Heart's Passage

by Cate Swannell

  Heart's Passage

  "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage."

  - Lao Tzu

  Prologue

  Somewhere, water was dripping. The sound echoed off the cold, rust-stained walls, deep in the bowels of Sydney's Central Criminal Courts. Down here, in the holding cells and interrogation rooms, the damp was rising. Everything smelled dank and wet and rotten.

  The woman sat silently, her senses pounded into submission, all her energy focused on surviving minute to minute. Pale blue eyes flittered around the room, absorbing all the details. She sucked them in as if each piece of minutiae could somehow, at any moment, become a matter of life and death.

  Hypersensitive, the dark-haired woman felt the hard edges of the bare wooden chair pressing against both the backs of her knees and her shoulder blades. The blue tank top and jeans she wore did little to stop the chill she felt deep in her bones. She blinked several times in the harshness of the bare bulb hanging a few feet above the scarred surface of the wooden table, and shivered, wishing she was anywhere but here.

  Like a bad movie, she thought. Like every bad gangster flick ever made. How the fuck did I get here? Seems like yesterday that I came to this city, full of piss and vinegar and big plans.

  Wearily she reached up and brushed her long hair out of her face, willing the throbbing headache behind her eyes to dissipate. No such luck.

  A movement just beyond the arc of light drew her attention and she watched warily as the man moved forward out of the shadows.

  Detective Ken Harding was a typical specimen of middle-aged Australian manhood—bald, 50-ish, with a beer belly that looked almost painfully swollen, and a drinker's nose that spoke volumes about his off-duty hours. Harding was a sweating, cigarette-smoking, walking heart-attack-in-waiting. The woman tried hard not to smell him; tried hard not to notice the perspiration rings on the cheap, polyester shirt straining across the expanse of his pot gut.

  Harding was having his moment in the sun. Six months' hard work had led him to the woman, who looked up at him now through half-lidded, disinterested eyes.

  Those eyes. He dragged his own away from her hypnotic blue gaze with an effort, and reached for his smokes. Only one left. Fuck. He shook the last cigarette out of the packet and propped it in the corner of his mouth, searching his pockets for his lighter.

  Those baby blues had seen a lot, witnessed the last moments of many poor souls, some deserving of the woman's harsh brand of justice, some not so much.

  But Harding had lucked out. No doubt about it, he thought as he flicked his thumb across the striker and lit his last cigarette. Around the time he had started tightening the net he had thrown around her, Sydney's No. 1 underworld assassin had decided she'd had enough. No way would she be sitting here now if that hadn't been her choice.

  He knew of at least six executions for which she was personally responsible, and God only knew how many others he didn't know about. An anachronism in a country where organized crime was still in its infancy, she was almost other-worldly, a legendary figure he had half-believed didn't exist, until the moment he heard her voice on the other end of the phone line, turning herself in.

  One of the coldest killers ever known to the Vice Squad had become the super-grass to top all super-grasses. And as ruthless as she had been on the streets and back alleys of Sydney's underbelly, she had been equally so in the courtroom. Three of the biggest drug lords in the country were behind bars now as a result of her testimony.

  And now she would get her reward. Immunity from prosecution, provided she kept her nose clean in the future, and a new identity.

  Oh yeah, Detective Ken Harding—soon to be Detective Superintendent Ken Harding—was one lucky son of a bitch. The cop dragged deep on his cigarette and watched the woman warily.

  Jo Madison was certainly worth watching. Six feet tall, with legs that went on for hours and a body... well, even Harding's long-dead libido and alcohol-pickled gonads felt a twinge as he took in her long, athletic frame.

  A body made for sin, but she's colder than a witch's tit, he thought. Five weeks he had spent with the woman, and he knew less about her now than when he first got the phone call from her that had begun this process. She came from nowhere and now she would disappear into thin air again. A phantom.

  Jo sat across from him, silent as a rock, giving nothing away in her face or body language.

  He took another drag.

  "So," he said. She raised one eyebrow slightly in response. "We need to talk about the protection program we're gonna put you in," he continued. Silence and a cold blue gaze were his only reply. "It's late. Tomorrow morning you'll get your new life. New papers, new identity, a job. We'll even buy you some new..."

  "No."

  "...clothes, and wipe off your record. What did you say?"

  "No."

  "Whaddaya mean, no?"

  She just stared back at him.

  "You don't mean no, Madison. Look, trust me, okay, we'll see you right."

  "No."

  "Fuck me," said Harding under his breath. "Look, I hate to remind you of this, but you just made a shitload of enemies. You need protection."

  "Nobody looks out for me, but me," she said sharply. "And I know all about making enemies."

  "Don't be bloody stupid, girl."

  Madison slammed her hand down flat on the tabletop.

  "Call me that again, fat boy, and I'll take out your voice box with that pen of yours before you even remember you've got a gun, let alone pull it," she snarled, her eyes perceptibly darkening in anger.

  Harding raised his hands and backed up a step, cigarette smoke curling around him from the butt wedged between his fingers. "Okay, okay, no need to get bent out of shape. Jesus."

  Madison sank back into the chair, content to let the cop sweat.

  "Don't you realize that without the Witness Protection Program you're completely on your own?" Harding asked, flicking his butt into the corner. "They'll come after you, Madison, and there won't be a damn thing we can do about it. Except tag your toe and slam the fridge door behind you. You can't survive out there without our protection."

  "What the fuck do you think I've been doing for the past 10 years, Harding?" replied the assassin. "I haven't exactly been running for Miss Congeniality. I've survived in this business without any help from you or your cronies, or anyone else for that matter. I've dodged more bullets than you've had cold beers."

  Harding snorted. "And trust me, that's a shitload of bullets," he muttered.

  Not even a hint of a smile touched Madison's lips. "Cut me loose, Harding. Wipe off my record and cut me loose."

  "Jesus Christ..." Harding ran a meaty hand through what was left of his hair. "Where will you go? How will you get there?"

  Again, the eyebrow.

  "Telling you any of that would rather defeat the purpose, wouldn't it, Harding?"she growled, pushing herself up from the chair with a scrape of wood on concrete. At her full height she bested him by a good five or six inches. Her face was now in shadow but what light there was glinted off pale blue eyes.

  "You can trust me," the cop said quietly.

  Madison snorted. "Right," she said curtly. "Just give me my jacket and I'll be out of your life for good."

  And there's a big part of me that doesn't want that, Harding caught himself thinking. Instead of saying anything he turned around, flicking the woman's leather jacket off the hook behind the door. He held it out to her and a long-fingered hand reached out to take it from him.

  "There's nothing I can do to change your mind?" He had to give it one last shot.

  She shrugged the jacket on quickly, sparing him a quick glance. "No."

  He sighed. "Fine. Sign this." He
pushed a piece of paper towards her then tossed his pen on top of it.

  She grunted. "What's this?"

  "A waiver," he answered curtly. "It just says you refused our protection."

  She snorted her derision. "Covering your arse, Harding?" She leaned down and scribbled her signature on the bottom of the form before she flicked the pen back at him.

  "Where you're concerned? Always. Come on then." He led the way through the labyrinth of corridors and stairways until they came to a heavy fire door. "Back entrance," he muttered, pushing down on the release and shoving the door outwards. Madison brushed past him and he followed her, leaning on the door to keep it open.

  The night was cool and damp, streetlamp light shining off the wet sidewalks. Occasional flashes of lightning lit the alleyway like daylight.

  Madison walked away without a word or a backward glance, hands buried deep in the jacket's pockets, collar turned up against the chill wind. Harding watched her retreating back, surprised to find himself quietly concerned about the woman's future well-being.

  For Christ's sake, Harding, he chastised himself. She can kill a man with a flick of her finger. She sure as shit doesn't need you worrying about her. A flash of lightning cast everything in an eerie blue glow and Harding blinked against the sudden glare. When he blinked again the assassin was gone, melting into the night as quietly and as quickly as she emerged.

  Harding blinked again, hearing only the drip of rain in puddles, seeing only a scurrying rat.

  I hope she makes it.

  Chapter One

  Arcadia Jones was bored. She had no business being bored, of course. After all, isn't this every girl's dream? she thought wryly to herself. She was dressed to kill, squired by one of the most powerful women in the Midwest—or so people kept telling her—and she was currently sitting on a barstool in the middle of one of the year's swankiest cocktail parties. What is there to be bored about?

  She sighed, and took another sip from the exceptionally dry martini she was nursing. Well, at least the venue for this schmooze fest is a little different than the norm, she thought. Over 200 of Chicago's well-heeled men and women were currently kissing butt on the observation deck of the Sears Tower—1373 feet high, according to the natty little fact box on the gold-inscribed invitation. Not that Arcadia had received her own invitation. This was, after all, her partner's party.

  She placed her martini glass carefully back on the bar top before she gazed around the room. It was set up as essentially a square doughnut, with the central core of escalators and bathrooms surrounded by a seething mass of partygoers, wet bars, and waiters. It was New Year's Eve and the observation deck was packed. Balloons, mirror balls, champagne, and caviar provided the ambience, but Cadie had no taste for any of it. She slid off her stool and wandered over to the floor-to-ceiling windows on the eastern side of the building. As she made her way through the crowd it didn't surprise her that nobody greeted her or stopped her for a conversation. This wasn't her scene after all.

  It never had been.

  At last she reached the window and, with a feeling of tired relief, leaned against the large pay telescope as she stared out at the spectacular view. It was a clear night and if it was possible for deep cold to look like anything, the crystal-sharp twinkling of the city lights and the few boats out on Lake Michigan were it. Snow didn't stay long on the ground in downtown Chicago, but the lights caught the swirling drift of a fresh fall being blown between the skyscrapers.

  Cadie knew it was freezing outside and part of her longed to be out there, away from the pressing heat of the crowd behind her. She sighed again and turned back to face the masses. She closed her eyes, trying to tune out the loud conversations going on all around her. The talk was loud, the drinking excessive, and the politics fierce and, as usual, underhanded.

  Here I am again, thought Cadie. Alone on New Year's Eve, despite the crowd and the presence of the one person who's supposed to make me feel— She opened her eyes again. What? Something. An ironic chuckle escaped her lips as it occurred to Cadie that feeling something—anything—would be better than this...loneliness.

  She gazed across the room and caught sight of her lover...if that was the right word for what they were anymore. Cadie swore some days she felt more like an unpaid secretary and ego-masseur than a partner. Certainly there hadn't been much in the way of loving lately. Actually there hasn't even been much civility, she realized glumly.

  The Republican senator from Illinois was doing what she did best, talking up a storm, pressing the flesh, and making nice with the powerbrokers of Chicago. She was surrounded by bankers, newspaper editors, and those quieter men, the ones in the expensive Italian suits who listed their occupation in their passports as "importer." Cadie watched, as she always did, with a kind of disquieted fascination as her partner moved easily from one group to the next, slipping comfortably into the rhythms of political maneuvering.

  Senator Naomi Silverberg had come a long way from the bright-eyed college student with whom Cadie had fallen in love. Re-election in November had been almost a given, but, if anything, that had only increased Cadie's growing feeling of impending doom about their relationship. Power had, as always, come at a price. In this case, it was Silverberg's ideals and their partnership.

  Where has it all gone? Twelve years of togetherness can't have been a waste of time, can it? That idealistic and principled, fun-loving woman she had fallen in love with back in college had long ago disappeared, it seemed, buried under a ton of compromise, lobbying, fund-raisers, and filibustering.

  Cadie snagged a passing waiter by the elbow, picking up a very full glass of tequila sunrise from his tray.

  When in doubt, she sighed, opt for oblivion. Or at least a slightly blurred perspective. She turned back to the view over the Chicago skyline.

  It wasn't long before she felt an all too familiar presence beside her. The stocky, well-tailored senator leaned back against the railing and gazed back at the crowd. Cadie glanced at the familiar profile briefly, taking in the rounded features, deep-set brown eyes, and salt-and-pepper hair cut in a severely short style.

  "You could at least try and look like you're having a good time," Silverberg growled as she pasted a smile on her face and raised her hand to a passing socialite.

  "I am having a good time. The view is lovely," said Cadie. "I'd rather enjoy myself over here on my own, than pretend to care what these people think." Oooo, grumpy Arcadia.

  "Give me a break, will you?" her partner hissed. "This is payback for support through the re-election campaign. You know that. What is your goddamned problem?" Silverberg shifted gears quickly at the approach of a suit. "Jack! How are you? Thanks for coming." She shook the man's hand and pointed him in the direction of the buffet. "Help yourself, please. I'll be with you directly."

  Cadie held her tongue until the local government official was out of earshot.

  "My problem, Naomi, is that half the people in this room are of the '112 indictments, no convictions' philosophy of life and the other half are butt-kissing, lobbyist-schmoozing, semi-corrupt politicians. And that paints you with the same brush," she snapped.

  "Keep your voice down, Arcadia," muttered Silverberg. "When the hell did you get so holier than thou? You know this is how the game is played. You can't get anywhere in politics without these people, and more importantly, without their money." She glanced at her partner. "It's been like that since well before you and I got into it, and it will always be that way. You knew what you were buying into, so don't try and tell me it's come as a shock."

  Cadie scrubbed her hand wearily across her eyes, aware belatedly that she probably wasn't doing much for her mascara.

  "Look, I'm sorry, okay," she offered, tired of the squabbling. "It's been a long day and you know I've never enjoyed these things." She tucked her hand into Naomi's elbow and looked up at her. "It's just that you and I haven't had time for each other in...well, in years, Nay. I'm tired of feeling like I'm alone in this marriage."


  But the senator was in no mood for that particular conversation and she impatiently shrugged Cadie's hand free as another lobbyist caught her eye from across the room.

  "We're going on vacation soon, aren't we?" she grumbled even as she flashed a brilliant smile at the man. "What more do you want? Now, come on, let's for God's sake try and look like we're together and happy or the goddamned GLAAD representative is going to get on my case."

  The senator moved off, intercepting the lobbyist, and steering him towards a group of local Chicago councilors near the wet bar. Cadie sighed and drained her glass again, grateful for the tiny buzz and blurred edges the tequila afforded. The mascara on her fingertips told her some repair work was in order, so she headed for the nearest restroom, working her way through the crowd and into the starkly lit bathroom.

  Her reflection didn't do much for her mood. Her strawberry blonde hair was piled high in a loose bun, softly curling tendrils framing her face. She had never considered herself anything more than nice-looking, but Arcadia Jones had a gently beautiful face that was open and appealing. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder green cocktail dress which was stunning on her compact, athletic frame. Normally the dress would have emphasized her sea-green eyes, but right now the smudged mascara made her look like...

  "Like an overdressed badger," she muttered to herself.

  Just then a tall redhead staggered out of one of the cubicles, sniffing and wiping her nose suspiciously. The light sheen of sweat on her forehead spoke volumes for the effect of whichever illicit substance she had just stuffed into her nasal passages. Cadie dodged out of the woman's way as she struggled to keep herself upright on her stilettos.

  "Looking for a little blow, sweetie?" slurred the redhead. "It's quality shit, I promise." She held out a small cigarette paper of white powder to Cadie. "C'mon babe, it's free and it's flowing like water here tonight."

  "No. Thanks. Really," said Cadie, fighting down a wave of nausea. The woman reeked of alcohol and puke. Cadie turned to get as far away from her as possible.