I shook my head. “No, thank you. The trigger pull is too stiff for me.”
“So get rid of the magazine safety, and get aftermarket trigger springs, the kind with reduced tension.”
“What about the bite?”
“What about the bite?” If she were a rooster, Agent Thyme would be strutting back and forth beside the line, daring me to attack. “That’s really the problem for you?”
I narrowed my eyes at her, not entirely unhappy—I liked my quarrels out in the open. So, this is how it’s going to be, hmm, New Girl? Fine. We’ll—
“Shiro, I had no idea you were such a crybaby.” Dan was one of the few people on the planet who could get away with saying such a thing to my face. He was nervous and fussy, but I deeply respected his talent and his knowledge. It startled me out of my eyeball-to-eyeball challenge with Thyme. “Waaaaah!” He added to the mockery by rubbing his eyes with his big gnarled fists.
Waaaaah? Really?
I sighed. “Not wanting the web between my thumb and forefinger to get shredded by that damned hammer spur makes me a crybaby? Then crybaby I shall be.”
“It’s nice to have something to look forward to,” Agent Thyme said brightly. “I still think if you gave the Hi-Power a chance you might like it.”
“Never. When it comes to firearms, I am obsessively monogamous.”
“Not just obsessive?” she teased. My. I really liked this woman.
“I prefer this.” I pulled my Desert Eagle so she and Dan could take a look.
“Okay, I get it. Because of the gas-operation you can use more powerful cartridges. It’s clunky, though.” She was looking at it with the critical care of someone who knew her life might depend on her weapons knowledge. “It’s better for target practice or silhouette shooting than fieldwork.”
I shrugged. I liked what I liked. It was not always logical. If Cadence had been driving, she’d have come up with something pithy like, “Sez you.” And Adrienne would have just shot her in the ankle and left.
“All right, I guess that’ll do,” Dan wheezed. Not for the first time I considered lecturing him on his nutritional habits. “I’m gonna leave you ladies to it. Agent Thyme, standard gun-range rules apply: ear plugs and safety glasses at all times you’re on the line. Check out the sheet on maximum caliber size and don’t deviate. And Shiro, I swear to God … you put one toe out of line, I’ll bounce you for a month.”
“I hear and obey, O my Dan.”
“It was nice to meet you, Dan, and thank you for the tour. D’you want to hear my top three unusual deaths?”
“Why?” Dan asked, puzzled yet keeping a wary eye on me. “Why would I ever want to know that?”
“Goddammit,” she sighed, then slapped in the clip and popped a round into the pipe. “Shiro, have I told you lately how much I loved talking to you about unusual deaths?”
I laughed.
“Now,” she said, sighting down the barrel. “Get ready to be made my bitch.”
“Those,” I warned, “are fighting words. If there will be any bitch making, it shall be I, making you my—”
“Shut up and shoot.”
So we did.
chapter fifty-one
We had practiced for half an hour when Emma Jan signaled she wanted to talk by popping her clip and pulling the round out of the pipe. Since we were the only two on the line, it was safe to take my earplugs out.
My Desert Eagle clicked empty on my last shot, so I followed her lead. I inhaled again. I truly loved the smell of this wonderful underground room. Better than roses. Better than chocolate.
“You are terrifying,” was how she started the conversation. “And you held out on me.”
“I doubt it.”
“You’re hitting the ten every time!”
“I practice a lot.”
“For how many years—fifty? Gulp.”
“Did you just say ‘gulp’ out loud to denote—”
“Shiro, no bullshit. You’re the best I’ve ever seen. It’s incredible.”
“You’re very kind, Agent Thyme.” Her praise warmed me, and the warmth surprised me. I was not prone to worrying about what others thought, so did not seek their praise.
“However, I’m pretty awesome my own self.”
“I noticed.” Damn it.
“I could put a few more in the ten if we went head-to-head again. Shiro, I gotta thank you.”
“What? Why? What is the matter?”
“Whoa, calm down. I meant it in a nice way. Which I can see is confusing you. Listen, I held back this last half hour. I just wanted to get warm, get to know a new range. You brought everything, and I didn’t. You were in it to win it—God, I hate that phrase—and I wasn’t. So thanks.”
“For…” Making you my bitch, as I had predicted I would? Well. I could be magnanimous in victory. “For assisting you to … to be better?”
“I should have brought everything.” She wasn’t smiling. Her dark, beautiful eyes were fixed on mine with no warmth of any kind. What was she seeing, while she said these things to me? “I didn’t. You did, and I know better. Next time, I’ll remember. I’m grateful, Shiro, for any lesson I don’t have to relearn from the inside of a body bag.”
I was startled, then pleased. It was a mind-set I could relate to. A mind-set I could have related to when I was five. “You are very kind, Agent Thyme, and do not need my assistance to save your own life.”
“Shiro, how many times, hmm? How many? Call me Emma Jan, for Christ’s sake.”
“This is the first time you have asked me to call you Emma Jan.”
“Oh. Well, I’ve thought it a whole buncha times. Maybe I’m thinking of Cadence.”
“Oh, yes, a natural mistake because we look so much alike.” Cadence was a big blonde. I was a small Asian American. And Adrienne had deep red hair and a ghastly pale face. “Though I can tell you, Dan prefers Cadence to me on this range.” I shrugged. “It’s understandable. Everybody likes her.”
“Dan seemed a little freaked out by you.”
“He can be touchy. You know what’s odd?”
“You’re asking me?” She had begun packing up her duffel, and I followed suit.
“People have told me Dan is laid back and friendly. I never seem to catch that side of him.”
“Says the girl who was loading hollow points into her clips.”
“Shush.”
“Hey, I didn’t say anything, did I?”
“No.” I almost giggled. We were complicit … we were like friends! Friends who shot and shot and then tried, more, to outshoot each other.
I thought about it. “I cannot picture Dan as laid back. I try and try, and fail.”
“Nobody’s perfect. Uh, listen, Shiro, can I ask you something?”
“You may ask.” I did not promise to answer, but hopefully would be able to.
Here it came: What is it like sharing a body with two other people; how old were you when that happened; why do you think you are the way you are; isn’t having wacky adventures just all kinds of fun? Tell me secrets I have no use for.
Yes, indeed. For those of us with MPD, the fun never stops.
She took a breath, then plunged in with, “What is the deal with Michaela?”
“What?” I was so surprised, I had trouble believing I had heard her correctly.
“The knives, the chopping, the other office. What the hell?”
“Oh. Ah. Well, that … I can see how someone new would find it confusing…”
“No, Shiro. I find Sudoku confusing. Figuring out Michaela is all the way around the bend from confusing. It’s more like she’s baffling and I’m confounded.”
“Fair enough. I will tell you, but please keep it to yourself.” I was not certain why I was going to tell her. Perhaps I thought she had enough of a burden with reflective surfaces without being mystified and even frightened by her new boss. Perhaps … I liked her.
Scratch perhaps. I did like her.
“Michaela has … phallic is
sues.”
Emma Jan snorted. “No shit. Can you get to the part I haven’t figured out for myself? For instance, if she spends most of her workday slicing and dicing, when does she find time to do boss stuff?”
“That is a mystery I cannot help you with.” The truth. None of us had any idea how she pulled that off. And she adored that we all wondered but could never find out. “But I can give you some background.”
“Excellent. My luck to land a crazy boss again.”
I laughed. “Did you think the FBI would appoint a supervisor who could not relate to her staff?”
“Ah. Good point.”
While I packed my duffel, I told her what she thought she wanted to know.
chapter fifty-two
Michaela was the product of a rape, in itself not necessarily a ticket to the fun house. But she was raised by her rapist, a man who did not discontinue his distasteful habit of forcing women once he was responsible for raising a child on his own.
He had been determined to have a son. And was not the kind to forgive a letdown, any letdown, and was not above punishing the innocent. He never let Michaela forget he was sorry she had been born a girl.
And after he had finally come for her and forced her to be his latest victim, his girl-child castrated him. After his disgusting attack, she had crept up on him with her softball bat and nailed him just behind his right ear.
While he was unconscious she somehow managed to get him duct-taped to a kitchen chair, then spent the entire day castrating other things—carrots, pork loin, cucumbers, French bread, celery—so that by the time she got around to gelding her father, he had gone quite mad from stress and terror. His hysterical protests and pleading did not save him from the fate suffered by the celery and loin and bread.
He bled to death waiting for an ambulance she never called.
She had been eleven.
chapter fifty-three
“Aw, God.” Emma Jan pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. And I come from a long and distinguished line of alcoholics.”
“I think she has overcome a great deal to get where she is,” I said carefully. I did not like Michaela, exactly, but I respected her and, I will admit it, I was a little intimidated by her as well.
Unlike Cadence, I did not believe Michaela hid her affection for us. I believed she did not care about us and was fine with not caring, as long as we were productive. I hoped telling Emma Jan the story was the right thing to do, but there was always a small margin for error.
“I do not like her, you know.”
Emma Jan gave me an odd look. “You’ve said that before. Are you sure?”
“I just wish that you could be sure.”
“I think you do like her.”
“I do not!” I felt my hand tighten on the bulge that was my pistol in my bag, and forced my fingers to loosen. This was no way to nurture a friendship, drawing down on someone not expecting it.
“Not like like,” she said patiently, unaware she was courting death. “I think you want her to like you. I think you look up to her and want to please her.”
“She is my supervisor.” My! That was difficult to force out through teeth that would not unclench.
“Yeah, and maybe a maternal figure?”
“No.”
“Yeah, you’re right, what do I know?”
“That is correct!”
“Being new and all.”
“Exactly! You understand nothing!”
“Chill, Shiro, you’re screaming.”
“I … need … new ear protection.” I shook my head, chasing away fake sound waves. “The shooting match…”
“Oh. Well, since I’m up for a rematch to show you how this shit is done, you should get new ones ASAP.” Emma Jan sighed and scooped her empties into a section of her bag. “Does anybody here have a happy story? Or at least a sad story with a happy ending?”
I shook off my irritation. Michaela? A maternal figure? To a charging bull, perhaps. “Here, America? Here, planet Earth? Here—”
“Here, BOFFO.”
“Ah. No.” I gave it more thought. “No. It is a building full of sad stories and massive doses of Halcion.”
“And firearms.”
I smiled. It felt stiff on my face; then, after a long moment, more natural. “Yes. And firearms.”
I thought about asking Emma Jan for her origin story, but pulled back at the last moment. That was my methodology: when I started to pass the barriers people erect around their secrets, I always pulled back.
In many ways, I was as much a coward as Cadence.
“Did I hear you correctly earlier? Your last girlfriend?”
“Hmm?” She was carefully disassembling her weapon. “Oh. Sure. It’s no big deal, I’m out and everything.”
“Forgive me for such a personal question, but—”
“Yep! I’m a big fat dyke,” she said cheerfully.
I snorted. “Is that the acceptable form of address now? I have such trouble keeping apace with political correctness.”
“I also go by ‘great big lesbian.’”
I thought it over, then went ahead and came out with it: “Is this a date, then?”
She looked up. “Uh, no. Is that a problem?”
“I do not know.”
“Who should I ask, then?”
The very question made me laugh. “Sorry, sorry. I’m sexually confused.”
“You’re telling that to a black lesbo.”
“Big deal. You have not cornered the market on sexual oddities. I have a boyfriend. He’s … a wonderful man. He knows about us. All of us. He is … perfect for us, I think.” I slowed, thinking hard. “But lately, I have someone else on my mind. I don’t know why that should be.”
“If you did, would it be any easier?”
“I … do not know.”
“Maybe you just need some time off,” she said kindly. “Or to get laid.”
“Neither are likely,” I said dryly.
“It’s funny, I don’t usually jump to conclusions. I thought you liked men.”
“I do.”
“Oh. So you’re…”
“Flexible.”
She laughed. “That’s great! Hey, you’ve just doubled your dating pool.”
“And yet, remain remarkably unlaid,” I said dryly, and Emma Jan laughed at that for quite a while.
chapter fifty-four
I let myself into my apartment, put my keys back in my coat pocket, then hung up my coat. The apartment was quiet, except for the sinister sound of heavy breathing. Someone was waiting for me. Or someone was having an asthma attack. Now let me think, what did I have nearest to hand…?
Bo shuriken. Crisper.
Chakram. Under sink behind dishwasher soap.
Throwing knife. Inside flour canister.
Beretta 950 Jetfire. Back of silverware drawer. Eight rounds in the mag, nothing in the pipe. Safety on.
Remington SP-10 semiauto shotgun. Pantry behind mop and broom. Legal load: three shells. Actual load: five shells. Fully loaded with buckshot, safety on.
Stun grenades. One behind spice rack. Two in pantry: one in Frosted Flakes, one in Raisin Bran.
Forty-five Colt Magnum. Loaded, not cocked. Back of junk drawer behind Scotch tape and dry erase markers.
Two speedloaders, full. Third drawer down.
Four X-acto knives. Left drawer beside stove under potholders.
It wasn’t much, but I would have to make do. I glided into the kitchen, opened the silverware drawer, and pulled the Beretta. I clicked off the safety, then walked back the way I had come, taking a right instead of a left, and then I was in the living room.
Ah. I should have realized. Patrick had fallen asleep on the couch. A small black dog was curled up next to him, also sound asleep.
“Olive!” I said, very surprised. The dog opened her eyes, jumped down, and approached me with her tail wagging. I knelt to pet her. “What in the world … oh, no. No,
do not tell me.”
“Muh … Cadence?” Patrick was blinking sleepily at me, and his eyes widened when he saw the handgun. “Hey, Shiro. Guess nobody told you we’d be here.”
“Ah … no. No one did.” Still, I must be tired. I should have remembered. Or assumed. Or at least been ready for anything, instead of ready for nothing.
“Thanks for not shooting first and asking questions later.”
“It was just that one time,” I protested. “Must you forever hold that over my head?”
“Sure.” He grinned, then groaned. “Gah, what time is it?”
“Not quite midnight. Have you been here watching Olive all day?”
“Who the hell is Olive?”
I pointed.
He sat up, yawning, and stretched so thoroughly I could hear things creaking. “I thought her name was Dawg.”
“It is not. Don’t you think the small blob of white hair on her head is the right size and shape for an olive?”
“A white olive?”
“Her name is Olive.” I paused and straightened. “I assume Adrienne…?”
“Yup. Then she called me and wanted cream puffs and my presence in the apartment, in that order. She has some sort of freaky sixth sense … How the hell does she always know when I’m making cream puffs?”
I hid a smile. He did it whenever he had not seen Adrienne for more than ninety-six hours. He just was not consciously aware of that fact. He was too close to the pattern to see it. Which made Patrick the one person, other than my psychiatrist, who actively sought contact with Adrienne.
His bravery and devotion to a raging psychotic was almost enough to make me love him unconditionally. Or enough to make me jam him full of tranquilizers until the feeling passed.
“Anyway,” he was saying, “I leapt to obey.”
I shook my head. Such a glorious, kind, thoughtful idiot. “You are too good, Patrick.”
“That’s what my other two girlfriends … uh … never, ever say, come to think of it.”
I could not help smiling, both at the small, docile-yet-friendly dog at my feet, and the large man sprawled on the couch.
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