Free The Shadowkiller by Matthew Scott Hansen

I are worried sick. I don’t have the faintest idea what happened to him and I’m praying he’ll come home any minute. I’m doing my best to keep it together but the waiting is killing me. Now you call up and scare me by asking stuff like—”
    â€œMrs. Wylie, I assure you I’m only trying—”
    â€œI have to go. Please don’t call me anymore.”
    She hung up. Ty immediately called back but the phone was busy.

    At Burbank airport Ben decided he’d first go home to try to explain to Doris what had happened. He knew his journey was going to take him farther north, but he first needed to stop off and calm his rather fragile wife. He heard each of her questions in advance as if she were right there.
    â€œWhat was the emergency?”
    â€œCan you go back and finish the movie?”
    â€œWill we lose any money, Benny?”
    â€œYou’re going where?”
    The young woman behind the Southwest Airlines ticket counter was trying to get his attention as he woolgathered about how his overwrought spouse would take this uncharacteristic AWOL episode.
    â€œSir? Sir?” she said. “Excuse me? What’s your destination?”
    Ben smiled apologetically. “Sorry, just gettin’ old. SFO, then Eureka. Guess I’ll needa connection.”
    â€œYes,” beamed the reservation agent, now that she had reeled Ben back. As she typed away she looked up.
    â€œI’m a big fan. I’ve been watching you ever since I was a little kid.”
    â€œLately, that’s what they all say,” he joked.
    A few minutes later, as he settled his too-tall-for-
the-cramped-window-seat body, he looked out over the vast, flat expanse of concrete and contrasted it with where he knew he was headed. Then it hit him. Though the director had assured him they’d shoot around his scenes until he got back, the real Indian just gave the movie Indian a piece of news that shook him:
    You’re not coming back.

    Between the hours of one and five that afternoon, Karen Roberts’s mental state went from concerned to worried sick. Her husband Mitch was a creature of habit, and holding to deadlines was as natural for him as breathing.
    By six p.m. the fabric of Karen’s orderly world was in shreds.
    After dialing 911 and being told she couldn’t file a missing person’s report until Mitch had been absent for twenty-four hours, Karen went bonkers. She screamed at the operator, then phoned half a dozen friends, including Mitch’s boss, Seth Olinka. Seth calmed her down, then hung up and phoned a good friend of his, Seattle city councilman Dick Wright, who in turn called a friend of his, the mayor. Within minutes the entire Eastside, from Snoqualmie Pass to damn near the Canadian border, was crawling with alert patrol officers from ten jurisdictions and agencies, all under orders to find a green Cherokee somewhere out in that cold, misty rain.

    At five after nine, high above Highway 2, the headlights of a Snohomish County Sheriff’s cruiser flashed across a parked green Cherokee. The Ford Crown Victoria patrol car slid in next to it. Through his rain-smeared windshield, Deputy Sheriff Bill Alexander read the plate, then turned on his dome light to read the info he had scribbled down while driving to a fender bender a few hours earlier. It was a match. He still got a thrill whenever he radioed in. It reminded him of the shows he had watched as a kid.
    â€œOne david thirty-two, a reg.”
    The dispatcher answered, “Go ahead.”
    â€œTwo-seven-five, victor, x-ray, victor.”
    A moment later the dispatcher came back with her response. “That’s the eleven-twenty-four. It’s okay to impound.”
    Bill answered, “Copy.”
    A moment later, “One david thirty-two?”
    â€œGo ahead.”
    â€œCheck that impound. We’ll eleven-eighty-five. What’s your ten-twenty?”
    â€œCopy that. I’m six and a