Fair Is Fair

by Brandon Barrows

About the Author: Brandon Barrows is the author of the novels BURN ME OUT, THIS ROUGH OLD WORLD, and NERVOSA, as well as over fifty published stories, selected of which are collected in the books THE ALTAR IN THE HILLS and THE CASTLE-TOWN TRAGEDY. He is an active member of Private Eye Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. He lives by a big lake in Vermont, with a patient wife and three demanding cats.

Excerpt

I flopped onto my side, rolled back the other way, then kicked off the sheets, swung my legs to the edge of the bed, and sat up. I looked at the clock on the nightstand: two-fourteen in the morning. I was exhausted, but it was no good; I’d never get to sleep at this point. I wished I had a cigarette or a bottle, something to calm the yips, but I quit smoking in my twenties and I killed the last bottle hours ago. It hadn’t helped and neither would lying here tossing and turning.

I switched on the lamp and dressed in the clothes I threw on the floor before I got into bed. I pulled my leather jacket from the closet, then moved to the dresser and plucked the motorcycle keys from the hook they spent ninety-percent of their time on. I was normally a summer weekend rider, but the weather was nice enough for early spring and I thought maybe some wind and some speed would clear my head. Anything that might let me forget the four-thousand-dollar mess I was in was worth a shot.

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