Bullet River (The Garbage Collector 2) by Dani Amore

 
    1.
     
    Just before I found the dead girl in the river, I had been thinking about how strange it was to get a sunburn just a few days after Christmas. Ordinarily, back home in Michigan I’d be dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a thick sweater. And I would be fairly pale, with that washed out, pensive expression people in the Midwest get when they know the worst of winter is yet to come.
     
    But right now I wasn’t wearing a sweater. In fact, I wasn’t even wearing pants.
     
    Instead, I was floating on an inflatable lounge chair, a beer in my hand, my pale skin turning bright red. The best part was, the beer was by no means my first. Which meant the pain of the sunburn had yet to actually register. I figured it would hit me tomorrow morning along with any after effects of a half-dozen Heinekens.
     
    I’d been in Florida for a week now, ever since I’d helped a young woman escape from the clutches of one of my former clients: a dangerous and vindictive law firm in Detroit.
     
    They had sent me after her, claiming she was a lawyer at the firm who had stolen highly sensitive information and was now blackmailing the partners. Turned out not to be the case. The woman was an honest lawyer who the partners had invited to take part in their money-laundering operations. She declined and went to the Feds, but the firm tried to kill her, so she ran.
     
    Once I figured everything out, I took her away from a couple of bad guys and got her to Arizona. A buddy of mine who lived there was an expert at helping people disappear. The last time I saw her, she was happy.
     
    The guys back in Detroit, though? They hated the Garbage Collector. That’s my nickname, by the way. At first, I didn’t really care for the name all that much, but after a while, it kind of grew on me.
     
    So now I’m known in Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles as the Garbage Collector. Which means I retrieve people and things that are usually tainted, illegal, or just downright dangerous.
     
    I have a real name but I keep that to myself, thank you very much.
     
    So not wanting to head back to Michigan and find out what those nasty lawyers might have planned for my homecoming, I got in touch with a friend here in Estero, Florida, who put me in touch with an old Italian couple, also from Michigan, who were heading to Italy for the winter. It hadn’t been a part of their plan—most come to Florida in the winter and go somewhere else during the uncomfortable, blazing heat of summer. But according to my friend, apparently something had happened back in Italy that required their attention, and they wanted some security for their house.
     
    That’s where I came in.
     
    The house was very nice. It consisted of three floors. The top was the master suite. The middle level was the living space, which consisted of a great room, kitchen, dining room, and two bedrooms with two bathrooms. There was also two-story, screened-in lanai with an outdoor sitting area that overlooked the pool below. Just down from the pool was a dock and the Estero River.
     
    The lower level was the pool, the garage, and a small apartment. I’d agreed to stay in the apartment and provide security for the main house. Apparently, someone had broken in last year. They had vandalized a few rooms, stolen very little, and then helped themselves to the swimming pool for a few days. They had apparently also brought along their dog and let it swim in the pool. The homeowners figured that out when the pump and pool heater stopped working and they traced the problem to about three pounds of dog hair stuck in the filter.
     
    So this time, the couple refused to leave their place unattended. What my friend had told them about me, I wasn’t sure. Probably that I was a security professional with an impeccable background. Which was half true.
     
    The long and short of it? I agreed to spend a few months in Florida, stay in the apartment for free, and receive a monthly stipend for my security