Page 18 of Tango

Ethan had never seen his K9 so agitated. He signaled for Tango to settle while he assessed.

Ethan’s heart was pounding. He’d automatically switched to combat breathing as he lowered his silhouette and slid into the shadows of the carriage house beneath the overhang, protected from anyone getting a bead on him.

Tango stayed hard-focused on the carriage house roof, stomping her foot in agitation.

Ethan lifted his binoculars, training the lenses on the thing that Clem had thrown down.

“I’ll be damned,” Ethan muttered. Was it what he thought it was? A dart? He could make out the length of a shaft and a fuzzy red end like a woman’s makeup brush.

A dart made sense.

It was bad form. Ethan knew it was bad form, but he reached down, released the short lead attached to Tango’s collar, and gave the hand signal that got her moving toward what had caught her attention. It was the signal for hunt it, and bite it.

That dart didn’t shoot itself.

If the driver was shot with a tranq, someone was after the bird.

Ethan grabbed his phone from his thigh pocket to call 9-1-1,

His screen showed a “call failed—no network” readout.

There was no reception.

That had been his major concern with this gig. There was no cellular connection. The house itself had a Wi-Fi satellite connection, but weather often interrupted its efficacy. Though he’d checked reception not fifteen minutes before and there had been bars.

Clouds shifted, he reasoned. Or the dart shooter had a jammer.

Radio wasn’t a backup.

He was the backup.

And his car was a mile up the road in the wrong direction.

Chapter Six

Piper

Tuesday

Harcourt Manor really was an impressive historic landmark.

Gorgeously romantic looking.

Piper found new things to admire every time she arrived at the massive carved doors with the lion’s head brass knocker.

Built in the Victorian heyday, it was a massive construction of turrets and stained-glass windows. The structure was meant to convey the opulent wealth of the family that had operated Harcourt Alabaster as a beauty line since Piper’s great-great-great-grandmother’s time. Maybe even before.

Back then, its full name was Harcourt Alabaster Toilette Company.

It made Piper feel sentimental that, along the line of women in her family, they had gone to the store to purchase the creams and ointments that promised them forever youthful skin and a healthy glow, contravening Father Time.

And now that same company was supporting Piper’s quest to keep herself, and others like her, alive.

The mansion sprawled majestically on a hilltop overlooking the Potomac, but it no longer stood alone on a large estate. Washington's modern architecture moved into the area, bringing high-rise glass-walled office buildings and millions in annual lease dollars to the Harcourt family fortune.

Alabaster’s headquarters reminded Piper of the phrase “dowager queen,” looking old-fashioned yet regal amongst her modern-day grandchildren.

It wasn’t far from here to Piper’s secondary laboratory in Alexandria, but, given the traffic, it was time-consuming and inconvenient.