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Tombstone Dodge

by Vincent H. O'Neil

About the Author: Vincent H. O'Neil is the Malice Award-winning author of the Frank Cole mystery series from St. Martin's Press, the theater-themed mystery Death Troupe, and the Interlands horror series. Writing as Henry V. O'Neil, he has also published the military science fiction Sim War series with HarperCollins. His website is www.vincenthoneil.com.

Excerpt

I did this particular job because my wife asked me to. I’d do anything for her, no matter how dangerous it might be.

Ninety percent of what I do is fool people. Make them think I’m someone they can trust when I truly don’t have their best interests at heart. Fake names and false addresses roll off my tongue like the alphabet, and I have never been found out. When each of these jobs is done, the most important part is that nothing links back to me. To the real me.

With a skill set like that, I was hired as soon as I applied for the temporary position of night security man for the U Lock It Up self-storage company. Harvey, the sixty-year-old I would be replacing for the two weeks of his annual vacation, took me through my duties.

“Got two of these locations.” Harvey walked me down a row as he talked. Long, one-story cinderblock buildings were to either side of us, segmented into storage units. Each of them had a metal roll-up door like a car garage, but the whole setup reminded me of those above-the-ground cemeteries you see in so many horror movies. Ranks of stone facades with silent gates, no activity, and limited vision. Downright claustrophobic. “I call this site Tombstone and the other one Dodge. You gotta entertain yourself while you’re walking your shift, so I imagine I’m Wyatt Earp, patrolling the streets of the towns I protect.”

“Ever have to shoot it out like he did?” I smiled to make it clear I was joking. I liked Harvey as soon as I met him, and knew he’d been doing this job for ten years.

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