The TANNER Series - Books 13-15 (Tanner Box Set) Read online

  “This ain’t about saving Myers. Just hope we get there before Myers kills Dexter.”

  Hodges slammed the side of his fist down hard atop the dashboard.

  “If Myer hurts my kid, I’ll kill him.”

  Choa saw a red light coming up and cursed.

  “We ain’t got time for the streets; I’m cutting through the park. Hold on.”

  Choa made a sharp left, jumped the curve, and drove along the pedestrian trails inside the park. He was headed straight for danger.

  CHAPTER 11 – Unexpected company

  Sara had sipped just enough water from the tap on the bathroom sink to appease her thirst.

  She had a second disguise packed away in the oversized purse she carried, complete with a gray wig, but she had neglected to bring along something to drink.

  She made a mental note to text Conrad Burke and ask about the possibility of getting an assistant. Someone who could do more than just clerical work. It would be handy to have a partner whenever she had to work on special assignments.

  Although she managed the wet works program for the Burke Corporation, it was not her only duty. She was still designated as a trouble shooter for the corporation and traveled often in-between Tanner’s contract assignments. It made for a busy life, but also kept her mind occupied with constructive thoughts, and away from reflecting on loss and grief.

  Sara had suffered immense loss during the prior year. Gone were Brian Ames, Johnny Rossetti, her career with the Bureau, and even her home, as New York City held bittersweet memories for her.

  An assistant would also give her someone to bounce ideas off of while just being someone to talk to. Hopefully, there would soon be no more traveling on her own. Tanner would take a new contract, and keep taking enough of them so that she could act solely as support for his missions.

  She was roused from her reverie about her current career situation when Exley and Holloway left the hotel room across the hall and headed for the elevators.

  Arthur Quale had departed his hotel suite twenty minutes earlier, and was likely no longer in the building.

  Sara followed the pair. They wound up at the apartment house that Holloway had exited earlier. Sara waited for a time to see if one or both of them would leave, and when they didn’t come out, she started her car and headed to another part of the city.

  It was time to have a talk with Burke L.A.’s security chief, Amanda Zwicky.

  ***

  Dexter Hodges gripped a baseball bat in his left hand as he moved closer to the rear of Tanner’s house.

  He was planning to bust up Tanner, who he believed was a man named Tom Myers. Dexter knew if he let anyone push him around without getting payback that his father would think he was a punk.

  Dexter couldn’t have that, and the next time he saw his father he could tell him what he did to Myers and make the old man proud.

  The lights had gone off upstairs a while ago, and then Dexter gave Myers and his woman time to fall asleep. He had been drinking and was so buzzed that he had to fight to stay awake himself while he waited.

  After moving slowly towards the house, Dexter startled when the floodlights blazed to life. He ran back towards the fence, but when no one peeked out of a window or opened a door, he realized that he had activated the lights with his movements.

  He returned to the house and tried the side door, but the knob wouldn’t turn. He cursed when he saw that the door had three locks and was solidly constructed.

  That left the sliding glass doors on the patio, and Dexter figured that he would just break the glass and enter the house. When Myers came to investigate the noise, Dexter would smash his kneecap with the bat.

  That was Dexter’s plan, but as he placed a foot on the bottom step that led up to the elevated deck, something hard smashed against the back of his head and it was lights out.

  ***

  Upstairs in the bedroom, Alexa’s eyes widened with surprise as Tanner ran a hand along her inner thigh, in an effort to part her legs.

  “Again? Already?” she said.

  Tanner grinned.

  “What can I say, I have a lot of unspent energy these days. I need to expend it some—”

  Tanner had stopped in mid-sentence and rose from the bed.

  Alexa sat up and looked at him.

  “What is it?”

  “I heard something, like something falling, and then whispers.”

  Tanner moved towards the window and looked down into the yard. Something had activated the floodlights, but he saw no signs of movement.

  Alexa cocked her head to listen, and frowned.

  “I hear a car engine. It sounds like it’s coming from the park.”

  “Yeah, I see it. It’s left the jogging track and is headed across a strip of grass, and towards our back fence,” Tanner said.

  He threw on a pair of jeans, along with his sneakers, then took his gun off the nightstand. As an idea came to him, Tanner grabbed the Beretta he kept in an ankle holster.

  Alexa was up as well. Along with her gun, she also grabbed a knife. The blade was well balanced and she had the skill to hit any target with it that lay within forty feet of her.

  Going back to the window, Tanner watched two figures running towards his fence from the park side. However, when they reached it, they separated. One stayed in the rear, while the other figure kept running towards the front of the property, where the fence was just decorative and lower.

  “We’ve got company,” Tanner said. He moved to the closet where he grabbed a pair of pants, three shirts, and a shoe.

  As they were going downstairs, Alexa asked him why he was stuffing his shirts inside the pants.

  “It’s a decoy. You take the back and I’ll take the front.”

  “Is this that man Hodges?”

  “Maybe, if so, he’s a fool.”

  “I don’t want blood all over my house, Tanner.”

  “Yes dear; I’ll try to kill him elsewhere.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, Alexa gave him a quick kiss and then ran into the kitchen to guard the doors leading out to the deck.

  In the meantime, Tanner had set down the stuffed pants on the floor behind a loveseat with the bottom half of one pant leg and the shoe visible. From several feet away, in dim light, it looked like a leg sticking out from behind the love seat, as if a body were lying there.

  Tanner dropped the Beretta near the “leg” and then went to the front door, where he risked a look through the peephole.

  It was Hodges all right, and he had a shotgun with him. He had just bent over to pick it up after climbing the decorative fence that denoted the property line.

  Tanner disarmed the alarm, unlocked the door, and eased it open a crack. He then moved behind a partition that was to the right of the entrance. His ankles and feet were visible behind it, but he was betting that Hodges’ eyes would be drawn to the “body” that was lying behind the loveseat.

  As he waited for Hodges to enter, Tanner wondered how Alexa was faring, but had no doubt that she could handle herself, especially against a single foe.

  A sound came from the porch, then, the door creaked as it moved inward. Tanner peeked one eye around the partition and saw Hodges enter his home with the sawed-off shotgun leading the way.

  ***

  In the kitchen, Alexa was perplexed by what she was seeing.

  There were two figures in the yard, over on the left, but one of them was on his knees and leaning over the other one, who seemed to be unconscious.

  She unlocked the door, opened it quickly, and pointed her gun at the intruders.

  Choa was on his knees and checking on Dexter. Dexter had been knocked unconscious and there was a nasty laceration on his scalp. His wrists and ankles were bound by zip ties, and it looked like someone had been in the process of gagging him.

  Choa had laid his gun on the grass when he attempted to revive Dexter. He reached towards it when Alexa opened the door, but was too slow, and knew it.

  “Raise t
hat gun and I’ll kill you!” Alexa said.

  Choa’s fingers stopped short of the gun, and then he stood up while raising his hands in the air.

  “I won’t try anything, but the kid over here needs help.”

  “You hurt him?” Alexa said.

  “Hell no,” Choa said. “But when I got here I saw two or maybe three people jump the fence on this side of the yard. Who lives over there?”

  “Never mind that, who are you?”

  “My name’s Choa. I work for Hodges. Are you Myer’s woman?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Listen, let me get Hodges. He’s at the front of the house and he’ll hurt Myers if he gets the chance.”

  Alexa smiled.

  “He won’t get the chance.”

  ***

  Burt Hodges figured that he was too late to stop Dexter when he realized that Tom Myer’s front door was unlocked and sitting ajar.

  He eased the door open wider with the shotgun and followed it inside.

  When he squinted in the faint light, he saw what he took to be a body lying behind the loveseat with a gun dropped nearby, he cursed beneath his breath and figured that Dexter had beaten Myers to death.

  He moved over to the loveseat and turned on a table lamp, to stare down at the stuffed pants and shoe. He was puzzling over the odd sight when he felt the cold barrel of a gun press against his temple.

  “Myers?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you kill my kid?”

  “I haven’t seen him since this morning. Now hand me that shotgun... slowly.”

  Hodges did as he was told, and then he turned to give Tanner a good look.

  “I don’t see any blood on you. Are you telling the truth? You didn’t hurt my kid?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Tanner said. Afterwards, he threw his chin towards the hallway, where Alexa was herding Choa towards the living room.

  “This one was in the back,” Alexa said. “Along with the purse snatcher, who is injured. I called an ambulance.”

  Hodges turned towards Tanner with fire burning in his eyes.

  “You hurt my kid again, Myers?”

  “It wasn’t him, Burt,” Choa said. “I saw two or three guys around Dexter as I came over the back fence, but I couldn’t get a good look at them before they booked. The floodlights back there were in my eyes. Dexter is alive, just knocked out and tied up.”

  Hodges’s hands balled into fists.

  “It’s that damn neighborhood watch group, the vigilantes. Those bastards attacked my kid.”

  Tanner was about to ask Hodges why Dexter was there in the first place, but then he heard a police siren in the distance, followed by the whine of a second one. It sounded as if they were coming closer.

  He passed Alexa the shotgun along with his weapons, and gestured for Hodges and Choa to step outside.

  Alexa tried to hand a gun back to Tanner, but he shook his head.

  “I won’t need it.”

  “What about them?” Alexa said, meaning Hodges and Choa.

  “They’ll behave, or they’ll join the broken wrist club.”

  Alexa smiled.

  “I believe it.”

  A police car came speeding into the cul-de-sac. Chief Ellison was driving it, while Deputy Ralston drove another one on the track inside the park, The flashing lights visible above the fence. Tanner wondered when it was that Chief Ellison slept, since he had been on duty that morning as well. By the time the chief had exited his vehicle, an ambulance had also arrived, and Hodges ran towards it.

  “My kid needs help! He’s in the backyard.”

  The ambulance driver and his partner listened to Hodges calmly, even though Hodges was excited and ranting about the neighborhood watch group. The two EMT’s looked at the chief, who had just gotten a report from Ralston. Like Choa, Ralston had climbed Tanner’s fence and come across Dexter.

  “We have to go check the kid out, Chief, is it safe?” the ambulance driver asked.

  “Go do your thing guys, but deputy Ralston will accompany you, just in case.”

  Hodges and Deputy Ralston headed for the backyard, as front doors opened and Tanner’s neighbors stepped outside to see what was going on.

  Tanner looked left and saw Josie Anderson standing on her porch in a pink robe. The sexy redhead sent him a smile and looked him over, as Tanner was shirtless.

  “Myers,” Chief Ellison said. “Did you and young Mr. Hodges tangle again?”

  “No, Chief, I didn’t know the kid was here until his father came looking for him.”

  Choa pointed down the street, where the four neighborhood watch members were coming along at a jog. When they joined the gathering, they looked confused by all the activity going on.

  “It was these bastards, cop,” Choa said to Ellison. “I saw two or three guys running away from Dexter. It must have been them.”

  George Tucker, the group’s leader spoke up. He was a thin man who, although only forty, was turning gray at the temples. He always seemed to have a cigar in his mouth, and had one going as he spoke to the chief.

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about. Did someone get hurt?”

  Always ready to fight, Choa went after him, but the chief got between them.

  “Stop it! Or I’ll lock you both up.”

  The ambulance drivers returned with a dazed Dexter lying atop their rolling gurney. The chief asked him what happened and Dexter said that someone jumped him, but that he never saw them.

  The neighborhood watch members all pleaded innocent, but Hodges looked as if he wanted to feed the four of them into a wood chipper. While the chief talked with the watch group, Tanner decided to make sure Hodges understood his position.

  “Hodges,” Tanner said, and Hodges turned to stare at him.

  “Yes, Mr. Myers?”

  “I’ll let it pass that you came into my house with a weapon. You were worried about your kid, I get that. But what I said earlier still goes. I don’t want trouble here. Keep your boy away and we won’t have a problem, but if I see him again I’ll kill all of you.”

  “I hear you,” Hodges said, in a soft voice, but his body language said differently, said that he wanted to kill Tanner, but feared reprisal from New York, from Joe Pullo.

  Tanner saw the hate in Hodges’ eyes, and he knew right then that he would likely end up killing the man.

  CHAPTER 12 – A woman scorned

  Sara watched Amanda Zwicky carefully and was certain that her tears were genuine.

  She had gone to Zwicky’s home and was nearly turned away because she had forgotten that she was still wearing part of a disguise. Once she removed the blonde wig, Zwicky buzzed her through the security gate and met her in front of the house. Minutes later, Sara showed her the video she had taken at the hotel.

  “If I’m right, these two are a pair of spies, corporate spies, or worse, and I think they’re nearing their end game.”

  As Zwicky wiped tears from her eyes, she asked a question.

  “Holloway, is she having an affair with Seth and Mr. Quale?”

  “Actually, I believe they’re a couple and that Mr. Quale is being used by Holloway, while I suspect that Exley originally got close to you in order to frame you... but now I think he has other plans concerning you.”

  Amanda Zwicky wiped away fresh tears as she mumbled something.

  “What was that?” Sara asked.

  “He said that he loved me, but all he wanted was my money,” Zwicky whispered, and Sara could feel the woman’s heart break.

  Zwicky rose from her sofa. Her home was in the Hollywood Hills, and was worth several million dollars. Through research, Sara had confirmed that the house had been left to Zwicky and her two sisters by their late father, a movie executive. He had also left them each a great sum of money. Sara had learned of this earlier while talking to Burke’s company gossip, Ruth, who had known of Zwicky’s inheritance.

  She had also learned that Zwicky had moved to California fr
om New Jersey when her father took ill, and then decided to stay. She had found a job at Burke L.A., but had actively been seeking employment at Burke’s main office before her father died.

  Thanks to the wealth she inherited, Zwicky didn’t need to work. However, a casual look at her residence would make one wonder how a woman making less than six figures a year could afford such a home.

  Sara was sitting in a chair across from the sofa, while Zwicky stood gazing out a large picture window, where the lights of the city lay below.

  “I don’t like L.A.,” Zwicky said. “I don’t get along with my sisters, I miss my friends back in New Jersey, and I haven’t had a decent pizza or bagel since I’ve been here.”

  “Why have you stayed? Was it because of your job, or this house?”

  Zwicky turned her head and Sara saw that her eyes still glistened with tears.

  “After I met Seth nothing else mattered.”

  Sara moved up beside her at the window.

  “I know that discovering the truth about Seth Exley must hurt, but I need your help. The two of us can trap Exley and Holloway without them dragging you down.”

  “How Miss Blake? The man is my boyfriend. People will think that I’m behind the whole thing, and to tell you the truth, I’m not certain I understand what’s going on.”

  “Please sit back down and I’ll explain it in detail. In the morning, we’ll expose these two for the thieves they are, while I make certain that you get a great deal of credit.”

  “Why are you willing to help me? It’s obvious that I’m incompetent.”

  “You’re not incompetent. You’re far from it from all I’ve seen. You just fell in love with the wrong man. And despite everything, you are losing him. I... I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. You shouldn’t have to suffer embarrassment and suspicion of guilt on top of that.”

  Amanda Zwicky took in a deep breath, let it out in a rush, and then took in another. After releasing the second inhalation slowly, she seemed to regain a degree of composure, and her tears ceased.

  “I want Seth to pay for hurting me. Tell me what to do.”

  Sara smiled.

  “We could talk over coffee, if you have any?”

  Zwicky sent her a small smile in return.