Kill for Thrill by Michael W. Sheetz Read Free Book Online

of the steep, wooded hillsides enveloped both men. Even the rushing headwaters of the spillway were distant, faint whispers as they escaped the Loyalhanna Dam and rolled down through the limestone rock and the crispness of the frozen world. In the stillness of the wintry night, the river swallowed up even their thoughts. Michael moved first and stepped out onto the bridge.
    The metallic chatter of keys pierced the silence. The sharp thunk-click of the trunk lock and then the rusty creak of the Grenada’s trunk lid hinge rattled through the leafless trees along the riverbank. It startled a family of opossums that were innocently foraging for grubs under the concrete abutment, and they quickly dove beneath some rocks near the creek’s edge.
    Michael looked down at Peter Levato’s cold, motionless body. It looked stiff from the nearly hour-and-a-half ride out of the city. Peter began to stir. Startled by his sudden movement, Michael raised the revolver over his head and viciously crushed it down onto Peter’s skull. Tiny rivulets of blood trickled down Peter’s forehead. Shoving the gun into his waistband, Michael motioned to John and then grabbed the dazed Levato and began to hoist him from the trunk.
    Both men struggled with opposite ends of Peter Levato’s wriggling body. They maneuvered him from the well of the trunk and carried him to the concrete retaining wall that separated them from the icy creek twenty feet below. Unceremoniously, they hurled his bruised and dazed body over the edge. Michael thought to himself how easy it had been as he listened to the splash echo off the valley walls and dissolve into the night. The silence once again overpowered the night air.
    Suddenly, a commotion erupted from under the bridge. A cacophonous barrage of splashes and screams echoed from under the concrete piling. Peering over the edge, Michael could see nothing in the darkness. Peter Levato’s screams of pure desperation grew louder and more frantic.

    Determined not to go quietly into the night, Peter pulled his hands from the ropes and began to swim to shore. Although fewer than one hundred yards wide at the bridge, the ice cold temperatures made an otherwise routine swim across the creek nearly impossible. As he struggled against the cold and swift current of the creek, Peter’s flailing alerted John and Michael, who were standing above him staring down into the swirling water beneath the bridge. They didn’t react. Maybe they didn’t see him, Peter thought.
    Moments later, with frantic, irate energy, Michael and John sprinted to the west end of the bridge and scrambled down the embankment. Sliding on the leaf litter and broken branches that had collected over the past autumn, they reached the riverbank in seconds.
    The men paused and listened. The sounds of snapping twigs and crunching leaves followed Peter as he reached the shore and raced headlong down the riverbank and into the woods. Peter could hear his pursuers as they carefully picked their way along the thick, tree-lined river’s edge after him.
    Peter’s swim and subsequent flight had left him gasping for breath. Cold, exhausted and disoriented, miles from the nearest building and entirely dependent on himself for salvation, his body commanded that he rest—just for a minute. He slipped behind the largest tree he could find. Carefully, he maneuvered to put the tree between his pursuers and himself, and then he listened. There was no sound. The snapping of twigs and crunching of leaves had stopped.
    Crouched against the tree, Peter struggled for breath and willed his heart to slow and his hands to stop shaking. Whether from the cold, fear or exertion, his whole body was quivering uncontrollably. No matter how hard he tried, he could not make it stop.
    Peter still didn’t hear anything. He saw even less. Squinting his eyes in the velvet black darkness, he searched and searched. He still saw nothing.
    A shadow darted in front of him. Instantly, both his