Page 132 of His Wounded Heart

Renzo: Smelled cigarette smoke. Two miles south of house.

Me: You tracking it?

Renzo: He’s thirty feet to the east of the road. Found tracks coming from the south. So this guy is headed to you.

Me: If he’s smoking he’s not moving fast.

Renzo: Agreed.

Me: Do you see a weapon?

Renzo: He’s carrying a good-sized duffle bag.

Me: Sniper rifle.

Renzo: Yep.

Me: Can you get back here without being spotted?

Renzo: Yep.

Me: Get here fast. I’ve got an M4A1 that I can use. I’m going hunting.

Renzo: Coming in back window, Trenda’s room.

Me: I’ll open the window and take off the screen.

Trenda is standing beside me. She’d got off the couch the moment I’d started texting.

“What is it?” she asks when I get up from the table.

“We’ve got trouble. Can you go unlock the window in your room and take out the screen? I’ll be upstairs changing, then meet me at the gun safe.”

“Okay.”

We go our separate ways. As soon as I’m upstairs I turn on the bedroom light and look at all my clothes, all clean and nicely folded, in Bernie’s dresser. I pull out a long-sleeved dark green shirt and a pair of green cargo pants and quickly change into them.

“You’re changed already?” Trenda says when I meet her at the gun safe holding my boots that I’d picked up from the living room.

“Yep,” I say as I go to the gun safe and unlock it. I had spent the first two days cleaning and making sure the guns and rifles I would need were in good working order. I pull out the M4A1, and Glock and keep the safe open for Renzo to choose his weapon of choice. I go to the armoire, where I had put the extra bullets for my SIG Sauer, the M4A1, and Trenda’s Glock in an easy to reach place. I strap my knife to my cargo pants. I am set up pretty good, all things considered.

I hear something, I pull out my SIG, and rush to the doorway.

“Renzo here,” he whispers from Trenda’s room.

I proceed to Trenda’s room in time to see Renzo pulling himself through the window.

“You should have texted, first,” I say.

“You’re right, sorry.”

Trenda has followed me. “Get Bella and take her upstairs to the master bedroom.” I turn to Renzo. “The gun safe is open; take what you need and extra, then lock it up.”

Trenda leaves the room to wake up Bella.

I climb out the window.

The moon is waning, so it’s only a quarter full, which is to my advantage. I head fifty yards south of the road; that will be far enough from his position thirty feet from the road for me to spot him without him noticing me if I fuck up and make a sound.