Target 84 (8 page)

“Every phrase a razor blade and save it till they play it back.
Slay ‘em, leave ‘em laying on the paper bank, fade to black”

LINKIN PARK – “WASTELANDS”

The sweltering heat is pissing me off. It’s oppressive and relentless. It makes installing itty-bitty surveillance cameras a bitch. The air conditioning guys were supposed to be here today. Clearly, they’re
late
.

A square, plastic wafer with a shiny dome of glass in the center, connected by short wires to a plastic cube and a tiny, metal cylinder--lens, antenna, speaker, and battery—the entire assembly would fit inside a matchbox. Sweaty fingers are making this job a challenge today. I’ve installed ten in the last week and have ten more to go.

The Lexington, Kentucky, location is prime real estate for Torren. It will allow him to connect his East Coast dealings with his Midwest clientele. Dominic has been here for the last week to meet with designers, construction crews, and Torren. So far there hasn’t been a single mention of Pepper or Magnolia or Ezra Ash anywhere. Pete, our undercover agent inside Torren’s crew, seems to think this may actually be about storage and movement of product. This would make one insane coincidence out of asking Dominic Napoli to partner with him. My gut says something is awry but I have no leads to go on.

By the time the air conditioning techs arrive, I’m spent, dog tired, and dripping with sweat. I call it quits for the day and head out to my truck. Flipping open my phone while the cab’s air conditioning blasts my face, I read a text from Aster, Pepper’s cousin, who still lives in Pepper’s old, beat-up trailer in Arkansas.

Thank you so much, Bent. Printing and framing.

I smile despite my rotten mood and type out a quick “you're welcome” to her. It’s nice to think I pleased
someone
today. I toss my phone onto the empty passenger seat and put the truck in drive. I’m content to go home despite the fact that all that awaits me is the new Stephen King novel and a six pack of Allagash White. Reading and drinking. Two great pastimes I discovered early on at seventeen, and both hobbies I know I use as an escape. There could be more. At times, there has been more to my life.

After my stint in Arkansas, though, I’ve let myself slip back into my reclusive ways. I’ve let my mind wander to the past. I’ve let my demons call to me and sometimes I’ve
almost
acted on them. Hence why I’m in a pile of shit at work and was pulled from my last assignment.
Cowboy antics
, Clint had called it. I called it justice. I have no issue taking lives that deserve to be taken. The weight of their lost souls doesn’t keep me from sleeping at night if they’re dead.

The drive flies by. I realize I’m on my street only after I’ve turned onto it. I’ve been completely zoned out. I can’t remember the last time I recall noticing what’s going on outside the windshield. I’ve been wrapped up in my circling thoughts. My phone buzzes from the passenger seat. I pull into my driveway, throw the truck in park, and check my text messages.

Carmine was found dead.

My heart slams in my chest, pounding like a sledgehammer against my ribs. Torren Delanti is up to something.
Pepper
. Instinct says to call her. Now. My direct orders are to
not
call her. Torren wouldn’t hesitate to kill his nephew in the name of business. My fingers fly across the keys of my phone.

How?

I sit, anxiously awaiting a reply from Clint. After five minutes and no reply, I trudge into my house. The small, two-bedroom cape does nothing for me. It’s an empty box. It is an appearance I need only to appease the masses who think I need a place to call home. I toss my keys on the counter and stalk to the kitchen. Pulling a beer from the fridge, I contemplate all the different meanings Carmine’s death could have.

Torren could be sending a message to those who fail.
Those who rat
. Carmine, even as family, failed him. Torren could be tying up
all
the loose ends regarding Ezra Ash and his role in Torren Delanti’s affairs. If that’s the case, Pepper is screwed. My phone dings. Smashing Pumpkins “Disarm” is playing from my Bose Bluetooth speaker. Strangely, it seems fitting.

Apparent suicide. Asphyxiation.

Bullshit
, I respond.

There is no way in hell that coward Carmine hanged himself in prison. No. Way. Torren is behind this and it’s making my chest ache. I need to contact Pepper. Another ding.

Not a word to Pepper or Sawyer Crown.

Agent Clint Douglas knows me too well. It’s infuriating. I have no response for him, though. Chances are he already knows my theory. He’s a good man and boss and I will have to trust that he will take the necessary precautions to protect the innocent. My rage, my frustration takes over. I am essentially powerless. Abiding by the law can suck it. I pull back and punch a hole in the drywall next to fridge.

This is turning into a game. A game that will scar people. A game that may kill people. Before it was just Pepper. Just Pepper and Cane. Pieces of a puzzle I could keep up with. Now, there are too many moving parts. A chain reaction of grief that would swallow people whole if one wrong move is made.

Grabbing an ice pack from the freezer, I chug my beer and decide that tonight I need relieve my tension. I need to screw it out of my system. It’s that or hurt someone. I haven’t given in to the darkness that lives within me in so long that I’m horrified to let it out at all. Bits and pieces closely mixed within the law somehow have slipped but never have I let it all loose.

“Tag,” I’d said, but didn’t move off her. Still so slight. So delicate. A flicker of amusement danced in her eyes. This wasn’t a game, though. This was training. She shouldn’t be here. This school would ruin her. The moment stretched, and my heart beat furiously in my chest. I’ve never been this close to her. We weren’t normally in the same grouping or classes. My heart pounded so violently, I felt it pulsing against my sternum. And surely the girl felt it too. My chest was pressed against hers.

Embarrassed, she slapped my chest and rolled me off her. I stood up. The calm friendliness in her eyes seemed genuine. I whispered a quick bit of advice to her and jogged off, not wanting our interaction to gain attention. I’d never forgive myself if she were punished because of me. I wish I could have said more. Something. Anything. Somehow let her know it
was
me.

I need a release. Something to take the edge off.

Sex. Sex is easy. A meaningless release.

I toss my sweat-ridden tee to the hamper and pull on a wife-beater tank. The bar I intend to visit doesn’t have air conditioning. The women there don’t need button-up shirts and slacks. My jeans will do just fine. I double check to make sure my wallet is in my back pocket and head out.

I only have four blocks to walk.

“You're my guilty secret, not just a memory” GENE LOVES JEZEBEL – “HEARTACHE”

Friday I have a date with Hoot. I probably should have told him it was a break-up date. He’s been tossing out ideas for this
date
for the last three days. It must be done, though. He feels more like a puppy dog following me around than someone I want to be with. Even our sex as of late has been lackluster. The more clingy and needy he becomes, the less attractive he is to me. It’s a libido killer. My phone vibrates from the coffee table. I snatch it up and read my text.

Target 84. ATF Agent Bentley James. Last known location: Christiansburg, VA.

I stare at the screen.

Odd.

I’ve never been given simultaneous targets before. My response is brief.

Haven’t completed Target 83.

My phone vibrates a response before I can set it down.

Complete 83; proceed to 84.

Pulling my laptop from its location on the arm of the couch, a quick Google search pulls up numerous articles about Agent James. Looks as though his methods for completing cases have garnered attention from Washington.
Unwanted
attention. Government agents all want to be cowboys. No one wants to play by the books, yet, when their careers are in jeopardy, they beg and plead, saying it was
necessary
to act as they did. I skim through the bulk of the articles. Based in Kentucky. Ties to some large gun busts. Nothing that seems out of the ordinary. I fire an email off to our tech expert asking for a picture and local address. Christiansburg is a small town. He won’t be here for long without being noticed by me.

I open the attachment confirming his hotel accommodations here in Virginia. He’s younger than the bulk of my targets. Thirties. Cropped, light-brown hair. Clear blue eyes that stand out against his tawny skin. Stubble that compliments his strong jawline and narrow nose. The skin beneath his eyes looks fatigued. He must not sleep well. Maybe he’s witnessed horrors in his ATF years or maybe he was undercover long enough to start dabbling in sample product. Guns and drugs generally go hand in hand. No doubt he also has ties to ongoing DEA cases as well. This is a leap for me. Federal agents are generally outside the realm of hire for us. People
look
for them. People
track
them. More than politicians. More than the public leaders in the world. I’ll need to be careful.

Three hours later I’m pushing a grocery cart around aimlessly throwing things into it. My attire--baggy sweats, a gray hoodie, and my hair in a messy bun--makes me look like an average college kid. Bentley James is across the produce section deliberating over eggplants. He’s tall. Taller than I imagined. His muscles aren’t bulging in a large way, yet they are there, solid and defined. He’s wearing a V-neck shirt, worn-in jeans, and a silver belt buckle. He looks like he walked off a Levi’s billboard. He garners a lot of attention of the female variety.

“You just squeeze it gently,” the redhead states, reaching over his outstretched arm and showing him
how
to squeeze the eggplant. Amateur.

“Huh. Thanks,” he replies. That voice. It’s husky. Baritone, rough like sandpaper but smooth too. I toss a bag of tofu into my cart and push ahead. Six feet of solid male whips by me, leaving the unmistakable blast of power and dominance wafting behind him. A tingle shoots down my spine. I ditch my cart at the end of an aisle and head out to my car to wait for him.

It’s a shame he’s boring. So
boring
. Predictable, even. Grocery shop. Stop at bar. Go to hotel. Once he’s in for the night I adhere a tracking device to the underside of his truck’s wheel well. At least now I can go home and attempt to sleep. Tomorrow I can simply log into the web-based tracking service and monitor his stops from the comfort of pajamas and my couch. I smile inwardly. All I need is Target 85 and I can disappear.

Stray struts his orange self around me as I walk through the door, tangling himself between my feet. I trip and curse at him as he purrs at me.

“I don’t suppose you made me dinner?” I ask him. Great. Conversing with a cat. My life has hit an all-time low. He headbutts me and trots off to stretch out on the back edge of the couch. I sigh, tossing my purse on the chair. I grab a banana, chocolate almond milk, and a supersized container of protein powder before mixing them all together in the blender. Dinner of champions.

Sitting on the couch, Stray at my head, my mind wanders. I revel in my chocolate banana smoothie as the air conditioning blasts cold air in my face. I try to feel gratitude for these small things. There was a time when I didn’t know when my next meal would be. There was a time when I wasn’t afforded heat or AC.

We are routinely drenched with ice-cold water and left outside or in an unheated room to freeze. Some have been forced to stand in or run through snow wearing only paper-thin clothing. To make the cold even more unbearable, the instructors have been leaving the windows open in the rooms at night.

After days they pull us to a different section of Ravenbrook. Moisture clings to the walls here. It’s hard to breathe through it. Warmth burns my skin. It’s too much of a contrast from the cold before. I’m locked in a tiny, hot room that has no ventilation. It feels like an oven. It feels like I’m suffocating. Surely I cannot last three days in here. Water is left inside the door. Just one glass. I want to guzzle it. I don’t. I will ration it. I have no idea if they intend on feeding us.

*

Morning brings a flurry of activity. Stray bitch-slaps my face until I open the window for him to go out while my phone buzzes incessantly. I fire up the laptop while checking my phone. Three texts.

Allie has a concert the 20th, I promised her you’d come this time.

Pepper. I sigh, enter my password into the login screen, and start a pot of coffee.

Greta. You HAVE to come.

Don’t ignore me asshole! xo

I reply to Pepper with the best I can offer.

I may be away for work. If not, I’ll come, but you owe me.

Her response makes me snicker. The humor lightens my mood.

Bitch-I don’t owe you-you’ll thank
me
when it’s over.

Carrying my mug of piping-hot coffee into the living room, I see the red dot on the computer screen, the one that represents Agent James, and see that his location is nowhere near local.

Shit.

Impossible.

Calculating hours since I left the hotel, he’d have to have gotten up four hours ago at four a.m. to drive that far. I grind my teeth. I
hate
Kentucky. Why the hell did he haul ass there in the wee hours of the morning anyways?

*

Bentley is sitting in his truck at a renovation site. He looks irritated. The signage being hoisted up the front of the building reads
Sabotage.
Colorful benches are being carried inside the unopened club. His hair is disheveled and dark circles line his eyes as he slams back a shot of some sort. What is he doing here at one of Dominic’s new clubs? The hair at the base of my neck stands on end. Eventually he pulls the truck around and parks it with the other construction vehicles. He disappears into the building for three hours.

I suck down the last of my energy drink and lift the night vision scope. His home. I’m growing curious about him. His life seems too uninteresting. Too empty and impersonal. I could take him out right now. He’s sitting in a chair in an empty room knocking back his fourth beer of the night and reading. Utterly boring. After twenty hours in Kentucky, watching him do absolutely nothing that will require any extra effort on my part, I head home. His life is much like mine, in appearances, if someone were to watch me from afar. I frown and start my car. If I calculated right, I will have five hours to sleep before I get up and have my non-date date with Hoot.

*

The shirt I’m wearing leaves a sliver of skin showing at my waist. Hoot’s hand rests at the small of my back as we enter the bar. He’s wearing his motorcycle club cut-and-fitted jeans and boots. He looks handsome as always. Hair just a tad too long. Stubble just a day grown in. Rough. He looks rough
and
soft. His eyes are soft. They look at me gently. We sit at a table near the door and he orders us a round. When the drinks come I take three gulps. His hand reaches out for mine but I pull it away, setting it on my lap beneath the table.

“We need to break up,” I blurt out as his Adam’s apple bobs while he takes a drink of his beer. His eyes widen then grow dark.

“Fuck you, Greta.” he snorts.

“I’m serious, Hoot. I’m done,” I say firmly. He wants answers. A reason. I can see it in his expression. No reason I have will appease him, though.

“Just like that, huh? Not even willing to give me an inch inside your fortress?” he snaps at me. I sigh. He’s right, just like that. I don’t really have any feelings about the idea of not having him anymore, though, so I know it’s the right path. He’d never accept my truth.

“Together we’d be like a cigar, Hoot, burning up slow until there’s nothing left to burn. You make it hard for me to breathe. It makes my head hurt. I told you from the start that I just wanted uncomplicated sex. I never misled you,” I state, holding his gaze. I can see a flash of desperation, then pain in his eyes.

“You know what your problem is, honey? You can’t separate what you need from what you want,” he says. I hold his challenging stare and shake my head at him. I place my hand on his forearm. Glancing around the bar, eyes only briefly stopping on one man, I get up and leave. Just. Like. That. I won’t drag it out unnecessarily. I won’t play into his mind games. I have nothing else to give him anyways. Clear. Concise. That’s what I offered and that’s all he should have expected from me anyways. I’m slightly on edge wondering how this will affect family dinners. He’s always there. He and Sawyer are very close.

I move the palm of my hand across the steamed-up mirror and consider my blurry reflection behind the drops of glass. Staring at my reflection, I don’t see my beauty. I see a killer. I’m not sure what it is about me that attracts men, maybe it’s my muscular limbs that allow me to do more pull-ups than the jocks I routinely humiliate at the gym. Or maybe it’s the go-to-hell look in my eyes, the challenge they just can’t seem to ignore. My gender allows me easier access to many targets. I am a pretty face, so I’ve been told, with a killer body. Literally. I kill whatever the job calls for. Women, men, I know no bounds. Why would I? I've been groomed to do this since I was a child.

What would Sawyer, Pepper, and Allie think if they knew the truth about me? My fist lashes out, shattering the mirror, shattering my reflection, leaving only a fragmented identity. Clutching my knuckles, I slump to the floor.

Stars glittered, uninviting and cold, through a ragged hole in the board at the top of the hole. I can’t remember the tune anymore. I want to hum. I want that boy’s hand to magically appear, reach down into this hole and pull me up and out. I haven’t thought of him in so long.

From this moment on I am a rock. As a rock, I will absorb nothing, I will say nothing, and nothing will be able to break me. I repeat my new mantra over and over silently. I will not break. This is just a test. I feel as though we’ve all been isolated since arriving at Ravenbrook. Limited peer interactions. Long periods spent alone in our rooms. No music. No books besides our textbooks. This shouldn't be as hard as it’s proving to be.

Isolation has become terrifying. I’ve not seen or heard anyone for days. The water jug that was left down here with me is almost empty. I’m starving. My body is fatigued. My thoughts run wild in scared and exhausted circles. I grab my knees to hide my shaking.

What if no one comes? What if I’m forgotten? The stench of my urine and feces makes my stomach roll. It’s too close, but the hole only has so much room. Why did he choose to escape? Why did he leave me? I have no doubt that Dee found him, hunted him. He is surely dead. I’m agitated that I can’t remember his song. I long to hear that dulcet humming.

I push my face into my palms to asphyxiate the sound of my sobs. Eventually I move to my spot on the floor next to my bed. I'd cry myself to sleep but I'm afraid I would drown. Instead I focus on one notion: what the hell was Bentley James doing at the bar tonight? His truck was nowhere in sight when I’d left the bar. He was in Kentucky when I left today.