I was about to call for a pick-up, our version of Uber, and for an update on Desiree and Mecca from Sam. I often did my own cleaning, but I didn’t want to risk keeping my eyes off of Desiree for too long, so my second call was to our cleaner.
“Scene, one and a car, at 39.7899 N and 104.002 W. No eyes on.” Pressed for time, I’d decided that the man I’d knocked out was coming with me. Since extracting the information the easy way wasn’t working, I was set to try another way. He needed a little extra coaxing to talk.
“Forty.” Was the only word spoken before the line went dead. The voice belonged to my cousin, Robert Vallin. He was a priest who ran a little church in a small town on the outskirts of Denver. To supplement his income and contribute to the syndicate, he cleaned up many of our crime scenes. He had never killed anyone that we knew of but claimed that he communicated with the souls of the departed. I’m not sure what went on between him and the dead, but he was the best crime scene cleaner we had.
Aside from the women who married into our family, there weren’t any Vallin women. I had three uncles: Bradford, Donavan, and Leelyn. My Uncle Bradford had died five years ago, hunting down a serial killer that had targeted only members of our syndicate.
The man had turned out to be a scorned member of our organization and had killed over a hundred members before my uncle found him. Unfortunately, his place had been wired with enough explosives to take down a city block, taking both his and my uncle’s life.
My Uncle Donavan and his three sons, lived in Canada, and handled syndicate business in that region. Uncle Leelyn was my cousin Tywin’s father and the one that knew everything there was to know about cleaning money.
Moments after my call and pick up, sound crackled in my earpiece before the sight of the restaurant came into view. Sam was in the same spot that I had left him, as well as Desiree and Mecca.
The first sight of Desiree brought up the question of the day. How was I going to protect her, avoid her charms, and figure out who was after her at the same time?