The back of the property sloped down gently toward the retention pond. Beyond the dark, stagnant water lay the dense wall of loblolly pines and sweetgum trees that made up the forty-two acres of undeveloped timberland. A man with a pair of night-vision optics and a suppressed rifle could sit fifty yards into that tree line and put a bullet through the glass of my breakfast nook without ever setting foot on a paved roadway.
I walked into the rear den, picked up my phone, and made two calls.
The first was to a commercial security supply distributor in Raleigh that I had used during my consulting days. I ordered four high-resolution, low-light trail cameras with cellular uplinks, capable of transmitting encrypted still images instantly to my phone, along with two battery-powered passive infrared trip-beams.
The second call was to a retired staff sergeant named Hank Miller—no blood relation, but an old army buddy of mine who ran a private tactical range twenty miles south in Lee County.
"Hank," I said when the gruff, tobacco-cured voice answered. "I need some specialized perimeter hardware. Trip-flares, non-lethal acoustic deterrents, and about two hundred feet of heavy-gauge monofilament wire. You got that in stock?"
"Tom?" Hank chuckled, the sound like gravel rattling inside a steel drum. "I thought you moved down here to catch bass and complain about property taxes."
"Bass aren't biting today, Hank," I said. "I've got wolves in the tree line."
Hank’s tone shifted immediately, dropping the jovial banter. "Give me ninety minutes. I’ll bring the gear in my work van."
By two o'clock in the afternoon, the preparations were underway. Hank had rolled up in an unmarked white cargo van, helped me haul three heavy Pelican cases into the garage, shared a glass of iced tea without asking a single unnecessary question, and driven away.
I spent the afternoon working in the backyard, deliberately playing the part of the unsuspecting retiree. I pulled weeds along the edge of the pond. I set up a pair of wooden lawn chairs on the screened porch. But beneath the topsoil and behind the thick trunks of the weeping willows that fringed the water, I went to work.
I installed the four cellular trail cameras ten feet up in the pine canopy, angling their wide-angle lenses to cover every natural foot path leading out of the commercial timber tract. Along the narrow dirt spit that separated the pond from the deep woods—the only approach that didn't require wading through waist-deep mud—I strung three lengths of high-tensile monofilament wire six inches off the ground, linked directly to commercial perimeter trip-alarms that would send a silent vibration to the receiver in my pocket.
If anyone stepped out of those woods after dark, I would know their height, their pace, and their distance before their boots cleared the brush.
At five-fifteen, the sound of an approaching engine drifted down Whispering Pines Court.
It wasn't the throaty hum of Richard Vance’s Mercedes. It was the deep, resonant, rhythmic growl of a heavy six-point-two-liter V8.
I stood on the back porch, dried my hands on a shop rag, and walked through the kitchen toward the front entrance.
Through the narrow side sidelights flanking the front door, I watched the vehicle glide up to the curb.
It was a jet-black Cadillac Escalade with blackened chrome trim, massive twenty-two-inch wheels, and windows so dark they looked like sheets of obsidian. The vehicle didn't park haphazardly like Brenda’s Lexus, nor did it attempt to sneak up like the flatbed wrecker. It pulled straight up to the base of my walkway, centered perfectly, and idled with steady, menacing confidence.
The driver’s door opened.
A man stepped out into the late afternoon heat.
He did not look like Richard Vance. Where Richard was polished, manicured, and dressed in soft Italian wool, this man looked like he had been chiseled out of granite and cured in concrete dust. He was in his late fifties, broad-shouldered and thick-chested, standing six-foot-two with short-cropped silver hair and a broken nose that had healed slightly crooked. He wore a tailored charcoal sport coat over a black open-collar dress shirt, fitted dark jeans, and custom crocodile-skin boots.
He didn't wear sunglasses. His eyes were pale, watery blue, cold as glacier ice, sweeping over the front of my house with the clinical appraisal of a structural engineer looking for load-bearing walls to knock down.
Marcus Vance had arrived.
From the passenger side of the Escalade, a second man stepped out. He was younger, perhaps thirty-five, built like a light-heavyweight prizefighter, wearing a tight black polo shirt that stretched across heavy shoulders and a visible tactical holster bulge beneath his left armpit. He stayed near the front fender of the SUV, resting his hands casually in his pockets, his eyes scanning the surrounding rooftops.
Marcus Vance didn't wait for an invitation. He stepped onto the brick walkway, his heavy boots clicking rhythmically against the stone as he walked straight toward the front porch.
I opened the mahogany door, stepped out onto the top concrete step, and let the door rest against the brass latch. My hands remained loose at my sides, my flannel shirt unbuttoned, the butt of the Glock riding steady against my right hip.
Marcus stopped ten feet away at the foot of the stairs. He looked up at me, taking in my gray beard, my scuffed boots, and the calm, unblinking stillness in my eyes.
A slow, humorless grin split his weathered face.
"Detective Miller," Marcus said, his voice a deep, gravelly baritone that rumbled with southern gravel and cold iron. "You’ve made quite an impression on my little brother."
"Marcus Vance," I replied, not moving an inch. "I hear you like taking long drives from Charlotte to bail out family failures."
The younger man by the Escalade stiffened, taking a half-step forward, but Marcus raised a single, thick finger without looking back, halting him in his tracks.
Marcus’s grin broadened slightly, though his glacier-blue eyes remained entirely dead.