Page 98 of Single Mom's Bodyguards
“There,” Wesley says, pointing. A break in the trees. I nose the Tahoe into it and kill the lights.
We move. Doors shut with gloved palms. I swing around the nose of the truck and stop dead when I see it—hood low, stance familiar even in shadow, paint dusted in pollen.
Chief’s jeep.
Wesley tilts his phone to me. “His dot hasn’t moved in nine minutes. He’s settled.”
“Or stuck.” I let that sit a second, taste the copper in my mouth. Either way, he’s on the grounds.
We kit up without talking. Sidearms sit where they always sit. Knives where they always are. Comfort items. We leave the Tahoe and the jeep swallowed by trees. The ground underfootgoes from duff to gravel to a packed dirt track that mule-kicks dust when you step wrong. We don’t step wrong.
The wall arrives out of the dark like a cliff—stucco pale where the last of the sky brushes it, ironwork at the main gate throwing filigree shadows. It’s tall. It wants you to feel small. Good walls do.
We stay off the gate. Gates are theaters. Cameras point there first. We drift left, following the curve, hugging the jacaranda and bougainvillea that clutch at the stucco like too much jewelry. The iron spikes along the top throw little black teeth against the sky.
We move again. The wall bows where it follows a garden bend. Eucalyptus lean in. Their lowest branches graze the stucco like fingers. There’s a spot where the bark is smooth from a thousand breezes—and from one set of boots. I touch it. Fresh scuff. Sean.
Wesley sees it too. He gives me a quick nod. “He came this way.”
I scan the angle. “We go up here.”
He crouches, laces his fingers. I plant my boot. He boosts. Pain flakes down my arm, bright and mean, but I ride it. The stucco gives enough texture to climb if you’re stubborn, and I am. I catch the top, find iron, haul myself to a straddle. The spikes whisper against my pants. The garden breathes cool air up into my face—wet grass, turned earth, faint chemical tang from fountain lights.
I scan inside.
Spanish revival tastes. Big. Fountains to the right, a terraced lawn to the left, flagstones in a geometric fan that leads towardthe main house like a tongue. Low path lights flicker under lavender and rosemary.
I slide flat and raise two fingers for “hold.” Wesley breathes so quietly I only know he’s there because I can feel it. No sounds. Just the night. No guards. We drop on the inside one at a time. Knees bend. Boots kiss flagstone and hold. No clatter. No bark.
The garden goes from postcard to maze. The house blooms warm, all those arched windows lit up like a ship in a storm. Music murmurs somewhere—a string quartet recording or the rich man’s idea of culture. Staff cross and recross the far terrace with trays that flash silver.
Wesley tilts his jaw toward the right, toward the deeper landscaping where the path lights go sparse and the rosemary hedges rise. It’ll give us cover to the side yard, and from there to the terrace supports.
I nod. We start to move.
We go low and slow. Closer now, the house breathes. I can hear the fountain on the lower terrace gurgle and the faint, wet slap where it overflows into the runnels. Somewhere a radio crackles—a staff channel, not security. Someone laughs at a joke and then smothers it, remembering where they are.
Wesley stops again and touches my elbow. His lips barely move. “Sean?”
I glance at his tablet, shielded with my palm. One dot. Inside the grounds, off the main axis, closer to the trees than the house. Not moving. Watching. “He’s here. Eastern quadrant. Maybe a tree.”
Wesley’s eyes cut toward a darker smear of eucalyptus to our right. “That’s him.”
“Then we’re where we should be.”
We tilt that way, hugging the rosemary until the scent oils our sleeves. The ironwork on a side balcony looms above like lace. I can see the main doors now, under the grand arch. We’re not rushing that door. We’re not stupid.
We angle along the hedge line, toward where the terrace’s edge breaks into a stair that drops to the lower garden. There’s a service court beyond, a curve of stone where deliveries land. Fewer eyes, fewer microphones, more choices.
The lower garden opens ahead—long beds, clipped hedges, a strip of lawn that would swallow a soccer field. The fountains down here are smaller, the water louder. There’s a break in the wall where a service gate leads to a narrow lane kissed by darkness. If we need to exfil fast with bodies, that’s our way. I mark it. I always mark the way out before I mark the way in.
We’re close enough now to hear voices without binoculars. Friedburg, jovial and oily. And David, warm and poison-sweet, the way he gets when he thinks he’s the smartest predator in the room.
Wesley’s hands flex on the fore-end of the shorty. My knife feels heavier at my hip, like it knows its job. I breathe in through my nose and hold the air where it can steady my hands.
“Ready?” Wesley whispers.
“Always.”
