If she told Zach, and he killed Dr. Phillips. How could that possibly be wrong? Would it really be such a bad thing? You know, Avalon, she argued with herself, some girls have plastic surgeons as partners; do you think they don’t get a free nip and tuck if they ask? Or what about dentists? If a dentist’s girlfriend asked for a scrape and polish, do you think the boyfriend would say no? Well, then, my boyfriend just happens to be a trained killer; who’s to say it would be wrong if I took advantage of his particular talents? But she knew that a nip and tuck or scrape and polish were not quite the same as a bullet in the back of the head. And she was a district attorney, sworn to uphold the law, not break it. That was why it would be wrong. Besides, she doubted Zach would be gracious enough to show Phillips enough mercy to finish him off quickly. Avalon doubted it very much.
She tried to pour herself another glass of wine, but the bottle was empty. The last drops spilled onto the carpet, and she didn’t care.
Of course, she did have another option. Avalon could always call her father. He was a big shot in Washington D.C., but not the kind of big shot you saw on TV or the cover of a magazine. He was more of a “shadow” big shot, a master puppeteer who pulled strings in the background and made other, more public figures dance to his tune. Avalon had no doubt her father had been embroiled in some pretty shady affairs in the past, and although he didn’t mingle often, when he did, it was with characters of a dark and sometimes unsavory disposition. As far as Avalon knew, her mother was completely oblivious to the opaque nature of her husband’s day job. Either that or she didn’t care. She had always been what Avalon thought of as a “free-spirit”— an artistic thinker, philosopher, or as her father often said when he was feeling less benevolent, “A gorgeous but featherbrained daydreamer.” When she was around, that was, which hadn’t been often after that fateful night when she walked out on her husband and daughter.
Once Avalon was born, her mother considered her marital duties fulfilled and devoted her time to pursuits that alternately filled Avalon with pride and left her completely baffled. One year, her mother had implemented and funded the building of a school in Central Africa, actually going there and helping to erect the place with her own bare and well-manicured hands. The next year, she had gone off on an escapade looking for a rare butterfly in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. She had not returned home for another two years, and she never found the butterfly, but that was beside the point, she had said, as though it didn’t matter.
The thrill was in the chase, she had explained, completely unapologetic. And so it had gone on: chasing dreams simply for the sake of the dream or doing good out of love for her fellow man. Her mother never seemed able to decide which she enjoyed more. Her empathy for others did not, however, extend itself to her family. But her pastimes did involve spending huge amounts of her husband’s money, and as she grew older, Avalon had begun to suspect that it was this that made her mother truly happy: spending her husband’s dubiously earned dollars just as fast as he could rake them in. The last Avalon had heard, her mother was off again, investigating UFO sightings in the Bermuda Triangle. Go figure, she thought and lifted an empty glass to her mother’s good health.
So, Daddy… He loved it when she called him that and scolded her when she didn’t; even after she’d reminded him several times that she was too old. Avalon hiccupped and went back to the kitchen. She found another mostly empty bottle of wine in the back of the pantry and poured it into her glass. Her conscience warned her that tomorrow morning would be gruesome, bringing with it a massive hangover, and she shouted, “Oh, shut up.”
Daddy had friends in the CIA, the FBI, the XYZ –– silly, Avalon giggled. Her daddy seemed to be a highly influential good guy, or maybe crook; neither had been proven. Hiccup. Surely, he knew someone who could make the Phillips mess go away? A little covert operation in the dead of night, whisk the bastard off to a foreign land to be water-boarded for a month or two? Burn his practice to the ground and make it look like an accident? She wouldn’t have to tell her daddy why. When his precious little princess asked, he simply wouldn’t, couldn’t, refuse. He never had.
Avalon drained her glass, savoring the last drops of the expensive wine before turning it upside down and making a mental note to cover the stains on the carpet with salt before she went to bed. Daddy would help. Zach would help. All she needed to do was ask. She, Avalon Rossi, bright, young rising star of the legal world, had killers at her beck and call. She felt giddy; her head began to spin, and her belly rumbled.
She barely made it to the bathroom. She retched, her face over the toilet bowl, the sound echoing off the porcelain like a distant foghorn. When the spasms had passed, she staggered to the washbasin and let the cold water trickle into her mouth directly from the faucet. Then she splashed her face repeatedly until she felt almost human again. Avalon looked in the mirror and groaned. She was a mess. Drunk and desperate. She tried a smile. It stuck to her face like a pair of fake clown lips, the kind you can buy in joke shops.
She did not want to cry any more. Avalon felt that she had shed enough tears. It was time to pull herself together and show some resolve. But more than that, it was time she went to bed. Avalon had never felt as tired as she did right now. Worst of all, she was on her own. Zach, yes; Daddy, yes; and after their meeting in the cove, even Lark. All these people were on her side, she knew, ready to offer love, support, friendship. Whatever she needed. But none of them were there in the bathroom with her. None of them could smell the rancid odor of vomit or taste the vicious burn of bile in her throat. Those were photographs of her on Phillips’ hard drive, and it would be videos of her that went out across the internet if she didn’t accede to his demands. Avalon shuddered and dried her face and hands with a towel from the handrail beside the sink. She looked once more at her reflection.
It’s always darkest before the dawn, baby. In her head, it was Zach’s voice Avalon heard. Go to bed, sweetheart. It will all turn out okay.
“I know. I love you, Zach,” she said.
I love you, too.
Chapter Fifteen
Cable burst into the office around noon, whistling the theme song from an old western television show. His good mood was plastered all across his smiling face and he walked with an extra bounce in his step. The sight of Lark and Avalon huddled in the corner with Fish, their urgent, whispered tones, and the earnest look on their long faces stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Did someone die?” he asked.
“It’s nothing, Cable; we’re dealing with it. Welcome back.” Lark tried to sound nonchalant.
Cable wasn’t fooled for a moment. He dumped his briefcase right there in the hall and leaned across the reception counter.
“Tell me,” he said.
Lark looked at Avalon. Avalon looked at Lark.
“I think we should all go into Zach’s office,” Avalon said. “We have a situation you might be able to help with.”
Cable nodded and followed the two women down the hall, expecting the worst. Avalon sat in Zach’s chair, Lark took the chair opposite, and Cable strolled across to the window and sat on the ledge. By the time Avalon had finished speaking, the muscles in his neck resembled taut, steel wires and his face had become a dark, angry mask.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to no one in particular. Then he said, “You can’t tell Zach.”
“I know,” Avalon said. “I get that. But then no one else can tell him, either. Ever.”
She looked from Cable to Lark with a serious and determined expression on her face. They both nodded. And in that grim moment, a pact of silence was sealed.
“So, what do we do now?” Cable got up from the window and began to pace the room.
Lark looked across the desk at Avalon and received an encouraging nod.
“You tell him,” Avalon said.
“Well,” Lark began, “we have a plan.”
Cable stopped pacing. He eyed first Lark, then Avalon, and back again. “A plan?” The skin on
his forehead creased into furrows. “What plan?”
“I go undercover,” Lark said. She looked for support in Avalon’s eyes and found it. “I register myself as a patient with the doctor, get inside his practice. Then we create a diversion of some kind, and when Dr. Phillips is distracted, I delete all the files on his computer and his phone.”
Avalon nodded and smiled, giving Lark’s little speech her stamp of approval.
Lark sighed, relieved.
“That’s the plan?” Cable said, and once more, his eyes scanned back and forth between the females.
“Why?” Avalon asked. “What do you think?”
“I think it sucks,” Cable replied without hesitation.
Lark pulled a face and Avalon frowned.
“But only the part about Lark going in. It’s too dangerous. Zach wouldn’t let you put yourself in danger like that. And neither will I.”
“But––” Lark tried to protest.
Cable gave her a stern look and held a finger to his lips. “Hush,” he said, “let me finish.” The big man resumed his pacing around the office. He reached the window and turned, walked to the door, and then retraced his steps back to the window.
The women watched, their heads turning as if they were at a slow-motion tennis match.
“If someone has to go in, it should be me,” Cable said, thinking aloud. “And we’ll have to get Slice involved. He can create a gizmo to destroy all the files on Phillips’ computer and cell phones at the same time. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen Slice do something like that.”
“Cell phones? How do you know he has more than one?” Avalon asked, wishing Cable would stay in one place; all his pacing was wearing out the carpet, and her neck was starting to ache.
“How do you know he doesn’t?” Cable asked and continued to pace.
Avalon conceded that he’d made a good point, and from the look on Lark’s face, so did she. Multiple cell phones was a possibility neither of them had thought of. Perhaps, it wasn’t the only thing they hadn’t considered. The women’s eyes met across Zach’s desk, and they communicated the way only women can, each understanding the other without a word being spoken. Let the professionals do their job, the look said.
“But will that be enough?” Lark asked. “That might take care of Avalon’s problem, but what about Phillips? What do we do about him?”
“You leave that sleazebag to me.” Cable had stopped pacing. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a Bowie knife, and ran his finger across the blade, a grim, menacing look in his eyes.
“What do you mean? You can’t kill him, Cable. If you do that, I might as well tell Zach and let him have the satisfaction,” Avalon said, shaking her head at the sight of the enormous knife.
“Not kill,” Cable said. “But I can scare the dying daylights out of him.”
“Living!” Lark piped up without thinking.
“What?”
“Living. You said dying.”
“Who?” Cable looked confused. “What?”
Lark looked across at Avalon. “Help?”
“That won’t be necessary.” Avalon stood up. “I have my own plans for Phillips. How soon can we start?”
Cable looked at Avalon and admired her strength. Lesser women would have fallen apart by now, he thought, but not her; she’d had her crying time, but now she was back in focus. For Avalon, this wasn’t about damage control. This was all about the revenge.
“I’ll call Slice,” he said. “Lark, can you get me an appointment with Phillips?”
“Sure, what should I say is wrong?” she asked, getting up and preparing to leave the office.
“Wrong? What do you mean wrong?” Cable puzzled.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Why would you need to see a psychiatrist, Cable?” Lark said patiently. “How about anxiety attacks?”
“Do I look anxious?” Cable said, walking back to the window and staring at his reflection in the glass.
Avalon sighed and got up from behind Zach’s desk. She had a call to make, but she didn’t want to make it from the ZSI offices.
Lark studied Cable from head to toe. He looked as big as a grizzly bear and carried a knife that could easily cut a crocodile in half. No, she thought, anxiety attacks, probably not.
“Depression?” she tried.
“What?” In the window, Cable began to look worried.
Lark continued, “Let’s see, we could say bed wetting or impotency; even—”Mortified, Cable turned from the window and stared at Lark. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Hmm,” Lark said again. She turned to Avalon for help.
“I don’t think you need to make anything up,” Avalon said with a tight, wry smile. “Let him go as he is. He’s the most convincing nutjob I’ve ever seen.” She walked through the door, leaving Lark and Cable in the office, the former nodding sagely, the latter with a look of bewildered confusion on his speechless face.
Chapter Sixteen
It took Slice less than an hour to adapt his homemade virus to attack and destroy Dr. Phillips’ files. He inserted a flash drive into his laptop and downloaded the potent program. Now all Cable had to do was find a way to access the psychiatrist’s computer, plug in the drive, and bingo — every file on the hard drive would be fried, every email he’d ever sent or received would be tracked down and deleted, every single tweet, photo, or video on his computer and his three smartphones destroyed. “Three! Count ’em,” Slice had said to Cable when he’d traced all the numbers. Everything would be fried, deleted, gone forever, the virtual equivalent of a nuclear meltdown.
“Welcome to Armageddon, Dr. Phillips,” Slice said to the empty beach house. He removed the flash drive, tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans, and got up to leave. He had his hand on the door handle when his cell phone beeped. It was Cassie, the homeless waif he’d given his card to. Slice frowned. This was not a good time; he needed to get to the office and hand over the flash drive. Cable would want to go through the operational briefing for the attack on Phillips. Read it later, he told himself, but halfway to his car the parking lot, his curiosity got the better of him. He opened the text.
“Need to talk. Meet me in the alley.”
Slice couldn’t tell from the unemotional text message if it was urgent or not, but his interest had been awakened. If he rushed the meeting with Cable, he could be in the alley in a couple of hours. He typed a reply, arranging a time to meet, and pressed the send button. “Cassie’s in trouble again,” he mumbled to himself. The text could be a cry for help. Slice got into his car and started the engine. Or she was about to do something bad, and she needed him to stop her. But there was a third option. “She probably just wants more cash,” he said aloud, reversing out of the driveway and slamming his foot on the gas pedal.
Two hours later, Slice was standing in the alley, but there was no sign of Cassie. He’d just about given up when a woman appeared at the far end of the alley. She walked towards him, unsteady on impossibly high heels, wearing a tight dress that barely covered the tops of her fishnet stockings. She had a leather jacket draped around her shoulders, a heavy, studded collar wrapped around her neck, and her hair was done up in a set of elaborate ribbons and curls. When she came close enough, Slice recognized the face beneath the layers of thick, garish makeup.
“Cassie?” he said, not quite believing this was the same frightened girl he’d met not long ago. “What the…?”
“Hi, Slice. Wanna blow job?”
She was drunk or high or both. Her heel caught on the uneven asphalt, and she stumbled and threatened to fall to her knees, but Slice caught her with his hands on her shoulders.
“Who made you do this?”
“My bruvver,” she slurred.
“Your brother?”
“He said I gotta go to work. Earn some cash. I gotta start sometime, and you may as well be my first.” She giggled, and her head rocked from side to
side as if it was loose on her neck. Her eyes were empty and flat. “Hand job twenty bucks,” Cassie announced, like she was reciting a lewd nursery rhyme she had been forced to learn by heart. “Blow job fifty. Front door’s a hundred, back door double.”
Slice took her roughly by the hand. “You’re coming with me.” He led her out of the alley. Cassie followed without a struggle, her hand cold and lifeless as a dead fish. Slice fought the rising bile in his throat and the ball of anger in his belly. Whoever her brother was, he thought, whatever kind of asshole he turned out to be, if he was responsible for turning Cassie into an underage prostitute, he was going to have to answer to Slice — big time.
They reached his Porsche, but not without attracting a few dubious glances from passersby. Some looked at Cassie, then at Slice, and shook their heads in open disgust. Slice didn’t let it bother him. He helped Cassie into the front passenger seat and leaned inside to fasten the seat belt. She tried to kiss him, laughing and slobbering spittle and lipstick over his cheek. He pushed her back into the upholstery and wiped his face with the back of his hand. Slice got in behind the wheel, still wondering where to take her. Anywhere public would be too risky. Her condition, the way she was dressed… sooner rather than later, Cassie was bound to attract the attention of a curious cop.
Slice started the engine, snaked the sports car through the city until he found the freeway, then hit the gas hard, heading north to Malibu. He figured Cassie would be safest at his house. Ten minutes into the drive, she began to cough and retch and was sick down the front of her dress.
Without comment, Slice handed her a packet of tissues from the glove box. Cassie wiped herself clean as best she could, dropping the used tissues on the floor of the car, her face contorted from the acrid smell and the bitter taste in her mouth.
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