Free Last Surgeon by Michael Palmer

and hang up when he added, “But I ain’t one of them, I assure you. I have a wife and two kids at home. I listen to Rick Clemmons because I work the night shift at the Daimler plant, and those idiot callers he gets keep me laughing and awake.”
    “I’m listening,” Jillian said.
    “I would have called in to the show and all, but my cell phone here died on me.”
    “Yes, yes. The producer told me that. Now what is it?”
    “I think we might want to get together and talk.”
    Jillian had had enough.
    “Good-bye, Mr. Roach,” she said.
    “Wait. I said I was serious and I meant it.”
    Jillian was poised to cut him off but something made her stop. “Go ahead,” she said, “but one crude word and you’re gone.”
    “Okay. Here’s why I think we should meet. I know who Dr. Nick Fury is.”
    “What?”
    “I served with him in Afghanistan.”

CHAPTER 10
    When Jillian arrived at the Calderwood Diner, Kyle Roach was right where he had promised he would be. He spotted her the moment she stepped inside the folksy roadside grill, and rose from his booth, farthest from the door. He was wearing a baseball cap, tattered along the rim, and a pair of faded olive green overalls that did little to mask his expansive girth. He was nothing like the crackpot Clemmons Night Owl she had been expecting, and his manner and aura immediately put Jillian at ease.
    Despite her exhaustion, Jillian had spent much of the past day and evening awake in her hotel room, pondering the link between Belle and Dr. Nick Fury. Finally, after leaving a wake-up-call request for five, she dozed off, twisting her brain into knots over what sort of monster could have done such a thing to such an incredible woman, and how they could have done it. After a brief shower, she stopped by Belle’s apartment before heading for the diner.
    Roach extended a hand to her as she neared. His calloused palm was that of a workman, his melancholy blue-green eyes those of a soldier.
    “Jillian Coates?” Kyle asked, in a logy drawl.
    “That’s me.”
    “Kyle Roach, a pleasure to meet you.” He guided her back to the booth and motioned the waitress for two coffees. “First off, let me say how truly sorry I am about the passing of your sister. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I lost quite a few buddies in the war, and one real good friend, but the years have taken the edge off some. That’s about the best I can hope for. Same with you, I suspect.”
    Jillian thanked him for his understanding and especially for his honesty. After a string of reflexive “I know what you’re going through” sentiments from friends and coworkers, his remark was refreshing.
    In hindsight, her decision to pay one last visit to Belle’s apartment had not been a wise one. Seeing the dark windows from the street had been heart wrenching enough. Her last walk through the empty rooms, now filmy with dust, left her sobbing on the hardwood floor. The closure she had hoped for was absent, and she had trudged back to the street consumed by an insatiable hunger for answers.
    “Thank you for taking the time to meet me, Kyle,” Jillian said.
    “Heck, it’s nothing at all. I come here most every morning anyway, after I get out of the plant. I couldn’t meet you yesterday because I was working a double. Sorry I troubled you to take an extra day here in Charlotte.”
    “It wasn’t any trouble at all, really. As you can tell from the show, I’m desperate for information. Can I get you breakfast?”
    “That’s very kind of you.”
    “No limits.”
    “You should watch me eat before you say somethin’ like that.”
    Roach ordered three fried eggs, sausage, bacon, two biscuits, gravy, and grits; Jillian, fresh fruit and yogurt. She felt herself shaking with the notion that she might be close to learning something, anything, that connected to Belle, even if the connection was a tenuous one. Forty-seven different issues of the same comic book, set in Belle’s closet. No copies