Chapter 10

“You do understand the price of failure?” The man’s expression was as flat as his tone.

“I don’t get paid?” Gabe Ralmann asked with a smirk.

“No, but your next of kin will be.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the shorter of the two shrugged off the implicit threat. Unlike the suit-and-tie wearing man that he’d met in a back room of Rooster’s Kukkuta Kantina, Gabe wore grease-stained coveralls, and his hands were nonchalantly pushed deep into his pockets as he stood leaning against the back wall of the small room. The other man stood up straight, his feet slightly apart, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. “No worries. I’ll verify he’s the right guy, I know I can do the job, and I’ll be clean with the funds. No worries.”

“I’m not worried,” the taller man replied. “If you fail, I can find another.”

Gabe shrugged. “Okay, well, no worries on my part. The job will be done right and you won’t have to go looking for someone else to finish it. Or for my next of kin. So, the advance?”

The other man smoothly extracted a bundle of cash from his suit jacket and handed it to Gabe, obviously keeping his hand as far as possible from the hand Gabe extended to receive it. “Feel free to count it.”

“Naturally,” Gabe answered. “Not big on trust in this game.”

“Do you consider it a game?”

“Life’s a game,” Gabe said absently as he counted. “Okay, it’s all there. Now scram out the back and I’ll be on my way after I quench my thirst.”

The other man looked as if he was about to say something, but he apparently changed his mind. Without further conversation, he turned and left quietly. Gabe waited a few moments before leaving the room, giving a casual glance along the hallway to ensure he was not observed. He headed back to the main bar and took his seat on a stool, catching the bartender’s attention with a silent gesture. He checked the premises again to see if there were any new arrivals before giving his attention to his whiskey.

“Business must be good,” the bartender spoke up, his eyes moving habitually throughout the seating area. There were too few people at that hour for him to have much to catch his attention. “You haven’t asked to carry a tab in months.”

“Good enough,” Gabe acknowledged, his tone unfriendly. “Somebody always needs something fixed.”

The bartender nodded, then moved down the bar to serve another patron’s order. Gabe was glad to be left alone. Of all the bartenders Rooster hired, Gabe liked this one the least. More than once he had thought to pull Rooster aside and suggest he fire this bartender, but he wasn’t motivated enough to act on that thought. Gabe smirked as he thought about Rooster’s real name. Rahul. It sounded foreign to him, matching the man’s appearance, but Gabe didn’t know where the man was from. He knew better than to ask.

After his third whiskey, Gabe ordered a beer and stared for awhile at the TV above the bar, his thoughts on the task ahead. This job would pay off multiple debts, so he was eager to get it over with. If he played his cards right, he could leverage the income from this hit into something that could keep on growing. He pushed away thoughts of past failures to accomplish that goal. This time it felt different. News coverage on the TV about sign-waving protesters briefly caught Gabe’s attention.

“Striking worker’s at Frallen’s Groceries were joined by union sympathizers this afternoon in their latest rally for improved wages and benefits,” the young male reporter said as he stood among a crowd of workers on strike. “The situation here grew violent earlier in the day when a small crowd carrying pro-business signs clashed with the striking workers. Fourteen people were arrested before police returned calm to the scene, and the union sympathizers arrived after news of that clash was publicized around mid-day. The striking workers are demanding a wage that allows them to make a decent living.”

“Maybe they should get a different job,” the bartender commented to Gabe, apparently noticing his attention on the television. “I’ve never thought of a job bagging groceries as the kind of job to build a career around and make a decent living.”

Gabe nodded slowly, irritated by further interaction with the bartender. “Yeah,” he grunted, “but we’re all supposed to be equal, right? So they want their fair share.”

“Equal under the law,” the bartender commented. “People seem to confuse equal treatment under the law with equal life outcomes. I’m not the intellectual equal of some computer wiz, or the physical equal of any pro football player. It would be pretty stupid to think I should get the same kind of money they do. Fair share for me means getting paid like a bartender gets paid. If that’s not enough, I need to get a different job, or a second job. Same with a cashier or bagger at a grocery store.”

Gabe stared at the bartender for a moment, his annoyance growing into full-fledged anger. He wanted to comment that the man wouldn’t be getting paid at all once Rooster fired him, but despite the effects of the alcohol Gabe knew he didn’t have enough influence with Rooster to be sure that would happen. “Yeah,” he finally grunted before downing the last of his beer. He tossed some money on the bar to cover his drinks and got up from his bar stool.

Once he was outside on the quiet side street, Gabe glanced around casually to make sure nothing looked unusual. Satisfied, he headed toward the small parking lot behind the building where his car was parked. He gave the beat-up Plymouth Duster a quick once-over to make sure nothing was amiss before climbing in behind the wheel. It took him four tries before the weak battery and stubborn engine coughed to life with a belch of blue-tinged smoke.

“Stupid piece of crap,” he commented aloud. “Maybe I’ll spend this advance on something to replace you. I’d love to see you crushed at the wrecking yard.”

Rather than making good on his threat to replace the car, Gabe headed toward the edge of town. The alcohol was enough to affect his driving, but the streets were quiet and he made it out of town without incident. After a short distance on the two-lane state highway, he turned off and followed a rutted dirt road that wound its way up a hill. When he reached the weathered single-wide trailer he called home, he whipped the car around in a tight 180-degree turn and parked it, as usual, where it would be ready for a hasty departure. He gave no thought to the mismatch of this habit and what reliability he could expect from his car.

About the only thing inside the trailer that looked modern and in good condition was the television. Gabe switched it on as soon as he walked in. He gave no thought to the piles of dirty dishes in his kitchen, the dirty socks and other clothes scattered about on the floor, or the pile of unopened mail that took up one corner of the chipped and stained kitchen counter. Gabe dropped his car keys on the small dining room table and headed toward the back of the one-bedroom home to use the bathroom.

“Shoulda got the mail on the way in,” Gabe said when he returned to the cramped kitchen and opened the refrigerator to look for something quick to eat. The mailbox was at the highway end of the dirt road and he was not motivated to go back for it. He retrieved a turkey pot pie from the freezer and put it in the microwave. He grumbled a few curses at the microwave as he fiddled with the power cord until it came to life. Gabe’s attention was drawn away by the TV as the news announcer offered an overview of the top stories.

“We also have word,” the thin, gray-haired male announcer continued, “that fugitive Dan Starney has been apprehended near Albuquerque and is in federal custody. More details after a word from our sponsors.”

Gabe grunted. “Surprised they didn’t just shoot him and claim they did it in self-defense,” he said, turning his attention back to the microwave. Once the food was hot, he found what appeared to be the last clean fork and took his dinner into the living room to watch the news.

Before long the news returned to the story of the arrest of Dan Starney. “Our affiliate station in Albuquerque reported this evening that fugitive Dan Starney was arrested without incident just north of the city near Interstate 25. Police reports indicate that he was dehydrated and very hungry after spending several days hiding in the desert. Ron Verwalde, who was last seen traveling with Starney, was not with him at the time of his capture and police are asking the public to be on the lookout for him. Verwalde is considered to be armed and dangerous, and anybody who sees him should not approach him but should immediately call 911 instead.”

“Wonder what they were doing out there,” Gabe commented to himself before taking another bite of food. The remainder of the news bored him, so after the weather forecast he changed the channel to a sports station offering live coverage of an amateur boxing match. After dinner and a few more beers, Gabe loaded his battered dishwasher with dishes and started it before going to bed.

Gabe’s alarm was set for 10:00 but he was awakened two hours earlier by the sound of somebody pounding on his door. Aside from being cheap, one of the reasons he lived where he did was to enjoy privacy. Rude awakenings from unexpected visitors on Sunday mornings did not fit into his idea of privacy. At first he tried to ignore whoever was trying to get his attention, but they showed no sign of simply going away. Gabe dragged himself out of bed, pulled on some cargo shorts, and grabbed his 10mm pistol from his nightstand.

“Ah, crap,” Gabe said to himself when he peeked out through the tattered living room window curtains. He tucked his pistol into his shorts waistband in the small of his back and moved to open the door.

“Rise and shine, Gabe,” one of the two men on his small front porch said when the door opened. “If you lay around all day, you won’t make any money. If you don’t make any money, you won’t be able to pay Mr. Leanes what you owe him. And you know what that means.”

The other man on Gabe’s porch cracked his knuckles. “Mr. Leanes is getting tired of waiting for you to settle up,” he said, his tone lacking the fake joviality of the other man’s. “Next time we have to drive out to this dump we might just light it on fire instead of knocking.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Gabe said with a shrug. “I got a new job and as soon as it’s done, Leanes will get his money.”

“Mr. Leanes wants us to collect something right now,” the first man said, his tone more threatening. “Cash, or something valuable. Empty promises of being paid after a job aren’t enough. He thinks you’re not taking him seriously. That’s not good for your health.”

“I get it,” Gabe said again. “Look, I got a small advance, I can give you some of that.”

“All of it,” the second man said.

Gabe shook his head. “No, some of it. I need some of it to do the job, so I can pay Leanes the rest of what I owe. If I give you all of it, the job won’t get done, and he won’t get paid.”

“Not good for your health,” the second man said.

“Give us half of your advance and we’ll see that Mr. Leanes gets most of it,” the first man said, “after deducting our delivery fee.”

“Leanes know you do that?” Gabe asked, raising his eyebrows. “That might not be good for your health,” he continued mockingly.

The first man shook his head. “Not our problem. Your problem. We’re not taking it from him, we’re taking it from you. That means less to Mr. Leanes from you, and you know what that means.”

“Jesus, you guys are stupid,” Gabe commented with a roll of his eyes. Before they could say more, he continued, “Wait here and I’ll get the cash.”

Gabe closed the door on the two men, preparing himself mentally to react quickly if they entered his home without permission. He was ready to make that the last mistake they would ever make. The door stayed closed, however, and he wasted no time retrieving some cash from the bundle given to him by the man at Rooster’s. He had no intention of handing over a significant portion of the advance, but he couldn’t go too low and get away with it, so he returned to the door with about a quarter of it.

“Tell Leanes I’ll have the rest soon,” Gabe said as he passed the money to the nearest man. “I should have this job complete within a week or less, and I think the client will pay promptly, so maybe ten days from now. No promises, but that’s as good an estimate as any.”

“See you in a week,” one of the men said as they turned to leave.

“Assholes,” Gabe said as he closed the door. He shook his head, thinking about how he hoped to have the job completed later that day or sometime the next day. He padded the time in case things went wrong, to give him a chance to either complete the job later than planned or at least find a way to avoid Leanes for awhile if the job was a complete bust.

Now that he was up and fully awake, Gabe didn’t bother going back to bed. He shut off his alarm, scrounged some clothes from a pile of unfolded clean laundry, took a quick shower, and dressed to go into town. He also packed a small backpack with some more clean clothes. After seeing that he had no good breakfast food, Gabe retrieved the rest of his advance money and stuffed it in his gym bag, then grabbed his Beretta 21A pistol. He went out the front door and locked it behind him, as always, knowing he was not remote enough to be able to dismiss worries of people trespassing when he wasn’t home.

Gabe put a shovel in his trunk before climbing in behind the wheel. The car started with relative ease this time and he was soon bouncing down the dirt road back to the state highway. Traffic was busy enough at that hour that he had to wait before pulling on to the pavement. The car’s inability to quickly accelerate made him more conservative than he wanted to be, but he could be patient if the alternative was risking a potentially serious collision. When he finally reached town, he used a drive-through to get a quick breakfast before continuing with his plan for the day.

“Can I help you find something, sir?” the young woman at the office supply store asked when he walked in.

Gabe didn’t voice the first response that came to his mind. “I’m looking for an inexpensive laptop, and a no-contract mobile phone,” he answered the attractive store employee instead.

The woman took Gabe over to the computer section, and he gave a nod to acknowledge her directions for where he would find the phones. She then left him to look at the laptops on his own, but he didn’t really care about the specifications, he just wanted something cheap and easy to use. He decided on a cheap netbook, then went to the mobile phones and grabbed the cheapest no-contract phone he could find. At the checkout stand he also grabbed a prepaid credit card. After completing his purchase using cash from his advance, he returned to his car and unpacked everything. Gabe retrieved a small inverter from where he stored it under the passenger seat. Once it was plugged in to the cigarette lighter socket, he hooked up the netbook and phone to start charging before leaving the store parking lot.

Gabe’s next stop was on the other side of town, at a public library that offered a reasonably strong WiFi signal even out in the parking lot. Since all of the slots near the building were occupied, he initially parked further away and waited until a close slot was available. While he waited, he turned on the netbook so it could go through its first-use routine. When a parking stall closer to the building opened up, he moved his car to take advantage of the stronger network signal.

The information that Gabe was given by the man at Rooster’s would have been enough for him to find the target and complete the job, if he trusted his client. Gabe was not overflowing with trust, however, and wanted to do things his own way. That included making sure he wasn’t stepping into a sting operation.

After using his prepaid credit card to buy information on sites that specialized in background checks, Gabe felt more secure that the information given to him by his client was legitimate. He felt even better when he found a phone number for the target on his own, separate from the numbers provided by his client. The data with the number indicated it was a mobile phone, apparently unknown to his client.

Seeing that his newly-purchased phone was sufficiently charged, Gabe dialed the number that was list under the name of Steve Collins. The ringing sound stopped and it sounded like the line was picked up, but nobody said anything. “Hello?” Gabe prompted.

“Who is this?” a male voice asked.

“Mitch?” Gabe asked instead of giving his own name. The person on the other end abruptly terminated the call. “Bingo,” Gabe commented to himself. “Let’s see if he’s curious.” He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and returned his attention to the netbook screen.

At first Gabe was prepared to pick up the phone again in case his target called back using the Caller ID information. When the phone remained silent he focused more on the task at hand. He spent some time copying and pasting the information from his research into a variety of anonymous Web sites set up for storing snippets of text and other data. When he was satisfied that he had everything he might need and could get back to it later without repeating his research, he shut down the netbook and restarted it in recovery mode. He aborted the recovery process so that the next person to turn it on would need to go through the first-use routine.

Despite wanting to take the netbook to a pawn shop to get some money back, Gabe knew that would leave too much of a trail. Instead, he repacked it in its original box and drove to a charity thrift store to drop it off as an anonymous donation. After unloading the netbook, Gabe drove toward an auto shop on the east side of town.

“That thing’s beyond repair,” a man in dirty coveralls told Gabe as he climbed out of his car at the shop.

“Yeah,” Gabe said with a scowl, “tell me about it. How’s it going, Mike?”

“Fair enough,” Mike answered. “You?”

“Fair enough,” Gabe agreed. “Aaron around?”

Mike nodded. “In the office, probably placing his bets for the day.”

Gabe flashed a thumbs-up to Mike and walked over to the front door of the shop. An elderly woman was sitting in the waiting room, which surprised and amused Gabe since that was not the usual clientele for the shop. The woman ignored him as he lifted a hinged counter section to let himself into the employee area of the shop. He walked over to the open doorway of the manager’s office and knocked on the door frame to get the occupant’s attention.

“Gabe,” the overweight bearded man behind the desk said simply when he looked up from his screen.

“Hey Aaron, how’s the exhaust work coming on the van?” Gabe asked, knowing there was no exhaust work and no van.

“Well,” Aaron drawled, “I ran into some problems with it. Let’s go take a look at it and I’ll show you what I mean.”

Aaron stood up and walked around his desk, standing at least a foot taller than Gabe. The shop manager led the way out of his office, through the open bays of the shop, and out to a rusted shipping container nestled behind the building. He unlocked the container, swung one door open, and motioned for Gabe to follow him in. Lighting installed in the container turned on automatically, triggered by Aaron’s movement. The inside of the container was crowded with a variety of metal cabinets, boxes, and shipping crates of various sizes.

“Thanks for letting me do this without notice,” Gabe said as he swung the door closed behind him. “I got a hot one.”

“Not cool with that old lady sitting in there,” Aaron answered. “Ten percent extra.”

Gabe nodded. “Yeah, okay. What’s up with her, anyway?”

Aaron shrugged. “Yellow pages. So what do you need?”

“Pistol, large caliber, preferably older, and something you have ammo for, so I don’t need to buy some elsewhere,” Gabe answered succinctly.

Aaron nodded and turned to open a tall metal cabinet. “Beretta M9? I always have 9mm in stock.”

“Anything bigger?” Gabe asked.

“I got a Smith & Wesson 629,” Aaron said, holding up the .44 Magnum revolver, “but it’s pretty new.”

Gabe smirked. “And a revolver,” he commented. “Uh… dig deeper?”

“Picky bastard,” Aaron said, putting the revolver back. He made a soft humming sound and turned to open a different container. “Okay, here. Not super old, but looks like it’s been around the block a few times. Hi-Point in .45 ACP. Won’t have the punch of a hot 10mm but it’s no .22 either. What do you think?”

“I guess I’ll be like Goldilocks and say that one is just right,” Gabe said with a little grin. “You’re busy and so am I, so if you got .45 ACP ammo in stock, let’s do this.”

After handing off another chunk of his advance for another item he expected to use only once, Gabe left the shop promptly. By that time he was getting hungry again, so he stopped at a grocery store to pick up some hot deli food and some packaged food for the road. Gabe made one more stop in town, to fill his gas tank, before heading toward the interstate that would take him west.

Three hours later, Gabe arrived in the larger town where he believed his target was staying. He knew his phone call might have spooked the other man, which could have a variety of effects, but he still considered it worthwhile to make sure there were no surprises. The time he spent studying the map of the town while he was at the library paid off, as he was able to navigate easily to the right neighborhood. If his client’s information was correct, his target was staying with an associate in that town, but when he drove by the house he could not see anything to confirm that information.

The neighborhood was a planned community where the houses were so similar they seemed to blend together, and Gabe guessed that residents kept to themselves most of the time. He hoped they weren’t savvy enough to pay close attention to which cars belonged and which didn’t. That would help avoid any interactions once he parked to start surveillance of his target. The sky was still light enough that he couldn’t start his stakeout yet, so he drove to a small park nearby and waited for dusk.

When he felt it was dark enough that he wouldn’t be noticed sitting in his car, Gabe drove back to the neighborhood where he hoped to catch sight of his target. He found a good place where he could keep an eye on the house in question without being obvious to anyone inside, so he parked and settled in to wait. There was little activity in the area at that hour, and the few times that someone drove by he made a show of looking at a large fold-out map, hoping that nobody would give him a second glance.

Several hours passed quietly, with no more action in the house than lights turning on and off. Gabe knew they could be on timers, but he hoped it was from real activity instead. In the back of his mind he knew he had one opportunity to call a number to ask his client for an update on the target’s location, but he had no desire to use that option unless all else failed. It was much too early to spend that one-use number.

It was just after midnight when the garage door opened. Any drowsiness Gabe felt was gone in an instant. A nondescript economy car rolled slowly to the street and quietly turned onto it, heading away from Gabe. As soon as the garage door rolled back down, Gabe started his car and pulled away from the curb. He made no hurry to catch up, as he intended to follow the other car from enough distance that it would not catch the other driver’s attention. As he drove, he moved the Hi-Point pistol into the convenience pocket on the driver door.

The car Gabe was following turned off the road shortly after he had it in sight. When he reached that point, he saw that it was parked outside of a gas station with a convenience store. He could see nobody in the car. The situation wasn’t quite what he had planned, but he was eager to have the job done with, so Gabe pulled in and parked next to the other car. Large advertising signs in the windows of the store prevented him from seeing much, but he knew that the obstruction worked both ways. Gabe popped his hood and got out of the car, tucking the throw-away pistol into the small of his back as he stood up.

“Hey, man, could you give me a hand?” Gabe said when a young man came out of the store. He recognized his target from the photos given to him by his client.

“No,” the other man said flatly.

“Aw, c’mon, it’ll only take a sec,” Gabe pressed. “All you have to do is turn the key while I hold something down.”

“No,” the other man repeated, opening his own car door.

“Dude, I can’t be in two places at once,” Gabe said, taking a step toward the other car. “Please?”

The other man stared at Gabe briefly. “No,” he repeated again before climbing in and shutting his door.

As the car started, Gabe moved quickly to block the car from backing up and rapped on the trunk to make sure the other man saw him. “C’mon, man, don’t be a dick, I need your help, it’ll only take a sec!”

The other man opened his door but did not get out. “Get out of my way, moron, or I’ll run your ass over!” he snapped, glancing over his shoulder.

“Screw it,” Gabe said softly to himself as he moved quickly to block his target from shutting his door again. He pulled out the .45 ACP pistol with his left hand and pointed it in the other man’s face. “Move over!”

“I’m a dangerous person to mess with,” the other man snarled without relinquishing his seat.

“So is a .45 ACP round,” Gabe answered hotly. “Move over, now!”

Gabe’s target shrugged but still didn’t move to the passenger seat. “If you’re going to shoot me anyway, do it.”

Gabe shook his head minimally without taking his eyes off the other man. “My boss wants to talk to you,” he lied, “so I’m not going to shoot you unless you don’t cooperate. He did give me permission to do that, so don’t give me an excuse. Get in the passenger seat. Now!”

The other man looked around thoughtfully, then shrugged. Without a word he awkwardly climbed over into the passenger seat. Gabe kept the pistol trained on his target while he climbed in. He was glad the car was an automatic so he would be able to drive while holding the other man at gunpoint, although he knew it would be tricky. Unlike soft targets, he knew his target this time would be looking for an opportunity to turn the situation around.

Using his memory of the map, Gabe drove north out of town, heading for a wooded area that would be suitable for his purposes. No words were exchanged as he found his way through the darkened streets and onto the rural highway that would take them to the forest. The highway crossed a wide river and Gabe took note of it, both as a landmark and as a place to dump the gun.

“Your boss is out here?” the other man asked skeptically when Gabe pulled off the pavement to follow a gravel road into the forest.

“Yeah,” Gabe answered.

“Bullshit.”

The passenger door opened suddenly when Gabe slowed down for a curve, and his target dove out of the car. Gabe pulled the trigger reflexively. The sound of the pistol inside the car was deafening, but Gabe was focused on stopping to chase after the other man. The car skidded to a halt and Gabe jumped out.

In the moonlight Gabe couldn’t see clearly, but the sound of the other man crashing through underbrush helped him find the right direction. As soon as he caught a glimpse of his target, he fired again, and he heard the thumping crash of the man going down. Gabe finally found his target and found him gasping for air.

“Who do you work for?” the other man asked when he realized Gabe was standing over him.

“Does it matter?” Gabe asked. “And I don’t even know, I don’t ask questions if I don’t need the answer. This was all messier than I wanted, you didn’t have to suffer, but you’re the one who had to be a dick about things. Your time is done here, Mitch.”

“How do you know my real name?”

The only answer was the bark of another shot from Gabe’s pistol. Gabe moved quickly back to the car, grumbling all the way about how things had gone wrong. Once he got back to the car, he turned it around and headed for the highway. He stopped on the bridge over the river on the way back to town and threw the Hi-Point pistol downstream as far as he could. Satisfied that it would not be found anytime soon, Gabe drove the dead man’s car back to town. He found a place to park near the convenience store but where a parked car might not draw attention for at least several days.

Gabe walked from the dead man’s car to his own, then retraced the route back to the gravel road. When he reached the point where his target had tried to escape, Gabe stopped his car, got out, and retrieved the shovel from his trunk. His plans had not included walking in the dark, and his anger grew when he found that the flashlight in his glove compartment had dead batteries. Although the scattered clouds allowed some light from the half-full moon, little of that light made it under the treetops, making it even more difficult to bury the body.

When the job was done, Gabe brushed off as much dirt as he could from his clothes. He fretted about whether the broken ground of the impromptu grave was adequately concealed, since the darkness also hampered his efforts to mask it, but he finally decided it would have to be good enough. When he reached his car Gabe made another effort to clean off any remaining dirt from his clothes and shoes before climbing in behind the wheel. It took him several tries to get the engine started, but this time his thoughts were on his burial of the body rather than the troublesome vehicle.

“It’s off the beaten track, at least,” Gabe commented to himself once the engine started. Making several small maneuvers he turned his car around to leave. “Hope nobody goes looking for him for a long time so nature can do the rest for me.”

Gabe was still on the single-lane gravel road when he saw with surprise a car coming in the other direction. He slammed one hand on his steering wheel and cursed loudly at the luck he was having. The other car, driving only with its parking lights, continued a short distance further before stopping. In the dark Gabe could not see a clear way around the other vehicle, so he pounded on his horn button and flashed his high-beam headlights several times. The other car did not move, but its headlights did turn on.

“Bad move,” Gabe said as he shifted into Park. He drew his Beretta and climbed out of his car. “Move your damn car, jackass!” he yelled at the other car as he approached it. The other driver’s door opened and a man got out. In the high-contrast lighting of his own headlights Gabe thought the man looked familiar, but in the glare of the lights from the other car he couldn’t see well enough to identify him.

“That was sloppy,” the man said, and Gabe promptly recognized the voice of the man he’d met at Rooster’s.

“How the hell did you find me?” he asked in surprise.

The other man moved toward the front of his vehicle to meet Gabe. “You were sloppy. Your actions were caught on the security camera at the convenience store.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Gabe countered, moving to meet the other man up close. “That doesn’t explain how you found me out here.”

“Actually it does,” the man answered. “I don’t really expect you to understand, though. I take it the target is dead?”

Gabe snorted. “Of course.”

“Then we might as well settle up now,” the other man said. He turned slightly to face his vehicle and made a beckoning motion. Gabe saw the passenger door open, and another man climbed out. “My people like to deliver rewards promptly.”

Gabe was about to reply when he realized that the passenger from the other car had stopped before reaching them. He looked over and saw that the newcomer was aiming a pistol at him. Gabe started to raise his own pistol but was not fast enough. He was briefly aware of the flash and bang from the other man’s gun.

Karena was focused intently on her work when the loud ring of her apartment phone blared its interruption. She glanced over at it but made no move to answer. Although her life had settled down a bit after some initial chaos when she returned to Branner Glen, she was still wary of anything unexpected. Karena could not think of anyone who would be calling at that hour, especially since her friendship with Donna had cooled off significantly. She decided to let the answering machine take the call. She took a sip of her iced tea while she waited to hear if the caller left a message.

“Miss Walsh,” the caller began, and Karena immediately recognized the voice of Sergeant Fisher. She stood up and moved to the phone as he identified himself and continued, “I am hoping you will return my call soon. I—”

“I’m here,” Karena interrupted him after picking up the handset.

“Ah, I see,” he responded. His tone made her think he was expecting her to be screening her calls. “I received some news this evening that I thought you would want to know without delay. I did not receive this officially, so at this point I would ask that you not discuss it with others.”

“I understand.”

“An anonymous tip led federal agents to the body of one Mitchell Klein,” Sergeant Fisher said. “You would have known him as Trevor Fane. He also went by Steve Collins. Additional information from the tipster linked him to the bombing of the Walter Rimzick building in Chicago. More important for you, there is also a strong connection between him and recent actions taken against you and against Dan Starney. It appears he was killed in an illegal weapons deal gone bad, along with another person who appears to be connected to multiple murders. I think it wise for you to remain alert, but there is a good chance that you will now be left alone, with Dan back in prison and Mitchell Klein being out of the picture.”

“Thank you,” Karena said slowly. “That’s… that’s a lot to think about, but thank you for letting me know.”

“I hope we don’t have any reason to be in touch soon,” the police sergeant said, “but please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if it seems appropriate.”

Karena said goodbye to Sergeant Fisher and hung up the phone. She returned to the table where her students’ homework awaited her attention, but instead she sipped at her iced tea, her thoughts far away from numbers and equations.