Ash Return of the Beast

CHAPTER 39



Later That Night…

Harlan Bodine’s attention was glued to the 11 o’clock news.

…again, there are few details but we’ll bring you updates on this story as the information becomes available. Sandra Patterson, reporting live from Virginia Mason Hospital. Back to…

Harlan got up and nervously paced the room. Cowl was alive? How could that be? He poured himself a shot of bourbon and tried to think. He’d anticipated there would be an investigation, of course. But the gun was at the bottom of Lake Union and without a murder weapon for evidence… Besides, why would he be a suspect, anyway? In any case, he was so well disguised. Wasn’t he? He poured another drink. Maybe Cowl won’t make it. But what if he does? Christ, would he be able to identify me? No. Impossible. But the uniform. What if he remembers the uniform? What if they find out no real UPS delivery was made to his house? They’d know it was someone disguised as a UPS driver. A fake uniform. Could they track that down?

All the little details that had never even entered his mind now had his synapses firing in rapid succession. The more he thought about it the more paranoid he became. The more paranoid he became the more he drank. Shortly after midnight his garbled thoughts trickled off into an alcohol-induced sleep populated by faceless demons, police in UPS uniforms, and occasional glimpses of his son, far in the distance, reaching out to him, pleading to be forgiven for taking his own life.