Excerpt of A Mighty Good Man by Rebecca E. Neely

CHAPTER 1

Zip. Zilch. Null. Nada. Void. The empty set.

No text. No email. No electronic communiqué of any kind.

Scowling, ‘Hank’ Jerry—a woman who wore the self-made
moniker the way some might armor—jammed her smartphone
into the front pocket of her cargo pants and sucked a
drag off her first cancer stick of the day, exhaling into
the predawn behind her Aunt Henry’s restaurant. The
fluorescents overhead cast a harsh glow over this
particular piece of real estate in Fiddler’s Elbow,
Pennsylvania—a throwback hunky mill town where dial-up
was considered high tech and people still lived life one
pierogie at a time.

From the shadows behind the dumpster, a man emerged and
limped toward her, clutching his side, his chest heaving,
clouds of his breath hanging in the April air.

“Hide me!” he gasped.

“What the hell?” Heart pounding, Hank retreated a few
steps and threw her cigarette to the ground. Blood,
bruises, panic—all of it oozed from this man who’d
materialized like smoke. Tires squealed on pavement in
the alley running the length of the restaurant and hodge-
podge of neighboring buildings.

“Will you?” he ground out.

A dozen fleeting impressions swamped her brain. Muscular.
Dirty. Unshaven. Murderer? Crazy? Eyes, wild and green,
probing and pleading in the artificial light. In the
alley, car doors slammed. Feet pounded gravel and shouts
cut through the dark. Two people? More?

“Please.”

They locked eyes. No, said her gut. Not crazy. But maybe
she was.

“Damn it!” she sputtered. Seconds, only seconds remained
before the pounding, the shouts and God knew what else
careened around the corner.

She flung the screen door open and hauled him inside the
kitchen. He plowed through despite his limp and, holding
his own, plunged headlong into the galley kitchen, hopped
up on the adrenaline of the desperate. And maybe the
damned.

“Here!” Locking the door behind her, mind racing, she
steered him toward the far end of the kitchen, past her
attempt at soup du jour. She yanked open the walk-in
cooler, dragged him inside, and plunked him down on top
of a cardboard produce box. “Have a seat.” The cold would
slow whatever bleeding there was, some part of her
reasoned.

Breathless, she gave him a quick once over. Bloody nose,
bruises, but no bones sticking out anywhere that she
could see. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he grunted, his eyes stormy seas of green. He
grimaced and rubbed his ankle. “Thank you.”

“Stay here. Don’t move.”

Those unnerving eyes flickered, but he gave a brief nod.
Hank darted out and shut the door before he could say
anything else.

Heaving a sigh, she pushed her mass of curls off her neck
and leaned against the walk-in, collecting herself. The
coffee, toast, and eggs she’d fixed herself a short while
ago sat half-eaten on the stainless steel prep counter.
She’d since lost her appetite.

He couldn’t kill her or rape her, not in this weakened
state, she reasoned. Did he need a doctor? The police?

Well, he’d wanted hidden, and now he was hidden. Her Aunt
Henry would’ve done the same, she knew. Certainly the
roundup of misfits who’d odd-jobbed their way through
here over the years bore testament to that. If he needed
a doctor, she’d see to it. But the police, and whoever
was after him? That was his concern, not hers. Hank
wanted no part of it.

He could just park it in the cooler for a few minutes,
stay out of sight while the help clocked in, and be on
his merry way. She’d make sure of it.