Gage pressed himself back into the narrow space between the refrigerator and the wall as they passed down the hall. Nikki was practically skipping in her excitement, closely followed by a small but athletic-looking woman carrying a massive bunch of flowers that strategically hid her face as well as the suppressed Beretta Model 71 in her left hand.
Game on, he thought as he waited for them to reach the living room before closing the gap in three determined strides.
Chapter Five
Nikki loved Saturday mornings almost as much as she loved her job. It was her time to truly be herself, without anyone around to tell her what to do or how to behave. She’d broken up with her latest boyfriend just a few weeks ago, and while she missed having someone to snuggle up with at night, she did not miss him all that much. They’d had some fun playing video games together, but more often than not he complained that she embarrassed him in public with her cat ears and silly antics. He always pressured her to wear sexy lingerie or nothing at all while she just wanted to chill in her PJs with her stuffies. Even worse he hated her pretty dresses, saying she looked like a creepy doll that belonged on some crazy cat lady’s shelf. Forget about pulling out her coloring books. Even the adult ones with the mandalas and koi fish made him roll his eyes. He never appreciated anything she liked, not the pretty shells she picked up on the beach or the silly movies she liked to see. He was gone now though, and that suited her just fine. She could wear her Frozen jammies and watch Spongebob, and if she sucked her thumb no one was there to rudely offer her something else to suck.
She was just about to pop her thumb into her mouth when the doorbell rang. Grocery deliveries came on Monday and she wasn’t expecting company. Uncle Misha had drilled into her head at an early age to always know who was outside before opening the door, so she paused with her hand on the knob and asked who it was. A woman replied that she had a delivery. Excited, Nikki flung the door open to see a massive flower arrangement complete with balloons. It was so large she could only see the delivery lady’s legs below it. Clapping her hands with delight, she led the delivery woman down the hall, eager to know who had sent them. Surely they didn’t come from her ex-boyfriend. Thongs and cup-less bras were his thing, but flowers only she could enjoy? Not a chance. She hoped they came from Yefim, as an apology for scaring her so badly the night before.
The woman set the flowers down and backed away as Nikki reached for the card tucked next to some daisies. Her fingers had barely brushed the edge of the card when the room exploded into chaos. The delivery woman raised her hand and Nikki had just enough time to see she held a gun in it before a man lunged out of the hallway straight at her. Without hesitation the woman whipped around to aim the gun at him but he was much too fast. Grabbing her hand right as she pulled the trigger, he spun her around, sending the bullet into the ceiling as he twisted her arm behind her back. With his other hand he grabbed her by the back of the neck and slammed her head down against the dining room table.
Her reaction was equally quick and she twisted out from under him, delivering a vicious kick to his shin while dropping the gun from her captured hand to deftly catch it in her free one. He anticipated the move and snatched it from her before she could get a good grip. As the deadly battle played out before her, Nikki was paralyzed, unable to move a single muscle or even scream for help. Surely this wasn’t really happening. It’s a dream, her mind shrieked. Just a terrible dream! Wake up wake up wake up!
The woman spun smoothly away from the man, coming back around to plant a hard kick into his chest. Again he was one step ahead of her, twisting his upper body to the side to avoid the kick then stepping into her as she came around. Before she could move clear he slammed his fist into her throat, sending her backwards into the wall choking and gasping. “It’s my contract!” she croaked, clutching her throat with one hand as she flipped a knife out of her jacket with the other. Before she could throw it at him he shot her in the head with her own gun. For an endless moment she remained rigid against the wall, then slowly slid down to the floor and slumped over, leaving a narrow trail of blood on the wall behind her. “Consider it canceled,” he said flatly.
Horrified, Nikki stared at the dead woman crumpled on her dining room floor and began to scream.
* * *
It was a solid five minutes before she stopped fighting him. He’d clapped his hand over her mouth the instant she began to scream, but it had taken considerable effort to keep her from getting away from him. For such a tiny girl she was surprisingly strong, and he suspected his shins would be black and blue by evening from her furious kicking. Not knowing what to say that might calm her, he simply wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, one hand over her mouth with her back pressed to his chest. She flailed about until she was too exhausted to continue, but even then he could feel her trying to bite his hand that covered her mouth. Finally he lifted her off the floor enough that he could carry her into the bathroom and face the mirror, allowing them to see each other’s faces without him having to let go.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said gently, and was saddened to see the terror in her eyes. Not that he blamed her, but this really wasn’t how he’d fantasized about them first meeting. “I came here to keep you safe, but I can’t do that if you start screaming again. If I take my hand off your mouth, will you be quiet?” The fear in her eyes didn’t abate but he felt some of the tension start to slip away from her small body. Perhaps realizing she couldn’t fight him off, she stopped trying to bite him and gave a frightened nod.
Cautiously he moved his hand away, alert to any change in her expression that might indicate she was going to scream again. When he was confident she wasn’t going to, he released her shoulder and backed away, positioning himself in the bathroom doorway just in case she decided to make a run for it.
“You’re Shadow Man. From the bar,” she whispered.
“Are you ok?” he asked her.
“You killed her,” she replied as tears began to flow. “Why are you in my house?”
“She was going to kill you.”
“How do you know that?” she cried, backing away from him until her calves bumped up against the tub. “She was just delivering flowers and you killed her!”
“She had a gun.” This wasn’t going well. Gage only hoped she didn’t start screaming again.
“Because you were attacking her!”
“Kitten.” He caught himself and paused. “Nikki. She was here to kill you. I came here to stop her.” He watched her face as she tried to process what he’d said. “I can explain it all to you but we don’t have time. We need to go.”
“To... to go? Go where?” she stammered. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”
“You will if you want to live,” he replied sharply, then regretted his tone as he watched her shrink against the wall. The last thing he wanted was to frighten her even more than she already was. Being trapped in the bathroom with nowhere to run wasn’t helping, so he turned and walked back to the living room to examine the dead assassin in her living room, silently praying to whatever gods might be out there that Nikki wouldn’t bolt out the front door screaming for help. To his great relief, curiosity got the better of her and she followed him to where the body lay.
The phony delivery woman had a light jacket on, more suitable for a morning run on a chilly day than delivering flowers in the sweltering Miami heat. In one pocket he recovered two extra magazines for the pistol. In the other he found half a dozen syringes, all but one obviously used, as well as a small vial and a Ziploc baggie containing what looked like opaque pieces of broken glass.
“Did you call me Kitten?”
He nodded without turning around.
“My daddy used to call me that. So does my best friend,” she said softly. “What’s that stuff?”
He stood back up and set the clean syringe and vial on the table. “That’s Xylazine. It’s a horse tranquilizer. And that,” he paused as he tossed the dirty syringes and Ziploc dow
n beside them,” is crystal meth.”
“I don’t understand.”
He waited until her eyes met his before gently explaining. “My guess is she planned to knock you out with the Xylazine, then shoot you full of meth so you’d die of an overdose. The used syringes would be tossed around as staging to convince the cops you were a junkie who finally took one ride too many. Case closed.” Tears sprang fresh and she began to cry. She looked pitiful and he longed to wrap his arms around her and promise everything would be ok, but he knew she would probably scream if he tried. Gage wished he could have kept the ugly business from her but she had to know the truth if he had any hope of her cooperating with him. As a last resort he could use the Xylazine to sedate her long enough to get her somewhere safe but he really didn’t want to go there.
“It’s my contract,” she whispered. He said nothing, waiting for her to continue. “That’s what she said, right before, you know.” She waved her hand at the bloodstained wall above the body. “It’s my contract.” Chewing her lip as she twisted the loose fabric of her onesie, she kept her eyes fixed on the flowers to avoid seeing the dead woman. “You’re like her, aren’t you,” she said, her voice barely audible now. “Is that why you’re here? To kill me? You wanted the... the contract?”
“No, Kitten,” he said. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt distaste for his career choice, but it was the first time he found himself feeling ashamed of it. “I came here to stop it.”
“Why?”
He didn’t have an answer for that, at least not one he was ready to admit to. “We need to go. I can keep you safe, but not here.” He watched as her eyes kept drifting back to the woman against the wall, and was only mildly surprised to see her thumb slip into her mouth. She’d had a rough morning. Some people drank to take the edge off. Apparently thumb sucking worked for Kitten. “Go gather up some things to bring with you. I’ll take care of the mess.”
As soon as she was out of the room Gage searched the dead woman until he found her cell phone, then dialed a number from memory. It picked up on the first ring.
“Angelo’s Pizza, best in Miami.”
“I need to order a medium pizza.”
“What toppings?”
Gage surveyed the room, then asked for everything on it.
“Will this be dine in or carry out?”
Good question. He asked them to wait a moment, then walked down to Nikki’s room where he found her staring at a backpack on her bed. “Do you have a car?” If she did it would need to be moved to a secure location until things were sorted out.
She stared at him in confusion. “Um, I... um.” It took her a few seconds to process the question. “Oh, no, I um, I just use Uber or the bus to get around.”
“Dine in,” he answered as he returned to the crime scene in the living room. The voice on the other end got the address and assured him it would arrive in twenty minutes before hanging up.
Gage went back to check on Nikki. She had picked up a backpack but hadn’t put anything in it. He longed to hold her, stroke her hair, and tell her everything would be alright, but she would probably fly straight up to the ceiling in an instant if he tried that. Tentatively he reached out to touch her arm, but she immediately moved just out of reach. Her reaction stung but he understood. Just because he’d been watching her long enough to have created some sort of relationship in his mind didn’t mean she had been doing the same. He was just, what did she call him? Shadow Man. Another nameless man in a room full of nameless men at her job.
Seeing she wasn’t getting anything packed, he carefully took the backpack from her hands and went to see what he could find in her closet. The mess in her room made the rest of the house look tidy by comparison, and it seemed the majority of her clothes were on the floor. Those that had made it into one of the open dresser drawers appeared to have been tossed there, partially hanging over the edge or else wadded up in the back. Whether they were dirty or clean he couldn’t tell but it seemed a safe bet anything on a hanger was good to go.
Her closet was the only place where any sense of order could be found, with one frilly or lacy or otherwise fancy dress after another carefully hung. The shoe racks were full, everything from black Mary Janes to pink platform ankle boots. Above the clothes rack ran a shelf that held nearly a dozen Styrofoam heads, each with a different wig on it. From bubble-gum pink bobs to waist-length white tresses, it seemed she had a different wig for every outfit.
It was like looking in a doll’s closet, or perhaps one belonging to a very cherished little girl, and he wondered where on earth she had collected it all. It was clear they were her favorite clothes but just one would have taken up all the space in her backpack. Besides, he had no idea how to pair it with the right shoes or tights or whatever else she wore with it. Instead he rummaged around until he found a couple of t-shirts and a pair of yoga pants buried beneath myriad brightly colored tights and knee socks. From their location at the bottom of a drawer he could tell they weren’t her favorites, but at least she wouldn’t attract much attention in them if he had to take her out in public.
When he came to her underwear drawer she amused him by pushing him aside and picking out what she wanted. Even with all that had happened, she was still embarrassed to let a stranger go through her panties. Still avoiding his eyes, she quietly tucked her selection into the backpack and then returned to sit on the edge of the bed again. He watched as her body sank into itself, too exhausted to hold itself any longer. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said in a tiny voice, her big blue eyes swimming with tears as she looked up at him. “Why would anyone want to kill me?”
It was a question he’d been asking himself ever since he saw the email. If her condo was any indication, she was nothing more than a bartender with unique fashion sense and horrible housekeeping habits, but he knew better than to go with first impressions. Plush toys and silly pajamas aside, her personnel file indicated there could be a lot more to her than met the eye. He just needed time to piece it all together, but research would have to wait. Right now he had to deal with the mess at hand and then get them out of there. He’d stopped one contractor, but it was just a matter of time before another took her place.
Talking about that would only distress her more, so he redirected the conversation. “I’m Gage,” he said as he picked a stuffed bunny off the bed and carefully tucked it into the backpack. “I’ve seen you at the Jacket before.” She said nothing, just stared at the floor while tears streamed down her face. Her train wreck of a bedroom meant finding anything important was impossible, so he set the backpack down and focused on finding something for her to change into. Whatever he didn’t grab now he could always buy later. The main thing was getting her away safely.
Getting her dressed was the priority now. He couldn’t take her to his place in a fleece onesie and she needed to be wearing something she could run in if the need arose. When she didn’t respond to his request for her to get changed, he carefully helped her out of her pajamas, all the while softly reassuring her that everything would be ok. One leg at a time, he eased her into a pair of faded blue jeans he found on the floor in the corner. A purple tank top with a giant pink heart on the front was next. She wouldn’t put her arms up for him so he pulled it over her head and worked one arm at a time through the sleeve openings. All that was left was her hair, her beautiful black hair that was currently a tangled mess in need of a good brushing. Gage took his time working the tangles out with his fingers before parting it into two ponytails and securing them with a pair of sparkly scrunchies.
Stepping back to survey his work, Gage thought he’d done pretty well. He didn’t know much about dressing up women but he’d achieved the look he was after. If anyone saw them, they would assume he was with his daughter. Dressed like this with her hair up she looked to be early teens, and she certainly didn’t resemble the girl in the photograph on the contract. He was about to ask if she wanted to pack anything else when the doorbell chimed again. Nikki sprang
up from the edge of the bed and tucked herself under his arm, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. “Is it someone bad again?” she whispered fearfully.
“It’s ok, they’re here for me,” he assured her as she trembled nervously against him. “Just stay here and let me handle things.” Reluctantly he let go of her shaking hand and went to answer the door. A thin, sharp eyed man wearing a ball cap advertising Angelo’s Pizza was waiting for him, pizza box in his hands. Gage knew him as Angelo Scarpetti, and he’d been cleaning up crime scenes since before Gage was born. He thought the old man would have retired by now but apparently he enjoyed his work too much to give it up.
“You order a medium with everything?”
Gage nodded, stepping aside to allow Angelo in. Nikki was standing at the end of the hall watching, despite being told to stay in her room. He wanted to scold her, but now wasn’t the time. “You ordered a pizza?” she gasped as Angelo set the box on the table next the overturned flowers. Gage didn’t reply. She would figure it out soon enough.
Angelo surveyed the room, nodding and muttering to himself as he walked around the mess. “Whole place or just this area?” he asked Gage without taking his eyes off the dead woman. “Whole place,” Gage said. “Top to bottom.” No doubt he’d left some evidence of his presence behind in one of the rooms, but even if he hadn’t Angelo would get the train wreck of a condo cleaned up, and he didn’t mind paying to make that happen.
There was one more thing that needed to be dealt with, and Gage hoped Nikki wouldn’t raise a stink. “I need your cell phone,” he told her, holding out his hand expectantly.
“Why?” she asked defiantly.
Part of him was glad to hear her backbone in her tone. The numb vacancy of earlier had been painful to see. Now wasn’t the time for arguing though. “Because people can trace you through that phone,” he answered firmly.
“But I won’t use it!” she protested as she edged toward the kitchen.
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