blogmybook

Chapter 18

September 12, 2011 at 10:37 pm (The Job)

Rowing hadn’t looked quite so difficult, but Mr. Chu wouldn’t admit that he wasn’t coordinated enough to do it. He’d rowed in several large circles before he’d figured out the process. By the time he neared the boat, he was dripping with sweat and silently cursing the stinging blisters on his palms. He’d had surprisingly little difficulty gaining the main deck of the boat. There was no lookout posted. Sloppy security couldn’t be counted on, but it was a blessing when one came across it. It was a double blessing given the state of his hands. Climbing an anchor rope would have been all but impossible after rowing so far. Mr. Chu’s strength was in his brain, not his brawn. He’d tied his boat to the swim grid at the stern, allowing it a long lead so that it wouldn’t be immediately noticeable if anyone looked over the railing.

The crew was in the captain’s quarters playing poker. Mr. Chu had brought a filament camera with him. Slimmer than a snake cam, it could pass through the keyhole or under the smallest crack in a door. The microscopic fisheye lens at the end gave a slightly distorted, but accurate, picture.

Mr. Chu set his charges all along the hallway of the main deck. He fixed them to the wall down at floor level where the carpeting and wallpaper was darkest. There were five in all. There were no obvious blinking red lights or digital displays on his units. The main charge would go next to the gas tanks. All were triggered by remote. Anything else left too much to chance. He needed to make sure he was far enough away from the blast and from anyone who might approach the scene quickly to offer assistance.

The gas tanks were stored on the lowest level, where the engines were kept. Mr. Chu descended the ladder leading to the hold. It was dry, which surprised him. He thought all boats had water in the bottom of them. All of the boats he’d ever sailed on back home had always had close to a foot of bilge sloshing around in the hold. The officers in the army used it as punishment once they’d learned of his inability to swim. They saw an inability to swim as a fear of water. Any known fear could be exploited to increase paranoia. The officers would hold his head under the murky water until he’d run out of air and his lungs forced him to take a breath. Many times he’d felt his life slipping away as the blackness settled in. Then one of the officers would kick him in the gut to force the water from his lungs. His throat would be on fire for days afterward. Mr. Chu had gotten even in the end. He’d reciprocated, though not in kind. Instead of drowning them in water, he’d forced them to swallow gasoline. Instead of kicking them to force the gasoline from their lungs, he’d shoved a flaming torch down their throats. The instant flames seared their throats closed. It was over too quickly. If he’d planned his approach a little less emotionally, he could have kept them alive much longer.

Shaking himself to clear the memories, Mr. Chu walked through the hold to the rear of the boat. The engines were stored amidships and the fuel tanks were secured near the stern. Made of aluminum, the two-2500 gallon drums were secured in a well ventilated area to ensure no trapped water could cause corrosion. Mr. Chu placed his large bomb in the air pocket beneath one of the tanks. Armed and ready to receive his remote signal, it would be the last to blow. A chain reaction, starting with the bomb near the door of the master suite, would ignite the bombs individually, with a three second delay between each explosion.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

Mr. Chu stared out through the doorway, to the engine room. One of the ship’s crew had just come down the ladder and spotted him in the fuel compartment. Mr. Chu stepped forward, his empty hands outstretched in an innocent gesture.

“No servants are allowed down here,” the older man bellowed.

Mr. Chu stammered out an apology as he neared the man. His bellowing would soon bring the curious and Mr. Chu didn’t want to start explaining his presence on board the ship. He wasn’t dressed as a servant. As he stepped through the door, now within two feet of the man, Mr. Chu distracted the old sailor with his left hand while his right fist shot forward and punched him in the throat. His larynx crushed, the old sailor keeled over, his body convulsing as it unsuccessfully tried to gather air. Mr. Chu dragged the dying man into the fuel room and tucked him in behind the tanks. Gathering his tools, Mr. Chu double-checked to see that his devices were all synced to the master remote before heading up to the main deck.

The yacht was rocking slightly as he made his way toward the stern of the boat. The wind had picked up and Mr. Chu assumed that was the cause of the slight chop. As he stepped down the ladder to the swim grid, he could barely make out his little dinghy bobbing in the waves. Mr. Chu kneeled down right at the base of the ladder and carefully crawled his way over to the rope he’d tied to the grid. His teeth were chattering by the time he’d worked his line free. Pulling the boat in, Mr. Chu gripped the edge and placed one foot inside the boat, on the seat. Leaning out over the edge of the swim grid, he slid his foot along the seat, transferring more of his weight to the smaller boat.

A wave splashed up, drenching his face and chest. His hands slipped on the edge of the boat and Mr. Chu suddenly fell into the space between the swim grid and his dinghy. He immediately sunk like a stone. The water, still warm from the heat of the day, enveloped him. The blackness of it crashed around him, disorienting him further. Fear crawled up his throat and threatened to engulf him. His hands and feet flailing, Mr. Chu managed to break the surface. Before he could sink again, he threw one hand up and blindly groped for the boat. Catching the edge, he gripped it so hard his fingers nearly cramped.

Scrambling over the edge of the boat, he barely managed to keep it from capsizing. Collapsing in the bottom, Mr. Chu wheezed air into his lungs. After a few moments, his heart had calmed down a little. Patting the pockets of his shirt he was surprised to see that he hadn’t lost his remote detonator. Taking the time to correctly set up his oars, Mr. Chu set about rowing himself away from Windon’s boat. The blisters on his hands had popped, most likely when he was struggling to gain his dinghy. The wooden handles on his open sores burned like fire.

After thirty minutes of rowing, Mr. Chu was still too close to the boat. He wasn’t at risk of getting caught in the explosion, but he could still be seen by any rescuers. After another fifteen minutes he realized he had little choice but to detonate his bombs. A police boat was swiftly making its way over to the Windon’s boat. Lights were blazing on the yacht. Mr. Chu knew that the body of the old sailor must have been found. He waited until the police boat pulled up alongside the Windon yacht and two officers had boarded the boat before he pressed the button.

After a two second delay the first bomb detonated, the white hot fireball incinerating everything in its path. Before the fire had a chance to really build, the second bomb exploded. Then, like a daisy chain, each bomb down the line blasted outward, destroying boat and human alike. Mr. Chu could see the men on the deck running for cover. The two policemen dove over the side of the boat and into the water just as the main bomb ignited the fuel in the tanks. The police boat tried to pull away from the raging inferno that the Windon boat had become, but it was too late. The explosion of the final bomb caught the police boat in its destructive grip. The decks were splattered with burning fuel. The captain shut down the engines and ran through the fire to the side of the boat and over.

Mr. Chu eased up on the oars. His hands were screaming in agony. He needed to get further away, but his hands refused to function. He watched the flickering flames as they danced over the water. He could just make out several people swimming away from the wreckage. He knew that none of the family on board the Windon boat would be among the living. The bombs in the hallway would have seen to that.

Off in the distance, he noticed the lights of several boats as they made their way toward the flaming pyre. Grimacing, he placed his hands on the oars and began his slow journey back to the mainland of Capri. He would have to see to the care of his hands before he could complete the last job. Building a bomb required a sure hand and his were trembling with fatigue and pain. Mr. Chu welcomed the few days’ respite he had before the Mallach job was due.

He needed that time to forget about the water.

***

“We leave for the island in four hours.”

Ingram nodded so that Leland would know he’d heard. He was packed and ready, but he had a tonne of little things to organize before he could leave. Seth had lost track of Parker. Simon hadn’t checked in once in the last twelve hours. Only Mr. Chu was working according to plan. He couldn’t do anything for Seth until Simon called to let them know where they were headed.

He was waiting for word from Willis. He’d given him a special job to carry out before the plane left for the island. Willis would be with them on the island, seeing to the defenses of the house. The defenses of the remainder of the island were already long established.

“Have you received word from your men in Rarotonga?” Leland wanted everything to be settled and the last four hours to be up. He wanted to be on the corporate plane headed for the island. Even if he had to sweat out the next two days wondering if Donovan would miraculously appear, he wanted to be there with the board.

“They’re in place, but haven’t caught sight of Donovan yet. Once they do, they’ll take him down.”

The wait was making Leland antsy. Rarotonga wasn’t a particularly large island. How difficult was it to find one man on it? He would stand out like all of the other tourists. Ingram’s men had been in place for two days now and they had nothing to show for their time. The fuckers were probably sipping Mai Tai’s on the beach. They’d checked in once, to inform Ingram that Donovan’s room was empty. It was still booked under the name Phil Boonstra, but the cleaning staff had said that the room had never been slept in. They had no idea what Mr. Boonstra even looked like.

Leland didn’t like it. Finding Donovan shouldn’t have been so damn difficult. He was a suit who wasn’t used to hiding from trained hunters. Granted, Leland had no idea what the man had done while he’d worked at the CIA. Donovan had kept his mouth shut on that score. Leland assumed he’d ridden a desk there and didn’t want to talk about it, because his silence would make the job seem like more than it was.

Two hours later, almost asleep on Ingram’s couch, Leland was startled awake by a sharp rapping on the door. Ingram pressed a button on the underside of his desk to disengage the locks. Willis pushed the door open and closed it behind him. He walked over to Ingram’s desk and waited.

“The job is done?” Ingram asked.

“Yes, sir, the package has been delivered to the plane, as requested.”

“Excellent. Your men are ready?”

“We’ve already stored our gear on the plane. Most of my men are seated, waiting for takeoff. I’ve kept a small group back to see to your safe passage to the plane.” Willis motioned to Leland, including him in the statement.

“We will leave in fifteen minutes,” Ingram said.

Willis nodded and took his leave. The minute the door closed behind him, Leland looked over at Ingram.

“The package?” he asked.

Ingram smiled. “Parker will no longer receive any inside assistance with her mission.”

***

Ingram’s men weren’t sipping Mai Tai’s on the beach. They’d spent the past two days combing the island in search of Donovan, without a single sighting. Rarotonga wasn’t large, but it was tourist season and the place was packed with people. The weather was perfect for sitting on the beach or swimming in the ocean. It was hell for the type of search they were doing.

They’d broken the island down into smaller grids. Each man took a grid and spent two hours scouring it before checking it off and moving to the next grid. With five men on his team, each man was responsible for ten grids. It was a complete crapshoot. Ingram had expected results almost immediately. The lead man, a guy called Zaum, didn’t think they’d find him at all, unless they got really lucky.

Still, they kept at it, sweating out gallons of moisture as they walked their grids. He’d heard the rumours about Donovan. He knew the guy was ex-CIA. Zaum had decided it was wisest to assume Donovan was a highly skilled operative. If they planned their attack with that in mind, any less skill on Donovan’s part would make their job easier. Zaum didn’t want his men focusing on the tourists only. He wanted them analyzing every single person they came across. It made the work a lot more tedious and time consuming.

His next grid was in a rundown part of town. The greenbacks from the tourists didn’t trickle all the way down to the island’s poorest residents. Jobs were hard to come by and drugs were easy to get hooked on. The side streets and alleys were crowded with men and women strung out or looking to score. Zaum had barely begun his grid when a woman offered him a BJ for five bucks. He might have considered it if her teeth hadn’t been jagged with rot. He shook his head and moved on.

Walking through the alleys was dangerous. He was armed, but he was only one man. If a group of men decided to swarm him, he would be hard-pressed to fight his way out of it. His men were too far away to offer any immediate assistance. Zaum stared at everyone, but he kept moving. He watched for blind spots, for hidden doorways or paths between buildings where someone could get the drop on him. He had to hope that his target was outside. If he’d holed himself up inside one of the rundown shacks, Zaum wouldn’t ever find him. It was too damn risky to go storming into the buildings, especially in this part of town.

Zaum zigzagged through the alleys and side streets until his grid was cleared. He’d received three more propositions for various sexual favours, two from women and one from a young boy. He’d shaken his head at all of them, adding a frown for the boy. It was only noon, but Zaum had been on the streets for nearly six hours. He would head back for the hotel and have a long, cool shower and some food before attacking his next grid.

The young boy who had propositioned Zaum watched him leave the area before running through several backyards, scrambling around rusted out cars and brushing under clothing strung out on the lines. When he came to the border between the rundown sections of town and the slightly better kept parts, he slowed to a walk. Taking several lefts and rights, the boy worked his way into the centre of the city, to the small church used mainly by the locals. Inside, he approached the single confessional, waiting his turn as an elderly woman had her time with the priest. When the booth was empty, the boy slipped inside and shut the door. He didn’t genuflect, didn’t offer up his various sins for absolution. In God’s eyes, his sins were many. He made more money from men than most of the women in town. His task had not been to distract the hunters with sex. He’d offered because it was the easiest way to explain his presence there. Plus, the money was good.

“What have you learned?” the priest asked him.

“They are still searching for you,” the boy replied.

Permalink Leave a Comment

Chapter 17

September 5, 2011 at 10:20 am (The Job)

Mr. Chu’s next assignment was going to be difficult. Leland had given him a short list of the people he need taken care of, leaving the order up to Mr. Chu. With the first target down, he had only two others to complete before his job was done. The best option was Hugh Windon. The problem was Windon had his family out on a boat trip. Mr. Chu didn’t swim. He wasn’t afraid of the water. Mr. Chu wasn’t afraid of anything. He was merely cautious.

The other option, Cliff Mallach, was at a conference in Sweden surrounded by hundreds of people. Mr. Chu knew that he didn’t have carte blanche as far as collateral damage went, but the idea of working a job on the water tempted him to risk the second job anyway. Too bad the water job was the best option right now.

His best option was currently parked about fifty nautical miles off the coast of Sorrento, Italy. The boat was moored off the far side of the island of Capri. Mr. Chu had taken a water taxi to Capri, but it didn’t help him much. After watching his target’s boat for the better part of the past two days, he realized that they must be well stocked. Trips into Capri wouldn’t be necessary, making Mr. Chu’s job significantly more difficult.

A daylight approach was out of the question. A nighttime approach would be more dangerous for him, but ultimately it was his only option. Though Leland had given him some freedom surrounding the targets, he did still have a deadline to have the job completed. This target had to be dropped by tomorrow night at the latest and the second target had to be taken care of within the next five days. Mr. Chu knew that the second target would be returning to the United States in three days time, making his work a whole lot easier.

The previous night, Mr. Chu had noted the precautions that Windon’s crew took while the boat was at anchor. Spotlights were directed on the water, lighting up an area some twenty feet out from the boat. There were small gaps in the coverage, which provided a very tiny window of opportunity for him to get aboard undetected. The boat, a 120’ cabin cruiser, had two decks below main, the upper of which had several proper windows instead of useless portholes.

Ideally, Mr. Chu wanted to find a blind spot that allowed him access to the outer deck. Once on deck, he could make himself invisible.  He was making the job more difficult than it had to be. The easiest way to complete the job would be to row a rubber inflatable up to the boat, attached a bomb to the side and row away before it blew. He didn’t have to go on the boat at all.

But he liked to see his targets before he destroyed them. He liked to picture them as they burned. He tried to imagine what they experienced in those last few seconds of life. Did they know what was happening? Did they have even a brief second for remorse, for fear? It was impossible for him to know what it felt like, but Mr. Chu had enough experience with this sort of thing to make a well-educated guess.

He fully expected, one day in the far future, to die by the same method. He welcomed the idea, though not quite yet. He was having too much fun to want it to end now.

His bombs were ready. A boat had a lot of flammable materials on it, not the least of which was the gas tanks. A too large explosion would destroy the boat and everyone on board, but it would be over too quickly. Properly proportioned and designed to use the boat as part of the accelerant, it would become a flaming pyre that could burn for hours. Placing several bombs all along the length of the boat would start enough smaller fires to trap the occupants inside until the fires converged and became a raging inferno.

He only regretted that he would be too far away to hear the lovely pop and crackle of human flesh as it burned.

***

Simon signaled Parker to silence, though she’d not said a word or made a sound since they’d gained the top of the shed. She watched as the occupant in the room next to Yoh’s moved around, passing by the window several times. The louvered blinds were partially closed. The man was pacing the floor. He was quite fit and somewhat agitated. Parker kept half her attention on him and the other half on the surrounding buildings.

Simon crouched down and slid underneath the first window, moving as close to the edge of the shed as he could get. Parker remained where she was, on the other side of the window. Her gun was drawn, tucked down against her leg. Simon would make the call after looking in Yoh’s window. They both knew what Donovan looked like.

The brick of the hotel was not even, providing small but serviceable handholds to creep across the short expanse from shed to middle window. Parker enjoyed rock climbing as a way to alleviate stress, but Simon hadn’t asked her if she wanted to do the job. She couldn’t decide if his taking control of the situation was appealing or annoying.

Carefully wedging his foot into a crack, Simon gripped the wall and leaned away from the shed. Testing his handholds before leaving the safety of the shed, he judged them to be secure. With a sure grip, he removed his left foot and searched for a new toehold a little closer to the window. Inch by inch, he made his way over to the middle window. The small wireframe box below the window jutted out a foot from the side of the hotel and almost two feet on either side of the window. It prevented Simon from getting a toehold close to the window frame. He would have to test its strength to see if it would hold his weight.

Parker glanced around the inner courtyard and at the buildings surrounding them. It was dark enough that they were not easy to spot, but a nosy neighbour watching long enough would eventually see Simon’s movements. A reflection in a window across the way caught her eye. Expecting to see someone peering out at her, it took her a minute to determine what she was actually seeing. The guy from the room next to Yoh’s was using the mirrored surface across the way to watch Simon’s progress.

Parker signaled Simon just as he put his foot on the window basket. He glanced back, but just as quickly whipped around when the window he was edging towards shattered outward. Parker brought her gun up as the buff neighbour swung his window outward and shoved his arm out. He didn’t see Parker behind him. Parker fired quickly, two shots, one to the head and one to the chest. The guy fell forward, hanging half out the window.

Simon lost his grip on the window box. His fingers scrabbled for a secure handhold. His left hand slipped and he swung sideways, hanging on with his right hand. The strain of his entire weight on one arm wrenched his shoulder. When the occupant in Yoh’s room stuck his head and his gun out the window, Simon let go and dropped to the ground. Rolling a few feet to spare his ankles from the crushing fall, he hid under a table. Parker fired another two shots into the window of Yoh’s room. The occupant fell backward, into the room.

“Did you see him?” Parker called down to Simon.

“No, it was too dark.”

Parker tucked her gun into the waistband of her jeans and stepped to the edge of the shed. Reaching for her own handholds, she quickly worked her way across the expanse of the hotel and peered into Yoh’s room. Their attacker was lying on the floor, not dead, but definitely wounded. Parker slipped inside and kicked his gun away. Standing near his head, Parker placed her foot on the wound in his belly and stepped down.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Fuck you,” the guy whispered. He tried to push her foot away, but loss of blood made him weak.

“Wrong answer,” Parker whispered back. Removing the gun from her waistband, she shot him once in the forehead and then proceeded to toss the room. The man had no ID, no passport and very little cash on him. He wasn’t the man she was looking for and that’s as far as her interest went. Stepping up to the window, she reached for the wireframe box. Swinging over the box and down, hanging below the window, she waited until her body stopped swaying before dropping lightly to the ground. A quick glance in one of the rear windows showed the front desk unmanned. Her gun was silenced, but the other two guns weren’t. It took a brave or foolish soul to investigate gunshots.

Jogging over to the side wall near the pub, she joined Simon. “It wasn’t Donovan.”

Simon’s calf had glass fragments from when the window had blown outward. He carefully picked a few of the larger pieces out. The rest would have to wait until they were somewhere safe.

“Let’s get back to the pub and put in an appearance.” Simon vaulted to the top of the wall, using a chair from the courtyard as leverage. Rolling to the edge, he scanned the pub’s courtyard before dropping down to the ground. Parker hit the ground right next to him.

The patrons were still watching the game. Their empty glasses were still on the table at the back of the pub. Checking her watch, Parker realized that only fifteen minutes had passed since they’d left the pub. Simon sat down and Parker approached the bar to get another round of drinks. With a beer and a glass of burgundy in her hand, Parker glanced outside as police cars roared down the street. They screeched to a halt a few doors away, outside of the hotel. Some of the patrons left their seats to spill out onto the sidewalk. Parker walked closer to the window to have a look. An ambulance arrived and the cops waved it back. The victims wouldn’t need their urgency. A fire truck came up Rue du Roule, east of the hotel and turned down Rue Saint-Honoré, heading against traffic.

A car pulled up directly behind the police cars. Parker watched as two men got out. They were suits; likely homicide detectives. They surveyed the street, carefully scanning each of the onlookers before heading into the hotel. Parker returned to their table and passed Simon his beer.

“Detectives are here and the regular cops, but no shiny suits yet.” Parker referred to the special branches of any country’s police force as the shiny suits. They were often far more troublesome than ordinary detectives could be. They had more power and they liked to test how far their reach was.

“We’ll finish our drink and make our way back to the car. We’ll have to go the long way. My leg is bleeding through my pants.”

“You want me to get something to wrap it in before we head out?”

“No, I need to pick the glass out of it before I wrap it.”

Parker leaned back in her chair, sipping her wine. They’d walked into a trap, but who had set it? Petrillo said no one had the information he’d gathered on Donovan, but what if he was wrong? If he wasn’t wrong, had Donovan set the trap? Would she find another trap waiting for her in Rarotonga? Could Donovan be using a heretofore unknown alias that even the CIA wasn’t aware he possessed? It wasn’t difficult to get passable fake ID if you had the right contacts and the money to pay them. Parker had a half a dozen pieces she’d never mentioned to the agency. That was one of the first things her mentor had taught her. It was a lesson she was grateful, now, that she’d paid attention to.

She looked across to Simon. He’d gotten hurt in the fray, but he could have fared a lot worse. Had he known what was coming and hesitated at exactly the right moment? She didn’t want to expend all her energy second-guessing his actions, but she didn’t want to end up with a bullet in the back, either.

It’s possible that Donovan was in contact with the people in the hotel down the block. When he didn’t hear from them would he go into hiding? They were just two days away from the vote. Parker still didn’t know where that vote would take place. If Petrillo couldn’t get her that information and she couldn’t get to Donovan in time, she’d have no other way of learning the location. Of course, if she couldn’t find Donovan then learning the location of the island was a moot point.

She pushed her wine away. The stress of the job was turning it into sour mush in her gut.

Simon finished his beer and stood up. “I’ll go left down the street. You can head for the car and pick me up around the corner.”

He left first, heading out the door and taking a look at all the commotion down the street before turning away. Parker waited a few minutes before heading out the door. Police had blocked off the street so no cars sat waiting for the emergency vehicles to clear out. Parker crossed to the far side of the street. Keeping an eye on the front of the hotel, she veered around the vehicles and carried on down the street. The bodies hadn’t been removed from the scene yet. The ambulance attendants were leaning against the side of their vehicle waiting for the police to finish up. Both men turned to watch Parker as she walked by. She ignored them.

Five minutes later she pulled over to the side of the road and picked up Simon. He’d booked them into a hotel at the other end of town, so she worked her way through the crowded streets until she was within a half a block then she started to look for a parking spot. She lucked out getting a spot only a few doors down from their destination. Parker collected the keys for the room and led the way down the main corridor. Their room was on the ground floor at the back of the hotel. The rear exit was right next to their door.

The room was sparsely furnished with one king-sized bed, two chairs situated beneath the window, a table in between them and a night table next to the bed. A TV was mounted in a corner of the room, opposite the bed. The bathroom had a claw-foot tub with cheap shower curtain, a toilet, bidet and pedestal sink. The room was clean and bug free.

Simon carefully stripped off his pants, easing them down over the torn mess of his calf. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled tweezers from his case. Using a towel from the bathroom to protect the bedding, he attempted to remove the glass from his leg.

The lighting in the room wasn’t ideal. Parker removed her flashlight from her pack and handed it to him. Taking the tweezers from his hand, she directed the light over the wound and began picking the glass free. It took her close to an hour to get all of the little pieces out. There weren’t a lot, but there was a lot of blood making it tougher to search. Thankfully none of the cuts were deep enough to require stitching. She didn’t think her nursing skills extended that far. After bandaging his leg, she leaned back and looked up at him.

“Where to next?” she asked, trying to keep her eyes on his face. The man was seriously buff and all of that tanned skin was making her palms itch.

“We stay here tonight. We both need the down time. Then it’s up to you.”

Back to her choice; hide or carry on. She didn’t need to think about it. “Donovan’s other alias is being used in Rarotonga.”

Simon smiled. He’d known she wouldn’t consider hiding. She was getting addicted to the action. He’d felt the same way when he’d done his first high profile job. That feeling had only intensified over the years. “Then we’ll fly out in the morning.”

Parker readied for bed, removing all but her panties and tank top. She lay on her back staring at the ceiling. The rush of adrenaline had faded and she should be drained, but her mind was running overtime. Half an hour later, she was still staring at the ceiling. Turning her head, she stared at Simon’s profile. He wasn’t sleeping either.

“How bad is that leg?” she asked.

He turned his head toward her. “I barely notice it.”

Parker rolled over and settled on top of him.

Permalink Leave a Comment