HEADHUNTER Read online

  Praise

  “Holy heart palpitations right up to the very last sentence!!!” ~

  Wendy, Reviewer

  “Loved, loved, loved the entire book and couldn’t put it down. Right from the start, it was exciting and unlike any other book I’ve read.” ~

  Amanda, Reviewer

  “Excellent thriller. You need to put your seat belt on as soon as you start reading this book.” ~

  David, Reviewer

  “With a unique story line, great character development, and non stop action, it’s hard to start a new book after this one!” ~

  Amazon Customer Review

  HEADHUNTER

  PETER PARKIN AND ALISON DARBY

  sands press

  sands press

  A division of 10361976 Canada Inc.

  300 Central Avenue West

  Brockville, Ontario

  K6V 5V2

  Toll Free 1-800-563-0911 or 613-345-2687

  http://www.sandspress.com

  ISBN 978-1-988281-34-6

  Copyright © 2017 Peter Parkin

  http://www.peterparkin.com

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover concept Kevin Davidson

  Formatting by Renee Hare

  Publisher Sands Press

  Author Agent Sparks Literary Consultants

  Publisher’s Note

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales, are intended only to provide as a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the authors’ imaginations and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  For information on bulk purchases of this book or any book published by Sands Press,

  please call 1-800-563-0911.

  1st Printing September 2017

  To book an author for your live event, please call: 1-800-563-0911

  Sands Press is a literary publisher interested in new and established authors wishing to develop and market their product. For more information please visit our website at www.sandspress.com.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  About the Authors

  CHAPTER 1

  It was one of those days when the silence was deafening. Those days were rare, but there was clearly something in the air today. Perhaps he was being too sensitive this morning; perhaps he was sensing things that didn't exist except inside of his overactive brain. But the commuters on the subway were extra quiet; the breakfast grabbers at his favorite coffee shop seemed subdued - as if they knew a secret that he didn't. He felt left out.

  Jeff Kavanaugh walked along King Street West toward his office building at 207 Bay Street. Bay and King intersected and his office was right on the corner. A short walk from the longest street in Toronto, and indeed the longest street in North America: Yonge Street. Jeff loved heading down to Yonge Street at lunchtime - the buzz was overpowering and it always gave his body a surge of adrenaline to finish out the afternoon. By noon he was usually mind-numb. Ready for a nap. His work consisted of mental overdrive - interview after interview, report after report. Enough to suck the life out of anyone, but particularly someone like him whose brain was always working at full speed. It never shut off - sometimes he wished it would.

  But there was something in the air. The people brushing past him on King Street had their heads down. Maybe they always had their heads down, Jeff wasn't sure. Had he never noticed before? He always walked erect, head up, looking straight ahead. Confident, perhaps even a bit arrogant. But that was Jeff. Arrogant, intelligent, curious, ambitious. To a fault sometimes. Four hours sleep a night on average, but fresh as a daisy when he awoke. Always ready to take on the day, or anyone who got in his way.

  Jeff glanced up at the gleaming towers surrounding him. It was a beautiful July morning - a typical Toronto summer day; hot and humid and it was only 9:00 a.m. This was the one thing that Jeff hated about Toronto. The summer weather was insufferable - fine if you were sitting at home in shorts and a t-shirt, but not so fine if you had to work for a living. And at thirty-five years of age, Jeff still had to work for a living. But he loved working - just not on days like this. He'd rather be up at his cottage on Moon Lake. That was his escape - well, not really an escape. He always took his laptop with him just in case he got the urge to work. And it was rare that he didn't get the urge. But at least he could laze around half-naked while working, and then dive into the lake if he got too hot.

  He reached his fingers up to the stiff collar of his white Givenchy shirt and slid them around inside, wiping away the relentless sweat. It didn't make much of a difference - he'd have to do this every few minutes until he reached the air-conditioned refuge of his office at 207 Bay. But wiping away the sweat made him feel better, seemed to stretch the collar making his neck more free to move.

  He studied the faces of the other poor souls he passed - flushed and dripping. But all of them with their heads down. What was it about today? Was he imagining this? Was his brain hallucinating, playing tricks on him? It seemed surreal.

  Jeff was psychic. That was another aspect of his mind that drove him a bit crazy sometimes. Or as some would refer to it - 'sensitive.' It was powerful, and sometimes he paid attention to it and sometimes he just ignored it. And sometimes it just wasn't there at all. It came without warning and disappeared without apology. It was weird, and it had become progressively stronger as Jeff aged.

  He slid his fingers through his thick brown hair. It was moist with sweat, and seemed thinner than it usually did. Probably just the humidity, but he knew that he'd probably be bald by the time he was fifty. He took after his father. In more ways than just thinning hair. He was moderately tall, about six feet high in dress shoes. His eyes were blue, and he had a rugged face; kind of bohemian in a way, but attractive in its own right. His biggest assets were his eyes - penetrating and gentle at the same time. His eyes could disarm any adversary in a boardroom - either by intimidation or kindness. Whichever tactic suited the situation. And he had a swagger that would make anyone take notice. Little did they know that the swagger was caus
ed by a back injury from the days when he played high school football. But even if the swagger wasn't a genuine blue-blooded natural extension of his personality, he knew he had swagger in his brain. So the overall package fit who he was as far as he was concerned. All in all, Jeff felt good about who he was.

  He walked into the lobby of his building and squeezed his way into the elevator along with a half dozen others. He pushed the button for the ninth floor, and then glanced around at the other riders. He didn't recognize any of them - he noticed that the elevator was destined for four other floors after his.

  Suddenly his body shivered - not a cold kind of shiver, but a scared kind. It started at his ankles and rose quickly to the top of his head. He blinked as his eyes went blurry. The people in front of him were distorted in his vision now. Bobbing heads. He looked up above the elevator door and stared at the floor display. They seemed to be stuck on the sixth floor but he could tell that the elevator was still moving.

  The door slid open and he gently pushed his way out, excusing himself politely to the bobbing heads. He took one more glance at the floor display and it still showed 'six.' Yet he recognized his floor and the reception desk. He was clearly on the ninth floor. He made a mental note to remember the number 'six' today. Something of significance would involve that number, he was sure of it. Maybe he'd land a big deal worth six figures? He hoped.

  "Good morning, Jeffy. You look devilishly handsome as usual today!" Cathy Ricketts, the receptionist, smiled at him in her usual perky way. She was cute, no doubt. And Jeff had dated her a couple of times. He knew he shouldn't have - not smart to be too close to the people you worked with. But he had found her hard to resist. She was just too cute. Trouble was, he knew she always hoped that another date was just around the corner and he just wasn't interested in her that way. Right now he wasn't interested in anyone that way. He was glad that he hadn't gone to bed with her - that would have made things really complicated. Both times had just been dinner. Innocent stuff.

  "Good morning to you, too, Cathy. And you look good, too. You're always the first one I see in the morning here, and the last one I see when I leave. How special is that, eh?"

  She couldn't wipe the smile off her face. Jeff found that smile of hers infectious. It made him smile too, to the point where he felt like a goofy kid. But Cathy was a nice way to start the day. He liked her. She was one of the office sweethearts to be sure.

  She glanced at her computer screen. "Jeffy, I see you have an appointment coming in at 11:00. Do you want me to send in some coffee?"

  "Yeah, that would be great. I know he likes it black, so deliver it that way, okay?"

  Cathy looked up at him, and Jeff thought he saw a pleading look in her eyes. "No problem. Will do."

  Then he saw something else. A yellowish glow around her head. Almost like a halo. He blinked his eyes a couple of times. The halo seemed to hover around her head with what looked like small tentacles of light streaming upward from the circle. The strange image disappeared before he could blink a third time.

  Cathy frowned. "What's wrong, Jeffy? You're looking at me kind of weird." Jeff clenched his fists hard and instantly regained his composure. "Nothing, Cathy. I think I just need that cup of coffee now rather than later. Send it down to my office, will you?"

  She flashed him that infectious smile one more time before he turned and headed down the hall. Jeff kept his fists clenched as he entered his modest office. He didn't know what to make of today - it had started off weird and was continuing weird. Quiet streets, people walking with their heads down, the number six frozen in the elevator, and Cathy wearing a halo. It spooked him. Not the first time these kinds of things had happened to him, which was what spooked him the most. These things usually meant trouble. But this was the first time he had ever seen light around someone's head.

  He sat down in his chair, swiveled toward the window that looked out over Bay Street, and opened the newspaper that had been waiting for him on his desk. The number six flashed at him on the front page - almost like a hologram, hovering on top of the day's headline. Jeff shook his head and put the paper down. He gazed out over the street and tried to focus on the day ahead.

  Jeff traded in bodies for a living; live bodies, intelligent and breathing bodies. He was a Senior Account Executive with one of the largest executive search firms on the planet, having offices in six countries. His specialty was marketing, having graduated from the prestigious Queen's University in Kingston with a PHD back when he was only a young sprite of twenty-five. His three degrees were in psychology, but he specialized in utilizing psychology as a marketing tactic. The two disciplines were very closely related, much more than most people realized. Psychology was simply utilized to achieve effective marketing.

  Jeff had never wanted to be a Psychologist - he only wanted to study it so he would excel at manipulating thinking. Which was what marketing was all about. He was truly a marketing expert and had been supremely successful in placing numerous top marketing executives at some of the most prominent Fortune 500 companies. His acumen was legendary, and he was next in line to become Vice President of his division. He could hardly wait - he was ready for it. Jeff was already pulling down a quarter of a million dollars a year, but he knew that would easily double if he got the VP job. He would also be a solid candidate for a transfer to another country if he advanced to the more visible position of VP. Not that he didn't like Toronto, but he was still young with no ties holding him to Canada. The time to be adventurous would be before he got married and had the obligatory two and a half kids. 'Price, Spencer and Williams Inc.' had a policy of promoting and transferring from within, so he knew his chances were good.

  He put his feet up on the credenza and closed his eyes. Just for a few minutes. Just to dream a little. He pictured his chalet-style cottage on Moon Lake - where in fact he'd be heading to this weekend. Jeff was chomping at the bit. He pictured himself sipping a beer on the dock, getting all sweaty, and then just diving into the crystal-clear water. He could practically feel the refreshing water rushing over his body, washing the sweat away replacing it with sheer ecstasy.

  He imagined the dock he'd always wanted - a party dock, long and wide at the end, able to easily accommodate a dozen eager partiers. And most of them women - well, at least in his fantasy they would all be women. In reality, most of them would just be his drinking buddies. But he could picture the women in his mind, all in bikinis, all with trim bodies shimmering in the sun that always seemed to shine at Moon Lake. Maybe with the money from his next promotion he'd buy just that kind of dock.

  Jeff dozed off into dreamland...

  Suddenly he lurched backward. A sound that was foreign. A sharp report.

  Then another. He swiveled in his chair and faced the open door. He knew he'd fallen asleep but he didn't know how long. He glanced at his watch...almost 11:00.

  Now the sound of screams coming from the direction of the reception area. He recognized one of the screams. Cathy!

  Jeff flew out of his chair and headed toward the door, blocked for a few seconds by a procession of people screaming and running past his office in the opposite direction of the reception area.

  Jeff didn't join them. He ran at full speed the other way, towards the reception desk. There was a knot in his stomach now that got worse with each nervous step. But he kept going. Cathy was in trouble.

  He passed several people along the way, some hiding under their desks, others running into closets. He ignored them. He had to keep going. Something was driving him and the feeling of danger was being suppressed by the urgency in his brain.

  His feet left the carpeted hallway and his shiny black Pierre Cardin shoes skidded to a halt on the marble tile of the plush reception hall. His eyes came to rest on top of the reception desk where sweet Cathy was laying prone, blood pouring out of the side of her head. She was perfectly still, her eyes wide open and lifeless, gazing at the ceiling. He knew she was gone. Over to one side of the desk was another body - an executi
ve he recognized as Walt Hitchins. Walt was propped up against the wall, almost peaceful in a sitting position. His chest was a mass of red.

  Jeff turned his gaze to the other side of the desk. He recognized the monster. The man was standing there with a pistol in each hand, staring dispassionately at Cathy's body. He almost seemed surprised at what he was looking at. Jeff froze as the man turned slowly in his direction.

  The monster was Jim Prentice. A man Jeff heard had been fired from the company three days prior. He'd been an Account Executive in the Artificial Intelligence Division. Jeff didn't know the details as to why he'd been fired. It was so commonplace now - who really cared about such things anymore? The strong survived; the weak were left to the trash heap. Jeff was one of the strong ones; Jim had been one of the weak ones. But maybe not so weak after all?

  Jeff slowly raised his hands into the air as Jim turned the pistols in his direction. He thought he could see the residue smoke rising from the barrels. But then he saw something else - another halo, but this one was a dark grayish color with streaks of red. It seemed to be pulsating around the perimeter of Jim's head.

  Jeff held his breath as Jim cocked the hammers of both pistols, took a step forward, and aimed the barrels directly at Jeff's head.

  CHAPTER 2

  His face was like one of those Halloween masks - the ones that were simple and looked just like human faces; no deliberately scary features. But those kinds of masks all had the same waxy expressionless stares, which seemed to make them more frightening than the traditional masks of witches and goblins. This was what Jim Prentice's face looked like as he stared down the gun barrels into Jeff's eyes.

  Jeff could feel the thumping in his chest, his heart straining at its constraints. His palms were getting clammy and he felt his knees begin to wobble. He'd never stared at death before. Now he had two dead people in front of him, and his own existence seriously in question. For an instant he lamented his decision to run down the hall in this direction. He should have followed the others, especially now knowing there was nothing he could have done for Cathy after all. She was already gone before he got there.