Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
I’m about to tell her to run inside and throw on something proper when I see her gaze catch on Austin’s open bag of guns. Her eyes widen.
“Are you guys leaving soon?” Teagan asks.
“As soon as we’re all packed.” Jonah clears his throat. Austin quickly zips up the guns and shuts the back of the van.
“You girls still planning to hit the pavement today?” I ask.
Teagan nods. “Mary’s coming over after work. As soon as she gets here, we’ll head out.”
Jonah kneels in front of Burger to scratch his neck and behind his ears. “You take good care of these little girls, boy.”
Burger responds by licking Jonah’s face.
I walk over to Holly, steering her toward the back of the garage.
“Don’t you worry about those guns, sweetheart. They’re just props.”
“They didn’t look like props to me.”
She sighs as I cup her cheek.
“Be careful out there today,” I tell her.
“You be careful.”
I kiss her gently. “Always.”
Jonah and I climb into one van while Mike and Austin hop in the other. As Holly and Teagan’s reflections shrink in the rear view, I get the undeniable sense that I’m driving away from my future.
“You know,” Jonah says, “Holly kinda reminds me of Teagan, back when I first met her.”
“Oh yeah?”
“She’s got that look. Like she’s waiting for all the good things in her life to fade like a dream.”
“Sounds about right.”
“I take it she’s been through some shit,” he says.
I think back to the motel where she was staying, the job she was working. The road paved in desperation that eventually brought her to King’s mansion.
“More than most,” I say.
“Gotta go easy on a girl like that,” he says. “Can’t be giving her more than she can handle.”
I glance at him, brow cocked. “Hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothin’. Just sounded like you two were going pretty hard last night.”
“Oh, yeah? You build your house with fuckin’ paper-thin walls?”
“Don’t talk shit about my walls.” He smirks. “My walls are sound.”
“Sounds like they need sound proofing.”
Jonah chuckles, and even though I can’t say I appreciate his comments, I can’t help snickering to myself.
Looking back on last night, I can hardly believe that girl still wanted to be with me in the morning. More than once, I came close to losing grip on my demon and letting him have his way with her. There were times when I swear to God he was talking through me.
Guilt eats at my conscience when I recall the vulgar things I said to her. The indelicate things I did to her untouched, untried body. Thankfully, I managed to keep the worst of it in check. I have no intention of sharing Holly with my darkness.
If I can shield her from even half the demons in this fucked-up world, it’ll be a goddamn miracle.
I make sure Mike and Austin are still following as I merge onto the highway, heading north. As keen as I am to get where we’re going, I don’t drive more than nine miles over the speed limit all the way to Morristown. Getting pulled over in a van filled with guns and dubiously acquired surveillance equipment might raise more than a few eyebrows.
We park the vans about two hundred yards from King’s house on a dirt road Mike guides us to using real-time satellite imagery. We set up camp and organize our gear. By eight o’clock, we’ve got a pretty decent arrangement going.
Clad in full camo and armed with two guns, a radio, and tactical binoculars, Austin heads off into the forest to set a perimeter. Mike begins the process of hacking into King’s wireless network, while Jonah and I park ourselves at the edge of the woods on the south side of Russell’s property.
“Perimeter secure,” Austin says through the radio. “So far I’ve spotted King, a housekeeper, a chef, and two guards on the premises.”
“Roger that,” I say. With any luck, both the housekeeper and chef will be gone by sundown.
“I’m in,” Mike says through the radio. “Any idea why King would have cameras installed in his guestrooms?”
It takes a second for Mike’s words to sink in. “Say that again.”
“He’s got what appear to be hidden cameras installed in all of his guestrooms. Looks like they livestream directly to his office computer.”
Abby’s CI, King’s former assistant, never mentioned anything about cameras. Has Russell King been secretly filming his guests having sex with minors?
We watch the house all morning, peering in windows, monitoring doors. Watching for people coming and going. The king himself makes an appearance on his back patio around noon, wearing a red speedo and barking into his phone.
“Can we get audio on this?” I ask.
“Not yet,” Mike says. “Give me...twenty minutes.”
King ends the call before we can tap in. He goes for a swim, takes lunch on the veranda, does a few lines of what looks like coke and then goes inside.