The Clerk

In this non-stop action crime thriller, Jason William Roskill is a lowly clerk. Good at what he does, but a nobody. He needs it to be that way—until it is too late for those being investigated to run. His job is simple; he gets inserted into government departments when suspicions about inappropriate transactions are raised. The department he is currently investigating has problems. A respected Senator Framus appears to have absconded with a lot of money. Defense Department money. But Jason knows from past experience, that things are never what they seem. But as he unearths the facts, someone, somewhere, wants to stop him.

At the urging of his boss, he takes a night off. He meets Jade in the local pub, goes back to her place, and has an unbelievably good time, so good that he is confused and hurt when she abruptly kicks him out the next morning.

He runs downstairs, puts his clothes on, then hears a bloodcurdling scream. Jade! He runs back upstairs and sees she has been brutally murdered. Her throat is cut so deep her head is nearly severed. He hears the front door slam, looks out the window, and sees a guy running away. Somehow, he has to catch him! He has no other choice. Jade is lying in her bed with his DNA all over her and the bed. In any court, they would find him guilty of her murder!

He rushes downstairs, hears a knock, checks, and through the door eyehole, sees two guys standing, waiting. He knows that look. Plainclothes cops! How did they get there so fast? The crime had just been committed? He hides behind the couch, and his suspicions are further aroused when he hears the one cop say, “Let’s get the prick.” They enter, walk past him, hiding, and then he runs. No plan other than to catch the criminal that murdered Jade.

His plan is simple. His father trained him as a boxer, and he knows where to punch to cause real pain. He intends to beat the truth out of the killer, but that plan is soon dead in the water. Following the killer to his scruffy apartment, he sees a lady enter the killer’s rooms. He sneaks up to the door, hears a shot, then hides. The lady leaves and he waits, then enters. The guy that killed Jade is dead. Shot, a bullet between the eyes. It’s an execution. The lady is a killer. Jason has no choice—he now has to catch the lady. He follows, and she disappears into an old building and Jason follows, then the lady suddenly fronts him, a pistol pointed unerringly at him. He notices she is a professional, just from the way she is standing holding the pistol.

She wants to know why he is following and he tells her. She informs him that Jade was a hooker. He is stunned. Jade was so down-to-earth, so friendly and loving, hooker just didn’t seem to apply. She asks what he does, and he fudges it. He only tells her the department he is currently working in and does not reveal his true role. He asks her name. Joanne-Marie Framus. He is stunned and asks if she is related to Senator Hank Framus. She’s his daughter. She makes it clear that she hates her father, then agrees to help. Joanne-Marie Framus is no shrinking violet; determined and blunt is what comes to Jason’s mind, but she is also quite strikingly beautiful—but he notices that she doesn’t use it, preferring the direct approach.

Jason knows he only has one current option. Hide! The cops will be after him. Joanne takes him to her apartment, and using her computer, he begins what he is uniquely skilled at doing; using his security clearances to work his way up the electronic data ladder, just to find the real criminals. He also uncovers that Joanne-Marie Framus is a CIA agent, and he keeps that to himself, but it raises even more suspicions. They leave her apartment, Jason now starting the hunt for those who had hired Jade’s killer, the bottom rung of the ladder. As he climbs the rungs, nothing is what it seems, and sometimes, the truth is brutal.

One thing for sure, they will all soon regret tangling with the nobody,

The Clerk. . .

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