Page 8 of Taking Care of the Target

“It’s Lucy, the nurse from the hospital. I’m calling about the girl.”

Jim straightened, the dangling carrot of information he desperately needed just out of reach. The nurse had promised to keep him in the loop about the blond waitress, although it’d taken a lot of convincing on his part, even after flashing the FBI badge and implying she didn’t really have a choice. “You mean Cassandra Dalton?”

“Yeah. She woke up.”

He allowed himself a small celebratory fist pump. He’d been watching Carlo Rossi for nearly six months, and the longer the case dragged on without enough solid evidence to arrest the bastard, the more frustrated he became. Two weeks ago, he’d gotten a tip that something might be going down at Rossi’s restaurant. The usual array of thugs had shown up, unlike his partner who’d called in sick again. Jim could remember plenty of times he’d been sick, yet he always managed to make it in. That was what was wrong with kids these days—shitty work ethic.

He’d been sitting in his car a few blocks away from the restaurant, wondering if he should attempt to get closer, when the blond waitress barreled out the front doors. He recognized her immediately; he’d been talking to one of the female detectives about trying to turn her into a source. Cassandra was the only person on the payroll who wasn’t family or dating a member.

Something about her wild movements made every one of his nerves prick up. Without checking for traffic, she darted into the street.

Jim had grabbed for the door handle, thinking,Lady, you’re not going to make it,but he was too late. The blond head disappeared under the truck and then too many people showed up to risk going over to check on her—a blown cover wouldn’t help anyone.

I’m sure she had a good reason for sprinting out of the building like that. It’s time I find out what it was.He stood, pulling his car keys out of his pocket. “I’ll be there in a few,” he said into the phone.

“Actually, she woke up a few days ago… I was off this week, so I came in and found out they’d already released her.”

He swore under his breath. Why hadn’t Lucy mentioned she wouldn’t be there? He could’ve tried to talk to another nurse. Of course the more people he talked to, the higher the risk of being exposed. Rossi had sources everywhere, and he couldn’t let himself forget that. The last guy made that mistake, and he’d disappeared, months’ worth of undercover work gone with him. It’d made Carlo and his crew even more suspicious of new people, and they hadn’t been able to implant anyone in their inner circle since.

“What’s her address, then?” Jim asked. “I want to drop in and see what she can tell me.”

“That’s the problem,” Lucy said. “I talked to another nurse to see what I could find out before I called, and it turns out, she has amnesia. Doesn’t remember a thing from the past two years.”

Jim used his fingers to put pressure on his temples. The one good thing that’d happened all day and it was quickly going downhill. “Does the doctor think she’ll get her memory back?”

“There’s no way of knowing, but she took a hard blow to the head. If you go in and push her, you might make it worse, and you’ll probably just scare her. This was why I worried about talking to you in the first place. People need time to recover, and my loyalty is to my patients.”

Yeah, and bad guys need to be put away before they hurt anyone else.Jim sank back into his chair, a heavy side of defeat pressing him further down. “I hear you.” Didn’t mean he was ruling out talking to Cassandra, not when she could be the key to his case. “Thanks for the information. If anything else comes up, you’ll call?”

“Sure,” she said, but she didn’t sound sure, so he wouldn’t bet on it. He hung up and scrubbed a hand over his face. Honestly, he probably wanted Cassandra Dalton’s accident to be more than it was. He was getting desperate, and that led to grasping at straws. He needed hard evidence on something more than petty theft to ensure an open and shut case.

Another team of agents was tailing Carlo’s capos, the made men who worked directly under him and kept their own group of flunkeys in line. If any of them slipped up, they’d be carted into jail and offered a deal—rat or rot. A few might choose to rot, and that was fine by him. At least it would put one more criminal behind bars.

It needed to be soon, though, because as much as he hated to admit it, he was getting old. More gray was creeping into what used to be brown hair, and the long hours were getting harder to maintain.

I’ll retire soon and take a long overdue vacation—or whatever it’s called when it’s a break from nothing.

Just as soon as Carlo Rossi and his boys are in jail.He needed to retire on a win. His last case had been win in theory, but since the bad guy had killed seven women before Jim took him down, it hadn’t felt that way. He wanted to stop bad guysbeforecountless victims piled up. Wanted the streets to be safer so he’d be okay with leaving them to other people to keep that way.

Jim tapped his fingers on his desk, then turned to his computer and pulled up Cassandra Dalton’s information.All her family’s gone, so no ties. No other people for Rossi to threaten to keep her quiet. She would’ve made a good informant.

He’d watch the restaurant and see if she came back. Although, the thought of waiting for however long that’d be bothered him.

So he scribbled down the address, just in case, and then stood and stretched. His bones popped, an unneeded reminder of his age. Then he left the office, got into his car, and hesitated at the first street light, still unsure if he should make a right or left.

***

Cassie pushed the too small pink frames up her nose and spread out the faded quilt. A beautiful pattern of blue and yellow squares in varying prints made up the queen-size blanket.

Okay, so these glasses totally squeeze my brain, but at least I can see.The visually-impaired search through her bedroom had unearthed the old frames, and she thanked her lucky stars she’d found them, despite how ugly and out-of-style they were. They took her back to her junior high days of being called four-eyes and caring enough to go home and cry to Dad about it.

The lenses were outdated enough to not be as sharp as the last pair she remembered owning, but there was that whole beggars and choosers thing, and at least they made it easier to pack the last of her belongings.

She’d recognized a few items as she went through the closet, including several pieces of her wardrobe. Even the new clothes pretty much looked like the old ones; she was never one to take a fashion risk, most of them were conservative, neutral, and what she referred to as classics, because that sounded better than boring.

She tugged on the earpieces of her glasses, trying to get another inch of room without breaking them. Ugly or not, at least she’d been bold enough in junior high to take a risk with the pink.

Waking up in a hospital, lost and confused, with no friends to greet her—even if she wouldn’t have remembered them—made her think it was time to make a change. To take risks. Be bolder. Make friends. Have a couple of adventures. Life was short, and while she’d never minded being alone all that much before, it dug at her now. It felt like everything in her life reflected loneliness back at her, showing her she was missing more than memories.

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