Nowhere to Run

By Trevor Panasiuk

When a Florida hurricane attacks without warning, Kay John's life is forever changed. At twenty-four, from a small Idaho town, Kay is ill equipped to deal with the world of sex and violence that she has been blown into. Finding herself in a world of serial killers and avenging angels, she is quickly finding herself with nowhere to run.
Eddie Richleau is willing to cross any lines to climb the ladder in his grandfathers crime organization and line his pockets, and if a few girls have to die to make that happen, so be it.
Federal Officer Sean Colvin and his crew are committed to catching the latest serial killer loose in Tampa. If he is not careful he is going to lose more than he bargained for.
Add in Michael, a self proclaimed righteous man in the middle of a crisis of faith, and things are about to get interesting indeed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trevor Panasiuk
• Release date: Dec 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9780995874701

Trevor Panasiuk

Trevor Panasiuk is a Canadian author who spent most of his life on the Canadian prairies. When he is not writing, he is spending time with his children and grandchildren. He has a wife, three sons, one step-son, two daughter-in-laws and two grandchildren. So far. Add in three dogs and a cat and there is always something going on to draw inspiration from.As with most writers, it has always been his dream to write for a living. Although he has been writing for the better part of three decades, it was only in 2016 that he has taken the steps to have his work published and shared with a wider audience than his friends and family.Trevor is a voracious reader and has been influenced by great authors such as Dean Koontz, Timothy Zahn, Douglas Adams and so many more.

Book preview

Day 1-1

The windshield wipers were fighting a losing battle as rain sluiced down the windscreen. Visibility was already bad enough in the gathering dusk without the torrential downpour that had come out of nowhere, heralded by a blinding flash of bolt lightning.

Rivers of black water churned down the concrete highway, the traction between the maroon Dodge Durango and the road below, quickly becoming tenuous at best. Kay struggled to bring her speed down as fast as she could, without the vehicle sliding wildly out of control on a street that was quickly deteriorating into what felt like a sheet of polished ice.

In the flash bulb storm light, the bay below looked like a series of still photos. Crashing waves topped with white foam boiled across the bay, frozen in time. After images burned into her eyes with each burst of lightning.

High winds buffeted the Durango. If not for the headlamps of the Durango penetrating the heavy darkness, she could easily have been convinced she was lost, adrift on a hostile ocean. A sharp crack of thunder split the sky, so loud that it seemed to come from inside the car itself, startling Kay. As she struggled to regain control of her already frayed nerves, a second explosion rocked her car, the steering wheel spun wildly out of her trembling hands. The heavy vehicle quickly lurched to the left, leaving Kay wrestling with the wheel to drag the car back into her own lane and away from the terrifying glare of the oncoming headlights.

Throwing all her weight into the effort, she twisted the wheel and slammed both feet down on the brake pedal in panic. A flash went by seemingly inches from her face, as the eighteen-wheeler’s trailer scraped by her front fender, moving in the opposite lane down the highway.

She sighed in relief at the near miss, when her remaining breath was knocked out of her by the driver’s airbag exploding into her chest. A sickening crunch jolted the vehicle to an abrupt stop against the guardrail.

In her panic, she had over compensated and re-crossed three lanes of traffic slamming into a metal guardrail, which turned out to be the only thing that had saved her from a one-hundred-and-fifty-foot fall into the bay below.

Freeing herself from the canvas pillow of the airbag, Kay reached up and removed her keys from the ignition, dropping them on the seat twice from her shaking hands. She realized her whole body was still trembling.

Taking a deep breath and trying to think clearly, she reached for her bag which had been sitting on the passenger seat beside her, its contents now strewn all over the floor.

Sighing, Kay removed her seat belt and reached over to retrieve her cellular phone from where it had landed underneath the dashboard. Praying silently to herself, she switched the phone on only to find that the electrical storm that was still raging outside was interfering with the signal.

Looks like you are on your own girl. She said aloud in the car, her voice sounding strangely foreign to her.

After closing her eyes and taking a few deep cleansing breaths, she felt she had sufficiently calmed herself down. Kay slipped the keys back in the ignition and restarted the vehicle. With a sickening screech of tortured metal, she pulled away from the guardrail, knowing that in this weather she could not just sit at the side of the road, without being rear ended by traffic that was similarly rain blind. The car shuddered beneath her as soon as she stepped on the accelerator and the steering wheel felt heavy and unresponsive in her hands.

Now what! she cried in exasperation.

Throwing the gearshift into park, she climbed from the vehicle and into the maelstrom outside to assess the damage. She found that the left tire had been shredded from the rim during the accident.

Realizing that it had not been her overreaction to the thunder, but that it was this blowout that had caused the accident was of little consolation to her. She was stuck just the same. From the way the front of the fender had twisted on impact, Kay knew there was no way she was going to be able to change that tire herself.

Already soaked to the bone, she quickly decided that she was going to have to try to hitch a ride from someone. Reaching across the driver’s seat, Kay quickly scooped as much of her belongings from off the floor and back into her purse as she could. From between the seat and the door she retrieved her money and credit cards.

Stepping back out into the storm, she peered into the darkness looking for the lights of oncoming cars. She saw nothing. Not a single headlamp pierced the darkness. With a sense of dread quickly growing inside her, she realized this could only mean one thing. The police had closed the causeway shortly after she herself had started across.

This was not good.

It meant that not only would there be no one coming along to rescue her, it meant also that the storm was worsening rapidly, and she could quickly find herself in a situation that could prove fatal. She had no choice left but to try to limp the car across the remainder of the causeway and try to find help there.

Climbing back inside the damaged vehicle Kay again turned the ignition. The sound of steel on concrete set her teeth on edge as she limped her battered car down the causeway to the nearest off ramp. She left the freeway and entered a maze of side streets that had certainly seen better days.

Most of the brown brick buildings were boarded up, windows either broken or missing completely on the lower floors. An army of graffiti artists had marched through the area, leaving their tags on anything that could not move out of their way. All of the street lights were either shattered, or had such a feeble glow they were unable to push back the growing shadows.

The tropical evening sun, which usually bathed the state well into the evening, could not penetrate the cloud cover of the storm, and the resulting gloom gave the area an eerie desolate feeling.

Hurricane warnings had plagued the television and radio for the last two days, and on the eve of the beginning of this storm, the streets were deserted. So far David was still just a tropical storm, but most predictions were for it to escalate throughout the night. Clear thinking people would be at home boarding up their windows to protect their possessions, or crowding into the cramped shelters the city made available to the huge numbers of people it evacuated several times a year.

Watching for lights on in any building where she might find a phone, she drove slowly down two city blocks before the car sputtered and was quiet. Warning lights cast a red glow into the cab of the vehicle, telling her that the motor was overheating. She must have cracked open the radiator in the accident and not seen the coolant on the ground because of the rain.

Cursing her luck and counting her blessings that she had gotten this far, Kay climbed from the car, pulled her coat collar up against the fierce winds that howled down the deserted street and began to walk. She passed burned out cars up on blocks and stripped of anything of value. Papers and other garbage swirled around her ankles as she made her way down to the next corner, trying desperately to melt into the darkness of the abandoned buildings. The wind battered her as she fought her way up the street.

A flash of movement caught the corner of her eye, and Kay glanced quickly behind her in time to see the three shadows detach themselves from a wall across the street and begin to move toward her. Fear swelled in her throat as she caught a flash of steel in one of the men’s hands. The newspapers lately had been filled with stories of the increased street crime in the Tampa area.

Teenage gangs warred for territory and control of the minor drug and sex trade in every urban center now it seemed. More innocent people were finding themselves grim statistics of this new Dark Age.

Adrenaline fuelled her tired body as she moved faster down the street determined that she would not be one of the unfortunate ones. Voices and music drifted up from around the corner, and weighing the alternatives, Kay began to run towards the sound.

Skidding around the corner, she ran headlong into the biggest suit she had ever seen. Easily over six feet five inches tall, the suit grabbed her with one huge hand to prevent her from falling to the ground as she staggered back in surprise.

Kay found herself looking up at a man who appeared to be carved from a single block of granite. The suit he wore was obviously tailored for him, and flattered his body three-hundred-pound body.

Slow down lady. I need to see your card. His deep voice growled at her, his dark eyes sizing her up quickly.

Kay looked up in confusion, Card? What card? I have had an accident; I just need to use your phone.

This is a private club. I can’t let you in without a membership card. He turned his back to her and moved back to the door.

You don’t understand, I’ve had an accident and there are three men following me, I just need to use the phone, please! She pleaded with him.

The massive body turned as he looked down the street. No one is there now. He observed. No card, no admittance. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. Fifty bucks for a membership.

Kay looked behind her, positive she could still see men in the shadows half a block behind, watching and waiting. She had the feeling, if she stayed on the street, they would eventually catch up to her, and she was not in any hurry to ask them what they were after.

Fine, I’ll pay the fifty. Damn expensive phone call. You’re a real caring guy, you know that? She said sarcastically as she reached into her bag and pressed some money into his hand.

He shrugged, Just doing my job lady, and handed her back a small black business card with The Station Club embossed in gold script across one side and an identification number on the other. Pressing a button on a remote control pulled from his pocket, the door lock clicked and slowly swung open for her.

Kay hesitantly looked inside, then back out at the three men who had begun moving up the sidewalk toward where she stood. Pointing them out to the suited meat mountain beside her she asked, They aren’t members, are they?

Dark eyes peered out into the storm, Nope, and they ain’t gonna be. He winked at her and flashed an unexpected smile that made her feel better about the three men following her and a little more uneasy about the doorman himself.

Deciding on the lesser of two evils, she stepped inside and moved down the dark corridor towards the light and music, passing couples in various stages of embrace in the hall.

The main room was better lit than the hallway, but not by much. Between twenty and thirty tables lit only by candles were scattered around the room, and although she could see people at about half of them, she could not make out any of their faces and got the feeling that this effect was by design. The only thing in the room that did not seem to blend into the background was the bar.

The structure was only around fifteen feet long, but was framed in stainless steel with a leather padded arm rest running the length of it. The customary barstools were missing, the obvious assumption was that this was not the sort of bar where seasoned drinkers would gather and pour out their hearts to a sympathetic bartender at the end of a hard day, avoiding going home to their disapproving wives who gave them even harder nights.

From the comparatively bright lights behind the bar she could see a bartender only slightly less imposing than the doorman. The scowl on his face as he stood polishing wine glasses and hanging them from their stems on the gleaming chrome rack above his head, was testimony that he was not the sympathetic type. Kay made her way over to ask him if there was a telephone that she could use.

It’s in the back, at the end of the hall, he replied nodding in the direction of a dark corridor that Kay had not even noticed in the candlelit gloom. What are you drinking?

Nothing, I just need to use the phone.

His abrupt manner left Kay feeling uneasy as she hurried to the hall that the bartender had indicated. Rows of closed doors lined both sides of the corridor. As Kay made her way to the pay-phone at the end of the hall, the moans and groans coming from the rooms created a carnal symphony that was not leaving much to her imagination as to what kind of place this was.

Slotting some change into the pay phone, she dialled the number on the back of her auto club gold card. The sooner she could get out of here and go home, the better. The frustrating braying of a busy signal assaulted Kay’s ears. Dropping the receiver back into its cradle, Kay sighed. She should have expected this on a night like tonight, there were bound to be a lot more people than her stranded. There was nothing for her to do but wait and try to make the call again in a little while.

Rather than brave the storm again, Kay headed back to the bar to order a drink after all.

Knew you’d be back, they always come back.

Smiling grimly at the bartender’s dark prophecy, Kay ordered a gin and tonic, and headed for an unoccupied table in a shadowy corner of the room. Sitting down, she drained her glass in one big gulp feeling the liquid burn down her throat and settle into her stomach, where it began to spread its warmth throughout her body.

Beginning to feel a little more relaxed, she looked around the room, spotted a waitress that looked more like a runway lingerie model, both in appearance and in dress, and called her over to order another gin.

As the waitress went to get her drink, Kay settled back and took a better look around the place. Other than the soft music playing, there was not the usual noise associated with a bar. It seemed unnaturally quiet to her. The interior walls of the club were all draped with what appeared to be deep red curtains, giving the already small space a cozy feeling.

Each of the tables was covered in a table cloth a half shade lighter in color. The tables were spaced so that no two were close enough to each other that would allow one to see the faces of the people sitting at another. They could easily double the seating capacity of the club, Kay idly wondering why any prudent businessman would not want to pack in as many paying customers as possible.

She looked around at her fellow club members. Most of them seemed exceptionally well dressed, from what she could see in the dim lighting. Mostly couples populated the tables, with some men sitting alone, or in pairs. She seemed to be the only woman sitting alone.

Every table had one thing in common; they were all intently watching the show on the stage in the corner that Kay had not even noticed until now.

Up on the stage, a large four poster bed sat in its center raised up on a pedestal. Softly colored lights played across it distorting her view so that it took Kay a few moments until she realized what it was she was seeing. A young man, probably somewhere in his early twenties, was laying back on two huge pillows, as a woman with fire red hair hanging past her shoulders, her skin glistening in the lights, rubbed oil into his well-muscled body.

Kay felt her face flush as she realized that, apart from his necktie, neither of them was clothed.

Looking quickly away from the stage, Kay grabbed her drink and took a too big mouthful, almost choking on it. Even knowing what was going on in the back rooms had not prepared her for the spectacle before her now. Looking quickly around the room self conscientiously, she realized that she was just another dark face in the quiet room, no one could care less that she was there watching, they were all too involved in their own enjoyment of the illicit theater.

Anonymity feeding her sense of adventure, Kay risked another glance up at the stage.

The girl was now kneeling at the side of the bed, her tongue tracing along the inside of his thigh. A second girl, a platinum blonde, appeared as if from nowhere and joined them, leaning over him, tracing her exposed hard nipple around the edges of his mouth.

Straining against the black leather bonds that tied him spread eagle to the four posts of the bed, he tried in vain to take her breast into his mouth, only to have her pull back playfully, teasing him. The blonde pushed his face back against the pillows with her exquisitely manicured right hand, as she reached down to his ankle with her left and drew her nails along the entire length of his body.

Both hands were now against his chest as she pushed him harder into the pillows, allowing her to straddle his chest, facing down towards the bottom of the bed. Reaching out, she touched the face of the red head and coaxed her up to sit on his thighs facing her. The placement of the bed afforded Kay a fantastic view of the young man’s generous shaft thrusting upward between the women, as they both began to run their hands along its glistening length.

Buy you a drink?

Kay started at the voice of the man standing before her. She had been so caught up in the performance that she had not been aware of his approach. Blushing profusely at being caught staring so intently at the stage, she hoped reverently that her scarlet face was not apparent in the candles glow. Kay was used to men offering her drinks, and more, but never under these particularly intimate circumstances.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, are you O.K.? Just wanted to buy you a drink. You looked lonely sitting here all by yourself.

Kay looked up into the slightly cherub like face, framed by jet black hair. His suit