Page 2 of A One Woman Job

Instead of answering, she furrows her brow as she studies me. A lot closer than before. “Before we go any further, I need you to understand something.”

“Who said we were going any further?”

“I’m Etta Krop. And Meg, I’m not someone you disrespect,” she says, her voice suddenly very quiet. Her brown eyes sharpen and the coldest shiver I’ve ever experienced tracks down my spine. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I swear, I can see the promise of misery and death in those eyes. She’s the kind of person who delivers those things, swiftly and without remorse. She communicates all of that to me in the space of a few seconds.

Whispers are beginning to come back to me. Etta Krop. I’ve heard her name around town, only spoken in hushed and fearful tones. At night, I work a shift cleaning commercial spaces and one of them is a lawyer’s office. One evening, as I was mopping the floor, something told me to remove one of my headphones and I overheard a phone call from one of the lawyers who’d stayed late. He was speaking to law enforcement about the lack of proof they’d been able to gather on a local crime syndicate. One that operates illegal gambling and drug operations that stretch across the entire state.

Now, I recall some of the words he used to describe this woman standing in front of me. Cold. Untouchable. Ruthless.

I’ve probably only guaranteed my own death. Me and my big mouth.

I can’t let anything happen to me, though. I’m all my siblings have in the world.

“You’re not someone I disrespect,” I say, tightly. “Got it.”

“Good.” She flashes a row of white teeth. “Now, if you’re ready to listen, I have a proposition for you. It could work out nicely for the both of us.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“You really don’t know when to shut up, do you?” Thankfully, Etta seems more amused by that observation than anything. “I find your…passion and bravery rather unique. You’ve obviously had a rough hand of cards dealt to you, but it’s only made your spirit stronger. As someone who had a similar upbringing, I admire that.”

“Cheerios!” bellows my youngest brother, shaking the rafters.

“I don’t even think we have Cheerios,” I say to Etta, uselessly. “I appreciate the compliments, but—”

“Against my better judgment, I’m going to offer you a way out of this.”

“A way out of what?”

“Oh, I didn’t mention?” She grins and paces forward a step, so I must tip my head back to keep eye contact. “If your father doesn’t pay me the one hundred thousand dollars he owes me, with interest, I’ll burn your motherfucking house down. With all of you inside of it.”

“Oh,” I breathe, winded, locking my knees straight so she won’t see them trembling. “And what was this way out you mentioned?”

“I don’t usually make house calls of this nature. I’m too important. I have someone who does it for me. His name is Koen.” She allows me to see some of her frustration. “He’s decided out of the blue to take some time off. But I need him back to work, you see.Now.He’s very…valuable to my operation. But I can’t seem to convince him to return. No amount of money or threats have done the trick.” She looks me over one more time and nods. “That’s your job. Get Koen back to work.”

“What? But I’m busy! And…how?”

“Figure it out. But complete the taskwithouttelling him I sent you,” she enunciates, taking a phone out of her suit pocket and tapping on the screen. “I’m texting you his private address. I wouldn’t waste any time. I’m giving you a week, Meg.”

“How do you have my phone number?”

“I knoweverything.” She takes a moment to impress that knowledge on me with an icy stare, then begins to back away toward the street. “Better call your Uber partner and let her know you won’t be there for your shift.”

My legs are jelly by the time Etta disappears into the back of a black Rolls-Royce at the end of my street. My phone vibrates in the waistband of my bike shorts, and I extricate it with numb fingers, staring down at the words on the screen, which are nothing more than an address. But it’s aniceaddress, a few towns over, right on the ocean.

“Cheerios! Cheerios!” everyone is chanting now, blissfully unaware that our fragile world could crumble around us if I don’t make this woman happy.

Good thing I don’t know how to fail.

2

Meg

All right, I just might fail.

Koen’s house is not only surrounded by gates, it’s perched on the edge of a jagged cliff, overlooking the turbulent ocean. I sit cross-legged down on the beach, staring up at the Batman-like home, wondering what this man did to earn the kind of cash one needs to buy a house this posh. Etta only told me he wasvaluable.

Valuable how?

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