Page 3 of Fiona and the Fixer

Max laughed. “Clearly you’ve never been to prison or know about how much drugs go through those places.”

“You wanted him to do time?” Maybe I missed the point of my job for him after all. Fuck, I tried to do the right thing and then this happened.

“Jail time is better than him going torehab.Now he’s worthless to me ‘cause he’s also got five years of probation. I can’t have the police looking my way.”

Exactly.

I fixed things for Jason so he could get his shit together and get out from under his father’s control. I fixed it for Max, too, but maybe not the way he wanted.

“Get my son out of rehab.”

One thing I didn’t like was someone telling me I did my job wrong. Ialwaysdid it right. That was why I was the best. That was why I was busy as fuck. I especially didn’tlike being told what to do. “Look, Max. You paid me to fix the problem. I did. Our business is done.”

I hung up before he could shout some more. What these fuckers’ thought was that they controlled me. What they forgot was that I had all the power. I knew all the dirt. Knew where the dead bodies were. Literally. I could destroy them, and they knew it. While I felt confident Max wouldn’t be using me for any more jobs–no loss to me–he wasn’t going to stir shit up because I’d stir it up right back.

I closed my eyes. Sighed. “Fuck me.”

Jack was right. I needed a break.

I called him back.

“Yeah?” I could hear airport sounds in the background–general chatter, someone telling rows twelve through twenty were free to board.

“I’ll go up and feed the cat. Got a few jobs to do while you’re gone, but I actually can’t wait for a little boring small town life.”

2

FIONA

There wereperks to having extremely good hearing but overhearing my boss giving a handy in his office to one of the IT guys wasn’t one of them. At nine-thirty in the morning. I hoped he locked his door.

I tried to focus on the list I had on my screen, the names I’d been collecting since I returned from medical leave, except Dan Trotter, Division Chief, was calling the guy Daddy and in return, was told he’d been bad and to stroke him harder. I swiveled my seat back and forth, then glanced up at the ceiling, attempting deep breaths like a Lamaze instructor so I didn’t hurl. Reaching for my coffee, I took a gulp, wishing it was something stronger. I tried to refocus, but it was like a train wreck. I couldn’t stop myself from listening in.

By extremely good hearing, I meant like a bat’s, because Trotter’s office was on the other side of the building, and I could hear it all.All.

I’d wanted to be in the FBI since I was a kid. After my mother died, I had single-minded focus, doing more studying than partying. I was seven years in and being a field agent wasn’t all fun and games, like shooting people and hearing the judge’s gavel drop at the end of a trial.

No. There was office politics and other bullshit.

Jonathan Neidermeyer wrapped his knuckles on my open door and stuck his head in my office.

Like him.

“Ready for the meeting?” he asked.

I looked up from my work. “Yeah.”

My partner was thirty-seven with back-of-the-head balding like a medieval monk. Always had a stain on his shirt. Divorced. Dating a woman he met at a car wash grand opening. He was also an asshole, but that wasn’t going to change the way exercise and laying off the fast food would get him to see his dick instead of his gut when looking down. Not that it was big in the first place. His dick, not his gut. It couldn’t be.

“Good,” he muttered. He lifted the coffee mug he held and took a sip. Since it came from the break room’s machine which brewed something resembling roof tar, I wasn’t angry at him for not bringing me some. “Trotter wants an update on the case. Hope you’re prepared.”

His mustache quirked when he gave me a slippery smile.

Me? Prepared. Of course I was prepared. I wasalwaysprepared, and this wasmycase. Tightly run, a growing pile of solid evidence after six months of work. The printed files were in neat order on my desk. Colored tabs indicated evidence, depositions, search warrants, and interview notes.

Neidermeyer was only on the case with me because I’d gone on medical leave a few months ago. For a week. A brain tumor hadn’t kept me from my job longer than that and he definitely hadn’t expected my quick return. I suspected he never imagined me returning at all. But my job was pretty much my life, and it validated that I was, in fact, alive.

“Always,” I replied, patting the stack of neatly organized folders, the ones I came in thirty minutes early this morning to update. He knew I’d have it all ready to go, because it was in my nature to be prepared and organized and in his to have me do everything and then take the credit. Everything about him annoyed me. He was a slacker. He skipped deodorant. He didn’t play by the rules. Hell, he barely worked.

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