Garret grabbed potatoes and asked, “How soon do you want to eat?”
“An hour’s good, but thirty minutes is better.” Eton looked at the potatoes, frowned, and said, “Those are gonna take a bit, if you’re thinking baked.”
“I’ll grate them,” Garret said. He quickly grabbed two big ones and found a grater in the cupboard. “By the time you’ve got these steaks done, we’ll have potatoes too.”
“Are you planning on veggies or just starch and protein?” Eton joked, as he walked toward him. “How about a salad?”
“We can do that.”
Eton pulled out salad fixings, then went outside and lit the barbecue pit. When he came back, Garret already had the grated potatoes in a hot pan. “You just put them right in the pan?”
“If I had time, I’d put them in a bowl and let the starch collect, then rinse them off,” Garret said, “but we don’t have time.” He put the two big potatoes, now grated, in thin layers in two hot pans with a drizzle of olive oil, then seasoned them and just let them cook. While they were browning, Eton took the steaks outside and tossed them on the barbecue pit, while Garret laid out the salad.
As they sat down to a hot dinner little more than a scant eight minutes later, Eton took his first bite of steak and smiled. “Now my stomach won’t kill me,” he said. Laughing together, they each enjoyed their dinner, as they discussed their plans. “On a hill like this, when the sun goes down, you’re pretty well hitting dusk. We’re at seven-thirty right now,” Eton said.
Garret nodded. “So I figure we should hit the road by eight. We’ll probably have a ten-minute hike to the top of the hill. We’ve got some equipment that I want to set out to see if we can get any better tracking on that cell phone.”
“We need that phone turned on in order to track it.”
“Yeah, but most people just leave them on these days.”
“True, unless they are one-way burners,” Eton said. Dishes washed, they quickly gathered up the gear they needed, and, with a quick look around, Eton asked, “Have you got something in place in the event we get an unwanted visitor?”
“All set up,” Garret said cheerfully.
Eton glanced at him. “Jeez, you aren’t taking any chances on me getting pissed off and sending you home, huh?”
“Not a chance of that happening.” Garret shot him a hard look. “You’re here. I’m here,” he said. “They’ve taken one shot at me. I know what these guys can do.”
“And I can look after myself.” Eton brushed off his concerns. He knew what Garret would do with that too.
“Don’t be an ass,” he said. “The fact that you can handle it alone doesn’t matter. I’ll be here anyway.”
“Got it,” he said, and the two of them headed up the mountain.
Chapter 3
After her dad had settled in front of the TV, Sammy looked at him and said, “Dad, I’m going for a run.”
He looked up, smiled faintly, and said, “That’s a good idea, dear.”
She hesitated, since she really didn’t like leaving him. But she’d become a bit of a cross-country runner as a way to relieve the stress in her life that had grown with the progression of his debilitating condition. She quickly changed into running pants, a tank top, and her running shoes. It was later than normal, but she still loved to run in the dark. She knew the paths up and around the hills like the back of her hand. She picked up her water bottle, tightened her fitness watch, and headed out the kitchen door.
The only problem with her route was that it was uphill to begin with, so she didn’t get much chance to warm up and to stretch. Typically she would do it before she left, but, with the stress from the flat tire and the worry about her father, everything was coiled inside her, and she just had to get out and to let loose.
She raced sideways up the hill, not letting herself stop, even as she gasped for breath, settling into a long easy recovery jog. She wasn’t sure exactly what weather was in the forecast; she hadn’t even checked. But the stars were out, so it was bright enough for a nice long run. She wouldn’t do too much, just enough to hit that point where she could feel all the stress inside crumbling away. That was always a moment of sheer joy.
However, right now, she felt she was running on rubber bands instead of feet, those bands kicking her legs faster and faster. When one of her feet came back, when she felt more grounded, it told her, more and more. By the time she’d done forty-five minutes, zigzagging her way back and forth to the top of the incline, she stopped, her hands on her hips, and took several slow deep breaths. She couldn’t afford to stand here for long, but she could at least rest for a bit. Hearing a voice behind her, she spun and almost fell over in the dark. “Who’s there?” she asked.
In a surprise move, the stranger from the road stepped forward.
She looked at him. “Eton?”
“Hi, Sammy,” he said, with that lopsided grin.
In the dark, he looked a little more intimidating than he had on the road. Instinctively she took a step back.
He immediately put up both hands. “You’re okay,” he said. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said, “because I’ve been running for the last forty-five minutes. I’m not sure I have too much left to fight with.”
“You’ve been running in the dark up in these hills?” Another man appeared at Eton’s side.
She studied him, but it was hard to see his features. But there was something about him, that same strong presence and power that Eton had. These were men who were capable of doing shit. She nodded slowly. “Yes. I often do it at the end of the day, just as a way to release some stress.”
“Right,” he said. “That’s a hell of a way to do it, if you’re running up the hills cross-country.”
“Today was a particularly stressful day,” she said.
“The tire?” Eton’s tone was sharp.
She shrugged. “It’s just so random. No reason for it,” she said. “It’s looked like somebody stabbed a knife into it.” When she saw both men go still, she felt all the more nervous.
“Got any enemies around?”
“None who would have done that,” she murmured. Eyeing the two of them, she continued, “Unless it was you two.”
“We are not your enemies,” Eton said. “And I stopped to help. Remember?”
“I know. I’m sorry,” she said. She took a deep breath, looked at the way she’d come up, and said, “Guess I’ll head back down now.”
“Are you sure you should be out here running at night?” Eton asked.
“I always have,” she said. “I’ve never given it a thought. Why?”
“Well, it’s just that looking into things, like slashed tires, is the kind of work we do,” Eton said. “Sort of anyway.”
“So you’re in law enforcement?”
“Let’s call it more of a global law enforcement,” he said, with that same half grin again.
“As long as you are not a mercenary,” she said, taking another step back, totally unsure how to feel about him. Everything he said sounded right, but, at the same time, he was a stranger, and she didn’t know if it was safe to trust him or not.