Twisted Lives by Tim Tigner

Author:Tim Tigner [Tigner, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 39

Fried Fish

BEATS WAS GLAD she wasn’t hauling groceries as she entered her home. They’d have ended up on the hallway floor as she drew her Glock and dropped into a shooter’s stance.

She detected no movement beyond the wafting of disturbed smoke caught by light leaking through the blinds. Reassured but not convinced, Beats stood still for a moment and listened. Nothing. Slowly, silently, carefully she made her way to her bedroom, then the bath. No one. She was alone.

The source of the smoke was no mystery. A burned down cigarette sat on the center of the kitchen counter. Its message would have been unmistakable even without the light blue Cyrillic printing on the butt. Mess with Meski and we’ll smoke you in your sleep.

Beats locked her door and unlocked her phone. She opened a rarely used app and selected the first of three images. It displayed a feed of her apartment as seen from a camera concealed on the far wall pointing toward the front door. The next but last set of motion-activated recordings began roughly four hours earlier at 1:33 and then ended at 1:40. The stills showed either a woman or a small man in gray sweatpants and a gray hoodie wearing big sunglasses, a large Covid mask, and clear surgical gloves.

Before watching the intruder’s activities, Beats opted for a calming glass of wine. Eight-dollar California Cabernet from Trader Joe’s. She poured four ounces into a stemless glass and was about to dump the rest into a Wine Squirrel so it would stay fresh when her eyes came to rest on the aquarium.

The cigarette had not been the primary message. It had only been the signature, lest there be any doubt. Her fish were all missing.

Beats felt sad and mad and scared all at the same time. The bastards.

She froze for a few seconds, staring at the lifeless tank with a Glock in her right hand and a glass of Cabernet in her left. Not a good combination. Not a good situation.

Had they been flushed or fishnapped? No need to guess. The video would show exactly what the intruder had done.

Beats’s security app gave her 24/7 recordings for a week, and motion events for a month, on every camera at her address for $99 a year. That was why she had three cameras, two in the big room and one in the bedroom. Triple the coverage for the same storage cost.

She returned to her computer with her Glock, glass, and wine bottle, then began to watch.

The Russian agent in the gray hoodie slipped something into her pocket as she entered. Beats froze the feed and magnified. It was a lock picking gun. A simple mechanical tool that brute forced the correct pin combination by barraging them while the cylinder was under pressure.

After a quick reconnaissance run of her modest apartment, the intruder zeroed in on the fish tank. It was beautiful and eye catching, with a dozen colorful fish, each a different species, with live plants and a fancy fake coral cavern.

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