by Kim Baldwin
There was a knock on the adjoining door. Kenny called out, “I’m back, whenever you’re ready.”
“Be right there,” Kat answered. She gazed into Riley’s eyes for a long moment before she leaned in to kiss her. Slowly, gently, conveying the depth of her emotions in a way she never could with words. Their bodies pressed tighter together, and the growing passion between them surged through their bodies in a warm, enveloping wave.
Kat broke the contact. “Rest. I’ll be back before you know it, and then we can finally...” She paused, searching for the right words, and a faint blush appeared on her cheeks. “Well, we can finally...be together. Without worrying about someone interrupting us.”
Riley put her hand behind Kat’s neck and pulled her close to kiss her again. This time the kiss grew more heated. Sparks flew. A promise of things to come.
Riley released her hold on Kat’s neck, and their lips separated. “Please come back to me.”
“I will.” Kat kissed Riley on the forehead and left without looking back.
*
A week later, Kenny and Riley sat in the inn’s restaurant drinking coffee and eating pie. Riley poked at her nearly untouched piece of rhubarb.
“Stop worrying,” Kenny repeated for the tenth time. “She’ll be fine. You’ve seen her in action. She probably just decided to rest her arm before going to see him.”
“Then why hasn’t she called?”
They had been over this so many times Riley knew Kenny had no answers. She knew he was concerned too, just better at concealing it. She put her fork down, her appetite gone.
Chapter Fifty-One
evan Garner’s office was on the twenty-fourth floor of a nondescript steel-and-glass office complex that looked from the outside much like any other. Except for the high fence topped with razor wire that surrounded it.
Once inside, it was apparent that this was not a typical nine-to-five workplace. Security cameras were everywhere. Armed guards patrolled at irregular intervals. Nearly every door required a key card to gain access. And the top floor—Garner’s floor—was accessible only by a private elevator that required a four-digit code. Normally the code was changed every six months, but in recent weeks, it had been changed every two days.
After watching the complex and Garner’s home for three days, Kat concluded that her former mentor was in hiding, probably in his office. His car had not moved from its spot in the parking lot.
She accessed the building’s personnel files on her new laptop and searched for the employee she would impersonate to gain entry. She focused on the food service people who worked in the cafeteria on the twentieth floor. She knew its layout well, and it faced the private elevator to Garner’s floor.
Kat selected Bob Tarleton, a night-shift cook. He was single, roughly her height, and had a full beard and mustache.
She followed Tarleton for three days. She memorized his routine, walk, and mannerisms. She tapped his phone so she could learn and imitate his speech patterns. Then she went shopping for the supplies she’d need to complete her disguise. A week after she had left Riley and Kenny in Canada, she was ready to confront Garner.
*
Bob Tarleton glanced bleary-eyed at the alarm clock on his nightstand as the insistent pounding on his front door continued without pause. Six o’clock a.m. He’d only been asleep for two hours. He stumbled to the door and yanked it open, prepared to launch a stream of obscenities at the idiot who dared disturb him at such an ungodly hour.
His jaw dropped. He shook his head. Must be dreaming. He’d swear he was looking in a mirror. But his mirrored self smiled as he himself frowned in confusion. Before he could react, his grinning twin pushed by him into the room and pointed a gun at him.
“Hi, Bob,” his twin said, in a voice eerily similar to his own. “Shut the door.”
*
Tarleton didn’t hesitate to tell Kat everything she wanted to know. Kat was pleasantly surprised to learn that the shaggy-haired cook was an observant man who noticed things. Yes, Evan Garner was indeed staying in the building. The cafeteria workers had compared notes on seeing the man at all hours of the day and night, looking more and more haggard and disheveled. Tarleton volunteered that the same was true of Thomas, the big guy who seemed to be Garner’s shadow whenever he came into the break room.
*
Thomas’s hands were occupied with two oversized cups of coffee. It was 1:00 a.m. and Garner had insomnia again. The bodyguard reached awkwardly with an outstretched finger toward the elevator button. He felt a presence behind him. He glanced over his shoulder just as one of the cafeteria cooks reached around him and hit the button.
“Your boss just called down for this,” the cook said, opening a small Styrofoam container. Inside was a large piece of lemon meringue pie.
Thomas nodded. Garner’s favorite. He had been eating at least a slice a day. If the boss wasn’t careful, he’d soon have trouble fitting into his custom-made suits.
As the elevator door slid open, the cook tried to give the pie to Thomas, but the bodyguard already had his hands full.
Thomas frowned. “Ride up with me.” He stepped into the elevator.
“Sure.” The cook got in too and went to stand slightly behind Thomas.
“Hold this.” Thomas turned to hand one of the coffees to the cook. He reached for the keypad to punch in the elevator code. He was careful to block the cook’s view as he did.
The elevator began to rise.
Thomas’s world went black.
*
Evan Garner lay on the couch in his office with his eyes closed and the lights off. It was fruitless to try to sleep. He was hoping a good jolt of caffeine might make him alert enough to actually get some work done. He heard his office door open and close.
“How many times do I have to tell you to knock?” Garner rubbed his eyes as he sat up.
“How many times did you tell me the importance of the element of surprise?” a familiar feminine voice asked. The lights flicked on.
“Hunter.” Garner gaped at the figure in the white cook’s outfit.
She was five feet away and had a gun pointed at his head. “Evan. Been a long time.”
“Yes, it has.”
“I’d have come to see you sooner but I’ve been pretty busy, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“T-Take it easy, Hunter,” Garner stammered. “Don’t do anything rash.”
“That’s a lot of money you put on my head. You must want me dead real bad.”
“You gave me a good reason.” He began to sweat. Garner had a stale odor about him. His suit was badly wrinkled and his face showed several days of beard growth, a contrast to his usual impeccable grooming. “Look, Hunter. We have a history. I gave you opportunities that made you a rich woman. You can’t just kill me in cold blood.”
“I can find the strength to kill anyone I need to,” she said. “Wasn’t that what you always told me when I objected to an assignment?”
Garner stood up and started to pace, keeping his distance from her. Where the hell is Thomas? All the lessons he’d taught her on how to detach herself emotionally from the people she had to kill came back to haunt him.
“I want you to tell me something, Evan. I want to know why. Or rather, why now? You said you’d come after me, but that was five or six years ago and I’ve kept out of your way.”
Garner’s forehead furrowed. “What the hell are you talking about? You’re the one who started this. You and your death threats. Sure, I was mad when you left. But I calmed down. You did your time for us. I wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“Death threats? What death threats?”
“The messages I got from you. Said you were coming after me to get back at me for ruining your life?”
She shook her head and shrugged.
“You didn’t send them?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“But they came through secure channels, with the code we gave you for identification purposes.”
; “Wasn’t me,” she repeated.
“Well, I wouldn’t have issued the contract otherwise. It was purely self-preservation, Hunter. I’ve been living in my office, for God’s sake! Afraid you were lurking out there somewhere waiting to ambush me.”
Kat suspected Garner was on the level. Something funny was going on. The answer came to her. “How did you come to hire Scout? Where did you find her?”
“Scout?” He stopped pacing and leaned against his desk. “I didn’t find her. She just showed up. Somehow figured out I was the one behind the contract and worked out how to find me. Didn’t say how. She was an odd one.” He shook his head, remembering. “I thought she had her own agenda. She didn’t seem as interested in the money as she should have been.”
“You were right,” Kat answered. “She was after revenge. Remember that IRA group I took out, eight or so years ago?”
“Yeah, I remember.” It had been a lucrative contract. “So what does that have to do with this?”
“She was the missing member,” Kat replied. “The woman I was told would be there.”
“No shit?”
“She must have been following me for years. She knew all about me. My real name, my past. Stands to reason she could have gotten the identifying codes too somehow and sent you the threats in my name. Probably bought out someone working for you and got a look at my old files.”
Garner chewed his lip. He’d never had a traitor in his midst before, but it would explain how Scout could know so much about him too.
“She suspected you’d react to the death threats by ordering people to hunt me down,” Kat speculated. “She wanted to be one of them, and this was her way of turning the heat up—to flush me out of hiding.”
She glared at Garner. “And you played right into her hands.”
Garner’s left eye began to twitch. “I didn’t know, Hunter. You can’t hold me responsible.”
“You’re not in a position to tell me what to do, Evan.”
The twitch got worse. “I was just trying to protect myself,” he insisted.
Kat studied him in silence for a few moments.
“Come on Hunter, for old times’ sake. Just let it go.”
“Just like that?”
He shrugged. “I-I’m sorry, Hunter. Katarzyna. I truly am.”
Kat had never known him to apologize to anyone. She put her gun away. “So you’ll call off the contract?”
Garner relaxed. “Right away. Not that there have been any takers recently. Is Scout dead?”
Kat nodded.
“Frank? Otter?”
“Both all right.”
“Then you’ve dealt with them all,” he told her.
She nodded. “I’d like you to do me one last favor,” she said. “To make up for putting me through a hell of a week.”
“Name it.”
She walked to his desk and wrote something on a slip of paper. “These are the GPS coordinates for a clearing in the woods near Tawa. Send a helicopter. Scout’s body is there, along with the body of a chopper pilot she killed. He was ex-Navy. His ID is on him.”
Garner nodded.
“Retrieve the bodies and get some money to the pilot’s widow, if he has one. Oh, and she killed another guy—a helicopter pilot in Tawa named Sam McCann.” Kat wrote the name on the slip of paper and handed it to him. Her handwriting was barely legible. “Get the case closed. I want all this done with the discreet kind of cover-up you’re so good at.”
“I’ll take care of it. If you’ve left me with any staff to give orders to.”
“No one’s dead, Evan.” She smirked. “Thomas will be asleep for a while, though. He’s just outside the elevator door.” She turned to leave. “What’s the code today?”
“5-0-4-5,” Garner answered. “Nice job getting in here, by the way.”
Kat nodded.
“Hunter?”
She paused at the doorway.
“Is there anything I could say to get you to come back and work for me?”
She shook her head. “Those days are long gone, Evan.”
“You’d get to choose,” he pressed. “Do the kinds of jobs that really make a difference—get the real bad guys.”
“No, Evan,” she said as she turned away and stepped over the threshold.
But even as she spoke the words, she wondered whether she would miss the thrill of the chase and the rush of adrenaline she got when she found herself in dangerous situations. She had unique talents, and she liked to test them.
And she had to admit that some of her kills had indeed made the world a safer place for innocents like Riley.
“The offer is always open!” Garner called out after her as she closed the door behind her.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Riley sat in a screened-in porch in the north woods, surrounded by the reds and yellows of autumn, a symphony of bird calls and the wind in the trees. It was a bucolic setting, but she could not enjoy it.
She wanted to doze—she hadn’t been sleeping well lately—but the constant tap, tap, tapping of a woodpecker nearby kept her awake. It droned on and on, incessant.
Riley opened her eyes, startled to find she was not in the woods at all but lying in bed, and the tapping sound was someone knocking on the hotel room door.
Her disorientation turned to mild alarm when she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. She’d fallen asleep with the light on. It was 2:00 a.m. No one knocks on your door at 2:00 a.m. unless it’s bad news.
She got out of bed and wrapped a hotel robe around her. She padded to the door and looked through the peephole, then fumbled with the lock in her haste to get the door open.
“You’re here!” she squealed, throwing herself into Kat’s arms. She hugged her fiercely. Tangible evidence this wasn’t a dream and Kat really was back, safe and sound.
“Sorry to wake you. There was no one at the front desk, and I forgot to take a key with me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Get in here! I was so worried about you!” Riley relinquished her hold just long enough to get inside, where the embrace resumed. “I missed you so,” she whispered into Kat’s neck. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes. Sorry I took so long,” Kat hugged her back, her heart so full she was unable to speak. They remained like that for several moments, the joy of their reunion overwhelming them.
Riley realized Kat was embracing her with both arms. “Your arm.” She pulled back and gently ran her hand over the spot where Kat had been stabbed. “It’s all right?”
Kat stretched it out and flexed the fingers on that hand. “Almost back to normal. I saw a doctor in D.C.” She put the arm around Riley again and pulled her close. “How about you? How are you feeling?”
Riley released a long, contented sigh. “Perfect at the moment.”
Kat chuckled. “I meant your knee and wrist, silly.”
“I’m fine. The cast comes off in two weeks. The knee really doesn’t bother me unless I’m on it too much. Which I probably have been lately—pacing back and forth worrying about you.” Riley poked Kat in the chest with one finger. “Why didn’t you call me?”
Kat opened her mouth. Closed it. Nodded toward the bed. “Come on, let’s get you back under the covers.”
Riley watched Kat as she shed her robe and crawled under the covers. Kat had avoided her question, and now she was avoiding her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Kat sat on the edge of the mattress. She licked her lips. Her mouth was dry. She stared at her hands. “Riley, I-I wasn’t sure that I should come back.”
Riley’s eyebrows shot up and her mouth gaped open. “You’re not serious?”
Kat shook her head. She couldn’t look at Riley. “I’ve lived a violent, dangerous life, Riley. Done a lot of things I’m not proud of.”
Riley took Kat’s hand in hers and squeezed it. “Stop beating yourself up over your past.”
“You don’t know everything I’ve done,” Kat whispered.
“I don’t need to know, hone
y. I know the person you are now.”
“Riley, it’s more than that. I’m not sure I know how to...love you.” She stumbled over the words. “I mean, I’ve never been...like this...with anyone. You deserve a lot better.”
Riley’s hand went to Kat’s chin and gently forced it upward so Kat would look at her. “I don’t think we choose who we love, Kat,” she said. “It just happens. Don’t you feel it?”
“Yes,” Kat replied, so softly that Riley barely heard her. “I do. That’s why I came back. Maybe it’s selfish. But I can’t bear to be apart from you.”
Riley blew out a long breath. “Well I’m glad that’s settled! You had me worried there for a minute. Don’t do that again.”
Kat smiled. “So how have you and Kenny been getting along?”
“Great,” Riley replied. “But he’s worried about you too. Have you told him you’re back?”
“No, I’ll talk to him in the morning. I have a job for him.”
“Problems?” Riley asked.
“Nothing to worry about. Scout cleaned out one of my bank accounts. Maybe Kenny can get the money back. If not, it’s okay. I have others. Plenty to do whatever we want. Speaking of which, where do we go from here? Given any thought to that?”
“Doesn’t matter to me, as long as we’re together,” Riley answered. “That’s the good thing about being a writer. You can work from anywhere.”
“What kind of writer are you? Have I read anything you’ve written?”
“Maybe. I’ve done mostly magazine articles—travel pieces, profiles. I was always on the road. I think that’s what prompted Sam to start looking elsewhere.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Poor Sam. I shouldn’t have married him. We were high-school sweethearts in a small town, and it was just kind of expected.” Riley looked at Kat. “We never had what you and I have. This just feels so different.”
