The Operator

Falling to his knees, he slowly collapsed onto Helen. Someone rolled him off her, and he lay on his back, forgotten as they clustered around the dying woman. It was too late.

“Peri . . .”

Pulling free of Silas, she went to Michael. He was still alive, trying to laugh as blood bubbled about his lips. She fell to her knees, awkward with her hands cuffed. “Michael.” She grabbed his shirtfront, shaking him until his eyes focused on her. “Michael. Is it worth it? Is it?”

He blinked, taking a racking breath. “To remember?” he said, shaky hand touching her face, the slickness of blood separating them. “Oh yes,” he said, voice becoming thready. “Don’t forget. If you die . . . it’s your own fault.”

His hand fell from her. The warm smear of blood he’d marked her with quickly turned cold.

The sound of Helen’s security trying to keep her alive had gone frantic. Numb, Peri let Silas pull her away. She stumbled beside him into the parking lot, hardly recognizing it when he took the cuffs off her. She went without protest into her car, and he drove her away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Lloyd Plaza was busy with giggling kids running from kiosk to kiosk for their games and activities. At the far corner under the massive monitor, a band was setting up for tonight’s party. The beer tent and dance floor had been in place since last night as the city tried to pull as many people off the streets as possible and into a controlled environment for the last day of Detroit’s yearly music/cabin fever festival. Tonight would be capped off by coordinated fireworks at the casinos as local and international bands “broke winter’s back,” but right now the kids held sway in the plaza, enjoying their January candy-fest under the faultless blue of a late winter sky.

Peri lingered at the outskirts, clearly not a parent and feeling out of place as she scanned the large square with its permanent tables and benches bolted to the cement tilework. It was hard to get a good fix on anyone with the kids milling about, and she forced herself to relax when Silas eased up beside her, handing her a hot coffee that smelled of warm milk and caramel.

“Thanks,” she murmured, her cold fingers appreciating the heat as she took it.

“This is a weird place to pick up your cat,” he said as he fidgeted beside her, and Peri glanced at her glass phone, thinking the same thing. Cam had never left her a text before—the man preferred the intimacy of a call—but maybe he was trying to distance himself. The coffee shop had a Realtor sign in the window when she and Silas had driven past it earlier today. Her chest hurt every time she thought of the peace she’d had there. She kept telling herself it hadn’t been false, but why couldn’t she make it last?

“Maybe,” she whispered, remembering Silas had said something.

“I mean, why an open plaza?” he insisted. “In the middle of the afternoon? Surrounded by kids? Is the guy a perv, or paranoid?”

“That’s why,” she said, nodding at a familiar hefty figure in a suit sitting alone at a canopied table, a cat carrier conspicuously on the table.

Silas followed her eyes, going still when he saw Bill. “God bless it,” he whispered, taking her elbow and trying to draw her back. “He’s just a cat. Let’s go. Now!”

Peri jerked out of his grip, sure there were other sets of eyes already on them. Jack’s perhaps. She hadn’t seen her illusionary partner since he’d spun in a circle and vanished, but she wasn’t taking any chances and would unload her Glock into a shadow if she thought it was really him.

“Carnac is not just a cat,” she argued. “He’s my cat. And what about Cam?” Worried, she dropped her gaze to her phone, scrolling to find Cam’s number. She hit connect, and sure enough, Bill shifted to reach for his phone. Peri ended the call before it could complete.

“Watch my back,” she said, pushing her hot coffee into his hand and starting over.

“ ‘Watch my back’?” Silas echoed, jerking her to a stop. “Peri, this is nuts.”

She sent her gaze to the children running amuck, to the benevolent-looking but heavy police presence enjoying the day as much as the kids. “I want my cat, and I want to know he didn’t hurt Cam. I promised him he’d be safe.”

But Silas’s frown only deepened. He wanted her to turn around and walk away, but she couldn’t. “I have to do this,” she said, and he let go. “Watch my back,” she said again, forcefully. “Jack is probably somewhere. If you find him, you have my permission to kill him.” She hesitated in thought. “As long as no kids are watching.”

“I can do that,” Silas said, voice low and threatening, and she smiled.

But it faded as she wove her way between the running kids and the store-themed treats being handed out like the advertisements they were.

Warned by her incoming call, Bill had pulled himself up to his full, considerable height, casting about until he spotted her. His somewhat water-fat face widened in an honest smile, and he stood, knowing better than to spread his arms wide for their usual hug.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, gaze warm and inviting. “I’m glad you decided to come over.”

She stopped before him under the shade of the canopy, hand on her hip as she took him in. He’d lost some weight, gained some muscle, and his finger was bare of his precious Opti ring, showing a faint lighter band of skin that had yet to darken. Otherwise, he looked the same in his thousand-dollar suit that could never quite hide his thug background. “Whatever you did to Cam, I’m going to do to you twice, and unlike me, you’ll remember it.”