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I bite down as he laughs. The men walk out to follow their orders.
“You know…” Daniel stands up from his chair. “I felt badly earlier, knowing what I’d have to do the next time I saw you. But then, I realized that fucks like you are a dime-a-dozen in Boston. I felt better.”
“Cool,” I say, seething.
He points the gun at my forehead.
“Bye-bye, Milo,” he says.
I blink. “You’re gonna do it in here?”
He pauses. “Sure. Why not?”
“In your office?” I glance back over my shoulder. “You’re gonna get blood and brain matter all over the place. A shot to the face, you’re looking at nose cartilage and teeth, maybe, too. You don’t want that kind of evidence following you around all day in your office.”
Daniel slowly lowers the gun to his side. “I’ll have the cleaners take care of it.”
I scoff. “Yeah, sure, if you want it to smell like ammonia in here. That shit takes forever to air out. We’re talking months. One drop on your clothes and it’s completely ruined. No—” I shake my head as I rise off my knees. “You and me, we’ll go around back, find a nice, quiet place in the grass, and—”
I head-butt him. Hard. The pain fires through my forehead, rattling my brain down to the stem, but it probably doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as the pop I hear as I slam into his nose.
He falls off balance long enough for me to bolt from the office. I fly past the others in the hallway with my arms lagging behind me. I send all my strength to my legs and race for the entrance.
“Hey! Stop that rat bastard!”
I hear Daniel behind me, along with the loud pop of gunfire. Bullets explode into the walls by me, but I keep running amid the screams of other drivers taking cover in the sitting area.
I burst through the front door to the outside. A black car rolls past the gate across the parking lot. The men from Daniel’s office. They’re going after Anna and Charlotte.
The automatic gate starts closing. I run faster, pumping my knees to make it in time. If I get locked in here, I’m fucked. I have no arms. I can’t climb the perimeter fences without hands and the barbed wires along the top would make it instantly more difficult even if I could.
The gate keeps rolling closed. A few more bullets bang behind me, forcing me to zigzag as I come closer to the gate. A scream echoes from the sidewalk and pedestrians run in the other direction away from gunfire. My chest is ready to burst. Adrenaline breathes new life through my limbs.
I slip through the gate with seconds to spare, but I’m not done running. They’ll just open it again and race me down, this time in a car. I need to get off the street. I need to get to Anna’s before they do.
“Taxi!” I shout, catching sight of one down the block. It lingers at a red light ahead of me and I race in its direction. “Taxi! Taxi! Taxi!”
The light turns green, but I kick the bumper to keep it stopped.
“Taxi! Wait!”
I turn around and grip the back door handle with my cuffed hands, my fingers fumbling at the strange angle before I successfully get it open. I jump into the backseat and fumble just as much in my foolish attempt to close the door again.
I finally get it latched and I look forward at the driver. An older woman with bright, gray hair twists back to stare at me in disbelief, her wire-framed eyes rightly focused on the handcuffs behind me.
“Ma’am,” I clear my throat, “I will give you a one-hundred-dollar tip if you drive really fast toward Brookline and don’t ask me questions.”
She turns forward and steps on the gas.
CHAPTER 17
ANNA
When Charlotte was born, I made a promise to never bring my work home again.
Before then, I’d leave the station, come home, and sit at my kitchen table with case files sprawled out across the surface. It was easy to justify. Looking at the same set of clues from a different perspective almost always led to me seeing something I didn’t see before. Countless eureka moments have taken place at this table and I’m hoping for one more right now.
Two murdered mobsters. One red herring in the form of a scam artist with a smile that just so happens to rattle my knees.
