Run into Trouble (32 page)

“Thanks. I’m happy with my hair the way it
is. But I’d like to see Casey put away in the U.S. equivalent of
the Tower of London. Perhaps the Beefeaters would be willing to
loan their guillotine to the Colonies to dispatch him. I’d
volunteer to drop the blade on his neck.”

“Speaking of Blade, he made a prediction. He
predicted that Casey’s life expectancy on his island would be about
six months. I didn’t ask any questions.”

“That makes me feel a lot better.”

“I never knew you were so bloodthirsty. You
need a vacation.”

In spite of his sadness about Slick and
losing the chance at the big money and multiple aches from his
fall, Drake suddenly felt good about the world. “It’s such a
fantastic day. I’ve never seen a day like this in San Francisco.
It’s a good omen.”

They were running across the Golden Gate
Bridge under a warm sun. The bright orange towers contrasted with
the sparkling blue waters of the bay. It was a day in which
anything was possible in a free country. Anything.

Drake turned to Melody. “Now that we’ve
helped to save the world, we
both
deserve a vacation. We’ve
already seen the coast. How about we go off into the mountains
together?”

“‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the
spider to the fly.”

“Assuming that the mountains can be regarded
as a parlor, I guess that’s an apt analogy. Will you?”

“Anything’s possible.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After spending more than a quarter of a
century as a pioneer in the computer industry, Alan Cook is well
into his second career as a writer.

The Hayloft: a 1950s
mystery
and prize-winning
Honeymoon for Three
feature Gary Blanchard, first as a high school senior who has
to solve the murder of his cousin, and ten years later as a
bridegroom who gets more than he bargained for on his
honeymoon.

Hotline to Murder
takes place at a crisis hotline in Bonita Beach,
California. When a listener is murdered, Tony and Shahla team up to
uncover the strange worlds of their callers and find the
killer.

His Lillian Morgan
mysteries,
Catch a Falling Knife
and
Thirteen
Diamonds
, explore the secrets of
retirement communities. Lillian, a retired mathematics professor
from North Carolina, is smart, opinionated, and loves to solve
puzzles, even when they involve murder.

Alan splits his time
between writing and walking, another passion. His inspirational,
prize-winning book,
Walking the World:
Memories and Adventures
, has information
and adventure in equal parts. He is also the author of
Walking to Denver
, a
light-hearted, fictional account of a walk he did.

Freedom’s Light:
Quotations from History’s Champions of Freedom
, contains quotations from some of our favorite historical
figures about personal freedom.
The Saga
of Bill the Hermit
is a narrative poem
about a hermit who decides that the single life isn’t all it’s
cracked up to be.

Alan lives with his wife,
Bonny, on a hill in Southern California. His website is
alancook.50megs.com
.