This didn’t bother her. She knew that many people worked for years in jobs that never produced one second of excitement.
For her own safety, it was best that she did not work too often. She knew her success depended on controlling certain factors, and one of those factors was the frequency of abductions and kills. If she were to work too often, inevitably a pattern would be seen, small mistakes (a shoe lost!) would be connected to one another, and then to her. She was confident of her abilities, but luck could go lousy on anybody. There were things no one could plan for-like those reporters being at Sheila’s house, just at that time. A shoe coming loose, sticking in the mud.
Long ago she had been questioned in connection with a criminal investigation, and she remembered how unnerving that had been. This had taken place in her childhood, when she was known by a different name, and she had never come close to facing charges of any kind. Her memories of her earliest years she kept locked away in a distant corner of her mind, but she clearly remembered the fire and all that had followed.
Investigators believed a set of tragedies had befallen her. Her parents, known by everyone in the neighborhood to be heavy drinkers and smokers, died in a fire. Smoking in bed, arson investigators said. The ten-year-old girl had barely escaped with her life. That’s the way it looked to all the adults.
She had been sent to the home of her only living grandparent. Her father’s mother, as wicked as he was and as much a drinker. Grandmother had drowned in her swimming pool. There were questions then. A rail-thin detective, with eyes like black buttons, had asked them, while his partner, who looked to Cleo to be yet another drinker, looked on unhappily. Did she know, the thin one asked, why her grandmother had decided to go swimming at night? No, she didn’t. Why she went swimming with her clothes on? Cleo shrugged.
The questions had stopped when Vera, her mother’s younger sister, arrived from California to take care of the twelve-year-old girl. Vera had two attorneys in tow, both by the last name of Fletcher. She was married to one of them. Within a few days, they were on their way to California, where Cleo would live with her aunt.
Aunt Vera had run away from home at the age of sixteen, pregnant and unmarried. She had the good fortune to be taken in by a family that had a habit of caring for stray kids, and when she decided she was too young to raise the baby, they adopted her infant out to a good home. By the time Cleo arrived on the scene, Vera was married to one of the Fletchers. Cleo quickly learned that Vera was an entirely different kind of person than the other family members she had known, and not just because she didn’t smoke or drink. She had not lived under her aunt’s roof for twenty-four hours when Vera looked her in the eye and said, “You thinking of trying to bump me off, Cleo? I hope not, because if I die in any kind of accident, the world is going to know exactly what you are.”
Cleo didn’t say anything. She tried not to let her nervousness show.
Vera’s smile got bigger, then she said, “And besides, it would be a waste of your talents. I’ve been talking to one of my cousins. The family could use someone like you.”
Cleo had never felt warmth toward anyone, and she didn’t develop an attachment to her aunt. But Vera and her husband, Uncle Greg, provided a kind of consistency and reliability that had not been part of her life up to that time, and that steadied her. They were strict, but that helped Cleo to develop discipline. And Uncle Greg turned out to have skills in self-defense and weaponry that Cleo had only dreamed of possessing, skills he enjoyed teaching her. She decided they would live.
To Cleo’s dismay, her decision was not enough. Vera became the first of Cleo’s relatives to die in a true accident, a car wreck. Cleo was fifteen then. For a time, remembering Vera’s threat on that first day, Cleo was certain that all her training would go to waste, that a twist of fate was going to cause her to be known as a murderer before she really had a chance to practice it as an art form.
But months went by, Cleo continued to train, and no information was released. Uncle Greg continued to teach her all he could, expanding her lessons to include a wide variety of methods of deception. Whatever grief he felt for his loss of Vera was channeled into making Cleo a perfect “agent,” as he referred to her, on behalf of the family.
On her twenty-first birthday, her uncle revealed that upon Vera’s death, certain information had been given to him, but he knew that Cleo had not caused Vera’s death.
She never learned where Uncle Greg had received his own training. Five years ago, he died of injuries suffered in a rock-climbing accident. At his funeral, Roy had hinted that Greg had once been in the CIA, but she had a feeling this wasn’t true.
Cleo rarely spent time around the rest of the family. She never liked being in a crowd, and didn’t like the idea of more than a few people being able to recognize her. She moved often, did not encourage neighbors who tried to become friendly. She focused her energies on training for the next situation in which she would be needed. That kept her away from home, for the most part.
Her exercise and training routines provided some release for her energy. A carefully orchestrated series of affairs with men in her “family” provided a release for her sexual tensions. She believed herself to be their superior in every way, and one day she would demonstrate this in a manner they wouldn’t like. Well, she might keep one around for fun.
She smiled to herself, picturing how that might work out. As for the rest, someday she’d be running everything. That was going to take planning and patience.
And the removal of a few obstacles along the way.
She stood and stretched and went back into the condo. She had come back from her place in the mountains after only two days. She had meant to stay away longer, but this fit of restlessness had come upon her and she’d returned.
She looked around her living room and sighed. She’d have to move again. She wondered if she should do that before the next job came along.
Uncle Greg’s voice sounded in her ear, warning her about staying anonymous.
She would be out of here before tomorrow night.
THE phone rang. She answered it and listened with a growing sense of anticipation.
“Can you handle another job so soon?” Giles asked.
“Of course,” she said.
“Keep your shoes on this time,” he said.
She nearly hung up in his ear. Instead, she remained silent.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No,” she said. She let another long silence stretch, then said, “I’m moving.”
“When?”
She moved her schedule up a bit. “Today.”
“Today!”
“Yes.”
“I suppose that’s wise. Do you have the new address?”
“Not yet.”
“Call me when you have it.”
He was certainly full of demands today. “I have to go now,” she said. She disconnected the call. That would be good for him.
She immediately dialed Fletcher Moving and Storage. She asked for Andy. While she waited for him to come on the line, she glanced at the clock near her bed. She hadn’t unpacked her gear from her trip out of town, so it would take only a few minutes to gather what clothing she needed from the condo.
Andy answered, excitement plain in his young voice. He knew that any request from her was to be dealt with immediately, and by a handpicked crew.
Andy required a softer approach than the older men. She used what worked.
“Where are we taking things? Not too far, I hope,” he said.
“Just store everything for now. It may be a while before I can pay everything I owe you,” she said, her voice soft and low. “But if you come over now, I’ll give you a special down payment.” She paused. “I haven’t dressed yet.”