The Highwayman Book 2: Strange Love

Chapter 2: Damian Truth and Ridge Tyson, Revealed-1

Chapter 2: Damian Truth and Ridge Tyson, Revealed

Carver, Pennsylvania

Prodigy or not? No one could tell if Damian Truth held such a title. Some considered him a witchdoctor of sorts since he resolved violent crimes by sketching random drawings for the Pittsburgh-based branch of the FBI. Others thought him peculiar and insane, needing to be behind bars in a mental institution, locked there forever.

Truth told, thirty-three-year-old Damian (a muscular pretty boy with a mix of sexy bear, clean-shaven, light brown hair and eyes, just under six feet with Hollywood looks) could have been considered a prodigy, telling the future before it happened with his sketches. Ever since he was eight, he had what his father, Ray Truth, called “the gift.” Sketches came easy for him, which were usually crafted in pencil. Occasionally, he used pens or markers, but manipulating pencils with his right hand seemed to create his best work.

He first started sketching at eight, using “the gift” to his advantage. The gift appeared out of the blue, baffling Damian and his family.

His brother Andrew, who was now deceased because of an accident at seventeen, was roller-skating on the sidewalk at the front of his parents’ Tudor. Damian was five miles away at his pediatrician’s with his father and suffering from a summertime cold. While waiting to see Dr. Almond, he found a black crayon and white paper. He sat quietly with his legs crossed and worked in a diligent action. His right hand moved over the white piece of construction paper, swirled in many directions, and he colored in numerous designed shapes.

His father Ray asked, “What are you drawing, kiddo?” while thumbing through a Sports Illustrated magazine with a swimsuit model splashed over its front cover.

If Ray had looked down at his son’s drawing, he would have seen a small boy laying on a sidewalk with his left leg bent in an awkward position. Had Ray paid the slightest attention to his son’s piece of “art,” he would have recognized the Tudor on Market Street, the house number, and his wife’s Honda parked too close to the fire hydrant. If he was at all interested in what Damian had created that day, he would have noticed the small boy crying in his son’s sketch and a bloody pool near Andrew’s left kneecap.

From that day forward, Ray Truth studied every sketch his son produced, all because Damian had drawn the occurrence five miles away from the doctor’s office. Andrew fell while roller-skating, sliced his kneecap open, and broke his left leg. And Damian knew that his father thought of him as a mystery, even today, a strange phenomenon of sorts without explanation. Neither son nor father would truly understand Damian’s gift, but both believed in it and never doubted Damian’s uncanny ability.

* * * *

Damian had solved eight serial killer cases with the FBI. The Faceless Beauties and the Highwayman cases were the most violent. Both had caused him to lose sleep until they were solved. Weak-in-the-knees men didn’t make money. Nor did untalented f***s who were lazy. Frankly, Damian didn’t have any of those characteristics and worked hard for a living, earning his keep from the FBI, and always considered one of the agency’s best.

Although Damian didn’t like his immediate supervisor, Frank Petri, the two had a working relationship that seemed to function somewhat well. Although bossy and arrogant, Petri didn’t mind having Damian on his team at the FBI, proud of his work. The two were always butting heads over unsolved cases, and Damian ended up on Petri’s s**t list more than once a month.

His sidekick and lover for the last eight years was Agent Ridge Tyson. Ridge believed in Damian’s special sketching talent and relied on “the gift” to help solve their cases. Not only did Damian think Ridge supportive, but he thought his lover romantic, strong-willed, and sexy as hell with his six-foot frame, brown hair, and beefy chest. At thirty-three, Ridge had proven on many occasions how much he had cherished Damian in his life, both during dangerous and sane times.

It had been almost a year to the day since the Highwayman case; a wealthy serial killer traveling the marked and unmarked highways of America, murdering young men. Ridge had worked the case with him, catching Kyle Hems in a small, northeastern Pennsylvania town called Tartan. God only knew how many young men the Highwayman had murdered, but at least Damian and Ridge had stopped his cross-country rampage.