Killer Move

When she was finished rubbing, she yanked open the glove compartment and pulled out some cigarettes. She took one and tossed the pack into my lap.

“I don’t.”

“You didn’t. If you haven’t started again yet, then you’re a stronger man than I thought.”

I looked at her, nonplussed.

“You haven’t noticed?” She lit up, blew out the first lungful of smoke. “God, you’re slow. Not even the table of women at Krank’s last night? I forgot to cancel them. Of course that was when you were supposed to be there with your wife. The big reconciliation drink, destined to go badly wrong. And yet you wind up taking yourself there anyway. Funny, huh.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Jane Doe, to you.”

“What’s happening? What is going on?”

“Well, that’s the question right there. Everything was laid out. Lines were drawn, walls put in place to stop it spilling too wide. The walls have not held, and this has got way the fuck out of hand.”

There was a word fighting for attention in my head, but to get at it I had to fight past a double image of Cassandra’s upturned face. My mind hadn’t caught up with the implications of what I’d seen in her apartment, and insisted on presenting her to me as she’d been in the night—cute, happy to be drinking wine and hanging out and talking about computers or whatever it was we’d been discussing when my brain had taken that snapshot. Then—bam—the other image dropped down like a lead curtain.

A door. Dark. A bed full of blood.

I got the word out in the end. “Modified.”

“Yep,” the woman said, rolling down her window to let out the smoke. “You have been.”

“By who?”

“Me. Among others.”

“The e-mail? The photo book?”

“Both, with a little help. I was also Melania Gilkyson for a couple of phone calls.”

“That was you?”

She cocked her head, and altered her voice slightly. “ ‘I don’t work for him twenty-four-seven, you know.’ ”

“But why?”

She didn’t answer, just stared with a flat kind of unhappiness across the lot.

“Why have you done this to me?”

“Because it’s my job.”

“Where’s Stephanie? Have you done anything to her? If you have . . .”

“No.” The woman shook her head, a concise back-and-forth movement, as if economy of motion ran deep in her bones. “That’s not on me. I have no clue where your wife is. That is one of many things that have gone badly off-script in the last forty-eight hours.”

“Were you at my house?”

“When?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“No. Why?”

“I called, trying to track down Stephanie. A woman picked up the phone. She said the word ‘Modified.’ ”

The woman rubbed her forehead with her fingertips and looked pained. “Not me. Christ.”

“But you have been to my house. Right?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because when I asked, you didn’t deny it. You just asked when I was talking about.”

“Shit. I must be tired,” she said. “Yes. I was there Wednesday morning, to put the pictures on your laptop.”

“You took those?”

“Not me. Someone I know.”

“How did you get in?”

“I have keys.”

“Why?”

“Why what? There’s a lot of whys here. You need to be specific.”

“Why plant the pictures?”

“Why do you think?”

“To make my wife believe I’d been spying on Karren.”

“Duh.”

“Did someone pay you to do this?”

“Maybe you’re not as dumb as everyone thinks, hey.”

“Who? Why would anyone do that to me?”

“I’m not at liberty to—”

Suddenly, and without warning, I lost it. I’ve never raised my hand to a woman in my life, but I wanted to pull this one’s throat out, break her nose, do anything and everything that would hurt forever. I needed to be sure, absolutely sure, that this woman didn’t know where Stephanie was and hadn’t hurt her in any way. I snapped around in my seat and lunged toward the woman’s neck.

I didn’t even see her hand move from the steering wheel, but then suddenly there it was, clamped around my wrist, arresting the forward movement in my arm so fast that I felt my shoulder joint twist.

“If you want,” she said, looking at me with cool blue eyes, “I can drag you out of this truck and do you in the lot. Right now. And I’m talking flamboyant, crowd-pleaser, playing to the gallery. Broken bones, rib kicks, with my hair down and chest stuck out so everyone sees it’s a girl busting you apart. What do you say? Want to press start on that?”

I tried to pull back, but she was too strong. Her eyes held mine, unwavering. The muscles in her face and jaw were hard planes of intent, and I could feel the long bones in my forearm being pushed together. I had no doubt that she could—and would—do what she’d threatened.

I’ve also been in many meetings in my time, however, sat face-to-face with a lot of people who aren’t revealing everything they know. I’ve seen what humans look like when they’re trying to hide something, to present only one side of a deal, when they’re playing poker with a guy they think is just a dumb-ass extra in their lives.

“You’re scared,” I said.

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You heard.”

“You know what, I am going to do it. I’m going to kick your fucking ass.”