Page 85 of Statler

“Highly likely,” Dark agreed. “What else have you got.”

Now, Statler took a moment to get cheeky.

Dark was always so damned serious. Stat and his team were constantly trying to get a reaction out of the man.

“Oh, you mean besides a coded-entry-only room at the back of the factory, and a secret, underground space we discovered at the new construction site that’s the size of the main footprint? Not much.”

Dark growled.

Statler crowed to himself.

It was more than he could have hoped for.

A growl was an upgrade from Dark’s normal grunt.

Statler went on. “We’re setting up nightly watches at the factory, because it seems they have meetings there, after hours, on the regular. So far, we have one man in our cross-hairs. His name is Jeremy Lansard.”

Sherb had done a deep dive on the man while Statler had been on his walk, and Statler read the info from the scrap of paper he held, now. “Lansard is Liminal born and bred, but he lived in Boston for a while, where he did some time for robbery and…domestic abuse.”

What the fuck?

That last made Statler steam.

He knew he’d hated the man on sight.

And since the asshole clearly had his eye on Eliza, Statler needed to make sure she stayed away from him. Stat wouldn’t play nice if he ran across the man so much as putting a toe out of line. He also needed to warn Eliza.

He’d have to be careful doing it, so as not to blow his cover.

Perhaps he could make something up about seeing Lansard at a local bar harassing a waitress or something.

Blue would help him come up with a good story.

Statler forced his mind from that problem to continue with Dark.

“Hopefully we’ll have a list of all the other players for you, soon,” he told the man in charge. “Sherbert will see to that.”

Sherbert had a state-of-the-art, facial recognition program on his computer, and as soon as they had some preliminary pictures, Sherb would begin the process of giving names to all involved.

Statler didn’t need to add anything more, but he wanted to let the General know their plans, moving ahead.

“We’re taking our time compiling everything we need for a solid take-down before we strike. I’ve set the timeline so that we’re eyes-on for the next two to four weeks. Once we’ve completed the surveillance portion of our mission, we’ll reach back out to you and see how you’d like us to proceed”

Dark grunted this time. “Keep me apprised in the meantime. I want reports at least every two days as to how things are lining up.”

“Will do.”

They disconnected, and Statler sighed.

He felt a little badly that he hadn’t actually named Eliza to Dark, but since he wasn’t sure where she fit into things quite yet, he’d decided to keep her anonymous.

For now.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Two weeks had passed since Eliza had been thoroughly kissed by Statler.

She hadn’t been able to keep it out of her mind.