Ray shook his head. “Must be someone out there we missed.”
Chapter 30
Jason stopped by the barn early. Ray had the door off and was strengthening a temporary reinforcement to the frame.
“Shot hell out of this place,” Jason said.
“Yeah. Got some ideas for a little extra security.”
“Y’all can move up the house, you’ve a mind to. Log walls offer more protection than barn board.”
“Seems we came out of it okay here.”
Cheryl stepped from the bedroom. “We’re alive, but I wouldn’t want to go through that again. We were lucky, that’s all. Bullets went through these walls like they were made of paper. If those men had known where we slept, they could have killed us without ever opening the door.”
Ray said, “Pretty much my feelings. I was thinking we could use the hay to line the walls. Even better, we could move the bed to the loft. Armor piercing rounds wouldn’t get through all those bales.”
“House would offer a bit more comfort.” Jason turned to Cheryl. “And convenience.”
“The loft could be made pretty cozy. And in case you didn’t notice, the crossfire from here was mighty effective.”
“Well, think on it. You can let me know later.”
“What are you planning for Felicia?” Ray asked.
“We’ll make space for her. But a single woman doesn’t need all that room. Hey, if you want to stay out here, she can double up with Cheryl.”
Ray rolled his eyes and went back to work on the door frame. Jason patted Cheryl’s back and walked to the house.
“I’d like to be up at the house,” Cheryl said. “I always thought this place was something of an insult.”
“It was the best he had when we got here, and we were damn appreciative to have it.”
“He could have made over the den. It was like he really didn’t want us, at first. He’s been more friendly since I started helping Kim. Chipping in for a truckload of supplies, helped, too.” Cheryl leaned on the doorway and reached across to Ray. “I guess I can understand his position. People have to carry their weight. But you pretty much saved his ass last night. I think he owes us.”
“His invitation is meant to convey his gratitude. I didn’t expect a ‘thank you.’” Ray pulled her to him. “Do you really want to sleep so close to everyone else?”
She smiled, coyly. “There might be drawbacks, but if we don’t move in, I’m guessing someone else will”
“You think there’s a waiting list?”
“Kim was talking like there’d been people asking.”
“After the shooting out here, demand might just slacken.”
“I’d still like to do it. The loft might be romantic for a couple nights, but a hot shower will seem a lot more appealing in the long run.”
Ray glanced toward the house. “If that’s how you want it, I’ll tell Jason and get our stuff hauled over.”
* * *
“How’d you learn to fry chicken in New York?” Jason asked. “That was mighty good.”
Cheryl’s impulse was to say Kim had showed her. She had been helping Kim in the kitchen for months. But she said instead, “We have to eat up there, too.” Cheryl avoided bringing up Kim’s name for the darkening effect it had on Jason’s mood.
“I saw Wayne and Felicia when I was up at Knoxville.” Jason said.
“How’s he doing?” Ray asked.
“Looks like he’s gonna make it.”
“When are they coming back?” Cheryl asked.
“Felicia said they were going to her folk’s place in Buffalo Valley. Got a small farm there or something. Her Mama cans enough corn and tomatoes to feed half the world.”
“I’d like to see her before she goes,” Taylor said.
Jason eyed her across his empty plate. “Next time I go up. Just remind me.” He stood and ambled to the door, then picked up a rifle. “C’mon Dickie, we ought to have a walk around before it gets dark.”
Ray pushed back from the table to join them, rubbing Cheryl’s shoulder as he passed. “I’d feel better if someone stayed inside.” she said.
“This is strictly for show. If we thought anyone was out there, we wouldn’t set ourselves up for targets. Believe me, come nightfall you won’t see any volunteers.”
“Be careful.”
“I always am.”
“Yeah, right.”
Jason and Dickie were to the trail as Ray cleared the porch. He jogged across the yard to catch up.
“Dickie thinks we should put up deer cameras,” Jason said.
Ray nodded. “Be a good idea if we had them.” He swung his hand in a wide arc. “You’d need several, with motion alarms.”
“What I was thinking,” Jason said. “You could do a little looking in Knoxville, see what’s available.”
“I’ve got maybe a hundred I could throw in,” Ray said. “What were you thinking about spending?”
“I was hoping you might come up with a mite more.”
Ray rubbed his boot in the dirt. “I’ve got a couple hundred to my name. I figured the rest for food.”
“We get shot in the night, we won’t have to worry about eating.”
“How ’bout you, Dickie?” Ray asked.
“Tapped out.”
“He’s agreed to pull night duty,” Jason said. “Dusk to dawn.”
“You want my last dollar?”
“Cheryl’s got money.”
“It’s hers, not mine, and she’s been pretty generous with it.”
Jason nodded. “She’s holding her own. You could ask if she’ll help you out.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Ray felt a knot growing in his stomach.
* * *
Ray sat on the bed watching Cheryl slip into a T-shirt. “Jason upped my rent, wants me to provide a camera setup for the property.”
“I thought I was contributing for both of us.”
“Jason put me straight. Saving his ass doesn’t count for much either. My ass, too, way he puts it.”
“I can give you money.”
“Not for this. What he’s got in mind is kind of rich, if there’s a store still in business to sell it.”
“I can still help.”
“Thanks, but you’ve got better uses for your money than improving Jason’s infrastructure.”
She sat next to him. “You thinking of moving on?”
“Cost get’s steep enough, it may come to it.”
She snuggled in, kissed him, and eased him down to the mattress. “After all this luxury, I don’t know if I could take another tent.”
* * *
Ray woke early and spent an hour on the internet in the den, studying maps and locating likely business and industrial districts. He left at dawn on the Honda; his goal to find a shuttered business with a security system. He rode to Marysville and took the Alcoa Highway, marveling there was still traffic on the road. Some people still had jobs to get to.
He spotted a possibility south of Knoxville. The office building was a two story brick structure set back a hundred feet from the highway. A string of three manufacturing buildings lay behind it surrounded on three sides by trees. The driveway was gated, but he bypassed it, riding between ornamental trees and across the lawn.
Ray whipped around the buildings and did in a quick tour of the lots and drives. There were no vehicles present. He parked the bike and walked the perimeter of the office. He located the incoming phone lines, cut them and ran back to the bike. He sped half a mile down the highway, stopped in a church parking lot and waited.
Cutting the line would trip the alarm he assumed was installed. The alarm company would call a set list of employees, unless of course the company had stopped paying the alarm or telephone companies. Laid off employees were unlikely to respond, so in the worst case, the police would get a call. Whether they would come was the question. Ray waited an hour, nothing happened. He hel
d off thirty more minutes then rode back and chained his bike to a pipe in a recessed shipping dock in a back building. He had always to weigh escape time versus no way home. He hiked back to the office, broke a window and climbed in.
He walked the corridors, unscrewed cameras from each exit, and dropped them in his backpack. He opened doors and found the monitoring station. It was powered down. He took the servers, the hard drive, and controller, then pulled wire from the disconnected cameras, filling two more packs. He lugged the equipment to the bike and secured the packs to it. He defeated the lock on the dock door with a screwdriver and was about to start on the cameras in that building when he heard a vehicle in the drive.
Ray crossed the building to a window with a view. A police cruiser sat idling at the gate. Over two hours to get there. He cursed himself for not starting his work immediately.
Two officers stepped from the car, pistols drawn. They walked to the office building, made their way along the back and stopped at the broken window. The officers conversed. Neither seemed interested in climbing in. They moved on to a set of doors and tried them. Locked. They continued around the building.
Ray ran back to the dock. He unchained the Honda and pushed it to the edge of the building and leaned it there. He stepped out to view the office building. The cops had gone around the corner. He pushed the bike across the road into the trees. He’d hoped to get through and leave but encountered a steel mesh fence on the other side. He laid down the bike and took a position beside it.
The cops came round the building, got in their vehicle and backed away. Then the car plowed through a row of shrubs and around the gate. He pulled out the Beretta. If he could see them, they would see him when they got close enough.
The car crossed to the back buildings and Ray saw the emblems on the side were not police markings but for a private security company. That made more sense, but they were still armed men looking for an intruder. He needed to give them something else to look at.
The security men circled the first building. When they turned the corner, Ray sprinted to the building he’d been in and broke out a window pane on an opposite side door. He rolled an oil barrel a few feet to block the door.
The security car rounded the corner and stopped at the broken glass. Ray swung to the opening and put a bullet through the back passenger window, then the back tire. The car roared forward and spun. The men jumped out and sheltered behind the open doors. Ray put a bullet through their windshield and ran.
Bullets came through the door and pinged off pipes and concrete block wall. Ray crossed the drive, entered the trees and righted the Honda. He pushed it to the drive. The shooting had stopped. He wondered if the men would try to enter. He was at the opposite end of the building now and swung his leg over the bike.
A man stepped around the corner of the building, his gun pointed at Ray. “Stop right there!” he screamed.
Ray did. The security man approached, his partner, not in sight, must have gone around the other way or was calling for backup from the damaged car.
“Keep your hands where I can see them. Step off the bike and let it fall.”
Ray laid the bike down.
“Take that gun out of your belt with two fingers and drop it.”
Ray did.
“Up against the wall. Feet back and spread ’em.”
The man moved behind him and began to frisk him, like on old time television. He should have ordered him to the ground. Ray felt the man’s hand go down his left side. Then a pause where he had to either reach across to pat down the right side or change the gun to the other hand. Ray pushed off the wall and spun. The gun fired.
Ray hooked the man’s foot and he went over. Ray held one hand on the security man’s weapon. With the other he pulled his .38 from the ankle holster and shoved it in the man’s chin. The guard relinquished his gun and Ray rolled off him quickly, still not knowing where the partner was. The gunshot should have brought him running, but perhaps he was a cautious man. Ray checked the nearest side of the building. Not in sight. He removed handcuffs from the security guy’s belt and cuffed him behind the back.
“Where’s your partner?” Ray asked.
“Waiting for you to step into the open.”
“We’ll see.” Ray hauled the man to his feet and pushed him to the corner of the building. Ray rested the guard’s pistol on his shoulder and took three shots at the empty car at the other end of the building. One hit a still open door. He pushed the security man to the ground and headed for the opposite corner. If the other man was inside, he would have a clear shot at Ray. If he was outside, then at least the odds were even.
Ray picked up the Beretta and stepped toward the Honda. The other security man leaped from a doorway, his gun held in a two handed crouch. The man fired as Ray dropped to the asphalt. He rolled to his stomach and got off two bullets at the man, center of mass.
The man tumbled backward, losing his gun. Ray moved in and picked up the pistol. The security man looked up at him, in pain but alive because of his vest.
“Don’t man, I got a family.”
“Promise you and your partner won’t do anything stupid,” Ray said. “And we can all go home.”
“It ends here. You got my word.”
“You won’t like it if it doesn’t.” Ray pulled the man’s license from his wallet, cuffed him, and rode off.
Chapter 31
Ray parked the Honda in the barn and carried the gear to the house. Cheryl and Taylor were making soup and fresh bread. Jason sat in the kitchen with them. Ray unloaded the cameras onto the table.
“It’s a start,” Jason said. “You could a hauled the whole setup if you’d taken the truck.”
“Or got myself killed.”
“You catch some trouble?”
“A little. Mixed it up with some rent-a-cops. Surprised the heck out of me they’re still out there.”
Cheryl turned from the stove. “Where’d this stuff come from?”
“An abandoned factory.”
“Did anyone get hurt?”
Ray saw now that Cheryl hadn’t understood what he’d gone to do. “No, nothing like that. Hide and seek. Kids stuff.”
“Taking those doesn’t seem a lot different from people coming here.”
“It isn’t, except you can’t eat them or shoot them and no one’s there to use them or likely to be in need any time soon.”
“I still don’t like it,” Cheryl said. “We can pay for things.”
“Doesn’t shine for me either.” He gave a nod to Jason. “Boss man said to fetch it.”
Jason smirked. “I didn’t tell you to steal the stuff. I figured you’d get the money from her.” He nodded at Cheryl.
“Guess I misunderstood. I can take it back.”
Jason’s smile faded. “Nah. It’s here and you’ve got a point. It’s not much use where it was. Just put up some money for the rest of it.”
Ray nodded and carried the equipment to the den. He shut the door and began running wires from the computer. He knew he hadn’t mistaken Jason’s meaning.
* * *
Ray didn’t have near enough wire to put the cameras to full use, but he ran what power and optical leads he had, mounting them on each corner of the house and one out to the trail. The barn would have to come later.
He checked the images and made adjustments. When he returned to the computer, he found Jason studying the monitor.
“Can you hook some kind of alarm to the motion out there?”
“Not one that will really help. It’s motion sensitive now.” He showed Jason the icon of a man in red as the recording light came on. “Problem is, any motion activates it. I can filter out fluttering branches or wires. Can’t do a thing about low flying birds or possums.”
“So, someone would have to watch.”
“We could put point to point detectors in key places. When they activate, we could check what was out there with the cameras.” Ray
paused. “Don’t see quite how we can afford them, though.”
Jason swiveled in his chair and faced Ray. “Sorry, man. That was for your own good. I didn’t think the women ought to hear what we were up to. It’s better they think of us as the good guys.”
“You got something there. Cheryl wasn’t happy about it.”
“She wasn’t beaming about the dead girl with her pants undone, either.”
Ray looked up from the monitor. “She say something?”
“Not so much. But her face made her feelings plain enough.”
They both watched the monitor, broken into six images. Dickie walked from the barn. Leaves fluttered beside the trail. A squirrel shimmied up an oak tree. Nothing to see, Ray thought. Could be an army a hundred feet beyond. Or a dozen men waiting for dark.
“You had a good point the other day,” Jason said. “The barn is a key point in our defense. For all our safety, someone should be out there at night.”
“You talking actual guard duty, or sleeping in the loft with a gun ready.”
“I’d feel better if you were awake.”
“Sleep better, you mean.”
Jason let out a half chuckle.
“I’ll stand my watch,” Ray said. “But next you’ll be asking for night vision goggles.”
“I’ve got a pair,” Jason said. “And a night scope on a rifle. You’ll have to see what you can come up with next time you’re in town.”
* * *
Ray dropped to his bedroll below the open loft door—his fourth night in the barn. He didn’t plan to spend the night staring out. Even in the shadows, that left him a sitting duck to anyone approaching with night vision gear, plentiful enough to be a concern.
He bolted the main door every night and strung wire tied to cans, laid low across the trail. Getting by either would wake him. As would gunfire from the house. He lay on the bedding in the gathering darkness. Jason could stay up all night on his watch, if that day ever came. They’d agreed on a week’s duty each. That made more sense than alternating nights, assuming the guard stayed awake.
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