SAMPLE CHAPTER

PROLOGUE >SNAKE PASS ROAD

Miles Michael Todd leaned the Royal Enfield Interceptor hard into the curve with all his weight. Pushing his motorcycle to the limit on Snake Pass Road in this growing storm was insane. His rational, logical mind told him to slow it down, to take care, told him that everything that had gone wrong lately would resolve itself. Looking far ahead he saw violent flashes of lightening illuminating the massive rain clouds on the road he had to take.

Miles knew running away was insane. Running away was not the answer. Running away meant digging himself deeper, and deeper, and deeper into the whole bloody mess. Double-crossing the Robie's sickened him with fear and a sudden gut wrenching panic. He could not help himself now. His agitated state of mind and jittery nerves from lack of sleep was taking a heavy toll on him.

He knew his reaction time was compromised, that he should stop and rest, but he had to press on. It had been only two days since Jackson's murder, yet it felt like two very, very long months had elapsed. The utter shock of the murder going so far out of control reverberated in his mind every minute of the day. The guilt never abated, never allowed him a respite to compose himself or find a meaning to all that had happened. His love for Kat drove all his actions now. He knew this beyond any doubt. Defy her? Give her up? Never. Never could he do that. Never in a million years could he do that.

He squeezed the hand brake hard, let off on the throttle instantly and prayed the motorcycle tires would hold fast as he leaned fifty degrees into another slick wet curve. He dragged his metal boot heel plate against the hard pavement through the curve. A shower of white sparks trailed from his boot metal far behind him lighting up the forest on one side. He was in control now. He would keep going no matter what the cost would be to him.

Kat loved him. He was positive about that. Her beautiful eyes had told him this. Her eyes had told him so many, many times over the past months. He knew he was helplessly in her power, that he would be at any place she commanded him to be. He would be waiting for her at any time under any conditions if he knew she would there to take him into her arms.

On to Manchester, on to Mexico, on to Guadalajara he thought with a renewed confidence. He had no doubt now that she would meet him at the small hotel in Lake Chapalla. He knew she would be there. She had to be. All will work out. It will work out. A little voice inside told him a thousand more things to bolster his confidence in a life that was on the verge of going over a cliff, in a life teetering on the edge of despair if he had to go on without her.

His mind was on a one-track road now. Kat Fischer was at the end of that road. She had to be. She loved him. He was positive it would be the way she had describe it. He had to believe in something now. Kat was his last and best hope to redeem his mangled life. He smiled as he pulled the clear plastic visor down on his red and black motorcycle helmet, then crouched down tight to his powerful machine to head directly into the storm ahead.

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" Turn right to get to Manchester Fred." DI Thomas Crawly told DS Fred Smitten. Smitten made a hard left hand turn not bothering to stop at the unlit Snake Pass Road junction.

" Manchester to the left." Smitten said. He clicked on the Rover's GPS display, casting the two tired detectives in a deep indigo glow. ERROR 01 - NO SIGNAL it read. Smitten banged his hand hard against the GPS unit. It shorted out, briefly went blank, and then came back on with the same digital error message.

" Worked the Hillsborough Disaster in eighty-nine. Drove this stretch of road between Sheffield and Manchester a dozen times a month. Did prisoner transport here when I first joined the force. Should have turned right. Lay a bet on it Fred? " Crawly was right, but was too tired to challenge the stubborn old Smitten.

" All that coffee makin' you chatter like a bloody idiot Crawly. Maybe we wake Dickinson, what say? Maybe we ask him where the hell we are? He knows the bloody peak district from living in the rough up here for so long." Smitten said in annoyance at his partner.

" Runnin' us up and down these hills like a couple of old geezers. Didn't help the back none. Achin' like a horse kicked me." Smitten complained as usual. He glanced back at Nigel Frances Dickinson in the rear view mirror.

" Nigel you poor little bogan ...you won't last long in prison lad. Joey Love's men will do you in within a month." Turning to Crawly he said, " Don't feel sorry for the bloke? What he did to Joey Love's twelve-year-old girl and his son was disgusting. He deserves a wicked death if you ask me." Smitten briefly revisited a memory of the Lilly and Lance Love murder scene.

" Didn’t do anyone a favor by putting Joey Love in a wheelchair for life. I would have made dam sure he was pushing up the daisies before killing his children and leaving him. Love's revenge will know no limit now." Crawly said.

" Where the hell's that back up car?" Smitten said looking in the rear view mirror.

" Love's gang will settle the score. " Crawly said looking through the storm for the road sign that would he knew would read Sheffield ahead. " Nigel will last about a week in the nick with Love's men waiting for him on the inside."

Nigel snored loudly from the back seat. He mumbled incoherent fragments of sentences in his sleep.

Smitten turned the windshield wipers to maximum, put the window defoggers on full, then rubbed the inside of the windshield with his coat sleeve. Still he could not see more than twenty feet into the storm.

" Slow down! Let me drive Fred. You know every wanker with an American muscle car or Jap donorcycle figures Snake Pass Road is a friggin' raceway!" Crawly said tightening his seat belt.

" Take it easy Crawly! Neither of us has had any sleep in thirty hours. Remain silent until we get to Manchester. That's an order." Smitten said beginning to wonder if Crawly was right.

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Miles knew he had to make the decision before he reached Manchester airport. Toss love away? Disappear into the jungles of some unknown god forsaken dusty town in South America to live out our lives in fear?

Do I follow my hard won career? Do I follow the path in life that I worked so hard to get to?  Miles, Miles, Miles, Miles his mind screamed at him ...hold tight to the past, to the hard work, hold on to all the achievements accomplished with the Robie's! Miles' inner voices taunted him like vicious little leather whips lashing repeatedly across his tired, pained, drug addled thinking. Is she playing me? Is it all a con now? He had seen Kat Fischer's mind at work, knew beyond any doubt that under all her beauty, under her shy smile, a daemon stirred just below the surface.

Kat could spin his mind around, and around, and around, making him believe anything and everything she told him. He was willing, without reservations to believe anything and she everything ever said or promised him. He was blinded by his absolute love for her. He knew it. She knew it. He accepted it. He could not help himself.

A panic rippled through his body at this thought. Do I run far away to a Pacific Island, thousands and thousands of miles from the woman I love? He wanted to squash the little part of his mind that kept popping up and telling him to go to New York, to then go on to Hawaii as planned, to live with the consequences of the crime, to do what he really knew was right.

Am I throwing away the future by crossing Richard Robie  and by double crossing Mark Robie? To follow the plan they had all meticulously worked out, or chuck it all for her love was the torment playing within his mind now.

Hawaii might that special hell reserved just for me. A place of incredible beauty on earth set aside by a vengeful angry god to just punish me, to punish me alone, to make me suffer alone for an eternity without her. How could I live a life without her? How?

Miles began to cry. He yelled a loud, painful scream of anguish into the rushing wind in utter frustration, not knowing which way to turn in this life.

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For five minutes DI Crawly complied with his senior officers command and remained quiet as a lamb. Then in his boredom he began tapping out a nervous and continuous, rat a tat-tat, rat a tat-tat, rat a tat-tat on the dashboard with his fingernails. With the other hand he held his cigarette. He cleaned the mud from under his fingernails with his thumb, and then flicked the dried mud off with a quick flick of his thumbnail onto Smitten's treasured camel hair topcoat. The topcoat was folded neatly and placed between the bucket seats as usual. Out of the corner of his eye Smitten regarded the flicked mud, became visually aggravated, and was ready to backhand Crawly.

" Sheffield 19 miles. Smart thinking not taking up my bet Fred. Go down to the bottom of grade and turn around near the viaduct. We won't make the shift change now. We'll miss the early flight out of Manchester." Crawly said.

" I swear to god I'll pull over and let you walk to Manchester. Stop complaining, that annoying tapping and stop flicking that bloody mud on me coat! " Smitten yelled loudly startling Crawly. " Radio the others Crawly. Let 'em know we went the wrong way. Where is that bloody follow car anyway?" Smitten swore.

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The heavy rain began to fall just before the reservoir. Miles pulled up under a tree sheltered area and snorted up three quick lines of cocaine knowing he was running on all cylinders now, that was he was losing the battle to remain awake and of this world. His thinking was that he could make up for the lost sleep and fatigue on the long plane ride to Mexico City.

Back on the curvy road Mile let his thought wander back to Kat, to their future together, to what might be. He remembered the stolen moments, the last precious moments lying with Kat naked in the cheap hotel room down the street from the Robie Gallery. Visions of her long smooth naked curves, her long flowing blond hair on that bed gave him strength, courage, gave him a totally secure feeling, gave him an encompassing warmth that suddenly revived his body.

He maneuvered the bike through curve after curve and maxed out each gear to gain speed on the straighter sections of the dangerous road. Having made the definitive decision about the woman that he truly and madly loved eased his mind. He relaxed. He breathed easier. He felt a renewed confidence. The decision was the right one. He knew it was.

Up the hill he saw car lights flickering behind the trees making its way down the grade. The headlights appeared at random, peaking in and out of pockets of the thick low hanging fog. His mind was make up. Life would be good now.

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Smitten took the curve much to fast at the bottom of the steep grade near the viaduct, correctable at his present speed, but he had to swing far out into the on coming traffic lane. He saw a single light flickering through the hard rain. He disregarded it thinking it was the full moon light momentarily reflecting off the slick wet pavement. He steered hard back into the correct lane. Crawly sighed heavily and shook his head in exasperation at his supervisor. Smitten stepped down hard on the accelerator to annoy Crawly, he smiled, chuckled a bit, then resumed wiping the fogged windshield with the cuff of his shirt.

Crawly and Smitten both saw the helmeted motorcyclist as he zoomed past as if out of nowhere. The black and red motorcycle gently grazed the Rover on the front left side with a penetrating ripping of metal. Smitten quickly glanced back into his rear view mirror. He saw the motorcycle taillight behind him wobbling wildly side to side on the dark road, totally out of control.

As in a movie without sound the motorcycle left the road quickly and went towards a low hanging tree limb. The unfortunate motorcyclist took the brunt of the forward momentum and was stopped cold on the massive limb. Smitten winced. He was certain the no motorcyclist could survive that devastating impact.

Smitten then shifted his eyes quickly to Nigel Dickinson's face reflected in the rear view mirror. He saw wide-eyed panic in Nigel's eyes, saw his facial muscles drawn back in horror. Nigel's rotten teeth were now bared back like a wild animal. His face contorted into a look of absolute fear as the Rover impacted a century old and very immovable oak tree.