A fifth shot and three sets of monitors set off alarms one after the other.
“Something is running fast,” AJ said. He moved to the weapons room and grabbed a rifle.
Leo turned toward the stairs. “Better view up there.”
Isaac lifted a hand. “Hold up.”
The sensors around the house sounded, and a running deer dashed by one of the outdoor cameras.
Isaac pushed around AJ and grabbed a drone from a shelf. “I bet it’s some yahoo screwing around.”
They heard another shot, not any closer than the last.
Leo started to loosen his grip on his weapon.
Isaac turned on the drone and set it right outside the door. Back inside, he moved to the computer, pressed a few keys, and grabbed the remote for the drone.
The phone on the desk rang.
AJ put it on speaker.
“What’s the situation?” Neil’s voice boomed over the line.
“We’re all safe,” Leo started. “Six shots fired. Sounds like a shotgun. No evidence that they are aiming at us. Isaac is sending up an aerial view now. How far out are you?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
The camera on the drone fed the center monitor.
The cabin quickly came into view. Isaac circled to catch anything close by.
The firewood and discarded ax lay right where Leo and AJ had abandoned them.
“The deer was running from the north,” Leo said.
Isaac moved the drone in that direction.
The mist in the air accumulated on the lens, but not so much that they couldn’t see the woods below.
Another shot fired, this one sounding farther away.
Leo kept his eyes on the images flashing by the drone.
Isaac held the drone in place on the edge of the property line.
“Can it go up any more?” Leo asked.
Isaac brought it higher, spun the camera.
A flash of movement caught his eye.
“There,” Leo said, pointing at the monitor.
Isaac positioned the drone and focused the camera.
“Talk to me?” Neil said over the phone.
Leo had forgotten he was still there. “Looks like an old truck, a Ford,” Leo told Neil.
Isaac zoomed in on the plate, and AJ wrote it down.
Abandoning the gun he’d grabbed from the closet, AJ sat at a computer and typed. “I’m sending the license plate number to headquarters now,” AJ announced.
Leo and Isaac looked at the movement on the screen at the same time. Isaac reported as he moved the drone closer.
“Two males. Young, wearing green camo and shouldering shotguns.”
Both men looked up at the same time.
Isaac snapped a picture.
“They see the drone.”
Leo shook his head as the young boys started running toward the truck.
“Isaac was right. Looks like a couple of kids out shooting for fun.” Leo put his weapon away.
Leo heard relief in Neil’s voice. “Follow protocol. Sasha and I will return after we visit the owner of the truck.”
When Leo left the situation room, Isaac was still following the truck with the drone, and AJ was talking to someone on Neil’s team in Los Angeles.
Leo found Olivia and Pam halfway down the stairs with Lars at their side.
“Target shooting? Really?” Pam questioned.
“Or deer hunting.”
Leo opened his arms to Olivia when she hit the bottom step.
She moved into them and rested her head on his shoulder. “You okay?” he asked.
“Surprisingly,” she said, her voice even.
“Probably good this happened. Keeps us on our toes.”
Leo hugged Olivia tighter before letting her go. “I’d prefer your bandit raccoons over gunshots.”
“Me too,” Olivia said.
The two of them looked at each other.
Although Olivia seemed calm, there was a twitch in her eyes, the way she was blinking, that told him she wasn’t unaffected. “Let’s make some coffee.”
She agreed with a nod.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Olivia’s feet sunk into the moist ground and made sucking noises as she stepped out of the mud. “There isn’t one self-respecting animal that is going to come within a half a mile of us,” she declared.
Sasha walked beside her, one of the rare occasions that the two of them spent any time alone. The local kids who had been out shooting for the fun of it had been found and reprimanded. Neil let the boys know that shooting on or near the property would result in charges in the future. He didn’t want them suspicious of what was going on at the log home, but didn’t want them coming back and getting caught in crossfire.
The excitement had lasted for quite a while. But eventually Olivia’s daily walks resumed, and now she and Sasha were strolling through the forest without much care that they were going to get shot.
“We’re not trying to be Cinderella and collect pets.”