Footprints of a Dancer (Detective Elliot Mystery) (32 page)
Read Footprints of a Dancer (Detective Elliot Mystery) Online
Authors: Bob Avey
Elliot strolled down the hallway, his footsteps echoing in the large expanse.
Outside, he traversed the sidewalk past the fountain, but as he started across the parking lot, he paused.
A man with large shoulders and biceps leaned against the pickup. The look on his face said he wasn’t in the mood for games.
Given his present condition, Elliot wasn’t sure he could take the man, if it came to that. He slid his hand inside his jacket and wrapped his fingers around the handle of the Glock. At a distance of about six feet away, Elliot stopped. “Something I can do for you?”
“You Elliot?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Funny you should ask.”
Elliot tightened his grip on the Glock. “Maybe so, but you didn’t answer my question.”
The man leaned forward, transferring his weight from the truck to his feet.
Elliot took a couple steps back. He pulled the Glock and leveled the barrel with the man’s forehead.
If Elliot’s actions frightened the big man, he did not show it. Instead, as if he was an old friend, hurt and confused at Elliot’s pulling a gun on him, he held his arms out, palms up and said, “I was told you could help me.”
“Help you with what?”
“My identity, Detective. Do you have any idea what it feels like to die in someone else’s body?”
Keeping the Glock trained on the suspect, Elliot chanced a glance over his shoulder, looking for bystanders, should gunfire erupt. In nearly the same instant, he returned his attention to the suspect.
The man was gone.
Elliot reconsidered the suggestion earlier posed by Carmen that he had experienced too much as a cop. He made his way to the vehicle and checked the bed of the pickup.
Only a few tools and items occupied the truck bed.
He moved around the truck and threw open the passenger door.
The man was gone.
As Elliot holstered the Glock, he thought of Carmen and Wayne. He wanted to be more of a part of their lives. Carmen had shown him she and Wayne wanted that too. He was going to make that happen. However, as he climbed into the truck, the unnerving question posed by the strange man he’d seen earlier wandered through the recesses of his mind—
Do you have any idea what it feels like to die in someone else’s body?
Detective Elliot Mysteries
by Bob Avey
* Published by Deadly Niche Press
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