The Retirement

How did this man find out where he was and his identity? He even texted his cell phone number. How did he know how to reach him? Evans guessed he would find all that out momentarily.

When he got into the house, he walked directly to his private office, closing the door. He dropped into the chair behind the large mahogany desk, staring at the phone for a minute, wondering if it was going to tell him how all this had taken place. He finally picked up the receiver and punched in the number linked to the sent text messages. The phone rang twice before it was answered.

There were several long moments of silence before a voice said, “Sorry to drag you away from the beach and the bikinis, old man, but I need your help.”

Evans had to smile. This voice from his past almost sounded cheery.

“How did you find me? I’m dead!” he said, and there was a chuckle from the other end of the phone.

“At the moment, so am I. So we must both be in hell.” It was Evans’s turn to chuckle, both for what they’d done in the past and how true that statement was. “You are family,” continued the voice on the other end. “Did you really think I wouldn’t look into your death?”

“I wasn’t sure,” Evans replied evenly.

“I suppose it helped that I’d stumbled upon the truth of your death—or fake death, rather—while looking for something else.”

Evans paused, intrigued. “Did you find it?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Finding you was the bonus. I assume you’re in that lavishly decorated office behind that mahogany desk.”

“How do you know . . .” Evans stopped, realizing he was underestimating the caller. To do that would be a mistake. He was more than capable of tracking him down and of even entering his estate without being detected. He’d been trained to do these things long ago, usually with deadly results. Evans took a breath before saying, “I’ve retired from that line of work, you know?”