Then he turned and walked off.
The Boy got home satisfied. He didn’t whistle like Martin, and he didn’t smile a secret smile. Those were unnecessary things, ornaments of humanity. But he was satisfied. He hadn’t just solved his problem, he’d solved every facet of it.
What if, for example, his father upped the ante in the future and wanted more than a dollar? It was a thought that had occurred to him last night, as he’d considered and ached in the dark. He’d decided it was very possible. If life could want a dollar, couldn’t it want two? Or three?
The shortest distance between two lines was to take from those who had, but that presented another problem: how to keep from getting caught.
All roads had led to Martin. The larger boy would do the work and he’d take the heat when it came. And if Martin did decide to tell on the Boy, who’d believe him?
The rest was just judgment and calculation. How much pain to cause, how much fear to instill, how much certainty would result. Human calculus was the easiest math of all, if you had a knack for it, and that was the day the Boy learned that he did.
Not all evil is an accident. Sometimes it is grown in a dark cellar under a dark sun, tended by a dark gardener with a hoe made of bone.
CHAPTER THREE
PRESENT DAY
I long for my gun to be in my hand right now. It is a Glock 9mm, and I am as comfortable with it as I am carrying a purse or wearing a pair of well-fitting shoes.
I am a markswoman with a handgun. It’s a skill that seems to have crawled out of some ancestral DNA, because neither my mom nor my dad liked guns. I was introduced to this passion when I was eight by a friend of my father’s. He was a gun nut, and so was I after that day. There was something just …
I was a natural from the start, and though I’ve never competed, I suspect I’m in the top hundred in the world. It’s a skill that’s come in handy far too often, and one I wish I could utilize now.
“This dress is too damn hot,” I growl.
It’s late February in Los Angeles, and Callie’s wedding is just off the beach. The air is cool, but for some cursed reason there’s no discernible wind today, and the sun that would be comfortable in normal clothes is turning my maid of honor dress into a miniature sauna.
“My ass is sweating,” Marilyn whispers back to me, and giggles.
Marilyn is Callie’s daughter. She and Callie reconciled only a few years ago. Callie got pregnant at fifteen and gave Marilyn up for adoption at the urging of her parents, something she always regretted. One of the men we were hunting had ferreted out this information and threatened to use it against Callie. The result was a reunion of necessity that has turned into a real relationship.
“Quiet, Mama-Smoky,” Bonnie chastises. “You too,” she tells Marilyn.
I glance over at Bonnie, who stands next to me in her sun-yellow bridesmaid dress. She has her hair up and tied with a yellow ribbon, like all the women. She is beautiful, and I smile at her.
Bonnie is thirteen, and she looks like her mother, all blond hair and crisp blue eyes. The same perfect white teeth. It’s what’s behind her eyes that makes her different. She’s a thirteen-year-old physically, but there’s a stillness to her gaze that belies that. She’s seen and experienced too much.
Her mother, Annie King, was my best friend in high school. She was murdered and mutilated by a man because he’d wanted me to hunt him, and he forced Bonnie to watch it all.
Annie had left Bonnie to me. I still don’t know why.
Avenging Annie became the first lifeline in the aftertime of Joseph Sands; Bonnie became the second. Bonnie was driven mute by witnessing the murder of her mother, but over time she’s come back to herself. She is thirteen now; she speaks; I love her. She’s my child in all the ways that count.
Bonnie smiles back at me, and it burns away that watchful look in her eyes like the sun burning away the fog.
“You’re not hot?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “I can take it. It won’t be for long.”
I glance over at Samuel Brady, the man Callie will be marrying. He’s the head of the SWAT team at the Los Angeles FBI office, and he looks the part, even in his black tuxedo. He’s tall, about six feet four, and he keeps his dark hair like all the SWAT guys do: short and tight, military style.
“Sam doesn’t seem nervous,” I whisper to Marilyn. “I don’t think much scares him,” she whispers back, “except maybe Callie.”
I stifle a snort at this. Callie Thorne is both my friend and a long-term member of my team. She’s a tall, skinny, leggy redhead with a master’s in forensics and a minor in criminology. She’s known for her irreverence, which is generally excused by her competence. She is ruthless in her search for the truth.
The fact that she’s getting married is still a surprise to everyone at some level. Before Sam Brady, Callie was what we affectionately called a “serial non-monogamist.”
Standing next to Sam is Tommy. He catches my eye and gives me a wink. I stick my tongue out at him, which earns me another nudge and frown from Bonnie.
“When did you become such a little narc?” I whisper to her.
“Since Kirby made me second in command,” she answers.
Now it’s my turn to frown.
Kirby Mitchell is an assassin. She also happens to have assumed the role as Callie’s wedding planner. She’s got the look and attitude of a California beach bunny, but her history is much darker than that. There were vague rumors of her using threats, even flashing her gun, to get some of the vendors to cut Callie a break. I’m not sure how I feel about Bonnie getting close to her.
I let it go, as I let so many things go in my life. It’s not like I have much choice. I’m surrounded by people like me, people who have both visible and invisible scars, people who have killed others and will kill again. It may not be the best environment in which to raise a child, but it is the one I’ve chosen and the one I have.
Next to Tommy are the last two members of my team, Alan Washington and James Giron. Alan is the oldest of us all, almost fifty now. He’s a linebacker-large African American man. His tuxedo tightens dangerously every time he moves, straining at the seams. Size hides the truth of Alan; he’s got a mind for detail and an endless patience that makes him a formidable investigator.
James checks his watch, and a sour expression crosses his face. I roll my eyes. At thirty-one, James is the youngest member of my team. He’s also a misanthrope. I can’t say that he hates people, but he sure doesn’t seem to care for them. He has no use for social graces and generally gets on the wrong side of everyone he meets, present company included. What James lacks in the likability department he makes up for with his mind. James is a genius. He graduated high school at fifteen, burned his way through a PhD in criminology in four years, and joined the FBI.
One hint of James’s humanity lies in his reasons for becoming an agent. He had a sister, Rosa, who was murdered when James was twelve. She was twenty. It took her three days to die as she was burned with a blowtorch and raped repeatedly. James decided at her funeral that he wanted to join the FBI.
He also shares my gift: the ability to understand the dark things. Like me, he can sidle up against the hissing and the slithering and the sticky, he can smell the smell and taste the taste, and come away changed but intact. Much as I dislike him sometimes, when I need someone to commiserate with about the mind of a killer, James is my invaluable and constant companion.
I look out at the attendees, seated in their plastic folding chairs. There aren’t all that many. Callie’s parents aren’t here; they weren’t invited. She’s never forgiven them for forcing her to give up Marilyn. Alan’s wife, Elaina, is there. She smiles at me, a crinkling of the eyes. I smile back. Elaina is one of the few truly good people I’ve ever
