Seeing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary outside, Eton made his way to the house and knocked on the door. It was opened immediately, and Joe stood there, shuffling from one foot to the other.
Eton gave him a reassuring smile. “Nothing that I saw out there.”
A whisper of relief crossed his face, and his shoulders stiffened. “Didn’t figure it was,” he said. “Doesn’t mean there isn’t anything at the jobsite.”
Eton nodded. “I’m still thinking about that.”
“I have a suggestion,” he said. “Why don’t I come up with you tonight, and I’ll take a look around myself.”
“Oh, I can’t ask you to do that,” Joe protested.
“Yes, you can,” Sammy said from the background. Joe turned to look at her, and she nodded encouragingly. “This is what he does,” she said. “Let him see if he finds any issues or signs of anything funny.”
Joe asked, “Could he also tell if anybody is using it for a safe drop or if it’s a telecommunication center?”
She gazed at Eton, with a challenging look.
He nodded. “Yes, I probably could,” he said, “but I’d have to ask why?”
“The boss’s son is into that kind of stuff,” Joe muttered.
“Of course he is. Give me five minutes to check out the rest of your house.”
At that, Joe frowned. He looked at Sammy again.
She stepped forward and asked, “Why?”
“Because I want to make sure nobody unexpected entered the house,” Eton said in exasperation. “I would have done it first. But I wanted to check out who was outside.”
“Do you really think it’s possible for somebody to have gotten in without him knowing?”
“Happens all the time,” he said. “Do we want to argue about it or fix it?”
“If somebody is here or has been here, we need to know,” she said. She turned to Joe, and, instead of trying to explain it to him in English, she gave it to him in his own language.
Joe immediately nodded his head and stepped back. They followed Eton as he went from room to room, and, although he didn’t see anything, Eton found a window that had been tampered with.
He pointed it out to Joe, whose expression immediately changed to one of fear. He looked at Sammy.
Joe obviously trusted Sammy more than he did Eton. Which was understandable. “Is he sure he wants to go to that job tonight?” Eton asked.
“His grandson means a great deal to him,” she said quietly.
“I get that, but something hinky is going on, and surely he can get another job around here.”
“No, not really,” she said, “not without having to go into a larger town, and he can’t do that easily.”
Eton didn’t stop to worry about it because people said things all the time and yet found a way, but he saw Joe was pretty adamant about it.
“Okay then, I’m driving you home,” Eton said to Sammy, “and I’ll go with Joe up to the job.”
“If you say so,” she said, frowning.
“I’ll finish checking the rest of the house first,” Eton said, and, with that, he made a fast trip through the rest of Joe’s house. Everything else was fine, but Eton also needed to set a couple traps to see if anybody opened things up while Joe was gone to work. And so Eton set a couple hairs on the window, pointed it out to Joe, and explained that—if somebody opened the window, and it wasn’t Joe—he would know because that hair would be gone.
Joe immediately nodded his head, and then, with a look back at Sammy, Eton said, “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Joe will go on ahead of us,” she said, as they all three left at the same time, Joe already in his car.
Eton nodded. “In that case, I want to get to the jobsite as soon as possible.”
“You really think something’s wrong?” she asked, as she got into his vehicle.
“How freaked out was Joe to you?”
“Very,” she said quietly.
“Is he the kind who freaks out?”
“No,” she said, “not at all.”
“Exactly, so it is what it is.”
“It just seems so wrong,” she said.
“It does, but that doesn’t make it wrong,” he said. “Something is going on, and obviously somebody has gotten suspicious of Joe.”
“Good enough,” she said. “You can just drop me off at the driveway, and I’ll walk back up to my place.”
But he wouldn’t listen, and he quickly deposited her at her front door. “Go inside and lock your door,” he said. “I’ll call and check in with you later, as soon as I sort out what’s going on at Joe’s job.”
“Is it connected to what you’re up to?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “So far, we keep going on wild goose chases.”
She nodded and slammed the door shut, then he turned and headed out to the building site.
He parked just behind Joe, but so the other man could get out, if need be. As Eton walked in the adjoining building, he froze, then bolted into action. Joe was on the floor, blood pooling on the side of his skull from a head wound. Instincts firing, Eton quickly checked for a pulse, and, when he got that, he sent a message to Sammy to order an ambulance; then he sent a message to Garret, letting him know what was up. Eton hated to leave the old man as he was defenseless on the floor, but Eton gained absolutely no benefits by staying here with Joe if an intruder were still around.
Eton figured, when Joe arrived, he caught the intruder doing something. That pissed off Eton because he’d planned on getting here earlier too. Knowing that there would be chaos when the first responders arrived, he quickly searched the area, looking for an intruder. No vehicle had gone down the road because he’d been coming up the same road. He turned to look at the vehicles outside, wondering if the attacker had used one. So many of the buildings themselves were locked, so it was hard to get in. It would take precious time to get into most of them to check.
He stationed himself outside and quickly hit the hills, looking for anybody running away. Nobody could escape in the darkness quietly if they were in a hurry. The trouble was, it was quiet, as if somebody sat out there, hunkered down and waiting, knowing they would make too much noise and were holding off on making their escape. That worked for Eton because he had great nighttime vision, and, as far as he was concerned, this asshole was his. All Eton had to do was find him. As he searched through the darkness, he thought he heard a branch crack on the high-rise side. He slipped backward, circled around at a run, coming toward the spot to the west. Just as he was about to proceed on again, he thought he saw movement. He looked deeper, and, sure enough, a male was crouched among the brush.
He’d managed to stay hidden for a long time. Which also meant he probably had training and was most likely a pro. That would mean he was armed. Eton couldn’t guarantee just how Joe had been attacked, but it didn’t look like a bullet wound, unless it was just a graze. Either way, Joe was done here, and, after this, the company would have a hard time getting any security in place. Eton slipped a little bit lower into the underbrush, trying to stay as quiet as possible and under the radar. Finally the man stood and ever-so-slowly checked his watch, then turned as if to run away.