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By H.A. Stuart

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This page-turning thriller opens with Scott Deluca sitting on death row for murdering his wife. Years earlier Scott had been recruited as an operative for a top secret group of mercenaries based in Florida. Scott learns that the mi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Apr 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649909633

H.A. Stuart

Retired elementary school teacher Harry Stuart is a graduate of Florida Atlantic University. He lives in Ft. Pierce, Florida, with his wife. Together they have two daughters, six grandchildren, and two rescue dogs.

Book preview

ONE

The mashed potatoes needed butter and were a little too salty. Even though I knew I could have done better, I had to admit that the T-bone was delicious. The asparagus was cooked to perfection, and the strawberry shortcake they served for dessert was simply spectacular. I imagined that when they are preparing a prisoner’s final meal, they must take special care to make certain everything he ordered is cooked to perfection.

Eleven years had passed since I returned from my mission in Cozumel. Although Becky and I hardly ever fought, we had a huge blowup right before I left. In our nine years of marriage, we had always celebrated our anniversary together, but she was upset that this trip would bring me home a day late. She wouldn’t even kiss me goodbye as I walked out the door. Her claims that your job is more important than me, reinforced my determination to make Cozumel my last mission. My hope was that she would forgive me when I walked in the door a day earlier than she expected.

The secrecy my missions demanded required that Becky never know the real purpose of the three or four business trips I took each year. I could tell her where I was going, but I always had to lie about why. The fact that knowing the truth could put her in danger didn’t make lying any easier. When I returned from this mission, I intended to tell her the truth and plead for her to forgive me.

On the flight home, I imagined the surprise on her face when I arrived home in time to celebrate our anniversary. Our marriage had outgrown the need for me to bring home gifts from these trips, but this time I was bringing home some small items I picked up as I was leaving Mexico. Surprising her with these gifts and dinner at her favorite restaurant would hopefully get me out of the doghouse. I couldn’t wait to hold her in my arms and promise her this would be the last trip I would ever take without her. What I didn’t know was that the surprise would be more mine than Becky’s, and from that day forward my life would be changed forever.

When my cab driver dropped me off, I noticed the strange car in the driveway and thought perhaps one of her teacher friends from school had come over for an afternoon drink or two. Although my work provided more than enough income for us to live very comfortably, Becky’s love for teaching fourth grade at a local public school would never allow her to quit and just be a housewife. She loved inviting friends over to entertain and show off our home, which I’m certain most underpaid teachers likely thought looked more like a mansion than a typical teacher’s home. Becky was always the life of the party. She easily made friends, and her coworkers all seemed to love her, as did her students and their parents. More than once she was voted Teacher of the Year at her school. Just two years ago she earned that same honor from the entire school district and came in third place in the State of Florida. She was not only beautiful but incredibly intelligent. I knew how lucky I was that she was in my life, and I looked forward to spending our future together. As I quietly entered through the French doors that overlooked our pool, the sounds I heard emanating from our upstairs bedroom told a different story. Unless strangers had broken in and were making love in our bedroom, my wife was having an affair.

In hindsight, considering how much time I’d spent away from home, I should not have been surprised; however, to say I was shocked and devastated would be an immense understatement. I had no idea what to do next. What seemed like uncontrollable rage was welling up inside me, and I feared what I would do should I be forced to confront her and her lover right there in my living room. I really did not even want to see who she was with, so I quietly went out to the garage and sat in her car while I calmed down and plotted my next move.

At some point I would have to come out from my hiding place in the garage and confront Becky. When I thought I heard the car in the driveway pull away I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I hesitated at the base of the stairs as I tried to think of exactly what I would say to her. The sounds of lovemaking had disappeared. The silence of the stairwell only contributed to the rage building up inside me. My imagination was running wild, and each step I took brought me closer to what I knew could be the end of my marriage. The fact that the woman I loved more than any human being on earth had celebrated our anniversary by having an affair was driving me crazy. Who was her lover? How long had this been going on? I wasn’t certain I even wanted to hear the answers.

I silently opened our bedroom door and saw my still-naked wife facing away from me, lying on her side. I could still detect the smell of her lover’s cologne filling the air. The rage that had been building had me shaking like a leaf. I could only imagine what had just taken place in the bed I had shared with the love of my life for the last nine years. Suddenly I had no desire to even hear any answers to the questions swirling in my head or excuses she may have to try and calm me down. I was blinded to whatever feelings remained for her. Suddenly, Becky was no longer the woman I loved but rather another objective of a mission I needed to eliminate as I had done so many times in the past. Once that switch had been flipped, my training made it virtually impossible to turn off.

Still lying on her side, eyes closed, Becky mumbled, Alex, I thought you were leaving.

The last thing I remember saying before I drew my weapon was, No, I just got home.

I guess I blacked out. I had done this on a couple of missions before when the victim was right there in front of me. The next few minutes were somewhat of a blank slate, as they often were when I completed a mission. I woke up with the worst headache of my entire life. Just as it had many times before, my mind blocked out all the details of what I had just done. Although I never found it easy, I’ve learned many times that killing another human being may be necessary. It was, after all, what my employer paid me to do. Long ago, I trained my mind to block out the memories of the murder I had just committed. If I hadn’t, I surely would have been driven insane by now. When not completing an assignment, I hated seeing anything or anyone die. I could not bring myself to even be in the room when my eleven-year-old basset hound had to be put down. It just was not in my nature. However, when it came to doing what I was trained to do, what I had chosen as my profession, it was just something I got used to doing. This time would be no different.

In my mind, in a few short seconds, all I had done was complete another mission. I had no idea how long I laid there unconscious. When I got up from the floor with my gun still in my hand my training took over. Despite the pounding in my head, I knew I needed to cover my tracks, as I had done so many times before to avoid detection. I was well trained to make certain that the many victims of my assignments could never be traced back to me or my employer. I knew that the spouse is automatically a prime suspect in a murder like this, but I also knew that the only thing tying me to Becky’s mutilated corpse would be my weapon. Fortunately, even if it was ever discovered, my employer had made certain it could never be traced back to me. I was positive that Alex’s DNA, whoever Alex was, most likely covered everything in the room and Becky was filled with his semen. That amount of evidence surely would point the finger of guilt in her lover’s direction. Should he be captured and convicted for a crime I had committed, his unfortunate fate seemed to me like a perfect example of karma at work.

Thankfully, our three-year-old daughter, Casey, spent the weekend with my wife’s sister, Donna. I wouldn’t have to deal with a screaming child or a potential witness. The only person who knew I was even in town would be my employer and possibly the cab driver that picked me up at the airport. Even if they questioned him, my plan was to just say that, when I arrived home early to surprise Becky for our anniversary, I found her dead in a pool of blood on the bed. I knew they would test all the weapons in my safe, but they would soon find that none of them had even been fired. I hid the murder weapon in a secure area, under the hardwood floor in my den. Once that was completed, I placed an excited 911 call, begging them to send help, telling them that my wife had been shot. I knew that no amount of help could bring Becky back. I felt comfortable that any suspicion of my guilt would soon diminish and that the search for Alex would be the focus of the investigation.

Days later, when I was taken into custody, I felt compelled to confess to my guilt. To this day, I do not know how I became the focus of their investigation. The authorities couldn’t possibly tie the bullets that ended Becky’s life to me. There was no apparent motive, and they didn’t even have a weapon. I couldn’t understand how I possibly got caught. Even though I didn’t remember the crime, my guilty conscience drove me to confess. Now I found myself only hours from an execution that I knew I had earned and still no answers. I may deserve what was about to happen to me, but those questions have haunted my every waking moment, and even many of my dreams, my entire eleven years in prison. I knew they were questions that would never be answered.

TWO

Killing came naturally to me. I know I am not a psychopath, but after the first two or three, the act of taking another human being’s life became somewhat routine. Murder was just my job, after all, and once I returned from another assignment to my loving family, it was easy to block all the gory details from my mind. No one would ever believe how a pathetic, long-haired, pot-smoking hippie could be transferred into a cold-blooded killer in just a few short years.

I suppose, in hindsight, the path my life has taken, as well as where I have ended up, should be no surprise. From middle school on, I woke up dreading another day at school and fretting over which of the many bullies that made my school life miserable would attack me on that day. Each school day, on my one mile walk home through the town park, I had to pay close attention to my surroundings just in case one of my tormentors was hiding behind one of the many giant oaks, waiting to attack. Fortunately, I could run fairly fast because, when they did catch me, it inevitably led to another black eye or a fat lip. In the sixties, unlike today, bullies were revered as well as feared, and without a male figure in my life that I could turn to for help, the bullies knew they would not face any retribution. My father had deserted us when I was two, and my older brother was already out of the home and starting his own life by this time in my life, leaving only my mom and me. What few friends I had were often victims of the same bullies, so the only people I could turn to for help were my imaginary friends.

Despite my day-to-day physical battles, I was able to do well in school. I’m certain that part of the reason I had to endure so many beatings was due to the resentment felt by my tormentors that I was substantially smarter than they were. I rarely had to study, and I had a unique talent to do quite well on any multiple-choice test. When tests involved questions that were not multiple choice, I was resourceful enough to come up with some inventive ways to cheat. My successes in school made it somewhat bearable, right up until I discovered two things that would send my school life as well as my limited social life into a tailspin: girls and marijuana.

Life took quite a turn somewhere around the middle of my sophomore year in high school. Many of my classmates, both those who were my friends and those who continued to make my school life miserable, became active in athletics and other school groups. Having no athletic ability and no interest in the school newspaper, plays, or the chess club, I hung out with other rejects from my neighborhood after school. Even on good days, my life and my future seemed dim. When I did discover a girl I had any interest in, it was rare that that feeling was reciprocated. This problem was made worse by a condition I was born with that the doctors later informed me was called a familial tremor. Any time I was deprived of food, sleep, or was put under any stress, my right hand shook uncontrollably. Carrying a hot drink across the cafeteria was an adventure. When I was on a date, and the girl I was with felt my hand shaking, the embarrassment made me rarely ask for second date. This also led to even more of my classmates making fun of me when the girl I went out with returned to school the next day and told all her friends about my shaking hands. I can clearly remember the day that I smoked my first joint and was amazed that, when I was high, my tremors disappeared. From that point on, I tried as hard as possible to smoke marijuana daily. It really was the only way I could dismiss the thoughts of suicide.

The country was in the final years of fighting in a war I had no interest in taking part in. I registered for the draft, but I had no intention of allowing myself to be enslaved by the US Army, travel thousands of miles, and almost certainly be killed. As my daily consumption of marijuana increased, my hair got longer, my grades plummeted, and my already limited social life became nonexistent. Avoiding the military by entering college—as many of my classmates did—was not an option. My mom didn’t have the money to enroll me or the ability to even help pay back any loans I might qualify for. I began avoiding all my school issues by simply not attending, and it wasn’t long before I was closing in on the bottom 10 percent of my high school class. Unfortunately, the military did not care about my grades or even whether or not I had a high school diploma. My last chance of avoiding an extended vacation in Vietnam was trying to secure a deferment for my trembling hands or a draft lottery number higher than 150. I figured, if all else failed, I could always move to Canada. Just before I turned eighteen and stuck in a dead-end job, they drew my draft number, 13. I dreaded going to the mailbox every day. I didn’t want to leave my friends and family and move to Canada. Even if I fled, I had no skills that would