Parker 04.5 - The Hunters (5 page)
Other novels by Jason Pinter in the Henry Parker series:
The Mark
The Guilty
The Stolen
The Fury
The Darkness
For more information about Jason Pinter and his books, visit him at:
His website—www.jasonpinter.com
His blog—www.jasonpinter.com/blog
Facebook—www.facebook.com/jason.pinter
Twitter—http://twitter.com/jasonpinter
MySpace—www.myspace.com/jasonpinter
Flickr—www.flickr.com/photos/jasonpinter
Goodreads—http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/281516.Jason_Pinter
Jason Pinter
was born in New York City in 1979, read his first book at the age of three and progressed quickly from the life lessons of
Little Toot
to the otherworldly epics of Brian Jacques, Terry Brooks and Stephen King. He soon began writing short stories that were, unsurprisingly, D-grade knockoffs of Brian Jacques, Terry Brooks and Stephen King. At least he aimed high.
Throughout high school, Jason dreamed of becoming a screenwriter, and took jobs at various production companies to learn more about the film and television industry, including one (unpaid) stint at Jon Stewart’s Busboy Productions. Jason is proud to say he was the inspiration for
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
(at least in his own mind).
During his junior year in college, Jason decided he wanted to make the leap and become a writer. Heeding words of advice from his physician who’d written a book (“The first thing any writer needs is an agent”), he began querying literary agents. The physician neglected to mention that in order to get an agent, you needed to have an actual book. Needless to say, agents were not chomping at the bit to sign up Jason’s non-book.
After a half-hearted attempt to find an agent for his, um, nothing, Jason decided it could be interesting to learn more about the publishing industry from the inside. Over the summer, he took an internship at a boutique literary agency in New York, where his first day on the job consisted of lunch at Mickey Mantle’s restaurant with a renowned sportswriter. Ah, the glamorous world of publishing (cough).
Jason interned at the agency through the fall, racking up $726,374 in E-Z Pass fees while commuting from Connecticut to New York for work and to visit his girlfriend (who later became his wife).
After graduating, Jason took a job as an editorial assistant at a publishing house. It was during that time that he began writing his debut thriller,
The Mark.
Shockingly, it was easier to land an agent with an actual manuscript, and that agent eventually sold
The Mark
to MIRA Books in a three-book deal.
When not writing his acclaimed Henry Parker/Amanda Davies series, Jason still works as a book editor. He lives in New York City with his college-sweetheart-turned-wife, Susan, and their dog, Wilson.
He is a member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America, and a co-founder of Killer Year.
Ready for more action with Henry Parker? See how the story began in THE FURY, available now in print and eBook format wherever books are sold, and continues in THE DARKNESS, on sale December 2009.
THE FURY
Henry parker must uncover the most devastating secret of all…His own
Am I my brother’s keeper?
If I’d known I had a brother, I might have been. But he’s dead—shot point-blank in a rat-hole apartment, wasted by hunger and heroin. Stephen Gaines, a man with whom I shared nothing…except a father.
For some reason this stranger who shared my blood came to me for help…and I blew him off thinking he was just some junkie. Now I’m forced to question everything I ever knew…and figure out why this man was murdered in cold blood.
All I can do for Stephen Gaines now is find his killer—and with the help of Amanda Davies uncover the whole, hard truth. If it means tracking down a vicious drug kingpin—who may or may not exist—then so be it….
THE DARKNESS
A young man is found murdered, his bones crushed nearly to dust before his body was dumped into New York’s East River.
In New York there are hundreds of murders a year, but this one is different. Somebody is sending a message. And shockingly, the victim has ties to my brother, Stephen Gaines, recently murdered by an elusive drug lord known only as the Fury.
For years this kingpin has been shrouded in darkness. Stephen was executed just as he was about to shed some light. Working alongside my mentor, Jack O’Donnell, I’m going to find the truth behind this blood-soaked curtain. But the more we reveal, the more we realize just how dark the Fury’s plans are. And that no matter how brutal the violence has been, we haven’t seen anything yet….
Turn the page to read a special excerpt from THE DARKNESS…
THE DARKNESS
By Jason Pinter
Paulina Cole left the office at 4:59 p.m. Her sudden departure nearly caused a panic in the newsroom of the
New York Dispatch,
where she’d worked as a featured columnist and reporter for several years. Paulina was prone to late nights, though many argued whether the nights were due to a work ethic that was second to none, or simply because she was more comfortable spending her time among competitive, ambitious and bloodthirsty professionals than sitting on the couch with a glass of wine and takeout.
She had left that day after a particularly frustrating conference call with the paper’s editor in chief, Ted Allen. Paulina had spent the better part of two years becoming the city’s most notorious scribe in no small part due to her ambivalence concerning personal attacks, heated vendettas, and a complete refusal to allow anyone to get the best of her. When her instincts faltered, she called in favors. When she got scooped, she would trump the scoop by digging deeper. And she held grudges like ordinary folks held on to family heirlooms.
Which is why, after reading a copy of that morning’s
New York Gazette,
the paper Paulina used to work for and now wished buried under a paper landfill, she demanded to speak with Ted. She knew the man had a two o’clock tee time, but she’d seen him golf before and cell phone interruption might even improve his thirty-seven handicap.
That day’s
Gazette
featured a story about the murder of a young man named Stephen Gaines. Gaines’s head had met the business end of a revolver recently, and in a twist of fate that Paulina could only have wished for on the most glorious of days, the prime suspect was none other than Gaines’s father, James Parker. James Parker also happened to be the father of Henry Parker, the
Gazette’s
rising young star reporter, whom Paulina had as much fondness for as her monthly cycle.
Paulina had cut her teeth at the
Gazette,
and had briefly worked side by side with Henry Parker. But after seeing what the
Gazette
had become—an old, tired rag, refusing to adapt to new technologies or understand that hard news was essentially dead—she’d made it her business to put the paper out of its misery.
Nobody cared to read about the government or the economy—at least not on a grand scale. They only cared about what they saw right in front of them, day in and day out. Their mortgage payments. Their bank accounts. It was all visceral. You bought the celebrity magazine so you could make fun of the stars’ cellulite with your friends. You shook your head at the news program that exposed the foreman whose building was overrun with rats because he refused to pony up for an exterminator. You scorned the politician’s wife who stood silent at the press conference by her cheating louse of a husband. Paulina gave those with no life something to live for, something to chat about at the nail salon.
The
New York Gazette
was dead. It just didn’t know it yet.
So when Ted Allen suggested that Paulina write an article about vampires, she was taken aback to say the least.
“Vampires are huge,” Allen had said. “There are those books that have sold like a gajillion copies. Now there are movies, television shows, soundtrack albums. Hell, newspapers are the only medium that isn’t getting a piece of it. Teenage girls love them, and teenage boys want to get into the pants of teenage girls. And this all scares the living hell—no pun intended—out of their parents, so you write a piece on vampires I bet it’s one of our bestselling editions of the year.”
“What the hell do I know about stupid vampires?” Paulina said, laughing at herself for even asking the question. She stopped laughing when she realized Ted was serious.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Allen had said. “Didn’t I hear about some boys and girls who go around biting people on the neck because they think they can be vampires? Go interview them. Even better, go undercover and pretend to be one of them. You know, pretend you like to bite people’s necks and see what they tell you.”
“Ted, I’m in my forties,” Paulina said. “I don’t think going undercover with teenagers will fly.”
“Are you kidding?” Ted said. “What’s that term? Milf? The teenage boys will love you.”
That’s when Paulina left.
Rain beat down upon the streets steadily, with the precision of soft drumbeats. The drops splashed upward as they struck the pavement, and Paulina felt the water soaking her ankles as she exited into the gloom. A bottle of Finca Vieja Tempranillo was waiting at home. It was a good red wine, with a slight plum taste, and she could picture slipping into a warm bath with a glass in one hand and a romance novel in the other. The rest of the bottle sitting on the ledge just within reach, ready to be tilted until the last drops were consumed. Ordinarily she was not that kind of girl, in fact laughed at those who were, but Paulina needed a night away from it all.
Paulina opened up an umbrella and stepped into the sea of New Yorkers, entering the crowded bloodstream known as the commute home. The streets were chock-full of open umbrellas, and she tried to wedge her way into the crowd without having her eye poked out by a random spoke.
As she took her first step, Paulina heard a man’s voice yell, “Miss Cole! Miss Cole!”
She saw a man wearing a dapper suit and dark overcoat approaching. He was tall, six one or two, with hair so blond it was nearly white, peeking out from underneath a billed cap. He looked to be in good shape, late thirties or early forties, and for a brief moment Paulina felt her heart rate speed up. The car service company had really stepped up their recruiting.
“Miss Cole,” the man said, stopping in front of her. “My name is Chester. I’m from New York Taxi and Limo. Ted Allen called to request a ride home for you.”
“Is that so,” Paulina said, barely hiding her smile. She knew months ago that she had Ted by the balls. Things like this proved it. Keeping her happy and pumping out pieces was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to the
Dispatch,
and the publicity she received raised the paper’s profile more than their “crackerjack” investigative team ever could. That Ted would extend an olive branch so quickly surprised her at first, but if she ran the company she’d want to make sure her star reporter got home safe, sound and dry.
“Please,” Chester said, “come with me.”
Chester opened up a much larger umbrella and held it out. Paulina smiled at him, a big, bright, toothy smile, and stepped under the umbrella. He led her to a Lincoln Town Car which sat double-parked at the curb. Holding the umbrella to shield her from the rain, the driver opened the door. Paulina thanked him, picked up the hem of her skirt and climbed into the backseat of the car. The driver shut the door, and Paulina watched as he walked around to the front.
Two sealed bottles of water were set in a pair of cup holders, and crisp new editions of that morning’s newspapers were folded in the pocket in front of her. The rain pattered against the windows as Paulina unscrewed one of the bottles and took a long, deep sip.
The driver flicked on his blinker and pulled into traffic. He headed uptown. The only sound Paulina could hear was the rubber squeaking of the windshield wipers. The only smell that of the car’s leather.
“Good day, miss?” the driver asked.
“Better than some, worse than others,” she replied. Traffic was bumper to bumper, and the car inched along. Paulina began to grow restless. As much as she hated taking the subway, she probably would have been home by now.
“You think there might be a faster route?” she asked, leaning forward slightly when the car stopped at a red light. The driver turned around, grinned.
“Let’s see what we can do.”
The driver made a right turn, and soon the car was heading east. When they got to First Avenue, Paulina could see signs for the FDR Drive north. He pulled onto the on-ramp and headed uptown. The FDR tended to get flooded during heavy rain, but Paulina didn’t mind chancing that to get home quicker. She watched the cars out-side, eyes widening as she saw her exit, Sixty-first Street, appear in the distance. Yet instead of slowing down and pulling left toward the exit ramp, the car sped along, bypassing the exit completely.