Irreparable Harm (32 page)

She didn’t see the man spring out at her from inside the fort.

He dove at her knees and tackled her from behind. She hit the ground hard.

Ground fighting.

In a street fight the most dangerous place to be is down on the ground. Krav Maga taught that you were to avoid ground fighting at all costs. If an assailant did manage to get you down, the goal was to be back on your feet within the first five seconds.

She was annoyed with herself for being on the ground. Daniel would make a big deal of that fact in his critique after they sparred.

She was raising herself on her elbows, when Daniel flipped her from her stomach to her back.

She was face to face with a wiry white man. Taller than her, but not tall. He had shoulder-length, dirty blond hair. It was greasy and thinning and it hung in his face.

Not Daniel. A stranger.

“Where are the files?” He bared his teeth.

He lifted her shoulders off the ground and tried to shake the answer out of her.

She raised her head and cranked her neck to the side. Bit down hard into the tender flesh between his thumb and first finger. Kept biting until she tasted blood.

He yelped and dropped her shoulders. Then he pulled back and punched her, connected solidly with her mouth.
Her lip split open where Anton had hit her the day before and blood dripped into her mouth.

The guy smiled at her, showing her the space where he was missing a tooth, and raised his fist again.

She was faster. She wrapped her right arm around his neck; then she clasped her hands and gripped her left hand as hard as she could, palms to her chest. She pulled up on his neck. His head was inclined toward her like she was about to whisper in his ear. She could smell doughnut frosting on his breath.

She tightened her grip. She could focus the pressure on either his windpipe or his carotid arteries. An air choke would cause more pain, but
she settled on a blood choke—mainly because it was faster to cause unconsciousness by compressing the arteries than by compressing the airway.
She pressed against the arteries in the back of his neck with her forearm, squeezing her hands together like she was wringing out a wet towel.

His marble eyes bugged out and he dug at her fingers with both hands, trying to pry them open. She held tight and waited for the blood to stop flowing to his brain. Saw the telltale flush cross his face and, less than a second later, he was unconscious.

She dropped him and scrambled to her feet. She sprinted to her building and up the stairs to get Connelly.

When they came back outside minutes later Daniel had arrived to set up in the bushes, just as Sasha had expected.

The three of them fanned out and combed the neighborhood for the guy who had attacked her, but he was long gone.

Sasha wasn’t surprised. She’d held the choke a little longer than strictly necessary in hopes the guy would stay out longer, but even so, he would have regained consciousness within a minute or two. He was probably disoriented but otherwise unharmed.

They returned to her condo.

Connelly and Daniel, who had sized each other up and seemed to find one another sufficient, sat at the kitchen island, drinking coffee. Connelly filled in Daniel on those details he felt could be made public.

For the second time in as many days, Sasha assessed the damage to her face. It wasn’t pretty. Between her old bruises and the new swelling, she looked like she belonged on a poster at a women’s shelter. Repair work was beyond her level of expertise.

She took a quick shower, as hot as she could stand, then pulled on a pair of sweats and hurried across the hall to her neighbor’s condo, hoping she’d catch Maisy before she fell asleep.

She rapped on the door and heard Maisy’s Georgia accent floating through her loft.

“Comin’!”

It always amazed Sasha that Maisy showed no trace of her accent when she was on television, but, at home, it was as thick as honey.

The door opened and WPXI’s early news weathergirl smiled broadly at her. “Hi, sugar!”

The smile faded as Maisy took in Sasha’s face. She pulled her into the loft by her arm and shut the door.

“What on earth happened to you, darlin’?”

“It’s a really long story and I need to be in court this morning. Can you help me?”

Maisy blinked at her, her violet eyes worked to process this request. “Help ya’?”

“Maybe with some makeup? I mean, do you think you could cover the bruises?”

Maisy appraised her. She took Sasha’s chin in her hand and turned Sasha’s face to the left, to the right, then back. She pursed her lips.

Finally, she said, “Yup, I do believe I can.”

Twenty minutes later, Sasha emerged from Maisy’s brightly lit bathroom without a visible trace of her injuries but with a slight headache from the avalanche of chatter that had accompanied the makeup application.

Maisy had performed magic. Sasha was a little disconcerted by the amount of makeup piled on her face. She didn’t look like herself. But she did look perfectly presentable. Better than presentable, actually.

Maisy walked her to the door.

“I can’t thank you enough. I owe you one, Maisy,” Sasha said, as her neighbor leaned in for an air kiss.

“My pleasure, sweet girl. You just remember, drink through a straw, ‘cause if that lipstick wears off, your big ole ugly fat lip’s gonna ruin the whole effect.”

Sasha returned to her place to find Daniel gone and Connelly showered and dressed in a charcoal suit, white shirt, and burgundy tie with a subtle square pattern. He was buffing his dress shoes.

He arched an eyebrow at her makeup mask. “Not bad,” he told her.

She ignored the comment.

“Any calls?”

“Mickey called. He said you write like an angel.”

Sasha smiled, but the movement hurt her entire face. She went into her bedroom and changed into her favorite suit. A superstitious person would call it her lucky suit. She’d never lost anything—not a motion, an argument, a hearing, or a trial—while wearing the suit.

Of course, today, losing was winning. She shook her head at how upside-down her life had turned in just four days. She stepped into the pale pink tweed dress and put on the matching jacket.

It was just after seven o’clock.

Connelly had planned to spend the morning with the Tactical Operations Division while she was in court. But, after the attack at the playground, he decided to play bodyguard instead.

Sasha was surprised to find she was not annoyed by his insistence on protecting her.

They locked up the loft and left. As they trotted to her car in the misty rain, Sasha was alert but relaxed. She didn’t know if she should attribute that to Connelly’s presence or her success in warding off her latest attacker.

As she started the car and turned on the heater, Connelly’s stomach growled loud enough for her to hear. She twisted in her seat to look at him. He had slept four hours since Tuesday—sleep that had come while he was scrunched on the bottom of her bed—and had eaten next to nothing. Tired and hungry. Not exactly the qualities she was looking for in a bodyguard.

“You like pancakes?” she asked, as she pulled out of the parking space.

He said he did, so she headed for Pamela’s Diner in the Strip, which opened at seven a.m. She preferred the Shadyside location, but it didn’t open until eight.

She found a spot on Smallman Street, just around the corner from the diner, and fed the meter. The rain had stopped or—more accurately—paused, judging by the dark clouds. They hurried from the car to the diner before the break in the rain ended.

Inside, it was done up in a retro style, lots of brushed aluminum and vintage posters. It wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t empty either. They waited a few minutes before a hostess greeted them and led them to a small formica table.

They asked for a pot of coffee and handed back their menus, saying they wanted to order right away. Their friendly, tired-looking waitress obliged. Sasha ordered the Tex-Mex omelet. Connelly got the breakfast special: two eggs, bacon, and a short stack.

“Have you been here before?” Sasha asked after the waitress left to put in their order with the kitchen.

“No. They put me up at one of those long-term suites out by the airport. I haven’t seen much of the city.”

She’d forgotten he was just passing through.

“Where’s home?”

“Nowhere. Everywhere.”

The waitress returned with two mugs, a dish full of creamers, and a white carafe of coffee. They waved off the creamers.

Sasha took a drink of her coffee and waited for Connelly to decide how to tell his story.

“When my mother came back from Vietnam, pregnant and ashamed, her family was eager to welcome her back to the fold and help her raise her baby. Mom had other plans. She signed on with a visiting nurse service. From the time I was born, we moved around. Usually, she’d sign a three-month contract; every once in a while, she’d take a six-month assignment. She said three months was the right amount of time—long enough to get to know a place; not long enough to tire of it.”

“What about school?”

“She homeschooled me. She viewed seeing the world as a large part of my education.”

“The world?”

Connelly nodded. “Mostly, we were in the states—we spent time in every state except Montana and Louisiana. But, when a foreign posting came up, she always put in for it. We did stints in seven countries, and two U.S. territories.”

“Was it hard, all that moving?”

“No, to tell the truth, I liked it. That’s probably why I gravitated to the Air Marshal Service after college instead of some other part of the federal alphabet soup. I like to travel. Guess it’s in my blood.”

“Where’s mom now?”

“Dead. Her ashes are scattered off the coast of Maui.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s been a while. She was sick.”

Sasha looked at Connelly and tried to imagine how his childhood had shaped him into the man sitting across from her. She decided he’d turned out just fine.

Then, as she watched, he removed the packets of sugar and various artificial sweeteners from the white cube that held them, sorted them by color,—white, brown, yellow, pink, blue—and replaced them in neat stacks. He moved on to the jelly packets. She amended her assessment. He’d turned out mostly fine.

Their food came out fast and hot. The waitress brought a small pitcher of warm maple syrup for Connelly and a bottle of hot sauce for Sasha.

They turned their attention to breakfast and ate in companionable silence. After all, not much of what they had to discuss made for pleasant conversation.

At one point, Connelly paused and pointed at her with a slice of bacon. “Who do you think sent the guy this morning? Irwin?”

“His partner, I hope. If it was Irwin, then he probably knows Gregor and Anton are in custody. We lose our advantage.”

They were both hoping Irwin would call Gregor’s cell phone—now fully charged and in Connelly’s left pocket.