Wounded Animals (Whistleblower Series Book 1) by Jim Heskett Page A

I was sitting down. The world had just become drunk, and I’d turned on the channel at exactly the right time.
    I thought about the woman at the airport with the baby sling, how cute the little guy had been with his giant oval eyes and gummy grin. Had the woman been terrified when she was a new parent or was she confident right out of the gate? Maybe some people were made to be that way.
    For some reason, my father popped into my head. His bright blue eyes, his shiny bald head, which I had been so scared of inheriting when I was a teenager. I never did, but I used to agonize over my widow’s peak in the mirror, always worried it had receded since the last investigation.
    My father had been a stern man, when he was home, at least. I related to him by the quality of the gifts he brought me after his trips. When I got a little older, I realized they were all airport gifts. Snow globes and coffee mugs from various cities. I despised him for being a business trip afterthought.
    The pathway to the bathroom was fraught with peril. Tables, chairs, people, and barstools stood in my way. The chairs were the trickiest, as those clever bastards seemed to move a little each time I put another foot on the floor.
    I giggled again. Had walking ever been this hard? Each time my head moved forward, the world tilted in a different direction.
    My face made contact with something hard and cold, and a voice grumbled as my nose smushed. When I opened my eyes, I found myself looking at a furious man holding an empty mug of beer. The beer, it seemed, was all over his shirt.
    He bared teeth at me. “Damn it. Watch where the fuck you’re going.”
    “I would love to,” I said, “but those sneaky chairs keep making it difficult for me. You have no idea how challenging it was to arrive at this juncture. I consider myself a capable man, for the most part.”
    The bar patron looked over his shoulder at the bartender, who shook his head as he wiped his hands with a rag.
    “You’re cut off, chief,” the bartender said.
    So these two were acquainted. Good to know. “It is within your right to deny me beverages, good sir. I do not wish to sully the good name of this establishment.” I have no idea why I started talking like a Dickens character, but it felt right at the moment. I was almost free of my tension and couldn’t care less that I was a few inches away from getting punched in the face by a grubby bar regular.
    “You owe me a beer, asshole,” the bar patron said. “Not some shitty domestic, either. Something good. You know, for my pain and suffering.”
    “Then you shall surely have it.” I patted the angry man on the shoulder and stumbled into the bathroom. I did my business in there, even managing to get most of my pee into the urinal. Pretty good for three beers and three rum and Cokes. Like I said before, I don’t drink much.
    On the way back out, I spied the angry man sitting at the end of the bar. He had a fresh mug, which I assumed was going on my tab. I angled my head away from him, thinking I could veer right and keep my distance. But my feet kept pointing in that direction. I had almost zero control over where I was going. With each step, I tumbled closer and closer to him, because he was a terrorist compound and I was a satellite-guided missile. Why on earth had I thought of that analogy?
    He caught me at the last second and raised his mug above his head, so I merely bumped into him without causing too much beer damage. Still, he didn’t seem pleased.
    He stood up and threw an elbow into my chest, which sent me straight to the ground. The tape covering the bandage on my back tore and I felt a reminder of the pain.
    “You don’t know when to fucking quit, do you?”
    “You must believe me when I tell you that the room schematics must have changed since I went into the bathroom. What was once there has now moved here, and vice versa. It’s the only logical conclusion.”
    He clenched his fists and stood over me. He