Wild Dirty Secret(44)

Her words rang in my ear like a premonition. “I don’t know what I’m doing with this.”

“Practice. Prepare yourself. You’ll only have time for one shot. Make it count.”

I frowned. “You make it sound like I’m going to assassinate someone.”

“Aren’t you?” she asked. “About damn time, really. You’re going to find the son of a bitch who’s hunting you, and you’re going to kill him. That’s the only chance you have of being free. It’s the only chance you have of being with that cop you’re mooning over.”

Kill Henri? No. “You’re insane.”

“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you can take him down another way.”

Mess him up, sure, most likely with money. That was my ill-formed plan. After all, Al Capone was brought down by tax evasion. Maybe Henri had an assload of unpaid parking tickets, and Luke could waltz in and arrest him.

But probably not.

“Not me,” I said. “Someone else—”

She laughed. “Who, the cops? If they were willing to, he would already be dead.” She grew serious. “You want to help people, but you don’t want to touch them, talk to them. You want to be the martyr, so be one.”

I blinked, taken aback by her observation and its accuracy. It made me feel a little dirty to hear my motivations spoken so plainly, but it also cleared my mind. This was what I wanted, to help those girls, to help myself. In that way, Luke and I weren’t so different, although we came at the problem from different sides.

Still, I couldn’t kill Henri. Could I? The idea made me terrified…and giddy. But I wasn’t sure I could even shoot this thing. I still dreamed occasionally, flashing back to that split second when I realized I was going to die. The metal barrel glinted in the moonlight as it swung toward me. I heard the report like an explosion in my ears and found myself already on my back, already bleeding, blissfully gone.

I hadn’t died, though. I’d gotten almost completely better. My shoulder still didn’t stretch all the way up or back, but what was I, an Olympic gymnast? And when the weather changed, I felt a chill run through the puckered skin all the way to the bone. My imagination, probably.

“I don’t think I can.”

“Don’t be selfish. This isn’t just about you, Shelly.”

A shiver ran through me, an echo of accusations I had run from all my life, even though I knew they were true. I was selfish to my core, working everyone around me like a master puppeteer. Never stop moving, never stop manipulating, or they’d crumple to the ground like lifeless dolls and prove I’d been alone all along.

“He’s after you,” she continued. “He’s after that girl I’m sure you’ve stashed away someplace safe while you play the hero. He has whole apartment buildings of girls he’s using right now, hurting right now. But as long as you can walk away, it’s okay to leave those girls behind. As long as you get yours.”

I swallowed, unable to say a word in my defense. Compared to her, to all she had done for these girls, I’d done nothing at all. So I would go to the club and fix this, for Ella, for Marguerite—for myself, so that I could feel something other than hate.

“I need something else from you,” I said quietly. “A couple fake IDs.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What makes you think I can get them for you?”

I shrugged. “You deal in false identities, and you do a better job of it than WitSec. Pretty sure that includes a little laminate.”

“Going hunting?”

“We’ll call it scouting.”

She considered me. “Give me the information.”

I told her mine first. She typed away on a laptop, taking it down. Then I said, “And one for my cop, as you call him. He’ll be coming with me.”

She smiled. “Very good. What’s his name?”

“Luke. Luke Cameron.”

Her smile slipped, just a fraction.

I frowned. “Do you know him?”

“No,” she said, turning back to the keyboard. “He’s a stranger.”





Chapter Three





I took the gun with me. It sat on my passenger seat, seemingly innocuous. Just plastic and metal melded together, like the seat buckle it rested on. Except it was lethal, if I used it right. Marguerite had given me a quick crash course. Would I remember? One shot, one chance.

As I drove through the city, my eyes fixated on every Dumpster or trash can, on every litter-strewn ditch I saw. I could get rid of it and call the whole thing off. And be alone again, afraid again. Was it really power or just the illusion? The pain in my shoulder felt real enough. I wasn’t sure if I could kill in cold blood, even knowing it was for the greater good, but I was sold on using it to protect myself. I would go to the club and carry it with me. If I was going to win this fight, I’d need to get my hands dirty.