Read Online Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller by Richard Castle - Free Book Online

alarm and, seeing none, paused to gather himself. Then he performed a perfect cheetah sprint to the side of the house nearest the garage.
    He stopped again, listening intently for even the smallest hint that anyone inside had become aware of his presence. There was none. The rhythms of the late afternoon in this neighborhood were unchanged.
    Storm allowed himself a small glimpse around the corner. The garage was of the two-car variety, the kind with a single broad door covering both bays. There was a man inside, working on a car. An Orioles game crackled on an ancient Westing house radio, the soothing voice of Fred Manfra managing to overcome some seriously worn transistors.
    Storm stayed pressed against the side of the house, waiting for his heartbeat to return to an acceptable range. There could be no mistakes in this operation. He needed total surprise, and he was sure he had achieved it. With one final…
    “Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick, if you’re going to sneak up on an old FBI agent, try not wearing those faggy Italian shoes, huh?” a voice from inside boomed. “How many times I gotta tell you, boy: rubber soles. You’ll never go wrong with rubber soles.”
    Derrick Storm frowned, leaving his hiding spot and rounding the corner. “Hey, Dad,” he said.
    Carl Storm dropped the grease-stained rag he had been wielding and came around the car to grab his son in a bear hug. Like his son, Carl was solidly built. He was a shade under six feet, and even though Derrick had his old man beat by at least threeinches—at six-foot-two and a solid 230 pounds—he still felt small in his father’s embrace. He hoped he always would, but he knew otherwise. There was no hiding that Carl had lost some of his vitality in the last few years. His skin was getting that papery, old man feel to it. His limp, which used to only show itself on rainy days, was getting more noticeable.
    Still, even in his late sixties, you wouldn’t want to bet against the old man in an arm-wrestling contest.
    “How’s my boy?” he said, giving Derrick a solid thump on the back.
    “I’m good, Dad,” Derrick replied.
    “What brings you here?”
    “You’re the only dad I got. I figured I owed you a visit.”
    “How many times I gotta tell you, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter. You’re here for a job.”
    “That’s classified, Agent Storm. I’m quite sure the CIA wouldn’t want its secrets shared with the FBI,” Derrick replied.
    “Even an old retired hack like me?”
    Derrick changed subjects: “What’s up with the Buick?”
    Carl thumped the side of his ’86 Buick Electra, of which he was the original owner. Though he had been a small boy at the time, Derrick could still remember the day his father brought the car home, bursting with pride. He gave his son a long talking-to about the importance of buying American—a lecture that had apparently stuck, given Derrick’s Ford fetish—and they took the Electra on a drive that day. Derrick sat in the back, on velvety cloth seats so nappy he could write his name in them. He could still hear his father extolling the car’s “pickup,” when he mashed the gas pedal and the 3.8-liter V6 sent the car hurtling down a little-used country road.
    It had seemed like a luxurious road-eating machine back then. Now it looked like a rolling box, maybe two generations removed from the aircraft carrier–sized Buicks of the sixties and seventies. The last time Derrick had looked at the odometer, it read 57,332—but that was misleading, since it had flipped at least three times.That Carl had kept it on the road all this time was a testament to his gift for mechanics, his parsimony, and, mostly, his stubbornness.
    “The damn blower on the AC only works at one speed,” Carl grumbled. “Blows on low the whole time.”
    Derrick went over to have a look. One of the more unusual features of this par tic u lar Buick was that its hood hinged in front and opened away from the windshield, the opposite