Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

arrogance. “No sound, no mess. Just like you ordered.”
    Taber eyed the growing pool of blood. “No mess?”
    “Tile floor. Easy cleanup.” Declan gazed into the wilderness that encapsulated this wing of the monastery. It, along with eight other sections, had been converted into private suites. “No chance for witnesses either.”
    “Not the point,” Taber reminded him. Taber sized up Declan Drake. The other ICJ guards on this detail had pledged their allegiance long ago to Taber and to The Group. Drake was the only wild card left. “Clean it up then. I’ve got one more job for you.”
    Taber pictured Sydney Dumas sitting quietly in her quarters, reflecting over the lawsuit documents. Unlike Ambrose, she wasn’t a vocal opponent of the lawsuit; she barely said two words about it during their initial discussions. But she was the one who suggested they table the meeting and go off to think about the lawsuit privately. She hadn’t made any calls about it; the only phones that worked here were the satellite phones the guards carried. But The Group knew all about former professor Sydney Dumas. Like Ambrose, they needed her interpretation of the lawsuit while it was still a confidential matter, but they weren’t going to risk their ultimate plan for it.
    Taber fingered the Glock 9mm stuffed in the back of his waistband. But, instead of giving Drake’s gun back to him, he decided against it. This next task would be a much better test to determine Drake’s commitment. Women and children proved harder to kill for some men, especially a woman like Sydney. Men had ended careers, given up entire countries, and even summoned their own deaths for women nowhere near her caliber. Killing her without the ease of a gun—a messy, very personal death—would prove Drake’s loyalty once and for all.

Chapter 6
    It was time to give up.
    Danny Cavanaugh had been down here for a week. As he watched the sun fall from the sky each night, he always came to that same conclusion. He examined the only real choice he had left, which was in the gun cabinet before him. The four shots from the bottle of Jim Beam he found underneath the kitchen sink still warmed his gut. They mellowed his pulsing mind, too. This is what women must go through when they stand in front of an open closet and agonize over the right accessories , he thought as a dry smile formed on his mouth. Ever the smartass, even now.
    He walked away from his task once again, like he had countless other times this past week. He sat down in one of the mismatched chairs that surrounded the kitchen table. As he stared into the deep scratches that scarred the rickety tabletop, his mind replaced it with the table and set of matching chairs that he and his dad had made with their own hands. He surveyed the cabin and replaced each piece of strange furniture with the familiar ones from his memory. The ratty love seat was gone in the blink of an eye and replaced with the Striped Monster, his nickname for the eight-foot long couch that his mother had recovered three different times over the years before sending it off to the cabin, a fate worse than death as she put it. The same went for the flimsy coffee table next to it. Danny closed his eyes for a split second and was rewarded with the sight of the other table that he and his dad had built and decorated with bottle caps from the various beers they would bring down here with them. Another smile crossed Danny’s lips. He was nowhere near twenty-one when they started that tradition of Danny taking the first sip of his dad’s fresh beer. “You’ll have many drunken nights in your life, Danny boy. Might as well have your pop guide you through the first few until you get your sea legs.”
    Danny trudged back over to the unfamiliar gun cabinet and finally made his selection. He had broken the lock the first day, and now, only a slight tug on the glass door was needed to gain access. He reached inside and grabbed the one rifle he was certain would do the job—the Winchester Model 70. It was dependable, accurate, and could be loaded with 7-millimeter bullets for bigger game. Danny yanked open the drawer below and grabbed a bullet. He loaded the rifle and then buttoned everything on the gun cabinet back up before heading out the door.
    Built of treated pine, the front porch was another project that Danny and his dad had successfully completed. It took more than six visits to the cabin over the course of two years to officially