Deadliest Love

Hal McFarland

Description

Recently, Hal read on YouTube and other places about a group of perhaps a hundred people, worldwide, who have perfect recall: they remember everything and often have very emotional reactions to vivid parts of their life which they are able to evoke.
And this bit of interesting trivia pointed him in the direction of “Deadliest Love.” His first-person character, Jesse Jacobs, tells of his struggles with hyperthymesia and its influence on his life as he tries to expand his computer chip business, as he falls in love, and as he attempts to avoid what the FBI has explained is a multiple Russian assassination attempt.
He is able to intertwine Jesse’s personal struggle with the ongoing and very real invasion of Ukraine by Russia through the introduction of the beautiful and talented Katerine (Kate) Kaputka, whom he has hired, as his business begins to expand.
Chelsea, his wife, disappears shortly after their honeymoon, and he tries to use his exceptional memory to determine what may have happened to her. A year later her body is found in a shallow grave. The FBI becomes involved, and he joins forces with them. Jesse survives a long-range sniper attack and is told by the FBI of a suspected Russian plan for eliminating intellectually gifted Americans before they achieve greatness. He believes that fact could also explain Chelsea’s murder because she was a high achieving virologist on the cusp of a breakthrough with the zoonosis virus.
A final attempt is made on the lives of Jesse and Kate in an invasion at Jesse’s home.
The outcome of this encounter causes Jesse to sell all of his possessions and leave for Ukraine to locate Kate’s parents.

Sujets

• Adventure (Guyana)
• Suspenso
• Adventure
• Novel
• Suspense
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 26 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665570114
• Langue: English

Extrait

Deadliest Love
 
 
HAL MCFARLAND
 
 
 
 
 

 
AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: [phone]
 
 
 
 
© 2022 Hal McFarland. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
Published by AuthorHouse 09/21/2022
 
ISBN: 978-1-6655-7012-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-7011-4 (e)
 
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINTEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
Cast of Characters
From the Author
 
 
 
 
 
*“A COUNTRY AUCTION IS LIKE A GRAND PARTY, WITH PEOPLE FROM ALL
PARTS OF THE AREA COMING TOGETHER TO GOSSIP, ENJOY THE HOT DOGS AND
HAMBURGERS, AND BID ON THE BITS AND PIECES OF SOMEONE’S LIFE.”
*From the autobiography, “Connections,” By Hal McFarland
 
 
 
OLD FRIENDS ARE SOMETIMES THE BEST FRIENDS
My appreciation goes to high school friends, Sam Halpern, now a retired physician, and to Deb Dryden, the retired manager of TriHealth Outreach Laboratory Services, for their oversight and suggestions. (Deb has guided me through my last four novels.)
And I must include my thanks and gratitude to my wife, Barbara, who, in spite of her involvement in the completion her own novel, “The Secret Keepers,” was essential to my arriving at the end point of my story.
ONE
I  started every morning with the thought of my wife lying beside me in my bed, and every evening the same image appeared. I am desperate to make that magic a reality again. I have been trying in so many ways to reunite with her, but my father-in-law... Oh, my father-in-law...
So what, if Chelsea and I had been married out of state and on the sly, and so what, if we told no one; and, yes, sometimes it was awkward, those clandestine and rushed meetings — the coming together of two desperate people yearning for love.
But then, about a month ago, he caught us in the very act — Chelsea’s father, Elmer Strafer, walked into his barn in the middle of our passion. (I’d often fantasized doing it in a barn. The movies made it so romantic.)
And the next week was the last time I ever saw her.
Maybe it was cowardly on my part, I don’t know. But when Elmer found out that we were married, he cornered me that Sunday after church.
“You’re a dead man,” he whispered. “If you don’t end this marriage, Jesse, you’re a dead man.”
It had been rumored about town for years that he had killed someone over a gambling debt when he was younger. What was I to do?
Elmer was the County Jailer, so the next week, while he was at work, Chelsea and I met and tried to come up with a way to deal with this dilemma. And to belay my fears, she explained that he often made these threats, but she also asserted that if he had followed through on them, half the people in our county would be in their graves.
“Give him time — just give him time. You admitted you were starting a new project at your lab in Strington, so why don’t you get busy and stay away from me, from our town, and from church for about a month. He’ll cool off, and I’ll have a chance to talk with him.”
Elmer was a good fifty pounds heavier than I was, and even though he was in his sixties, he was tough as nails. He had bested physically the roughest criminals to come through his jail, and earlier this year, I had personally watched him take out a young thug with one punch.
The more I thought about Chelsea’s plan, the better it sounded.
I began working on my new ideas on a single aspect of chip technology and stayed away from her — not even a phone call, for a couple weeks. Finally, I could take it no longer and texted her.
No reply.
I had experienced her occasional and unannounced absences before. That was not new. She, upon her return, would explain that it was her way of releasing the tensions of her work.
But this time, her absence was prolonged, and I began to fanaticize various explanations for her disappearance — from another man, to her death.
I waited an additional week, and by then I was desperate for her company, her love, her beautiful smile, the feel of her lithe body close to me. I called Elmer at work from a pay phone, and as soon as I heard his voice, I hung up and headed immediately to his house where Chelsea had continued to live — a large two-story structure from another century.
I tried the doorbell — but no response. I banged frantically on the solid oak door to no avail, so I took a few steps back and moved my eyes toward her bedroom window, hoping to see Chelsea or at least a light on.
I was not leaving that house without an answer, so I circled the structure, trying to find a way in. One of the windows was held open by a screen. I removed it, crawled through, and headed for her bedroom.
Cigar smoke lingered in the hallway along with a distinct smell of an aging structure in steep decline. I mounted the stairs quickly, yelling Chelsea’s name, and as I opened the door to her bedroom, the emptiness overwhelmed me.
No sign of my wife. No indication she had ever used this bedroom. No pictures on the wall or on the nightstand. I opened her closet: a few quilts and a man’s hunting outfit, along with a 10-gauge shotgun.
Confused, I wandered from room to room hoping for an answer: where is Chelsea?
Every trace of her presence had been eliminated.
Totally defeated, I stumbled down Elmer’s front walk and, as if in a fog, drove slowly back to my lab.
I needed a plan: Hell, I didn’t know what I needed: surely, Chelsea would have called me no matter what ... She would have called me.
That evening over a glass of wine, I decided to try to think the way Elmer would. What would he do under the circumstances, these circumstances being that he was blindsided by walking in on us in his barn, and secondly that we had married without telling anyone, especially him, the Father of the Bride?
For a man who was known for acting out before thinking a problem through, I could see that he probably did consider killing me. That, however, had not happened.
If he wanted to come up with the best way to hurt me, he would have realized that removing Chelsea from my life would be the most satisfying revenge he could have — more devastating than my own death.
Was he that aware: effectively killing me without killing me? I was spiritually dead without her. He wasn’t that smart, I agreed with myself, he wasn’t that savvy or that calculating.
Alice Beamer was Chelsea’s best friend — our best friend. I called her, asking if we could come over to her place after she got off work, explaining that Chelsea and I had a problem we wanted to talk to her about.
“Sure, I haven’t seen you two for a while. Pick up pizza... 6:30 would be good.”
I didn’t want to ask when she had last seen or talked with Chelsea, so I left her with the impression that we would both be there.
Alice lived in a third-floor walk-up in Strington — not many of those in that small town. And by the time I got to the third-floor landing, I was out of breath. As I knocked on the door, I laughed at the thought of physically confronting Elmer. Hell, if three flights of stairs whipped me, what would he do?
The door opened, and a blast of Alice’s favorite music attacked my eardrums, short-circuiting my reason for being here. She was wearing shorts and a blouse, no shoes. We hugged, and she asked: “Where is Chelsea?”
“That’s why I needed to see you,” I explained, closing the door.
As I handed her the large pizza box, I shook my head. “The problem I have is that I don’t know where she is.”
Over the next hour and a couple of glasses of tasteless wine, I explained what I knew about our recent lives: our sudden marriage, Elmer’s reaction to it, and Chelsea’s solution to his threat against me, and last, of course, my search throughout Elmer’s house for an answer as to her whereabouts.
Whoever originated the line that beauty and brains are a rare combination was totally wrong, because Alice and Chelsea had both in abundance, and as we talked, I stopped observing Alice as a beautiful woman (I must confess that far too often that was the main way I saw her), and as she began quizzing me, I had to reaffirm the degree of her logic and her intellect:
“Why did Mr. Strafer threaten you?”
“I think it was because we didn’t involve him in our plans to marry or share the fact that we did marry.”
She turned her head in a quizzical fashion, crossed her legs, and leaned toward me: “I have two