“Much as he could be a clam,” Duke replied, “he was talking to people. Maybe some dangerous people.”
“Didn’t he always do that? Way of life for him.” Ben compressed his lips, his entire face tightening. Then, “You think they might be after me.”
Cat spoke. “We can’t ignore the possibility, Ben. They might be coming for Duke, too. Whoever they are, they probably aren’t familiar with Larry’s secrecy about his work. They might think that anyone who knew him might have information.”
“But Larry kept us secret.”
“There are always people who know,” Duke said. “Always. Unless you were living in an isolated cave, someone would know you were close.”
After they put the leftovers away, they repaired to the living room with coffee. No beer. Not now, as night began to fall in slow stages. Cat looked outside and saw the snow was still falling slowly but not yet sticking. She hadn’t heard any other vehicles on the road out front, and from where she stood at the front window, she could see no signs of life.
But night approached, and the cover of darkness could bring threat.
If the break-ins were related to Larry’s murder, the perps had spaced them out a bit. It should be too soon for another attempt.
By the same token, since Duke had chased those two guys, their timetable may have sped up. Or maybe the two intervening burglaries had merely been diversionary. Maybe they had their sights on bigger targets, like Duke and Ben.
Duke interrupted the heavy, tense silence. “I’m going to take a walk around the perimeter before it gets dark, maybe move the truck farther away so it doesn’t provide concealment. You two button up the house. Curtains closed. Later we can turn out all the lights and keep watch.”
“Great evening,” Cat said, winking at Ben.
He smiled faintly. “Oh yeah. Standing post. Love it.”
During the passing hours, she had grown considerably more convinced that Duke had been right about what was coming down. She hoped not, but her stance was shifting. Maybe it helped that Ben had no problem believing the theory. She sure hoped she’d brought what they’d need.
THE GROUND HADN’T yet become muddy from the snowflakes that melted as soon as they fell on it. It had, however, softened just a bit, silencing Duke’s footsteps as he slipped around to the back and began his patrol of a wide perimeter. He didn’t wear the goggles because he wanted his full field of vision. Peripheral vision was great at detecting movement.
Much as the early twilight messed with depth and shadows, he could still see enough. The falling snowflakes amplified the remaining light. What he sought was any evidence of someone having been out here creeping around. This wasn’t the kind of place a person might take a casual walk. Too far away from anything else, including other dwellings.
He also needed to scout the terrain. From a tactical and strategic perspective, knowing the ground was essential. Where could a team hide when approaching the house? How many significant ditches and dips lay out here? Any formations large enough to hide behind? Easy approaches?
The tall evergreens that lined the property about three hundred feet from the house didn’t worry him. They’d be temporary cover at best. But a gully deep enough to provide concealment for someone to approach the house? Big problem.
Each time he paused to view the ground, he looked back to the house, considering angles of attack, soft points to approach.
Because the first thing he’d done was move his rental truck down the driveway, so it was near the road, he didn’t have to take care of that. Insofar as possible, it didn’t announce that Ben had visitors. But mostly he didn’t want to give them a place to hide.
Duke didn’t want to scare them off. He wanted these creeps to come after Ben. He wanted to take them down. For Ben, because he deserved to live without fear, especially fear that his relationship with Larry had brought hell raining down on him. Larry wouldn’t have wanted that, nor did Duke.
And of course he wanted justice for Larry. Assuming these guys were out here trying to bury something to protect brass or others back home, he might never get to the root cause of it. Not ever. Duke was resigned to that. What he wasn’t resigned to was letting his brother’s murderers get away with it, with letting them get away with all the other people they’d frightened.
Nope, time for justice.
Chapter Eleven
“We go tonight,” Man One said.
The three of them huddled beneath the tall evergreens, more shadows among already deep shadows. The steadily falling snow magnified a little bit of light despite the darkness above. Enough to see by. Maybe too much. Man One was past caring.
“Are you serious?” asked the second man. “Damn it, I haven’t even finished searching for the information on the computer or the flash drives. We might already have it.”
“Yeah,” agreed the third man. He’d seen plenty of action during his years in uniform and wasn’t afraid of it. The only thing that truly scared him was stupidity. He didn’t want to be stupid or to be led by it.
“The guy’s there. He’s sleeping. We can handle him and take our time to search.”
Man Two bumped his head as he moved. A quiet curse escaped him. “What about that truck down by the end of the driveway? Somebody else is in that house. Just maybe.”
“I don’t freaking care,” said the first man. “You two wanna spend the rest of our lives out here hunting for something we can’t find? You want to bring huge numbers of staties down on this place because we commit so many burglaries? At this point it’s hardly likely that we’ll have this gig much longer. They’ll call us failures, refuse to pay what they owe us and send someone else out here.”
“Sure,” said the second man.
“It’s a wild-goose chase,” the third man agreed morosely. “I mean, damn! What
