“Just let me do this,” I say, and I realize I’m begging. We’re not supposed to let our personal whims get in the way of the work we do, but I can hear it in my voice.
“You’re getting too involved,” Baz says.
“I know,” I say. No matter how many times I tell myself that this is just another job, it’s not. This one feels like a personal quest that has been sent to me. I have to slay the dragon or else the entire kingdom will be held hostage by the monster. It doesn’t make sense and I can’t even explain it, but I need them to trust me. Trust me to do this and get out alive.
“Just be careful,” he says. I nod and he leaves, and I’m the last left. I sit on the couch for a few minutes and crack open another beer. The place is quiet. I close my eyes and lean my head back.
Before I started this particular job I remember being bored. Wanting something to happen. Something to set me on fire like I was when I first started. It was so easy to turn my young vengeance into something constructive. But I was alone until I met Cash. He shared my views for his own reasons and we made a plan, but we knew we were going to need help. He found Hardy and by extension Row, then Track and finally Baz. We asked them to join us, to work for something more than just a paycheck.
Rage boiled in us when we first started. We made a rule to never talk about our reasons for wanting to do this and we’ve respected that rule for the most part, but when you spend years with other people, you learn things about them without them having to tell you.
Row and Hardy are both gunshot wound survivors, with identical bullet wounds on their chests. Baz’s back is covered in cigarette burns. Not all our scars are visible, but we all have them.
Cash has never talked about his own, but I figured them out anyway.
He’s a refugee from the foster care system. His parents had made investments with someone who betrayed them and stole all their money. His father was so devastated he fell into a deep depression and only came out of it to shoot his wife and then himself. Cash was spared because he was sleeping. I know that part of the story, because that man who stole his parents’ money was one of the first jobs we did. Back then, Cash wanted to kill him. To seek vengeance that way, but we’d calmed him down and showed him that an eye for an eye was all we needed. Money for money.
We’ve all been dealt shitty cards in our past and are trying to undo it. To break even somehow.
I sigh and stand up. I need to go home and feed Leo.
I’m still in a nostalgic mood when I get home, so I go into the small safe that’s in the back of my closet and undo the lock with a combination of my fingerprint and a code. Leo follows me into the dark closet, curious.
I pull out the few pictures I was able to save from the fire. They’re not much, but they’re something. My mom saved hundreds of pictures in albums. I remember them being stacked side-by-side in the living room, their spines with years on them facing out and in order so she could find what she was looking for.
The first few years were filled with pictures of me and both my parents, and then with all four of us with Lizzy, but the pictures weren’t as happy. Sure, the adults were smiling, but there was a tightness around my mother’s eyes and my father seemed distant. And then it was the three of us.
The ones I was able to save were in a few picture frames she hung in the hallway. I almost grabbed the picture of my parents on their wedding day that my mother would never take down, but I let it burn. I let it burn with the rest of the house. I’d found my mother’s body on the kitchen floor only the day before and I had the feeling they’d be back for the house.
I’d sent Lizzy to stay with neighbors, which was a blessing. We’d both been at school when my mother was murdered. I discovered the body because I’d walked into the kitchen first. I was able to grab Lizzy and hide her eyes so she didn’t see. It was the one good thing that happened that week.
In the pictures my mother is radiant. Happy. I didn’t save any that had him in them. He was the reason they killed her. He’d gotten involved with things he shouldn’t have gotten involved with and they killed her for it. They kept him alive though, and sent him to prison. I don’t even know where he is. I don’t care. I got custody of Lizzy and we left. I changed our names as soon as I could and then I met Cash. It was so easy, how things fell together for us. Easy then. Not so easy now.
I put the pictures back and turn my attention to Leo. We play fetch and then a text comes through from Saige.
You wouldn’t be interested in going to dinner at my parents’ this weekend, would you?
It’s like she’s doing my work for me. That will be perfect and will let me set the groundwork. Once I have the layout of the house and they feel comfortable having me there, everything will be ready to go.
I guess. Does it win me extra points?
I wish I could see her face when she reads the message. Hear her voice responding.
Oh I think I can find a few ways to reward you.
I can’t help but smile at how perfectly this is going.
I hope they’re naked ways.
I swear I can almost hear her laugh.
Maybe…
I chuckle a little as Leo paws my arm to get my attention. I toss the ball and he runs after it like a maniac.
Everything is lining up perfectly.
Saige is swamped for the rest of the week with tests and papers and so forth, so I don’t hear much from her. I get the apartment ready anyway. Just in case.
I also don’t hear anything further from my stalker. I’m half-tempted to send a message back, but don’t. With any luck, this job will be finished soon and we’ll be out of here. I’ll have a new identity and new phones and it will be done.
The guys found the angle where the picture was taken. The stalker had picked the perfect place to hide in an alley that opened up to the other side of the street so he had a clean getaway. There was no evidence to be found other than trash and dirt and empty cans. It isn’t like we had a forensics team on staff, so it’s another dead end. The only thing to do is keep our eyes and ears open and wait for whoever it was to make their next move. Because soon only sending texts and taking pictures won’t be enough.
The boys are fighting about where to go next. I’m thinking the West Coast, since we haven’t been there for a while. It would be good to get as far away from here as we can. It will mean moving Lizzy, but she’s pretty adaptable. She’s moved before and been fine. It’s tricky for me keeping that from the others, but I can manage.
I’m wondering if the dinner is still on with Saige’s parents when she shows up at my office on Thursday. I gave orders to Grace that if I’m not with a client, Saige is allowed to come in whenever she wants.
I’m just hanging up my phone when the door opens and there she is, wearing a black dress, a black scarf with skulls on it and a pair of killer boots. Black is never simple when she’s wearing it.
“Brought you lunch,” she says, holding up two large brown paper bags from a local sandwich shop.
“Perfect timing,” I say, moving the files on my desk to one side and locking my computer.
“How’s school?” I ask as she sets everything out. A BLT for me and a turkey wrap for her, fruit salad and Cokes for both of us.
“Kill me now,” she says. “You have no idea how much under-eye concealer I have on right now just to look normal. I’m also considering a caffeine drip.” She always makes me laugh.
“Well, you look rested to me. And I’m pretty sure the caffeine drip would be frowned upon by medical professionals.” She pouts her red lips and digs into her wrap.