The Job

by Jove Belle

  Of course, many would argue that banking as an institution was devoid of morality period, but she disagreed. She liked the structure of it, the strict rules and clearly drawn lines. If someone misstepped, it wasn’t for lack of a road map. When people broke the rules in banking, they did so intentionally and foolishly.

  As she curved onto the off ramp, she commanded her phone to “Call Chris cell.” The phone rang once and went directly to voicemail. That concerned her. For someone like Chris, a woman who earned her living directly on commission, her phone was always on and within reach. She tried the work number, but it just rang. That concerned her even more. Beckford had three receptionists working their front desk at any given time. They prided themselves on immediate, personal response. In an industry ruled by automated phones and “push this number to speak with” systems, Beckford had a real, live human being answer the phone each and every time. That was part of catering to the top one percent. They demanded hand-holding and got it.

  Chris was the closest thing to an adult relationship that Tor had. Beyond college, she hadn’t spent much time pursuing romance.

  She and Chris had shared a brief affair that ended amicably. They looked great together, so it had made a lot of sense when they started showing up at industry gatherings together. Luckily, they’d realized early their relationship was based on shared interests rather than shared passions. They’d traded in the promise of hearts and valentines for a solid friendship that had spanned years.

  Tor put Chris’s cell phone number on automatic redial and nudged her front end over into the next lane. As expected, the other driver had ignored her signal, but she’d spent enough time in rush-hour traffic to create an opening where one didn’t exist. She made it across three lanes just in time for the exit. Chris still hadn’t answered. Tor interrupted the call in progress.

  “Call Minnie.” As soon as Minnie picked up the phone, Tor started speaking without waiting for the customary greeting. “I can’t reach Chris. That’s not good.”

  “I’ve had Beckford on repeat dial since you hung up last time. Nothing.”

  “I’m about ten blocks away now. I’ll see how close I can get.” Tor didn’t want to end the call. She wanted to keep Minnie on the line just to feel like she wasn’t alone with the sense of dread that crept higher and higher into her chest the closer she got to Sixteenth Street. The billow of smoke that had been a faint outline when she’d exited the freeway had grown until it covered the horizon. It rose before her, a dark mass shot through with red flames and filled with foreboding.

  She made it another two blocks before reaching a uniformed officer directing traffic at the intersection. He waved for her to turn up Twenty-fourth, away from Hancock. Tor rolled down her window and hoped like hell he’d take just a moment to tell her what was going on.

  “Officer, I’m trying to get to work. Can you tell me what’s happening?”

  He shook his head in that authoritative, sincere, yet emotionless expression all cops had perfected. “I don’t know the details, ma’am. Just that there’s a fire.”

  He’d already given her more information than she expected, so she figured why not push for just a little bit more. “Any idea which building?”

  “It’s more than one at this point. But I think it started with the Hancock Building.” He motioned for her to turn one more time. Several cars were backed up behind her and one honked. “I need to clear this intersection now, ma’am. Have a nice day.”

  Tor’s stomach dropped at the words “Hancock Building.” Beckford occupied the lower three levels of that building. Chris’s desk was on the third floor. “Thank you, Officer.” Tor accelerated through the corner and moved her hands by rote memory, one over the other, until she was headed safely down Twenty-fourth.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked Minnie, even though there was no possible way she hadn’t heard.

  “It doesn’t mean she was there.”

  “She’s not answering her phone.”

  “Maybe she left it at home.”

  Tor laughed because she had no other choice. The thought of Chris ever forgetting her phone was completely absurd, and Minnie knew it.

  “Don’t do that. You don’t know anything. There’s no reason to assume the worst.”

  Tor couldn’t see a reason not to, but Minnie was right. Panicking while trying to navigate through crowded, slow-moving streets was asking for an accident. She’d prefer to make it into work sometime today. That meant, for now, she had to put her breakdown on hold.

  “You’re right, of course.” Tor turned onto Hudson. All she had to do was cross the river and turn into her parking garage. “I’m almost to the bridge. See you in a few.” She ended the call the way she started it, without waiting for Minnie to say good-bye. The odds were too high she’d try to give Tor a pep talk. She might be stressed, but she really didn’t want to be force-fed artificial hope.

  Chapter Three

  Sera felt the blood drain from her face and her body chilled instantly. The moment every undercover agent hoped would never happen was here. With her blood rushing through her ears, she couldn’t think clearly enough to tell if Marcus was bluffing—lobbing a grenade and hoping she would out herself—or if he actually knew something.

  Agents often panicked and revealed themselves when someone started scratching the surface in search of information. Maybe Marcus knew the answer already, or maybe he didn’t. Really, though, it didn’t matter. Just thinking she was a rat was all Marcus needed to put her in the ground. The only thing stopping him at this point was her boss. He couldn’t off her without explaining it to John. He needed to be able to prove it, and the fact she was still breathing likely meant he couldn’t. Lithman took execution orders seriously.

  On the other hand, Marcus could be acting on John’s orders right now. He was the type to drag a torturous event out as long as possible just for fun. She needed to somehow calm herself enough to think, but she couldn’t stop her brain from racing from one crazy scenario to the next.

  The first year she was under, she was perpetually on high alert, always expecting this to happen. Frankly, she’d been amazed that John had accepted her in the first place. Organized crime tended to follow very specific gender roles. The men worked as gangsters, the women as girlfriends. Undercover assignments followed the same gender lines. Generally, agents didn’t last long. If they were lucky, they were extracted. Just as often, they were found facedown in the desert.

  When her boss suggested she try to gain access as one of John’s employees, she’d agreed, certain it would never go past a week, two tops. But John had liked her, called himself a progressive, and had given her a job. After a certain point, the urgent edge of always being afraid of discovery had softened. A little too much, she realized, because Marcus’s words caught her completely off guard.

  “What are you talking about?” She tried to keep her expression neutral, but Marcus watched her closely. The subtle shift in his smile told her she’d given away more than she wanted.

  “That’s okay. I didn’t expect you to just admit it. But I’ve been doing some research, Ms. Serafina Andrews, AKA Sera Williams, born October 25, 1981, to Marty and Jennifer Andrews. After high school, you attended Reid College, where you double-majored in sociology and psychology. You were on track to start law school at University of Washington in the fall, but changed course at the last minute and joined the FBI instead.” Marcus eased to a stop at a red light and stopped talking. He turned slightly in his seat to study Sera’s reaction.

  She couldn’t think beyond one constant refrain. How? It rang through her like the pounding of a drum. Her history had been wiped when her cover story was created. The details of the true Serafina Andrews existed only in an encrypted file the FBI promised was uncrackable. She’d been replaced by Sera Williams, the perfect, ambitious criminal. And yet, here she sat, next to a psychopath who’d clearly cracked it. He knew everything about her, it seemed. Forget that she was in imminent danger; this man knew
about her family.

  She glanced into the backseat at Craig. His eyes no longer averted, he studied her with open, intense curiosity. She met his gaze and held it. If only she’d had more time to explain things to him, to show him a road to a different life. Not all choices were bloody, and not everyone lived with the inevitable outcome of a violent death waiting for them. He deserved to know that, and she thought she’d had time. She’d been finessing him, working him gently toward the decisions that would bring his life out of the line of fire.

  How quickly the tables had turned. Now, instead of helping him, she was begging him to help her. If only he could hear the plea forming in her mind. She’d be foolish to trust him anyway. She knew it, yet she couldn’t help but hold out hope he would come through for her when she needed him. His eyes, however, gave away nothing. They were blank, like sleek obsidian, beautiful to look at but completely devoid of emotion.

  She took a deep breath and glared at Marcus. “What the fuck. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Ask John. I’m from Des Moines. My parents are both dead, killed in a family dispute.” She recited the details of her cover she’d shared with John, but never with Marcus. She’d lived this lie so long it felt strange saying it when the panic of her real identity surfacing was so fresh in her mouth.

  Marcus continued like she hadn’t spoken. “You know what surprised me the most? You’re a fucking dyke. I mean, I guess it makes sense. In the past two years, I’ve never so much as seen you look at a guy. I figured you were just being professional, keeping your private stuff private.” He laughed bitterly. “I guess you were, just not the way I thought.”

  “Marcus, that’s the only part you’ve gotten right so far. But what difference does it make who I sleep with? It has zero impact on the money I earn. John certainly doesn’t give a fuck. Why should you?”

  One thing she’d learned early on was to tell as few lies in her cover as possible. It was too easy to slip up and lose track of the details. For the most part, she used the truth about her life or simply kept her mouth shut. With so many lesbians around she’d figured it was just easier to share this detail when John had caught her watching a waitress a little too closely one night. She could have played it off like it was something else, but the woman had an amazing ass. She had no choice but to look at it as she walked away. Unfortunately, John hadn’t been similarly distracted.

  Sera tried to mention John as many times as possible, hoping to throw Marcus off the single track he seemed to be stuck on. She had to operate under the assumption that John wasn’t unaware of Marcus’s actions. Otherwise she’d never be able to control the alarm building inside her. If she could convince Marcus that John knew all about her history, she might be able to turn this situation to her favor. All she could do now was remain calm and watch for her opening.

  The news that John already knew about her sexual orientation didn’t seem to faze Marcus. “I guess that detail was easy for you to hold back though, especially since you haven’t been in an actual relationship for over a decade. The last one was in college, right? With a woman named Torrence Jewel.”

  At the mention of her ex-girlfriend, Sera knew two things for certain. One, Marcus hadn’t seen her FBI file because they didn’t know about Tor. Two, she’d kill Marcus dead before she ever let him hurt Tor. And she’d enjoy doing it.

  “I’ve never heard of her.”

  It was getting harder to keep her voice steady. She wanted to give in to the rage building in her gut and let loose on Marcus. Anger was so much tastier than fear, swallowing her doubt and uncertainty whole and honing it to a sharp, fiery edge. She might not be able to win in a straight gunfight against Marcus’s whole crew, but she might have enough time to pull her weapon and shoot before Marcus could get a shot off while he was driving. Maybe. Except she knew from her drills with the FBI that wasn’t the case. Marcus had his weapon pointed at her. No way could she clear her holster before he pulled the trigger.

  And if he didn’t, she had to assume Craig would. Or not. She had no real way of knowing and the uncertainty could get her killed. Regardless, dead drivers never made good drivers. If she managed to kill Marcus without taking a bullet herself, they would definitely crash. It took time to recover from a collision. The impact would activate the airbags, which were known to cause brief periods of unconsciousness. Plenty of time for the men trailing in the other SUV to reach her. That brought her right back to being drastically outgunned.

  Killing Marcus now would keep her mom safe, keep him from ever getting close to Tor, and it would stop him from doing whatever else he had planned today. She moved her hand slightly toward her gun, then stopped. She couldn’t. The odds were just too high that she wouldn’t survive, but they would. Her primary objective was to protect the public. She couldn’t do that if she was dead.

  “You look like you want to kill me.” Marcus watched her out of the corner of his eye.

  “That’s because I really, really do.” She shouldn’t have said the words and regretted them immediately. Her anger was clouding her ability to think even more than her fear.

  “Now that’s no fun. I guess I have to disarm you. Craig.”

  She felt Craig reach around the side of the seat and pull her gun from the holster. He dropped the magazine with a click, ejected the bullets one by one, then cleared the chamber before putting the magazine back into the gun. He returned it to her holster.

  “We don’t want you to be completely unarmed.”

  “What good is a gun without any bullets?”

  Marcus’s decision to return the gun to her, empty, confused her. What possible good could come of it?

  “We can’t have anyone thinking you’re an innocent bystander, can we? I also need the .22 in your ankle holster. Craig can’t reach that one.”

  So much for him being unaware of her spare weapon. She reached down slowly, telegraphing her motions. She unsnapped the holster and removed the gun with two fingers on the handle. Craig took it and kept it rather than emptying it and returning it to her.

  Marcus laughed. Not the same forced, angry laugh from before, but a full-on, belly-full-of-joy chuckle. “Now, I have a surprise for you. Open the glove box.”

  Sera did as he asked but moved with extra caution. It would be just like Marcus to drive her around, waiting until he got bored to tell her to do something that would activate a booby trap. She wouldn’t be surprised to discover the glove box had been wired with a small handgun primed to fire into her chest when opened.

  What she found was much worse.

  The glove box was stuffed full of photos of her and Tor. The one on top showed them walking across campus holding hands. Tor’s head was thrown back and she was laughing. Sera rifled through the stack of photos. They’d all been taken without her knowledge at the time, and every one clearly showed how very much she’d been in love with Tor.

  She’d seen these photos one other time in her life, then worked hard to forget all about them. She’d buried them, along with the hurt that came when Tor had ended their relationship. The last time, however, instead of stacked nicely in a small place, they’d been spread across their bed and Tor had been crying.

  *

  Fifteen Years Earlier

  Sera searched the amphitheater for two seats together that weren’t also at the front of the class. At eight in the morning, she didn’t need her professor learning her name because she couldn’t stay awake through the entire session. She’d made it through half the semester without drawing attention to herself. No need to blow it now.

  “God, I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” Remmy, her roommate, stumbled down the stairs in front of Sera, her sunglasses still in place. They’d gone out the night before and stayed out far too late. Remmy, unlike Sera, had made it her personal goal to drink every little strange-colored shot her boyfriend had set in front of her.

  Sera had been happy to listen to the music, dance, and make sure her roommate didn’t get gang-raped by the entire men’s
soccer team. It’d been an okay party but decidedly devoid of other lesbians. That dropped the fun factor for Sera by quite a bit. She wasn’t into the whole experimenting-freshman thing. If straight girls wanted stories to tell about their wild same-sex encounter, she’d just as soon they did it with each other instead of her.

  “I didn’t even know you when you signed up for this class.” Sera had pointed that out to Remmy more than once. They’d registered for classes during the summer between graduating from high school and starting college. She suspected that their similar class choices had influenced the university’s decision to place them together in the dorm. Remmy liked to forget all that and blame Sera when the sun came up before her hangover went away.

  “No, but you’re the one who let me get so drunk last night.”

  “That was me, huh?”

  “Who else am I going to blame?”

  “I have no idea.” Sera shook her head and laughed. Plenty of other people, most notably her boyfriend, were responsible for pouring the shots, and, of course, Remmy for drinking them.

  “There’s two over there.” Remmy pushed past several other students to get to the open seats. Sera followed, apologizing in her wake.

  “I saw some other seats up there.” Sera pulled out her notebook to take notes, along with her digital recorder. She liked to have her bases covered. If she couldn’t keep up with the professor, the recorder always could. She set it on the edge of her desk.

  “Yes, but none of them are close enough for you to see her.” Remmy pointed to a girl a few rows forward and to the left. She was cute, in an innocent, girl-next-door kind of way. She looked like the nice, straight, cardigan-wearing girlfriend of a chess player.