Page 86 of The Last Straw

He arched an eyebrow. “You mean all of that is yours?”

She glared. “You know I like leftovers, and I know you’re going to order Mongolian beef something and a gallon of shrimp fried rice. Meanwhile, I have my last hit man identified. I’ll tell you about it over lunch.”

As she turned back to the computer, there was a moment when the graceful curve of the back of her head and her long, bare neck struck him as so beautiful. And then he thought, how odd that this woman knew everything about him, and he still didn’t understand a fraction of who she was.

He walked out of the office as Wyrick was rereading the email she’d received from Mildred Pete, a fourth grade teacher in Paulette, Louisiana. According to Mildred, Farrell Kitt’s own son gave him up without knowing it, by an innocent comment on the playground, and when Mildred confronted Farrell, he finally admitted it.

Wyrick nodded in satisfaction. It was the verification she needed to finger Kitt as the last hit man. His phone number was also the last number she’d pulled from the preacher’s phone records. Just to make sure Kitt wasn’t still bent on coming after her anyway, she pulled up her tracker app, entered his phone number and waited, watching for it to ping off a cell tower somewhere. It took several minutes before she got a hit, and when she realized the phone was pinging northbound off a tower on an interstate in Ohio, she breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

It was a sad commentary for the world in which she lived, that it took an inordinate amount of skill and money to keep herself safe, but it was worth it to keep evil on the run.

She ran a second check on Jessup Wallis’s location, and realized he was moving through the Dakotas. Wherever they went, the farther away from her, the better.

Convinced she had the right men, she sent the information to Special Agent Hank Raines, just so they’d have it in their records, and then made a call to one of her banks.

After verifying her identity with the bank president via a video call, social security number and the routing number of the account she intended to use, she explained the reason for her call.

“I intend to make two large money transfers into two different bank accounts, and don’t want them flagged as possible hacks,” she said.

“Of course, Miss Wyrick. By any chance, are these transfers in regard to the bounties you posted last week?” he asked.

“Yes, they are. Both accounts have been verified, so I expect absolute security from your bank. In no way are the names of either of the recipients ever to be revealed.”

“No, ma’am. You can rest assured their privacy will be respected on this end.”

“Thank you,” Wyrick said.

“Of course, and thank you for your business,” he said. “I’ll connect you with bookkeeping right now. Please hold.”

Within fifteen minutes the bounties had been paid.

Wyrick exited that screen and pulled up the last press release she had to send, posting the pictures of the other two men from the Church of The Righteous who’d been sent to kill her.

She’d written up a short commentary to go with the faces, and had no second thoughts about what she was doing. They’d intended to end her life. All she was doing was ending their life of crime. They should be happy they were still free and breathing.

And so she hit Send, and once again the info went out to the same media outlets, and that was that. She shut down her computer, then went to wash up before going to find Charlie.

The sooner people realized she couldn’t be bullied, and wouldn’t run scared, the better off she would be.

She was coming down the main hall and passing the foyer when she saw movement outside and went to look out the front windows.

It was Charlie, heading toward the front gates at a lope. She paused to watch because it was Charlie, and then noticed a delivery car was parked just outside the gates.

Lunch was served. She headed for the kitchen and was making herself a glass of iced tea when he returned.

“So talk to me about your bounty hunting,” Charlie said as he began pulling little cardboard boxes out of the sack.

Wyrick snagged a set of chopsticks, then sat down and opened boxes until she found her dumplings and popped one into her mouth and rolled her eyes.

Charlie grinned. “Good?”

She waved her chopstick for yes, chewed, swallowed, took a drink of tea, then started talking.

“The bounties have been paid. The last dude was Farrell Kitt, the third man on Jeremiah Raver’s phone list. And you won’t believe who gave him up. It was his nine-year-old son, and he didn’t even know the significance of what he said.”

“Damn. That’s a hard one,” Charlie said.

Wyrick nodded. “His teacher overheard a comment, put two and two together and confronted the man. He finally admitted it to her. She snapped a picture of him and ran. I admire her guts.”

---