Evans Creek Book 1: Mister Mayor

FORTY

PHOTO CREDITS:Background-altered ebay.com, lettering my own work

NOTES: One of the first things you learn about writing, going all the way back to elementary school English, is the six questions: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. It was fun to let the characters p lay around with these as they tried to figure out what happened. I hope you enjoy trying to figure it out as well.

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Graham leaned back against his pillows and stared at the ceiling. Ray needed somewhere to stay since she couldn't handle her stairs with her ankle and crutches. Tomorrow he'd ask his mom to come stay and he'd talk Ray into staying at his place, at least until she was off the crutches.

He rolled his head a bit to watch them sleep. He might have lost them today. Lord he didn't want to think about that. Except he couldn't help it.

Who the hell was the fat man and why was he on that hill? Why did the fat man want try kill my family? And where the hell did Daevey disappear to? The timing was one hell of a coincidence. Graham thought himself a good judge of character, but maybe he wasn't. He'd never had any inkling that Daevey might be capable of something so ...

As he turned his attention back to the ceiling, Graham sighed. This was like something out of a John Grisham novel. Intrigue, Sabotage,...murder? Graham curled his fingers in to fists as the anger flushed through his veins. Except this wasn't some fictional plot set in D.C. or some other big city. This was his life, his family! Evans Creek was no thriving metropolis!

Evans Creek was just a little town in the middle of nowhere. There was no missile silo, no nuclear power plant, no military base or anything else that would draw any attention from anyone seeking any kind of power. What possible motive could anyone have for wanting to kill the mayor and his family? There wasn't anything that he, as the mayor, had a say in that would affect anything outside of Evans Creek.

Sometimes he was called on to vote in something that affected the county, or as in the case of the hospital, several counties. It wasn't like anything the mayor of Evans Creek did or said would cause any effects on the national scale...Oh God! What if this wasn't about Graham, the mayor's seat, or this blasted election!

What if it was about Ray! She spent over a decade in DC. In her own words, her primary job function was to put out fires, to put a spin on things that made her clients look better in the public eye. Certainly if her clients looked better, someone else had to look bad! What if she'd pissed off the wrong person? What if this was some sort of vendetta? Someone with a twisted sense of justice?

But why wait so long? Ray had been back in Evans Creek for a little over three years. Graham did not like where his thoughts were taking him. Because common sense said that anyone who would execute such a vendetta would never postpone unless they had other things to do first. Get out prison maybe? Raise funds? Or maybe they simply had other people to eliminate first?

As much as he disliked the man, or rather as much as he disliked the history the man had with Ray, there was definitely enough reason to discuss this with Jim. It might be nothing, just the crazed imaginings of a man on pain medications...but if it wasn't? If Ray was targeted by some sick...ENOUGH!

He sighed and flexed his fingers, trying a few deep breaths to calm himself. He'd inadvertently tensed in his anger and the pain in his leg was adequate reminder that anger rarely accomplished anything of value. But his thoughts could not long be turned away from the day's events.

First opportunity he had, he would seek a private audience with Jim. Even if he had to beg Jim to take him for a "walk" and push him around this hospital in a wheelchair where the press would no doubt get all sorts of lovely pictures of his incapacitated-self. It wasn't an image he wanted in the public eye the day of the election, but he would do anything to keep Ray and Jesse safe. Even if it meant he lost the election.