Murder in the Magic City G.P. Sorrells (best books to read in life TXT) 📖

but felt zero control. His body slumped back into the bed and Scott wheeled out of the room.

“That’s it, Mr. Sheridan. Just relax. This will all be over soon.”

The words were cryptic. At least, they would have been had Sheridan any way of fully grasping the manner in which his current situation had shifted into the unknown. He simply existed, aware of the world around him, but not so much of his place within it. Sometime later he came to an abrupt stop in an unfamiliar room. It wasn’t like any other room he had ever been in. Rather than the standard four walls with a door, maybe a window, this room had just one continuous wall. To look at it from above would be to see an almost perfect circle, shrouded by an unseen square.

There was one door in the room. The only way in or out. No windows in sight, and the air vents were invisible to the naked eye. Goosebumps on Sheridan’s arms made it obvious that the temperature was being regulated somehow, but they did it in the background. Like much of the room. Shortly after reaching the destination, Scott pressed a button on the side of the gurney. It lifted Sheridan to an upright, seated position. Scott wasted no time strapping Sheridan to the bed. His arms and legs held in place, rendering him incapable of escape.

Sheridan sat there, saliva slowly exiting his mouth, dangling like a teenager hanging out of their window to break curfew. He stared at the blank wall in the distance. Scott had stepped aside to retrieve an object but looked at Sheridan with pity as he came back to the bed-made-chair. An urge to help the poor sap briefly overcame Scott, but he pushed it out of his mind and placed the object over Sheridan’s head. It was a spherical device with probes sticking out at two-centimeter intervals. These probes relayed information to and from terminals buried deep within the crevices behind the circular wall. Toward the front of the device was a cutout with a curved, rectangular lens which protruded downward, over Sheridan’s eyes. Scott inserted a feeding tube into Sheridan’s abdomen. He appreciated the ease with which he could place it thanks to his patient’s incapacity.

“I’ll be back momentarily,” Scott lied. His shift was over. No one would return to the room for a few days.

Scott walked briskly out of the room. The lights shut off and darkness surrounded Sheridan. Light emanated only from the sensors on the probes atop his head at five-second intervals, like a horrific take on Morse code. Suddenly, the darkness abated. Sheridan watched, without fully grasping the gravity of the situation, as the walls burst to life. What had once appeared to be nothing more than drywall and plaster was now a sophisticated piece of technology, a screen with clarity that would rival the highest definition displays in the world.

The OrCA logo appeared first, surrounding the room. A silhouette of the legendary killer whale, appearing to jump out of water and over the name of the branch. Letters in black, against a white screen. It would have proved to be a powerful message under most circumstances. But not this. Not long after it faded away, a scene appeared on the screen, one Sheridan had never actually been privy to, but one which instantly felt familiar. He was walking up to a house late at night. The door was cracked, which seemed wrong, but he wasn’t sure what to make of it. An uneasy feeling welled up inside of him. He walked up a flight of stairs in front of him, rounding the corner and staring at the dead body of a young girl. Before he reacted, a man was rushing his position. He raised his gun. Pulled the trigger.

The screen faded to black. And started anew.

Chapter 27

Castillo sat in his regular booth in the private room of La Cantina Sucia. His usual call girl beside him. Micah walked into the room and gave Castillo a stern look. The girl left a moment later, and Micah sat down in her place. Castillo took a sip of the mojito in front of him.

“How’d it go?”

“A whale ate him.”

Castillo nearly spit out his drink. “A whale? You mean to tell me I sent you to collect money from the guy, not to off him, but just get some money and a fucking whale eats him?” He exploded into a fit of laughter. Tears rolled from his eyes and he felt a tinge of pain in his chest as he opted to laugh instead of breathe. “Did you get the cash, at least?”

“Nope, he held out,” Micah said. “This should make up for it.” He grabbed a set of keys from his pocket and set them on the table.

“BMW, huh? Yea, I think that ought to do it,” Castillo said, pocketing the keys.

“The car’s still at the Seaquarium. Couldn’t exactly tow it with the Impala.”

“I’d have killed you if I found out you tried.”

Micah shifted in his seat. The threat didn’t bother him, but it seemed to make clear the notion that nothing existed between the two men outside of a professional relationship.

“I’m only kidding. Look, don’t worry about the car, I’ll send some guys out there to pick it up. I mean, they probably have a day or two to pull it off because it’s not like that damn whale’s going to shit the guy out this afternoon.”

Chapter 28

Something felt off to Osteen about the interaction with the Medical Examiner, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Frank Orson had been a trusted colleague of Osteen’s for most of his career. There were more than a few folks sitting behind bars at that very moment who may not have been without the collective efforts of the two men in upholding the letter of the law.

That nagging feeling just wouldn’t go away. Try as he might to rid himself