Page 11 of Taking Care of the Target

“Don’t worry,” Carlo finally said. “You’ll know as soon as I know.”

Vince nodded and turned to get back to the restaurant, sure it’d be impossible to focus. The one thing that made him feel slightly better was knowing how unlikely it’d be for Cassie to ever go back to that apartment again.

***

People more experienced in being bold might scoff at Cassie’s risk-taking, but she needed to get to her old apartment complex, and she thought driving around without a license made her at least half a badass.

Half an ass. That’s giving me some weird imagery.Being overly analytical about a statement she’d made in her head probably dropped her down to more like one-third badass. Considering she also planned on calling Tom to help her get out of a ticket if she did get pulled over, that number probably needed dividing as well.

One sixth of a badass is still more than I was before.Pulling off any sort of cool title in her ’78 Dodge Aspen was a feat in and of itself. The thing was a total beater, but it ran, was paid off, and never failed to get her from pointAto pointB. Surely Tom had known she’d drive it when he brought it from the impound lot for her last night; his knock had woken her up, and when she tried to lay down again after he left, her instincts wouldn’t stop screaming that something wasn’t right.

The frantic impulse to leave beat out logic, and she’d grabbed the necessities and driven to Hudson Grove Apartments. The landlord there was not only friendly—despite it being after office hours—but had also given her a key without threatening to charge for it, and showed her to her new apartment. Without her furniture, she’d made do with the carpet and Mom’s quilt for a bed.

The engine’s loud roar as she accelerated made it hard to hear the radio, so Cassie twisted the knob, turning it up so she could decide if she liked the current track. Most of the songs were new to her, which was kind of nice while also being disconcerting.

At the stoplight, she checked the time. The movers should be at her old place in about twenty minutes, so she’d beat them there by about ten.

This day had been forever long, and while she’d accomplished quite a bit, she was already exhausted with a lot left to do. First thing this morning she’d gone to campus and found her schedule—she had all but two textbooks for her classes, but when she’d cracked open the spines, everything had looked so foreign it might as well have been another language. After an hour of trying a combination of speed-reading and osmosis, she’d returned to the registrar and dropped her classes. It physically hurt her to do it after being so happy to discover she’d finally started college, but trying to cram two and a half months of material while getting her life back in order would only lead to failing grades.

The lady at the registrar took pity and refunded half her tuition. Apparently part of it was paid by a scholarship, and she said they’d apply it next semester if Cassie came back.

The pang of feeling like a failure hit her again.It’s okay. I’ll brush up on the year and a half’s worth of classes I got credit for already and then try again.

After she left campus, she used the stash of money she found in her dresser and headed to the eye doctor. The good thing about waiting tables was having a lot of cash on hand, and judging from the wad of bills, she’d kept the career. Or become a stripper, which was extremely unlikely, as just the thought made her want to internally combust from embarrassment. She’d check into her last job when she had internet connection and could log into her bank accounts. With any luck, they and her passwords were the same.

For now, she was just happy to have exchanged the ancient brain-squeezer glasses for black rectangle frames. They had a pink “color pop” on the inside, and she decided she was totally going to start wearing more color on the outside, too.

“Oh crap, was that my turn?” Cassie made a frowned-upon U-turn she was pretty sure bumped her back up to one-third a badass, and then pulled over in front of her old apartment complex.

She climbed out of her car and took a deep breath of fresh air. Fall was her favorite season; it wasn’t too hot or too cold and the world decided to try on brighter colors itself. She leaned against her hood to wait for the movers. Sometime in the near future, she needed to get a phone—the moving company had a hard time believing she didn’t have one, and even though she received hesitant looks, they finally accepted her pinky promise that she’d be there when they arrived.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a guy coming up the sidewalk. She straightened, suddenly feeling vulnerable out here by herself, especially with Tom’s words about it being a bad neighborhood running through her mind.

Usually she avoided eye contact, but self-defense tips all said not to, so the person knew you could ID them.

So, gathering her courage, she looked straight at him and assessed him the way she would if she were to give a description. Thin, pointed nose, greasy-looking dark hair—ew—and a foot or so taller than she. His eyes widened when he met her gaze. Goosebumps pricked her skin, and her heart hitched up a few notches.

Then a large moving van pulled up, its engine as loud as her car’s. The guy in the van unrolled the window. “Looks like you kept your promise.”

She smiled, batting away the heat trying to climb up her neck. “I always do.”

As the movers exited the truck, Cassie glanced back toward where the other guy had been on the sidewalk, but he wasn’t there any longer.

Hmm. That trick about making eye contact totally worked.

Several hours later, Cassie stood in the middle of her new apartment. The place wasn’t any bigger than her other one—in fact, it might be a tad smaller—but the kitchen had more counter space, a U-shaped area around the oven, fridge, and dishwasher; it was in a safer neighborhood where the main doors faced an inside hall, which made her feel more secure, and it wasn’t like she needed much space anyway.

Then there was her favorite feature: the huge living room window. When it was sunny, it lit up not only this room but also her kitchen. She stepped closer to the glass. Her tenth-floor apartment was level with the roof of the complex across the street, and just beyond that, ran the Delaware River. If she lowered her gaze, she could see into the lit up apartments that didn’t have their blinds drawn. They could probably see into hers as well, and she reminded herself to get curtains, even if shutting out the amazing view seemed like a crime.

Cassie walked backward until her knees hit the couch. Then she flopped onto the cushions and thought she might never move again.The hardest part’s over, and at least I feel safe for the first time since I woke up in the hospital.

Before her eyelids decided to shut down on her, she pulled up her bank accounts on her rather nice laptop. She’d worked long enough as a server that she recognized wimpy waitress paychecks when she saw them, even before she read the restaurant’s name to the side of the amounts.

Every couple of weeks she’d received a modest check fromROSSI’S RISTORANTE PAYROLL PPD,and then she made deposits once or twice a month. The balances in both her checking and savings weren’t great, but not completely desolate.

Plus, she still had a significant stash in her dresser. If she didn’t have so many bills to pay off, she’d actually be in a good place financially. But since bills would only keep coming, she needed a job, either her old one or a new one.

She stretched, glad she wasn’t so stiff anymore—she worried the moving and rearranging would’ve made her worse, but it seemed to loosen her up instead. Her bruises were mostly gone, all but one on her right hip that was at the ugly purple and yellow stage. Sometimes it still seemed unreal that a truck had hit her.

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