End Of Thieves (eBook)

The Final Book in the Thieves Trilogy

Gil Roscoe (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
323 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-9411-9 (ISBN)

Infos

End of Thieves is the final book in a trilogy covering one year in the life of con artist, Warren Allison. Book Three begins exactly where Book Two ended. Warren is standing at the bottom of The Grand Canyon watching a rubber raft move swiftly down The Colorado River. The raft contains his stolen one million dollars and his double-crossing partner. He has been betrayed again. Warren has nothing with him, his hand is bleeding, and he must now hike out of The Grand Canyon toward a very uncertain future. On the long trudge toward the South Rim he meets a woman who will change his life. But his reckless past will come back to haunt him and result in his being forced into one last con. He will have to slip into neutral one more time and yet again attempt to use the art of seduction in order to steal something of great value.

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End of Thieves is the final book in a trilogy covering one year in the life of con artist, Warren Allison. Book Three begins exactly where Book Two ended. Warren is standing at the bottom of The Grand Canyon watching a rubber raft move swiftly down The Colorado River. The raft contains his stolen one million dollars and his double-crossing partner. He has been betrayed again. Warren has nothing with him, his hand is bleeding, and he must now hike out of The Grand Canyon toward a very uncertain future. On the long trudge to the South Rim he meets a woman who will change his life. But his reckless past will come back to haunt him and result in his being forced into one last con. He will have to slip into neutral one more time and yet again attempt to use the art of seduction in order to steal something of great value.

Textauszug

ONE

I stuck my bleeding hand into the Colorado. The stream of red pouring from my wound quickly disappeared. My blood was instantly taken away by the river. Just like my recent financial victory.

I cursed my decision to trust Joanne. I snarled my upper lip and shook my head in disgust. I hadn’t liked her friend, Steve, when I first met him, earlier in the summer. Last night, interior alarms had gone off when she suggested we stay in his cabin. I foolishly didn’t act on them. When was I going to stop doing that? When would I start listening to the messages my brain delivered? How stupid is it to not pay attention to your own built-in survival system?

The cold water numbed the pain. But when I lifted my hand out of the river it didn’t take long for the throbbing to begin again. I could see the gash clearly, and it looked fairly deep. There would probably be a scar. The throbbing began to work its way up my arm, so I shoved my hand back into the cold water. I shook my head as I looked at the bend in the river where my temporary fortune had vanished.

Past experience had taught me to try to relax and think through these kinds of situations. Panic would serve no purpose. Joanne and the money were gone. That fact couldn’t be altered. My dreams of Hawaii would have to wait. Right now, I needed to assess my present situation and then come up with a whole new plan for myself.

I had a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in a safe deposit box in Fredonia. I also had the three remaining Old Globe Sovereigns in a safe deposit box in Calgary. The coins were a thousand miles away and I didn’t want to cash them in for years. I had come to think of the three sovereigns as my retirement fund. They would gain value over time and would surely come in handy during my gray-haired years. I had a lousy seventy-five dollars in my wallet. Those were my total assets in this world. I had to hope what I had in my wallet would be enough to get me the two hundred miles around the canyon and up to the bank in Fredonia.

It made sense to go back to Phantom Ranch and see if I could get a bandage for my hand. After that, I’d eat breakfast, buy a bottle of water, and start the long trudge out of this thing. I’d learned enough about the place to know it would take most of the day to get to the South Rim. Immediately following the worst rip-off of my life, I’d have to endure the exhaustion of walking uphill for eight hours.

I got lucky and saw a ranger on my way through the Bright Angel Campground. He took me up to Phantom Ranch, where he had a first-aid kit. After my hand was sanitized and wrapped, I swallowed a couple of aspirin, and went to the café for breakfast. The eggs, toast, and sausages, filled me up for the journey. When the meal was done I decided it was best to just get on with it. I bought a bottle of water and a couple of granola bars before leaving the café. The trail ran right past the front porch. I walked down the steps, turned left and started the ten-mile journey out of this upside down mountain.

Going back to the North Rim would have brought me closer to my money in Fredonia, but I’d just stolen over a million dollars from the man in charge up there. Also, my ex-partners in the New Zealand scam were looking for me on the North Rim. I had no choice but to go the long way around and then scoot away from this disaster as quickly as possible.

Not far into the hike there was a narrow suspension bridge over the Colorado River. I stood in the middle of the bridge and watched the water for a few minutes. It wasn’t the churning white water I had expected. Instead, a smooth green flow passed beneath my feet. It may not have been swirling and bubbling, but it still moved along at a pretty fast rate. I knew Joanne and Steve were riding their raft on this same current. Probably laughing while they did it. I could look down at the water and see the exact speed at which my money was moving away from me. I couldn’t help but hope those two would meet with some watery accident.

As I reached the other side of the bridge, I got a cramp in my right calf muscle. I rubbed it until it relaxed, and then decided some warm-up stretches might be in order. I was about to do the most difficult walk of my life. It made sense that my muscles would benefit from some loosening. After reaching down for my toes, I stretched both arms over my head. I noticed the throbbing in my right hand decreased when I held my hand high. As I continued on my way I tried walking with my right hand above my head. My arm muscles soon protested against that idea. This damn cut was going to throb for a while. I just had to get used to it. I also had to find something stronger than aspirin.

It was already warm. Today’s new sweat, combined with last night’s old sweat, turned me into a walking stink bomb. The trail was paralleling the south side of the river and I eventually came to a little beach where a small, clear, eddy circled. I knew the water would be cold, but I was very disgusted with my sticky self, so I decided to go in. There was no one else on the trail. I quickly took all my clothes off and walked into the water. A very slimy mud oozed up between my toes. The water was cold, but tolerable. When it got to just below my hips I sat down while being careful to keep my bandaged hand resting on the top of my head. The little eddy swept around my body and served as a gentle scrubber. I closed my eyes and tried to forget my recent losses. I made an effort to enjoy the sound of the river and the refreshing coolness it brought.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a beautiful woman sitting on the little beach. She had long black hair and dark eyes. Even though she was sitting, I could tell she was tall. She had a stern look on her pretty face as she stared at me. I immediately felt attracted to her.

“You’re not supposed to go into the river,” she said. “It’s against the rules. People get swept away by the current.”

“This current?” I asked as I pointed at the gentle eddy.

“Well, not right there, but if you go out any further, you’ll have a problem.”

“I’m not going out any further.”

“If a ranger sees you, you’ll get fined.”

“You’re not going to squeal on me, are you?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. After we stared at each other for a few seconds, she stood, and grabbed her large backpack. She slowly worked it up onto her back and got strapped in while making a series of unhappy grunts.

“How much does that thing weigh?” I asked.

“Too much. It was manageable coming down, but it’ll be a killer going up.”

“You’ll be fighting gravity all day long,” I said.

“Gee, thanks, Isaac Newton” she said as she headed up the trail. “At least I’m a body in motion.”

“Good one,” I said to myself as I watched her walk away.

I felt revived and clean as I stepped onto the sand. The aspirin must have started working because the throbbing in my hand had decreased. I sat on the little beach and let the sun and the soft wind dry me.

I should’ve been angry and depressed by what’d happened, but those feelings had already faded. There was a stunned numbness and odd peace of mind that had taken their place. Maybe that’s how my brain chose to stop me from focusing on this devastating betrayal. The anger would inevitably return and re-form itself into plots of revenge. For now, I think my mind was saving those reactions for the return to level ground. My present assignment was to direct my body’s energy into the up-coming physical torture. That was enough to think about for now.

The trail eventually curved away from the river and began its true ascent. After walking less than a mile I came across the same woman. She was resting again. She sat in the shadow of a large boulder and already looked exhausted.

“What happened to your body in motion?” I asked.

“This isn’t a break,” she said quickly. “I came down here because I had some thinking to do. That’s what I’m doing, thinking.”

“So, what are you thinking about?” I asked as I opened my water bottle.

“Only my entire future.”

“Well, there’s something we have in common,” I said. “Let me guess, did some guy ask you to marry him?”

“That’s a little personal, don’t you think? I don’t even know you.”

“You’re the one that brought up your entire future.”

“Well, you’re the one who was sitting naked in the river. That water was pretty clear. Your penis looked like an eel doing the hula.”

“That’s interesting,” I said. “I was just thinking about Hawaii.”

“Your thoughts have a weird way of manifesting themselves.”

“They always have,” I said with a shrug.

She got up and began to get strapped into her backpack while going through another series of grunts.

“What’ve you got in there?” I asked.

“The normal camping stuff, plus a few books. I shouldn’t have brought the books. Where’s your pack?”

“It got stolen this morning.”

“Stolen? Jesus. You’d think you could trust the type of people who would walk to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Were your car keys in it?”

“I don’t have a car. I have to hike to the top and then figure out how to get to the town of Fredonia. It’s above the North Rim. I have money in a bank there.”

“How far is it?”

“About two hundred miles.”

“You’re going the wrong way, Isaac Newton. You should be hiking to the North Rim.”

“I...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.3.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-9411-0 / 1667894110
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-9411-9 / 9781667894119