Home > Eton's Escape (Bullard's Battle #3)(7)

Eton's Escape (Bullard's Battle #3)(7)
Author: Dale Mayer

“We aren’t here to hurt you,” he reiterated. “I’m just concerned. If your tire was deliberately cut or slashed, generally that means somebody was either hoping to come upon you, broken down along the road, or worse—that you might have had an accident. Are you sure you don’t have someone in your world with a reason for any of that? Or even transients or local ruffians?”

“I was visiting a friend of mine,” she said. “She lives alone, and I figure my tire was cut there, but I didn’t realize it until I was on the road and felt the wobble and the pull on my steering wheel.”

“How long were you there? And is her car okay?” the other man asked.

“Just a couple hours,” she said. “I stopped there and had a cup of coffee with her, and then I headed straight home to make sure my dad got some lunch. I haven’t talked to my friend, so I don’t know about her car.” At that, her voice almost broke.

“Your dad? Is he okay?”

She shook her head. “I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but his condition is declining. Mentally and physically. I don’t think he has too much longer, and, honestly, watching the process is hard. Really hard.” Instantly she could feel the sympathy emanating from both men.

She just shook her head, wiped her hands on her running pants, and said, “I’ve got to go.” Then she bolted down the same pathway that she had run up, and her heart slammed against her chest the whole way. If something were going on with these two men, she’d basically just told them that she lived alone with nobody to help look after her. She should have given the impression that she lived with a huge strong and jealous boyfriend, not an aging and sickly father. But still she couldn’t find any reason for her openness, beyond the fact that she really liked the little bit of Eton she’d seen, and he inspired confidence. She just wasn’t sure how the hell that worked.

*

“That’s Sammy?” Garret asked.

Eton nodded.

“Love her accent. I guess the Swiss accommodate visitors by speaking English as well.”

Again Eton nodded, with a one-armed shrug.

Garret whistled. “Well, I can see the attraction,” he said. “And she is superfit.”

“Absolutely,” he said, “but I had no idea she was into cross-country running.”

“And in the dark.”

“I used to do that myself,” Eton said. “It feels very different from the normal cross-country running during the day.”

“If you say so. She looked like she was enjoying herself,” Garret said smoothly, “until we came along anyway.”

“It’s odd though,” he said. “If it were me running, I wouldn’t give it a thought. But because she is out here running, I really want to go after her and make sure she gets home safe.”

“That would probably just confirm her worry that you are a stalker—or worse,” Garret joked.

Eton winced at that. “She definitely didn’t look all that happy to see me.”

“Well, she didn’t ask, and it’s probably smart of her, but here we are, at the top of the mountain. Plus, although she didn’t see it, the equipment we’ve got would hardly inspire confidence.”

“No, you’re right,” he said. “I wish I knew where she lived though, so I could go by in the morning and reassure her that we weren’t up to anything sketchy.”

“But we are though,” Garret said. “And she is a good reminder that we are not alone.”

At that, Eton turned around, nodded, and said, “We still haven’t picked up any signal.”

“I know. I’m wondering if the guy has a second phone and keeps this one off, unless he needs to make a call.”

“That would be about our luck,” he said. “So let’s finish setting up the equipment, and then we’ll leave it here,” he said, “but I also want to run a transmitter down to the house.”

“It won’t be a quick trip up here,” Garret warned.

“I know, but, if we can trigger something on the phone, we could come up and see if we can get a location. The other thing is,” he said, “we should put Ice on this.”

“I already tried that, and she’s working on it, but we’re here in place,” he said. “So the chances of her getting a better location on our target’s cell phone aren’t likely.”

Just then the machinery in front of them made a weird clicking sound.

“Interesting,” Garret said, jumping over to the equipment. “Looks like the phone just turned on.”

“Location?” Eton asked. He stared down at the village on the other side of the hill. “It’s not very busy down there, is it?”

“No, only about five thousand live on that side, and then around forty-five hundred are on this side.”

“So this is Switzerland in this area, huh? These little dotted communities?”

“Yeah, but they are all close enough to get into the city, if they need to, for commuting.”

“So, they’re like little bedroom communities.”

“Exactly,” said Garret. “Unless any businesses are around that would support this number of residents, I would suspect that almost every one of these households has at least one person who commutes.”

“That would suck,” Eton said. “I hate commuting as it is. On a daily basis, that would really finish me.”

“Well, aren’t you the lazy ass,” Garret said. As he bent to study the equipment, he said, “Look. A call is being made right now.” He transmitted the data to his phone. “And it’s coming from the village, from the far side up on that hill that we can see in the distance.”

Sure enough, Eton saw a hill, if you could call it that. It certainly wasn’t a mountain, and it was barely above ground level, as far as Eton was concerned, but he saw lights dancing between the trees of various houses. “Okay, I should go down and head that way in the vehicle,” he muttered.

“We should have done that from the beginning. I just didn’t think we would get this lucky on the first try,” Garret said.

“I’m already on my way,” Eton said. “Keep an eye on that. I’ll be in the vehicle and heading down the road in, like, six minutes.”

“You would have been faster if you were chasing after her.”

“Yeah, and scared her to death too,” he said and headed down the hillside toward the car.

 

 

Chapter 4

 

 

Sammy got back home, out of breath. Instead of that sense of release and peace rushing over her, it was as if something else had curled up inside. Why hadn’t she thought to ask what were they doing up there at night? Something about the nighttime activities, especially when the men were dressed all in black, gave her the heebie-jeebies about what criminal acts they might be up to. He said that they were working in the world, doing stuff that caught bad guys; yet he denied being in law enforcement. So just what the hell was it that they were doing? She hated to even think about it, but, now that the idea had surfaced, she couldn’t let it go. That’s all she thought about.

As she walked inside, her body slick with sweat, her father looked up from the television, his gaze lucid and clear. “Well, don’t you look like you had a lovely run?”

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