“This wasn’t a good idea,” the second man said. “I know the gully conceals us, and we’d be able to move down it to cover if we needed to, but that damn mountain forest doesn’t look quite as thick now. We could have maneuvered among the trees.”
“Not as well,” answered Man Three. “Come on. We’ve been through worse.”
“I didn’t retire to do this all over again.”
The first man didn’t say anything. If he sighed, it was lost in the pouring rain and the rushing of the creek. Bellyaching was part of a soldier’s coping mechanism. He mostly ignored it.
The second man spoke again. “We can’t do a damn thing tonight to finish this mission. That’s bothering me more than the effing weather. I want this done and over with.”
“Face it,” said Man One, speaking for the first time in over an hour. “We’ve got a serious case of mission creep going on here. If you two would stop complaining and start thinking, we might get out of here sooner.”
“Yeah?” asked Man Three. “What is your huge brain telling you?”
“That we need to be even more cautious. We need to be able to break in without the homeowners or kids waking up so we don’t have to be on indefinite hold. Has anyone thought of halothane?”
“Like we can get any out here,” snorted the second man. “And how are we supposed to aerosolize it to fill an entire house?”
“I wondered about that, too. Anyway, thinking ahead, I brought a big canister, a tube and a mister that should do it. It’s in my truck.”
The other two fell silent, maybe stunned by the first man’s prescience. Halothane, a surgical anesthetic, could put people to sleep for a little while. In theory it wouldn’t kill them unless they got way too much.
“Why didn’t you say so before?” asked the second man.
“Because I didn’t want to use it. It’ll leave traces in the blood. It’s not easy to come by, so that would point in two directions—a hospital and the military. How many directions do we want these cops to be looking? Two isn’t enough. And it sure doesn’t point to a bunch of teenagers.”
“Hell,” muttered the third man.
“So try to think of something better,” suggested the first. “I just threw it out there to stir your brains. Find a way around the halothane. Don’t just sit here and moan.”
“But you’ve really got it?” asked the third man.
“Absolutely. But it’s the last resort, hear me?”
They heard. They understood. They didn’t have to be happy about it, though.
Chapter Five
The morning brought sunshine and crisp air. The storm of the day before had caused the springtime temperatures to drop enough that Cat wondered if they might get more snow.
It wouldn’t be unusual at this time of year. She loved the changeability, especially in the spring and autumn.
She considered wearing her uniform, then decided against it. Running after Duke mostly wouldn’t call for it. And if she needed it later, she could put it on. One way or another, it wasn’t going to be a day at the office.
She phoned him as she stood on her small front porch and waved to people driving to work. He answered immediately.
“Duke.” Crisp, no nonsense.
“Hey, Duke. You ready to start the day?”
“Sure. I’ll need a shower first. Just got back in from a run.”
She couldn’t resist asking, “So was it a run or a jog?”
She thought he snorted, but she couldn’t be sure over the phone.
“It was a run. Where should we meet?”
“I’m hankering for a latte, so Maude’s it is.”
“That’s the City Diner?”
“Yeah, but everyone around here calls it Maude’s.”
“I can see why,” he replied dryly. “Give me twenty, please.”
Presto, change-o, she thought as she tucked her phone away. Better take her car in case he got a wild hair. It would have been a great morning to enjoy a run of her own, except she had one problem Duke didn’t: she was known to almost everyone. Privacy didn’t exist for Cat on the street.
The morning breakfast crowd had begun to trail away by the time she arrived. There was one group of older men who had turned Maude’s into their meeting place and always sat in the back. Generally they were too busy talking among themselves to pay much attention to anyone else.
Cat exchanged waves with them and took a table right in front of the window. A few minutes later, Maude appeared with a tall paper cup. “Latte, right?”
“You know me too well.” At least Maude didn’t slam it down the way she would have slammed a coffee cup. “Thanks.”
“That new guy coming along? The one you’re babysitting?”
Cat nearly froze in surprise. How had that gotten around? Loose lips in the department? “Where did you hear that?”
“Don’t recall. You know how things float around here.”
Amazing Maude said so much. A warning of some kind? She had the feeling that Maude, per usual, wouldn’t say another word about it, so there was no point in asking. Maude had already turned away to stomp back behind the counter and wait for a customer who needed her to tromp back into the kitchen.
Given that Duke had already been out on a long run, she suspected that would be soon.
Sipping her latte, she waited and watched the street. More pedestrians were appearing, particularly women who seemed to be hurrying on errands. There was a small party store down the street, patronized by people who had a child’s birthday coming up, and a very small organic food store that somehow was hanging on when there never seemed to be anyone walking in or out. At the far end of the street sat a meat-processing place where you could bring your deer in the fall or a steer you wanted to use to feed your family. They’d even age the meat to make it taste better.
On weekends, a small vacant lot turned into a farmers’ market. As much good produce as
