As the rising sun heralded a new Wednesday morning in Moon Lake, many of its citizens went about their normal routine as if it was any other day, little knowing that one of their own had been mistakenly marked for murder!
Henry "Huck" Jenkins, Junior drove his pickup truck to Jenkins Construction, the small business he had taken over for his retired father. Henry Senior had established what was then a one-man company after moving his family to Moon Lake, hoping to make his mark in the construction world by being a relatively big fish in a small pond since plenty of major Washington cities already had their own construction companies and didn't need the competition, nor an extra employee.
Finding out Moon Lake was the secret sanctuary of weres, beings who were more than human, came as quite a shock to the Jenkins family, but Henry Junior jumped at the chance to be one himself, thus fulfilling the family obligation as "the mandatory were" so everyone would have a stake in the town's future.
Now, decades have passed since that major moment in the Jenkins family history. Huck had taken over from his father. Henry Senior and his wife were both now in their early 70s, deciding to stay normal humans. While too young to do anything when they first moved to Moon Lake, their younger son Harry recently became a werefox so that he could be with his now fiance werevixen Jenny Harper, which was the reason why Huck was being followed that fateful morning.
Her family wanted Jenny to marry another. Dieter Wilhelm, the man they preferred to be their future son-in-law, firmly believed Jenny was "his", and would make sure she stayed that way, even if it meant having those in his employ commit murder to execute his "upstart rival".
HOWEVER...
the latest henchman to attempt this act didn't know about such things as weres, let alone their longevity.
Despite the fact he was now 42, Huck could be mistaken for a young man in college barely in his early 20s who also happened to work for his father's company, by someone who didn't know otherwise.
Which was the erroneous assumption the second henchman had as he watched Huck get out of his truck and enter the small trailer that served as the main office of Jenkins Construction.
Parked across the street, the henchman would begrudgingly give his target some credit, working for his dad when not in school.
But messing with "the boss's girl" was about to cost the person the assassin thought was Harry Jenkins his life.
AT THE MOON LAKE POLICE DEPARTMENT...
Since Dieter Wilhelm's first henchman committed "Suicide by Cop" instead of betraying his employer after being arrested, the police and Tachibana Security had been maintaining around the clock monitoring of the dead man's cellphone.
So far there had been no word from Dieter Wilhelm himself, but they had been pretending to be Wilhelm's agent to keep the new henchman off guard and off mission, hoping to keep Jenny, Harry, and the rest of the town safe.
Yet the new text message that the dead man's phone received had them worried.
WHERE'S BOSS'S GIRL? it asked.
Yamato Tachibana, working for both Tachibana Industries AND the Skulk, the collective name of all the werefoxes and werevixens in Moon Lake, looked to Police Chief O'Hara, as both men had just assumed the day shift of monitoring duty phone wise.
"It isn't even 7 in the morning yet," pointed out O'Hara. "Tell him she's still asleep in her dorm room."
Yamato did so, to which they read the reply moments later.
HAVE TARGET IN SIGHT. IF POSSIBLE, WILL TAKE CARE OF NOW. KEEP HER SAFE. SOON AS MISSION COMPLETED, I'M LEAVING THIS HICK TOWN!
"What does he mean he has the target in sight?" wondered Yamato, even as Chief O'Hara grabbed his police radio and demanded a status report on Harry Jenkins, Jenny Harper, and the second henchman.
"The lovebirds are still in the college safe room," reported an officer. "Neither has a class before 8 this morning, according to the schedules Dean Meyers gave us."
"Chief, this is Officer Ward," came the report. "My partner is on foot ahead of me, but we're parked around the corner from Jenkins Construction."
"He's after the wrong man!" realized Yamato, even as a new announcement came over the police radio.
"SHOTS FIRED! SHOTS FIRED! I NEED BACK UP STAT!" shouted Officer Ward.