Chapter 1
After the celebratory dinner, Dave, the only teetotaler, and the designated driver was the last to get home. He found a disaster. Buck, his dog, and Elizabeth, his sow had been shot with a shotgun and lay in a welter of their own blood.
His front door hung off its hinges and the house looked like it had been hit by a tornado. Ketchup bottles were broken on the floor and mixed with flour. The dishes had been pulled from the cupboards and lay broken on the floor. Anything soft like chairs, the couch, and beds had been cut open with a knife.
He surveyed the disaster, breathed a sigh of relief that his wife had been visiting her parents, and then dialed his phone. “Diane, do you remember you said to call if I needed anything? Well, I’m calling.”
Diane’s listened as he explained what happen and her face dropped. “Shit. Do you have a place to stay tonight? OK. Why don’t you call the guys and let’s meet here for breakfast—say 7:30 tomorrow morning? See you then.”
She said to her boyfriend Peter as she walked to the adjoining door that led to Melanie and Phil’s room in the suite they shared.
”That was Dave. Someone killed his dog and the pig and trashed his house. He just called in his marker.”
She knocked and Phil opened the door. She repeated what Dave had said, then asked, “Can you guys stay over till after the meeting?”
“Sure, our plane doesn’t leave till noon tomorrow. We can stay over if need be, though. I wonder what the hell is behind the attack. Dave doesn’t tend to piss people off—well, not enough for them to do that anyway.”
Shaking his head, he turned back to his room.
It had been no more than an hour since they celebrated successfully preventing Diane’s psychopathic sister from murdering her and christened the ad hoc team that had accomplished that, “The Crew”. During her last toast, fueled by an overabundance of bonhomie and wine, she promised to come to the aid of any one of them. All they needed to do was call.
Dave had made that call when he arrived home to find the disaster. It looked like there was to be no rest for the wicked. The Crew was being called back into action.
