Unlucky 13 (Women's Murder Club 13)

Images of Rich and Tina flooded her, and she had no defense. They looked good together. They were having fun. It was pretty clear from the way they danced, and from the fact that Tina was Richie’s plus-one at Yuki’s wedding, that this date wasn’t their first or their last.

Lindsay was right when she assumed that watching Rich and Tina dancing together was agony for her. And Lindsay didn’t know the rest of it. She didn’t know about her trip to Wisconsin.

Cindy turned on the shower, sat down in the corner of the tub under the hot spray, and sobbed over what a total loser she was. She’d blown the best relationship she’d ever had, and she’d gone to Henry Tyler and basically told him she was teeing up her Pulitzer Prize. Now what was she going to tell him?

Henry, Morales wasn’t there.

When she was all cried out, Cindy dressed in striped-pink flannel, top and bottom, no T-shirt with SFPD slogans or attached memories of her Richie.

She wanted another drink, but she made coffee, turned on the gooseneck lamp in her home office, and booted up her Mac. After her mailbox loaded, she opened an e-mail from her new friend Captain Patrick Lawrence of the Cleveland, Wisconsin, PD.

Hey, Cindy,

Just to let you know, the FBI bomb squad defused the explosives in case some knucklehead campers come up from the lake and break in. There were three trigger points. Good thing Morrison saw a wire. The milk in the fridge had a sell-by date of two weeks ago. That’s all I know. The Feds are keeping sharp eyes on the place and we can always hope Morales drops by. Thanks again and take care.

Pat.

Cindy leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. She was going to have to tell Henry Tyler what happened to her glorious mission and she would have to come up with another plan. Somehow, she didn’t know how, she was going to have to “git ’er done” or die trying.

Cindy wrote back to Captain Lawrence and then got to work researching every place Morales had been

in her entire twenty-six years on earth. Morales was no Randolph Fish. She was no genius, just a merciless killer bitch.

Where could that bitch have gone?

CHAPTER 19

MACKIE MORALES WALKED quickly along West Washington Street in the Loop, Chicago’s central business district. It was a Monday morning, and pathetic office workers were marching into ugly gray office buildings. Cars and taxis sped past like they were actually going somewhere. The streets were gray, the people were gray, and the very atmosphere was gray.

It was a day when coats and hoods were everywhere and, therefore, unremarkable.

Mackie had been born in a hospital only a short jog from here. She knew every street in this city—every alley and every building and where it fit into the cityscape. She didn’t even have to look up as she crossed LaSalle and continued on toward the bank in the middle of the next block.

Randy began speaking to her from inside her head, where he was forever safe. He was saying she should put up her hood to foil the security cameras and to slow her pace.

Hug the shadows, sweetheart. Be a shadow. You know?

“Gotcha, lover.”

Sometimes she could see his face. That was the best, but even when she couldn’t see him, he was with her. Talking to her. Keeping her company. Watching her back.

Bury yourself in pedestrians.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, baby.”

He laughed and she smiled, pulled up her hood, and jammed her hands deep in the pockets of her gray three-quarter-length waterproof coat. Her right hand fitted the grip of her Ruger quite naturally.

Mackie saw her reflection in the windows of the shops she passed: the boutique with silly girly clothes on display, and the AT&T store, murky inside with a crowd of customers; then the dark glass of the bus shelter, where four people clustered together, staring out at the street.

Now she was at the entrance to the Citibank branch, her destination. She walked through the open doors as two women were coming out, passing between her and the armed security guard. The guard was in his twenties, out of shape, and carrying a lot of excess gear in the heavy leather belt around his waist.

He didn’t seem to notice her.

Still moving forward, Mackie passed the ATMs on her left and, keeping her head down, entered the main part of the bank. It was warm inside and lit with bluish light from the overhead fixtures, making the space evenly bright. No shadows here at all.

Randy was humming a lilting, wordless tune in her mind. He did that sometimes, and she found the melody sweet and comforting.

She looked around the bank, assessing the customers and the bank employees, sweeping her gaze across the circular customer-service station to her right, where a large customer rep with purple bangs and her middle-aged paunchy colleague attempted to calm an irate man with a big battered briefcase.