Diversion 1 - Diversion

…Lucky sucked in a lungful of precious air, risking a venture onto soggy ground that might sink at any moment. “Its night,” he whispered, voice gone husky. “The room is dark except for a few candles. I noticed you shave your chest.” Before Bo had a chance to interrupt, Lucky pushed on. “Im straddling you, wearing only my jeans. I pick up one of the candles. “

On the other side of the car, Bo gasped but didnt interrupt. “I tilt the candle a bit, letting the melted wax drip down the side.” He paused, wanting his captive audience to wait for it, letting the anticipation build. “I dribble wax on your pecs. Its hot, but not too hot. Not enough to burn.” Back in his younger days, Luckyd experimented enough to determine where the line between pain and pleasure blurred. Encouraged by Bos silence, he carried on. “I make patterns around your nipples and belly button. Ummm…I can get to your belly button with the chaps on, cant I?”

“You can now,” Bo hissed. Eyes on the parking lot, Lucky sensed the little rocking motions the man in the next seat made.
“I peel the wax off one nipple with my thumbnail. It leaves a perfect imprint. I pucker up and blow against the skin.”
He shivered at his own words, though the temperature in the car had spiked. Following his imagination down the rabbit hole, lost himself in the scene vividly etched in his mind. Smooth, unblemished skin, marred by waxy spatters, nipples hard, Bos cock jutting out, exquisitely framed by silver buckles and black leather. It nearly stole Luckys breath…

This book is a work of fiction.
All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the authors imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

Copyright © 2012 by Eden Winters ISBN 978-1-61124-265-2 Cover Art © 2012 Trace Edward Zaber

Heartfelt gratitude to Pam and Meg. You always believe in me, support me unconditionally, and tell me what I need to know, like, “That scene on page sixty isnt working.” Literally, if not for you, Id never have written any books.

Hugs to John A., who inspires me in so many ways, and to Jared, my very talented artist friend. Also to Chris,
Doug, and Feliz, whose proofreading and comments I couldnt live without. You guys rock.

Lucky smiled and nodded at his coworker.
You have no freaking idea
. He left the crew in the break area, knowing hed pretty much have the warehouse to himself for the next fifteen minutes. The steady
click, click, click
of his boot heels echoed inside a cavernous structure stacked floor to ceiling with cardboard cartons containing everything from over-the-counter headache remedies to prescription-only antipsychotics. The good stuff was kept under lock and key in a mesh cage dead center of the room.

“Uh -uhuh….” his supervisor scolded, waving an admonishing finger while scanning a packing list.
“Oops, sorry.” He discarded his half-drunk coffee in the trash can, pretending hed forgotten the rules about no food and drinks in the warehouse.
Gotta keep their opinion of me low. Keep em believing Im another ordinary, working-class wage-slave, punching the time clock.
He grabbed the red and rust handles of a pallet jack, choosing a pallet at random to hoist until the supervisor returned to her office. The wall clock showed her right on time. With kids getting home about now, shed retreat for a lengthy phone call to convey chores and argue about homework. The rest of the work crew, knowing the drill, took advantage of the situation, extending their fifteen minute break to twenty-five. At least.
Whistling some catchy tune hed heard on the car radio on the ride to work, Lucky cast his gaze to the closed office door, abandoned the pallet jack, and made a quick exit out the back door onto the loading dock. A fifty-ish driver stood, one foot propped on a safety railing, smoking a cigarette and staring at his big black Peterbilt. Lucky watched the man scrub his fingers across both eyes. Uh-huh. Someone needed a nap.
“Tired?” Lucky asked, laying his North Carolina farm boy accent on heavily.
See me be harmless?
“Yeah, its been a long day,” the driver replied. This particular driver had made at least four trips to Regency Pharma, Inc. in the past month, enough to have established a false sense of security about those who worked on the loading docks. Lucky liked “too trusting” in a man; it made his job much easier. And with his sandy blond hair, two day growth of beard, flannel shirt, boots, and jeans, no one would consider Lucky Lucklighter a threat. Particularly not when he stood only five foot six. Hardly a giant among men.
Ah, the better to lure you in, my dear. We are all suitable to our calling.

“Where ya headin?” he asked offhandedly, as though making conversation and not actually caring one way or the other.
To his credit, the driver didnt answer immediately, lips twisting while he chewed the inside of his mouth.
The hook trailed in the water, worm wriggling in the current. Now to make the fish bite. Lucky took a deep breath, holding his smile firm. “Aint going down Florida way, are ya?”
“Yep,” the guy agreed, the tension rushing out with his breath, possibly thinking Luckys right answer cleared the way to come clean. “Down around Orlando.”
A perfectly timed wince conveyed false sympathy, and possibly gave the “kindred spirit” vibe Lucky hoped for. “The boys better come back from break soon. Wait much longer and youll hit I95 during rush hour. Id hate to get stuck out there.”
“Dont I know it! Especially after dealing with construction on 85 on the way down.”
To Luckys knowledge, the only road construction on 85 up country was in Richmond, a good two and a half hours north on a good day. With traffic delays, flagmen, and paving crews, more like four and a half. Looking better all the time. He wanted to ask, “Where you down from?” but too many questions might raise the guys suspicions. Especially if he added, “And are your sixteen allowed daily road hours about up?” Men exhausted past wariness spilled more secrets.
Once more the drivers hand swiped across bloodshot eyes. No way would the load arrive in Orlando before the driver needed a break. Perfect.
“I got a sister lives in Jacksonville.” Lucky played the line out slowly. “I reckon I might ought to get down there and check in on her some time.”
The driver gave a nervous chuckle, sensing a question, but the wrong one. “Sorry, man, I go right by there, but Id lose my job for taking a passenger along. The company dont allow such.” A pair of appraising brown eyes ran up and down Luckys body, interest and regret mingling in their muddy depths. “Cryin shame though, gets kinda lonely on the road sometimes.” A quick wink said yes, even if his words and shiny gold wedding ring said no.
“S okay. Maybe another time when youre passing through?” Lucky gave the man a sidewise, coy grin, flashing his baby blues.
“Nicelooking fella like you? I reckon Ill have to figure out a way to stay a spell when I come for the next load.”
Oh, you flatterer, you.
A stirring in the warehouse gave Lucky the perfect out of the “never gonna happen” hookup. “Well, I best get going, ifyoure gonna get going,” he said, returning inside to help load the truck.
An hour later Lucky latched the trailer seal, handed the bill of lading to the team leader, and dogged the heels of his fellow employees to the time clock. As hed made sure to project himself as a loner by nature, no one expected him to accept invites to the local club, by now used to his excuses of, “I gotta get home. Got things I gotta do.”
A few wished him a good weekend, offering variations of, “See you Monday.”
“No, you wont,” he replied, but only after hed gotten out of hearing range.
A chickenshit yellow Oldsmobile, older than most of Luckys coworkers, sat waiting for him out in the parking lot, one nondescript vehicle of many nondescript vehicles. Lucky always maintained the notion that you could tell how prosperous a company was by what kind of cars the workers drove. The front office parking lot, reserved for upper management, secured brandnew, shiny late models; while the back parking lot, where the employees parked? Another story entirely.
No wonder they dont give a shit about you losing money.
He headed north, into a less-prosperous part of Raleigh, parking on the curb in front of what had once been a stately home, now divided into apartments. Lucky brushed fallen leaves aside with his feet to wrangle the door open.
The strains of his landladys blaring TV echoed though the foyer, following him up the stairs. He wasnt fooled. She knew his comings and goings, and hed figured her nosiness into his plans.
He entered his apartment, locking the door and crossing the floor to fire up his computer. While it booted he grabbed what hed need, stacking odds and ends by the door. Checking emails, he found an “all systems go” confirmation from his boss, an offer from a credit card company, two spam ads for Viagra—like he needed any help—and an email from his sister, who lived in Spokane, not Jacksonville. Time to worry about her later. Fingers tap-dancing across the keyboard, he programmed in his timers and soundtracks.
Next, he brewed a pot of strong, black coffee, dumping the liquid into two thermos bottles and dividing the contents of his sugar bowl between them without measuring.
Caffeine, dont leave home without it.
The bottles went into a backpack, along with his tool kit. Everything else he bothered to take he shoved into a duffle bag. Someone would be along in a few days to collect anything he left behind.
After slinging the backpack across his shoulder and picking up his duffle, he slipped out his door to the recorded sound of himself singing in the shower. Instead of heading downstairs, where his landlady might spot him, he climbed up apartment, picking the lock in less than relocked the door and made his way down the fire escape in forty.
The last of the suns rays slipped from the earth, day giving way to dusk. He trudged down the street, sloshing from the thermoses keeping time with his footsteps. Hed donned a knit cap, gloves, and a hoodie by the time he arrived at
We Rents Em
, nothing unusual for late October in North Carolina. Five minutes before closing, the frustrated clerk didnt even bother to glance up when Lucky signed on the dotted line and accepted the keys to a late model Malibu.
Most of rush hour traffic had cleared; too bad the truck driver probably got caught smack-dab in the middle of the traffic jam from hell. Lucky smirked. Too bad for the driver, rather.
He put down the pedal, making up time once he hit I95. Hed checked up on the trucking companys rules: no stopping within fifty miles of the pickup point. As tired as the driver had appeared, hed pull over not long afterward, if he even made the full fifty miles. Best to cast the net close to home. Lucky wished hed had a tracker to slip on the trailer and make matters easier, but the boss insisted he accomplish his goal using wits and skill to make a point.
About twenty miles shy of Fayetteville Lucky hit pay dirt at a truck stop—the black rig, driver nowhere in sight. He parked the car between two semis at the far end of the lot, hauled his bags over one shoulder, and paused long enough to remove his handydandy, whats-yours-will-soon-be-mine kit out of the backpack. He tossed the keys on the drivers seat, locking them in the Malibu.
Strolling across the asphalt, he nodded to the occasional driver, thankful the Peterbilt hed targeted wasnt a sleeper cab. A short to the empty attic twenty seconds. He circuit around the general area showed no sign of the driver. Lucky traipsed to the door, giving a sharp rap in case the man slept, slumped over the wheel. No answer. Good.
Next, he found another likely target, hauling electronics, judging by the TVs and computer monitors painted on the trailer. Again his knock went unanswered. About to grab his tools, a whim had him trying the door handle. Silly driverd left it unlocked. The load didnt come close to the prize the black Peterbilt hauled, based on the manifest and bill of lading, or Luckys inner felon might have found the temptation too hard to resist. Instead he swiped the paperwork and trailer tag for insurance in case things got sticky down the road.
He returned to his prize, trading out tags with the one hed…
appropriated
(“steal” being such a harsh word), frowning when it took him forty seconds to get the drivers door open.
Im losing my touch.
He decided to blame his dismal time on chilled fingers, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt tighter around his face. His breath formed whorls of fog in the rapidly chilling evening.
Once inside the cab, a dent puller made short work of the ignition cylinder. He jammed in a three dollar screwdriver and cranked the big rig. It shuddered to life, the growl of the cylinders firing sweet music to Luckys ears. Five minutes after arriving in the Malibu, he drove away from the lot in a fully loaded rig. The most profitable heist of his career, pulled off slicker than goose grease.
Five measly minutes to jack cargo worth one hundred times the average take of a bank heist—and unlike a bank heist, no one would call the FBI. The burden for investigation fell on whatever passed for law in the county where hed jacked the truck. Lucky needed to worry only about the late-night local patrol, and this close to shift change, well…
He stayed on 95 for twenty miles, cut cross-country down a two-lane road, and eventually pulled off the pavement for another seven miles on a dusty logging road. At last his high beams reflected off the metal flake blue of a Kenworth cab partially concealed at the edge of the wood.
Changing out the rigs wouldve gone a whole lot smoother with a partner, but Luckyd learned a long time ago: partners presented more problems than they solved. Problems he didnt need. Hed added the extra time needed into his figures and found himself ahead of schedule.
Two magnetic signs distinguishing markings seconds normally spent on disabling a trailers GPS when he discovered the load didnt have one. Idiots! What were they thinking? He rubbed handfuls of dirt lightly over his paint job, rendering an instant aging effect.
Before the dust had settled on the dirt road, he kicked up more, heading back out to I95 South, towing 3.5 million dollars worth of stolen pharmaceuticals behind him.
and a little spray on the trailer, and paint covered the he saved several