Garret's Gambit by Dale Mayer (book club books .TXT) 📗

barely got clear and slipped behind the dumpster, when another man burst from the same grate.

The gunman looked around and pulled out his phone. “Boss, I can’t see anyone. … Oh, yeah, no. I’ll check again. … Yeah, I know. I’m sure. … Yeah, sure, I’ll check again.” He went back down again through the grate, swearing.

As soon as he was gone, Garret came out and texted Kano. Where are you?

Out front. And I got a license plate on the one guy’s vehicle.

Good. We need to go. They’ll move my brother … tonight.

Chapter 8

Astra stared at the text that just came in, shocked. She leaned over and held it up for Charles to see.

He looked at it, smiled, and said, “My dear, that’s very good news, indeed.”

“Is it?” she said in a shaken whisper. “Though it doesn’t sound like it’s a done deal.”

“No, but we’ve shaken something loose, and that’s good.”

“But have we shaken something even looser?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, as he looked at her beer. “Drink up, my dear. It looks like we need to move.” She picked up the glass, tilted it back, and guzzled it. When she put it down again and wiped her lips, he grinned and said, “There’s something very sexy about a woman drinking a beer like that.”

She chuckled. “Sorry, I’m taken.”

“Oh, I know, dear,” he said, as he hopped out of the booth, lifted his arm to her, and said, “May I?” With a grace that she wasn’t expecting, and the charm that she had already seen twinkling through, he patted her hand, as he tucked it through his elbow and said, “Believe me. It’s very obvious, to anybody who cares to look.”

“I was hoping it wasn’t,” she wailed. “We’re definitely not in a relationship.”

“Oh, you are,” he said. “You’re just still doing the dance that’s as old as time, and nobody’s quite ready to get to the point yet.”

“It’s not that nobody’s ready,” she said in a dry tone. “It’s just that it’s complicated, and we’ve barely had two minutes to ourselves.”

“Very valid point,” he said, with a bright smile. “Hopefully, when this mess is all over …”

“Exactly, but I don’t know what that’ll take,” she said.

“Well, with any luck, tonight we’ll find his brother,” he said. As they walked out and headed toward the car, it came racing toward them, driven by Garret, Kano already in the passenger seat.

“Hop in,” Garret said, his tone curt.

They immediately scrambled in, as he took off down the road.

“Where to?” Astra asked.

“To Maggie’s place,” Garret said, “whatever and whoever Maggie is. I’ve got my team on it.”

Charles looked at him and said, “Hmm, the barmaid who served us was called Maggie.”

“Was that her name?” Astra asked, looking at Charles.

“That’s what her name tag said.”

Garret pulled over, grabbed his phone, and very quickly said, “I have her address.” As he peeled out again, picking up speed, Kano punched the numbers into the navigation app, while he started his own search.

“I’ll run the license number.” A moment later, Kano said, “Got it,” reading the name of the whiny guy. “He’s the one who took off with orders to keep looking after Gregg.”

“Interesting,” Charles said. “He’s a local lowlife.”

“He is, and he’s being used in this case as well,” Garret added, “but what he doesn’t realize yet is that orders have been given to deal with him tonight. Permanently.”

“Oh, dear,” Charles said. “That’s never good news.”

Astra sat back and watched as the men spoke in this half language they all seemed to be fluent in, but she was not. She understood enough to get the gist but not the details. Apparently the person who had been looking after Gregg until now was causing some sort of trouble and would be taken out of the equation. Gregg would get moved, and Maggie, whether she knew it or not, was about to become Gregg’s new landlord. “So can we go to Maggie’s?” Astra asked.

“Well, we really should step in earlier than that,” Charles said apologetically. “We can hardly allow the one guy to be murdered.”

“Right,” she said suddenly.

“That would be unfortunate, and he couldn’t supply much information dead, could he?” Kano laughed.

“I like the way you think,” Garret said. “It’s definitely refreshing to know that somebody doesn’t waste much time on the ugly side of life.”

“There’s no point,” she said. “When you think about it, that guy has already made his choice. He walked outside of a normal life, a long time ago. For all we know, he’s the one who kidnapped your brother.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Although he won’t do it twice.”

“Exactly,” she said, with a smile.

As they turned a corner, the GPS told them they were there. Garret turned to look at the buildings in front of them and all around. “You two stay here,” Garret said. “Kano and I will take a look around.”

They hopped out and disappeared, as she sank back in the seat and murmured, “They do that a lot.”

“Taking off on you?”

She nodded and smiled at him.

“It’s the business,” he said. “It really can’t be helped.”

Very quickly Astra saw them slide up to the front door of the target address. They knocked, but they got no answer. No vehicles were here either. “Do you think the bad guys waylaid this one on his way home?”

“Or maybe he stopped for a drink somewhere,” Charles said.

Right. As the two men at the front door eased it open, she asked, “Is this safe?”

“No,” he said. “It definitely is not.”

The men went in, and she waited on tenterhooks, until Charles reached over, patted her arm gently, and said, “It may not be safe, but these are men who do this work, day in and day out.”

“It’s not an easy life,” she murmured.

“No, but that’s something you need to realize, since that’s the kind of life you would be joining.”

She thought about that and nodded. “I guess that’s the difference between me and my sister. She wanted his brother to quit.”

“Pregnancy could be a part of that too,” he said.

“I know. She doesn’t