Midnight Guardians by Jonathon King Read Free Book Online Page B

sleeveless sweatshirt with bulky shoulders and no legs. He was sitting in a wheelchair and pumping a set of iron dumbbells with both arms. When we approached, I saw that his eyes were closed. Despite the fact that he was facing a wall of mirrors, he was not looking at his image. Sherry stopped a few feet away.
    “Marty Booker?” she said in greeting.
    The man did not stop his methodical curling; left, right, left, right. His biceps were bulging with the effort, blood pumping through engorged veins that looked like fat blue worms crawling just under the skin. He also did not open his eyes.
    “How’d you guess, Detective?” he said, the words leaking out between clenched teeth.
    “Familiar hair color,” Sherry said.
    There was a twitch of a smile at the corner of the guy’s mouth as he tightened his lips to finish the repetitions, and then dropped the weights to the floor beside him. Booker took a towel that was draped across one of his wheels and wiped his hands. He finally looked Sherry in the eye and offered his hand, which she shook, and then nodded up at me.
    “This is my friend Max Freeman.”
    The man’s handshake was hard, the skin almost hot to the touch. I could feel the callus on his inside palm. He looked me in the face.
    “You’re the dude who helped out with the junk man a few years back, right? The serial killer doing druggies in the northwest.”
    “It was Sherry’s case,” I said.
    “Yeah,” he said, turning a smile back at Sherry. “She blew the guy’s face off, if I remember.”
    It was, in fact, a case I’d been pulled into by Billy. One result was that I had surprised the serial killer in his own lair only to have him get the drop on me. He was about to finish me off when Sherry saved my ass by putting a 9 mm into the man’s brain.
    Sherry said nothing, and kept any recognition of the incident from showing in her eyes. Instead, she looked down at Booker’s wheelchair.
    “Nice rig,” she said.
    “Yeah,” Booker said, thumping the wheels with the heels of his hand. “Nothing but the best for a gimped-up cop; your county tax dollars at work.”
    But he quickly dumped the cynical tone and returned Sherry’s attempt to break the ice by assessing her own chair.
    “Yours ain’t bad, either. Built for speed, eh?”
    “Yeah,” Sherry said. “Lightweight alloy, it’s good for distances.”
    Booker nodded and looked down in his lap. “Never was one for the long run. More of a short blast kinda’ guy.”
    Sherry was silent, seemingly lost for words, an unusual predicament for her. I was starting to feel an uneasy creaking in my knees, like I needed to move and get out of the way. But then I sensed the movement of others in the room as a couple of the corner lifters inched their way over to us.
    “And hell, now he’s an even shorter blast,” said a voice from the group, a comical tone in his voice. “Just kidding…”
    Sherry pulled one wheel back, spinning her chair around.
    “Well, it’s you, Detective Sergeant Richards,” said a mutt-faced man dressed in a black stretch-fabric shirt, hemmed above the shoulders to show his bulky biceps, and tight at the waist. His matching black shorts were as loose as the shirt was tight, hanging down below his knees. He had one of those half-smiling faces on that tries to show he’s being friendly and funny, but smart-assed and dangerous at the same time. It probably worked on teenage girls looking for adventure. It only made me begin flexing and curling my fingers.
    “Never seen you in here before, Detective,” the man said with one of those glances back at his friends, to indicate he was speaking for all them. “Trying to get back in shape, ma’am?”
    Sherry cut a look at Booker to assess his reaction. I figured she was looking for something that might indicate friends or foes. When she got no sign, she turned back to mutt-face.
    “Did someone invite you over here, McKenzie?” she said to the guy. “Because we’re having a