Free The Intruders by Michael Marshall

The start of something bigger.”
    “You could say that.”
    “Right. So I just wanted to make sure we got everything said.”

    Oz relaxed a little. “So what was it?”
    The man looked sheepish. “First thing…well, it’s embarrassing. It’s just that Jones isn’t my real name.”
    “Okay,” Oz said, confused. He’d already assumed that the other guy might have given a false one. “No big deal.”
    “I know. Just…you were going to find out later, and I didn’t want you to think I’d been jerking you around.”
    “That’s okay,” Oz said, disarmed, wondering if he should offer the guy a drink and realizing he didn’t have anything. The motel wasn’t the type that supplied coffeemaking facilities. It was barely the type that supplied clean towels. “So—what is it? Your name.”
    The man moved slightly, so he was farther from the door.
    “It’s Shepherd,” he said.
    Oz held his gaze, noticing for the first time how dark the man’s eyes were. “Well, mine really is Oz Turner. So now we’re straight on nomenclature. What was the other thing?”
    “Just this,” the man said. He pushed Oz in the chest.
    Oz was caught off guard. He couldn’t maintain his balance against the calm, firm shove, especially when the man slipped his right foot behind one of Oz’s. His arms pinwheeled, but he toppled straight over backward, catching his head hard against the television.
    He was stunned and barely had time to slur a questioning syllable before the man quickly bent down over him. He grabbed handfuls of Oz’s coat, careful not to touch flesh, and yanked him halfway back to standing.
    “What?” Oz managed. His right eye was blinking hard. He felt weak. He realized that the man was wearing gloves. “What are you…”
    The man put his face up close. “Just so you know,” he said, “‘They’ do exist. They send their regards.”
    Then he dropped him, twisting Oz’s shoulder forward just as he let go. Oz’s head hit the side of the television again, at a bad sideways angle this time, and there was a muffled click.

    Shepherd sat on the end of the bed and waited for the man’s gasps to subside, watching the television with half an eye. He couldn’t remember the name of the show, but he knew that just about everyone on it was long dead. Ghosts of light, playing to a dying man. Almost funny.
    When he was satisfied that Turner was done, he took a fifth of vodka out of his pocket and tipped most of it into Oz’s mouth. A little over his hands, some on his coat. He left the bottle on the floor, where it might have fallen. A diligent coroner could question either stomach contents or blood-alcohol level within the body, but Shepherd doubted it would come to that. Not here in the sticks. Not when Turner looked so much like a man who had this kind of end coming to him sooner or later.
    It took Shepherd less than three minutes to find where the man had hidden his laptop and notebook. He replaced these with further empty vodka bottles. He shut the room door quietly behind him as he left and then took only another minute to find the backup disk duct-taped under the dashboard of Oz’s car in the lot outside. All three would be destroyed before daybreak.
    And that, he believed, was that.
     
    When Shepherd got into his own vehicle, he realized his cell phone was ringing. He reached quickly under the seat for it, but he’d missed the call.
    He checked the log. He didn’t recognize the number, but he did know the area code, and he swore.
    A 503 prefix. Oregon. Cannon Beach.
    He slammed the door and drove fast out of the lot.

chapter
SEVEN
    If you lay still, really still, you could hear the waves. That was one of the best things about the cottage, Madison thought. When you went to bed, assuming the television in the main room wasn’t on—it usually wasn’t, because time at the beach was for reading and thinking, Dad said, instead of watching the same old (rude word)—you could lie there and hear the ocean.