Once the four of them were alone, Rossetti looked Sara over.
“You’re right, Ramone, she’s a hot piece of ass, but what I want to know lady, is if you’re here to hassle me, or to help protect me?”
“Protect you from what?”
“Don’t play games, you know that a man named Tanner is gunning for me or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I also know that Tanner never fails to carry out a hit. So if you want protection, we’ll give it to you.”
Rossetti squinted his eyes.
“What’s the catch?”
“Come back to the office and spill your guts about everything you know, and we’ll place you in Witness Protection. I guarantee that Tanner will never find you once we make you disappear.”
Rossetti laughed.
“Turn snitch on my friends? Fuck that, I’ll handle Tanner my way.”
Sara moved closer to Rossetti.
“How’s it feel to only have hours left to live?”
“Tanner is the one about to become extinct. He’ll never make it here and even if he did, Ramone could handle him.”
Sara looked Ramone over and thought that he looked capable, but she knew Tanner, had studied the man and was certain that Ramone would die if he faced off with Tanner.
Sara smiled, as she tried another approach.
“Why don’t you invite me and my partner into your office for a drink? Perhaps we can work something out?”
Ramone’s phone rang before Rossetti could answer her. He spoke to someone and then listened, followed by a smile. When he put his phone away, he whispered something to Rossetti.
Rossetti’s grin looked more like a grimace in his jowly face.
“I think my problem is about to be solved.”
“You know where Tanner is? Tell us his location and I’ll chopper there and arrest him.”
“Arrest him? Lady, when my boys get done with him it’ll be like he never existed, now, get the fuck out of my house.”
***
Sara slammed the passenger door as they got back in the car.
Tanner was out there somewhere and Rossetti knew where. The man also seemed confident that his men would kill Tanner, and Sara wondered how many men Tanner was going up against.
She looked at Garner and gave him a look of disgust.
“You were certainly useless in there.”
Garner appeared taken aback by her anger but then shrugged.
“You should be happy; I got what we came for.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The girl, Joy, she told me the layout of the house.”
“When?”
Garner reached over and took Sara’s hand. She resisted at first, but then relented and he extended her index finger and began moving its tip along his chest, as he traced the layout of Rossetti’s home, just as Joy had done.
“Past the living room, there are five rooms off the hallway. One is a bathroom and the other four are bedrooms. The hallway leads to the kitchen, where another hallway branches off to two more bedrooms, the last of which is Rossetti’s, and he keeps his office at the back of the home, facing a pool.”
Sara took her hand back and stared at Garner.
“Why did Joy tell you all that? Do you know her?”
“I never met her before.”
“Then why would she help you?”
Garner stared into her eyes, holding her gaze.
“She wanted to please me, Sara, women love to please me.”
Sara gazed at him a little longer and then broke eye contact. She didn’t speak until they had left the secluded home and were back on the highway.
“Not all women want to please you.”
“Right,” Garner said.
“I find you completely resistible.”
“Uh-huh,”
“Thanks for getting that info. It may come in handy.”
“You’re welcome, partner.”
Partners, Sara thought, That’s all we’ll ever be to each other, partners.
Still, it bothered her that she had felt a thrill when Garner took her hand and that her fingers tingled from his touch.
She pushed Garner from her mind and thought about Tanner, about Rossetti’s goons closing in on him, and wondered if the man would survive long enough for her to kill him.
CHAPTER 14 - Trapped
Tanner spotted the car following him in Arizona, but when he saw that there was just one guy, he’d began to question whether or not he was imagining it.
As he crossed into Nevada, the car fell back and Tanner relaxed. That didn’t last for long, because before a minute passed, a silver Land Rover with four guys in it rode up on his tail, and when Tanner spotted the barrel of a shotgun sticking up, he knew shit was about to go down.
***
Aldo told his man to move closer to Tanner’s pickup and then he spotted Tanner’s intense eyes in the rear view mirror.
“All right, that did it, he knows we’re here.”
The driver spoke.
“Who are the other two? They look like kids.”
“Tanner must have been using them for cover. Once we run them to ground, you stay with them while we kill Tanner, but don’t kill them. I want to talk to them first.”
“He’s speeding up!”
“Stay with him,” Aldo said. “It’s time for Tanner to die.”
***
Merle and Earl were having a hard time keeping up, but they could tell that Aldo and his men were tracking a white pickup truck.
“Get closer,” Merle said.
“I’m trying, but we ain’t got the right engine for this, and them dudes are flying.”
“Just stay ready and hope we get a break. With a little luck, we’ll get Tanner.”
“A little luck?”
“All right, a lot of luck, but just stay close and don’t lose them.”
“Merle?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to die, so I say we just stay back and watch what happens.”
Merle agreed and then gripped his weapon tighter.
***
Tanner cut across a lane and exited the highway so quickly that Aldo’s man was unable to keep up and missed the exit.
Aldo’s driver told everyone to hold on and he took the Land Rover across desert landscape at high speed, while bumping over brush and sand dunes.
Tanner had placed a gap between them, but was still in sight and headed down a road where ranch land stretched out to either side, with homes spaced far apart.
The pickup had a good engine, but the Land Rover was better, and before they traveled a mile, the gap had shrunk.
When Tanner made a skidding right turn into the driveway of a home surrounded by land, Aldo tapped a fist on the dashboard.
“We got the fucker!”
***
Cindy let out a scream as Tanner made the turn and then grunted when the pickup came to a hard stop near the front porch of the home.
Before either she or Billy could respond to what had happened, Tanner was out of the truck and moving up the stairs, where he ran into the front door without slowing and slammed it with a shoulder.
The door banged open, Tanner went inside and an instant later, Aldo and his men slid to a stop at the entrance to the driveway, and ran towards the pickup.
Aldo’s driver pointed his weapon at Billy and Cindy and told them to get out of the truck. The two kids did as ordered while raising their hands above their heads.
“Stay with them, Benny,” Aldo told the driver, before clapping a hand on the shoulder of another man. “Craig, you take the back.”
The man ran low along the side of the home, and after pausing at the rear corner, he disappeared around the back of the house, which was two-stories high and well cared for.
Their vehicles were the only ones on the property, and Aldo hoped that meant the owners were out, or at work. He didn’t need a simple killing to turn into a bloodbath.
Aldo took one m
easuring glance at Billy and Cindy and then headed for the home with the fourth man flanking him on the left. Aldo carried an old Mossberg 500 shotgun, while the man with him sported a new Glock.
The home’s front door hung in a frame that was splintered where the lock had torn free and the door was sitting halfway open.
Aldo craned his neck as he reached the stairs and could see what looked like a living room. A noise came from inside the home. It sounded like someone banging on sheet metal or something, but just as Aldo cocked his head to hear it better, the noise ended, and the house fell silent.
Aldo and his man climbed up the stairs with caution and soon they were standing atop the porch, where through the half-open door, they could make out more of the living room and glimpse the dining room table beyond it.
The house looked well lighted, as the blinds had been left open and the day was bright, but Aldo saw no moving shadows that would give Tanner’s position away.
More sound came from inside the home, a clattering noise, but the sound was indistinct and brief.
Aldo took out his phone and dialed Craig, the man he had sent to cover the rear.
“You see anything?”
“No man and the back door is locked, but did you hear that banging?”
“Yeah, I heard it, but I don’t know what it means.”
“Do you want me to kick the back door in?”
“Yeah, but wait until after I ring you again to do it.”
“Got it,” Craig said, and then they both hung up.
Aldo slipped the phone into his pocket, nodded towards the man at his side, and let his shotgun lead the way into the house.
Tanner was trapped.
CHAPTER 15 - Room number four
In Spring Valley, Lillian wiped at tears as Dwight loaded luggage into her car.
She turned and kissed her husband.
“Come with me. Tanner’s just one man and even if Rossetti doesn’t stop him, we can still hide from him.”
Dwight caressed her cheek.
“I told you before that I won’t put you at risk and I meant that. Go to your mother’s house, be safe and... I’ll stay here and wait for Tanner.”
“We can hire bodyguards. Six men, more even.”
“It won’t do any good. Tanner would cut through them and still kill me, but I’m hoping that he’ll give me a chance to talk if I’m alone.”
“Talk? What good will that do?”
“I don’t know, maybe nothing, but I have information that Tanner can use to get in and out of Rossetti’s home safely, maybe I can trade it for my life.”
Lillian wrapped her arms around Dwight for a long while before releasing him with a kiss.
“I’ll call you,” she said.
“All right, but only once each night and... if I don’t answer...”
“Don’t think about that, Tanner will take the trade, but can he be trusted?”
Dwight thought about that and a thin smile formed on his face.
“You know, in an odd way, Tanner is an honorable man. He’ll do what he says he’ll do.”
They said their words of goodbye, and Lillian drove away while watching Dwight’s form dwindle in her rear view mirror, as she neared the four-lane road at the end of their block.
***
Lillian never left the area.
She took room number four at the motel that sat across the road from the entrance to her block, and as she hoped, the view from the window gave her the sight line she needed to see her front door and the right side of her home.
Satisfied with the view, she unpacked one of her bags and took out the Beretta 92 that had belonged to her father. She had never fired the weapon, or any other weapon, but the gun was loaded and she was ready to use it to save her husband’s life.
She settled herself in front of the motel window with binoculars and began watching her house.
When Tanner showed, she’d run across the road and slip back inside the house through the window she left unlocked in the dining room. If Tanner wanted Dwight’s head then he would have to go through her to get it, and Lillian was certain that the element of surprise would work in her favor.
And unfortunately, for Tanner, the lady was right.
CHAPTER 16 - It’s always the last place you look
Aldo stood in the quiet house holding a shotgun, as he stared down the hallway that led to the kitchen. Without taking his eyes from the hall, he whispered to the man at his side.
“Ronny, check out the upstairs, but be damn careful when you raise your head above the level of the landing. The son of a bitch could be lying beneath a bed just waiting for something to shoot at.”
“Got ya,” Ronny said, and then the thin man drifted up the stairs slow and easy, while making no more sound than a cat.
Aldo left the living room and stepped through the dining area, where there was a short alcove near the back that had a marble counter with green shutters.
The counter was likely used to pass food from the kitchen into the dining room. Aldo took the time to stack several dining room chairs into the alcove, and was confident that Tanner would be heard if he tried to leave the kitchen that way.
A floorboard creaked above his head and told him that Ronny was conducting his search. Aldo moved into the hallway, where he came across the first door. It was on his left and after standing to the right of it, he turned the knob and pushed it inward.
Nothing happened, and when he peeked around the corner, he saw what looked like a guest bedroom. After searching beneath the bed and checking out the room’s tiny closet, Aldo moved on, and found an open doorway on the other side of the hall that turned out to be a bathroom.
He winced while looking at the toilet. He’d been headed to take a leak when the call came in that Tanner was spotted, and now his bladder wanted to burst.
It’ll have to wait, Aldo thought, and then he smiled, as he imagined relieving himself on Tanner’s corpse.
There was no one in the shower stall, and so Aldo moved on. The last doorway opened up onto a home office that had dozens of family pictures on the walls. Several of the women in the photos were hot blondes and it reminded him of Cindy.
Why the hell is Tanner traveling around with those kids?
Aldo shrugged at his own question. He could find out the answer to that once he killed Tanner.
No one was hiding behind the desk or in the office closet and as he walked back into the hallway, he studied the door set in the opposite wall, and saw that there was a slide bolt locking it from the outside.
It was the basement door and Aldo dismissed it. There was no way Tanner could have slid that bolt in place from the other side.
Aldo could see part of the kitchen from where he stood and in a corner of it was the back door, still shut.
He took out his phone to call his man, Craig, at the rear of the house, just as Ronny returned from upstairs.
“There’s no one up there,” Ronny whispered. “He’s got to be in the kitchen, right?”
Aldo nodded and made his call, let it ring once, and waited for Craig to kick the back door in. He didn’t have to wait long, and after the sound of breaking wood, he rushed into the kitchen with the Mossberg at the ready and found... nothing.
“What the fuck?” Ronny said.
Aldo swiveled his head around in a wild jerky motion, as he looked around for a place big enough to conceal a man. When his eyes fell upon the doors beneath the double sink, he sent a blast from the shotgun their way and shredded them, then pumped the shotgun and fired again and again.
When he was finished, Craig reached over and ripped one of the ruined doors open, revealing an assortment of leaking containers that held cleaning products, along with a garbage pail with more holes than a cheese grader.
Aldo lowered the shotgun and stared at his men.
“Where the fuck did he—”
Aldo never finished the sentence, but rather, his speech morphed into a scream, as metal pellets perforated his legs
, causing both he and Ronny to fall atop the linoleum floor in agony.
And yet, even through the pain he marveled at what he was seeing, as Tanner stuck his head out of the oven and fired his next shot at Craig, ripping holes in the man’s throat and killing him.
***
After banging through the front door, Tanner had two plans for survival.
The first plan was to use anyone in the home as a diversion for a rear attack, but once he realized the house was empty, he went to his second plan, which was to take cover and launch a surprise attack.
He went through all the rooms on the first floor as Aldo would later do, but his pace had been quicker, more frantic and with an eye solely towards seeking a place of concealment.
After checking out the kitchen, he returned to the locked basement door and slid the bolt aside to flick on the switch, illuminating a set of wooden stairs, and walls made from unfinished wallboard.
That’s when he heard voices out front shouting at Billy and Cindy and knew his time was growing short.
Tanner estimated the distance in his head, went down six steps and used the butt of his shotgun to batter through the wallboard that sat flush behind the stove. The gypsum broke apart easily under the assault, and Tanner widened the hole and kept going, ramming the shotgun against the aluminum backing of the oven, causing it to bend inward at the middle and gap outward at its sides.
With that done, he placed the shotgun atop a step and, with both hands, he wrenched the back of the oven off and through the hole in the wallboard, bending it downwards between two wall studs, where it laid suspended above the stairs like a shelf.
Then, he listened for movement and after hearing only silence, he went back up the stairs, where he closed and locked the door, before entering the kitchen, opening the oven door and climbing into it backwards, sending the oven racks through the hole, to clatter down the basement steps.
As he reached out to close the oven door, he heard footfalls towards the front of the house and settled inside his place of concealment to wait.
He had to keep his legs straight and still, otherwise the aluminum backing from the oven would rattle and make noise, and he knew that anyone opening the basement door would see his lower half suspended above the steps, and tear his legs to pieces with gunfire.
The TANNER Series - Books 1-3 (Tanner Box Set) Page 5