Blind Fate Read online

  Davonshire House Publishing

  PO Box 9716

  Augusta, GA 30916

  THIS BOOK IS A WORK of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely a coincidence.

  © 2019 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin

  Copy Editor: Teri Thompson Blackwell

  Cover: Corbin Media, LLC

  Olivia Gaines Make Up and Photograph by Latasla Gardner Photography

  ASIN:

  ISBN:

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.

  Printed in the United States of America

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  First Davonshire House Publishing April 2020

  Blind fate

  The Technicians- Book 4

  OLIVIA GAINES

  Also by Olivia Gaines

  THE MEN OF ENDURANCE Series

  A Walk Through Endurance: Olivia Gaines & Siera London

  A Return to Endurance By Olivia Gaines & Siera London

  The Art of Persistence By Olivia Gaines

  Intervals of Love

  Enduring Emily

  An Enduring Christmas – Winter 2019

  The Technicians Series

  Blind Date By Olivia Gaines

  Blind Hope By Olivia Gaines

  Blind Luck By Olivia Gaines

  Love Thy Neighbor Series

  Walking the Dawg: A Novella

  Through the Woods: A Novella

  Life of the Party: A Novella

  Modern Mail-Order Brides

  North to Alaska

  Montana

  Oregon Trails

  Wyoming Nights

  On a Rainy Night in Georgia

  Bleu, Grass, Bourbon

  Buckeye and the Babe

  The Tennessee Mountain Man

  Stranded in Arizona – September 2019

  The Zelda Diaries

  It Happened Last Wednesday

  A Frickin' Fantastic Friday

  A Tantalizing Tuesday

  A Marvelous Monday

  A Saucy Sunday

  A Sensual Saturday

  My Thursday Throwback

  Slivers of Love Series

  The Deal Breaker

  Naima's Melody

  Santa's Big Helper

  The Christmas Quilts

  Friends with Benefits

  The Cost to Play

  A Menu for Loving

  Thursdays in Savannah

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to all the women who are running to escape a past, a boring life, and a life of mediocrity only to find out they were home all along.

  .

  “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

  - Nathaniel Hawthorne

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To all the fans, friends and supporters of the dream as well as the Facebook community of writers who keep me focused, inspired and moving forward.

  Write On!

  Table of Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Chapter One – Ghost Driving

  Chapter Two – Tangled

  Chapter Three – Backward

  Chapter Four – Bottom-Side Up

  Chapter Five – A Whisper to an Angel

  Chapter Six – Confused

  Chapter Seven –Disordered

  Chapter Eight – Downside-Up

  Chapter Nine – Haywire

  Chapter Ten – In Chaos

  Chapter Eleven – Jumbled

  Chapter Twelve – Reversed

  Chapter Thirteen – Upended

  Epilogue

  Book Club Questions:

  1. By chapter three, did you find yourself judging Tempest, even before you knew her back story?

  2. Once you knew her backstory, did you still dislike the woman, even knowing what she did for a living?

  3. In the book, Tempest references several other technicians. Which Technician’s story are you anxious to know more about?

  4. When Zeke came into the scene, did you like the way he handled Tempest?

  5. Do you think that after seeing what Tempest went through, that Zeke will start working with his brothers to help other women in trouble?

  6. Tameka wasn’t pulling any punches with Tempest, do you think she was too hard on a woman who’d just lost her vision?

  7. Are you a site member and have you earned the first two badges?

  Blind Copy:

  Your next Mail Order Bride- Maple Sundaes and Cider Donuts

  Chapter One - Gemütlichkeit

  Chapter One – Ghost Driving

  Some jobs stayed with Tempest Fateman long after the work got completed, and she was home in bed counting imaginary sheep bounding across the blackened ceiling. On a night like tonight, Tempest lay in a smelly bed, just outside of Wentzville, Missouri close to Chesterfield, at a motel that even the local hookers didn’t want to lie down in. When she traveled, which of late seemed like every damned day of the week, she was always prepared. Her job relied on the business of death, and lately, business had been booming. In the back of her shop was the tool of her trade, tools which at this point would be a big help to protect a weary body from the cooties crawling on the rented bed for the night.

  From her shop, which is what she called her white van, she removed items needed for her overnight stay. Heavy-duty plastic sheeting covered the stained bed covers, which appeared to get seldom washed, and her weary head rested on her pillow to avoid the infestation of lice and make sleep tolerable in the roadside dive. At twenty bucks for a secured closed-door and running water, it sure as hell beat sleeping in her van.

  Ideally, a woman in her position would probably go for a more luxurious sleep arrangement in a nicer hotel, but all she needed was a place to lay her head, wash her ass, and make bad coffee in the morning before hitting the road. Tomorrow night, she’d be on the other side of St. Louis, coming up on the little town of Marion, Illinois, where Jacob Tomalson hungrily held a bed for her, along with a throbbing hard-on which made Tempest question her nomadic way of life. Both, he kept on the ready for when she needed to roll through I-64 heading to Nashville, and she was grateful, not only for the friendly face, the good loving, but the connection of a good friend who cared about her well-being.

  She thought fondly of one time when Jacob proposed. A warm smile eked across her lips thinking of the balmy evening when Jacob physically got down on one shaky knee in a pair of worn-out Wranglers, holding a ring with sparkly diamond chips he’d had on lay-a-way at Walmart for nearly six months, then asked for her hand in marriage. Tempest, however, wasn’t the marrying type. She’d tried it once, and it didn’t work out so well. The whole idea of eating dinner at the same time every night while watching Jeopardy and screwing the same ole dick kinda sucked ass, if she were, to be honest. Been there, fucked him. She could not for the life of her in the past, nor present relationships garner a modicum of understanding of why permanent coupling with one person didn’t feel right in her soul. Yet, most men all held the same reaction to her as they did to most things that stirred their souls. If a man liked or appreciated a thing of beauty, they craved the need to capture said item, stick their dick inside of it, and tell the world it belonged to them alone.

  It wasn’t her way. She didn’t desire to be owned, possessed, or labeled as belonging to any man in particular. Maybe in a couple of years, a bit of comprehension with the men in her life would arrive for them all, but not this year and definitely not now. Tonight, she would watch a bit of television, catch the news and drift off to sleep.
/>   Tempest covered the television remote in plastic wrap and pressed the power button while watching the outdated idiot box come to life. Scrolling through the menu options, she located the news. Fascinated, she sat on the bed, watching the scene unfold in Wentzville as the bloated body of Big Mike Colton rolled out of his home on a gurney. The day before, his brother Jebbie had been found in St. Louis missing a good portion of the brains God gave the fella to tie his shoes. Her eyes remained focused on the screen.

  A bobble-head newscaster speculated on the trace evidence found around Jebbie’s body, taking particular time to annotate the bits of glitter, the same color of glitter the blonde man reported had been found on Sheriff Big Mike Colton. “Good. Good. The connection had been made,” she said softly. Tempest had planted the seeds, hoping to seal the fate of a nuisance in Beauty’s rose bushes. Listening carefully, her eyes fixated upon the screen, the colorful images danced before her eyes.

  “Local officials have turned the case over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation due to the commonalities between the details of the death of Sheriff Colton and other cases in three states,” the bobble-head reported.

  Tempest watched the footage play in the background. So many details the naked eye could and would miss, she observed with trained acuity, and then she saw it—the corner of her white utility van. As the camera panned, a dark figure sat behind the driver’s wheel and briefly glanced into the framework of the story the cameraman told through his lens. Her face was front and center in the middle of the story which made her part of the dialogue.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit,” Tempest cried out, staring dumbfounded at the television.

  If she were able to see her image in the background scenery, then he saw her too. If he saw the van and the dark face in the driver’s seat, then he would be packing and heading her way. Panic filled her lungs, making breathing difficult to manage. Dark circles surrounded her head like small balls of “I Told You So’s” reminding her of being too fucking cocky for her own good.

  “Why did you go back to check? The Sheriff was dead. The clues were planted, and you just had to go back like a fucking moron,” Tempest scolded herself, grabbing for the pillow and bedsheets.

  Grateful for having paid only twenty bucks for the room, she knew better than to worry over the loss of the money versus the loss of a half-decent night of sleep. Her weary eyes gazed about the place, ensuring she hadn’t left any evidence of her presence behind. Tempest held the bedding and plastic bundle under her arm as she left the key card to the room in the dropbox before loading up her van. It was two hours to Jacob’s place in Marion, and if she got sleepy, she’d pull off, have a cup of coffee, and keep rolling.

  Once she was seated behind the wheel, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Fear coursed through her body as she started the van, threw it into gear, and pressed hard onto the pedal. He, as they referred to The Glitter Man was one Rami Slanecki, a crazy man whom she was sure watched the news. If he had, and she was pretty certain he had, seen the story across national networks of the similarities between the murder of the Sheriff in Wentzville and the Sheriff’s brother in St. Louis and the killer’s trademark of leaving traces of glitter over the bodies. He was definitely going to come for her. He knew better than to come after a technician in Beauty’s stable, but she was a cleaner, not a killer like the other members of the team.

  Her only option of surviving Rami, Tempest knew she had to outrun him and get to a safe place for help. The only person she could think of whom Slanecki was afraid to cross also happened to be a technician. Nathaniel Mann lived 14 hours away from where Tempest currently sat on I-70, trying desperately to make it to the interchange of I-64 heading towards Illinois. Using calming techniques, she spoke words of comfort to herself to tamp down the rising panic which often kept her company.

  “Spend the night with Jacob, call Beauty in the morning, and drive on to Blairsville until Beauty can solve the problem,” Tempest said aloud, tossing back a mouthful of black sump water masquerading as coffee. “She’ll know what to do.”

  It was too late to call the boss tonight. In the morning when she would be in a better position, a better frame of mind, and then she’d call. Right now, she needed to get the hell away from Missouri.

  He was watching.

  He was always watching.

  RAMI SLANECKI WATCHED the news. Each night, there were more and more deaths, murders, and bloated bodies in black bags bobbing on the boob tube, blasting bad news across the airwaves. Speculative talking heads sat behind news desks reading off teleprompters, regurgitating information fed to them over a news wire, written by an egghead miles away who didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about—just like the eggheads currently on screen trying to inform the public of more shit they could barely comprehend. Still, he watched.

  Still, he listened.

  “Sources close to the investigation report that this murder can be linked to three others in several states and is the work of a suspect the FBI calls the Glitter Man,” the pretty red lipped woman said to the automaton seated next to her.

  “The Glitter Man, Jill? That is one catchy name for a serial killer,” the blonde bobble-head man replied.

  “Well, Ted, it appears that the signature calling card of the killer is to leave traces of glitter behind and on his victims,” Jill the commentator replied, “and the same glitter found on the Sheriff was also discovered on his deceased brother in St. Louis.”

  “Jill, do the FBI believe that the Sheriff and his brother were victims of the Glitter Man or if the Sheriff himself is this alleged serial killer?”

  “Ted, we will follow this story closely and keep you and the viewers updated as more information becomes available. Back to you, Rebecca, with our AccuWeather forecast,” the reporter said.

  Rami’s fists were balled into tight battering rams as the roar in his belly climbed up his gullet, coming out of small mouth in a very big scream. Ready to stick his foot into the screen of the television, he paused, seeing movement in the background of the scene and spotting the white van. The bloated body of the Sheriff carried out of the building in a black bag, dead and covered in traces of glitter, made him look closer at the television monitor.

  It wasn’t his glitter.

  This death was not on him.

  “Fucking Beauty Kurtzwilde trying to set me up,” Rami shrieked. “Bitch! I’ll make her pay. She doesn’t think I’m good enough to be one of her precious technicians. I’ll show her just how good I...”

  He stopped and stared at the screen closely. The white van didn’t belong to the City of Wentzville. The driver behind the wheel made the mistake of looking into the camera.

  “Dumb cunt,” he mumbled, recognizing the ebony skinned woman as none other than Tempest Fateman, Ms. Wrong Way herself. An uppity whore employed by another whore masquerading as a lady who needed to be handled, and he would do just that.

  Unlike the other technicians who specialized in a certain skillset, as far as he was concerned, Tempest Fate was just an overpaid maid, showing up to clean up after the real experts.

  “Shit, who will Beauty hire to come clean up your remains, Tempest?” The sly grin slid across his face as he packed his belongings to hit the road.

  Wrong Way was a creature with a very bad habit of repetition. He’d known her long enough to know each watering hole she frequented and all the beds she had warmed from the bottom of Louisiana to the top of Pennsylvania. The whole sexual revolution of women loving who and how many they pleased didn’t set well with him. A whore was a whore, and she wasn’t any different than any of the other cocksuckers who did it for money in a dark alley or when she did it for free under the guise of empowerment.

  “No, I’m not going to kill you, Wrong Way, but when I’m done, you’re gonna wish you wuz dead,” he said, picking up a bag of rose gold glitter he had purchased in bulk from a craft store outside of Tupelo. “This is going to be so much fun, like pulling wings off flies and watching them str
uggle in confusion.”

  He knew where she was heading, and he planned to arrive in Marion a few hours after the lady. The least he could do was let her feel safe in her lover’s arms. While she slept, he’d kill the man and cover his junk in glitter.

  “Oh, that is going to be so fucking awesome, especially when she wakes up and finds the bastard dead and covered in rose gold sparkles,” he chuckled, imaging the lady trying to wash the glitter off a dead man’s pecker.

  Then she would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was on to her. Tempest would understand the true meaning of fear and terror of turning down the wrong way street of vengeance and coming into his lane. Beauty may have been the boss, but she wasn’t the boss of him.

  “I’m going to show them all,” Rami said, packing his shop and checking out of the roadside motel. He, too, was two hours from Marion, Illinois and ending the life of Jacob Tomalson, a bartender with a penchant for dark-skinned women. “Prepare to say goodnight, Jacob. The Glitter Man is coming to town.”

  Chapter Two – Tangled

  Marion, Illinois

  The hour neared one a.m. the closing time for Jacob’s bar and he would be and heading toward the small house he lived in behind the watering hole. Neither the bar or the home was much to look at, but both were loaded with lots of neat features and objects collected during his twenty-five years of service in the United States Army. Jacob retired from military service as a Master Sergeant who’d seen one too many combat missions and now opted instead for a quiet life. He’d never married and outside of proposing to Tempest Fateman, he really didn’t enjoy being around anyone long enough to make it permanent. By the time his need arose to the point of distraction, Tempest always managed to show up.

  Often, he wondered how life could be with a woman like that on a permanent basis, but he didn’t see her having dinner ready when he came home from the bar in the wee hours of the morning. He chuckled at the thought of her folding laundry when everything she owned had dry clean only in the tags. The perfectly polished nails, which he’d never seen chipped in a five-year period, weren’t the hands that would wash a sink full of dirty dishes. Tempest was a classy and out of his league, but she liked him and he loved her.