Authors: Campbell Armstrong
Deadline (32 page)
What reserves of strength did I have? Or would I have to dig very deep at all?
I'd watch her drop, unable to intervene in any way. The powerless observer. The hapless bystander. I'd watch her fall in much the same way as I'd seen the airplane passengers drop out of the sky in my dream. And then she'd lie way beneath me, broken on stone.
âNo hard feelings?' she asked.
âNone.'
âGood,' she said. âI prefer it that way.'
I heard a plane roaring in the dark sky over LAX.
I placed my hands on Emily Ford's shoulders. She interpreted the gesture as one of amnesty from me, appeasement. We understood each other. I appreciated her goals. I knew her needs. She was confident I wasn't going to judge and condemn her. She was certain of me.
All bone, she weighed practically nothing.
She'd crack in pieces like porcelain when she struck the gray concrete that stretched out in pools of streetlamp and shadow below.
THE END
About the Author
Campbell Armstrong (1944â2013) was an international bestselling author best known for his thriller series featuring British counterterrorism agent Frank Pagan, and his quartet of Glasgow Novels, featuring detective Lou Perlman. Two of these,
White Rage
and
Butcher
, were nominated for France's Prix du Polar. Armstrong's novels
Assassins & Victims
and
The Punctual Rape
won Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Awards.
Born in Glasgow and educated at the University of Sussex, Armstrong worked as a book editor in London and taught creative writing at universities in the United States.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2000 by Campbell Armstrong
Cover design by Angela Goddard
ISBN: 978-1-5040-0390-2
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
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