Chapter 9

Nine

Denver, Colorado. Not a city I could recall spending much time in. If at all. I liked bigger cities, Manhattan, Los Angeles, even Miami. I liked the culture of Europe. Denver had—a really big horse statue. A blue one.

No doubt there was a story there. I filed that away for later. For now, I opened up a piece of gum, slid it in to chew then kept watch on the assassin heading for his own vehicle. Dumb luck hitched me to Michael Remington’s trail. Well, dumb luck and blowing a lot of capital.

I’d gotten nowhere reviewing all the old messages I’d stored on a private server. I’d also gone through a handful of information specialists—none of them the best because clearly that was Patch. Still, they didn’t get anywhere either. Finding her was like looking for the most perfect needle in an infinite haystack.

All I needed was a starting point. Acquiring difficult to find items was my speciality. I didn’t think I’d be able to snag an address. If I could narrow it down to a location, it would improve my odds. The only way I didn’t find her was if I gave up.

My mother didn’t raise a quitter.

She didn’t raise me either, but still—my point stood.

Derrick returned my call when I left him a message that it would wipe out his debt to me and I might even owe him a favor. It was a lot of capital. Derrick was plugged into most of the information networks in the country. The man loved to eavesdrop on everything, it gave him good leads and he could be a fount of information.

But he was also a hoarder and hated to part with any of it. The more secretive, the more he liked to hold onto it. He only owed me because someone had “stolen” a mint condition rocket-firing Boba Fett prototype. Only a couple of dozen were ever made and they were never on sale.

The “thief” had outbid him. So, Derrick reached out to me and offered me three times the value of the thing to get it for him—a toy. Not that I judged, but it was still just a toy. The scarcity of it increased its value, but he didn’t want it because it was so expensive—he wanted it because it was so rare.

And the only Star Wars rare toy he didn’t own.

I jokingly told him I’d get it for him for the fee plus three favors.

He agreed without argument.

I delivered the toy four days later.

Despite him owing me the favors, I’d never felt the need to cash in before. Patch changed everything.

“Give me ten minutes,” was all he said before he hung up. He didn’t keep me waiting longer than five.

“Can’t do it. Donnie’s been digging for this guy Michael Remington. Dude has a kill count like you wouldn’t believe. Sorry man. Not gonna happen. I’d rather keep my head and just owe you a different favor.”

Then he hung up on me.

Hung up.

So, I dropped by Derrick’s little bunker, took his hard drive, his backup drive, and his laptops. I picked up Boba Fett while I was there. I would have left it, but the little shit hung up on me.

For now.

I had a hacker who got into the drives and pulled out the info on Michael Remington. The number of kills to the man’s name were enough to make the new hacker blanch. The man had a very well-earned reputation. Yet no charges. Because there was nothing to link him to the bodies would be my guess.

Suspected of the crime was nowhere near the ability to be prosecuted for it. Still, he’d been looking for Patch and while I might not be an assassin, I wasn’t going to let him just kill her. Which brought me all the way to Denver. I landed an hour ahead of his flight, moved ahead to the rental place where he’d pre-booked a car.

Using an app, I did the same. It meant no talking to people and just getting the vehicle. I was already in place when he left the lot. Since there were lots of people leaving the airport, following wasn’t a problem.

Heavy traffic worked in my favor as he headed through Denver and up the mountain toward Estes Park. It was really beautiful. While I preferred cities, the more rustic it got the more it made my shoulder blades itch.

For the most part, he didn’t seem to notice me. I dropped back more than once, let cars get between us and I only passed when he accelerated more than the driver in front of me. Eventually, we were in the little town and I grabbed coffee while he was hunting on his computer.

Fortunately, his distraction let me drop a tracker on his car on my way out of the Starbuck’s. Following from a distance was always preferable. I would know where they were and they didn’t know I was here.

It wasn’t until he sat on that street for the better part of an hour that I got the feeling, this might be the location we were both looking for. When he left, I made myself comfortable a couple of streets away and kept an eye on the tracker. I wanted to go walk the neighborhood, but I’d do that after dark.

Great minds thought alike cause he arrived and parked two car lengths away from me before he made his way toward her house. He moved like a shadow. My eyes had long since adjusted to the dark and thankfully, I could make out his outline.

I followed him all the way to the backyard, avoiding the cameras he missed. Not that those cameras were likely to pick up on him, but I”d rather they saw none of us.

When he went over the fence, I gave it a beat before I approached. Pulling myself up, I half-expected to come face to face with the muzzle of his gun, but he was at the backdoor, taking an epically long time to open the damn thing.

They were deadbolts.

My eyes narrowed. Three minutes.

Sloppy.

I let him vanish inside before I was up and over the fence. While I didn’t doubt he was armed, I hadn’t brought any weapons with me. I’d packed a knife in my suitcase, but that was more for utility than anything else. I didn’t like guns.

I didn’t hate them, but I wasn’t a fan. At the door, I stood to the side and listened. The hedge placement didn’t let me peek in the windows, or observe him. The door had beeped when he opened it so it would be a risk to let myself in if he was in earshot.

Still, no sounds drifted out from the interior. A couple of houses over, a couple was laughing and yelling at their kids. Nothing special. All normal, regular suburban sounds. I weighed my options.

I couldn’t stay out here forever. If Michael Remington was here to kill her, I couldn’t protect her from out here either. So, I pulled out my picks to work on the lock and stared in disgust.

He never relocked it.

Utterly unprofessional.

Pocketing them, I pulled out my knife then opened the door. The distinctive tone alerted anyone inside that I’d opened the door and I was already crouching as I slid in and shut the door. Crab walking, I made it behind the island in the kitchen, then paused to listen.

Where was he?

Did he hear me come in? The uneasy silence in the darkened house draped everything like a funeral shroud. Only the certainty I wasn’t alone kept me in place. A creak of sound split the quiet like a gunshot. I glanced around the edge of the island in time to see the shadow of the man appear at the base of the stairs.

He was definitely armed.

Staying low, I tracked his movement or lack thereof. At the base of the stairs, he’d gone completely still. He seemed to meld into the darkness of the room except for his face. His face and his gun.

The hand wrapped around the grip was also indistinguishable. Probably gloves. Smart, he seemed to be waiting me out like I was him. Sweat trickled down my spine, but I didn’t let his lack of action bait me into moving. His stillness and the lack of Patch’s presence suggested either she wasn’t here or he’d done something to her…

The second thought turned my whole world bleak at the very idea. No, I refused that notion. Unless I found a body, just no. Suddenly, he just seemed to vanish from where he’d been standing. The distraction, swift as it was, allowed him to move and I couldn’t see him.

Fuck.

Stay or go?

The choice ping-ponged through my head. Then the floor creaked to my right and I slid backwards, managing to crab walk to the far side of the island and slip around it before he appeared where I’d been planted.

I kept circling to get behind him and shot upwards when he turned. I got his gun hand pushed upwards and my knife angled toward his throat. Not fast enough because he had my wrist and we were locked in a strength contest as I kept his gun away and he fended off my knife.

The only sound formed between us were harsh breathing and grunts. He was taller than I was, broader built in the shoulders but I had more strength. I was slowly pushing the knife closer to his throat. Then his knee slammed into my groin and agony exploded through me.

One minute I was on my feet and the next, he flipped me, twisted my arm outward and pain radiated to my shoulder. I followed the twist, pivoting with him. The move caught him off guard enough, I pushed my shoulder into his gut and shoved upward. He had to let go of me to try and catch his balance and I ran him across the room and rammed him into a wall

He crashed his fist down against my shoulder, then my back, then where my back joined my neck. Each blow sent fresh pain to flutter after the rest and I snagged something from the table and swung it as I straightened. It knocked the gun aside, not that he let it go, but I caught him across the face with the metal plate or bowl or whatever it was.

Not enough to buy me the time to go back for the knife, so I used the metal platter to ram between his arm and body, then push upward. It sent his gun hand high as I turned, then rammed my elbow into his gut. He needed to let go of the gun.

The back door burst open and another man appeared, he had a gun and it was pointed at both of us.

Shit just went from bad to worse.

“Don’t move,” he snarled. “Where is Patch?”

Well, fuck.