Page 10 of Crossfire

“I’m going to need everyone to step back.” A second officer moved to the front of the crowd and ushered us further away from the collapsed building.

More problematically, away from the woman and the clues I needed.

I remained a chameleon among the spectators, staring at the piles of concrete that entombed Vosch’s driver, telling the police officer I didn’t see anything when he asked, but mostly, I studied the woman, cataloging her features for clues to her identity.

With her striking appearance, she would make the perfect assassin. Her dark hair fell in waves past her shoulders, and her angelic face, with its doe-like eyes and plush nude lips, could easily lure in unsuspecting targets. Standing at a petite five foot three, her thin frame seemed harmless, but behind her innocent facade lay a highly skilled fighter.

And perhaps a killer.

But a black-market hit man would never run into the arms of a police officer.

In theory. Unless she was creating another distraction. Even if I couldn’t fathom how that would help Vosch, I couldn’t discount she might be involved with him. He was a sophisticated criminal who often had multiple contingency plans in place to evade capture or termination, and for all I knew, this woman could be on his payroll.

Then again, why would his right-hand man have attacked her?

Perhaps as a diversion. Maybe Vosch or someone on his team spotted me, or Seth, or one of the CIA operatives positioned in nearby vehicles and tipped him off. Her confrontation with the driver took my eye off of the prize after all, and here I was, chasing her down.

That didn’t answer the most perplexing question, though: why would she willingly go to the police? It would spell death for her if Vosch or any organized family employed her.

There was no way she could be an innocent bystander either. The odds of her stumbling not only into that parking garage, but the underground level of it were slim to none.

She was there, at that exact time and place, deliberately.

Why? If she wasn’t with Vosch, who was she?

Armed with only a physical description, I’d have to shadow this woman until I uncovered her identity. Without it, we’d be missing a crucial piece of Vosch’s puzzle, potentially derailing future missions due to this critical gap in intel.

But my task was about to become exponentially more difficult.

I clenched my fists as a short, bald police officer escorted her to the back of his squad car and drove off.

As the vehicle vanished around the corner, my resolve hardened. She was a puzzle, one that I was determined to solve, not just for the mission, but to unravel the complication that had violently intruded my world.

5

IVY

“Ivy.” Detective Mitchell’s voice grated against my ears with the sandpaper of pity as we sat, crammed into a tiny conference room at the Chicago police station.

The same one I’d been in before with him, when we’d been discussing my father’s death—which, after careful investigation and corroboration from the medical examiner, was ruled a suicide.

Today, the air hung heavy with the stench of old coffee and the detective’s overpowering aftershave, the oxygen stagnant, as if the building’s ventilation system had given up trying to breathe life into this cramped space. The battered conference table between us was blanketed in scratches, probably the aftermath of the frustrations of those who’d sat here before me.

My joints began to ache from the battering they’d taken, fighting off my assailant.

“Let me get this straight…” the detective continued.

Code forallow me to repeat this information back to you, so you feel even stupider than you already do.

Like I hadn’t mentally beaten myself up enough for what I’d done.

“Your father said he’d come up with the money for his mother’s medical needs just before he died.”

I hated the way Detective Mitchell was looking at me like I was a fool.

In his defense, a gun-wielding lunatic by the supposed name of Bob tried to kill me less than an hour ago, and if I hadn’t taken all those fighting classes, he would have likely murdered me.

But I digress. Detective Mitchell was the no-nonsense kind of guy—complete with a no-nonsense short haircut and creases in his forehead that probably came from years of raising his eyebrows in shock that people like me could get into predicaments like this.

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