Naming Day (Jake Underwood Book 1) by Michael Ruger

didn’t, I tied it up as quickly and as cheaply as possible.” He shrugged.
    “Marty.” I began, “You could have told me any of this tomorrow. It doesn’t explain why you are sitting in my kitchen at midnight, eating my ham and drinking my beer. Tell me the real reason you’re here”
    “Okay.” He nodded and looked at me for moment, perhaps considering what to say next. “Did you know that your office is under surveillance?”
    A cold chill ran down my back. “Are you sure? Scratch that. Of course you’re sure. You wouldn’t have said something if you weren’t. Where from?”
    “That’s the thing. There are two teams on you. One is setup across the street in the opposite building, the other is being ran from roadwork crew down in the street.”
    “Are they tag teaming me or are they separate crews?”
    He smiled. “That’s a good question. I can’t be positive of course without asking them, but I would guess that they are separate. At first I thought they were working together. But eventually I came to believe that they are two separate teams on the same target.”
    “First, the guys across the way are pretty clumsy. They were dead easy to spot. You would have seen them the first time you looked out your window. Either they don’t care if you notice them or they are awful.” He paused and pulled on his beer. “The other crew is a lot better. In fact, I almost didn’t spot them. Something just seemed wrong with the way they were working on the street. The truck that there were driving says that they are from Reliant energy and it sure seemed like they were working in the utility access tunnel until I realized that most of the tools I could see were for street repair and not utility repair.”
    “That’s pretty thin. They could just be the road crew getting ready to tear it up.”
    “Yeah, I thought of that, but it was after five and most crews don’t work late and there was a guy sitting in the truck, supposedly drinking coffee, but I noticed he had an earpiece and a camera. It was subtle, but they were definitely watching. It took me a half hour to be sure. I identified one of the guys working the crew. He’s local talent, works for Clearstar mostly, but I have used him myself on occasion, he’s good and expensive. You might know him, Chris McNeely?”
    I nodded. “He does a lot of wiretapping and unintrusive measures and countermeasures. A very good surveillance man.”
    “It’s none of my business; I suppose. You know I mind my own business.” Marty slyly said. “But whatever you’re into is attracting a lot of attention and not the kind of attention you want. Either you have a lot of different people upset with you or the first team is meant to be spotted so you won’t notice the other guys. In any case, it means a lot of heat. Is it anything I could help with? No charge.”
    I was touched. Marty offering pro bono work was almost a declaration of love. Still, I couldn’t take him up on it. The only hot things I had going right now had to do with my status as a half breed fey and I couldn’t bring Marty into that.
    “Thanks Marty. That means a lot to me, but I can handle it.” I took a bite of my sandwich and considered my options, such as they were.
    “Is this part of whatever this big secret you’ve got?” Marty jabbed quickly and his touch was right on target.
    “What secret?” I asked as innocently as I could.
    “Well, of course I don’t know what it is. If I did it wouldn’t be a secret.” Marty smiled. “Still, I am a detective after all and you can’t expect me not to notice things. It’s not like I follow you around or anything, but I have noticed that your caseload is pretty light for the amount of money your firm brings in. Plus, there are times when you just vanish with no explanation to anyone, not even Adriana. I’ve even noticed that sometimes when you come back you’re in pretty bad shape. You never did offer an explanation on how you got that lovely