I was about to leave the breakroom and head back to the interrogation room at the other side of the office when Bette walked in.
“Why are you always just hanging around?” She huffed. “Weren’t you supposed to be doing an interrogation with Agent Park? If you’re done, then go home, or go do whatever it is you do when you’re not here. You’re not an SDCT agent. You can’t just hang around on your off time.”
“Why are you so mean?” I asked her point-blank.
She froze and stared at me, wide-eyed. Normally I just brushed her harassment off with a shrug or a smile, so she must have been shocked to hear me respond seriously.
“I helped the SDCT investigate a case against my own former Family,” I continued. Now that I’d started, I felt bolstered to continue. “I could have gotten killed for doing that, but you still seem to think I’m a double agent or something. I don’t get why you have it out for me so badly.”
She stared at me in disbelief and opened her mouth, ready to retort. Before she could speak, though, Jase burst into the break room and interrupted us.
“There you are!” he yelled. “Come on. We gotta go. I got an address from the next potential victim. We need to hurry and try to get her to safety.”
“Right.” I nodded with determination. This was no time to sulk or squabble with Bette. I needed to get my head back in the game.
Jase left the room without another word, and I followed after him, leaving Bette to stand there alone. We hurried down the elevator and out into the parking lot.
“The address isn’t far from here,” Jase informed me as we got into the car. “We should be there in about twenty minutes.”
The drive was nerve-wracking. It had been a week since Hannah had fulfilled her obligation to kill Alexis Rothschild, which meant that the next client, Emmet Mayfield, had seven days' worth of opportunities to have killed Hannah’s mom. It was very possible that all we would find at Mrs. Style’s home was a dead body.
We pulled into the little ranch-style house a short while later. The grass was a little overgrown and there appeared to be a lot of mail in the mailbox. Those were definitely bad signs, but I kept my hopes up as I got out of the car and headed toward the front door.
I raised my hand to knock, too antsy to wait for Jase to do it like we usually did. As I was about to, I noticed that the door wasn’t closed all the way.
“It’s open,” I called to Jase as I pushed gently on the front door. It gave way easily, but I couldn’t see anyone inside. I turned to look at Jase, and then we both pulled our guns from our holsters and stepped inside. Since the door was ajar and we had reason to believe someone inside might be in danger, we didn’t need a warrant before coming inside.
I nearly jumped when I turned the first corner out of the main foyer of the house. There was a man kneeling in the center of the living room. He was wearing dark clothes and muddy shoes, and there was a wild, murderous look in his eyes. An old woman was lying on the ground in front of him, a long, thin length of cord wrapped around her neck and currently being pulled taut by the man behind her.
“Stop!” I roared as I lifted my gun and pointed it at the man.
The man looked up at me as I yelled. He obviously hadn’t heard us come in because he looked surprised to see us standing there. He let go of the cord and put his hands up slowly.
“Back away and get on the ground,” Jase commanded beside me.
The man did as he was told and moved backward a few steps. He didn’t get on the ground, though. Instead, he began to look swiftly around as though looking for an exit. Suddenly, he reached behind his back.
Jase and I both reacted immediately at the glint of a firearm. We fired our guns almost in unison, and both of our shots landed. The man fell over with a pained grunt, and Jase rushed to the man’s side to retrieve his weapon. As soon as he’d thrown it to the other side of the room, I fell onto the ground to check on the woman.
Her face was purple, and she wasn’t moving. I quickly turned her over and nearly gasped at how blue her lips were.
I positioned the woman flat on the ground and tilted her head back before I started to do chest compressions. There was no telling how long she had gone without oxygen, and brain damage or even death could occur after just a few minutes. The man had still been strangling her when we arrived, though, so I could only hope that we’d gotten here in the nick of time.
I counted forty and then gave the woman two rescue breaths before resuming the chest compressions. My arms were aching, and I was sure that I was going to break this poor old woman’s fragile rib bones, but I had to keep going.
“He’s not breathing,” Jase called as he examined the motionless suspect. “I’m going to call nine-one-one. Are you okay on the compressions?”
“I’m okay,” I replied through gritted teeth. CPR was a physically stressful and painful process, but I couldn’t give in so quickly.
I had lost track of how many times I’d administered the chest compression when the woman suddenly coughed and gasped for air. She opened her bloodshot eyes and looked around the room wildly. I collapsed backward in relief and allowed myself to rest for a moment.
“Don’t move,” Jase spoke to her gently as the woman began to scramble around and croak. “Try to remain still and not talk, okay? Your throat is very swollen, and you might have some internal
