Page 110 of Lone Star

Reese went to assemble his weapons cache for the night’s work.

~*~

Doc Gilliard’s house glowed like a jack-o-lantern. It stood against the dark of night as a modern, flashy stucco fortress, studded with windows, circled by iron fences, embellished with swimming pools and ornate gardens. Candy had given them a general idea of the layout, based on what he remembered, but had grimaced when he admitted he didn’t know where all the entrances and exits were located. Fox had waved him off. “We can take care of that.”

He lay now on his belly in the dirt, on the rise above the good doctor’s property, surveying the place through binoculars. His heart pounded like a metronome, quick, but steady, limbs full of anticipatory chills.

“I make one guard by the garage doors, but that’s all I can see outside.”

“That’s where they’ll be keeping the valuables,” Eden said.

“Some of them. But there’s outbuildings,” Fox said, handing over the binoculars.

She put them to her eyes, and then cursed softly. “You’re right.”

“We’ll have to check all of it.”

“Right.” She caught his gaze, and tipped her head toward the boys, brows lifted in silent question.

“They’ll be alright, won’t you, boys?” To Eden: “They’ve been briefed.”

Reese gave him a solemn nod. Tenny shrugged, which Fox figured was the closest thing he’d get to acknowledgement from him.

“Just like we talked about: you two start east, and moved west. Eden and I’ll start west, and we’ll pass one another, and meet back here. If you have to kill, kill silently. If you find Doc Gilliard, drag him out. You’ve got your phones? Take photos. Call if you get pinned down.”

Reese nodded again, and they slipped backward down the ridge, silent as wraiths, disappearing into the gloom.

Fox turned to Eden. “I would say ladies first, but in this case, I think going first would be the chivalrous thing.”

There was just enough ambient glow coming from the estate to reveal her smirk, and the gleam of excitement in her eyes. “Just concentrate on not getting yourself killed, Charlie. I can take care of myself.”

“Uh-huh.”

They picked their way carefully down the backside of the rise; Reese and Tenny were long gone, nothing but a bit of stepped-on sage to mark that anyone had moved off toward the east side of the property. The moon was out, half-full and waxing, and it offered enough light to see by – especially for two people used to slinking along in the dark.

The approach to the house was flat ground, and mostly bare, grasses rippling in the breeze, the odd, stunted tree twisting here and there, and offering little in the way of cover. Up top, through the binoculars, Fox had spotted two important bits of information: the solar panel that sat beside one gate post, and the way the guard at the garage was paying more attention to his phone than anything else. Fox headed for the panel, bent double, keeping low, pausing now and then to listen, and scan the area. He figured they were registering on a camera, popping up on grainy black and white on a monitor somewhere inside. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be here long enough for the cavalry, if called, to show up while they were still on the premises.

The fence posts were two-by-two brick columns, topped with flickering gas lanterns, the black iron running between each adorned with decorative finials, all of it very overdone and English-chic. The solar panel, though – the one that powered the gates and, according to Candy, an electric wire that ran along the top rail – was cheap, the sort of thing anyone could pick up at a local feed store. It was the work of a minute to disconnect it, and Fox watched the little red light fade and wink out before he fired off a text to Ten.Done.

He moved to the gates. They operated off a keypad – whose power source he’d just killed – and so they weren’t locked together at the center with any sort of chain. Convenient for a rich man who didn’t want to climb out of his car and unlock his gates by hand – but far less safe in this situation. Fox disabled the hydraulic mechanism that opened and closed them with his knife, and pushed them inward. They glided, without so much as a squeak, but as he’d expected, the movement finally caught the guard’s attention.

“Hey!” a voice called. A flashlight clicked on, its beam sweeping along the ground toward them.

Fox took off at a run, quick and silent, straight for the man. By the time the beam lifted, and hit him full in the face, Fox already knew enough to go in blind, eyes clenching shut against the onslaught, muscles gathering for the spring.

Eden’s distraction – a sharp “put your hands up” off to his right – sounded, just as planned, and the light swung that way. A quick, instinctual mistake – but a deadly one. They’d weighed the odds out on the ridge: if the guard had radioed first, and acted second, this could have been a very different scene. But he’d acted alone, and so Fox leaped, and twisted, body torqueing, and caught the man in the temple with a kick hard enough to send him crumpling boneless on first contact. He hit the asphalt with a sound like a sack dropping.

Fox landed, lightly, and turned to the man, fishing a roll of tape from his coat pocket.

Eden appeared on the other side of the fallen guard, gun held at the ready, head swiveling. “That was alarmingly easy,” she murmured.

Fox slapped a bit of tape over the man’s mouth, and then set to work binding his hands. “Famous last words, darling.”

~*~

“It’s done,” Ten said, slipping his phone in his pocket.

Reese didn’t wait. He took three long strides back, got a running start, and leaped. His gloved hands caught the top rail of the fence: hard, square-edged iron, strong but narrow; it bit into his palms even through the gloves. He bared his teeth, tightened all the muscles in his arms, shoulders, and chest, and hauled himself up, up, up, until he could reach with one leg and hook the toe of his boot. He balanced there, poised over the finials, gathering himself. Then brought the other leg over in a smooth arc and flew.

---