Read Deception (A Miranda Murphy Thriller) for Free Online

He’s going to call me in half an hour. What do I tell him? Are you coming?”
    “Okay, I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Tell Jeff to look for a grey four-door Audi. And give him my cell number, please.” 
     
    7.
    Miranda arrived at the spot specified by Hackett at 1:36 am. At 1:39, Hackett got in the front passenger seat.  
    “Are you Miranda Murphy?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Start the car.”
    “Why are you hiding?” Miranda asked, pulling away from the curb.
    “What makes you think I’m hiding?”
    “Did your girlfriend tell you about the dead body we had found in your house?”
    “The body?  Yes, she did.”
    “Can you explain how it got there?”
    “No, I can’t. But I swear I have nothing to do with it. And I wasn’t hiding. I almost got killed myself. You told Gabi someone is after me, right?”  
    Miranda nodded.
    “You’re right, someone is trying to kill me,” Hackett continued. “Let me tell you what happened. Two weeks ago, on a Friday night, I went to Callisto. It’s a club in downtown Boston, a great place to relax. When I was taking a leak in the restroom, someone hit me on the head and knocked me out. I woke up ten hours later in an alley in Milton, ten miles from the club. My wallet and watch were gone. It took me an hour to find someone who would let me use his cellphone. I called my buddy, asked him to pick me up, and an hour later I was on my way to his place.”
    Congratulations, Detective Murphy. Your guess proved correct. Patrick Flynn had followed Hackett into the restroom, bludgeoned him, and then took him out of the club ("Is everything all right, Sir?”—“Oh yeah, everything’s fine. My friend just had a little too much to drink.”). After dumping Jeff in Milton, Flynn had headed to his house to score more stuff. Flynn thought he’d hit a gold mine, instead he’d gotten a bullet in his chest.
    “Why didn't you go home?”
    “Have you heard about Jake Hester?”
    “The mobster? Is he extorting money from you?”
    “He tried. Twenty grand a month. But we refused to pay. They said we were going to regret it.”
    “So you concluded it was his guys who attacked you?”
    “What else was I supposed to think? Has anyone ever extorted money from you? It’s not a pleasant experience. You get really paranoid, you know.”
    “Did you see the face of the person who hit you on the head?”
    “No, I didn’t. He approached me from behind.”
    “You believe it was a man?”
    “It was either a man or a very strong woman.”
    Murphy opened his notepad and began writing down Jeff’s story. “Did you go to the doctor?”
    “No. My head was okay. Nothing got broken.”
    “Did they beat you up?”
    “No. I found no bruises or anything like that.”
    “Why do you think Hester did it? To scare you?”
    “Yes. And I have to tell you—it worked.”
    Miranda pulled Patrick Flynn’s photo out of her jacket pocket and showed it to Hackett.  “Do you know this man?”
    “No, I’ve never seen him before,” Hackett said after examining the picture.
    “It was his body that we found in your house.”
    “As I said, I’ve never seen this guy.”
    “Well... I have bad news and bad news for you. First, I believe someone is trying to kill you. And I don’t think it’s Hester. Second, we are out of clues. Our investigation’s hit the dead end.”
    “Why not Hester?”
    “He wants your money not your life. For now, at least.”
    “Then who is it?”
    “I hope to find that out sooner if you help me. What are you planning to do next?”
    “Am I supposed to do something?”
    “You can’t stay in your house, Jeff. You have to move to another location. I could arrange police protection for you if you’d like.”
    Hackett shook his head. “I can handle it on my own. I guess I’ll leave Massachusetts for a while.”
    “Let’s keep in touch, okay?”
    “I’m going to call you every day. I hope you catch this scumbag.”
    “I’d like to show you something. Can we