CHAPTER TWO
2410 Words
CHAPTER TWO
Mia North sat in the parking lot of a convenience store on Seventh Street, hood pulled tight over her head, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.
Earlier that night, she’d watched Wilson Andrews, the man due to be elected by a landslide to the state senate this November—not to mention, the man responsible for ruining her life— engaged in a shady, back-alley deal with some thug. An envelope had been exchanged.
“You understand what needs to happen?”
That’s what the All-American, baby-kissing, wonder-candidate had said, right before the deal.
She wasn’t sure of much, but it’d had all the markings of a hit. Was this the same guy who’d killed Ellis Horvath, the man she’d gone to prison for murdering? There were so many questions, and she’d been trying to answer them, to put the pieces of the puzzle together for so long, only to run against obstacle upon obstacle.
Case in point, tonight.
She’d gone out, expecting to tail the guy. It wasn’t her first rodeo; she’d performed surveillance dozens of times before. Somehow, though, she’d lost him in downtown Dallas traffic, and only caught up with him by sheer luck when she found his car, a tan sedan, a few hours later, parked in front of the Sip n’ Shake Convenience Store.
She watched the large man in the cargo jacket and skull cap emerge a few moments later, sipping on a giant-sized soft drink.
When he got out, instead of heading straight to his car, he stopped in front of the trash can. He tossed the straw wrapper inside, looked around, then reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulled something out, and dropped it in. It made a loud, clanking noise that Mia could hear, even from across the parking lot.
Now, that’s very interesting, she thought, watching him get into his car and head north on Seventh.
The second he did, she pulled out of her space and up to the curb in front of the store. Making sure her hood was pulled tight around her face, she got out, threw off the lid to the can, and reached inside, rifling around. She found it, among the trash, at the very bottom of the bag.
Just as she’d thought. A g*n.
Quickly pocketing it, she rushed for the car and took off, hoping she could find the hitman’s car. She caught up with him a few lights down on Seventh. He had his window down and was smoking a cigarette, looking as relaxed as could be.
She followed him to a row home that wasn’t too far away from the place where she’d been framed for the murder of Ellis Horvath. As she drove, thoughts of that night came back to her.
She’d acted rashly, barreling into the empty warehouse without waiting for David. But she’d had a good reason. Ellis had been stalking her daughter, Kelsey, and she’d received a call from him, luring her to the place. She wanted to confront him, once and for all.
And then she’d found him there, shot dead.
By whom, she didn’t know. She hadn’t seen the real culprit.
But Mia had been the perfect patsy. She had motive, opportunity, means . . .
And that bastard Wilson Andrews knew it. He’d done it to cover his own a*s, ruining her life in the process.
So, for the thousandth time, the same mantra played in her head: If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make sure he goes down.
She pulled to the curb down the street from where the tan sedan parked and watched as the hefty man in the skull cap got out of the car and climbed the steps to his home, then fumbled at the front stoop for the keys.
This wasn’t a good neighborhood to be caught in after dark. All kinds of illegal activities were happening on these streets, which was why Mia knew it well. But those activities were the least of her problems right now.
Mia stared at him a moment, wondering. Was he the man who’d shot Horvath, that night, too? Or had that crooked cop Reynolds done it, and this guy had been hired to off Reynolds?
So intent was her gaze on him, that her fingers missed the door handle twice before she was able to pull it open. When she did, she slipped out, then moved into the shadows, hugging the building as she advanced toward his house.
She was only a house away when he finally found his key, opened the door, and went inside.
Mia stood outside, moving slowly and trying to act inconspicuous as she watched the lights in the downstairs area flip on. She glanced around, but didn’t see anyone else, so she stood near the stairs, watching and waiting. It was after midnight. He’d probably go off to bed soon.
Sure enough, the downstairs lights turned off a moment later.
She hesitated for only a second, thinking of the hit this man was about to perform. She couldn’t wait.
Quickly, she climbed the stairs to the front and tried the door. She easily picked the lock. She pushed it open, slowly, and peered into the darkness. The only light seemed to be coming from the upstairs hallway. She could hear water running somewhere in the house—he was probably getting ready for bed.
She slipped in and closed the door behind her, then turned on her phone flashlight and cast its beam upon a living room with a giant wall-sized television, a few gamer chairs, and nothing else.
Who is this guy? she wondered, looking around for some discarded mail or something that would answer the question. Meanwhile, upstairs, she heard the floorboards shifting, the sound of water, growing louder.
She stooped in front of a pile of old Playboy magazines. People still read this? she thought, turning it over, hoping to find an address label.
Nothing.
This man was Mr. Anonymous.
She could probably look up property records online, but there was a good chance that this guy was just renting. Probably even from Wilson Andrews, considering he’d bought up quite a bit of real estate in the worst neighborhoods. There were rumors he was a slumlord, charging people crazy rent for squalid little hovels. But of course, with Wilson Andrews, nothing stuck.
What I really need to do is find the guy’s wallet, she thought. And I have a pretty good idea where that is.
She went to the foot of the stairs and looked up. It was dangerous, sure. But she’d been tailing this guy all night. It wasn’t enough just to have the g*n. She needed more.
She slowly started to climb the worn treads, trying to be as light on her feet as possible.
Before she could even take the third step, something reached out from behind her, placing a hand on her hood and yanking her back. She let out a surprised yelp as she stumbled backwards, her back crashing into a wall. An arm pressed up against her throat, cutting her air supply.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?”
It was the hit-man she’d been tailing. He had a round, grizzled face, an old, pink, hairless scar stretching through the dark stubble on his chin. He shoved her back roughly, his eyes narrowed slits.
“Answer me.” He pushed harder, crushing her windpipe. “You’ve been following me, huh?”
She gritted her teeth. How could she have been so stupid? Her word was a breath: “Maybe.”
“I can call the cops. They’ll come and arrest your a*s, you know. And I will. You got nothing on me.”
“I found the g*n you tried to ditch at the convenience store.”
His scowl deepened. “Did you, now?”
She nodded.
His frown gave way to a smile. Then he chuckled. “I bet you did. The boss said I’d probably have a b***h tailing me. He told me to watch out for you. But why?” He moved back and looked her over. “You ain’t nothin’ but a little thing. What could you possibly do to me?”
As he said those words, he loosened his grip slightly, and she was able to breathe more comfortably.
Big mistake. Only, he didn’t realize it yet.
Instead, he reached up and pulled a lock of her hair free of the hood, and twirled it in his other finger. “How about you give me that g*n back, and I won’t make this unpleasant for you. We got a deal?”
She smiled sweetly at him. Then, with one, quick movement, she raised her leg and kneed him squarely in the crotch.
He doubled forward, breathless, eyes wide in surprise. Taking advantage of the moment, she pushed off the wall and kicked him in the face. He stumbled back against the railing, his weight splintering it into pieces, wooden spindles flying everywhere. His hands fanned out for some support, but finding none, he landed with a crash in a pile of broken debris on the scuffed linoleum floor.
She jumped onto his chest and stooped over him, grabbing him by the t-shirt. She took one of the sharp splinters of wood and held it up so its point pierced his throat, showing him she meant business.
“Listen to me,” she growled, fisting it in her hand and bringing her face down low so she could smell his rancid breath. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just want information. What’s your name and who do you work for?”
He shook his head slightly. She grabbed his t-shirt tighter and shoved him down, hard, so the back of his head slammed against the floor.
“Tell me!”
“Ernie. Um—Ernie Modesto. I don’t work for—I don’t—”
“Bullshit! You work for Wilson Andrews. I saw you take money from him outside the hotel. Admit it.”
He nodded. “Okay, okay. I did. Just this one time.”
“For what? What did he have you do?”
He swallowed. “I don’t know. I had to—I had to off some corrupt cop. Said he had it coming to him. That’s all.”
Reynolds. He killed Reynolds. And yeah, Kevin Reynolds might have been a corrupt cop who was there when the whole thing went down, but did he deserve death? No, that was only to protect Wilson Andrews’s reputation.
But that wasn’t what she cared most about.
She gripped his t-shirt tighter and shook him harder. “I know Wilson Andrews had me framed because he didn’t want me sticking my nose into his brother’s murders. Who helped him? Was it Reynolds? The cop you killed?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know! I don’t know anything! I just do what the politician tells me. That’s all. I—” He blinked. “Wait. Are you Mia North? The one in the news? The agent who’s been running from the cops?”
She stiffened. She didn’t want to be identified by anyone. Even this criminal who’d never go to the cops and report seeing her.
But she did believe him when he said that he didn’t know anything. Wilson Andrews probably made sure his associates knew as little as possible.
“Listen to me, you son of a b***h,” she said, pressing the sharpened weapon closer to his bobbing Adam’s apple. “Tell me exactly what he said when he had you kill Reynolds.”
“He told me to go to his apartment. He gave me a key he’d had made. So I just waited there until the guy came home, surprised him as he was getting in. It was easy peasy. That’s all.”
She winced, remembering the state of the body she’d found. “That didn’t look easy. You beat him to death. You didn’t shoot him.”
He blinked. “You saw? How did you--”
“I saw enough.”
“Yeah, well . . . I was going to shoot him, but I saw a kid across the hall when I was going in. I thought he might hear the gunshot and call the cops.”
“He didn’t say anything to you before you killed him?”
His eyes lit up. “As a matter of fact, he did. He begged for his life like a little sissy. Then he said something about a girl. How he should’ve come forward back then.”
“What girl?”
Ernie shrugged. “I don’t know. He kept babbling about it. How he was sorry. How he should’ve come forward back then, when he first found out about it. He kept saying that, over and over again, how he regretted it.”
Mia straightened, thinking. That could’ve referred to the k********g of Sara Waverly. Maybe Reynolds had known about Jerry Andrews’s sick obsession with young girls, too. Wilson Andrews certainly had, and he’d gone through a lot to keep it quiet, to preserve his family’s name.
“What did he give you the money for, tonight?” she said softly.
“That was for the hit. He promised me half when I agreed, half when I finished.”
“But I heard him say, You understand what needs to happen? What was he referring to?”
“He wanted me to dispose of the g*n. He was kind of pissed when he found out I was still holding onto it. That’s it.”
She wasn’t sure if she could believe him, so she stared into his eyes for a beat. She saw panic there. She slowly let him go, and stood up, backing towards the door, still holding the sharpened spindle as her weapon. He slowly rose onto his elbows and watched her.
The scumbag had killed a cop. Even if he was a dirty one, he was a murderer. But as much as she wanted to bring him in, in her current state, there was nothing she could do.
“Let’s keep this little meeting between us, shall we?” she said, dropping the weapon and slipping out the door. She had to find a place to lay low tonight, but tomorrow, she’d need to get in touch with David.
- Writer
