by Heskett, Jim
The other locked drawer contained a series of composition notebooks. They were filled with columnar notes, listing first names or initials, and then dollar amounts next to each. Hundreds of these entries were in the first book alone.
PG | $120
LH | $400
RFG | $300
It wasn’t hard for Ember to figure out that these were records of sale for some sort of illegal enterprise. And the handwriting was in a looping and clean cursive. A feminine sort of script. It didn’t look like the cook Shane’s handwriting, and Ember guessed it wasn’t Roland’s, either.
“Whose books are you keeping, Roland? Is this the person you work for?”
Ember went back to digging in the drawer. Underneath the notebooks, she found a box. And, inside that box, bottle after bottle of pills, all colors of the rainbow. The bottles were unlabeled, but they were all the same size and shape.
She reached for one of the bottles, careful to hold it by its lid, which couldn’t be tested for fingerprints later. She shook it.
Full.
There had to be at least a hundred pills in each bottle.
Whoever had stashed these here was a big-time prescription drug pusher.
Chapter Fourteen
LYDIA
Lydia stood outside the building, phone up to her ear, foot tapping on the ground. Anger coursed through her veins.
She had to be careful, though, because this was a public place. Outside her son's daycare, the other moms and dads could see her or interact with her. Usually, they didn't, because when Lydia dropped off their son, she wasn't too chatty with the other parents. But this was a special evening event.
She had no idea who might try to invade her personal space and strike up a conversation.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said to Roland.
He sighed over the phone. “No. I’m so sorry, Lydia. I thought I had a handle on everything, but it fell apart again.”
She hugged her coat a little closer. Since the sun had set, the evening chill had come on strong. She took a few breaths before speaking because she wanted to communicate with Roland in a calm and even voice. When confronted with direct criticism, he was likely to withdraw into his shell and not hear a word she was saying.
Roland wasn't the smartest guy, but he had his moments. He had lightning-fast reflexes and good natural instincts. Loyal, too, which was a quality Lydia valued above most others. But sometimes, he let panic take over, and he would do terribly dumb stuff. Today, when she needed him laser-focused, it had been one of those times when he had let the plan go to shit.
“Don’t go back to the apartment for a few hours. She’ll be watching it.”
“Okay. I can do that. Are you going to check in on it?”
“No.”
Roland groaned. “But aren’t you supposed to be looking for her? I mean, she’s your contract this week. If you have a chance to catch her at the apartment, seems like you could take care of her tonight.”
Lydia glanced back at the building. All the daycare parents were parking along the street and shuffling inside for parents' night, a social event for the parents of the kids. They came in ones and twos, zipped up in winter jackets, with smiles on their faces. Judging by last year, this event tonight would take at least a couple of hours.
"I can't go to the apartment right now. I don't have time tonight. Besides, I know where she lives, and she's not bothering to hide, so I don't think it’s crisis-mode yet. If you see her, feel free to do something about it. But don't go at her one-on-one. You can't win that fight. You need to have a plan for what happens if she shows up wherever you are because she knows you now. I assume you were wearing your name tag at the dry cleaner?"
“Yeah, I was.”
“Then she knows everything about you. You have to be careful.”
“I understand.”
“So, you talked to Ember at the dry cleaners?”
“Yeah,” Roland said. “Just for a minute.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever actually met her. What did you think of her?“
“Uh… she’s pretty.”
Lydia gritted her teeth. “That’s not what I meant.”
"I don't know what to say. I got nervous around her. She's got this… thing, I guess. She looked me in the eyes, and it was like I forgot what I was supposed to say at that moment."
“You got lost in her siren song, you idiot.”
“Her what?”
“Never mind. One last thing: where did you hide the cook’s body?”
“No one will ever find it. Trust me.”
She took another breath to calm herself. “Damn it, Roland, I need a real answer. Give me specifics in case this comes back to bite me in the butt.”
"No one will find Shane. I promise. I took him out to the construction site by the Tech Center. He's mixed in with a bunch of industrial garbage. I put him underneath these gigantic chunks of concrete. No one is going to bother to lift all that. When they clean up the job site, they'll take him to the dump for us, and no one will ever know."
She thought for a moment. “That’s clever, but it’s not good enough. Go get him and cut him up into little pieces, then take him back to the apartment. I keep some lye under the sink, and there should be enough of it. Heat it up on the stove — be careful with it, Roland — then dissolve Shane in the bathtub. And wear something to protect your mouth and eyes. I mean it.”
“Got it.”
"And, you need to wait until Ember isn't watching the apartment anymore. That part is important because if she sees you walking in the front door with a bunch of garbage bags over your shoulder, you're cooked. Do you understand?"
“Yes, I understand.”
“Okay. Check in with me tomorrow morning. I have to do this thing now.”
Lydia ended the call and stuck her phone in her purse. For a few seconds, she let her eyes wander above, watching a handful of stars materialize in the burgeoning night sky—little pinpricks of light across the darkness.
The sound of a woman talking nearby drew her attention. One of the mothers Lydia saw a couple of times a week when dropping her son off at the daycare. She was on the phone, marching across the street from her parked car to the front door of the building.
"That's what I'm saying," the woman barked to whoever was on the other end of the call. "It's the pharmaceutical companies who push the drugs on the doctors, who then overprescribe, and that's how they end up in the schools. Stolen, sold, given… I don't know. But it all trickles down. I've been talking to anyone who'll listen, but it's like they have money rolls shoved in their ears, and they can't hear a word I'm saying."
Lydia focused her eyes as the woman climbed the steps to the door. Was this the one who had been standing up at the PTA meetings and demanding action on opioids? Lydia had heard whispers about her but had never made the connection with this specific woman before. It made sense. Lydia couldn't recall her name, but this woman seemed like the type.
This woman had caused indirect and direct problems with Lydia’s business. Her main business, not this side-hustle with the DAC.
This woman had clout in the community. She had forced a high school in Parker to switch to clear backpacks only, which was — surprisingly — an effective tool against dealing inside schools. Most of the crap the school board, city government, and PTA could come up with was useless against the drug war, and Lydia liked it that way. But this woman was smart. Worse, she was driven.
Lydia's eyes flicked to the car the woman had come from, and she noted her license plate. But then, a better idea came to her. The woman's purse was open at the top, with a water bottle jutting out, half full. The water sloshed around as the woman's stubby legs hurtled up the stairs of the daycare.
Lydia checked her purse to see if she had brought the little red vial with her. Her heart leaped when she discovered she had. Too easy.
She followed the woman inside, where she set her purse down on a table in the back, along with all the o
ther purses and coats. Lydia crowded around it to block anyone else’s view, then she opened the little red vial and added two drops of the clear and odorless liquid into the woman’s water bottle. She jiggled the bottle back and forth to make sure her solution mixed in with the water.
It wouldn’t kill her, but it would teach that nosy bitch a lesson. It would take her out of commission for a while and keep her from stifling Lydia’s entrepreneurial efforts in the neighborhood. Lydia was so close to a major breakthrough. So close.
When that was done, she added her purse and jacket to the collection; then she joined her husband to take a tour of the preschool artwork decorating the walls.
Chapter Fifteen
ISABEL
Day Three
Isabel Yang opened the door to the gym and let the smell waft over her. The bouncing of basketballs on the court like a symphony. She loved the sounds, sights, the smells. The way the high ceiling of the gym made each dribble echo and reverberate—the chirps of shoes squeaking on the court. The whoosh the ball made when it dropped through the net.
Isabel tried to stay in shape, but she didn’t get to play much basketball anymore. Not at full speed, at least. At one time, one of Duke’s top prospects for the WNBA, a skiing injury a few months before the draft had killed that future for her. Most days, it didn’t bother her, but standing in the presence of a few dozen people enjoying the thing she loved and could no longer do? Yeah, it stung a little.
Her boss Marcus Lonsdale was at the far end of the court, playing one-on-one ball with someone else from the Bureau Isabel recognized but couldn't name. They were both in shorts and white t-shirts. Marcus' shirt clung to him, drenched in sweat. Lots of grunting. He had a nice body, but Isabel wished she wouldn't always notice that about him. He was the stereotypical handsome jerk from any stock romantic comedy, but Isabel did not foresee him having a transformation in the last fifteen minutes of the movie. He was crude, demanding, and often cruel. There was no heart of gold hidden inside his chiseled frame.
When he noticed her across the court, Marcus said something to his friend. The man nodded and picked up a towel to dab his sweat, then walked away. Marcus jogged across the court to meet her. Basketball in one hand, a bottle of lime green sports drink in the other. Sweat dimpled his forehead and cheeks, but he didn’t bother to wipe it. He let it drip down his face like rain, plummeting to his shirt.
“Morning, Agent Yang.”
“Morning, sir.”
"That guy always gives me one hell of a workout. What he doesn't know is that someday soon, he's going to gamble away his parking space to me, and he'll think it's his idea."
“Got a little hustle going on?”
Marcus nodded, grinning from ear to ear. “Always make them think it’s their idea. That’s how all the best cons work.”
“Noted. They told me at the office I could find you here.”
“And you have. I’ll be done here in about an hour. Do you need something that can’t wait, or do you want to change out of your stuffy suit and heels and challenge me to a free-throw shooting contest?”
“I wondered if you had time to think since our conversation yesterday. About me taking another trip out to Denver to speak with Ember Clarke. I don’t want to put you under too much pressure, sir, but we need to make our next move soon.”
He paused to take a couple of hefty gulps from his sports drink. “That depends. Are you prepared to do what has to be done about her?”
“I don’t know how to answer that. What is it that has to be done?”
“If you can’t get through to her, is what I mean. Are you prepared to take the action required of you?”
Isabel pursed her lips and waited for him to expand on his answer, which he did not. “I’m going to need you to be specific with me, sir, so there’s no confusion about what you’re asking me to do. This is a big deal, and we need to get it right.”
He smiled and shook his head. "You get one more run at her, to convince her to straighten up and be a good little girl. She's been undercover for three years and off the protocol for how long now?"
“Several months. Maybe six?”
“Months of a rogue FBI agent doing whatever the hell she wants to do. Months of no check-ins, potential unethical activity, and a very real possibility that she has chugged enough of the Kool-Aid that she’s lost forever. I hope you understand the gravity of this situation.”
“I do, sir.”
“You get one more run at her. Do you want to burn that up now, or do you want to think it over and plan better this time?”
Isabel felt her jaw tightening as Marcus panted and had another sip of his sports drink.
“You don’t seem like you know what you want to do,” Marcus said, “so you want me to give you an order. I don’t think it’s so cut and dried.”
“If I talk to her and it fails,” she said, delivering each word with care, “what happens after that? In this uncharted territory, I’m worried about going down a road we can’t back out of.”
“That’s fair. If you mess this up, then we’ll have to take stronger measures to make sure she can’t hurt the Bureau. She’s dangerous, and you know that as well as I do.” He paused to let out a long sigh.
“So, Agent Yang, what’s your recommendation?”
She tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear and stared at her boss, considering how to answer his question.
Chapter Sixteen
EMBER
Ember woke when she heard the music outside her car window. A kid was rolling by on a skateboard, with a backpack and a speaker clipped to the back of it. She didn't recognize the music as it crescendoed and then faded. On the other side of thirty, Ember had recently decided she didn't need to keep up on modern music any longer. In a way, she felt freed by this life change. Besides, she didn't have anyone to impress. It's not as if she interacted with people whose opinion of her rested on her musical tastes, anyway.
Plus, she had Zach and Gabe. Both were barely into their twenties and had the same cutting-edge haircuts as all the other guys their age, so if she needed to know what was cool, she could always ask one of them.
Thinking of her recruit, Ember fished her phone out of the center console and sat up. She wiped the sleep out of her eyes and stretched. Sleeping in the front seat of a car was never too kind to the lumbar.
Ember called Fagan, and she lowered the visor to check the bags under her eyes in the mirror. They weren’t terrible, but she didn’t look great, either.
“Morning,” Fagan said.
“Yep, it sure is.”
“You sound groggy.”
“Yeah. Still alive, so I’ve got that going for me. Spent the night in my car last night.”
“Why did you sleep in your car?”
"I don't have time right now to go into all the details, but the short version is this: I was in my car last night because I'm chasing a lead. I was mugged yesterday and had to hunt around to find my stuff, but it put me on the path of finding out who has me as a contract this week. The Branch poisoning is tied to the cook who is tied to this guy who works at a dry cleaner, and I have a strong notion this guy works for the person who is trying to kill me."
“Whoever that ultimate person is, it’s someone not highly motivated, it would seem. You’re three days into it, and this person has only made one attempt, assuming the poisoning at the Branch was meant for you. Or, the wait is a calculated move, for some not-obvious reason.”
"Doesn't matter. If I'm going up against someone who would stoop to poisoning twenty people just to get me, then this is a dangerous person who needs to face the consequences. They will die by my hand, and that's all there is to it."
“I agree, and I don’t want to undermine the importance of this week’s trial by combat. Hitting a Post Office is despicable.”
Fagan paused, and Ember listened, waiting for more. Across the street, a homeless man picked through a garbage can. He held up a milk jug, examining it against the rising sun.
>
”Something on your mind, boss lady?”
“Yes,” Fagan said. “Last week, when you went up against Xavier Montrose? I feel like it might have given you an unrealistic impression of how easy the road ahead will be.”
“Not at all. I know every Branch is different. I know every assassin is different. Xavier Montrose was old and slow, and too full of himself to anticipate how I was going to trick him. This week will be different. It’s the same as how I approach every contract I get.”
“I think you should move out of your condo. For the next few weeks, at least. It’s too risky.”
“Negative, Fagan. Someone could just as easily get to me in a hotel room. Plus, I like my sheets. They’re expensive. I’d rather have nice sheets in a clean bed than wake up somewhere without. Because, if you’re going to wake up in a cold sweat, wouldn’t you rather do it on something with a great thread count?”
“If you say so. Do you have a will?”
“I don’t. There’s not much to my name that’s of value, anyway. My bank accounts are lodged with the Branch in case something happens, but I don’t have anything listing my personal possessions. My guns and my knife are worth a bit, but I can’t really care what happens to them after I’m gone, can I? You gave them to me, so I think you should have them back. Or, I suspect whoever kills me will take them right off me, and that seems fitting. To the victor go the spoils.”
“If that’s how you want it. You’re an only child, right?”
Ember watched the homeless man shuffle away, milk jug in hand. She pressed her lips together and sighed before answering. She hated lying to Fagan. But, since her mentor didn’t even know her real name, the rest of it wasn’t much of a stretch. Three years ago, the FBI had established a complex and expensive framework for her cover, including hundreds of documents and an exhaustive erasure of all her past online history. No one knew how thorough the DAC would be when checking her out, so they’d had to cover every base. Turned out, once she became someone’s recruit, the rest of her past didn’t matter.
