Subtle Deceit by R.A. McGee

Author:R.A. McGee
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2018-01-25T04:32:40+00:00

Chapter 7

Porter followed the GPS on his phone. According to the graphic on the bottom, it was a solid forty-five minutes to Steven Jones’s house. Forty-five minutes of misery in the cramped rental.

Johnny Cash helped pass the time, singing to Porter about creeks and floods and General Motors automobiles. It was the cars he saw as he got closer to his destination that caught his eye. Mercedes and Porsches dominated the driveways. Porter wasn’t much of a car guy, but thought he recognized a Bentley.

The final few turns filtered out of the GPS and Porter was there.

He rolled past the house, to make sure he had the right place. All of his research had been good. Same metal gate, same black mesh. It all looked the same as it had on the satellite pictures.

Porter found street parking a couple of houses away from the Jones’s. He turned the car so the nose was facing the main street. If he needed to leave in a hurry, doing a three-point turn to get out of the dead-end street could be a problem. Porter stepped out of the car and stretched, then leaned into the passenger’s side and put his phone, wallet, and polymer knuckles into the glove box. Locking the door with the key fob produced an unsatisfying chirp. He sat the keys on the front tire.

This was not the neighborhood Sarah lived in, not by a long shot. The manicured lawns and clean streets gave the impression that there was no crime. Porter knew better.

In each of these houses was a criminal of some type. People who cheated on their taxes with fancy accountants. The ones who cheated their employees with shitty salaries. Some hid money in offshore accounts to cheat the government. Some just cheated.

Porter wasn’t mad at them for any of that. He wasn’t interested in being the morality police. All he wanted was to find Evanna Blanchard and get his money. And the clock was ticking.

The gate at the Jones’s was closed. There was a silver-colored callbox set into the side of a brick column. Porter pushed it and held it for a few moments.

A few seconds later a monitor blinked to life, revealing the face of an Asian man. “Help you?”

“Sure. I’m here to see Todd. Is he around?”

“Go away.” The face blinked off.

Porter pressed the button again. The screen blinked to life.

“You don’t hear well, do you?”

“I hear just fine. I have a new question. If there is no Todd, how about Mr. Jones?”

The monitor blinked off again.

Porter exhaled and looked at the gate. There were several large bolts where it attached to the other brick pillar framing the driveway. Porter wondered if his size-thirteen shoe would fit in the little space and allow him to use it as a ladder, to scale the gate.

Just as he was sizing his foot up, the gate whirred to life and rolled backward. Porter stood and watched until it completed its contraction.

Three men walked toward Porter, and he sized them up as they came.

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