Read Online Claw Back (Louis Kincaid) by P.J. Parrish - Free Book Online Page B

killer. The trail had led him to a remote camp inhabited by off-the-grid Vietnam vets. A one-armed soldier named Cloverdale had held him at bay with an AK47, endured his questions , then sent him back down the snowy hill with a warning never to come back.
                  Louis reached into the Jeep and got his Glock . He slipped it into the large front pocket of his khaki vest and zipped the pocket closed. If anyone was here, he thought as he started for the open door, he didn’t want them to think he was a cop. He’d be run off – or worse - before he ever got his first question out.
                  At the open door, he paused. As far as he could see in the dim interior, there was no one inside. It was one big room, maybe twenty-four by fifteen feet. He could make out the outlines of a table and chairs, some bunk beds and what looked like a primitive kitchen.
                  He stepped inside.
                  The door slammed closed behind him. Something hard and heavy came down on the back of his head. Stunned and seeing white, he fell forward. His hands skid over rough wood, his palms ripped with splinters.
                  “Hit him again, man! Hit him again!”
                  Louis tried to turn over but a boot slammed into his back. Then again into his shoulder and a third time into the back of his head. His hands flew up to protect his head but suddenly someone was on him, punching him and groping at his pockets.
                  “Get his wallet! Get his fucking money!”
                  Louis started swinging, feeling his fists hit flesh but the man on top of him didn’t budge.
                  It was getting hard to br eathe and there was something - blood - in his eyes. He felt the man’s hands roughly moving down his chest. They stopped when they got to the bulge of the Glock .
                  “He’s got a fucking gun!”
                  Louis grabbed at him, trying to keep him from getting to the Glock . The man punched him hard in the face. A flash of white light then he felt himself going out. Flicking light and voices cutting in and out, like a bad radio connection.
                  Stay awake...stay awake...
                  The man moved off him but Louis couldn’t move. He could barely breathe. There was a fire in his side and he knew his ribs were broken.   
                  “Look at this, it’s a fucking Glock . It’s gotta be worth five hundred easy.”
                  “Where we gonna sell it? Tell me that, Memo! We can’t go back to Lauderdale. We can’t go nowhere now after what you did.”
                  “The fucker wouldn’t give me the money!”
                  “He didn’t have any fucking money! It was already in the safe!”
                  Quiet. The voices were quiet for a second.
                  “Get his wallet.”
                  Louis tried to get up. He had to fight. He had to -
                  “Don’t be stupid, man. I got your Glock pointed at your head.”
                  Crushing pressure of a boot on his back holding him down. More hands digging into the back pocket of his jeans . 
                  “Got it. He’s got thirteen bucks and a VISA card.”
                  “Check the other vest pockets for the Jeep keys,” the other man said.
                  The boot came off his back and one of the men rolled him onto his back.
                  Two faces blurry above him - one pale and long , the other dark and round . Ball caps, dirty t-shirts, jeans caked with mud. The dark man was padding him down and Louis fought back his rise of panic. If they found the badge he was a dead man.
                  “Got the keys.” The man’s hands