Maddy
The senator hit the ground like a rag doll, rolled once, and then lay still. I left my hiding place and moved onto the dock quickly and silently, keeping my eyes peeled for any movements and making sure that no one was watching me.
I wiped the gun clean with the tail of my shirt as I walked over to the body. I bent down, used my knuckle to check the pulse, or the absence of one, then stood up straight. I took another look around, rolled the body off the dock and into the water. I walked further up the dock before tossing the gun in, throwing it about as hard and as far as I could manage.
I whistled to myself as I strolled around the dock, looking around corners and behind nearby warehouses as casually as I could so that if anyone happened to spot me, I’d just seem nosy and not the least bit suspicious. Adrenaline was still firing off through me like it always did after a successful job. I felt like I could take on the world…or vomit.
I went back to my hiding spot and picked up the lone shell casing, pocketed it, and then combed the path I’d taken from my hiding place to where the body used to be one last time before sauntering off like a tourist out for a stroll.
It’s strange how easy all this has become for me. I don’t love doing it, but I’m damn good at it. Too bad I can never brag about it to anyone. It wouldn’t impress anyone to learn that I can kill a man from a good distance away. That I’m better at covering my tracks than making the perfect cappuccino—and I make a damn good cappuccino.
If I said I’d chosen this life for myself, that would be a lie. But on the other hand, considering my mother’s death when I was barely ten and my father walking out on me shortly after, I hadn’t made out so bad. I owed whatever I had to Dante. If he needed me to do some errands for him, I couldn’t very well refuse. Even if those errands were the deadly kind.
I walked to a new luxury high-rise on the edge of Tribeca. The bottom floor housed a real estate office with a sign on the door that read “Caprio Holdings.” I went inside, and the receptionist greeted me with a practiced smile.
“Is Mr. Caprio in?” I asked.
“Yes, go right in, Miss Archer, he’s expecting you.”
I entered the lavishly furnished back office, the only indication that this wasn’t your average real estate office—wall to wall leather and linens and sculptures and paintings and even a three-tiered chandelier hanging in the center of the room. It fit the man who worked there to a T.
Dante Caprio rose from his desk to greet me, pulling me into a hug. “Maddy! How did it go?” He held me at arm’s length and made a show of looking me over as if checking for injuries.
I shrugged. “Same as always—easy. Nobody saw me, I got rid of the evidence, dumped the body in the East River. I’m sure someone’ll notice him floating, but there’s nothing that will connect me to it if they do, or you.”
Dante was pleased. He was sucking on a piece of hard candy and offered me a piece from a glass bowl on his desk.
I smiled and, as usual, uttered a quick, “No, thanks. Not good for your teeth.”
Dante laughed. “That’s one of the last things I need to worry about. But you did good today, Maddy. One less official standing in the way of my best real estate deals.” He leaned back in his chair, and it squeaked under his weight. “You’re a good girl, you know that?”
Somehow the word “good” didn’t seem all that fitting for a person who’d just done what I’d done.
“You wouldn’t keep me on if I wasn’t the best, Dante. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t taken me in after my dad abandoned me. I was all alone, and without you stepping in, child services would have picked me up and thrown me into the system.”
I shuddered at the thought of that. Everyone knew what that entailed—a string of foster homes—and that meant a possible string of bad foster parents and foster siblings. I’d heard so many horror stories that every day I was grateful I hadn’t been forced down that road.
“As far as I’m concerned, that’s all paid off,” Dante remarked.
I nodded at him, wondering if that was true. I stood up, shouldered my backpack. “Better get back to work.”
“Why do you bother with that job?” Dante asked. “I’ve never understood why you spend all your free time making coffee for a bunch of straight edges. With smarts like yours, you could do literally anything else.”
I sighed, tired of explaining this to everyone all the time. “For one thing, it’s a good cover. For another, keeps me busy. Besides, who’d ever suspect the coffee shop girl of a crime, yeah?” I started to go, but Dante called me back.
“You forgot something.”
He tossed me an envelope of cash.
***
Back at the coffee shop, Georgia was solicitous and obviously happy to see me. “So, how was the doctor? They get you fixed up?” I’d caught her during a lull, and she was pulling cash from under the till drawer and preparing it for a bank drop.
“New meds to try out,” I said easily. “And a follow-up appointment next week, looks like I’ll live.” I put away my backpack. “You can take it easy from here, Georgia, I’m happy to take over.”
Georgia gave me a grateful squeeze on the arm. “Oh, you’re a lifesaver! The evening rush is just about to start, and I have some accounting stuff I need to take care of before the day is done.”
I whipped on my apron and started wiping down the counters and condiment station just as a trio of cops came walking in. I reacted despite myself. It didn’t matter how many times cops came in, I always felt a little sliver of fear of them since I knew at any time, they might be coming in to question me, or worse—slap cuffs around my wrists.
They couldn’t have found the body so soon, right? There was no one around, I’m sure of it. Nobody would have called it in so quickly.
I panicked for a split second before telling myself that even if they had found the body, there was no way to trace it back to me.
As the cops exchanged raucous banter, I finally relaxed, knowing that they were only here for coffee and maybe some of Georgia’s famous pastries and nothing else. As usual.
“And I thought my day couldn’t get any better,” one of the cops said, leaning over the counter and winking at me.
“It’ll get a lot worse if you don’t stop leaning on my counter that I just wiped down,” I said.
“Deserve that one, Desmond” another cop teased him. “Should’ve known she was out of your league.” That cop smiled at me, made a kissing motion with his lips.
“Out of yours, too,” I snapped. If they only knew I could snap both their necks without skipping a beat…
The first cop shrugged and straightened, dusted himself off and adjusted his belt. “Guess she’s not into cops,” he remarked to his friends before turning his attention back to me. All the humor was gone from his face, and now he was all business. “Can I get a coffee, black, and a cinnamon roll?” He peeled a few bills from the wad of cash he lifted from his wallet and tossed them on the counter.
“You got it,” I said, ringing him up and wondering if it would have been better to indulge him. Now he looked like he was pissed because I embarrassed him in front of his friends. I didn’t want to get on any cops’ bad side. Not great for my career.
But someone needs to put them in their place from time to time. Might as well be me.
The cops took their coffees and snacks and headed out, all except one. I was right. He was miffed that I’d rebuffed him and was going to try his luck again.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” he said. “My buddies are dicks, even I know that, but I think you’d like me if you really got to know me.”
“Thanks, but I know enough people and don’t think I need to know any more.” I almost added “especially a cop” but knew that would be a bad idea. I turned away to grind more coffee beans, but the cop reached across the counter and grabbed my wrist.
“Are you always this rude to people who are nice to you?” he hissed.
I was about to say screw it and haul off and clock him across the jaw when someone grabbed the cop from behind and yanked him away from me. “You were asked nicely to back off, and now I’m telling you. Don’t touch her again if you know what’s good for you.”
I was flustered but ready to tell whoever had intervened that I could take care of myself, but then I laid eyes on my “savior” and lost my voice in sudden shock. Love at first sight was a joke, I knew that…so why was I so sure I was feeling it now?
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