by Heskett, Jim
For some reason, though, she tended to believe Ember over Marcus. There was no good reason why, however. Marcus was her boss, a highly regarded government employee, and a corporate climber. Ember Clarke was a rogue FBI agent who had most certainly broken multiple laws while undercover.
But, Isabel had to admit she'd had questions about her boss for a while now. There seemed to be things about this investigation he'd been keeping from her, and she hadn't been able to figure out why. The obvious reason was that Ember's presence out here constituted a shit-show for the Bureau that could significantly hurt his career if information about it became public knowledge inside the FBI.
Isabel and Marcus had inherited this operation from others, who had kept it secret and ultra-covert. For whatever reason they’d done it, the situation becoming public could have grave consequences for all of them now.
But Isabel was starting to see there could be other possibilities about why Marcus had played it all this way. It was entirely possible he was keeping things from Isabel because he fully planned to lay the blame on her if things went wrong out here. Maintaining a certain plausible deniability was exactly within his wheelhouse.
She could picture it: when it all fell apart, Marcus would claim he had warned Isabel against giving Ember the benefit of the doubt. Which was actually true.
So why couldn’t Isabel bring herself to compel Ember out of Denver? Why was Isabel so insistent on giving this problem child extra chances? What if Marcus had been right all along?
And, speaking of the devil, when Isabel pulled her ringing phone out of her pocket, his number appeared on her lock screen.
“Evening, Marcus.”
“Good evening, Agent Yang. Did I catch you at a bad time?
“I’m on Pearl Street, eating dinner.”
"Ahh," he said, and she could hear the smile in his tone, "Pearl Street. One of my favorite walking malls. I love the street performers doing magic or art or whatever, hustling for pocket change. How is the weather out there in Colorado? Smell like cow shit?"
“It snowed a little today, yes. It’s supposed to be rough weather next week. They’re expecting a freak early season snowstorm. Maybe even a blizzard.”
“Odd. I told you my ex-wife was from there, right?”
“Yes, sir, you have mentioned that before.”
“Her Colorado-ness was probably one of her only redeeming qualities left by the end of our relationship. But, the heart and the junk both want what they want, eh?”
Isabel made a curt hmm sound and did not reply. There was no good reply to Marcus when he went off on one of his pessimistic tangents about his ex-wife.
Marcus sucked through his teeth after a couple of seconds of silence. "So, did you make a run at our friend in Boulder?"
“I did. She said no.”
“No to what?”
“No to everything. It’s incredibly difficult to have even a moment of civil conversation with her. I told her to pack up her investigation and head back to DC, and she responded by saying if I called her Allison Campbell again, that I would 'see what happens.'“
Marcus was quiet on the line for a few seconds, and she listened to breaths whistle in and out of his nose. Across the street, a little girl carried a dozen purple balloons in one hand, skipping along next to her mother.
“This is bad, Isabel. Very bad.”
“I know, sir.”
“She’s gone off the deep end, and I don’t see any way to bring her back out of the pool.”
Isabel flexed her jaw. She felt an impulse to refute Marcus’ claim, but there was no logical way she could do it. He was right. Allison Campbell had made the transition from law-abiding FBI agent to Ember Clarke, a killer for hire. Maybe Marcus hadn’t been playing her, looking to set her up to fail if things went bad. Maybe he’d been telling Isabel the truth this whole time, that no matter what she tried, it would not work to corral Ember.
Maybe. Isabel wasn’t ready to put her trust in Marcus yet. Still, she said, “I agree, sir.”
“You need to take her out.”
Isabel set her foil-wrapped burrito on the table in front of her. “Excuse me?”
“No need to get all hormonal on me. We talked about this. You did what you could, but you’ve been rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic for two weeks now. I don’t want to get into a big I-told-you-so moment, but I’m glad you got a chance to come to that conclusion yourself.”
“So what are you saying, exactly?”
“It’s time to end it. Pay her a visit tonight and put a bullet in her.”
Isabel sat back, her mouth hanging open. “That’s insane.”
"Is it? You said it yourself; she's gone off the deep end."
“That’s it? We’re not going to bother to have her arrested? I’m just supposed to flip a switch and throw away all the good she’s done before she broke bad?”
“We’re beyond that now. You think she’ll let anyone put cuffs on her, or do you think she’ll take out a few law enforcement officers in the process? I know it sounds extreme, but as far as I can see, this is the last remaining option. You have full authority in the field on this one.”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Just get it done. Whatever mess results from it, we’ll clean it up when you’re back in Washington. It’s still manageable. We can still contain this and suffer the smallest amount of damage possible. If you think about it, the Allison Campbell of four or five years ago would understand the stakes and be okay with it, right? We have a dog who needs to be put down, and you’re up. Do this for our country before she can hurt any more civilians.”
Isabel didn't know what to say. On some level, this seemed like a logical course of action after everything she had tried and failed to accomplish. But it seemed too extreme. Over the last couple of weeks, Marcus' hints and innuendos that this might end with Ember dying had felt like theoretical exercises that would never come to fruition. But now, given a direct order to kill a federal agent?
“Sir, I…”
“I’m going to text you the address of a location where you get pick up a clean pistol and a noise suppressor. You know where she lives. Pay her a visit later tonight. When she opens the door, put one in her chest and one in her head, wait for her to stop breathing, then get your ass to the airport. It’s time we cleaned up this mess and got the hell out, once and for all.”
“Sir…”
“Get it done, Agent Yang. No excuses this time.”
The call ended, and she stared at her reflection in the phone. Killing Ember Clarke was beyond what Isabel had hoped to do. It was using a sledgehammer to pound a nail into dirt.
But, maybe it was necessary.
Chapter Nineteen
EMBER
Ember stood outside the Coronado Shipping Facility, less than a mile from the Night Owl bar. She couldn’t believe it had taken her so long to figure out the clue Quinn had left for her. Almost too long. Another few hours, and she would have missed the deadline entirely.
The building was a massive thing, larger than any of the older buildings in the area. A monolith against the trees and paved lots around it. The structure sat in the middle of an industrial park, now quiet after normal business hours. The other buildings were dark and still, but this one had ground lights pointing up at it.
The facility looked pristine, with fresh paint in the parking lot to indicate the parking lanes. Virtually untouched. The Coronado company hadn’t moved into their brand new space yet, so this was perfect for what Quinn wanted to do. How he knew about this place, Ember had no idea.
The sun had set, so Ember pulled her black baseball cap low and made a circle around the building. She stayed clear of the ground lights, skulking through the shadows. It took at least three minutes or her to make a full circle around.
The front consisted of parking spots and two sets of glass double doors leading into well-lit foyers. Ember opted not to try those entrances. For all she knew, Quinn would have motion sensors on thos
e doors that would trigger as soon as Ember stepped foot inside. She had to assume there was another torture device of some fashion in there. Another female hostage trussed up, waiting for her death. Given Quinn’s unpredictability, no way to know what could trigger some new and elaborate killing machine.
Ember wasn’t going to let another one die. Not again.
Around the back was a series of tall shipping entrances covered by rollup doors, with a single regular-sized door in the middle of a row of them. The door had a simple deadbolt lock, and Ember picked it without too much trouble.
She pressed the door open to find the blinding lights of the interior, making her eyes slam shut. After a few seconds, she creaked open her eyes in stages.
The inside was as immaculate as the outside: pristine and shiny floors, a vast wide-open space with tall ceilings. There were a few different areas with cubicles set up, spread out. These mini-cubicle farms had room for four desks. They were like little islands out among the wide-open reach of the interior.
Ember sneaked over to the nearest cubicle cluster so she could maintain cover and get a better look at the room. Once there, she peeked over the top of one and surveyed the enormous area.
Near the far side of the vast space, Ember spotted it. A rug set out amid the open area, with a contraption sitting on it. Except that this time, it wasn't a cage. It was like a coffin, propped upright. The hinged lid was open, and Ember could barely see the captive woman inside it from this angle. The interior of the lid had twelve-inch spikes protruding, like that medieval torture device, the iron maiden.
Ember guessed there were pressure plates underneath the rug, and if she tried to approach, the coffin door would slam shut, the lid’s interior blades piercing and killing the woman inside. She had duct tape over her hands and feet, and also duct tape from her torso to the sides of the coffin, keeping her paralyzed inside it.
Ember needed a way to access the coffin without touching the rug. Not an easy task, since it extended out ten feet in every direction. Maybe if Ember could drag one of these cubicles over to it, she could gain enough elevation to leap over the coffin. But then, how to get the woman out? She would have the reverse problem trying to jump from the coffin to beyond the rug. There didn't seem to be a way to go up, either. The ceilings in here were so tall; there was no way to access it from above.
And where the hell was Quinn? Was he content to watch from the sidelines as his window to kill Ember gradually shut?
For all Ember knew, when she approached the iron maiden, a slew of poisoned darts would drop down from above, killing them both.
A series of metal rafters above supported banks of lights, so maybe she could use those rafters. If she left and came back with an ample amount of rope, maybe she could access the coffin from above it. But, she would have to make a kind of lasso, then land it just right around the coffin, then use a pulley of some sort to raise the whole thing and somehow move it free of the rug area. With the woman inside, the whole contraption probably weighed hundreds of pounds. It didn’t seem like something Ember could pull off by herself. If she came back with a crew, would that be too late? Probably.
And then, a door opened at the far side. Ember watched a muscular figure dressed in a black jacket and jeans across the floor. This man was tall and well-built, looking nothing like the pictures Ember had seen of Quinn. Quinn had a potbelly, long hair, and stooped shoulders.
The man slipped off his jacket, revealing a white tank top underneath. Tattoos up and down his arms, short blond hair, square jaw.
It was Ember’s condo neighbor from across the walkway.
Layne Parrish.
The hot guy she’d only known as her neighbor was here.
She bit her lip before she could gasp and ducked back down below the cubicle wall. What in the world was he doing here? Was that really him?
Layne dropped his jacket on the floor, then reached down into it and drew a long and heavy-looking flashlight. He circled around to the front of the coffin and held up a hand. The woman inside it tried to scream, but it came out muffled due to the duct tape across her mouth. Layne said something to her, but Ember couldn’t hear it. His voice echoed and warbled along these massive surfaces, and the individual words were too jumbled for her to isolate.
Layne held the flashlight high in one hand; then, he reared back to run. He took deep breaths and closed his eyes. Jaw tensed, muscles flexing. Was he going to actually make a run for it?
Ember stood up, ready to shout at him to stop, but it was too late.
Layne raced at the coffin, raising the flashlight. One step before he reached the rug, he leaped. He crossed the space like a long jumper about to land in the sand, and at the last moment, he swung the flashlight down. Before he landed, he jammed the flashlight into the triangular space between the upright coffin and the open coffin lid. He wedged it in tight enough for it to stay on its own, nestling it above the hinge.
Ember narrowed her eyes and ducked back out of sight. He'd found a way. The flashlight would act as a doorstop—a brilliant plan, one that would have never occurred to her.
When Layne touched down on the rug, the coffin mechanism triggered, but Layne's heavy flashlight kept the lid from closing. Ember could hear the gears of the machine grinding, but Layne's flashlight wedge worked to keep the spikes from closing in. He used a pocket knife to cut the woman free from the interior; then he hoisted her up over his shoulder.
He pivoted and ran back toward the door he’d come from, with the woman’s arms wrapped around his neck. She clung to him as he darted toward the exit, and he flung the door back and vanished into the darkness. And, just like that, Layne was gone.
The iron maiden gears chugged, the coffin lid squealing as it tried to fight against the flashlight wedge. After a few more seconds, the flashlight slipped out of place and clattered onto the rug. The lid slammed shut, but there was no one inside it now to suffer the consequences.
The room again returned to silence. The flashlight was dented, dormant on the rug.
Ember checked her surroundings, and she didn’t think Layne or the former hostage had seen her over here.
What the hell had just happened?
* * *
She climbed the stairs of her condo building with her eyes on Layne Parrish’s apartment. His door was shut. There were no lights visible through the window.
His car was gone from the lot, but that wasn’t uncommon. Layne sporadically disappeared for a week or two at a time. He’d said he had a cabin in southwest Colorado, so that’s where Ember assumed he disappeared to during those extended absences.
She kept one hand on the pistol in the back of her waistband, although she didn’t know why. She’d never had any reason to be suspicious of Layne before. He had always come across as a harmless bodybuilding type who liked to sit out on the walkway and drink craft beers and read fantasy paperbacks. Not the type to engage in a dangerous rescue mission.
But why had he intervened in Quinn’s sick plan to kill that young woman at the shipping facility? How had he even known about it?
In the moment, Ember had wondered if Layne was somehow working with Quinn, and that whole escapade had been a show for her benefit. But that didn’t make any sense at all. Layne had entered, beaten Quinn’s killing machine, and then escaped with the woman. He had saved her.
Her heart thundered in her chest as she emerged from the stairs and set foot on the walkway. Ember stopped in front of Layne’s door and peered into the window next to it. No sounds, no sights, no movement on the inside.
She thought back to the handful of conversations she'd had with this neighbor. What had he said he did for a living? He'd said he was retired, hadn't he? Just a gym rat who worked on his car in the lot and took his preschooler daughter to the nearby park on the weekends. But clearly, that wasn't the sum of Layne Parrish — there was more beneath the surface. Way more. The way he had appeared out of nowhere and made a daring rescue of the woman in that iron maiden machine had been n
othing short of spectacular. Like something she would have expected from Seal Team Six or a special forces guy. Rangers, even. Someone with training. Someone with skills that rivaled the most elite Ember had ever seen.
It hadn’t been that he’d saved the young woman — it was how he’d done it. The way he’d moved. She knew what training looked like, but only on rare occasions had she seen the alchemical combination of pure talent, skill, gritty determination, and a lifetime of experience.
She’d seen that in a flash tonight, with Layne.
And she hadn’t seen it coming at all.
Whoever he was, Ember had been wrong about him up to this point. He had intervened and saved the life of Quinn’s next victim, although Ember had no idea why. Given his skills, had he known Ember was also in the building? And, if so, why hadn't he acknowledged her, hiding behind the cubicle wall a hundred feet away?
She took a hand off the pistol in her waistband and strolled around the bend in the walkway to her apartment, full of questions with no answers.
Chapter Twenty
ISABEL
Isabel Yang parked across the street from Ember's complex. She checked the time on her dashboard—almost midnight. The racing of her heart conflicted with the exhaustion in her limbs.
She could see into Ember’s windows from here. The curtains were drawn, but the lights were on. Isabel kept her eyes on the windows as she retrieved the Glock 17 from the glove box and then screwed on the noise suppressor. It made the barrel heavy. She wasn’t used to the way it felt in her hand.
No motion behind those curtains. Lights still on.
“This has to happen,” Isabel said to the empty space inside the car. “You can do this. You walk up there, knock on the door. When she answers, you force her inside. Then, at gunpoint, give her one last chance. One last chance to come to her senses. And, if she won’t do it…”