The Sign by Raymond Khoury Read Free Book Online

primal instinct told him to forget about it and leave it alone. Well alone. If what he was imagining was really happening, then he’d be far better off expunging any trace of the thought from his mind and never mentioning it to anyone. Which was the sensible thing to do, the rational thing to do, and Bellinger prided himself, above any other qualities he might have, on his rationality. But there was something else.
    A friend had died. Not just a friend.
    His best friend.
    And that was something that his rationality was finding hard to ignore.
    Visions of the tragic accident in the Skeleton Coast sparked in his mind’s eye, horrific images his imagination had conjured up long ago, after he’d been told about how Danny Sherwood had died.
    He couldn’t ignore it.
    He had to find out. Make sure. Get the whole picture.
    He got himself another beer and sat alone in the dark living room, staring into nothing, his mind alternating between what he’d just seen and what had happened two years ago. A few bottles later, he retrieved his phone and scrolled down his contacts list until he found the entry he was looking for. It was a number he’d been given a couple of years ago, one he hadn’t called for almost that long.
    He hesitated, then hit the call button.
    He heard it ring through three, four times, then a man picked up.
    “Who’s this?” The man’s tone had a detached, no-nonsense ring to it.
    The sound of Matt Sherwood’s voice brought Bellinger a modicum of solace. A palpable connection, however fleeting, to his long-dead friend.
    “It’s Vince. Vince Bellinger,” he answered, a slight hesitation in his voice. He paused for a beat, then added, “Where are you, Matt?”
    “At my place. Why?”
    “I need to see you, man,” Bellinger told him. “Like, now.”

Chapter 6

    Boston, Massachusetts

    N o one in the crowded arena could tear their eyes away from the huge video scoreboards. Not the fans. Not the players. And certainly not anyone in Larry Rydell’s perfectly positioned luxury suite at the Garden.
    His guests, the design team working on the groundbreaking electric car he hoped to launch within a couple of years, had been enjoying the treat. They’d spent the whole day in the project’s nerve center over in Waltham, bringing him up to speed on the car’s status, going over the problems they’d managed to solve and the new ones they’d unearthed. As with everything Rydell did, the project had world-beating ambitions. His friend Elon Musk—another Internet sensation, courtesy of a little online business he’d cofounded by the name of PayPal—had already launched his electric car, the Tesla, but that was a sports car. Rydell was after a different kind of driver: the legions driving around in Camrys, Impalas, and Accords. And so he’d recruited the best and the brightest designers and engineers, given them everything they needed to make it happen, and let them do their thing. It was just one of several pet projects he had running at the same time. He had teams working on more efficient wind farms, solar cells, and better wiring to ferry the resulting power around. Renewable energy and clean power were going to be the next great industrial revolution, and Larry Rydell was nothing if not visionary.
    The only resource his projects fought over was his own time. Money certainly wasn’t an issue, even with the recent turmoil in the markets. He was well aware of the fact that he had more of it than he’d ever need. Every computer and cell phone user on the planet had contributed his or her share to his fortune, and the stratospheric share price his company had enjoyed had done the rest. And although Rydell enjoyed the good life, he’d found better things to do with his money than build himself five-hundred-foot yachts.
    They’d had a long, productive day, overcoming a big hurdle they’d been trying to solve for weeks, and so he’d decided to reward the team by sending them off on their end-of-year break