There dawns a moment of clarity when you leave the house on a Monday morning, stop by your usual coffee
place on the way to work, and pick up that day's paper to glance through until you reach the bottom of your
caffeine supply. Routine might do that to you.
Only, this was no routine I was running through. For one thing, I was in a good mood. I had never been to
that coffee shop before, and I hadn't clocked in yet. My first day of my first real job in ten months, and the
paper I grabbed announced that the President was pardoning Cayden Larroca after less than a year of jail
time. So I guess what my moment of clarity was saying went along the lines of, “Well, Ripley, there goes that
whole 'legitimate' plan.”
My mood soured fast. And Friday was suddenly a long damn way off.
***
“This is so bloody typical of you,” Cora seethed from the relative safety of her desk. “You decide business
hits the back burner before we even open the doors? Christ, Alexis!”
I only half listened to her, mainly because I was making a good deal of noise as I plundered the closet in our
office, hunting through boxes for my passport (just in case), my leather holster, extra bullets. “It's not my fault
the President has poor judgment – and timing,” I said. My voice came out flat, which amazed me because my
thoughts kept veering up and down. A call to Rikers disclosed that Cayden had been escorted off the Island at
9:05 A.M., about the same time I'd gotten into the building and trekked the six flights up to my and Cora's floor
so I could get the day started without the added annoyance of a slow elevator.
Emerging from the closet, I seized a tissue from the box next to the nameplate bearing Cora Knott in shining
brass and wiped a substantial layer of dust off my passport. Cora reached over her and caught my wrist as I
was tucking the card in my coat pocket.
“You really shouldn't be doing this,” said Cora.
My eyes flicked up to hers. Frankly, I was unable to consider Cora an intimidating woman. Her blue eyes
were slightly enlarged by her outdated glasses, and a trim would have done her bob of straw-colored hair a
good turn. She was a numbers and schematics person, Cora, whose daily workout consisted of typing at her
laptop and making frequent, adventurous trips to the filing cabinet. This combined with a long tussle against U.
S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had left her haggard. I could have easily thrown her across the room
before her skinny British arms kept me there.
But Cora, weak though she was, sounded more earnest than anyone I knew had any right to sound. So I
made a conscious effort to be gentle as I pried her hand from my wrist. Besides, she was probably right. I
shouldn't have been doing this. But that wasn't the point, and Cora was smart enough to understand that.
I went to my own desk and unlocked the top drawer, retrieving a Glock 26 ordered online with sickening ease.
I don't like guns. I find them impersonal. Yes, that was the point of my past use of them, but truth be told,
I'm strong enough that I've only had to resort to using one a handful of times throughout a fairly eventful
career. Cayden, though...Cayden loved guns. And several months locked away meant his fingers would be
itching to hook over a trigger.
Feeling her nervous stare, “Don't worry,” I told Cora. “I'll make it quick. Back by the weekend.”
Trust Cora to ignore the finality of such a statement. Her forehead creased as she made a last ditch effort.
“Alexis, what about...” I stopped at the door, turned and slammed my partner with an eyebrow lifted
expectantly. She hated it when I did that. “Business?” She meant something else, but both of us overlooked
the subliminal question.
I shrugged, yanking my gloves on. “We're unknowns as yet, it's two days 'til Christmas, and it's twenty
degrees outside. Too cold to do anything investigable. Things'll pick up after New Year's...all that partying
makes people do crazy things.” I shut the door on my partner's bemused face.
In the hall, it took a moment – and only the one moment – to inhale, to clench my fists the way I'd wanted to
in the office. Now that Cora was taken care of, there was no reason to pretend any lightness about the
situation. If I wanted to face Cayden, I would have to be all tension and dark.
And that was routine.
***
You've heard of the American Dream: kids, car, white-picket fence, paid mortgage. Usually not in that order.
And, of course, everyone tailors the dream to suit them as individuals; the plasma screen TV in every room, the
beach house in Miami, the annual trip to Disneyland. That's all common knowledge.
Here's the full American Dream that's not so well known and applies to all regardless of background or
circumstance. Before getting the spouse and the pet, before signing that first life away to make room for a
second, more responsible existence, everybody just wants to blow everybody else away. They want to win an
Olympic medal, or land a million-dollar deal, or simply be badass on a general level for a while before settling
down and admitting themselves into mediocrity.
A bit of advice: Don't join the CIA. Everyone joins the CIA planning to transform their unremarkable lives into
a James Bond novel when the reality is that most will find themselves confined to a cubicle until they forget
those unlikely fantasies altogether, or they will actually get in the midst of operations and learn that James
Bond has an incredibly shitty life.
Or maybe it was just my life that sucked.
A revised bit of advice: If you do join the CIA, do not abandon the CIA to join a sub-radar group not directly
affiliated with the government you mean to serve. I did just that, for no better reason than because I was
asked. They needed women. I met the chromosome requirement. And for five years, I hurtled around doing
what I was told. Ten million in cash to be delivered to a Swedish gentleman in Brussels? Roger. An
interrogation in Tokyo? Cake. An arrest in San Diego? A cleanup job at gunpoint in Vancouver? A hit in
Moscow? The missions came at stages of increasing difficulty.
To some, those stages were mere stepping stones to fight the boss and win the prize, the profession nothing
more than a game. My partner in the organization was Cayden Larocca, who thought himself the number-one
player. He'd reminded me of classmates I'd had in college, the ones who always turned in the extra credit
assignments even when their usual work was flawless.
Cayden always went above and beyond mission parameters. If there was a hit, he took out the target and
the target's guards and associates. He did not so much clean a mission site as blood-bleach it beyond
recognition. And none of it was about improving himself or standing out in the eyes of the organization. He
enjoyed what he did on a sporting level, and if assignments entailed the taking of human lives, that level
became downright animalistic. I eventually equated the concept of overkill with Cayden.
After the incident in Paris, I was done. So done, in fact, that I didn't even consider requesting a change of
partner. I just up and took off from that nameless organization I'd left my badge-friendly, paper trail-leaving
job at the CIA for, because they knew they couldn't keep me in it without killing me. And they knew they
couldn't kill me.
Or at least they knew after the first three guys to come after me reported back, physically unable to fight
ever again.
As the El pulled into the O'Hare International Airport the next day, I flexed. The wool of my jacket budged,
but there was a time it might have split. Ten months living on unemployment and ramen noodles doesn't do
much good to keep you in shape. Hopefully jail had done even less good to Cayden.
Inside O'Hare, I waited close to the train stop, keeping an eye on the terminals for anyone who was tall, light-
haired, and appeared certifiably insane. More than one fit the description. You get that at airports. There
were enough shady-looking people to make me wish I'd convinced Cora to open the business in London. But her
argument had won out; America just had more citizens who were desperate or paranoid or prudish, or all three.
People who'd take private dicks before cops and had enough money to do so. Too bad, anyway. The dollar is
nothing compared to the pound these days.
An hour after taking up my post, I began to tap on my folded arms. If my hunch proved wrong, I'd be
spending cash I didn't have on a flight to wherever Larocca had continued onto. San Diego maybe. Pardoned
or not, they wouldn't let him out of the country, and I wasn't about to let him stay.
I shouldn't have worried. A flash of white-blond hair and a seemingly permanent scowl stepped out of the
terminal, brown eyes roving the scene and a plastic suitcase at his side. I guessed nine months' jail time
doesn't take the training out of you. I still did the same thing every time I entered a room.
Cayden saw me, stopped. He wasn't sure. Suddenly I was glad I had decided to grow out my hair and dye it
back to its natural brunette. My ex-partner had only ever seen it an inch from my skull and jet black. When he
confirmed my identity in that one-track mind of his, his reaction caught me off-guard. The lunatic actually
grinned. Shouldn't have surprised me, really. It had to be the best day of his life, knowing he could get put
away and set free again in a matter of months, or however long it took our old group to experience a change of
heart.
At least I'd been right about one thing. The bastard had come home the second he could get a flight. On the
positive side, it's nice to have instincts you can count on. On the flip, it's a shame those instincts point out
complete drags in your life, like former, mentally skewed colleagues flying into your city.
“Alexis? Alexis Ripley.” He sounded older, but my hope was that prison had impacted more than just the
aging process. The pleased smile he wore didn't match hunger in his eyes. He didn't want to be in a public
place right now. After so much time being constantly monitored, he wanted to be somewhere with as few
witnesses as possible. “Hey! You rejoined the force while I was gone?”
Oh. Wow. Even spotting me waiting to meet him at the airport, I hadn't expected Cayden to come to that
conclusion. “Not exactly,” I said as he drew close to me – and, spinning, kicked him in his tree trunk of a neck.
“Not the one you're thinking of, anyway.”
Rather than having the courtesy to appear shocked, or at the very least, enraged, the big guy looked like he
was about to have the merriest Christmas ever, spots or not spots in his eyes. His delighted expression
widened until his mouth resembled a knife gash that spanned his face. “Honey, you have no clue how long I've
been thinking about this.”
I assumed “this” did not mean a fight with me exclusively, but I didn't take the time to ask. I couldn't let him
open his suitcase and grab the piece that he had undoubtedly had smuggled inside. But Cayden was good
enough with a weapon of any kind that he could probably have bonked me on the head with the case alone and
that would be that. Fisting my hands hard enough to make the leather of my gloves creak, I aimed for his
stomach. He evaded, laughing as he danced backwards. People were already making a commotion. Out of the
corner of my eye, I saw airport security calling into their radios.
“Cooped up long enough, Larocca?”
Cayden had noted the same situation. “You know it,” he growled and we sprinted into the nearest El car,
cutting off a group of teenage boys and scaring any other passengers off. A security guard had to snatch back
his foot before the doors closed took it with us.
If I wasn't about to throw down with a guy more than double my weight, the ride downtown might have been
cozy. Instead, I was briefly contemplating how nice it would have been to punt Cayden out of the train, onto
the electric tracks, and celebrate a job well done. But that wasn't about to happen, so...
“Not the welcome back party I imagined,” said Cayden, setting aside the suitcase altogether and stripping off
his jacket. I kept mine on to pad any blows I anticipated taking.
“You imagined coming back at all?” Grabbing two bracing straps, I propelled myself toward him feet-first.
Cayden's head whipped back against a plexiglass window. “That's optimistic.”
He didn't waste anytime recovering but launched to his feet with enough force to shake the car. He was spry
for enduring nine months in a single-person cell at Rikers, I mused, right before he pushed me back. My spine
hit the top of a row of chairs. Blood welled up, then slid back down my throat. I swallowed and rolled before
Cayden could follow up with a punch to the gut. I'd seen him do it before.
“Why,” I panted, adrenaline hopping through my entire system, “did you get that pardon anyway? A body
count over 300...why would they want you back?”
“It's a tough time, Alexis. They like my work.”
“They didn't. That's why you went to jail in the first place. That's why they put you in line for the needle
right off.”
“And the world sighed its relief! I know the story.” Even now Cayden's face was turning the splotchy red it
always gained right before executing the kill he enjoyed so much. I'd seen that before too, more times than I
cared to recall. “But with you gone, I'm less expendable than hazardous. They'll put me back on the top of the
roster.”
“What,” I gritted out, simultaneously thinking of ways I could dispatch him before the El arrived at its next
stop, “so you can toss another twelve-year-old kid off the Eiffel Tower? Shred up more traffickers in
Singapore?”
He laughed. He actually stood there and laughed. “Good times, huh, Alexis?” Cayden charged so fast across
the narrow aisle, I couldn't find leverage for another kick. His arms closed in, one hand tugging at my hair.
Hair-pulling. Not nice to a first grader, and not nice to a girl going on thirty.
“We almost had better.”
My stomach churned first at his words, then at the small layer of truth behind it. The fact that this was
years ago brought little comfort.
Backed against a filthy gripping pole, I resorted to a tactic I had never favored. It's dirty, almost as dirty as
guns. I took a step back and Cayden, thinking I was attempting retreat, moved forward – giving me the
perfect distance to rush my leg forward and knee the smug bastard in the groin.
He doubled over. Even the training we'd been through could not have adequately prepared him for such an
attack. Male anatomy, I thought as I grabbed the pole with both hands and swirled around it with enough skill
to make a Chinese acrobat green with envy. So predictable in so many ways.
Swinging feet-first into his psychopathic head did the trick. It was underhanded, true. But at least the big
guy was facedown on the floor and not getting up on his own anytime soon. As the El was pulling into the next
stop, I stripped the gun from the small of my back, stuffed the tape that had secured it there in my pocket,
and used Cayden's discarded jacket to clean my fingerprints from the metal before resting it at his side. I did
my best to look exhausted when the doors slid apart and five loaded barrels separated me from the startled
police officers aiming them my way. Somebody had called ahead.
“Gun,” I said, pointing and breathing heavily (I was still feeling that chair in my back). “He had...a gun in the
airport.”
I was promptly forgotten as the five cops, with their professional judgment, dismissed me as irrelevant.
Stepping aside, I did not stay to watch them storm the car and toe at Cayden's limp form. The wind bit as I
left the station and decided to treat myself to a cab home. The word would make the papers the next day,
and I could already picture the headline: Pardoned Maniac Not-So-Pardoned.
Okay, so I wouldn't have made it as a journalist.
***
The next morning, I hissed when disinfecting alcohol splashed on my back for a third time. “Any more of
that,” I warned Cora through clenched teeth, “and I'll need a designated driver.”
My partner gave the bottle of antiseptic another little jostle and smirked. “Don't harp, Alexis. I'm not the one
who got my back tore all to hell, then left it untreated overnight.”
I bit back a retort about lacking the special talent to reach my back, thinking that kind of comment wouldn't
go over well with my only friend, pushy though she was. Cora had wasted no time calling my apartment the
second she'd read about Cayden Larocca's apprehension and determined that I hadn't left Chicago, threatening
me into the office and effectively ruining my plan to stay in until next week. Now she taped gauze over my
broken, burning skin with relish.
“So did you get – what – closure?”
“I didn't need closure,” I muttered, sitting up and pulling my shirt back down as Cora moved off. “Just needed
to stop him. And he ruined my jacket.”
She conveniently ignored me. I have long believed Cora's faith in me as a business partner rests in my
unacknowledged need to be saved. She was most certainly the saving type.
“Come on, Alexis. There's got to be—” Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses as the phone on my desk
jangled with the most annoying ring I had ever heard.
I snapped it up out of selfish concern for my ears above everything else. “Knott and Ripley,” I shouted. “It's,
like, eight in the morning!”
Cora grabbed the phone from me, scowling. “How can we help you?” I smiled affectionately back, inwardly
longing for the distant Friday.
So the “legitimate” plan stayed. But I never got very good at answering the phone.
place on the way to work, and pick up that day's paper to glance through until you reach the bottom of your
caffeine supply. Routine might do that to you.
Only, this was no routine I was running through. For one thing, I was in a good mood. I had never been to
that coffee shop before, and I hadn't clocked in yet. My first day of my first real job in ten months, and the
paper I grabbed announced that the President was pardoning Cayden Larroca after less than a year of jail
time. So I guess what my moment of clarity was saying went along the lines of, “Well, Ripley, there goes that
whole 'legitimate' plan.”
My mood soured fast. And Friday was suddenly a long damn way off.
***
“This is so bloody typical of you,” Cora seethed from the relative safety of her desk. “You decide business
hits the back burner before we even open the doors? Christ, Alexis!”
I only half listened to her, mainly because I was making a good deal of noise as I plundered the closet in our
office, hunting through boxes for my passport (just in case), my leather holster, extra bullets. “It's not my fault
the President has poor judgment – and timing,” I said. My voice came out flat, which amazed me because my
thoughts kept veering up and down. A call to Rikers disclosed that Cayden had been escorted off the Island at
9:05 A.M., about the same time I'd gotten into the building and trekked the six flights up to my and Cora's floor
so I could get the day started without the added annoyance of a slow elevator.
Emerging from the closet, I seized a tissue from the box next to the nameplate bearing Cora Knott in shining
brass and wiped a substantial layer of dust off my passport. Cora reached over her and caught my wrist as I
was tucking the card in my coat pocket.
“You really shouldn't be doing this,” said Cora.
My eyes flicked up to hers. Frankly, I was unable to consider Cora an intimidating woman. Her blue eyes
were slightly enlarged by her outdated glasses, and a trim would have done her bob of straw-colored hair a
good turn. She was a numbers and schematics person, Cora, whose daily workout consisted of typing at her
laptop and making frequent, adventurous trips to the filing cabinet. This combined with a long tussle against U.
S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had left her haggard. I could have easily thrown her across the room
before her skinny British arms kept me there.
But Cora, weak though she was, sounded more earnest than anyone I knew had any right to sound. So I
made a conscious effort to be gentle as I pried her hand from my wrist. Besides, she was probably right. I
shouldn't have been doing this. But that wasn't the point, and Cora was smart enough to understand that.
I went to my own desk and unlocked the top drawer, retrieving a Glock 26 ordered online with sickening ease.
I don't like guns. I find them impersonal. Yes, that was the point of my past use of them, but truth be told,
I'm strong enough that I've only had to resort to using one a handful of times throughout a fairly eventful
career. Cayden, though...Cayden loved guns. And several months locked away meant his fingers would be
itching to hook over a trigger.
Feeling her nervous stare, “Don't worry,” I told Cora. “I'll make it quick. Back by the weekend.”
Trust Cora to ignore the finality of such a statement. Her forehead creased as she made a last ditch effort.
“Alexis, what about...” I stopped at the door, turned and slammed my partner with an eyebrow lifted
expectantly. She hated it when I did that. “Business?” She meant something else, but both of us overlooked
the subliminal question.
I shrugged, yanking my gloves on. “We're unknowns as yet, it's two days 'til Christmas, and it's twenty
degrees outside. Too cold to do anything investigable. Things'll pick up after New Year's...all that partying
makes people do crazy things.” I shut the door on my partner's bemused face.
In the hall, it took a moment – and only the one moment – to inhale, to clench my fists the way I'd wanted to
in the office. Now that Cora was taken care of, there was no reason to pretend any lightness about the
situation. If I wanted to face Cayden, I would have to be all tension and dark.
And that was routine.
***
You've heard of the American Dream: kids, car, white-picket fence, paid mortgage. Usually not in that order.
And, of course, everyone tailors the dream to suit them as individuals; the plasma screen TV in every room, the
beach house in Miami, the annual trip to Disneyland. That's all common knowledge.
Here's the full American Dream that's not so well known and applies to all regardless of background or
circumstance. Before getting the spouse and the pet, before signing that first life away to make room for a
second, more responsible existence, everybody just wants to blow everybody else away. They want to win an
Olympic medal, or land a million-dollar deal, or simply be badass on a general level for a while before settling
down and admitting themselves into mediocrity.
A bit of advice: Don't join the CIA. Everyone joins the CIA planning to transform their unremarkable lives into
a James Bond novel when the reality is that most will find themselves confined to a cubicle until they forget
those unlikely fantasies altogether, or they will actually get in the midst of operations and learn that James
Bond has an incredibly shitty life.
Or maybe it was just my life that sucked.
A revised bit of advice: If you do join the CIA, do not abandon the CIA to join a sub-radar group not directly
affiliated with the government you mean to serve. I did just that, for no better reason than because I was
asked. They needed women. I met the chromosome requirement. And for five years, I hurtled around doing
what I was told. Ten million in cash to be delivered to a Swedish gentleman in Brussels? Roger. An
interrogation in Tokyo? Cake. An arrest in San Diego? A cleanup job at gunpoint in Vancouver? A hit in
Moscow? The missions came at stages of increasing difficulty.
To some, those stages were mere stepping stones to fight the boss and win the prize, the profession nothing
more than a game. My partner in the organization was Cayden Larocca, who thought himself the number-one
player. He'd reminded me of classmates I'd had in college, the ones who always turned in the extra credit
assignments even when their usual work was flawless.
Cayden always went above and beyond mission parameters. If there was a hit, he took out the target and
the target's guards and associates. He did not so much clean a mission site as blood-bleach it beyond
recognition. And none of it was about improving himself or standing out in the eyes of the organization. He
enjoyed what he did on a sporting level, and if assignments entailed the taking of human lives, that level
became downright animalistic. I eventually equated the concept of overkill with Cayden.
After the incident in Paris, I was done. So done, in fact, that I didn't even consider requesting a change of
partner. I just up and took off from that nameless organization I'd left my badge-friendly, paper trail-leaving
job at the CIA for, because they knew they couldn't keep me in it without killing me. And they knew they
couldn't kill me.
Or at least they knew after the first three guys to come after me reported back, physically unable to fight
ever again.
As the El pulled into the O'Hare International Airport the next day, I flexed. The wool of my jacket budged,
but there was a time it might have split. Ten months living on unemployment and ramen noodles doesn't do
much good to keep you in shape. Hopefully jail had done even less good to Cayden.
Inside O'Hare, I waited close to the train stop, keeping an eye on the terminals for anyone who was tall, light-
haired, and appeared certifiably insane. More than one fit the description. You get that at airports. There
were enough shady-looking people to make me wish I'd convinced Cora to open the business in London. But her
argument had won out; America just had more citizens who were desperate or paranoid or prudish, or all three.
People who'd take private dicks before cops and had enough money to do so. Too bad, anyway. The dollar is
nothing compared to the pound these days.
An hour after taking up my post, I began to tap on my folded arms. If my hunch proved wrong, I'd be
spending cash I didn't have on a flight to wherever Larocca had continued onto. San Diego maybe. Pardoned
or not, they wouldn't let him out of the country, and I wasn't about to let him stay.
I shouldn't have worried. A flash of white-blond hair and a seemingly permanent scowl stepped out of the
terminal, brown eyes roving the scene and a plastic suitcase at his side. I guessed nine months' jail time
doesn't take the training out of you. I still did the same thing every time I entered a room.
Cayden saw me, stopped. He wasn't sure. Suddenly I was glad I had decided to grow out my hair and dye it
back to its natural brunette. My ex-partner had only ever seen it an inch from my skull and jet black. When he
confirmed my identity in that one-track mind of his, his reaction caught me off-guard. The lunatic actually
grinned. Shouldn't have surprised me, really. It had to be the best day of his life, knowing he could get put
away and set free again in a matter of months, or however long it took our old group to experience a change of
heart.
At least I'd been right about one thing. The bastard had come home the second he could get a flight. On the
positive side, it's nice to have instincts you can count on. On the flip, it's a shame those instincts point out
complete drags in your life, like former, mentally skewed colleagues flying into your city.
“Alexis? Alexis Ripley.” He sounded older, but my hope was that prison had impacted more than just the
aging process. The pleased smile he wore didn't match hunger in his eyes. He didn't want to be in a public
place right now. After so much time being constantly monitored, he wanted to be somewhere with as few
witnesses as possible. “Hey! You rejoined the force while I was gone?”
Oh. Wow. Even spotting me waiting to meet him at the airport, I hadn't expected Cayden to come to that
conclusion. “Not exactly,” I said as he drew close to me – and, spinning, kicked him in his tree trunk of a neck.
“Not the one you're thinking of, anyway.”
Rather than having the courtesy to appear shocked, or at the very least, enraged, the big guy looked like he
was about to have the merriest Christmas ever, spots or not spots in his eyes. His delighted expression
widened until his mouth resembled a knife gash that spanned his face. “Honey, you have no clue how long I've
been thinking about this.”
I assumed “this” did not mean a fight with me exclusively, but I didn't take the time to ask. I couldn't let him
open his suitcase and grab the piece that he had undoubtedly had smuggled inside. But Cayden was good
enough with a weapon of any kind that he could probably have bonked me on the head with the case alone and
that would be that. Fisting my hands hard enough to make the leather of my gloves creak, I aimed for his
stomach. He evaded, laughing as he danced backwards. People were already making a commotion. Out of the
corner of my eye, I saw airport security calling into their radios.
“Cooped up long enough, Larocca?”
Cayden had noted the same situation. “You know it,” he growled and we sprinted into the nearest El car,
cutting off a group of teenage boys and scaring any other passengers off. A security guard had to snatch back
his foot before the doors closed took it with us.
If I wasn't about to throw down with a guy more than double my weight, the ride downtown might have been
cozy. Instead, I was briefly contemplating how nice it would have been to punt Cayden out of the train, onto
the electric tracks, and celebrate a job well done. But that wasn't about to happen, so...
“Not the welcome back party I imagined,” said Cayden, setting aside the suitcase altogether and stripping off
his jacket. I kept mine on to pad any blows I anticipated taking.
“You imagined coming back at all?” Grabbing two bracing straps, I propelled myself toward him feet-first.
Cayden's head whipped back against a plexiglass window. “That's optimistic.”
He didn't waste anytime recovering but launched to his feet with enough force to shake the car. He was spry
for enduring nine months in a single-person cell at Rikers, I mused, right before he pushed me back. My spine
hit the top of a row of chairs. Blood welled up, then slid back down my throat. I swallowed and rolled before
Cayden could follow up with a punch to the gut. I'd seen him do it before.
“Why,” I panted, adrenaline hopping through my entire system, “did you get that pardon anyway? A body
count over 300...why would they want you back?”
“It's a tough time, Alexis. They like my work.”
“They didn't. That's why you went to jail in the first place. That's why they put you in line for the needle
right off.”
“And the world sighed its relief! I know the story.” Even now Cayden's face was turning the splotchy red it
always gained right before executing the kill he enjoyed so much. I'd seen that before too, more times than I
cared to recall. “But with you gone, I'm less expendable than hazardous. They'll put me back on the top of the
roster.”
“What,” I gritted out, simultaneously thinking of ways I could dispatch him before the El arrived at its next
stop, “so you can toss another twelve-year-old kid off the Eiffel Tower? Shred up more traffickers in
Singapore?”
He laughed. He actually stood there and laughed. “Good times, huh, Alexis?” Cayden charged so fast across
the narrow aisle, I couldn't find leverage for another kick. His arms closed in, one hand tugging at my hair.
Hair-pulling. Not nice to a first grader, and not nice to a girl going on thirty.
“We almost had better.”
My stomach churned first at his words, then at the small layer of truth behind it. The fact that this was
years ago brought little comfort.
Backed against a filthy gripping pole, I resorted to a tactic I had never favored. It's dirty, almost as dirty as
guns. I took a step back and Cayden, thinking I was attempting retreat, moved forward – giving me the
perfect distance to rush my leg forward and knee the smug bastard in the groin.
He doubled over. Even the training we'd been through could not have adequately prepared him for such an
attack. Male anatomy, I thought as I grabbed the pole with both hands and swirled around it with enough skill
to make a Chinese acrobat green with envy. So predictable in so many ways.
Swinging feet-first into his psychopathic head did the trick. It was underhanded, true. But at least the big
guy was facedown on the floor and not getting up on his own anytime soon. As the El was pulling into the next
stop, I stripped the gun from the small of my back, stuffed the tape that had secured it there in my pocket,
and used Cayden's discarded jacket to clean my fingerprints from the metal before resting it at his side. I did
my best to look exhausted when the doors slid apart and five loaded barrels separated me from the startled
police officers aiming them my way. Somebody had called ahead.
“Gun,” I said, pointing and breathing heavily (I was still feeling that chair in my back). “He had...a gun in the
airport.”
I was promptly forgotten as the five cops, with their professional judgment, dismissed me as irrelevant.
Stepping aside, I did not stay to watch them storm the car and toe at Cayden's limp form. The wind bit as I
left the station and decided to treat myself to a cab home. The word would make the papers the next day,
and I could already picture the headline: Pardoned Maniac Not-So-Pardoned.
Okay, so I wouldn't have made it as a journalist.
***
The next morning, I hissed when disinfecting alcohol splashed on my back for a third time. “Any more of
that,” I warned Cora through clenched teeth, “and I'll need a designated driver.”
My partner gave the bottle of antiseptic another little jostle and smirked. “Don't harp, Alexis. I'm not the one
who got my back tore all to hell, then left it untreated overnight.”
I bit back a retort about lacking the special talent to reach my back, thinking that kind of comment wouldn't
go over well with my only friend, pushy though she was. Cora had wasted no time calling my apartment the
second she'd read about Cayden Larocca's apprehension and determined that I hadn't left Chicago, threatening
me into the office and effectively ruining my plan to stay in until next week. Now she taped gauze over my
broken, burning skin with relish.
“So did you get – what – closure?”
“I didn't need closure,” I muttered, sitting up and pulling my shirt back down as Cora moved off. “Just needed
to stop him. And he ruined my jacket.”
She conveniently ignored me. I have long believed Cora's faith in me as a business partner rests in my
unacknowledged need to be saved. She was most certainly the saving type.
“Come on, Alexis. There's got to be—” Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses as the phone on my desk
jangled with the most annoying ring I had ever heard.
I snapped it up out of selfish concern for my ears above everything else. “Knott and Ripley,” I shouted. “It's,
like, eight in the morning!”
Cora grabbed the phone from me, scowling. “How can we help you?” I smiled affectionately back, inwardly
longing for the distant Friday.
So the “legitimate” plan stayed. But I never got very good at answering the phone.
| Alexis Ripley By Vanessa Torline |
