Carlson Shrike

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61842-193-7
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 360 Seiten

Set in present-day Raleigh, North Carolina, Shrike is the story of one young woman's overcoming tremendous physical, emotional and logistical adversity to defeat evil incarnate. When Taryn Spire and her best friend learn that some banking executives plan a cybercrime to embezzle funds from the North Carolina State Fair, the adventure begins. A botched attempt by the perpetrators to silence them permanently leads to a dramatic transformation for Taryn - watching a television program featuring a video clip of a shrike with its prey destines her to become a crime fighter. With the help and the love of an unlikely ally (a motorcycle salesman), Taryn, as her alter ego, dispenses a unique type of justice.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Carlson, Jeff

Leseproben

Afternoon   “It’s still bugging you, isn’t it?”   Taryn had been mindlessly chewing on bits and pieces from the perimeter of a huge taco salad.  She had made a bridge over her bowl with her arms and rested her chin on her hands, looking through Miranda rather than at her.  The events of her morning involving COMDEP812 and Mike Peebles were distracting enough to reduce her normally light-hearted banter with Miranda to an assortment of “Uh-huhs” and “Yeah, sures.”  She chewed a tortilla chip, swallowed and answered, “Yeah, I know, I should let it go.  I just get this feeling that something isn’t right.”    Before Miranda took another bite of her panini, she shook her head and commented, “You and your feelings.  What am I gonna do with you?”  She chewed enough to allow her to add, “Do we need to dance?”    Taryn slowly lowered her arms to each side of her bowl and looked around the dimly-lit bistro that was sparsely filled for a mid-week lunch hour.  Prissy waiters and tomboyish waitresses wafted among tables of young urban professionals and a few of the more well-off college students.  “If we danced in here, they’d think we were gay.”  Her comment made her smile and she speared some lettuce drenched in salsa and sour cream.    “Hey, you could do worse!”  Miranda pretended to take offense.  She fished the lemon slice out of her water glass with a fork and squeezed some citrus into the chilly liquid.  Leaning toward Taryn in a most conspiratorial way, she suggested, “C’mon, let’s do it!”   “Do what?”    “Let’s act gay!”  Miranda slid an open hand across the table and batted her dark eyes.    “I am gonna smack you!”    Miranda’s voice carried more than was suitable in the subdued ambiance of the bistro.  “Ooo, yes!  I like it rough!  Will you call me your sex poodle?”    “Will you stop?”  hissed Taryn as she swatted Miranda’s hand.  “You’ll get us thrown out and now I’m hungry again and I won’t be able to finish this.”  As was usually the case after such exchanges with Miranda, Taryn could not help but smile.    “I made you smile!” exclaimed Miranda as she cocked her head.  “And you know what your smile does to me…”  Her voice trailed off as she shivered, gasped and threw her head back in mock ecstasy.    “You need professional help.”   “You love me.”   Taryn sighed, deciding to play along with the teasing.  “More than you’ll ever know.”   Miranda smiled.  “There!  I’m happy!  And you are too!”  Her voiced squeaked like a kid whose friend just shared half a candy bar.    * * *   In his office back at MetroTriangle, there was no light-hearted luncheon for Bill Tatum.  The plans he was making, the people he was using, the lies he was telling and the lies he would have to tell so filled his mind and soul that his stomach felt over-full most of the time.  Some of his clothes did not fit well anymore, but in his swim against the onrushing years, he found the weight loss to be one of his best friends, a faithful companion that would follow him in his mid-life to the ends of the earth, no questions asked.    A few mornings ago, even Joanna had noticed the slimming when she plodded by in her housecoat on her way to the coffee maker - there was no playful grabbing of husbandly body parts as in their youth, she simply mumbled a left-handed compliment consisting of “see what happens when you lay off the honey buns?”  Tatum gnashed his teeth and then noticed that his credenza drawer was half-open .  He spun in his chair and kicked it closed, his anger toward his moribund marriage echoing in the deathly quiet office.  Damn her!   Tatum squared himself to his desk and pressed his head into his hands, hoping to squeeze the life from an embryonic headache.  He slowly spread his fingers, opened his eyes and fought to focus on the reason why he had not left the office for lunch.  The “Forward All” light was illuminated on his phone, so all incoming calls would go directly to his voice mail.  He had been playing solitaire on his computer, but he could not win a game and therefore just switched off the huge flat-panel monitor.  He kept his door closed most of the day and pretended to be busy, hoping passersby would get the impression that he was not to be disturbed.  He had a meeting, a very important one, with a very important person, a key player in the new life he was scripting.    Enter Nancy Mounce.    Middle-aged, masterful in all things mathematical and mean-spirited when crossed, Nancy Mounce had been in banking most of her adult life.  A summa cum laude accounting graduate of Raleigh’s Meredith College (nicknamed “The Angel Farm” decades ago by oversexed males attending nearby colleges), in her younger days she had distinguished herself amongst the coat-tie-wingtips of the industry.  She was brilliant and could look straight through others’ organized reports and balance sheets and find hidden discrepancies; an uncanny ability to detect and remedy issues prior to the scrutiny of outside regulators.  At MetroTriangle she had risen to head of the bank’s Internal Control department; she reported directly to the Chief Financial Officer.  It was rumored among those close to the bank’s “inner circle” that the CFO’s prevailing attitude was, “If Nancy says it’s right, then it must be right.”    If it were not for the difference in gender, the number of children and the large gap in salary, Mounce and Tatum could have been twinned in adulthood.  Big homes in upscale neighborhoods.  Spouses occasionally available but rarely attentive.  Friends paired in stable but stone-cold marriages.    Nancy’s husband was a globetrotting executive at Research Triangle Park’s LemniScan Corporation, an upstart firm unleashing such torrents of advanced medical imaging technology that heavy-hitters like Siemens and General Electric were having trouble keeping pace.  Seemingly every other business trip was accompanied by hints of dalliances but any serious worries Nancy had were put to fitful rest with gifts of jewelry or trips to Cancun or the Caribbean -- jaunts often interrupted by panicked phone calls, pages and e-mails wailing about fires that only Richard C. Mounce, Executive Vice President of Sales, could extinguish.  Nancy would always reprise her role as the understanding wife -- she would smile and nod and then lose herself in a thick romance novel, frequent visits to the poolside bar or multiple appointments at the resort spa.  She would gladly pay top dollar for that one handsome masseur who was spoken of highly among the other jettisoned wives as one who was very good at working on more than tense shoulders or a tight lower back.    Bill Tatum’s office door swung inward with a palpable whoosh and in one fluid motion Nancy entered, spun on her Fendi pumps (derivative of a spending spree offered by her husband if she would not lend credence to lurid stories from a “business meeting” at a New Orleans gentleman’s club) and closed the door firmly behind her.  Nancy Mounce never knocked before she entered an office -- if she was not expected, the occupant would just simply have to get accustomed to the fact that she was far enough along in her career that she always was welcome.  Almost always she dressed in crisp business suits with buttoned jackets, and underneath shirts were buttoned up to the neck - outfits reminiscent of those worn by great-grandmothers in pictures one would stumble upon in a dusty chest in an attic.  However, today Nancy wore a loose-fitting tweed set.  The jacket was unbuttoned, revealing a beige cowl-neck sweater that bound itself snugly to her ample bosom.  She grabbed the arm of one of Tatum’s thinly upholstered spare office chairs to position it directly in his line of sight across his desk.  Tatum shifted uncomfortably in his chair and wished with all his being that she could just sit on his desk, very close to him.     Nancy got comfortable in her chair.  Her mousy-brown hair, molded in a permanent pageboy, never moved; her face never showed much of a smile inside the walls of MetroTriangle.  Tatum noticed that her skin was soft and blemish-free with no makeup at all.  She got right to business - she was not one for much chit-chat.  Her voice, though usually not loud, still commanded attention.  “How are things on your end?”   Tatum cleared his throat and did his best to meet her gaze but found it difficult.  “Going well.  I had Mike Peebles buy us a little more time.”   “Who?”  If they didn’t report to her or if they were not higher on the...