The Wizard Table: Chapter Three: The Target Shane Thibault

Benni has set her sights on a Canadian Detective, she needs him out of the way.

Benni shivered as an icy Canadian breeze found it’s way through her thin tropical shirt.

She was simply not dressed for the Canadian autumn air and already she missed the sweltering heat of home.

If Benni were to tell the truth, she would say the house she lived in was no more a home then the hotel she checked in this morning.

 Truth. Benni always seemed to smirk at the word; it was, as she knew well enough from experience, always twisted around someone’s purpose.

‘There is no such thing a truth, only information.’ She’d often told Maddie when she gapped at Benni’s unapologetic, and sometime brutal disregard for honesty and truth, but then again Maddie, despite her skills with firearms was quite the sentimentalist. 

Benni’s expensive watch beeped, retracting her from her reverie and signaling to her that her target was due in less then a minute.

Benni brushed her brown hair behind her ear signaling for Maddie to get into position. She then pushed off from the wall she had been leaning on and stepped into an alleyway where she couldn’t be seen from the street.

Her target detective Shane Thibault was, excluding some spectacular disaster, at that moment exiting the 30^th division’s police station.

He would then walk south on Park Avenue and turn left on Rosemary Drive where he would walk past the pizza parlor, the drycleaners and Benni where she stood between two buildings.

The detective would then pick up his mail from across the street. Benni knew all this because Thibault, although a generally good detective, made the mistake of having such a predicable routine, and Benni paid good money for the grouchy PI who tailed him for the past two weeks.

That was the first sign that Thibault would have to go, she needed someone sharp perhaps even paranoid enough to help her find Phrixus, if he were still alive.

Benni either had to get him reassigned to another case or put him on temporarily leave she was sure he would not appreciate her plans for him.

Benni was not entirely sure it was safe to approach the detective, but she had to verify that he was not connected to the people who had taken care of Phrixus.

She couldn’t afford any lose ends not when she’d stumbled on something so valuable and strange. She had to be perfect if she wanted to survive if she wanted the Wizard Table.

The expensive watch on Benni wrist beeped for a second time. The relaxed smile that usually graced her lips suddenly disappeared. Thibault was late and Benni briefly worried that something was wrong before she heard a familiar click.

“Stay where you are. Nice and slow put your hands on your head and get on your knees.” A female voice growled behind her.

Benni noted as she slowly dropped to her knees the lady sounded authoritative and fleetingly Benni wondered if she could sound like that with Maddie and Arnold.

As the handcuff slung closed around her wrists she began to think of more pressing matters, like what cover story she could go by his time.