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I walked away as she spoke to him, looking at the pictures of the town on the wall. They were all from years ago, probably around the early 1900s, and then through the decades after that. It was interesting to see how the town had grown over the years. Growing up here, I’d never really paid attention. I remembered when the old factory shut down. That’s when the town really started to die, but people found work, going to surrounding towns for jobs. Then the highway came through, which boosted the economy in this small little town. It saved the town from shutting down and becoming a ghost town.
The door to the office opened and Cash poked his head out. “Duke, thanks for coming in.”
“Sure,” I nodded, pretending I wasn’t half asleep. Whatever this was about, it’d better be good to keep me from getting some real sleep.
“Come into my office.”
I followed him and took a seat as he shut the door behind me. I took a quick glance around the room, noting the filing cabinet in the corner. Cash was old-fashioned, liked to do things the old way. Maybe he didn’t trust technology. Or maybe it was just his way of doing things.
Honestly, I preferred paper to computers also, but you had to move with the times. Besides, it was easier to store records on the computer and search for them when customers brought their vehicles in for service.
I glanced at the corner and saw a glass gun case with a single rifle. “Is that your sniper rifle?”
He shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. I lost Sally a while back. This is Sally 2.”
“That’s just sad.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So, what can I do for you?” I asked, wanting to move this along.
“I have a proposal for you.”
“Shoot.”
“I’m sure you’re aware that I have quite a few people working here for me.”
“The whole town has noticed.”
“Right. I run a security company. We were originally based out of California, but after an unfortunate…explosion, we decided to relocate.”
I smirked at his choice of words. “Unfortunate?”
He rolled his eyes slightly. “One of my men blew up the building.”
I chuckled at that. “I hope you fired him.”
“Not a chance. He’s the best EOD ordnance specialist I know.”
“But he blew up your building,” I said sarcastically.
“Well, in his defense, there were…” He cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. “It’s a complicated situation.”
“They always are. I’m guessing this has something to do with a job, and not just a rogue employee.”
“You’d be correct.”
“So, you moved out here to the middle of nowhere and set up shop. Except, you don’t have a building other than this office, and that’s not nearly big enough to house the kind of equipment you need on standby.”
He stared at me for a moment, trying to decide what to tell me.
I sighed heavily. “Look, I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep in the last twenty-four hours, so if we could cut the bullshit, that would be great.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. You’re correct. We’re moving operations out here, but we’d prefer to keep that under wraps for as long as possible. When we were in California, we had some problems with a job gone wrong. One of our guys was taken. It was a sticky situation that ended okay. But after the building blew up, I saw the opportunity to move the company.”
“And the one in California? Your website says that you still operate out of there.”
He grinned at me. “You’ve looked me up.”
