Breaking Meredith

“What are you doing?! We need to run!” Meredith shouts.

Shaking my head, I hop out of the door.

The body is lying in a large red slush of blood and snow.

Squatting down, I rip the helmet off his head and frown. Japanese. He’s fucking Yakuza.

Damn.

There’s sirens far off in the distance, and I can tell they’ll be here sooner than I’d like. I can’t get the damn body into the car.

Shit.

Rifling through his pockets, I don’t find anything of importance. Just a pack of Japanese cigarettes and a cheap lighter. Pulling up the right sleeve and then his left, I find tattoos. Damn.

Flipping his body over, I start to unzip his jacket when Meredith rolls down her window. “Simon what the hell? I don’t want to die so you can get some cheap thrills!”

“Very funny, Meredith,” I say with a laugh and smirk.

Ripping the shirt up, I expose his chest. He has the tattoos I was expecting there. No telling who he’s working for on tattoos alone, but it’s a damn good way to guess we’ve got another headache coming.

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I take three quick photos of his face and a couple of his chest tattoos.

Running back to my car, I jump into the open door. Hitting the gas pedal, the car door slams itself shut as we screech away from the body.

Pulling a burner phone from the center console, I dial 911. “There was a shootout at Saint Michael’s church. Some guy on a motorcycle wearing black clothes shot at another guy in a tan Tahoe.”

That should get them looking for someone besides my black Escalade.

Disconnecting the phone, I hand it to Meredith. “Toss that out the window.”

While she does that, I pull my regular phone from my pocket and press the Bluetooth function on my steering wheel. “Call Sommers.”

The phone rings quietly through my speakers. “Detective Sommers.”

“The shooting at the church, I want any and all information you pull off the corpse. Also, if you get lucky enough to catch the motorcyclist, give me access to him.”

“Jesus, Simon. Could you go a day this week without having a major incident?”

“No,” I say before pushing the disconnect button.

“Did you just call the police and tell them to give you information?” Meredith asks.

“Yes,” I say as I slow my vehicle down.

Pressing the Bluetooth button on my steering wheel again, I say, “Call Matthew.”

“Simon,” comes Matthew’s slow drawl.

“I was just ambushed at Saint Michael’s by a Yakuza shooter,” I say without preamble.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I have pictures of his head and chest tattoos. He’s covered, and from a quick look they seem to be authentic.”

“How did they find you?” he asks after a moment.

“I’m not sure yet. No tails this morning and I didn’t spot anything before we went into the church.”

“We?” he asks slowly.

“Yes, I brought Meredith along. I wanted to keep her protection under my care. Right now I’m starting to suspect I may have a tracker on me that I haven’t noticed. But I’ll have do a search for it, and then I’ll need to switch out vehicles until this one is repaired.”

“I see. I’ll talk to Andrew. He should be able to scramble a private security service until we can get this matter settled,” he says after a moment.

“Okay. I’ll use Johnathan as a lookout while I do the search of my SUV and switch it out.”

“As soon as you can, get on top of finding out which Yakuza boss we’ve seemed to upset,” he says.

“Don’t worry, that’s going to be my primary focus very soon,” I say and then push the disconnect button.

By the time we finally make it back to my home, Meredith looks as exhausted as she must be feeling. Her eyes struggled to remain open for the last couple of miles. The black Tahoe in front of me and the two following me have stayed as tight as they can which gives me some comfort.

Thankfully my computer systems have showed nothing in the way of my security systems being compromised.

Pulling through the gate, I wait as the car ahead of us rolls to a stop. Four large men in black coats and military fatigue pants ease out of the vehicle. The car directly behind me pulls in past my surrounding wall, and the last car stops just outside of it.

The men in the front car pull their semi-automatic rifles out with them as they start to spread out around the front of the house. The men in the car behind us quickly get out as they spread around the yard.

“Is this protection really going to help?” Meredith asks quietly.

Nodding my head at her, I say, “Yes. I’ve used Twin Star Security in the past and I trust their men to do a thorough job.”

“Simon, I’m… scared.”

“Don’t be. I told you already, you’re mine and I take care of what’s mine.”