As they watched together, she saw Caleb approach the young men. He asked for a location; he spoke Spanish fluently, which was very typical of those who lived in this multicultural city. By the time he came back and hopped into the truck and turned on the engine, she said, “And?”
“Not only did they know where he lived but they also told me to stay away because he’s bad news.”
“Oh, good,” she said, “I knew I liked them.”
He chuckled. “I told them that he had a dog of mine. They just rolled their eyes at that and said he has many dogs.”
“Guard dogs?”
“I think so. Whether they’re up on the hills, guarding some illicit operation, I don’t know,” he said. “But they did warn me that he’s into drugs and he’s bad news.”
“Good,” she said. “Now what?”
“We’ll do a drive-by so I can take a look and see just what I’m dealing with.” He texted somebody on his phone; then he hit Reverse and pulled out.
“Now who are you talking to?”
“Telling my boss. Asking them to check satellite feed of the area because we want to know exactly what we’re facing, before going in.”
“You’re thinking he’s that dangerous?”
“I didn’t think your house was in a terribly dangerous area,” he said, “but we were still shot at.”
She winced at that. “Good point. And I guess we don’t want anything else to go sideways, do we?”
“No,” he said, as he drove past, lifting a hand at the young guys.
“Will they remember you?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “And I suspect they’re already contacting our asshole to let him know we’re coming by.”
“Why would they do that?”
“To stay on his good side,” he said. “They’re just trying to stay alive in a town where one of the bosses is a scary asshole.”
“Is he likely to start shooting before he even talks to us?”
“I doubt we’ll get close enough to talk to him,” Caleb said shortly. “Guys like that have henchmen between him and the bullets.”
“Right,” she said. “Are we planning on talking to him today?”
“Not unless we get stopped.”
“Great.” She sat back, and they took a series of turns before they came to a very rural area and a large hacienda-looking house settled farther back on the land. “That’s what I expected,” he murmured. “Barbed wire roll on the top, complete with alarms and gunmen.”
She whistled. “Is that really somebody walking around with a rifle over his shoulder?”
“Yeah, that’s the guard on duty.”
“What’s he guarding? Fort Knox?”
“Probably just the boss,” he said quietly. “Which means the boss has made a hell of a lot of enemies, and he’s always afraid for his life.”
They kept driving slowly down the road. When a bullet whistled harmlessly overhead, he nodded. “Also expected.”
She stared at him in shock. “You expect to get shot at when you’re driving down a road?” She wasn’t even sure how the hell she could be a so calm herself because this was not normal for her.
“With guys like that? Yeah. First one is a warning shot. We get any closer, and it’s no longer a warning.”
“So they won’t even talk to us?” she asked, twisting to look back. She saw no sign of anybody.
“Nope, not at all. That’s just a warning to say, Keep on going.”
“And are we?”
“As much as we can,” he said. He tossed his phone to her and said, “Can you bring up a map on my phone? See what the GPS gives us for a route here. I’d love to circle the entire property.”
“How many acres do you think he has?”
“I’d guess ten but, out here, could be forty.”
“Forty would mean he could be doing something on the property, right?”
“Ten is big enough to be running all kinds of operations. He could just be running drugs. He could be manufacturing drugs. He could be moving women. We don’t know.”
At the word women, she stared at him in shock. He looked at her and said, “When you get into being a badass, they start looking at making money. Drugs are just the start of it. Women very quickly become secondary income and an equally decent income earner.”
“Great,” she said. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “but I’d be a fool to not keep you in the loop.”
“No, don’t do that,” she said.
“Do you have any guns at home?”
“Yeah, I got a shotgun and a .22.”
He just nodded.
“And, of course, neither of those are what you want, are they?”
“No,” he said, “but I can see why you have those.”
“Well, I need something for coyotes and two-legged predators,” she said. “Haven’t really had any need for more than that.”
“And I’m glad,” he said, “seriously glad because it makes no sense to carry any other firepower if you won’t use it.”
“I thought that was something everybody wanted,” she said, “bigger and better guns.”
“Maybe, but bigger and better guns doesn’t give you a bigger and better shooting ability.”
She snorted. “I remember that too,” she said, “but I haven’t done any target practice in a long time.”
“And that just means we need to change that when we get home again.”
“Believe it or not, I did think about that after the shooting at home today.”
“Good, and make sure everything is accessible.”
She went silent for a long moment. “You’re really expecting trouble, aren’t you?”
He looked at her and gave her the gentlest of smiles and said, “It’s not that I’m expecting it,” he said, “but I don’t want it to come and meet me unprepared.”
She winced. “So are you sticking around for a while, or will I be facing, alone, whatever trouble you think is coming?”
“Well, I
