The Guardian

don’t want to drag any of their skeletons out of the closets for them. All we need to do is to let them know where he is.
    “I don’t suppose there was any evidence at the site?”
    “Nothing, zip, nadda. No surprise though. It didn’t help that it rained all night either.”
    “I didn’t really expect to find anything. Whoever did this is too smart to leave shit around. Only the sick ones who want to be caught do that. They want to be found. I have a feeling that this guy wants to stay in business for awhile and the last thing he needs is to be caught.”
    “Ya,” Laura said, “But, they always make a mistake somewhere and we find it and then their ass is cooked.”
    “Well, let’s just hope it happens pretty soon.”
    Halloway looked at her, “Can we get an address and go by Radcliff’s house, get a warrant, look at what’s there, maybe get some leads.”
    “I’ll get right on it.” Laura agreed.
    Griffin left and headed for her office. She was going to get the warrant, dig up the brothers, see what she could find out, go to the house, and see what surprises lie in wait.
    Halloway stared at the pages in front of him. God Dam it, this was going to be one of those cases that you just hated to deal with. Everything about this was wrong, it was just all wrong.
    Chapter 12
    It had taken the Guardian almost two hours to get to where he was going. There was a small, isolated building out of town, just inside a little drink water place called Chloride. There was nothing there; the population was so small the roads weren’t even paved.
    The building was very sparsely equipped and had just the minimal necessities. The building was going to be eliminated anyway so it didn’t really matter what was there. It was a very short term lease if you will.
    It had a small area in which he could pull Charlie’s car in out of sight and would not draw any attention. The residents of Chloride just did not drive fancy little sporty models.
    He killed the lights as he came up to the building. After stopping in front of the two large, double doors, he got out, removed the lock that was on the outside. He swung the doors open, and quickly and quietly pulled the car inside. Once inside, he closed the doors he secured it with the lock from outside. He put a large wooden beam across the braces mounted to the inside of each door. It was probably over kill but he wasn’t taking any chances. He was very careful about covering his tracks and would be very surprised if he had been followed.
    After securing the car, he went inside the main part of the building and lit an oil lamp that was sitting on a small wooden table in the middle of the room.
    He went back out to the car, grabbed Charles, and dragged him into the building throwing him to the floor.
    “Ughhh” Charles groaned as he hit the floor.
    Charles was a bit groggy from the shot he had gotten but was still quite aware of what was happening to him. His body was aching from being cramped in the small confines of the trunk of his car.
    He looked around, the dim light from the lamp didn’t help him to see very clearly, but he could tell that he was not in the best of accommodations.
    “Where are we, what are you going to do with me?’ Charles was asking very nervously.
    “Shut up!” was the only reply.
    Charles watched as the man went about the room doing what ever it was that he was doing, collecting things, putting things on the table. He was taking inventory of these items he started to panic at what he saw there. In front of him, on the table, were a butane torch, knives of different sizes, and what appeared to be a recording device of some sort. There were sheers and other very scary items.
    Across the room was a single, bed obviously an old army cot of some kind. A door in the corner that led to a small bathroom, there was a small kitchen like area with a sink and small counter. A large, wooden bench lined one wall and was full of all sorts of tools and gadgets.
    The Guardian walked over, picked Charles up off the floor, put him in the chair, looking him straight in the eyes and said, “Its pay back time.”

Chapter 13
    “I don’t understand, please, what have I done? You don’t need to do this.” Charles was pleading for his life. He knew by looking at the things on the table that nothing good was going to happen, of that he was sure.
    The stranger just looked at him. Those eyes were staring, drilling holes into his flesh. “You destroy lives. The