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The Highwayman
The Highwayman
The Highwayman
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The Highwayman

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Damian Truth is an FBI agent who, with the help of his deceased brother Andrew, is able to sketch crime scenes prior to the crimes occurring.

The Highwayman is a serial killer who travels the roads of western Pennsylvania in search of his next victim. The Highwayman is whoever he wants to be -- he's anyone and anywhere, frequently creating and discarding identities. Fueled by murder, revenge, and heartlessness, he’s unstoppable.

Will Damian, with his partner and lover Ridge Tyson at his side, be able to catch the monstrous killer before any more innocent male victims are slain?
LanguageEnglish
PublisherJMS Books LLC
Release dateApr 13, 2014
ISBN9781611525311
The Highwayman
Author

R.W. Clinger

R.W. Clinger is a resident of Pittsburgh. He has a degree in English from Point Park University of Pittsburgh. His writing entails gay human studies, and includes the novels Just a Boy, Skin Tour, Skin Artist, Soft on the Eyes, Pool Boy, and The Last Pile of Leaves. He has published many stories with Starbooks Press as well as The Weekender, a novella with Dreamspinner Press. His gay mystery, Cutie Pie Must Die, is published with Bold Stroke Books. For three years he has held the position of managing editor for the literary magazine, The Writer’s Post Journal. For more information, please visit rwclinger.com.

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    The Highwayman - R.W. Clinger

    Skin

    Part 1: The Hunt Continues

    Chapter 1: Notebook

    June 6.

    7:43 P.M.

    Corsica, Pennsylvania

    Interstate 80

    I was not a man to fall in love, and knew this at a very young age. No one could have my heart because I failed to love anyone who became emotionally involved with me. Most people construed me a mystery regarding my feelings, and that’s exactly how I wished that they looked at me. I was quiet, an observer of the world, and most intrigued by those around me.

    I went by different names and identities, which always made things interesting in my life. In the last ten years I traveled all around the United States,, drifting from state to state and county to county, working the highways like an unfinished puzzle, in search of a final destination, but knowing in my heart that one didn’t exist.

    I kept a leather notebook of my past names and long-winded details that I had used. Scribbles had created various personas and personalities. Notes crafted a variety of characters that I could use, or new identities could be created on the spur of the moment, whatever the case entailed. Such pages detailed that I was Oscar Reynolds, an actor from NYC, or Paul Starlight, an adult porn star from West Hollywood. I was Keith Summer, an English professor or Kit Marsden, a writer. I was Bass Danile, a rising country singer from Nashville, or Billy Stay, a baseball player from Boston. Twenty or more identities were inside the notebook, and no one really knew my name, where I was born, who my family was, or what my education entailed.

    Each person that I rode with knew that I was twenty-eight-years-old with sandy blond hair, bottom-of-the-ocean blue eyes, and weighed approximately two hundred pounds. I stood at six-one, wore a size twelve shoe, and had a waist that was thirty-two inches. Such details were hard for me to change. Occasionally I wore glasses, but hated contacts. I sometimes wore a crew cut, buzzed all of my hair off, or grew it long. I really didn’t like tattoos and piercings and stayed away from them. And rarely did I change the way I dressed: jeans, a cowboy hat, and boots. Sometimes I would shave, but no matter what, there was always sandy blond stubble that decorated my chin and cheeks. Another thing that didn’t change was my chest, which was smooth and rippled with natural muscle, and not at all dainty or feminine.

    I walked wherever I went with a leather pack on my back, and I enjoyed being a woebegone man without a home, family, or any attachments in the world. Some people that picked me up wondered where my money came from, but that was none of their business. In truth, I came from wealth. My grandfather started a chain of fast food restaurants. I had enough cash to last me three lifetimes, or more. Not that I carried it around with me. Instead, I had access to it by a credit card, which was paid through an accounting firm in Philadelphia. So my funds were taken care of and I could go about the land being venomous and out of control, just as I wanted to be.

    The pack on my back had the essentials I needed to travel: a cell phone for emergencies, a bottle of water, a roll of toilet paper, and a box of granola bars in case I was hungry and ended up in the middle of nowhere.

    I was the Highwayman, on my own, and quite simple. And I knew someone would pick me up and welcome me inside their personal lives, because they always had.

    Chapter 2: Nissan Frontier

    7:51 P.M.

    The highway was dusty and unpredictable, just the way I liked it. The temperature in the evening was slightly below eighty, hot for June, but I didn't mind. A rainstorm was approaching; the meteorologists had nailed the forecast. I walked slowly along the Interstate in hopes that a cop wouldn’t see me, since it was illegal to hitch a ride from a passing vehicle. My nature entailed risk taking, though. The truth was I enjoyed living on the edge. Half of me wanted the law to get in the way just so I could find a way of getting myself out of the shit. It was a gamble, of course, to be on the Interstate. But what the hell, I was a gambling man who sometimes looked for trouble, and discovered it at freewill.

    No matter how much I lived on the edge of life, the Interstate was no place to be regarding my history. If a cop picked me up I could land in a lot of trouble, but only if I were fingerprinted. My history wasn’t clean and I had accomplished some very nasty shit in my past. Then again, I was ready to give a cop a good time, rough him up, and make him have a bad day. Isn’t that what cops were around for?

    I planned to be on Interstate 80 for no more than twenty-five miles and closer to Ohio. To my advantage a Nissan Frontier pulled over on the side of the Interstate approximately sixty feet in front of me. The truck was dark blue and looked and had a fresh wax. Behind its wheel was a young man around nineteen-years-old with flaming red hair and freckles. He looked tall and thin with some muscle on his frame. His personalized license plate read COWBOY 1. The truck had white-rimmed tires and didn’t look dented or scratched.

    Like a good traveling man I walked up to the passenger window, leaned over, shared a handsome smile, and said, How you doing, guy?

    I’m doing mighty fine today. You need a ride? he asked. How many times in the last year had I heard that question? Too many to count if the truth be shared. Where you headin’?

    Ohio. Need to visit some relatives. It was a lie, of course, but a handy one that I had used almost all the time. Can I ride with you?

    I’m headin’ that way for ten miles. Door’s open if you want to get in.

    Ten miles were better than no miles. Sounds fine. I appreciate it. I removed the sack from my back and held it in my left hand by a strap. The door opened with ease and I hunched inside, placing the sack between my legs.

    Before I knew it we were heading west toward Ohio and I was hungry and tired. Nothing would have tasted better than a cold beer. The kid was clearly too young and we couldn’t stop off at a bar. Yeah, he could’ve dropped me off at a Sal’s Pub or The Beer Place, but what fun was it hanging by myself?

    Chapter 3: MJ Fields

    7:59 P.M.

    Fields of freshly growing corn rolled by on either side as the kid drove just slightly above the speed limit. The sun was beautiful on the horizon and looked sleepy, elegant, and demure.

    I couldn’t recall the last time I sat down. Maybe it was somewhere near Pittsburgh. My legs hurt and their muscles were tight. I wanted to slip off my boots and get a good foot rub out of the kid, but maybe he wasn’t into that fetish. Cars and two eighteen-wheelers zoomed past the Frontier. The kid asked, What’s your name?

    Copper Sloane.

    I’m MJ. No last name was given, not that I needed one. You hitchhike a lot?

    Whenever I can.

    What do you do for a living? he asked, looking at me across the seat, smiling for some strange reason.

    Carpentry. Like Jesus.

    You a Christian, Copper?

    Not lately, but maybe I should be.

    How old are you?

    Old enough to know you’re attracted to me.

    And how old is that?

    Twenty-eight. How old are you?

    Old enough to blow you, but only if you want me to.

    I chuckled, playing with him. Who knew he would be attracted to my good looks, into me? The kid was horny, I assumed, and I just happened to have the body for his needs.

    I waited a good mile or two before confessing to him that I wanted to shove my dick down the back of his throat. He was a man, even if his age proved otherwise. And I knew what to do with a man, right? Hadn’t I slept with all of my pick-ups, or at lease most of them? Didn’t they all want a part of me—sexually, mentally, or emotionally?

    Tell me about yourself, MJ.

    I listened to him ramble about himself: born and raised in Corsica; worked on tractors for a living; graduated from high school the year before; didn’t plan on attending Clarion College, which was sixteen miles away; wasn’t very good with math; loved his mother more than his abusive father.

    You were abused? I asked, intrigued with his confession. Tell me about that.

    My father beat me and my mother. I think he used to drug her, but I’m not really sure. She’s dead and he’s in jail for first degree murder. He’ll never get out of prison. He’ll die there.

    You told me you don’t have any siblings. Does this mean that you live alone?

    He nodded. My parents’ house is a few miles from here.

    Mind if I see the place? Why not be pushy? I found through much experience that if you didn’t ask for certain things, you weren’t going to get them. Why bother sitting there in his passenger-seat just waiting to get dumped off in Clarion County, worrying where I would spend the night. But honestly, I really wasn’t the worrying kind, and maybe some of the men I fucked around with knew that about me, but MJ wasn’t one of them.

    Thought you were going to Ohio, he said.

    I am. But I need a place to stay the night and was hoping you would give me that blowjob. You look kind of hungry for some cock. What do you say?

    He didn’t even have to think about it, turned off Interstate 80 at the Clarion exit, and welcomed me a little more into his private world.

    Chapter 4: Back Woods

    8:03 P.M.

    He steered the Frontier over a dirt road, flicked the vehicle’s front lights on, and said, It’s back woods all the way from here.

    He was right, I surmised. The woods were thick with lush vines, ferns, and clumps of oaks and

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