by M. A. Lawson
Nathan Sterling had killed Ara Khan and he had to pay for what he’d done. End of discussion.
She had a steak for dinner, sautéed mushrooms, and a baked potato slathered with butter and sour cream. Because of the baked potato, she exerted a little willpower and passed on the apple pie à la mode for dessert. As she was leaving the restaurant, she passed through the bar and by two guys who’d been giving her the eye the whole time she’d been eating. One of them called out, “Hey! Don’t leave yet. Come on over and have a drink with us.” The guy who spoke was actually kind of a stud—tall, well-built, wavy dark hair, and a smile brighter than the grille on Archie’s vintage Cadillac—but she wasn’t in the mood. “Sorry, guys. I can’t tonight.”
She wondered what Eli Dolan was doing tonight. She wondered who Eli Dolan was with tonight.
—
BACK AT THE MOTEL, she called the landline in the condo but Jessica didn’t answer. Ever since Afghanistan, she’d tried to be more diligent about checking in on her daughter and letting her know that everything was all right. But where the hell was she? The little nerd was usually hunched over her textbooks at this time of night. She called Jessica’s cell phone and her daughter answered, speaking softly, “Hey, Kay. What’s up?”
“Where are you?” Kay asked. Why was Jessica whispering?
“At the Library of Congress, if you can believe it. You know, with the Internet, I can’t remember the last time I was in a library, but I had to come here to find what I was looking for.”
Kay didn’t care why she was at the library. “How did you get there?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“I took the Metro, of course.”
Ah, jeez. The closest Metro stop to the Library of Congress was the Capitol South Metro station, which meant that after her daughter left the library she’d be walking around Capitol Hill in the dark. Kay now wished that she’d told Jessica about the attempted rape so she’d be more cautious.
“Did you go by yourself?” Kay asked.
“No. Brian came with me,” Jessica said.
“That’s good,” Kay said, genuinely relieved, but she was also thinking that Jessica’s gangly boyfriend was not her idea of a bodyguard. “But I want you and Brian to take a cab home, Jessica. Okay?”
“Oh, we’ll be fine.”
“Jessica, take a cab. Please.”
“Yeah, yeah, all right.”
“And when you get home, send Brian home. I mean it, Jessica.” Kay had this unwanted image of Brian and her daughter grappling on the couch in the apartment; Brian may not have been bodyguard material, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have hormones. Kay also knew she was being somewhat unfair when it came to Brian: She assumed he was the aggressor and not her daughter, which she knew wasn’t necessarily the case.
To change the subject, Jessica said, “When are you going to be home?”
“I’m hoping tomorrow night, but it’ll probably be sometime after midnight.”
“Well, you be careful,” her daughter said. Jessica didn’t know what she was doing in West Virginia, but after Kay had come home twice with injuries, Jessica probably figured that “be careful” was sound advice.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kay said.
After she hung up, Kay lay on the motel bed thinking: What if things went south tomorrow? What would happen to Jessica if she were killed? She knew her daughter would be devastated for a while and frightened, but she’d recover, and as smart and self-sufficient as Jessica was, she’d be all right. Kay had an up-to-date will, but the other thing she’d done after she saw how scared Jessica had been after the supposed car accident was talk to Barb Reynolds. She got Barb to agree that if anything happened to her, Barb would become Jessica’s guardian. So Jessica would be okay if Kay was killed working for Callahan. Kay had a sizable life insurance policy, so money wouldn’t be an issue, and with Barb’s guidance, Jessica would deal with whatever problems came her way. The saddest thing would be that Kay wouldn’t be around to see her grow up, become a doctor and someone who could make a difference in this world—unlike her mother.
Well, that’s enough of that depressing shit.
Kay turned on the television. On HBO was an episode of Boardwalk Empire, a show where Steve Buscemi was a deadly, charismatic Prohibition-era gangster. She had seen the show before and she loved it, and she figured watching actors slaughter each other on TV with Thompson machine guns had to be better than brooding about leaving her daughter motherless.
—
THE NEXT MORNING, Kay again followed Nathan Sterling from his house to his company’s headquarters. All she could do now was hope that Sterling would stick to his routine, which meant he should be returning to his house about seven-thirty p.m. If he did something that kept him from returning home at the time he normally did, that would be all right. What would not be all right was if he brought someone home with him. Kay was not going to kill an innocent person, and she’d have to find a way to deal with anyone who might happen to be with Sterling. In the four days she’d been following him, each night he had returned home and stayed there. The man must have some sort of social life, but so far she’d seen no evidence of one. Whatever the case, all she could do at this point was hope that he stuck to his routine and came home alone.
Kay sat parked outside Sterling’s headquarters for three hours to see if Sterling would leave, and when he didn’t, she drove back to her motel. It was raining so hard now that she had to set the wipers on their maximum speed. She had a late breakfast at the same place she’d dined the night before and read the local paper and the New York Times. After breakfast, she returned to her hotel room and packed. Since all the clothes she’d brought with her could fit into a knapsack, it took her three minutes. She then spent half an hour cleaning her Glock, not because the Glock needed cleaning but to give herself something to do. While she was cleaning the weapon, she mentally rehearsed what she was going to do at Sterling’s place.
At noon, she opened the door to leave her motel. It was still raining, and suddenly something occurred to her, something she should have thought of earlier. She went into the motel bathroom and stole two towels.
Getting to Sterling’s place was a bit of a problem. She couldn’t drive there and leave the van parked in front of his house; it wouldn’t do for Sterling to come home and see a strange vehicle parked anywhere near his place. She drove the van to a small public park that was about four miles from Sterling’s house and dropped the keys on the floor, beneath the driver’s seat. She was pretty sure the van would be okay, and the way it was raining, it was unlikely anyone would be picnicking in the park today.
She got out of the van, shrugged into her knapsack, and began walking toward Sterling’s. While she was walking, she called a number Callahan had given her and told the man who answered—she had no idea who he was—where the van was parked. He would pick it up that night and return it to the rental place the following morning.
Kay was wearing her baseball cap and a jacket that was supposed to be waterproof, but she knew she’d be soaked by the time she arrived at Sterling’s place. An hour and twenty minutes later, she pushed the button on the super-duper remote that her dour friend Archie had programmed and Sterling’s gate swung open. She checked as she was walking up the driveway to make sure the gate closed automatically as it was supposed to. It wouldn’t do for Sterling to come home and see his gate open.
As she walked up the driveway, she glanced over at Sterling’s neighbors’ houses and could barely see them because it was raining so hard—which was why she’d waited for rain. She figured if Sterling’s neighbors happened to look out their windows, it would be hard for them to see her walking up Sterling’s driveway from half a mile away, and even harder with the rain pouring down.
She used the remote again and the garage door opened. She entered the garage, found the garage door button by the door allowing entry t
o the house, and closed the garage door. She then walked over and dropped her knapsack down in front of the BMW Z3, still parked with its top down and the golf bag in the backseat. She took off her running shoes, pulled the towels she’d stolen from the motel out of her knapsack, and used the towels to wipe away the wet footprints leading from the garage door to her hiding place.
She now had four or five hours to wait before Sterling came home—she had wanted to be at his place early in case he came home early—so she had plenty of time to dry out.
She knew from watching Sterling that when he came home, he would drive his Escalade up to the garage, open the garage door with his remote, and park the Escalade in the middle bay. He would then walk to the door leading from the garage into his house, push the button to close the garage door, enter the house, and disarm the security system. She would stay on the floor in front of the BMW convertible, and he wouldn’t see her unless for some reason he decided to walk to the front of the BMW, which seemed unlikely. And if he did, that would be okay because she’d be ready for him. She preferred, however, to wait until he was inside the house and had disarmed the security system; then she would enter the house and get the drop on him. She wouldn’t kill him immediately unless he forced her to by reaching for a weapon. She wanted to ask him a few questions first.
She put her shoes back on and took off her rain-soaked jacket—she didn’t want anything to inhibit her ability to move her arms—and removed the baseball cap. She stuffed both items into her knapsack along with the towels she’d used to dry the floor, and took a seat on the floor in front of the BMW. As it was going to be quite a while before Sterling came home, she needed to be careful her legs didn’t cramp up on her. She was completely surprised when the garage door opened only forty minutes after she’d entered the garage.
That is, she was surprised but not displeased. Sterling must have decided to leave work early for some reason—and this was good. She could finish the job and be on her way.
For some reason, however, Sterling didn’t drive his Escalade into the garage. She sat there crouched behind the front bumper of the BMW, the Glock in her hand, waiting. What was he doing? Why didn’t he drive the SUV into the garage? Then she found out.
“Whoever you are, throw out any weapons you have and stand up. I know you’re behind the Z3.”
Goddamnit. How did he know?
“I’m not going to give you another warning. There are two of us, and if you don’t throw out your weapon and stand up in the next three seconds, we’re going to start shooting under the car, skipping bullets off the concrete.”
Kay looked quickly under the BMW. She could see two pairs of shoes. She figured in a couple of seconds, Sterling would do just what he said and start shooting under the BMW, and the guy with him would try to flank her and start shooting at her from her left-hand side. She could fire under the car and hope to hit one of them in the foot or leg, but that was going to be a tough shot, and she was pretty sure if she started a gunfight with a combat-experienced ex-soldier, she was going to lose. On the other hand, if she gave up her weapon, Sterling was going to kill her for sure—unless she could bullshit her way out of this.
“One,” Sterling said. “Two.”
“All right,” Kay said. “I’m coming out.”
Kay put the Glock on the floor and gave it a hard shove, and the pistol slid on the concrete, coming to rest in the bay where the Escalade was normally parked. She stood up, her hands in the air.
“Jesus, it’s you! What the hell are you doing here?” Sterling said.
“Callahan sent me to talk to you, and Callahan knows I’m here.”
“If you wanted to talk to me, why didn’t you come to my office?”
“Callahan figured it would be better if we talked privately.”
Sterling laughed. “Bullshit. I think you came here to kill me, but I can’t believe Callahan would send a woman.”
With Sterling was a tough-looking, dark-complexioned guy with a shaved head and a couple days’ worth of beard. He had a tattoo on the right side of his neck that looked like a blue spiderweb. He was wearing a tight-fitting, olive-drab T-shirt, camo pants, and tan desert combat boots. He was shorter than Kay, maybe five-foot-six, but well built. He reminded her of her hand-to-hand combat instructor, Simmons. He was holding a .45 in a two-handed grip and the weapon was pointed at her chest.
Sterling was dressed in a white shirt and tie. He’d probably left his suit jacket in the Escalade. He was as she’d remembered him from Afghanistan: tall and rangy, short gray hair—and reeking of arrogance. He, too, was holding a .45 and his weapon was also pointed at her chest—which made Kay wonder why she hadn’t been smart enough to wear a bulletproof vest.
Sterling waggled his gun at her. “Move to your left so you’re not behind the car.”
Kay did as instructed and took two steps to her left—Simon Says—her hands still in the air.
“How did you know I was here?” she said. She really wanted the answer to that question before she died. She wanted to know if she’d been betrayed or if she’d just fucked up.
Sterling smiled. “A short time ago, I had a problem with a former employee and I decided to beef up the security here at my home.”
Kay was pretty sure the “former employee” was that guy, Nelson, who tried to rape and kill her and failed. After she killed Nelson, Sterling probably began to worry that Callahan didn’t buy his story that Nelson had quit and that Sterling had nothing to do with the attack on Kay—and that’s when he’d beefed up his security.
“One of the things I did,” Sterling said, “was install a few cameras outside and inside my house. The cameras are connected to motion detectors and they send a signal to my smartphone when they’re activated. So I saw you yesterday, scoping out my place, and I saw you walk into the garage. I didn’t know it was you because of that bandanna you were wearing, and then you took off yesterday before I could get here. But today, I made it on time. I saw you go into the garage. I knew you didn’t go into the house or you would have tripped a camera in there. So I knew you were in the garage, and the only place you could be was hiding behind the Z3.”
This meant that the cameras he’d installed were so damn small or so well camouflaged that Kay hadn’t seen them yesterday when she’d toured the outside of Sterling’s house looking for cameras. The good news, based on everything he’d just said, was that he didn’t have a camera in the garage. If he’d had one there, he would have gotten a clear image of her face when she’d wiped up her wet footprints from the garage floor. But he hadn’t known it was her. He’d said Jesus, it’s you! when he saw her. This also meant that the cameras outside the house, with the rain pouring down and her wearing a hat, hadn’t captured a clear image of her, either. At least, she hoped not. She also hoped that the pictures taken by the outside cameras had gone only to Sterling’s smartphone, like he’d said, and not to some other computer’s hard drive.
Sterling concluded his diatribe by saying: “I mean, for Christ’s sake, Hamilton, I run a security company. Did you really think it was going to be this easy? I knew you were an arrogant bitch the moment I met you.”
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, but he had a point about her assuming it would be so easy. It was also nice to know that she hadn’t been betrayed; it was not so nice to know she’d been a fool.
Kay was about to tell him once again that Callahan knew she was there and if he killed her, Callahan would send in a team to take him out. Before Kay could say anything, however, Sterling said, “Frisk her, Ramirez. Make sure she’s not carrying any other weapons, and if she has a phone, get it. For that matter, remove everything she has in her pockets.”
“Yes, sir,” Ramirez said—and then he did something really stupid.
He shoved the .45 he was carrying into the front of his pants and he didn’t put the safety on. He walked toward Kay, and Kay, trying to
look like she was scared, said, “Please. Don’t hurt me.” This made Ramirez smile and it also put him more at ease, thinking Kay was frightened.
When Ramirez reached her, he said, “Turn around and grab the wall,” and then he reached up with his right hand to touch her left shoulder to spin her around, and when he did this he was standing between her and Sterling. Instead of turning, Kay reached out with her left hand, grabbed Ramirez’s T-shirt and jerked him toward her, and at the same time she reached down with her right hand, grabbed Ramirez’s gun—and pulled the trigger without removing the gun from his pants.
She didn’t know if she’d just blown Ramirez’s dick off or if the bullet had ended up in one of his legs, but whatever the case, he screamed in pain and his eyes bulged with shock. Kay didn’t let him drop to the ground, however. She quickly pulled the gun out of his pants and, still clutching Ramirez to her, using him as a shield, she fired at Sterling. And missed.
Sterling fired back immediately. His first bullet went whizzing past her left ear. Since she and Ramirez were almost the same height, and because she was holding Ramirez in front of her, Sterling then did the only thing he could do: He fired directly at Ramirez’s back, hoping the bullet would pass through Ramirez and hit her.
After that it was a gunfight that lasted less than three seconds. She just kept pulling the trigger as fast as she could, hoping to hit Sterling, and Sterling did the same thing: He kept shooting at her, hoping to hit her in the face, half his bullets hitting Ramirez in the back. She had no idea how many bullets they both fired—at least a dozen was her guess—and one of her bullets hit Sterling in the chest.