Page 68 of Ground Truth

Living in that rough neighborhood formed the bedrock foundation of Hedinger’s character. He’d become hard and strong and unflinching in the face of every threat.

From that moment on, he kept his shooting skills sharp and current.

Hedinger did what needed to be done.

He sought neither recognition nor approval.

From anyone or anything.

Along the way, he’d realized he enjoyed shooting too much to limit himself to inanimate targets. Hunting live prey was the next step.

From his first hunt, the sport filled him with a kind of satisfaction deeper than accumulating money. Which had been his first love but fell quickly into second place.

Shooting skill, instant results, watching targets fall where he placed his bullets. All of it was immensely satisfying on a primal level he enjoyed and didn’t try to analyze too much.

He’d hunted game of every sort over the years, but his favorite prey was big cats.

Lions, leopards, and tigers were some of the most dangerous and challenging game to hunt. In three to four seconds, big cats could cover a hundred yards and shred a man to pieces before he had a chance to shoot.

When he was ten years old, Hedinger had seen the big cats take a hunter down before his companions could save him. On a safari in Africa with his father, Hedinger had watched his father’s friend make a classic mistake. He’d gone after a wounded leopard.

The man had been warned.

Leopards don’t simply slink away to die when they’re wounded.

Instead, sleek, beautiful leopards lie in wait. Like Greta Campbell. Wounded and dangerous. But not dead. Not yet.

They want payback first.

The man had been told. He hadn’t taken the warning to heart. He pursued the leopard hoping to complete the kill.

He failed.

The blindingly fast leopard got the last kill before he died.

Young Hedinger had absorbed the lesson. He’d learned the value of honing his reflexes to lightning speed.

Coupled with developing his unerring aim, Hedinger conquered the wounded leopard problem long ago. The solution was simple. Shoot to kill. Every time.

Big cats, like their common house cat relatives, were also nocturnal animals with exceptional night vision. Neither Hedinger nor any commercial equipment he’d tested could compete with the big cats’ natural ability to see in the dark.

A problem simple to solve. Only hunt in daylight.

Thus had Hedinger’s shooting skills developed over time from trauma to expertise.

Greta Campbell might be a wounded leopard, lying in wait for the hapless Brand. But she would not succeed. Hedinger would deny her the final kill.

He could see his private skeet shooting range now. Located at the edge of his property, it abutted the Caribbean as a precaution. If a shot went wild or sharp shards of the clay pigeons sheared off, neither humans nor animals would be inadvertently injured.

Hedinger had worked up a patina of sweat on his body by the time he reached the clubhouse. The stucco building with the barrel tile roof was a style consistent with other buildings on his Atabei estate. A casual observer might assume the clubhouse was a small home near the sea.

The clubhouse was large enough to accommodate teams of skeet shooters. Hedinger had hosted tournaments here over the years. The open floor plan contained comfortable seating, a dining room, kitchen, two locker rooms, and more. Outdoor seating areas amid the tropical plants and flowers added to the exotic ambience and provided stunning views of Atabei and the surrounding sea.

Of course, the clubhouse was locked and guarded and under constant surveillance, like all Hedinger’s properties. Yet, as he approached, the place seemed abnormally deserted.

Hedinger marched to the front entrance and punched the keycode into the pad on the heavy wood door to release the lock.

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