Chapter 5 - THE SECOND TARGET
Caleb left the estate before sunset.
Grant tried to stop him.
“Security can drive you.”
“I’ve got my truck.”
“Caleb.”
He turned.
Grant stood on the front steps.
“You almost died this morning.”
Caleb looked toward the mansion.
“So did you.”
“That’s exactly my point.”
Caleb sighed.
“I need clothes. Sleep. Maybe stitches.”
“You definitely need stitches.”
“That too.”
Grant nodded.
“Come back tomorrow.”
Caleb raised an eyebrow.
“For work?”
“No.”
Grant looked toward the windows.
“To help me understand what the hell is happening.”
Caleb drove toward the small farmhouse he rented on the northern edge of the estate.
The road was dark.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
He noticed headlights behind him.
A black SUV.
Caleb turned left.
The SUV turned left.
He turned right.
The SUV followed.
“Come on.”
Caleb accelerated.
The SUV surged forward.
It rammed his rear bumper.
Caleb’s truck fishtailed.
He fought the wheel.
Another impact.
Harder.
The truck veered toward a ditch.
Caleb slammed the brakes, turned sharply, and let the SUV overshoot.
For one second, he saw the driver.
Scar over the left eyebrow.
The second man from the helipad.
Caleb grabbed his phone.
New replacement.
No service.
The SUV reversed.
Caleb floored the truck.
They tore down a dirt road between fields.
The SUV gained on him.
Caleb knew the estate roads better than anyone.
Ahead was an old wooden bridge.
Weight limit: four tons.
Caleb crossed.
The SUV followed.
Halfway across, the rotten boards cracked.
The front wheels dropped.
The SUV slammed to a stop.
Caleb kept driving.
He reached his farmhouse.
Front door open.
Lights off.
Caleb froze.
He grabbed a tire iron.
Entered slowly.
The kitchen had been destroyed.
Drawers emptied.
Mattress slashed.
Floorboards pried up.
Someone had been searching.
For what?
Then Caleb saw something on the table.
A photograph.
Old.
Bent.
It showed Caleb at age fourteen beside his father.
On the back, written in black marker:
YOUR FATHER SHOULD HAVE KEPT HIS MOUTH SHUT TOO.
Caleb stared at the message.
His father had died twenty years earlier.
Officially, in a machinery accident.
May you like
Caleb had never questioned it.
Until now.
