The Joy of Revenge

CHAPTER 118 Huff Hills
Sebastian
There wasn’t any good news coming in from the team of men I had sent to the Bahamas.
When I called earlier, they informed me there was no sign of Pete McDowell at any of the largest densely populated islands. To widen the search and cover more area, my men decided to split up, each one assigned to visit a designated area.
The Bahamas had thirty inhabited islands….
And I only sent five men to conduct the search. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
This was a huge problem. None of us had a clue to where Pete was.
And we were running out of time. The Spring Formal was next week..
to
Dina was going through all the feed from airports, bus terminals and train stations within the Central States, hoping to find Pete through her facial recognition software. Cristos was following the news on the series of sexually assaulted exotic dancers, waiting for another pop up so he could triangulate a location. The most recent victim was a woman in a town near the North Dakota and Minnesota border. Cristos believed Pete was rounding up all his subordinates and allies in his territory, making Cristos suspect a war was brewing.
Xavier, on the other hand, said he was keeping tabs on someone he believed may lead us Pete, but didn’t mention anything else. He said if he found something, anything, he promised he would tell us, but not until then.
As for me, all I had was the information Marla gave me. Since De Luca was back in town, I asked him to accompany me and check out the McDowell mansion up on Huff Hills before heading over to the cabin at Red River.
It was reckless not to tell Xavier and Cristos my plans, but I wanted answers right away.
As they say, “If you want things done properly, you have to do it yourself.”
I intended on getting the information we needed… for Joy’s sake.
Since the McDowell residence in New Salem was cleaned out before Link could even purchase the house, I figured it was possible there might be some things at Huff Hills or at that cabin along the river that could point us at the right direction.
CHAPTER 118 Huff Hills
I felt lucky. Theodore’s death was a success. I believed I could accomplish one more feat before the day was over.
De Luca and I arrived at the foot of Huff Hills in a black SUV, dressed in our tactical gear, just as the sky grew dark, with the last of the sun’s rays disappearing from the h orizon. We parked several blocks away from the lonely mansion sitting atop the highest hill and decided to hoof it the rest of the way to do away with the chance of being heard or seen.
All the lights inside the old gothic mansion were off. The only light illuminating the massive compound was an orange hued bulb at the front porch.
From afar, the mansion reminded me of one of those old haunted houses resting atop a sp ooky mountainside.
According to a website, the Huff Hills mansion originally was owned by a family ancestor of the Taylors. The man made his money growing wheat and was said to own prime farmland
from here to New Salem.
Undoutedly, the Taylors were once the richest in North Dakota up until the Cohens came.
Although the mansion’s structure was old, it looked well-kept. The front door, walls and shutters had a new coat of paint on them while the lawn was cut, the bushes around the porch area were neatly trimmed and the grounds were swept clean.
There were no cars parked on the paved driveway nor were there any security roaming
around, not even a dop

As we approached the tall black iron gates to the estate, I noticed the gates were chained together with a huge silver padlock.
“This padlock and chain look new,” De Luca whispered as he bent down on one knee and picked the lock.
Whoever was here just left. That gave me a bad feeling.
I turned around to survey the dense forest in front of the house and I suddenly felt uneasy.
Pete might be expecting us.
I was about to tell De Luca that we should just come back another time, but he had already entered the estate, swinging the gates free of the thick chains, so I could pass through.
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What the hell… If Pete was inside, I’ll just kill him. Problem solved.
“I don’t see any CCTV cameras in the area. Do you think the house has an alarm inside?” De
Luca asked.
“It probably does. We need to go through the front to check. I’ll shoot the light out. Ready
tools to pick the lock on the front door,” I said.
your
“Copy,” he replied.
Crouching low, we quickly crept towards the porch. I took my gun out from its holster, screwed on a silencer and aimed for the light.
The shattered glass from the bullet hitting the bulb made a loud enough sound.
I gestured to De Luca to stop moving. The noise could have alerted anyone inside. If there was someone inside, we would definitely see some movement. Fortunately, nothing.
I gestured to De Luca to proceed to the front door. He hurriedly went up the steps and took
out his tools to pick the lock.
While he focused on unlocking the door, I took out my jamming device and turned it on. If the house had a wireless alarm system, the signal, which would supposedly alert the police, would be blocked. If it wasn’t a wireless alarm system, then we had exactly thirty second cut the phone line.
“Alright,” De Luca said, sliding a neodymium magnet along the door. “Now, I just need a magnet to unlock the top lock.” After he heard the unmistakable click of the lock, De Luca slowly turned the doorknob and slightly opened the door, looking closely for some tripwire. Then, with a smug smile, he swung the door wide open. “After you, sir.”
I swiftly entered using a small flashlight to illuminate my surroundings. I saw a characteristic red flash of a security panel. It was a wired house alarm.
I followed the line, found the wire to the landline and spliced the wires with a pair of Lineman’s pliers. Once that was done, I opened the security panel and took out its battery source. The blinking red light disappeared instantly.
I quickly turned off my jamming device. I needed a signal for my phone.
“What do you want to check first?” De Luca said.
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“There must be an office in this place,” I said. “Let’s look for it and search in there. If it isn’t on this floor, we’ll go upstairs.”
We flashed our flashlights around as we quietly roamed through the first floor of the house. The furniture was covered with white linens while the rugs laying on the hardwood floors
were covered in plastic.
The kitchen was immaculate. I went over and checked the sink. There were no dirty dishes.
and the sink itself was dry. That was a good sign.
“Sink’s dry. Means no one has used the sink recently. Come on. Let’s go over there. I saw a
door to the left of the staircase.”
We quickly left the kitchen and headed to the direction of the staircase where I had seen the door. I tried the doorknob and the door opened.
chair I was right… it was an office. An empty office. Only a wooden desk and single wooden was inside. De Luca rushed towards the desk and began opening its drawers one by one. I surveyed the room and looked closely at the light switch and walls. When Xavier broke into the coroner’s house, he said the coroner’s files were hidden behind a wall which swung open by pressing a button underneath the light switch.
There was no button underneath the light switch. I ran my fingers along the walls. There were no indentations. I checked the floors for scuff marks. Nothing. This room didn’t have
secret panel.
“I found something,” De Luca suddenly said showing me sheets of crumpled paper.
“Where did you find that?” I asked.
“They forgot to empty the trash, De Luca said, pointing at a trash bin underneath the desk. “Anyway, this is a print out of an itinerary for a flight from Texas to Chicago under a name Luis Villegas. This was dated yesterday.”
“Another one of Pete’s aliases I gather,” I said.
“This is strange,” he murmured, puzzled. “My asset at the FBI told me the capo who fled from Texas was a man named Luis Villegas.”
“There’s no one in New Salem by that name,” I said, knowing that for a fact.
“He could’ve changed his name.” De Luca said.
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