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  Misha hesitated. He looked toward Ratchikov, who sat in silence.

  “We have much to discuss.” Allie’s voice was calm. “Bring us our drinks. Then the two of you will wait on the front porch. My Fyodor will not be long.”

  Misha stepped to the bar cart. The room was silent as he poured the clear liquid into heavy crystal tumblers. He crossed over to hand one to Ratchikov.

  “I am served first,” Allie reminded him.

  Again Misha looked to Ratchikov for direction but got none. The bald giant’s jaw churned as he handed a glass to Allie.

  “Spasibo,” Allie said. Thank you.

  Misha handed the other glass to the man he thought was his boss and turned to leave.

  “Misha.” Allie held out her left hand. “Allow me to teach you another phrase we Americans use. ‘Mulligan.’ It means a second chance.”

  He took a hesitant step toward her. Allie held his angry gaze until it softened into compliance. Then she nodded.

  And Misha kissed her ring.

  “Wait for Fyodor on the porch.”

  The two men left without another word.

  “Your men are loyal, Fyodor.” Allie sat on the opposite side of the sofa from her second-in-command. “As you were to my Vadim.”

  “As I am loyal to you, my queen.”

  “We must not keep your men waiting. I’m certain you are eager to return to Moscow. What is so important you needed to meet? It’s been little more than a week since we talked in Seattle. I was quite explicit with my expectations. Have you been unable to follow my instructions?”

  “I am fully capable of running this enterprise.” He immediately softened his tone. “As you command me to, of course. My reason to see you has nothing to do with your directives.”

  “Then what?”

  “The Arab.”

  Allie’s pulse quickened. “Abu Al Fared.”

  “Yes. You have disappointed him. That makes it difficult for me to meet the goals you have set for expansion into his area.” Ratchikov paused. “He says you offered him a personal assassin. Easy enough to come by, I suppose. But Al Fared speaks of your vow to provide him one who is also a beautiful woman. One who will kill for him and heat his bed.”

  Never promise what you can’t deliver, Allie. Her late mother’s words floated into her memory. One word from Lydia would have convinced her father to let her be a part of the family again. But Lydia had become the surrogate daughter to Mort Grant. Allie’s replacement. Her father had lovingly accepted an international assassin into his life, yet turned his back on his own flesh and blood. What had she done that was any worse than his sainted Lydia? And who was Lydia to deny her anything?

  Allie needed her gone.

  She also needed access to Al Fared’s corner of the world. He was a member of a powerful clan operating with the tacit approval of several royal families in the Middle East. Al Fared’s network provided a vast assortment of vices to the wealthy, titled, and privileged upper crust forbidden to ordinary citizens of the area’s rigid fundamentalist society. Allie needed to demonstrate her ability to grow the syndicate she had wrested from Vadim Tokarev in order to assure the loyalty of her men. She had to deliver the increased wealth she had promised. Becoming the exclusive supplier of drugs and Western prostitutes to Al Fared’s enormous customer base would accomplish that.

  But Abu Al Fared balked at the idea of working with a woman. He respected Tokarev but saw Allie as nothing more than the late Russian’s concubine. She needed to make an impression on him.

  Never promise what you can’t deliver, Allie. Allie had seen a way to rid herself of Lydia and show Al Fared she could provide whatever he needed. He’d heard of the Fixer but was convinced the female sword of justice was a myth. Allie had assured him that not only was the Fixer real, but she was even more beautiful than the whispers described.

  She had promised that the Fixer would be his.

  Allie had sent her most trusted man. Staz had been her champion. Her protector. Her shield and her weapon. She had sent him to bring the Fixer to Al Fared.

  Days had gone by without a word from Staz. The only way that would ever happen was if he was dead, while Lydia Corriger still smugly went about her life, filling the role of daughter to Mort Grant.

  “You’ve cost this organization a valuable customer,” Ratchikov continued. “He’s hurting our reputation. Spreading the word we aren’t reliable. That we’re vulnerable with a soft-headed woman as our leader.”

  “The only people who are vulnerable are those who dare to cross me.”

  “I tell you only what Al Fared is saying. His words are weakening us.”

  “Within our own organization?”

  Ratchikov looked down at his hands.

  “You brought two men today. There was a time one was enough. Do you, Ratchikov, feel weakened by me?”

  “I respect you, my queen.”

  “Then let me deal with the Arab. I thank you, loyal Fyodor, for bringing this to me. Give me a day or two.”

  “The Arab is not to be dismissed. He has connections. Power.”

  “Not as great as mine!” Allie checked her tone. “Not as great as ours. I’ll contact you in a few days with my Arabian strategy.”

  Allie stood. Ratchikov did as well. He understood he was being dismissed.

  “And where is your man?” he asked. “Where is Staz the Giant?”

  “A whisper away. Do I need him?” Allie hardened her stare.

  Ratchikov’s answer was interrupted by the squealing joy of a seven-year-old running into the room.

  “Aunt Allie! I love it! It sparkles! Watch me twirl!” Hadley spun around and around, giggling as her new silver dress ballooned about her. “I’m a beautiful princess here in my beautiful castle. I’ll eat a beautiful dinner and have beautiful cake. Whoa!” Hadley stopped and swayed. “I’m dizzy.”

  “Where’s Constance?” Allie regretted the shrillness of her voice.

  “Who are you?” Hadley asked Ratchikov.

  The Russian switched to English for the little girl. “I am friend of your aunt’s. Your dress is very nice.”

  “I know. It’s new and—”

  “Hadley!” Constance ran into the room. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. She got away from me.”

  “So I see.” Allie reached for Hadley’s arm. “Go with Constance.”

  “Ow! That hurts!”

  “I said go with Constance. We’ll have dinner in a few minutes. You can show me your dress then.” Allie glared at the nanny.

  Hadley looked up at the Russian visitor as Constance led her away. “Nice to meetcha!”

  Ratchikov kept his smile in place until the child disappeared. Then he turned back to Allie.

  “A very pretty little girl.” He spoke his mother tongue. “What a pity this world can be a dangerous place for one so young.”

  Chapter 3

  Seattle

  “I thought this neighborhood was cleaning itself up.” Jim DeVilla stepped out of his car. An oversized German shepherd bounded behind him. He walked over to the woman who had beaten him to the crime scene by two minutes. “It’s three thirty in the afternoon. Time was, gunplay was like cocktails. Nothing before five o’clock. Nobody cares about tradition anymore.”

  Micki Petty hefted her evidence kit onto her shoulder. She nodded toward the knot of people up ahead. “Only two cops?”

  “What are you insinuating, Officer Petty?” Jim’s voice held a tease. “I’m sure if a person was shot in broad daylight in any number of Seattle’s high-rent districts, dispatch would see fit to send the same economical pair of officers in response.” He called out as they approached. “Hey! Officer Numb Nuts…Officer Dipstick. Get these good people back. They’re contaminating my scene.”

  Two flustered patrolmen stood over a figure lying facedown on the sidewalk, doing their best to hold at least twenty onlookers at bay.

  “Everybody back.” Micki’s voice sounded more authoritative than her compact size and pixie face wou
ld suggest possible. “Farther. Back. Back.” She walked in an ever-widening spiral around the body, holding her arm out like the blade of a plow, directing the citizens away. Bruiser followed behind her, employing the herding skills passed down through hundreds of generations of working dogs, using his powerful body to guide the people toward a more acceptable location. When Micki had the crowd stabilized at an acceptable distance, she joined Jim and the pair of patrol officers.

  “What do we know?” Jim asked.

  “Called in about twenty minutes ago.” The uniformed officer’s red hair curled up the sides of his cap. “Two women saw it go down. Said the vic was walking down the sidewalk. A car races past and starts shooting. Next thing they know some guy pops up. Bends over the body. Does who knows what. Few other folks said they heard the shots but didn’t see it happen.”

  “We have the two witnesses?” Micki asked.

  The second officer, a tall man with a mustache so thin it looked penciled on, nodded toward his patrol car. “I got ’em both in there. They’re none too happy about sitting in the back of a squad car, but I figured you’d want to talk to them.”

  Micki shook her head in frustration. “Ever occur to you to separate them? You got two cruisers. Plenty of room.”

  Officer Red Hair grimaced and jogged off toward the car holding the women. But it was too late. The witnesses had already had twenty minutes together to get their story straight.

  “What did they tell you about the shooter?” Jim asked Officer Mustache.

  “Like Roscoe told you. Victim was walking. By himself, they say. Shots fired. Guy appears from nowhere. Screaming ensues. The guy takes off running.”

  “Ah!” Jim DeVilla tapped the side of his head. “Guy took off running. That’s news. What direction?”

  Officer Mustache pointed east. “I called it in.”

  “Along with a description?” Micki asked.

  “Black guy. The ladies couldn’t agree on the height. One said he looked to be about her size. I put her around five six. The other one swore he was over six feet tall. One lady said he was a skinny guy who looked like he might have a limp. The other one said he was built like Marshawn Lynch and ran like a track star.”

  “So we know the guy was black,” Jim said.

  Officer Mustache shrugged. “One of the ladies said he could have been Puerto Rican.”

  “The witnesses get a make on the vehicle?” Micki asked. “Any hope for a digit or two from the license plate?”

  “These are girls,” Mustache reminded them. “They don’t know from cars. One swore it was a black SUV. The other swore it was a burgundy sedan. All the screaming and all. They didn’t get nothing from the plate.”

  “Dare I dream they saw who was driving? Maybe who was shooting? One person? Two? More?” Jim asked.

  “They both said it happened too fast. One said maybe she saw a gloved hand.”

  “So,” Micki said, “we have no idea if it was a lone gunman or a group. No idea if the shooter was male, female, white, black, brown?”

  “Like I said, the ladies said it happened real fast.”

  Micki and Jim shared a tired glance. Jim looked down at the corpse.

  “What d’ya say, Mick? Six feet tall? Maybe an inch more?”

  Micki nodded. “Thin. All arms and legs.” She turned toward the patrolman. “No one’s moved the body?” She pulled a camera from her bag and began photographing the area.

  “No, ma’am. He was like this when we rolled on scene.”

  Jim looked toward the growing group of citizens. “How many of them were here when you pulled up?”

  Officer Mustache answered with confidence. “I got here first. Roscoe was right behind me. There were the two witnesses and maybe one or two other folks. Nobody got near the body that I could tell.”

  “And nobody knows who this is?”

  “Kind of hard to ID the guy, what with him being facedown and all.”

  “What about his clothes? Guy’s got a jacket with one sleeve missing. Anybody have anything to say about that particular fashion statement? Maybe can put a name to it? Oh, that’s One-Sleeve Joe. Lives two blocks over. Anything like that?”

  A crimson flush washed over Mustache’s face. “There’s just the two of us,” he insisted. “Roscoe and me figured better to contain the scene. Leave the interrogation of witnesses to you hotshot detectives.”

  Jim turned to Micki. “You get the shots you need? Okay to turn him now?”

  Micki nodded. The two of them knelt and rolled the body over.

  “He’s a kid!” Micki exclaimed. “Look at his face. He’s just a boy. A tall one, that’s for sure. But a kid.”

  Jim’s stomach tightened in that way it did whenever he saw a dead child. After nearly three decades investigating homicides, he’d grown accustomed to seeing the cruelty one adult was capable of inflicting on another. But he never got used to seeing the tortures someone was able to wreak on a child. He studied the dead boy’s face. Hot chocolate skin as smooth as satin. Long, soft eyelashes curled at the edges of closed lids. The kid wore an old Seattle SuperSonics T-shirt under his one-sleeved denim jacket.

  Jim’s eyes scanned the boy’s body. Two entrance wounds were visible. Streaks of blood staining the front of his shirt and jacket suggested the first bullet had entered the boy’s neck, nearly tearing out his throat. The second shot, the one in the middle of the kid’s chest, would have finished him off. Jim reached for the boy’s right hand. He saw no signs of powder burns. There had been no armed confrontation. This boy had been gunned down.

  “Too young to drive,” Micki said. “He was walking. I’m betting he’s from this neighborhood.”

  Jim heard the sorrow in her voice. He looked up to where Officer Mustache and Officer Red Hair, just returned from separating the witnesses, stood.

  “I want you two over by the crowd. One stays and keeps them back. Take Bruiser. He’s an ace with mob control. The other brings groups over here. Five at a time. Go!”

  Jim watched Micki lay a hand on the boy’s leg. She stroked his shin like she was comforting him…letting him know everything was going to be just fine. Jim noted the boy wore nylon warm-up pants and bright orange Nikes the size of canoes.

  You’re a hoopster, aren’t you, kid?

  Officer Red Hair brought the first group of onlookers to them.

  “Any of you recognize this boy?” Jim asked.

  Three women and two men shook their heads. One woman patted her hand against her chest, clucking her tongue and muttering something about how terrible it all was. Jim asked Red Hair to bring over the next group. He waited until four women and a very old man approached. He didn’t have time to ask them anything. Three of the women shrieked in unison as soon as they saw the dead boy’s face.

  “Lord Jesus!” a woman in hospital scrubs yelled out. “It’s Banjo!”

  “That’s Banjo!” another woman, middle-aged, at least a hundred pounds overweight, and wearing bright pink shorts despite the late October chill, cried out at the same time. “Little Banjo Jackson! Our baby Banjo is dead!”

  A third woman said nothing at all. She dropped to her knees, wailing.

  —

  Ninety minutes later Jim, Micki, and Bruiser headed back to their cars. Banjo’s body was on its way to the coroner’s office. Micki’s team had collected shell casings, assorted gum wrappers, cigarette butts, and a broken beer bottle littered about the scene. Two news vans had descended, demanding interviews, which Micki and Jim declined. They were each aware of television cameras following every step they took back to their vehicles. Jim opened the door to let Bruiser hop in and kept his back to the media as he spoke.

  “You okay?”

  Micki held a hand to the side of her mouth, thwarting any lip reader who might use a zoom lens to capture police comment. “It’s tough, you know? Kids.”

  Jim nodded. “Let’s get back to the station. Get this party started.”

  “Who’s calling Mort?”

  J
im hesitated. “Let’s you and I take this one, Mick. Mort’s got his hands full at home.”

  Chapter 4

  Seattle

  Three men escorted him through the main floor of the house. He knew each of them. At first just by reputation. But for the past two months they’d been letting him hang around their meetings. Sometimes they shared a beer or two with him after they finished a job. He listened to their stories. He kept his eyes averted when the girls came in to do what the girls came in to do. One night he even walked into an alley, knowing full damn well they’d be waiting to beat him until he was bloody and unable to speak; all to prove his worthiness to be one of them. The three men walking with him now, and the dozens more like them, had been gods to him.

  Tonight they’d be brothers.

  All he needed was for them to believe his story.

  The four of them climbed the stairs. This would be the first time he was allowed on the second floor of the house, as well as his first face-to-face with the man who gave the orders.

  The small group paused in front of a closed double door.

  “You ready?” J-Fox asked him.

  He nodded.

  “This your last chance, boy.” Big Cheeks’s rumbling voice came from behind him. “You do this, it’s till death.”

  He nodded again. For a fast second he thought he saw a tiny tremble in J-Fox’s lip. Did they know? Was he walking into a setup?

  “Let’s do this,” he said.

  Mouse reached from behind him and opened the door. He reminded himself to ask how someone as big as an elephant ever got the name Mouse. He wouldn’t have dared ask that before. But tonight they’d be equals. Family. No secrets.

  Except, of course, for the one about who had really killed that Pico. That secret went with him to the grave.

  He walked in and his three escorts peeled away to join the dozen other men already in the dimly lit room. The air was heavy with a marijuana haze. The pounding beat of a bass guitar hit him in the chest as it boomed from speakers lining the opposite wall. He’d been told what to expect and knew his part. He licked the sweat off his upper lip, hoped no one saw his shaking hands, and stepped over to stand in front of the man holding court from a black leather chair. It was time to meet D’Loco. He looked the boss man square in the eye, holding his stare without blinking until D’Loco nodded once.