Queen of Humbolt

by Tagan Shepard

  “Just as long as the bitch Governor gets what’s coming to her.”

  He spat the words with enough poison for Marisol to guess he hadn’t always worn polyester uniform pants. He was probably one of the crooked detectives Sloane had taken down over the years as SA. Marisol smiled, thinking of her marching into this cop’s office while he had sat smugly behind his desk. She wished she could have seen Sloane wipe the smile off his face.

  The meeting ended just as abruptly as it had begun. The moment the cell phone went dark the mood shifted. The tension broke. They had their plan and, after hearing the whole thing, Marisol had to admit it was a good one. One that she couldn’t stop on her own.

  “Hijo de puta,” she whispered, her breath puffing out in little frozen clouds.

  “You wanna drink, friend?”

  The cop had been heading for the door, the duffel bag in his fist. He accepted a Peroni from a chubby, swarthy hand and tipped it back to the ceiling. His eyes followed the bottle, staring directly through the crack in the ceiling tile. He would have seen Marisol’s face looking back at him, but she’d jumped before his fingers touched the cold glass.

  The ceiling tile snapped across the cop’s face, shattering the bottle as he fell. Marisol landed with the heel of one boot on the worn carpet floor and the other driving through his collar bone. It crunched under her weight and he screamed. Her chrome-plated Colt was spitting fire as she turned, grinding her boot into his broken bone. None of the men had a chance to pull their weapons before they died.

  Marisol slipped the phone from the table and memorized the last number in the call log before dropping it in her pocket. She’d toss it into the river as soon as she had a chance.

  Job done, she headed for the door. She almost laughed to see the cop, trying to drag himself toward the closest body. He should’ve brought his own gun, but maybe they took it from him when he arrived. It didn’t matter now. Marisol ejected the clip from her Colt and inserted a fresh one as she walked. The cop stopped moving and looked into her face.

  “I know who you are.”

  “Felicidades.”

  “You’re Marisol Soltero.”

  Marisol stopped in front of him, watching his wild eyes dart around the room.

  “You should be on our side. You should want Sloane dead as much as we do.”

  “I should want that, shouldn’t I?”

  She raised the pistol and squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession. The pool of blood from his head spread slowly across the carpet, filling in the impression where her boot landed as she walked past his body. His duffel bag vanished along with his killer.

  “Gray,” she spoke low and slow into the phone after he picked up on the first ring. “I need you to track a number for me.”

  After he took down the phone number and repeated it back to her, she let it fall out of her head. She didn’t have room in her memory for the phone number of a man who’d be dead in less than 24 hours.

  “Everything okay, boss? Something you need me to do?”

  She heard the question in his voice. It’d been there a while now and she’d ignored it. He was careful to show that he wouldn’t push, but she again considered bringing him in. She’d trusted him with her own life since she was sixteen. He’d come right back like a loyal hound after she’d been released from prison. Made the move to Chicago without hesitation. He was loyal, but she couldn’t trust him with more than her own life. Not yet.

  “Just get me the info. Everything else I can take care of on my own.”

  She hung up and jumped onto her bike. She didn’t have a lot of time. The sun was already rising. As she drove downtown, she passed crews putting out crowd control barriers.

  Gray’s call didn’t come until late morning, but it was enough time. She was already in her storage unit, gathering the supplies she needed. In the end, all she really wanted for this was a silencer, a lot of bullets and a calm manner. The hardware she had in abundance. Acquiring the calm demeanor was how she’d spent her night. Therese was always a good candidate to clear her head. She’d pulled Marisol into her place by the lapels of her leather jacket and sleepily pointed her toward the shower two hours later.

  Now Marisol’s hand was steady.

  She left it until the last minute to enter the building. Too early and she would arouse suspicion. Thanks to the map last night, she knew where everyone was. She slipped from room to room in the dark office building, taking them out one at a time. Some of the marked rooms were empty thanks to her efforts last night and most of the men she did find were wary. Probably wondering where their bosses were, but not worried enough to call the whole thing off.

  As the sounds of cheering grew closer and closer Marisol moved like a panther. Her silencer spat so many times that it glowed.

  The only challenge came on the roof. She found the police sniper near the door, his eyes glazed and frost forming on his skin. Thanks to Gray, she now knew who her target was. A former Army sniper who liked to brag about his kills from Iraq and Afghanistan. He didn’t hide the fact that he’d despised them for their religion and hadn’t cared if his “enemies” were women and children. He wasn’t a fan of women in the military, women in the workforce or, especially, women in office. Marisol deeply enjoyed sliding up behind him and depositing three bullets into the base of his skull. She set her Glock beside his knee, careful to avoid touching the hot metal.

  When she got back to the lobby the noise of the crowd was earsplitting. A group of suspiciously muscled cleaners marched through the glass doors as she approached the entrance. Their uniforms were a little too generic and they flared out in a triangle the moment space allowed. The man in front looked Marisol dead in the eye, winked and walked past without a word. Washington had come through after all. By sweeping up after her, awkward questions were kept to a minimum.

  Marisol slipped unnoticed into the crowd, which was practically pulsating with joy. Most of those around her were women, their cheeks gleaming in the cold. Marisol eased through them, dropping her gloves on the ground as she went. She wore a black windbreaker over her normal leather jacket, and that too went onto the sticky pavement. It would all be haphazardly cleaned as soon as the Inauguration was over.

  Once she’d forced her way to the front of the crowd, she handed a ticket over and dropped into her assigned folding chair near the stage. Sloane emerged a moment later, climbing the stage as some faceless bureaucrat spoke of her historic election win.

  Marisol had eyes only for Sloane, who wore a rare smile. Marisol knew she had already been in Springfield for weeks, working 14-hour days to clean up the mess left by the trust-fund moron she was replacing. She could see the weariness around Sloane’s fiery eyes and the exhaustion in the way she forced her chin high. She could see it, but she suspected no one else could. She watched Sloane’s every move, guessing with each gesture what she was thinking.

  The speech ended a moment later and Sloane made a circuit around the stage, waving high and pumping her fist to the crowd. They ate it up. Even Marisol felt her heartrate pick up.

  When the crowds began to disperse, Marisol pushed through them to the back of the empty stage. A crew of cold, grumpy workers was already taking down the bunting and coiling up audio cables. She put her back to a tree trunk to catch her breath, waiting until the park was unoccupied before disappearing back into the shadows.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The van jerked to a halt, jarring Sloane into panicked wakefulness. Exhaustion had allowed her to doze, but it was a restless, uneasy sleep slashed with nightmares. At one point she had half woken to the feel of Marisol’s body close to hers. A heady mixture of musky skin and the sharp tang of sweat had filled her nostrils and made her head spin, but she hadn’t been able to force her eyes open. She had drifted into sleep again, chased by the vague sense of being watched, and her dreams were troubled by phantoms.

  The monsters who wrenched open the van doors, however, were all too real. Rough hands grabbed at her arms and her
hair, dragging her painfully across the metal van floor and dumping her onto dusty, hard-packed earth. Hulk pulled her up by her bound hands, and she couldn’t bite back a scream of pain as her shoulder twisted under her weight. The giant turned from her, finding more entertainment in the back of the van.

  Sloane was pleased to see the fight Marisol was putting up. Two men, who together barely matched the Hulk’s muscle, struggled to shift Marisol as she kicked and bit them. They spoke to each other in rapid Spanish, and she spat back at them in the same language. Marisol’s eyes rolled like a wild beast, spit flying from her lips as she fought to twist her body around. The noose around her neck cut deeply into her skin, leaving red slashes in it’s wake.

  Eventually Sloane realized Marisol was looking for her. As her eyes searched the van’s interior, there was a glaze over them that Sloane had seen before—when Marisol had come crashing through the ceiling of her apartment building like a devil falling from heaven at the exact right moment. This time Sloane responded as she hadn’t been able to then.

  She took two steps toward the van when the Hulk’s massive fist twisted into her hair, yanking painfully at her scalp. She yelped in pain again, though not as loudly this time, it was enough to catch Marisol’s attention. She stopped thrashing and their eyes locked. For a heartbeat, Sloane felt like she was safe. Then a coarse bag that smelled like rotten cabbages dropped over her head and she was in darkness.

  Unseeing now, Sloane kept still and silent, trying to understand what was happening. With the zing of a knife her hands dropped free. She hissed as her shoulders and neck, sore from so long in the awkward tied position, relaxed. Blood flowed back into her cold fingertips, bringing pins and needles with them. Strong hands gripped both of her upper arms and she felt the very solid form of her captor uncomfortably close behind her. She knew better than to attempt escape. She wouldn’t make it five feet before they caught her. She didn’t want to think what Jordan would do to punish her. Instead she breathed through the pain as quietly as she could and listened.

  The heavy thump nearby was followed by a gurgle and a good deal of angry spluttering. Sloane remembered how Marisol had been tied, with her feet lashed to the noose around her neck, and knew that they dumped her out of the van in a way that was choking her. Panic flooded back into Sloane. Marisol may not be an ally, but she was the only person nearby who was not an enemy. If for no other reason than that, Sloane needed her to survive.

  A knife zinged again and the choking ceased. It was replaced by an almost imperceptible groaning. Sloane still felt the pins and needles in her shoulders and hands. How much worse must that be for Marisol, who had been tied much tighter and more awkwardly and had been bashed repeatedly over the course of the long flight. Her body must be in agony.

  “You gotta see this.”

  Hulk ripped off Sloane’s hood, taking a fair amount of hair with it. As her eyes adjusted to the light, Sloane saw what they were all laughing at. Marisol also had a sack over her head, and there was a long rope hanging behind it. Her feet were free now, but her hands were still tied behind her back. She’d fallen onto her stomach and the men were dragging her across the dusty ground by the noose.

  Marisol scrambled with her heavy boots to get purchase on the loose dirt, but the men dragged her like a dog on a leash toward a ramshackle structure with rusted aluminum siding. Marisol stumbled blindly to her knees, only for the men to yank her back down. Sloane sucked in her breath as she watched Marisol’s chin make contact with the ground and her head snap back.

  The hood dropped back over Sloane’s face, muffling her captors’ inane laughter and Marisol’s animal grunts. Sloane walked with her back ramrod straight and her steps measured. These people wouldn’t see her cower or crawl. Hulk made it difficult. He pushed her forward then held her back, trying to make her steps falter. Her bare feet stubbed the rough ground.

  Once, when she nearly tumbled forward out of his grip, she let out a squeak of fear. Hulk pulled her body sickeningly close to his own and growled into her ear, “You scared, little one? You should be. Once the boss gets what she wants, you’re all mine.”

  Sloane felt the sweat trail down her neck, grateful for the hood covering her shocked face. She hadn’t thought of what would happen after Marisol broke, but now she realized they would never let her go. If Marisol’s guess about their location was correct, they had managed to get her out of the country. Any likelihood of release was slim. She chose not to think about it, pushing fear from her mind with the practiced ease of a seasoned leader.

  They didn’t take her far. When the heat dropped away, she knew they’d marched her into the ramshackle building.

  Sloane heard them toss Marisol to the ground. The dirt floor shook with the impact and a moment later the hood was yanked off again. Before her eyes could adjust, an open palm slammed between her shoulder blades and she fell hard. She landed on top of the squirming, sweat-soaked body of Marisol, who froze the moment their bodies met.

  “Stay here and keep your damn mouths shut.”

  Hulk spat onto the ground beside Sloane’s head. Her face was inches from Marisol, her labored breathing making both their bodies rise and fall. Fresh blood oozed from Marisol’s right nostril. Sloane could smell the copper-penny reek of it. She couldn’t help her lip curling in disgust, but instantly regretted the sneer. For the briefest flash, when their eyes met, she saw pain wash across Marisol’s gaze. Her gut twisted at the vulnerability of it, but it was gone in a flash, replaced with a lewd waggle of eyebrows and the faintest grinding of Marisol’s hips up into hers.

  “Like it up there, Governor? We could make it a permanent position if you want.”

  This time she did not regret her distaste. She scrambled to her feet, putting as much distance between them as she could manage.

  “You’re right, we’ll save the fun for later. I am a little tied up at the moment.”

  Sloane turned away, examining her surroundings rather than the involuntary swoop of her stomach when Marisol’s pelvis had brushed against hers. They were in a shed, closed into a small room. The corrugated walls had holes letting in pinpricks of bright afternoon light. A single bare bulb hung from one of the rafters, leaving the room in semidarkness.

  The whole place smelled foul, like rotten meat and old sweat. Her gut told her nothing good would happen to them here. The filth of too many days clung to her and she wished she was home safe in her condo where she could bathe in cool, clean water.

  A metal door in the far wall banged open, slamming against the wall. Hulk marched in and threw a pair of battered metal bowls onto the ground.

  “Eat, bitches. Get some sleep if you want, we won’t need you for a while yet. Just keep quiet or I’ll make sure you’re real quiet.”

  His massive hands twitched, the fingers flexing as though he yearned to wrap them around someone’s neck, but he marched back through the door, hauling it shut behind him. It took Sloane a long time to make her hands stop shaking.

  Marisol struggled to her knees, swaying noticeably. Rather than try to stand, she crawled toward the bowls, her hands still tied behind her back and the noose trailing through the dirt. Sloane followed at a distance, her stomach roaring with hunger. It fell silent the moment she saw the contents of the bowls.

  Dirty, soggy rice the color of old mud drooped flaccidly in the bowl. Flies swarmed around the food but seemed just as hesitant as Sloane to get too close.

  Sloane put a hand to her mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Marisol squatted in front of one of the bowls, her back heaving as she sucked in air. She looked over her shoulder at Sloane, who could see exhaustion and pain etched into her face.

  “How long’s it been since you ate?”

  Sloane tried to think. She’d had a long week and had left Springfield for the solace of her Chicago apartment without stopping for dinner. She thought she’d had lunch at her desk, but couldn’t remember what it had been. They’d been in the plane a long time, though she
couldn’t be sure how long since the heady mixture of fear and adrenaline made her internal clock as twisted as a Dali painting.

  “I don’t know. A day maybe?”

  “Eat.”

  “You have to be kidding.”

  “You need your strength.”

  “For what?”

  Marisol’s only answer was a hard stare that made Sloane immediately reach for the bowl. She raised it to her nose reluctantly and sniffed. It smelled far worse than it looked and Sloane now realized it was served to them in a cheap dog bowl. Eventually she dipped her fingers into the soggy mess and brought a pile close to her lips. She shook it to get a fly off and closed her eyes.

  It tasted even worse than it smelled. It took everything in her to swallow. Once she was sure it was staying down, she took her bowl and slumped against the wall. She tested another bite, keeping her eyes averted from the bowl as best she could. It was just as bad as the first, but at least now she was slightly more comfortable.

  Marisol grinned from the center of the room, then turned back to the bowl. Hands still tied, she bent over, dropping her face into it and biting mouthfuls. She looked like a junkyard dog, scavenging trash. Not for the first time, Sloane marveled at the distance between them.

  Marisol swallowed noisily and shrugged, a few grains of rice falling off her chin back into the bowl. “Pretty nasty, but I’ve had worse.”

  “Yes, I imagine you have.”

  The words were out before Sloane could catch them, and she felt the heat on her cheeks as the smile slid off Marisol’s face.

  “Not you though, huh?” Her next words were mumbled like an accusation. “Always had a silver spoon.”

  Sloane had to admit the accusation was completely true. She shoved another handful of rice into her mouth and chewed purposefully. “I suppose you expect me to apologize for not being an orphan?”

  Marisol stiffened midbite. She didn’t look up and she didn’t blush, but Sloane could tell she was shocked and maybe even a little embarrassed. It occurred to her that Marisol wasn’t aware how much Sloane knew about her past. After the trial that sent Willow to jail, Sloane had requested regular updates to Marisol’s file. She had a responsibility to the people of Chicago to clean up the streets and that included removing Marisol Soltero from them.