Horatio was loathe to leave the place that held his girl, so he received word of the department's decision to extend his medical leave until it ran out with a smile, surprising his three care givers that he smiled instead of frowning. He'd been home from the hospital for nearly a month and showed no signs of wanting to return to work. Only Leila knew the office that once enlivened him now felt like a prison cell.
He knew he would soon, but waited until six months after he graduated with his Master's in Education so Miami County would pay for his re-education (others did it so why shouldn't he). The brass thought it would take forever to get rid of him, but he retired much sooner than they thought he would, because he shortened his time in class by applying former college credits and work to school credits to cut his campus time in half.
Anyone with eyes in her head could see why he wasn't as anxious to return to work as he'd been previously, but few of those in the know willingly shared their knowledge with outsiders. General Davenport shared care givers with Horatio and the quintet decided it would be much easier on everyone if he stayed nearer to her place in Whispering Springs Village, so he traded his home in Miami for a smaller one there. He had just cause for the move that he wasn't aware of, since Julius had begun ramping up his plans to eliminate the man and his closest associates.
He thought the group would be easy pickings until he did a preliminary mission to determine if getting at them was as easy as his crew told him it would be. He was glad he heeded his instincts and checked the place out for himself, because Whispering Springs Village was a retirement community for high-ranking military personnel and took its residents' security needs seriously. Each home sat within walled acreage called an enclave. There were nine enclaves to a cul-de-sac and each enclave in a cul-de-sac backed the same inlet, which itself was guarded 24/7 by three patrols.
There were cameras and speakers installed inside the walls at intervals of ten feet. They faced the house and the outer perimeters of each enclave, making it nearly impossible to get inside one unseen. The schemers didn't know there were speakers too, or they'd have been considerably more cautious once they made it inside. The cameras could be adjusted manually only by the owner of record, and were otherwise adjusted by a central command that sat in the exact center of each community. The command center staff only altered a camera's angle if it pointed away from the house and/or grounds it was meant to watch.
The community was surrounded by a thick wall that was ringed on top with concertina wire and patrolled on foot by teams of three men with a dog to scent out trouble. They circled the entire compound several times a shift, presenting a formidable obstacle to anyone foolish enough to consider invading the facility. He witnessed one nut case try to access a gate without permission and two dogs nearly tore him to pieces, when he kept trying after the guards told him to stop.
Unlike his closest competition in the Mala Noches, Julius saw outside patrols and was smart enough to assume there were inside ones as well. Security being so tight meant there were top brass scattered throughout the community, which in itself meant little. He dug around some more and learned most of them were retired from one segment of the military intelligence command or another and some specialized in providing top notch security for their fellow retirees. Horatio's enclave sat at the exact apex of one circle, with his girl's to his right and an empty house on the left.
Julia saw the empty house as a prime opportunity for access to the entire village, and with access would come friendships with gullible men and women who were her ideal targets for her schemes. They were rich, retired, and bored so they'd make eager listeners for her latest get rich quick ideas. She chose to ignore the fact that the bulk of her prey were from one branch or another of the military and had seen the aftermath and devastation caused by people like her.
Julius watched the woman pace a path in the woods as he wondered how he'd gain access to the retired cop holed up in the secure neighborhood. It took him a second or two but he finally wondered why such a knockout was kicking back with the bugs, so he asked,
"What's a bombshell like you doing in a place like this," and winced when she eyed him as an especially loathsome creature, before she answered coldly,
"I waiting on a friend. What's it to you?"
Her chilliness wasn't the warning it should've been because he'd gotten het up watching her stroll, so he tried another tack, warning her,
"The place you're thinking of robbing can't be accessed by the likes of us without an invitation. Knowing the lieutenant the way I do, I seriously doubt I'll get one. Since you're out here with me instead in there with him, I'd be willing to lay odds you're in the same spot I am."
He began getting serious willies when she answered,
"He loved me once and isn't the type to fall out of love easily, so I know with a little hard work ...," the sounds of serious merriment emanating from Caine's Castle (Julius's nickname for Horatio's gorgeous home) put her off her stride enough that she sat heavily on an upturned dinghy to catch her wind.
They overheard the toasts to the happy couple and the chants from their guests, saying,
"Kiss the girl, kiss the girl, you know you want to, so why not kiss the girl," a quote from the Disney Animated Feature, The Little Mermaid.
Julia's face paled dramatically when she heard her ex say hoarsely,
"Put that way and knowing I have m'lady's full consent, I think I will," and the prolonged silence told both parties listening that Julia's chances of recapturing her ex's heart had just gone from highly unlikely, to nevva gonna happen.
