Page 107 of Ground Truth

Gaspar said, “So your plan is to lure Hedinger to Scotland? While you have civilians in play? Sounds dangerous to me.”

“Dangerous to Hedinger and only if he shows up.” Flint said. “Don’t worry. I don’t have a death wish. But I’ve gotta go. There’s a lot to do before we fly out.”

“Hurry back,” Scarlett said with a smile. “I need you to watch the shop while Maddy and I are at Disney World. We leave next week.”

-

Chapter 51

Six days later

Portmahomack

An observer would believe Otis Jarsdel’s last morning in Portmahomack had begun like all the others. He’d planned his days to reveal a comfortable sameness for anyone who might be watching. Soon they’d stop watching him from sheer boredom.

It had occurred to Jarsdel that a man could relax in a place like this. Maybe live out his days in peace by the stormy sea. Which once would have bored Jarsdel to the point of madness. He was surprised by how inviting it seemed now.

He rose every day at six o’clock and walked down the sidewalk from the hotel to the Stag and Hounds pub on Main Street for breakfast. Along the way, he observed the village as it came alive.

Regardless of the weather, locals drove out for work in Inverness or Tain. After breakfast, the shops began to open. The chemist, the post office, the grocery.

Tourists laced their trainers and jogged along the beach. Jarsdel dressed like them, too. Villagers assumed he was one of the tourists and, in a sense, he was.

He’d found Portmahomack residents welcoming but not nosy. After a couple of days, it was easy to understand both why and how Greta Campbell had settled down in this particular village with her boy.

Jarsdel had tried interviewing the villagers, but Campbell had revealed almost nothing of her previous life to her friends and neighbors. Which would not have been possible in some small villages. Here, people minded their own business.

He’d been here a short time, watching the farmhouse around the clock, preparing for the upcoming mission. Yet he knew more about the pair who called themselves Mr. and Mrs. Tumbler than anyone else in the village, even with years of exposure to the family, seemed to know.

Avery Tumbler was a dull man. Nothing like Campbell’s prior husband. If Tumblerwasher husband, which Jarsdel doubted. They were living as husband and wife, but Jarsdel suspected that was a lie. He could find no documents in the databases reflecting a marriage. Nor the birth records for the boy.

The absence of records was solid proof that Gretchen Tumbler was not who she claimed to be, as far as Jarsdel was concerned.

In fact, he believed Gretchen Tumbler was a total fiction. If she were a legitimate resident, she’d have been documented up the wazoo, like every other legal resident.

The only reasonable conclusion? Gretchen Tumbler was an alias. The woman was Greta Campbell Reed. No doubt in Jarsdel’s mind. Even if he couldn’t prove it.

Yet.

Jarsdel waited outside the newsstand in the pouring rain, holding the newspaper to conceal his face until Avery Tumbler’s decrepit Range Rover drove past.

He glanced at his watch. Tumbler was right on time.

Some Portmahomack folks went home or to the pubs for lunch, but Avery Tumbler never did. He brought his lunch from home and ate alone at his desk in Tain. Every day. Without fail.

He wouldn’t return home from work at the pottery factory until after six o’clock tonight. By then the mission would be accomplished, and Tumbler’s life would never be the same.

The mission was on schedule and Tumbler was now out of the way. He sent a text to Hedinger to confirm.

After Tumbler passed, Jarsdel walked along the soggy shoulder of the road toward the outskirts of the village through fog so thick he could barely see his own feet. The farmhouse was a two-mile walk from the village. He’d be there in twenty minutes.

Jarsdel’s observation point was on a hill in the woods opposite the farmhouse. Hedinger and Bauer were waiting there now.

They wouldn’t be able to see much from that vantage point in this weather. They’d be forced to move closer to the house.

The plan had fallen into place more quickly than Jarsdel expected.

One of Hedinger’s automatic alerts had been triggered when Flint purchased two plane tickets for travel from Houston to Inverness.

---