Day Shift

She couldn’t find her balance on the uneven surface. She pitched forward onto the ground beside the dying man. As he finished dying, Olivia drew herself up into a crouch. Awkwardly, she patted him down. It was no surprise that he had a knife. In the darkness, she fumbled to extricate it from its sheath. As a bonus, she felt a familiar cylindrical shape and knew he’d brought a flashlight. Yes! It was easier to free it from his belt than to work her tiny one out of her pocket. She switched it on, setting it on his stomach to shine on her hands. Even with its help, she nicked herself in the process of cutting the zip tie. Once she’d freed her hands and stanched her own bleeding with the hair band, Olivia gave herself a minute to recover. By the time her sixty seconds were up, her breathing was back to normal and her pulse had stopped hammering.

She had gathered her wits, too. Olivia used the dead man’s flashlight to check that her own blood wasn’t anywhere on the ground. She stuck the sawed-up zip tie in her pocket. She would take his knife, flashlight, and phone, which she found on the ground beside his body. Did he have a wallet? Yes, he did. She took that, too. No gun, which was a slight surprise.

There wasn’t any way to conceal the body, so she left it where it lay. Finally, she switched off the flashlight.

Forcing herself to move stealthily, Olivia worked her way closer to the street, bush to bush, until she came to the shadowy place where she’d left her bag. She pulled down the sleeves of the sweater to cover her abraded wrists. She draped the messenger bag to cover as much of her as she could, in case there were spots she hadn’t noticed.

Olivia took a few deep breaths, then started the long walk back to her car, reminding herself with every step to be wary. He’d made the call; they’d be checking. Though not twenty-five minutes had passed since she’d turned onto Old Pioneer, she felt it had been hours.

Olivia stayed in cover wherever she could — overhanging tree limbs, shadows of any kind, parked cars as she moved into the less grand streets. If she heard a vehicle approaching, she hid and remained hidden until it was past. That only happened twice. As she came closer to the street where she’d left the rental car, she abandoned the sidewalk altogether. She crouched, watching the car, from the lushly planted yard of the corner house on that block. Concealed by a cluster of yucca plants and pampas grass, Olivia watched for fifteen minutes. Nothing happened. She was just about to stand when the phone she’d confiscated began to buzz quietly.

It made her jump about a mile.

She held it up to her ear. “Falco? Where are you now?” said a familiar voice. “Did you have to hurt her? She okay? We’ll be there in two.”

When Olivia said nothing, the voice hesitated. Then the man said, “Isabel? Is that you?”

Gently, she placed the phone on one of the large rocks bordering the planting bed. She brought her heel down on it like a jackhammer. She was able to crack it significantly. She bent to pick it up, happy that she couldn’t hear the voice anymore. Happy that she’d destroyed something that her father had paid for, though the purchaser had been his right-hand man, Ellery McGuire.

Done with waiting, Olivia strode to the rental car just as confidently as she’d left it. She climbed in as though this were part of her daily routine, and she pulled out and drove away with smooth expertise. She coasted around for an hour, checking for a tail, before she headed for her motel. She parked at the back and started up the stairs, feeling suddenly exhausted.

Somehow she was not surprised to find Lemuel sitting outside her room. “How?” she said, but he caught her up in his arms and held her close. After a second, she let herself lean on him. Then when a couple of minutes had passed, she opened her door and they went inside.

He sat by her on the bed, his arm around her. “Manfred called me directly,” he said. “I was closer than he was, so I told him to turn around and go back to Midnight, if he wanted. He said he would.”

“Where were you?” she asked, trying to keep her teeth from chattering.

“Here in Dallas,” he said. “I had a plane layover. I can delay a night.”

She started to tell Lemuel he didn’t need to postpone his departure, but when she tried to make her lips move, she simply couldn’t make them form those words. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I got away from him.”

“Woman, I know that,” Lemuel said in his quiet voice. “Manfred gave me the address. I saw the body. Who sent him?”

“My father’s right-hand man,” she said. “Ellery McGuire.”

Lemuel was silent. “Does he know where you are?”

“He knew I was going to that house, or at least suspected enough to put someone there. I don’t know how. I’ll figure it out.”

“Did you get whatever you went there to get?”

“No, I never got inside. Falco caught me first. I was too cocky. On the other hand, why would I ever imagine there’d be someone waiting there for me? I had other things to worry about.”