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  Midnight Capers

  THE HERO NEXT DOOR SERIES (STAR ELITE)

  BOOK SIX

  by

  REBECCA KING

  © 2020 by Rebecca King

  The moral right of R L King to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  COVER DESIGNED BY COLLYWOMPLES.COM

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE LOCAL HEROES SERIES (STAR ELITE)

  TUPPENCE

  OTHER BOOKS BY REBECCA KING

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dean yawned widely then muttered a curse when his exhausted horse stumbled into a hole and nearly unseated him. With a sigh, he glared at the road ahead and forced himself to concentrate.

  “You need to get some rest,” Roger, his boss, warned. “If you carry on like this you are going to ruin our reputation.”

  “I don’t give a damn about our reputation,” Dean snorted. “I just need to sleep.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I had any sleep.” Luke yawned, mentally calculating how long it would him take to get home.

  “You just want to see Rosemary,” Dean grumbled, trying his hardest not to be jealous.

  Luke grinned unrepentantly. “There is a wonderful reason for me to go home now.”

  “How in the Hell can you just keep going? It has been at least two days since I saw proper food and a real bed and managed to use either and I look like I have been to Hell. You look as if you have only just stumbled out of bed.” Dean glared at the twinkle in Luke’s eyes, the happiness he couldn’t hide from the world and shook his head in disgust.

  “I am as exhausted as you. I just want to go home. You are more than welcome to stay with me. I am sure that Rosemary has been baking again and will have plenty of food for everyone.”

  “I have to go home, or my wife is going to send out a search party to find me. If I stay away for much longer, she is going to make me sleep at the end of the garden because she won’t recognise me,” Roger muttered.

  “You miss her,” Dean shrugged to which Roger grinned.

  “It will be your turn soon.”

  It took Dean a moment to realise that Hamish’s comment was directed at him. “I would rather go and boil my own backside.”

  “Face it, you would be happy if you found yourself a wife and had a home to go to like Luke and Roger.”

  “And me,” Ronan called from behind them.

  “Me too,” Daniel and Joshua added.

  “I am far too busy for marriage,” Dean replied. “While I don’t want to criticise any of you, I don’t want to marry and then have to leave my wife alone for several weeks at a time. I know your wives were already aware of what they were getting into before they agreed to marry you, but that isn’t likely to be the case for me. I am not going to marry anybody who is involved in one of our investigations.”

  “There is nothing wrong with it,” Luke replied somewhat defensively.

  “I just said that it isn’t a criticism.” Dean tried not to snap at him, but his patience was already wearing thin because he was hungry and exhausted and really needed to spend some time sitting still. Over the past few days, the Star Elite had travelled so many miles in search of their latest quarry that he struggled to remember where he was. Everyone needed to rest for a while.

  Dean looked at Luke, and mentally plotted how far away his house was. Even half an hour more of riding was enough to make him shudder, but the last thing he wanted was to be an unwilling third party to Luke’s domestic happiness. “Thank you for the offer of accommodation but I am going to the tavern to climb into my cups and a bed in that order – alone.” He threw a dark look at his colleagues, challenging them to tease him over it. When his words were met with a deafening silence, he glanced around at them. “What?”

  “We are curious,” Daniel replied. “Why do you object to marrying someone who has been involved in one of our investigations? At least they know what our work entails and why we have to be away from home for so long.”

  “How many of you have your wives waiting to tell you everything that has happened at home while you have been gone, and who will demand information about our investigations when you get home?” When nobody answered, Dean sighed. “I want to be able to leave my investigations out here, and not take them home. As soon as you start to discuss them, you might be at home, but you are mulling over the intricacies of the investigations we carry out while you are there. It isn’t really stepping away from the work we do, is it? Don’t you think it is best to leave your work with the Star Elite at the end of the driveway?”

  “Your wives do know a lot about our investigations.” Hamish didn’t say as much but it made the men’s wives more vulnerable than most women, especially when their husbands were away because they knew so much about the Star Elite’s work and their husbands weren’t around to protect them.

  “People in our area know who we are and that it would be a damned idiot who would even attempt to harm our families,” Joshua warned.

  “While your neighbours may know about your being with the Star Elite, a lot of criminals don’t,” Dean argued. “Even local ones.”

  “But that applies to every woman who lives alone. No woman is safe living on their own. There is nothing to say that our wives are in any more danger because we are away for several weeks,” Luke replied.

  “I would just feel easier if my work didn’t infringe on my private life, that’s all,” Dean announced firmly.

  “So, you don’t intend to discuss your life with your wife whenever you go home then,” Roger muttered. “You don’t think that sharing details about your work might help you to build a more solid relationship? She will wish to share what she has done to look after the house and family while you have been away because she lives there with you. It’s natural.”

  “It sounds bloody boring,” Dean muttered. “I know you adore Leonora, and I am not calling her boring at all, but I spend my life chasing through the undergrowth, lurking in alleys, and shooting at criminals if I can’t arrest them. Life is an adventure. It’s unpredictable, vibrant, constantly changing. Any woman who heard about what I really do wouldn’t sleep soundly in her bed at night.”

  “You are just not cut out for marriage yet,” Hamish replied with a knowing nod. “Neither am I. I cannot think of anything worse than spending my evenings beside the fire discussing ordinary life.”

  “You two intend to carouse your way through the taverns then, getting drunk, bedding women, and scoffing your way through every eating establishment you pass.” Roger smiled to ease the sting of his criticism.

  He knew that his men all fought hard and lived life on the edge. They spent their entire working lives with the Star Elite on the cusp of life, in the shadows, watching others go about their business
. Few people knew they were around. Hardly anybody knew they had been nearby until criminals had been arrested and the danger that had stalked them had been prevented from blighting everyone’s lives. Only then did the public realise that they had been living beside the Star Elite, and they would discuss the fact that nobody knew. They would discuss it, wonder of it, be bemused and worried by it. The Star Elite were effectively ghosts, sliding into and out of people’s lives, living in shadows, blending with the public, and disappearing again with a silent deftness that would terrify anybody who saw them. It was understandable that having spent many years of their lives lurking in shadows fighting some of the country’s most hardened criminals, the men who weren’t married wanted to release some of the tension by indulging in every frivolity they could get involved with – including tavern brawls. As for the married men, they were at a time in their lives when they preferred the stability and predictability of being able to go home to wives, their babies, a warm fire, and plenty of food. The women they bedded were their wives. The food they ate they had provided, and their wives had cooked, and the beds they slept in at night were their own. The noise and chaotic confusion they often waded into were created by their own children; their happy, contented family. It made all the danger and discomfort worth living, and life in their happy and contented homes that much more enjoyable.

  “It doesn’t sound to me like you are prepared to find the woman who will make you contemplate marriage,” Luke announced.

  “I don’t think that you were either. While you purchased Wickerstone purely for yourself, you worried about Rosemary a lot from the first moment you met her,” Dean countered.

  “That’s because someone was targeting her,” Luke replied with a nonchalant shrug but ruined it with a lecherous grin.

  “You have never been all that bothered about the other witnesses we have had to protect.” Dean grinned.

  “Not many of them have been as beautiful as Rosemary. The other gorgeous woman we have looked after have ended up being married to one of that lot.” Luke grinned at his friends who all rode along behind them with rather smug smiles.

  “I don’t want to marry just yet,” Dean admitted.

  Roger squinted suspiciously at him. “There is no reason why you should, is there?”

  “God, no,” Dean retorted. “Grant me with some evasive tactics.”

  Roger groaned and shook his head in disgust. “Just try not to get too hungover tomorrow. We still have Morton to find.”

  “How can I forget? God only knows how a man can vanish as quickly as he has,” Dean muttered.

  “Where are we going next, boss?” Joshua asked. He was still a little put out that he had lost Morton’s tracks in a field just outside of Windle Woods and hadn’t been able to pick them back up. He hated to be thwarted, especially by a seemingly urbane man like Finlay Morton. Joshua had honestly believed that nobody could hide their tracks as easily as Morton had and was angry that Morton had proved him wrong and escaped them.

  “He has to be in Oakley Bridge,” Roger hissed, wishing that everyone was not as exhausted so they could search the damned town again.

  “We have been through that town at least three times,” Hamish growled when he saw Roger’s thoughtful expression. “We are drawing people’s attention by keep asking people if they have seen him. If Morton is hiding there, he knows we are still around because people are talking about us. We need to leave him for a while and hope that he resurfaces as soon as he thinks we have gone.”

  “We have gone. We are here, on our way to Brampton,” Ronan replied. “Well, you are. I am going home to my delightful wife.”

  “Make sure you are back at Chandler’s Cottage by dawn, Ronan. We have work to do,” Roger warned. “We all need to muster at the base at seven o’clock. Anybody who isn’t there is going to be fetched, and God help you if I have to drag your sorry carcases out of bed.”

  Mutters of discontent swept around the group. While they were all annoyed that they couldn’t get more rest than just a few hours in their own beds in their own homes, they were all aware that while they rested their quarry, Finlay Morton, might be escaping the area. The further he managed to get away from the area while they were sleeping, the longer they would then be away from their homes when they were forced to go after him.

  “Which tavern are you two going to?” Roger asked Hamish and Dean when they had crested the brow of the hill overlooking what appeared to be half the county.

  The men from the Star Elite lined up and studied the wonderful views that stretched out before them like a patchwork carpet. Greens and browns were interspersed with autumnal oranges and gold highlighted by miles of long grey lines of stone walls which from a distance looked like pencil marks in God’s drawing. It was breath taking or would have been had the Star Elite been alert enough to notice any of it. To them, the vast stretch of unmarked landscape was far from welcoming to see because it was the distance they needed to travel to get home.

  “It’s a sodding big area to have to search for one man, isn’t it?” Hamish snorted.

  “Well, he has to be out there somewhere.” Joshua studied the small cluster of houses barely visible on the horizon and knew that was home. He had such a strong yearning to see Annalise and his son again that he almost nudged his horse into a gallop and set off for home right there and then. It was only the pensive look on Roger’s face that warned him that his boss had something he wanted to say.

  “We have three new men about to join us. They will be here at the end of the month. Sir Hugo is sending them to us now that they have completed their training.”

  “Do we know them?” Hamish asked.

  “I have met one of them before. Darius Audeley is rather, er, different. He has spent his life in the army but is battle hardened. That said, he is a solid, reliable, honest gent who I know is going to be an asset to this group. The second man, Gilbert ‘Gil’ Clavering, I know little about, but he is also coming highly recommended by Sir Hugo. The third man, Austin Seymour-Rawlins, is a specialist in spying. He knows how to hide in the populace, so the skills he will be able to teach us will be invaluable. I know that Darius and Gil are relocating to Leicestershire on a permanent basis, but I don’t know about Austin. I hope that you will all make them welcome when they arrive. I understand from Sir Hugo that when they arrive, which will be sometime around the 25th, they will be bringing the details of a new, rather complex investigation with them. They will take the lead on it but need our help to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. The men will then stay and join our team when the investigation is over.” He looked at each of his men whom he had called friends as well as colleagues for several years now. They were all staring thoughtfully at the landscape while they listened intently to every word.

  “I met Austin in London once. He is funny, and not at all the kind of man anyone would suspect would work with the Star Elite, or could be a spy,” Hamish informed them. He looked at Roger. “He is friends with Sir Hugo, isn’t he?”

  “I think there is some kind of family connection there, but I am not sure what it is,” Roger replied. “It is Austin’s ability to get himself lost amongst the populace, and the fact that he doesn’t appear to be what everyone might expect a member of the Star Elite to look like that makes him so invaluable to us.”

  “Should I take that as an insult?” Joshua murmured.

  “An insult? Now why would it be an insult?” Daniel muttered, rolling his eyes.

  “What are Star Elite investigators supposed to look like? Do we look like mauled carcasses?” Ronan softened his tone with a smile.

  “Austin is - fashionable.” Hamish grinned. The look he raked down Ronan’s dirty and dishevelled length made it clear that he was not.

  Roger nodded slowly. “Austin likes fashion, and taverns, and frequents ballrooms of ton and fits in. I have no idea what kind of investigation they are bringing us, but Sir Hugo would only send us this mix of operatives if he felt that their skills were going to be n
eeded by us in the future. I strongly suspect that someone like Darius would be more beneficial in London, but he is coming here to live.”

  “You make him sound almost feral,” Luke muttered, wondering if he should be worried.

  “He can be ruthless when he is pushed,” Roger warned. “Don’t push him.”

  Luke had no intention of even trying. “All help they provide us with will be welcomed.”

  “Good. For now, they are going to stay at the base until they can find somewhere more permanent to live, and until Austin can decide if he wants to stay in the county or return to London.”

  “What has he done?” Dean demanded. “You make it sound as if he has gotten himself into trouble and needs to leave London for a while.”

  Roger grinned because Dean was right. “I think Austin might tell you more about that. It pertains to something that happened in his private life. Because it is personal, Sir Hugo hasn’t told me what it is. He will leave Austin to tell us why he is joining us for a while.”

  When his stomach rumbled, Dean turned his attention to a village about half a mile away and wondered how much time he would have to drink and eat before he fell asleep. If he could get just one or two flagons of ale down him before sleep claimed him, he would be happy. He was thirsty and getting colder by the second now that they were sitting motionless atop one of the highest points in the area. The last thing wanted was to discuss newcomers when he could be enjoying life.

  “Well, we will all meet at Chandler’s Cottage at seven in the morning. We will come and round you up if you are not at the base in time, but we have work to do and don’t need to delay getting Morton behind bars any longer than we have to gentlemen, so be there,” Roger muttered. Tapping his forehead with two fingers, he guided his horse into the darkness leaving his men to bid each other ‘goodnight’ and start their respective journeys home.

  Because they all lived within a few miles of each other, they would all get to see their families within the next half hour or so. What concerned Dean was how quickly he could get to see the inn keeper.