Hush Hush by Erik Carter (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

to the fact that she thought the Oil Man was synonymous with the corrupt police chief.

But specifically how, Silence couldn’t know without fully understanding the story.

Silence looked at Gavin, held up the book, and flipped the bookmark, which was about ten percent in from the end of the book.

“Tell story,” Silence said. He swallowed. “To point where…” He swallowed. “…you left off.”

Gavin looked at him for a moment, squinting, confused. Then a look of understanding.

He began. “Okay. It starts with Kara arriving at her grandmother’s in coastal Maine for a two-week stay during her summer vacation…”

The other two had gone quiet as Silence read The Secret of Summerford Point.

After listening to the recap, Silence had started his reading at the point where Gavin had left off. Silence wasn’t a particularly fast reader, but it was a kids’ book and the print was large; he could get through it quickly enough.

What else could he do at this point?

After discovering how dark Summerford’s weapons-smuggling operation really was, Kara’s unexpected ally O’Malley had said he was going to the docks to investigate that night’s shipment from Whitehead Incorporated, a front for one of the world’s largest illegal arms dealers. After the obligatory argument, O’Malley begrudgingly allowed Kara to join him. They hadn’t been there long when O’Malley was abducted.

Silence continued reading.

Oh my goodness!

Kara’s mind kept repeating those same three words.

Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!

O’Malley was gone.

Taken.

She just kept seeing those eyes, over and over, another repetition in her mind. O’Malley’s stern face, beaten and bloodied, captured, being dragged away by the two men.

But he’d still been calm, in control, commanding. Even in his precarious situation, he’d been able to make eye contact with Kara and give her the smallest of shakes of the head.

No, his expression had said. Don’t follow.

And she hadn’t. She’d stayed right there, around the corner of the wall. Only O’Malley knew her location, not the other men in the dock.

She felt like a coward, like she should have disobeyed him even though he was an adult, even though he was a high-ranking authority.

What should she do?

There was a voice then. From the other side of the wall. A man’s voice. Someone in command.

“Just put him in the back room,” the man said. “We’ll deal with him after the shipment’s unpacked.”

Kara recognized the voice!

No, it couldn’t be…

Her back was squeezed against the wall, making her even more aware of her pounding heart, her shaking limbs. She didn’t know if she could move. Fright had completely enveloped her.

But she had to see who belonged to that voice.

She had to confirm.

Her fingers quivered as she put both hands onto the cold, dusty concrete, pushed, and turned herself around. She reached up and grabbed the sill of the window under which she was hiding, the window that looked into the other room. She slowly pulled herself up until she could see.

There was O’Malley, being dragged to a door on the far side of the other room.

And there was the man giving the commands, the man she’d suspected.

It was Police Chief Warren.

Silence paused for a moment before he turned the page. He rubbed his eyes.

A big reveal in the story. Warren was corrupt. Summerford’s police chief was the one running the weapons-smuggling operation.

But what good did knowing this do for Silence? A dark, nagging thought whispered to him from somewhere on the rational side of his brain—reading this children’s book could be a waste of time, one that could cost a person her life.

Sure, Amber Lund had been following the story as she conducted her investigation, but that didn’t mean she had been taking it so literally that—

And then he saw it.

As he turned the page.

Another note. In Amber’s adult handwriting.

Just like Dad.

He read the first few lines of the page, which detailed a further description of Chief Warren from Kara’s perspective as she hid behind the wall and peeked through the window.

Warren.

The corrupt police chief.

The one heading Summerford’s illegal operation.

Silence turned to the back of the book, traced a finger down Amber’s list of notes until he found the one he was looking for.

Oil Man = Warren

Then back to the page he’d just been reading.

Just like Dad.

Silence felt his face slacken.

And the other two men noticed. Jonah leaned up between the seats. Gavin squared to face him.

“What is it?” Gavin said.

Silence remembered the note he’d found in Beasley’s office. Beasley, the notorious rat, had recently contacted Carlton Stokes. And someone had also contacted Beasley recently—Carlton’s daughter.

Amber.

Silence fumbled for his notebook. He furiously scribbled a note and slapped it on the armrest.

Amber’s father is the Oil Man. He’s the one running the Well. He has Kim Hurley.

The air felt stagnant in the car after the gasping reaction of the other men.

Silence faced Gavin.

“Carlton’s house.” A twinge of pain in his throat. He worked up some saliva, swallowed. “You can get us there?”

Gavin nodded.

“Drive!” Silence said.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Carlton Stokes took another sip of bourbon and savored its warm travel down his throat, into his stomach.

“Shit,” he said.

He placed the tumbler on the end table beside him, next to the laptop computer, the principal component of his last-ditch effort to fix the damage.

Nothing was working out the way he had hoped. None of this was going according to plan.

For one thing, there were people in his house—the sort he didn’t enjoy associating with, but the sort he needed in situations like this one. They were in his kitchen, a few feet away. Laughing. Causing a ruckus.

“Shut up!” he shouted without turning around.

They quieted.

He ran his fingers along the laptop. Things had gotten so bad he’d been reduced to this.

He exhaled, and it came out as much a grumble as a sigh.

It was all falling apart because of Jonah Lund. The loser, the layabout.

Jonah freaking Lund.

That was the most unbelievable part of all this. Somehow Jonah had found a man—this strange mystery man that Finley had told Carlton about—someone who had brought the light of day upon the shadowy operation, the Well, that Carlton