Taking Care of the Target

by Cindi Madsen

She dared a glance over her shoulder in time to see Sal and Dante burst into the room. She bolted past a stunned-looking Allegra and pushed through the front doors.

  Remembering the coffee shop cops often frequented, she rushed toward it, praying one of them would be there—at least she could get someone to call 911.

  The truck came out of nowhere, but her momentum was already pushing forward, her adrenaline faster than her thoughts.

  Brakes squealed.

  Cassie threw her hands up in front of her.

  But she knew it was too late.

  Chapter Two

  A constant beeping noise echoed through the room. Cassie tried to force her eyelids open, but they remained closed. Her whole body ached, her arms and legs weighing at least a thousand pounds. The sharp pain in her head wedged itself deeper, making it hard to concentrate.

  Why’s my alarm beeping like that, and how can I make it stop before my head explodes?

  Finally, her eyes flickered open. She stared at the white ceiling and then glanced around the hazy room. Various monitors, generic artwork, tubes inserted into her arms. An awful antiseptic smell that triggered a hundred bad memories.

  Panic rose and bound her lungs. Why am I in a hospital?

  She went to adjust her glasses, but they weren’t on her face. That explains the blurry vision.

  Squinting at the bed frame, she looked for the call button. When she reached for it, she noticed the plastic bracelet on her wrist. She lifted it closer and tried to make out the fuzzy words. DOE, JANE was typed in large letters.

  Her panic screeched into overdrive, and she scrambled to push the call button.

  A voice came through, distorted as if it’d been filtered through a robot. “Did you need something?”

  Cassie opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Her throat felt as though she’d recently chugged sand, so dry that simply trying to talk scratched it. Finally she managed a weak, “Help.”

  “Wait? Is that room 305?” It sounded like the woman was talking to someone else, and then the noise went away all together.

  About a minute later, a plump lady in scrubs walked in. Her eyes went wide. “You’re awake. I’ll get the doctor right away.”

  Before Cassie could say anything, the nurse charged out the door.

  What seemed like an eternity later, she reappeared with a skinny man who looked like he should still be in college and definitely not already practicing medicine.

  He identified himself and then started in on the questions. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I was working as a waitress,” Cassie croaked out, then paused to take a drink from the cup the nurse handed her. After chugging the whole thing down, speaking only mildly hurt her throat. “At a place called the Barbecue Pit.”

  “Is that here in New Jersey?” he asked.

  She lowered her eyebrows, her brain going as fuzzy as her vision. “New Jersey? It was in Colorado. Are you saying… I’m in New Jersey?”

  The doctor nodded.

  “What am I doing in New Jersey?”

  A crease formed in his forehead, and he gave her this pity-filled look that only increased the sinking sensation in her chest. “Seems you’ve lost part of your memory. Sometimes it comes back, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

  “How long have I been in the hospital?”

  “About a week,” he said. “You didn’t have any identification. Do you remember your name?”

  “It’s Cassandra Dalton.”

  The doctor lifted his clipboard, wrote something down, and then glanced back at her. “Who do you need us to contact, Cassandra?”

  Cassie shook her head. “No one. I don’t have anyone.”

  “Family?” he asked.

  “Gone.” Such a short word, but it was heavy and brought a fresh wave of pain that had nothing to do with her physical injuries.

  “Friends?”

  “Nope.” Cassie lifted her bruised arms; they didn’t even look like they belonged to her, which only deepened the strange, detached feeling twisting through her. “So what happened to me? Why am I here?”

  “You were hit by a truck. Luckily, it stopped before it rolled over you, but you hit the pavement hard enough to lose consciousness. You were comatose when the paramedics brought you in, and we did everything we could to get the swelling on your brain down.”

  The phrases “hit by a truck” and “swelling on your brain” tumbled over and over, giving her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “It was pretty bad there for a while,” the doctor continued, “but the odds of making a full physical recovery look good. Why don’t you try to remember as much as you can? Start out with your earliest memory and work your way up. I’ll call the police and inform them of your name, and they’ll track down your address and fill in the facts you might not remember.”

  The doctor and the nurse exited the room, leaving Cassie to process all the information, and quite frankly, she failed; it was way too much to take in. So she closed her eyes and focused on the doctor’s last request. Hmm, earliest memory.

  She didn’t remember Mom dying in a car crash because she’d been a baby at the time, but she knew it’d happened. From her earliest memories, it had always been just her and Dad. Being shy got in the way of having a lot of friends. Senior year, when she was slowly making a few, as well as starting a relationship with her first boyfriend, Dad got sick, and she retreated to herself again. Prom, BFFs, boys, name brand clothing—everything seemed so unimportant after that. Even her classes, which had always been her strong point.

  After a two-year fight with cancer, it went from just her and Dad to just her.

  Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them away. Before I relive all of that, I need to figure out which point of life I’m in now.

  After high-school graduation, when Dad’s condition was quickly deteriorating and the bills kept piling up, she took a job at the Barbecue Pit, one of the few restaurants in her tiny hometown of Parker. She scrimped and saved, promising herself she’d scrape enough money together to go to college, just like Dad had always wanted.

  She tried to think if there was more after that—if at any time she had decided to take a trip to New Jersey, of all places. Something tickled her brain. She remembered filling out college applications. Was one of them to somewhere in New Jersey? She’d filled out so many, but it was possible she’d considered going east.

  The nurse who first checked on her stepped into the doorway. “How are you feeling? Did you remember anything?”

  Cassie shrugged. “I think I might have applied for college here. Maybe I was visiting to check it out. Or maybe I was getting ready to start.”

  “Well, there’s a policeman here to see you. He has a few questions, and they think they found out who you are. I wanted to make sure you were ready for him.”

  “Go ahead and send him on in.” Sure she looked like a mess, Cassie automatically went to smooth down her hair. And found it ended just past her shoulders, the front pieces slightly longer than the back

  When did I cut my hair? Goosebumps pricked her skin; everything was off, like she was in a weird dream she couldn’t wake up from.

  A tall man with dark hair entered the room. She’d expected an older guy with a mandatory cop moustache. Instead, she got clean-shaven and mid-twenties. Judging from what she could see anyway. Without her glasses, all the edges blurred and features softened, and she wished for them once again.

  “I’m Officer Tom Duffy.” He placed a chair next to the bed and pulled out his notepad. “So, you’ve been living in Trenton for the past two years, attending The College of New Jersey and living at a place over on Prospect. Any of that sound familiar?”

  She let the news settle for a moment, but it didn’t sound familiar. She was eighteen when she graduated high school, she worked at the Barbecue Pit for two—no, three—years when she decided to start seriously looking at colleges. “I don’t remember college at all. Or even coming to New Jersey
.”

  At least I finally did it. I started college.

  Of course, I don’t remember anything, so I’ll have to start over.

  Officer Duffy asked several questions, some she could answer and several she couldn’t.

  “Well,” he said, standing up, “that’s about it for now. Get some rest, and when the doctor releases you, we can have someone escort you back to your apartment if you’d like.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Cassie said. “Especially since I have no idea where it is.”

  Chapter Three

  Vince hesitated outside his uncle’s office door. He could hear Dante and Sal inside and, from the sound of it, they were arguing. Again. His shoulders tensed at the thought of being in the same room as them. He’d avoid being in the same room as Carlo, too, if he could help it. Unfortunately, it was inevitable.

  Vince knocked on the door but didn’t wait for an answer before entering.

  “I’ll go over there right now and get it done, Boss,” Sal said. “I could sneak past one measly cop and make it look like an accident.”

  Carlo glanced at Vince before returning his attention to Sal. “We’ve gotta be careful. We’ll be first on their suspect list.” He twisted his chair toward Dante. “What happened to your informant at the hospital? She was supposed to let us know the second she was lucid.”

  Dante shrugged. “I…well, she saw me out with Mia. You know how broads are.”

  Usually, Vince didn’t bother asking what was going on—he didn’t want to know. He was ashamed by how much he already knew, but something was different this time. He could see it in his uncle’s eyes. “What’s going on?”

  “Cassie,” Carlo said. “It looks like she’s not only woken up from the coma I hoped she’d stay in forever, but she also has a police escort. If she testifies, we’re all toast.”

  Vince’s stomach dropped. He pictured her standing behind the hostess stand, looking painfully cute, pushing her glasses up in that way that made it hard to think straight. A clashing mix of relief and regret hit him as he processed the fact that she’d woken up.

  For months he told himself to keep his distance, but last week when he came in, he couldn’t help at least thanking her for covering for Mia. Then she’d laughed, implied that he couldn’t handle waiting tables, and he’d slipped and let himself be pulled in. Told himself things could be different with her. That she didn’t ever have to know how screwed up his family—his life—was.

  It lasted less than an hour before the thought got thrown back in his face.

  Dante used his fingernail to pick at his teeth. “Maybe we should get Jackhammer to do it. I’ll do it if I have to, but I wouldn’t like it. She was such a sweet girl. Plus, all she really needed was a visit to the plastic surgeon, and she would’ve been a knockout.”

  Everything Dante said after he mentioned Jackhammer sounded far away and distorted. The hired thug was known for drawing out his kills as long as possible. The image of Cassie slowly bleeding to death, pleading for her life to a man who’d get off on her begging for mercy, rose up and turned Vince’s blood to ice.

  “I’ll do it,” Vince said, and it seemed as if he’d stepped out of his body and was watching himself volunteer. His heart beat too fast, and his fists clenched by his sides. He took a deep breath to steady himself and locked eyes with Carlo. “Let me be the one to take care of it.”

  Carlo stared at Vince for a long moment and then turned to his goons. “You two, leave me and my nephew to talk about this.”

  Dante and Sal stood and started for the door, but at the last second, Sal turned back around. “I’ll do it, Boss. She was sweet, but she never gave Sal the time of day. I could even—”

  “Leave us,” Carlo said, his voice echoing through the room. “Now.”

  Sal clamped his lips, his face all screwed up as he threw a silent tantrum.

  As soon as the door was closed, Carlo sat back in his cushy leather chair, folding his arms across his chest. “You’ve told me repeatedly you want nothing to do with this side of the business, and I know you liked Cassie—hell, we all did. I hate the thought of having it done, but that’s the way it goes. It’d be a hard hit for any of us, so that’s why I was thinking of hiring out.”

  Vince put his palms on the edge of Carlo’s desk and leaned forward. “I want to be the one to take care of it. I don’t want Jackhammer or Sal to do it. I want to be there to make sure it’s clean and quick.”

  Carlo let out a long exhale. “I don’t know, Vince. I didn’t want to pull you in this deep.”

  Vince barely held back a sarcastic laugh. “It never bothers you when I get your money in order to pay back Bobby’s debts.” His little brother was Carlo’s favorite way to pull Vince’s strings. “What’s one more undesirable errand?”

  “This is different. But I won’t argue that you’re our best bet for quick and quiet.” He reached up and stroked his goatee then gave a small nod. “Do it.”

  Vince straightened, working to keep any trace of weakness or how he felt about the situation from showing. “I’ll go late tonight and make sure she goes easy.”

  Chapter Four

  Cassie stepped out of the police cruiser and looked at the rundown apartment complex she apparently called home. Shaped like a U, three levels of concrete, iron railing, and seventies era brickwork faced a mostly cement courtyard with a couple of sad-looking trees.

  Wow, real nice digs, Cassie. The complex didn’t trigger any sudden flashbacks or magically help her memories return. She sighed and glanced at Officer Duffy, who’d been kind enough to drive her from the hospital.

  Tom. He said to call him Tom when I told him I preferred Cassie. With the uniform on, it was hard to think of him as anything but officer. Over the past few days, he’d dropped by the hospital to check on her, even when he was off duty. At first she’d felt uncomfortable in his presence—especially since she was stuck in a hospital gown and didn’t have makeup or her glasses—but she got used to his friendly demeanor and how easy he was to talk to. He’d even brought in cards last night so they could pass the time playing games.

  They walked to apartment number one, where pasted on gold letters spelled out LANDLORD, and Tom knocked on the door. He glanced at Cassie and smiled. “I keep forgetting to tell you how nice you look.”

  Thankfully, one of the nurses brought her a change of clothes as well as a hygiene kit. “Yeah, behold the amazing effects of showering, actually getting dressed, and brushing your hair. I never knew I’d be so grateful for pants and a T-shirt. Clothes that randomly open in the back to moon everyone in the near vicinity just aren’t for me.”

  Heat rose to her cheeks, the way it always did when the filter between her brain and mouth malfunctioned. I really wish I hadn’t added that mooning comment. Luckily she hadn’t mooned him, or she’d die right there on the spot.

  The door swung open, and then Cassie was eye-level with a tight black bun. She lowered her gaze to a face she didn’t have the slightest recollection of.

  “You were supposed to be out of your apartment last week,” the tiny woman said, pointing a finger in her face. “I already had the place rented, and I’ve had to push back the cleaners, so now I’m going to have to pay them double to do a rush job. Just so you know, I’m charging you for it, along with an extra week’s rent.”

  Confrontation had always sent Cassie into panic mode. Add money, which she unfortunately remembered owing a lot of thanks to Dad’s medical treatments, and her pulse steadily increased, pounding a rapid rhythm against her temples. She didn’t even know if she had a job, and now she had her own hospital bills on top of Dad’s. The news she wasn’t even supposed to live there anymore added another layer of stress to the entire situation.

  “I’m sorry. I had an accident and my memory’s a little fuzzy, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “Mm-hmm,” the woman said, pressing her lips into a tight line that managed to convey a heap of skepticism.

  Tom ge
ntly maneuvered Cassie to the side and stood in front of Landlord Grouchy Pants. “Ma’am, Miss Dalton’s telling the truth,” he said in a calm, authoritative voice. “She was involved in a very serious accident and didn’t have any personal effects on her, which means she needs the key to her apartment.”

  “Lost keys are a fifty-dollar charge.”

  Obviously her tragic accident really tugged at her landlord’s heartstrings.

  The muscles in Tom’s neck tightened, but he managed to keep his calm expression. “We’ll work out the details later, and if you know where she’s supposed to be moving to, I’ll be happy to look into that. Until then, can she get the key?”

  The little lady harrumphed, grabbed a large ring of keys, and started walking without further comment. Did the woman seriously think Cassie had faked amnesia to avoid fees? If only that were true, getting on with her life would be much simpler.

  “What do you know about Miss Dalton?” Tom asked as the three of them made their way upstairs. “Do you know where she’s been working the past few months?”

  The woman glanced at Cassie, and then charged up the next flight of stairs. “She keeps to herself. I’ve never seen her with anyone, but I don’t butt into others’ business. She had good credit, always paid the rent on time, and was a good tenant. Until now.”

  You get hit by a truck and go into one little coma, and suddenly you’re a trouble tenant.

  “I got a call from Hudson Grove Apartments and gave her a good referral, and shortly after that she put in her thirty days’ notice, which was thirty-five days ago.” The landlady stopped in front of number fifty-four and unlocked the door. She then held the key toward Cassie. “This here’s my spare. Better not lose it.”

  “I won’t. Thanks.” With her credibility in question, her assurance probably didn’t do much for the woman, who promptly walked back the way they’d come.

  “Well, she was friendly,” Tom joked as he pushed open the door and stepped inside the apartment.