by T. E. Woods
Mort felt a pull deep in his chest when Hayden’s blue eyes, so much like her grandmother’s, sparkled at his promise. He used to be able to bring that same light to his wife’s eyes whenever he whispered that everything would be all right. Oh, Edie. Can you see these girls from where you are? He pushed aside the useless wish. “Let’s listen to your sister,” he whispered.
“I been listening to it every day forever. She misses the same stupid note every time.”
Mort watched Hadley walk across the stage, shoulders back and smile bright. Her pink ruffled dress looked none the worse for wear. Those butterflies Hayden reported earlier must have settled down. She was dwarfed by the grand piano, but hopped onto the shiny black bench with the confidence of Van Cliburn. In that instant Mort was transported back twenty-five years and it was Allie, his own headstrong daughter, taking her place to begin the performance. Mort shook the image clear and turned to the man sitting on his left. His son was grinning that proud daddy smile and recording every moment on his cell.
I hope things turn out better for your little superstar, Robbie. Watch her. Watch her sister, too. Hold them closer than you think you need to.
Mort cleared his throat and focused on Hadley’s enthusiastic rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Her timing was troubled, but she pounded out the notes as if she had hammers for fingers. Her chin was high and her spine was ramrod straight. Mort saw the entire audience mimic the wide grin he wore himself.
She’s got them in her spell. A natural-born entertainer. Just like Allie.
The smile dropped from Mort’s face. He turned back to Robbie. Could he see it? Was he worried one of his twins was an adorable apple wrapped in pink ruffles who had fallen not far from her Aunt Allie’s tree? Mort felt the pull on his jacket and turned to the cherub on his right.
“Here it comes. She’s gonna miss the note right…about…here!”
Sure enough, Hayden had predicted her twin’s misstep. Mort watched Hadley illuminated in the golden glow of the stage lights. A subtle blink of Hadley’s eyes signaled she knew she’d messed up. A heartbeat later she widened her smile, tossed back her halo of curls, and banged the keyboard even harder. The audience burst into supportive applause as the muscles in Mort’s neck tightened.
Chapter 6
Lydia usually liked this time of year. With the official start of summer not far off, she could enjoy gentle pine-and-salt breezes in the lengthening evenings and shake off a long day by focusing on the world’s rebirth after the cold rains of winter. But this evening she found no peace in her glass of wine. She tried focusing on the sounds of birds and the scent of lilacs. She watched the sun as it lowered itself behind the mountains.
Nothing worked. The hamster wheel of agony kept spinning in her mind.
It’s not fair. Her thoughts returned to the pain that hung as close as skin these past months.
Her mind drifted back two years, accompanied by the ghostly memory of Savannah Samuels’s beautiful face. Poor Savannah. Gifted in ways few are, yet possessed by the same demons Lydia battled daily. They were alike in many ways. Both had been abandoned to a foster system ill equipped to handle the needs of terrified children. Both had carried the scars of sexual abuse and neglect. Each had used her intelligence to make a way in the world. Each had inflicted pain on others.
Pain begets pain.
She let her mind click through her list of kills, scrolling through a mental inventory of names, faces, and crimes. They’d called her The Fixer. The last hope for victims. For six years she’d made herself available to a select group of innocents seeking the solace of retribution for the devastation caused by monsters who had escaped a more conventional form of justice. Her standards were high. Her methods were flawless. She’d grown wealthy from the work and had enjoyed balancing the scales of righteousness for others in ways no one ever did for her. She was good at it. Scores of kills all around the world. Never a police investigation. Never an inkling that the loathsome souls had met with anything other than cosmic karma. The Fixer had been as invisible as she was lethal.
Until Mort Grant came along.
He’d found her. She’d made the mistake of getting too involved in Savannah’s case and he’d found her. They became unlikely allies, then unlikelier friends. Lydia dared to trust him and he’d proven worthy. He protected her by building and maintaining the lie that The Fixer had vanished. He trusted the woman she could be, not the assassin she was.
And I earned that trust, Mort. I protected you, too. I saved you. I kept our secrets. You forgave me for all the wrong I did…and then abandoned me for something I had no hand in.
Mort had needed her. When his daughter suddenly reappeared, on the run from international drug lords, Mort brought her to Lydia. “You’re the only one who can keep her safe,” she remembered him saying. And despite Allie’s imperious disrespect for both of them, Lydia did as Mort requested.
She shifted her gaze to the cliff edging her backyard. Her eyes found the spot where she’d tossed the bodies of two killers into the pounding surf a hundred and fifty feet below. They’d come looking for Mort’s girl. She’d killed them without a second thought, unfazed by how near The Fixer lurked within her still.
You don’t know how far I went to save your Allie.
But Allie didn’t want to be saved. Lydia had armed herself that dark midnight, ready to fight Vadim Tokarev’s men to the death if that’s what it took to keep her promise. When the Russian’s helicopter landed in Lydia’s yard, Allie made her choice, walked away from her family, and headed straight to the arms of Tokarev.
She left willingly. More than anyone, I know money and power can’t replace the love Allie was forsaking as she climbed on that chopper. But she did it. I saw her.
Lydia’s gut tightened as she recalled her last encounter with Mort. She’d gone to his houseboat, but he wouldn’t let her in. He knew the power The Fixer could wield and he damned her for not using it to save Allie.
“We’re done” were the last words she heard from him.
The sun disappeared behind the Olympic Mountains. Lydia looked up into an empty sky. She sat still. Perhaps there is justice, after all. She’d spent six years single-handedly dispensing vigilante righteousness. Without protocol or due process and immune to her victims’ pleas for mercy, she’d exacted the ultimate price for their crimes. Perhaps this emptiness she was feeling was the universe’s way of balancing the scales.
She kicked off her shoes, unbuttoned her blouse, closed her eyes, and let the evening air chill her.
Chapter 7
She knew this was going to be bad. She’d stalled him off long enough with promises and bargains. But his voice on the phone told her those days were over. She glanced at her watch. He wanted her in his office at two o’clock sharp. Maybe he’d go a little easier on her if he realized she was five minutes early. Didn’t that show she had…what was that word he always used…good faith?
She heard footsteps approaching. She flinched when the door opened and she saw that look on his face. Yep. This is going to be bad. He didn’t even say hello. He marched right past and took a seat behind that big desk. The thick file he threw on his desk was hers. He flipped it open and started right in.
“Francie Michael.” He finally looked up at her. “That is your name, am I correct?”
He knew damned well who she was. But she was in no position to get sassy.
He held up a sheet of paper. “And is this your signature asking to borrow five hundred fifty dollars?”
She nodded again.
He held up another sheet of paper. This one blue. “And is this your signature agreeing to pay back the money in two weeks’ time at an agreed-upon rate?”
She looked down at her lap.
“That was over a year ago, Francie.” He pulled blue sheet after blue sheet out of her file. “So far all I got to show for my money is a stack of Francie Michael autographs. You got your money when you asked, didn’t you?”
She s
at in silence. He was in no mood for conversation.
“You know, this is a pretty straightforward transaction. Borrow money, pay it back, and kick in the interest.” He tapped the top blue sheet with an angry finger. “What is it you fail to understand?”
“I’m good for it. I’m trying to get more hours, but shifts are hard to come by.” She hoped she sounded sincere. “Can I pay a little at a time, maybe?”
He pounded a fist on his desk, startling her back against her chair. “Did you get your money a little at a time? You wanted five fifty, you got five fifty. All we have here is a pile of signatures with you rolling over your tab every two weeks for the past fourteen months. Do you have any idea how much you owe right now?”
Francie’s mouth was dry. She ran her tongue over her teeth to get the words out. “Close to thirteen hundred dollars, I think.”
“You think?” He was yelling now. He pulled a calculator toward him and started punching numbers. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you there’s no more powerful force in the universe than compounded interest?”
My mama never had three nickels left after feeding us kids, Francie thought. No sir, there was never any lectures about financial security in our trailer.
He turned the calculator her way after he hit the total button. “Can you read that?”
She’d needed the money. Her piece-of-shit car blew out an alternator and her piece-of-shit boyfriend had taken what little savings she’d been hoarding in the cookie jar to treat his piece-of-shit brother to a heavy metal concert down in Portland. She’d been so sure that if she just got a little help she would be all right. But her paychecks went fast and the time went faster. She kept signing papers promising to pay, each time with a little extra fee added on top of the ever-growing interest. Her breath stopped when she saw the number on the calculator.
“Read it out to me, Francie.”
She was amazed her voice worked. “Four thousand three hundred sixteen dollars and eighty-nine cents.”
He nodded solemnly. “And are you prepared to pay in full today?”
Francie shook her head. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Francie. We’re fresh out of little blue sheets of paper for you to sign. And that clock keeps ticking…making your bill bigger with each passing minute.”
Francie struggled to keep the fear away. Her mother had taught her she might not have much, but she always had her pride. This world will try to rip you up, Francie girl. You gotta be tougher than them sons a bitches. Never let ’em see you break. But this was too much for her. In an instant she felt her shoulders heaving, heard her own voice wailing, and felt a rush of tears flood down her face. She was in deep trouble.
She cried until the pain of a headache overcame her fear of the situation. Her sobs began to subside. She wiped her hands over her face, rubbed her nose against the sleeve of her blouse, and turned to the man sitting silently behind his desk, reorganizing her file.
“Are you going to send me to jail?”
He shook his head. “It’s not that easy. Back in olden times you could go to jail and work off your debt. But those days went the way of the horse and buggy. As I see it, you got three choices. One, you could bring me four thousand three hundred sixteen dollars and eighty-nine cents in cash today. And I mean today. You wait till tomorrow and you’ll owe a few dollars more. You got that kind of cash?”
Francie shook her head. She’d have to work three months to get that much. And then only if she didn’t pay for rent or food or gas for that piece-of-shit car.
“Option two. You could borrow the money from one of your friends or family members. You got anybody like that?”
She thought of her mother, sitting alone in her trailer, wearing the same seersucker housecoat she’d worn every day for the past twelve years, watching her soaps and shooing her cat away from her bowl of Doritos. Francie shook her head again.
“That leaves us with option number three.” He sounded tired. “You gotta give me something that’s worth forty-three hundred dollars. You do that and we’ll call it even.”
She looked at him through tear-swollen eyes. “I don’t have anything like that. I got my clothes, but they’re pretty much trashed. My car’s a junker. I don’t think I’d get five hundred dollars for it. My futon was secondhand when I got it.” She shook her head slowly. “I think if you added up everything I own, it wouldn’t come to a thousand dollars.”
He was quiet for a long time. Francie kept her head down and prayed he’d let her sign one of those blue sheets again. Just let me get out of here. I want to go home. I’ll agree to more fees. Just let me go home.
“Well, you’re in a real pickle, then, aren’t you?” He paused for a moment. “Maybe there’s something I can do.”
She lifted her head in time to see him shrug his shoulders and sigh.
“You’re what, almost twenty years old?” he asked.
“Come August I’ll be. August twelfth to be exact.” If he needed her to be twenty to find a way out of this, she wanted him to know it wasn’t that far away.
He looked her up and down. “You’re pretty enough, I guess. Maybe could lose ten pounds or so, but you might clean up nice.”
Francie’s breath stopped in her chest. He was an old man. Probably close to forty, she bet. If he’s wanting me to be his girlfriend, I’d rather go jump off some bridge. How’s he going to get his money if I do that?
“What exactly are you talking about here?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Relax, Francie. I want you to start thinking about what you have that could be worth some real money.” He leaned forward across his desk. “And I want you to start calling me Boss Man.”
—
Two hours later Boss Man pulled a cellphone from his safe. A bunch of cloak-and-dagger spy shit if you asked him. Use this phone to contact her. Never use this phone for anything else. This woman had more rules than a PGA manual. Add that to doing business with some voice over a speaker phone hanging from some giant caveman’s neck and it was enough to make him long for the good old days. When running whores was a simple case of keeping ’em hooked and afraid and paying the cops to look the other way. Now it was all high tech. Now it was all treat-the-women-with-respect.
That’s what happens when you let a snatch think she’s in charge.
But he still hurt from that beating Staz gave him last time. He punched the one number on the spy phone’s contact list. She answered on the third ring. It was always the third ring.
“What is it?” She was pure business. No “How ya doin’?” Never a “What’s new?”
“I’ve expanded the staff.” That’s the way she liked to hear it. He’d be happy to play her game until it was time not to.
“Just a moment.” He heard the sound of clicking computer keys. “I’ll need her name, age, and what she plans for her life.”
This was the part that drove him nuts. What the hell did she think the kid wanted? Stop making payments, that’s what she wanted. But again, the game wasn’t tilting his way at the present.
“Her name’s Francie Michael. Nineteen years old.” He tried to sound enthusiastic, like he’d just hired the head of the class from Dumbfuck U. “She hopes to be a nurse someday.” He rolled his eyes as he made up a scenario about her debt keeping her from following her dream. He even threw in a puppy named Chocolate. Shit if he knew about Francie’s dreams. She was a piece of trash who owed him big. That was the only particular he needed. “I think she’ll be a great addition.” He doodled a continuous loop of “screw you, screw you” on a pad as he spoke. “She’s ready to go out tonight.”
“We have a placement for her?”
He rolled his eyes and pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it in disbelief. A john was a john. In what universe did this piece of tuna think a fifteen-minute blow job in the back of a beat-up Pontiac was a placement?
“As luck would have it, we do.” He’d play along as long as he needed to and not on
e moment longer. “Business is booming.”
“Very well.” The woman’s voice softened a bit. “Good work. Be sure to spend some time with her when she gets back. This is her first time. She may have some feelings she’ll need to process. Help her see this is a stepping-stone toward her dream. And make sure you take twenty percent of her fee and deposit it into her account. When she leaves us, I want her to have start-up cash.”
He’d take that 20 percent, all right. He’d put it right into his safe. Things were mighty dusty in there since Staz’s last visit.
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” he promised. “I’ll take good care of her.”
Chapter 8
“The dress came from Nordstrom’s.” Micki Petty leaned against the wall of Mort’s office while Bruiser anchored her feet. “Sixth floor. Expensive. Shoes are Jimmy Choos.”
Jim DeVilla yanked his mug away from his lips and struggled to swallow. “Damn it, Micki. Give a guy a warning. I nearly choked on my coffee. ‘Jimmy Choos shoes.’ That’s a good one.” He broke a glazed doughnut in half and tossed a piece toward Bruiser, who caught it in midair.
“He’s a designer,” Micki explained. “You could spend a couple thousand dollars on a pair of his shoes.”
Jim finished his half of the doughnut and wiped his hands on a paper napkin. “No, I couldn’t.” He nodded to the big dog at Micki’s feet. “What d’ya say, buddy? Wanna go into business? Bruiser Chews Shoes.”
Mort knew Jimmy well enough to know his friend’s jokes were his way of underlining a point.
“The Shoe Stop must be paying more than I thought,” Jimmy said. “Crystal’s shopping on Nordstom’s sixth and dropping a grand on high heels.”
“She wouldn’t be the first woman who spent more than she should dressing up,” Mort suggested.
Jimmy shook his head. “Her daughter said Mommy was going to work. Could be that outfit was more of a uniform.”