Page 44 of Girl, Reformed

With shaking hands, Mia reached into thecubby and lifted out the precious cargo. She cradled the files to her chestlike a mother would a babe, staring down at them with a mix of trepidation andwild, desperate hope. Her ticket to the truth, scorched and tattered but stilllegible.

The same ones.

The godforsaken files that Martin had beenporing over like a man possessed the night before he vanished into the ether.The same ones that had been conspicuously absent from his office when Mia hadtorn it apart in the wake of his disappearance. She'd ransacked every drawer,upended every pile of junk and detritus, combed through every scrap of his lifethat he'd left behind in search of those innocuous little folders. Coming upempty again and again until she was half-convinced, she'd hallucinated the wholething.

But no. They'd been real. As solid anddamning as the charred bundles clutched white-knuckled in her hands. Why hadMartin taken these particular files with him on his little midnight ride intooblivion? Why had he hidden them in his trunk and tried to torch them? Thesefiles were supposed to be embers right now, but it was only because of Jacobsat HQ that they weren't. If not for keeping track of Martin's license plate,Martin's secrets would be a pile of ashes.

What unforgivable skeletons had her loverbeen keeping in his closet for God knows how long?

And did she really want to know?

This was it. The edge of the map, thepoint of no return. The moment when the comforting lies and blissful ignoranceshe'd wrapped around herself like a security blanket finally crumbled away.

Mia Ripley was many things – aball-buster, a raging bitch with an acid tongue and the itchiest trigger fingerin the business.

But a coward had never been one of them.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

The night was alive with laughter, excepteach cackle was a rusted blade across the raw nerves of his mind. He watchedfrom the shadows, a wraith cloaked in darkness, as the object of his fixationstood amongst a gaggle of drunken sycophants. They swayed and guffawed outsidethe neon-washed facade of some trendy watering hole, lost in a haze of boozeand forced joviality.

What could possibly be so funny? Whatscintillating witticism, what earth-shattering bon mot could warrant such aresponse? Nothing is that funny, not to mention that these cretins wouldn'tknow humor if it bit them on the ass and called them Sally.

Their laughter was empty, meaningless, apathetic attempt to fill the yawning void in their souls with cheap liquor andcheaper company.

But he knew the truth. Laughterwas a weapon. A way to mock and diminish, to grind the downtrodden ever deeperinto the muck. He had felt its sting too many times, endured the slings andarrows of a world that refused to give him a place.

But no more. Now, it was his turn to wieldthe blade, to carve the smiles from their faces and leave them choking on theirown mirth. They thought him broken, beaten, just another failure consigned tothe dustbin of obscurity. But how wrong they were. He had been reborn in thecrucible of his pain, forged anew into something harder, sharper, a scalpelhoned to slice through the cancerous flesh of a society too sick to save.

His target drained his glass and set itaside, clapping one of his cronies on the shoulder as he made his goodbyes. Theman began weaving down the sidewalk, straying from the flock and into thewaiting jaws of the wolf. He shambled past dark shopfronts and shutteredwindows, blissfully oblivious to the predator dogging his steps.

And so he slid behind the wheel of hisbattered sedan. The engine sputtered to life like a consumptive cough, and heeased out into the street. He kept his headlights dimmed, trailing his quarryat a discreet distance. The hunt was on now, the dance of death had begun anew.His pulse quickened, a heady cocktail of anticipation and loathing thrummingthrough his veins.

Block after block slid by, the city'ssqualor blurring into a smear of jaundiced light and rotten brick. His preystumbled on, lost in a drunken haze, all too easy to tail. His fingerstightened and breath grew faster as he imagined those chapped lips stretchedwide in a rictus of terror, those glassy eyes bulging as he choked the life outof him.

This was the part he savored. The warm-up.The delicious buildup before the main event. He hadn’t anticipated he’d enjoythis part so much, but he’d become addicted the moment he had Archie’s limpcorpse at his disposal. It wasn't just the kill itself, though that wascertainly the crescendo. No, it was the buildup, the slow, inexorable marchtowards inevitability.

With Archie, it had been almost too easy.The fool had practically gift-wrapped himself, strutting out of that bar withhis chest puffed out and his dick swinging, so sure of his own invincibility.He'd never seen the blow coming, never had a chance to wipe that smug grin offhis face before he’d crushed the guy’s windpipe and sent him spiraling intooblivion.

And he'd known, in that moment, as heknelt there in the viscera and the void, that completion of this vast missionwas easily attainable. This was his true calling. Not begging for scraps ofapproval from the masses. At last, he’d finally found something pure. Perhapsthe only pure form of art left on earth.

Georgia had been even sweeter. He'd playedwith her, a cat toying with a doomed mouse, drawing out each exquisite momentuntil she was a mewling wreck. Only then had he delivered the coup de grâce, amercy and a condemnation all in one.

And now, this poor sap. He'd shadowed hismark for days, learning his habits, his haunts, the patterns and pathways ofhis vapid little life.

And so he shadowed him now. The manturned, wandering off the main drag and into the narrow throat of an alley.Perfect. The fly bumbling ever closer to the spider's silken strands. He hitthe gas, rocketing around the block to head off his target. He slewed to a stopat the mouth of the alleyway.

It was time.

He grabbed his weapon and donned his mask– a new addition to his arsenal. It was half theatrical, half efficiency.Tonight was his only opportunity to get up close and personal with targetnumber three, so he had to risk killing him at an hour when people might stillbe walking the streets. It was a risk, but for this kill, for this gloriouspiece de resistance, he was willing to chance exposure. To dance on the razor'sedge between triumph and ruin, all for the sake of his art.

The transformation from man to characterwas complete, and so he slipped from the car, becoming a shadow amongstshadows. The alley yawned before him; a narrow, trash-strewn gullet leadingstraight into the bowels of the city. And there, at the far end, stumbling evercloser with each sloppy, drunken step, was his quarry.

He melted into the darkness, pressinghimself against the rough brick of the alley wall. His heartbeat was a wardrumin his ears and he’d attuned every sense to perfection, aware of the slightestshift in the urban cacophony that surrounded.

He could hear the distant wail of sirens,the barking of dogs, the bass thump of music spilling from some late-nightdive. But closer, louder, growing ever more distinct with each passing second,was the sound of footsteps. He held himself perfectly still. Eyes never leftthe mouth of the alley, never wavered from that narrow strip of sidewalk wherehis victim would soon pass. He scanned the street beyond, searching for anysign of movement, any hint of a passerby or a night owl who might spoil hisperfect moment.

But the avenue was deserted. The cityslept. It wasn’t the witching hour, but it was good enough.

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