by Dale Mayer
“Well, I’m still working on the boss.”
“Why is that?”
“Wife number two, she skated on blackmail charges.”
“What?” Eton sighed, leaned back, and looked at Garret; then he reached for his laptop. “What’s her name?” With that, he quickly entered the name Garret provided. Marielle had been wife number two for a whole fourteen months. “Who was she blackmailing?”
“The boss who became her hubby.”
“He turned her in?”
“Yes, and charges were filed, but he dropped all the charges because he didn’t want to go to trial. He bought her off instead.”
“He bought her off? How is that fair?”
“The reason for the divorce was because he was flirting around.”
“Wow,” Eton said, chuckling. “So, chances are it’s not related to this?”
“I highly doubt it, but I’ll pursue it a little further,” Garret replied. Frowning, he pushed his chair back, shook his head, and said, “Outside of that, I’ve got nothing.”
“So, we’ve got a boss mortgaged to the hilt with ex-wife troubles, and we’ve got a twenty-three-year-old kid trying to live beyond his means. Other than that, nothing’s popping,” Eton said, scratching his head.
“But that’s just a start,” Garret said.
Eton nodded. “Did you shop for food?”
“Yeah, the fridge is full,” he replied. “I took steaks out for dinner.”
At that, Eton’s stomach sang out, and he said, “Hallelujah! I think I can smell those grilled steaks already.” He walked into the kitchen, took one look at the steaks marinating, and sniffed the air. “They look good. What did you use, a garlic marinade?”
“Yep,” he said, “salt and a garlic spray. Not too fancy.” Garret looked at him. “I guess you didn’t eat much the last couple days, did you?”
“No. Not much at all. Just as needed.”
“We’ll fix that here,” he said. “I figured, after we eat, we should do a night trip over the hill.”
“Works for me,” Eton said.
Garret grabbed potatoes and asked, “How soon do you want to eat?”
“An hour’s good, but thirty minutes is better.” Eton looked at the potatoes, frowned, and said, “Those are gonna take a bit, if you’re thinking baked.”
“I’ll grate them,” Garret said. He quickly grabbed two big ones and found a grater in the cupboard. “By the time you’ve got these steaks done, we’ll have potatoes too.”
“Are you planning on veggies or just starch and protein?” Eton joked, as he walked toward him. “How about a salad?”
“We can do that.”
Eton pulled out salad fixings, then went outside and lit the barbecue pit. When he came back, Garret already had the grated potatoes in a hot pan. “You just put them right in the pan?”
“If I had time, I’d put them in a bowl and let the starch collect, then rinse them off,” Garret said, “but we don’t have time.” He put the two big potatoes, now grated, in thin layers in two hot pans with a drizzle of olive oil, then seasoned them and just let them cook. While they were browning, Eton took the steaks outside and tossed them on the barbecue pit, while Garret laid out the salad.
As they sat down to a hot dinner little more than a scant eight minutes later, Eton took his first bite of steak and smiled. “Now my stomach won’t kill me,” he said. Laughing together, they each enjoyed their dinner, as they discussed their plans. “On a hill like this, when the sun goes down, you’re pretty well hitting dusk. We’re at seven-thirty right now,” Eton said.
Garret nodded. “So I figure we should hit the road by eight. We’ll probably have a ten-minute hike to the top of the hill. We’ve got some equipment that I want to set out to see if we can get any better tracking on that cell phone.”
“We need that phone turned on in order to track it.”
“Yeah, but most people just leave them on these days.”
“True, unless they are one-way burners,” Eton said. Dishes washed, they quickly gathered up the gear they needed, and, with a quick look around, Eton asked, “Have you got something in place in the event we get an unwanted visitor?”
“All set up,” Garret said cheerfully.
Eton glanced at him. “Jeez, you aren’t taking any chances on me getting pissed off and sending you home, huh?”
“Not a chance of that happening.” Garret shot him a hard look. “You’re here. I’m here,” he said. “They’ve taken one shot at me. I know what these guys can do.”
“And I can look after myself.” Eton brushed off his concerns. He knew what Garret would do with that too.
“Don’t be an ass,” he said. “The fact that you can handle it alone doesn’t matter. I’ll be here anyway.”
“Got it,” he said, and the two of them headed up the mountain.
Chapter 3
After her dad had settled in front of the TV, Sammy looked at him and said, “Dad, I’m going for a run.”
He looked up, smiled faintly, and said, “That’s a good idea, dear.”
She hesitated, since she really didn’t like leaving him. But she’d become a bit of a cross-country runner as a way to relieve the stress in her life that had grown with the progression of his debilitating condition. She quickly changed into running pants, a tank top, and her running shoes. It was later than normal, but she still loved to run in the dark. She knew the paths up and around the hills like the back of her hand. She picked up her water bottle, tightened her fitness watch, and headed out the kitchen door.
The only problem with her route was that it was uphill to begin with, so she didn’t get much chance to warm up and to stretch. Typically she would do it before she left, but, with the stress from the flat tire and the worry about her father, everything was coiled inside her, and she just had to get out and to let loose.
She raced sideways up the hill, not letting herself stop, even as she gasped for breath, settling into a long easy recovery jog. She wasn’t sure exactly what weather was in the forecast; she hadn’t even checked. But the stars were out, so it was bright enough for a nice long run. She wouldn’t do too much, just enough to hit that point where she could feel all the stress inside crumbling away. That was always a moment of sheer joy.
However, right now, she felt she was running on rubber bands instead of feet, those bands kicking her legs faster and faster. When one of her feet came back, when she felt more grounded, it told her, more and more. By the time she’d done forty-five minutes, zigzagging her way back and forth to the top of the incline, she stopped, her hands on her hips, and took several slow deep breaths. She couldn’t afford to stand here for long, but she could at least rest for a bit. Hearing a voice behind her, she spun and almost fell over in the dark. “Who’s there?” she asked.
In a surprise move, the stranger from the road stepped forward.
She looked at him. “Eton?”
“Hi, Sammy,” he said, with that lopsided grin.
In the dark, he looked a little more intimidating than he had on the road. Instinctively she took a step back.
He immediately put up both hands. “You’re okay,” he said. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said, “because I’ve been running for the last forty-five minutes. I’m not sure I have too much left to fight with.”
“You’ve been running in the dark up in these hills?” Another man appeared at Eton’s side.
She studied him, but it was hard to see his features. But there was something about him, that same strong presence and power that Eton had. These were men who were capable of doing shit. She nodded slowly. “Yes. I often do it at the end of the day, just as a way to release some stress.”
“Right,” he said. “That’s a hell of a way to do it, if you’re running up the hills cross-country.”
“Today was a particularly stressful day,” she said.
“The tire?” Eton’s tone was sharp.
She shrugged
. “It’s just so random. No reason for it,” she said. “It’s looked like somebody stabbed a knife into it.” When she saw both men go still, she felt all the more nervous.
“Got any enemies around?”
“None who would have done that,” she murmured. Eyeing the two of them, she continued, “Unless it was you two.”
“We are not your enemies,” Eton said. “And I stopped to help. Remember?”
“I know. I’m sorry,” she said. She took a deep breath, looked at the way she’d come up, and said, “Guess I’ll head back down now.”
“Are you sure you should be out here running at night?” Eton asked.
“I always have,” she said. “I’ve never given it a thought. Why?”
“Well, it’s just that looking into things, like slashed tires, is the kind of work we do,” Eton said. “Sort of anyway.”
“So you’re in law enforcement?”
“Let’s call it more of a global law enforcement,” he said, with that same half grin again.
“As long as you are not a mercenary,” she said, taking another step back, totally unsure how to feel about him. Everything he said sounded right, but, at the same time, he was a stranger, and she didn’t know if it was safe to trust him or not.
“We aren’t here to hurt you,” he reiterated. “I’m just concerned. If your tire was deliberately cut or slashed, generally that means somebody was either hoping to come upon you, broken down along the road, or worse—that you might have had an accident. Are you sure you don’t have someone in your world with a reason for any of that? Or even transients or local ruffians?”
“I was visiting a friend of mine,” she said. “She lives alone, and I figure my tire was cut there, but I didn’t realize it until I was on the road and felt the wobble and the pull on my steering wheel.”
“How long were you there? And is her car okay?” the other man asked.
“Just a couple hours,” she said. “I stopped there and had a cup of coffee with her, and then I headed straight home to make sure my dad got some lunch. I haven’t talked to my friend, so I don’t know about her car.” At that, her voice almost broke.
“Your dad? Is he okay?”
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but his condition is declining. Mentally and physically. I don’t think he has too much longer, and, honestly, watching the process is hard. Really hard.” Instantly she could feel the sympathy emanating from both men.
She just shook her head, wiped her hands on her running pants, and said, “I’ve got to go.” Then she bolted down the same pathway that she had run up, and her heart slammed against her chest the whole way. If something were going on with these two men, she’d basically just told them that she lived alone with nobody to help look after her. She should have given the impression that she lived with a huge strong and jealous boyfriend, not an aging and sickly father. But still she couldn’t find any reason for her openness, beyond the fact that she really liked the little bit of Eton she’d seen, and he inspired confidence. She just wasn’t sure how the hell that worked.
*
“That’s Sammy?” Garret asked.
Eton nodded.
“Love her accent. I guess the Swiss accommodate visitors by speaking English as well.”
Again Eton nodded, with a one-armed shrug.
Garret whistled. “Well, I can see the attraction,” he said. “And she is superfit.”
“Absolutely,” he said, “but I had no idea she was into cross-country running.”
“And in the dark.”
“I used to do that myself,” Eton said. “It feels very different from the normal cross-country running during the day.”
“If you say so. She looked like she was enjoying herself,” Garret said smoothly, “until we came along anyway.”
“It’s odd though,” he said. “If it were me running, I wouldn’t give it a thought. But because she is out here running, I really want to go after her and make sure she gets home safe.”
“That would probably just confirm her worry that you are a stalker—or worse,” Garret joked.
Eton winced at that. “She definitely didn’t look all that happy to see me.”
“Well, she didn’t ask, and it’s probably smart of her, but here we are, at the top of the mountain. Plus, although she didn’t see it, the equipment we’ve got would hardly inspire confidence.”
“No, you’re right,” he said. “I wish I knew where she lived though, so I could go by in the morning and reassure her that we weren’t up to anything sketchy.”
“But we are though,” Garret said. “And she is a good reminder that we are not alone.”
At that, Eton turned around, nodded, and said, “We still haven’t picked up any signal.”
“I know. I’m wondering if the guy has a second phone and keeps this one off, unless he needs to make a call.”
“That would be about our luck,” he said. “So let’s finish setting up the equipment, and then we’ll leave it here,” he said, “but I also want to run a transmitter down to the house.”
“It won’t be a quick trip up here,” Garret warned.
“I know, but, if we can trigger something on the phone, we could come up and see if we can get a location. The other thing is,” he said, “we should put Ice on this.”
“I already tried that, and she’s working on it, but we’re here in place,” he said. “So the chances of her getting a better location on our target’s cell phone aren’t likely.”
Just then the machinery in front of them made a weird clicking sound.
“Interesting,” Garret said, jumping over to the equipment. “Looks like the phone just turned on.”
“Location?” Eton asked. He stared down at the village on the other side of the hill. “It’s not very busy down there, is it?”
“No, only about five thousand live on that side, and then around forty-five hundred are on this side.”
“So this is Switzerland in this area, huh? These little dotted communities?”
“Yeah, but they are all close enough to get into the city, if they need to, for commuting.”
“So, they’re like little bedroom communities.”
“Exactly,” said Garret. “Unless any businesses are around that would support this number of residents, I would suspect that almost every one of these households has at least one person who commutes.”
“That would suck,” Eton said. “I hate commuting as it is. On a daily basis, that would really finish me.”
“Well, aren’t you the lazy ass,” Garret said. As he bent to study the equipment, he said, “Look. A call is being made right now.” He transmitted the data to his phone. “And it’s coming from the village, from the far side up on that hill that we can see in the distance.”
Sure enough, Eton saw a hill, if you could call it that. It certainly wasn’t a mountain, and it was barely above ground level, as far as Eton was concerned, but he saw lights dancing between the trees of various houses. “Okay, I should go down and head that way in the vehicle,” he muttered.
“We should have done that from the beginning. I just didn’t think we would get this lucky on the first try,” Garret said.
“I’m already on my way,” Eton said. “Keep an eye on that. I’ll be in the vehicle and heading down the road in, like, six minutes.”
“You would have been faster if you were chasing after her.”
“Yeah, and scared her to death too,” he said and headed down the hillside toward the car.
Chapter 4
Sammy got back home, out of breath. Instead of that sense of release and peace rushing over her, it was as if something else had curled up inside. Why hadn’t she thought to ask what were they doing up there at night? Something about the nighttime activities, especially when the men were dressed all in black, gave her the heebie-jeebies about what criminal acts they might be up to. He said that they were working in the world, doing stuff that caught bad guys; yet he denied being in
law enforcement. So just what the hell was it that they were doing? She hated to even think about it, but, now that the idea had surfaced, she couldn’t let it go. That’s all she thought about.
As she walked inside, her body slick with sweat, her father looked up from the television, his gaze lucid and clear. “Well, don’t you look like you had a lovely run?”
She smiled at him and said, “I did. I’ll go have a shower now though, okay?”
He just nodded.
As she headed to the shower, she remembered the men asking about whether Annie’s car had been damaged as well. On a whim, Sammy texted her friend and asked if her vehicle’s tires were okay. Then she headed into the shower. As she was drying off, she heard her phone ringing. She picked it up to see Annie had tried twice already. When Sammy called her back, Annie answered right away.
“How did you know?”
“It just occurred to me that, if somebody had deliberately slashed my tire, then potentially they had also taken out yours.”
“Well, now I feel really terrified,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because my tires were also slashed, and I can’t go anywhere now.”
“You’ve got your home security system. Make sure to turn it on.”
“It is,” she said, “but remember. I couldn’t afford the full package, so I just got the basic coverage.”
“Right,” she said. “Thinking about that, you’ve never had any trouble before though, have you?”
“No, but I’ve never had my tires slashed either,” Annie said bitterly.
“Any idea who might do this?”
“I was thinking my ex,” she admitted. “You know how he is. He scares me sometimes.”
“True, but you haven’t had any contact with Jorge in weeks, have you?”
Annie hesitated and then said, “I didn’t tell you, but he got the divorce papers I sent him.”
“No, you didn’t tell me about that,” she said. “Damn.”
“I know, and, although I’m driving the vehicle, don’t forget it was ours. And now I own the car, and I get to stay in this rental.”