Page 1 of Targeted at Christmas

Prologue

Horace Eckhart drove his silver BMW M8 Gran Coupe down North Second Street in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, this Monday evening in early December. He was feeling the heat, both figuratively and literally. While the temperature for this time of year was around a typical and comfortable sixty-five degrees, he still had the air-conditioning cranked up, as though it were the scorching dead of summer in the so-called Valley of the Sun. Even in loose and light clothing, he perspired, a natural reaction to physical tension. The mental stress was even worse.

His business life was in shambles, and that was putting it mildly. He had gotten in way over his head. He’d become a building inspector for all the right reasons initially, in serving his community the best way he knew how. But financial pressures, including overspending, alimony to his greedy as hell ex-wife Maureen, and gambling debts that threatened to swallow him up whole, had put a serious strain on his ability to deal with it all fair and square. It left him no choice but to take action that was less than on the up-and-up. Some would say criminal, and it could land him in jail. Or much worse.

Now he was paying the price in more uncomfortable ways than one. His mortgage lender was threatening to foreclose on his house. Loans were overdue and underpaid. The Feds were hot on his trail, he’d heard through the grapevine. He feared that they could arrest him at any time. The mere thought of spending years behind bars, his freedom lost, didn’t sit well with him.

Maybe he could cut a deal. After all, why should he be the one to go down? Or the only one? Especially when there were bigger players in the game than him. Would the FBI be interested?

Or might he use his predicament as a bargaining chip to take an even bigger piece of the pie—giving him some needed wiggle room to work with? He’d earned it. After that, maybe he could get the hell out of Dodge and go into hiding someplace where he might never be found.

Was that even possible? Or plausible?

Wrestling with these unsettling and conflicting thoughts, Horace was still unsure which way to go. He knew for certain he was in an untenable situation and something—or someone—had to give. But did it have to be him?

When he reached his North Second Street destination, the Gotzon Garage, he parked on the third level and got out. Admittedly overweight, but hoping to change that, he felt his heart beating fast as he slammed the car door shut. He scratched inside his thinning, slicked-back graying hair and was just about to dig his cell phone out of the pocket of his brown linen pants when a shuffling sound got his attention.

Looking over his shoulder, Horace’s blue eyes, with heavy bags underneath, widened with fear when he was accosted by two tall and muscular gun-toting figures. Ski masks covered their faces, and they wore black gloves.

Horace flinched but tried to sound tough as he demanded, “What is this?” He had a pretty good idea, knowing that brazen robberies and carjackings had become increasingly common in Phoenix in recent years.

The heftier of the two assailants responded sardonically, “What does it look like? We want your wallet, cell phone and your car.”

The other person, slightly thinner but taller, added in a deep voice, “Don’t cause any trouble and you can walk away from this on your own two feet.” He aimed the silencer-equipped firearm at his head. “Otherwise, this can get ugly—really ugly—for you…”

Horace weighed his options, which were really none at all. He didn’t have a death wish—not like this—even if the current predicament just added to his woes. Sensibly, he capitulated to their demands. “You can have the wallet—with everything in it—the cell phone and car. None are worth losing my life over,” he stressed. “I won’t fight you on this.” As if he were in any position to do that and come away unscathed.

“Good boy,” the heavier male said with a mocking laugh. “Wallet, please—and there better not be anything else coming out of that pocket…”

Following the orders, Horace slowly removed the wallet with four credit cards and three hundred and fifty dollars in it from his side pocket, handing it to him. “It’s yours,” he muttered with compliance.

Without looking inside the leather wallet, the man slipped it into the pocket of his jeans, peered at Horace, and barked, “Cell phone!”

Horace took the burner phone out of his other pocket, having thankfully left his primary phone at home, and passed it to the man.

The man put the phone into another pocket and said sharply, “Now, let’s have your key fob.”

With self-preservation still very much in mind, Horace again did as told. He hoped that would satisfy the robbers. “It’s insured, so I’ll be fine,” he told them, regarding his vehicle.

The thinner man took the key fob from him and said with a smirk on his face, “Thanks for your cooperation. I’ll be sure to pass that along to the person who hired us…”

“Person? Hired you?” Horace’s eyes popped wide with fresh apprehension. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, as if clueless. Only he had a very good idea who had put them up to this—and why.

The other man glared at his partner. “Shut up!” As the thinner man stood mute, clearly intimidated, the larger man regarded Horace and told him tonelessly, “Start walking and don’t look back—if you value your life—”

Horace nodded. He gazed at both men once more and had a sinking feeling that they had no intention of allowing him to leave the garage alive. Even if he couldn’t identify either of them. The carjacking was a ruse with their true objective as clear as day. Why hadn’t it occurred to him from the outset? This was meant to silence him, once and for all.

Still, Horace felt that there must be some way out of this. Maybe if he started to run and could just get behind another parked vehicle nearby before bullets started flying, then maybe there was a fighting chance he could live to see another day. And many more days beyond that.

I’ve got to give it a try, he told himself, knowing there was nothing left to lose at this point. Not when his life was clearly hanging precariously in the balance.

With his knees shaking like leaves on a windy day, Horace turned from the men and began to move away from them. No sooner had he taken a few painstaking steps when he felt the bullet slam into the back of his head, causing his brain to explode. He went down like a heavyweight boxer who had been put out for the count by a stiff uppercut to the chin.

By the time the second bullet shattered his skull at point-blank range, Horace Eckhart was already dead.

As a result, he was never privy to the sound of his BMW M8 Gran Coupe driving off with its two occupants inside.

PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT Detective Hallie Flores of the Violent Crimes Bureau’s Homicide Unit was notified that a man had been found shot to death in the Gotzon Garage on North Second Street. She headed right to the scene in her blue Ford Mustang Mach-E unmarked vehicle, knowing it was par for the course in her life, unfortunate as this was.