had been at work and Mary would have been asleep already by the time she went home.The weather in Florida was hot, especially with the leather jacket I was wearing, but rather hot and sweaty than losing half the skin on my back if I wiped out. Road rash wasn’t a joke and it would take me days to heal from that.I had two more hours before I reached Kissimmee when I felt the phone vibrate in my inside pocket. I knew it was Jules and I knew s

I went back to the villa and logged into Samuel’s bank account and transferred half of his money. I wiped the villa down after I’d showered and I got on the bike at three AM and started making my way to Concord, North Carolina and Lawrence Patterson.Lawrence Patterson was mainly a recluse who had his food delivered, lived alone and he recently employed two bodyguards who stayed in his house with him twenty-four hours a day. Word was getting around quicker than I had hoped. The rest would be more difficult to get to.I sat a block away in a rental car and hacked his security system. I got his password and access to the cameras outside his house. I watched a few videos of how they acted when they received a delivery. One man would open the door and check the paperwork, take the package as the second man stood just inside the door, gun drawn.Lawrence Patterson didn’t even go out to his garden, the curtains were drawn over the windows and they were all kept shut. The only way to gain ac

Levi and I were sitting at the kitchen island, drinking coffee when his phone pinged. He checked the message and his eyes seemed dead and cold for a few seconds before it disappeared. Levi was still as much of a mystery to me as the first day I’d met him, even though he’d opened up a lot, I knew that he still harbored a lot of secrets.“I’ve done some preliminary checks. Daniel Stewart is at this bar every night until eleven p.m. when he comes out of the back door and is escorted to his car with some girl he picked up. Mark Harris will be joining him tonight. Bluebird sent me their texts,” Levi said as he opened his phone.“Okay, so we wait for them there,” I said and he looked at me with that blank stare.“No, Alex, we’ll be on this roof, two shots as they exit, one in each head, we pack up and leave, in and out, aim and shoot.”“Okay, but I don’t know if they’re guilty or not, I can’t just kill someone because they were part of the pack. They need to be guilty,” I said to him.“Do y

Levi sat down opposite me and folded his arms on the counter. His face was unreadable, but his eyes held concern. I had allowed him to witness something private, something that I’d never planned on showing anyone, and I knew that I was going to have to tell him everything.“Is that your thing? The whole speech and the carving?” He asked me.“Yes,” I said and he laughed.“Sorry, but you look so serious when you do it and just now as you said yes,” he said and laughed again.“Didn’t you have a thing?” I asked him.“No, aim and shoot, kid, in and out, it’s the best way. I mean all these Kifo murders will be linked to one person now, one person that identifies you and you go to jail,” Levi said and I looked at him.“There’s no evidence,” I said to him. Even if someone identified me, they’d have to prove I was actually there and have some sort of evidence as well.“Same gun, same striation marks on the bullets, kid,” he said to me and I smiled.“I dig the bullets out when I use my own gun,

The darkness was welcoming. It was peaceful, painless and I was floating. I could hear voices in the darkness, Jules, Thalia and even Levi’s. Their voices floated around me, reaching out and pulling back. I smiled as the memories flowed around me and I stretched out my arms.I could feel soft grass beneath my fingertips and then the cold steel of a gun in my hand. I gripped the gun tightly, feeling better instantly. I felt the soft caress of fingers on my cheek and I smiled. It almost felt like home. I could smell Thalia’s sugar cookies and her scent seemed everywhere.I knew I was dreaming or hallucinating, I knew I was in trouble and that the darkness was just a temporary respite. I had to wake up and figure out a plan. I couldn’t die in a basement, not yet. I couldn’t let Allen Hall succeed.A bucket of water was thrown over me and I woke up with a start. I couldn’t remember when I had passed out as they took turns to hit and stab me, asking questions, trying to get me to talk. The