Billionaire and the Sisters Ch. 60

Elsa

Cindy and I pulled Lucas aside a few days later.

"Lucas, Cindy and I have a proposition for you. We want to catch Tanner and stop all of his harassment, threats, and the dangerous games. At the rate he's going, we are sure that someone will get hurt or killed."

Lucas nodded, "I have a dozen people working with the police to try to track him down, and we've engaged an outside detective agency with the same goal."

Cindy said, "Not good enough. We have a proposal."

I stepped in, "We know he sneaks around and somehow he watches us. He knew that Mark frequented that restaurant he was at with Izzy and Mel, and apparently watched them that night before accosting them dressed as a waiter. He found us at our lunch spot before he got caught. What we want to do is trap him."

"Trap him? How do you propose to do that?"

"With your help, and your dozens of security agents. Cindy and I will be the bait again."

"Not good. You might get hurt. When you caught him the last time, he let his guard down with you. He won't do that again."

"He won't have to. We'll stay put, but have little radios or something to communicate with so we can vector you to his location. I promise we won't move like the last time. This time, you close in and catch him. Further, we'll wear our bullet proof vests."

"That leaves a lot of you exposed. I don't like it. Mark really won't like it. I seem to recall you got spanked the last time because of what you did." He smirked and both Cindy and I winced at the memory.

"If he agrees, will you do it?"

Lucas shrugged, "Begrudgingly. We can try it. If it doesn't work, I might call the whole thing off. It'll depend on the day and the situation."

Cindy went and got Mark who joined in our discussion. He started to issue edicts about our behavior and forbidding our having anything to do with Tanner.

Cindy and I just looked at him until he ran out of steam.

I said, "How long do you want to put up with Tanner? He's dangerous, but so are we. We have our martial arts skills, we'll be armed and know how to use our weapons, we'll be wearing body armor, and we'll be surrounded by a large security team. Mark, don't be short sighted about this. Let us help. We promise not to try to capture him like we did the last time."

Mark got up and paced around the room. He turned to Lucas, "Can you protect them if they do what they propose?"

Lucas shrugged, "Only up to a point. If he's armed in some way, there's no telling what might happen. If it's like the last time, then it could be a cakewalk, and we turn him over to the police. There are multiple warrants out for his arrest. I know they wouldn't approve, but they will certainly be grateful."

Mark thought some more. He finally came and hugged Cindy and me. "You girls are my precious loves. I don't want anything to happen to you, but I'm torn. If I keep you locked up, then sooner or later this lunatic will do something that hurts one of us. If I turn you loose, I'm worried that something will happen to you specifically."

I said, "Between a rock and a hard place. Let us do what we trained to do."

Mark turned to Lucas. "Do it, but guard these two like they were the most precious things on the planet."

Cindy and I set up a schedule. We'd get together for lunch at a sidewalk restaurant on Tuesdays and Fridays, depending on weather. November weather could be very unpredictable: warm and nice one day and a snowstorm the next. We varied the restaurant, but kept them close to where one of us worked. That gave us a selection of eight eating establishments. Five of them lent themselves to good security coverage, so that's where we started to eat on the nice days.

We were into our third week, eating at a place that only served breakfast and lunch near my architectural company. We were sitting in a corner of the patio with the sidewalk nearby on one side, the parking lot on another side, and the restaurant tables on the other two sides. We were slightly away from the other patrons. We were both wired for two-way communication with a battered van parked nearby. The entire security team could hear every word we said, but a dozen other team members were within twenty-five feet of us – men and women dressed differently, and doing different things: a college girl sitting on a wall playing with her cellphone, a young couple in love, two businessmen in shirt sleeves on this nice day haggling over some deal, an elderly man and woman with their adult son, two hard-hat guys enjoying lunch and a beer, and so on. I wondered if there were any 'real' patrons in the place.

Cindy and I made idle conversation, talking about certain aspects of our jet training and our desire to fly the Citation somewhere special once our 'search' was over. We were the hunted trying to catch the hunter. We'd adopted using the term 'search' to finding Tanner.

A number of people passed by this restaurant on the city sidewalk only a few feet from us, and cars frequently came and went in the parking lot, their occupants often walking by to get to other nearby stores. We tried to spot each person, to assess whether it could be Tanner, but after a couple of hundred people went by our senses got dulled.

I saw a heavy-set elderly woman with grey hair and a frumpy dress get out of an older tan sedan. She seemed slow and arthritic, set up a walker, and started to toddle along the sidewalk towards the stores pushing the walker ahead of her with a handbag on her arm. As she drew near us, perhaps fifteen feet away, she turned and looked at us.

It was Tanner in disguise. I breathed that one word into my microphone, "Tanner!"

From a pocketbook, he'd slung over the top bar of the walker, Tanner pulled a black handgun.

Cindy yelled, "TANNER. GUN."

He leveled it at us, and as he pulled the trigger three shots rang out in the plaza – one from Cindy's gun, one from mine, and one from Tanner's. They couldn't have been more than a second apart.

Tanner looked stunned that we'd responded with deadly force. He looked down as his gun toppled from his hand in a noisy clatter onto the brick sidewalk. His chest sported two holes about four inches apart through the padding he'd stuffed into the dress. Blood was already showing at one of them.

Cindy and I were standing about six feet apart by then, our guns trained on him as he crumpled to the ground looking at us. He started to speak, but a rivulet of blood rose from his mouth instead and ran down his chin as he fell.

We were so focused on Tanner that I was only vaguely aware of the pandemonium going on around us until I looked around. Other patrons of the restaurant had run for cover, scattering out of the lines of fire. People were screaming. I heard one man calling 9-1-1. Our security team was leaping over tables and chairs and other obstacles in Tanner's direction as he crumbled to the sideway. His walker tipped over with a clatter as he fell on top of it.

Cindy walked to Tanner who seemed unconscious. She kicked his gun out of reach, but kept her gun trained on his torso.

From around us in all directions, our security team bolted onto the scene. Two of them secured Tanner with handcuffs even though he appeared unconscious, and I slowly and meticulously placed my gun on our table. I heard a siren in the distance.

I felt kind of wobbly and the world gradually took on a strange hue, almost like the colors around me were turning to grays, blacks, and whites. My vision started to narrow as though I'd entered a tunnel. My left leg hurt. I glanced down. There was blood gushing from my leg and forming a pool where I stood. I knew I was dying and it didn't concern me. I'd killed Tanner. Mission accomplished.

My world turned black and silent.