A Bone to Pick Read online

  “Tim?” Hellen said in a wavering voice.

  “Hellen? My God, Hellen, what happened?” Tim’s body reacted to the horror and sorrow of the vision in front of him. Emotions rose into his throat and strangled him. It was nearly a physical blow to his gut.

  “Nothing happened, Tim. I’m fine. That is my friend Wanda. Wanda, this is Tim Rancher. He was my boss. How are you?” Her mouth was trembling when she spoke.

  Rancher studied her features. She appeared as though she’d aged twenty years. Her hair was gray and short with numerous bald patches on her head. It was as though a crazed and drunken barber had gone at her with a razor. Her once smooth face was now replaced with a webbing of wrinkles and her hands shook slightly.

  Shit!

  “I’m…I’m good.” Rancher was stunned and he was having difficulty finding his words. His mind could not reconcile this wasted woman with the vibrant woman he’d known and worked with for years.

  “Would you like some tea, dear?” Wanda asked, making her way toward the kitchen.

  “Oh, please, I don’t want to bother you,” he muttered distractedly.

  “Oh, it’s fine. I’d like some,” Hellen said.

  Rancher thought Hellen behaved a little confused, like all her marbles weren’t in one bag.

  “Alright then, I’ll have a cup,” he agreed.

  “How have you been, Tim? And why on earth are you here?”

  “Been good. I heard about your sister. I’m really sorry, Hell. How are you doing with it all?” If he hadn’t been concerned before, he was now.

  “It was a hard blow. Vivian’s friends have been helping me so much. Wanda, she’s been a big help. Stays with me a great deal. Did you need me to come back to work?”

  The once strong voice he remembered now shook with tremor.

  Dammit, he thought. He wouldn’t let her anywhere near a job. She was done.

  He was suddenly hit with another pang of sorrow for the once dynamic asset. He’d only worked with Hell for five years before cancer had cut short her career. She’d been one of their best assets for black ops, now she was a papery husk of a woman. Less than a husk, and that broke his heart on several different levels. He liked her and respected her and he almost wished that all this killing business in Charlotte was her. At least then she wouldn’t be this pathetic, broken down person in front of him.

  “Oh no, I just wanted to stop by and say hello. I’m in Charlotte for a meeting,” he lied.

  Wanda walked back into the living room with a cup of tea and handed the steaming cup to him. He nodded his thanks then looked back to Hellen.

  “Oh, I was kind of hoping you’d need me for something,” she said.

  Rancher heard the dejection in her voice. He observed her hands shaking as she knitted. About half of the loops of yarn were missing in places and the yarn was uneven in whatever she was knitting. He’d come to find out if she was on a killing spree only to see that she was a fragile and useless old woman. He swallowed hard and the tea was bitter on his tongue.

  He thought again that he’d rather have found her the killing machine he’d known and worked with than what he witnessed before him. He hadn’t seen her in three years, and it would seem that she’d lived a hard three years. Even the house smelled old and sad. It was neat enough, and clean. His gaze strayed back to the old woman in front of him and it was tough not to just jump up and leave. He knew aging wasn’t contagious, yet he wanted to get away from her. Away from her mortality. It was an unpleasant feeling.

  The three spent nearly an hour chatting and Hellen seemed to drift at times. Her friend Wanda smiled apologetically, pulling Hellen back into the conversation. There were a few times when he spied the old Hell, but just as quickly, she disappeared. When Hell spoke, it was rambling, then a repetitiveness of her words that was beginning to wear on his nerves.

  He stood to leave and walked over to take her hands in his. Her hands seemed so small and fragile in his.

  “It was good to see you again, Hell. Take care and I’ll talk to you soon.” Rancher tried to pull his lips up into some semblance of warmth but his lips were stiff.

  “It was good to see you as well, Tom. Please don’t hesitate to call me if you need me.” Hellen’s mouth quivered as she peered up at him.

  He turned and left, wanting to get away from the tragic caricature of Hell on Wheels. No, whatever was going on in Charlotte wasn’t the work of Hellen. Shit. Getting old sucked. She had called him Tom. Was it a misstep? Or had she forgotten his name?

  Tim nearly tripped as he hurried down the steps. He looked over his shoulder and swallowed hard. He got into his car, pulled out his phone, and punched speed dial.

  “O’Donnell here.”

  “It’s Rancher. Just saw Hellen Marigold. Two words, non-viable threat. She’s done.”

  “Really? You sure?”

  “I’m sure, sir. If she could walk twenty yards, I’d be surprised. The cancer and treatment have nearly killed her.”

  “Fine. Get back to Washington.” O’Donnell hung up without another word and Rancher stared at his phone.

  “You fucking asshole,” he muttered. There was no compassion in O’Donnell’s voice. He set his phone on the seat beside him and looked back up at the townhouse. He brought his hands up to his face and rubbed it. He looked at his hands. They were shaking hard. He shook his head.

  If he ever got cancer, he thought he’d just eat a fucking bullet.

  He started the vehicle and pulled away, checking his rearview mirror. He couldn’t seem to shake the melancholy that settled over him. Maybe when he got back he’d take a little vacation up in the mountains. Perhaps he’d make an appointment with his doctor as well. It was a skinny minute since his last physical. He’d start eating better too.

  SEVEN

  Wanda stood at the window, holding the curtain back, watching. Hellen dug around in the cushion for her wig. Wanda giggled and Hellen grinned at her when she walked back to the couch.

  “You think he bought it?” Hellen asked, setting her wig back onto her head. It was her pink wig; she enjoyed the bright and happy color.

  “I thought he was gonna start cryin.’ He couldn’t get out of here fast enough. He damned near fell down the steps,” Wanda tittered, the corners of her eyes crinkled up.

  “I expect you’re correct, he thought I was behind the killings here. Rightfully so, these are some of my moves, though I’ve modified them. I’ve marked the inside of my weapons, changing the spiral pattern. There is no way the slugs left in bodies can match my old bullets. Ballistics won’t be able to find a match.”

  “Goodness, I never knew that.”

  “There are many things you learn as you go along in the CIA, some they teach you, some you learn with firsthand experience. I did know that I was monitored in Atlanta. That’s why I changed the plates on the car and took back roads that didn’t have security cameras on the stop lights. Your movement can be tracked on cams.”

  “That’s a scary thought. My goodness. Well, at least he doesn’t see you as a threat, Hellen, that’s a good thing.”

  “I have you to thank for that. It never occurred to me to do that. I must be slipping,” Hellen grumbled.

  “Dear, you can’t think of everything. I’ve been considered too old, marginalized, and discounted by everyone for years. I know what folks think when they see an old person. They see someone useless. Tim just needed to think of you as a useless old woman. You don’t realize how that feels since you’ve never been old or useless. You’ve always been someone who was dangerous. We just couldn’t let Tim see you that way. Besides, he popped up unexpectedly. Plus, your mind is on more important things. So, what are you going to do about the bastard’s money?”

  “I think I will disappear most of it. I’ll have to do all the accounts at once, otherwise he could move the money around. I’ll do it late Friday night. All the banks will be closed. It’s taken me a long time to find all the threads and he may well have more accounts that I’ve
not located yet. This will get his attention and this will sting very badly.” Hellen chuckled.

  “How much money?”

  “I’m putting it upwards of thirty million,” Hell said with a smug smile.

  “Oh, my sweet Jesus. That’s a lot of money. I wish I could be there to watch him when he finds out,” Wanda chortled gleefully, rocking on the couch. Her feet stamped lightly on the carpeted floor.

  Hellen realized with a start she actually liked this woman in front of her. Really, Wanda was her very first friend and she experienced a funny little tickle in the back of her heart.

  §

  “What the fucking hell?” Leon screamed at the top of his lungs. He shoved himself back from the desk in his home office. He grabbed his short hair with both hands and pulled, his eyes bulged out in horror. His gaze was drawn back to the computer. This had to be some fucking horrible mistake. His hands flew over the keyboard, calling up the same information on different sites. The same information popped up.

  Invalid. Invalid.

  There was no record of his accounts in the Cayman Island accounts, nor his Swiss accounts. He roared with rage as his fingers tore across the keys on his computer. A thick vein pulsed on his forehead and his head was throbbing with a rhythmic boom. Spittle was dripping down his chin, his teeth grinding.

  There had to be some kind of mistake. It was too late to call the banks directly; he’d have to wait until an appropriate time. He logged onto another site and screamed again. His heart was beating like a kettle drum in his chest. His mouth was so dry when he swallowed, he choked. He reached for his drink, the single malt splashing over his hand, which was shaking badly. He gulped it down and threw the crystal tumbler across the room. His fingers tangled in his hair and he pulled at the short strands.

  “What the fuck is going on!” he screamed into the empty room. He wanted to punch holes in the walls, tear the whole fucking house down. There had to be some kind of internet glitch. That was the only explanation. Panting now, he rubbed his trembling hands over his face. That was it, it was just some kind of internet glitch. Come the morning, all his assets would be in place and this bullshit would be set right.

  He walked around the room on shaky legs, almost lightheaded. His whole body vibrated with fear and stress. His whole damn world was beginning to crumble around him and he didn’t know how to stop it. Ones and zeros were slipping through his fingers like slimy fucking egg yolks. Digital money evaporating into thin air. How in the hell did you stop that?

  He picked up the phone and dialed the contact number for the Swiss location. It rang and rang. The bank wasn’t open yet. Fuck, it was Saturday. Were the banks open on Saturday or Sunday? Fuck! He’d have to wait until late Sunday night, when banks opened Monday morning overseas. He’d have to wait until Monday to call the Cayman Island banks. He screamed again and pounded his fists on the desk. The computer jumped and he wanted to throw it across the room. He couldn’t though, he needed to sort this out.

  Except for Mike and Bojo, and the bullshit swirling around that, his operations were going fairly smoothly. He had come back with moving the girls and boys successfully. That bit of bullshit straightened out. Now this.

  Shit!

  There was no one he could go to, no one to report this to. He put his head back and screamed, spit flying from his mouth. He picked up his chair and flung it across the room. For the first time in years, Leon felt helpless. Digital banking was out of his control. It was ones and zeros, the numbers kept swirling in his brain over and over. Ones and zeros. No actual currency.

  “Fuck!” he screamed. He sat down on the edge of his desk, his heart hammering away in his chest. He had to think, he had to stay calm. It could just be a glitch. Shit like this happened all the time. He took a deep shuddering breath and blew it out, wiping his mouth.

  He opened the draw in his desk and pulled out a bottle of oxy. Leon opened the bottle, the cap dropping to the floor. His hands shook badly as he popped a pill and gritted his teeth as he swallowed it dry. Exhaling, Leon wiped his face. He stood and he wavered, feeling lightheaded. He walked upstairs, he needed sleep. It was after one A.M. and trying to track his accounts, or lack thereof, was blurring his thinking. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he’d figure out what in the hell was going on. Or he’d burn down the fucking world.

  §

  Hellen drove down several dark alleyways. There was very little activity and she checked for security cameras. She had hacked into the department of transportation and retrieved a grid of the security and street camera locations. Unfortunately, the information was old and she had found herself on a traffic camera when one shouldn’t have been there. Hell kept her gaze moving to ensure she kept out of sight. Fake plates could only work so well and Hellen was a careful and paranoid woman.

  She was tracking one of the men. Per Bojo’s intel, she had a line on one Berry Cleves. Apparently, he ran the drug side of Ellsworth’s empire. Cleves did dip into prostitution and trafficking, but running shills and dealers were his main gig. She had located his vehicle and planted a tracker on it. She’d gotten mixed locations for his home and so needed to depend on the tracker. Following him at night was a double edged sword. Since there was no traffic it was easy to maneuver the streets, however, she could easily be seen. Although she could use her wolf vision and keep her vehicle lights off, should a patrol car notice her, she could be pulled over.

  “Try explaining your way out of that one,” she muttered to herself, taking a left on North Tyron Street. She was planning a blitz. Take out Cleves, get the names and locations of his subordinates, and kill them within a single night. She wasn’t sure she had enough time, especially if Cleves didn’t go home.

  Right now they were making their way through residential territory so she was hoping that he was, in fact, heading home. She would have to do a bit of surveillance on Cleves’ residence, see who lived there, wife, girlfriend, kids, and so on. If others lived there, she’d choose a different location, take Cleves unaware, and interrogate him. Hellen preferred simplistic plans, but she wanted a contingency in place in case things went sideways.

  She noted that his vehicle was slowing down. She moved in closer and groaned when she spotted an SUV and children’s bicycles on the lawn of the house where his car pulled in. This wasn’t good and now she’d have to figure out something else.

  “Well shit. Guess I’ll swing by the doctor’s clinic and have a look around,” she muttered, chewing her bottom lip.

  She turned the car around and left the area. She had two locations for the good doctor’s offices. He had a pain clinic and that was where she was headed. Since he worked there, she figured the doctor was helping Cleves with the prescriptions. Betty conveyed that she’d been approached by some filthy little street scab who wanted her to go to a pharmacy.

  Hell was pleased to note that no one had yet come to take Mike’s place in their neighborhood. Also, she noticed that she’d not seen quite as many dealers and she chuckled at that. Her little hit and runs were starting to have an effect on the criminal element and that was just fine with her. Her little jar was becoming full of bone bits. She had begun a nightly adventure, hitting different areas of the city, crisscrossing random areas and finding targets of opportunity. She had waited three hours for one target, she hadn’t minded. It was always worth the wait.

  Hellen had begun to confiscate the money and pills or baggies of whatever kind of drug or substance they had. She wasn’t sure if some of it was meth or heroin or other drugs. She didn’t care, she deposited those into large city dumpsters. She’d been surprised and interrupted on a few occasions when she’d been in the middle of taking a finger from her prey. She now realized that there were runners who either took money or drugs, so the dealer didn’t have a lot on him. So she waited and when the runner showed up, she got a two for one bargain.

  The ladies watched the newscasts with avid attention. There was a spike in gang activity as well as violence. If all this kept up, Hell would need a bigger
jar for her bones. She hummed contentedly at the thought and turned onto the back street of the clinic, taking note of several traffic cameras and avoiding them. Turning off the car, she sat quietly and listened to the night. She heard a horn in the far distance but little else around her. The reek of rotting garbage reached her nose. She saw nothing but rats in the alley.

  Getting out of the vehicle, she moved swiftly to the back of the structure. Bringing out her tools, she quickly opened the door and slipped in. The schematics and information she’d found on the internet revealed neither alarm systems nor security. She moved through the building with light steps, looking into each room. She bypassed the examination rooms and went into the offices.

  Hellen looked at the photographs on the desks and was able to finally determine Dr. Winter’s office. She found it locked, unlike the other offices. She knew the man wrote the fake prescriptions, and performed physicals on the merchandise as Bojo called the trafficked children.

  Closing the door behind her, she first went to his desk. She tried the drawers and found them locked. Taking out her tools, Hellen quickly opened the locks and opened the drawers. She carefully looked through the contents, not finding a whole lot, except for two different prescription pads. One pad had a completely different name on it. She put it back in place.

  So, he’s doubling up on prescriptions.

  Not finding much more, she opened his laptop and scrolled around. She opened files and didn’t find anything useful. She went to a cabinet and found that it was locked as well. After opening, she found innocuous cases and opened them; DVDs with no labels. She went back to the laptop on the desk and placed a DVD in and hit play. Her mouth fell open and a tide of fiery rage bubbled up from her gut into her chest. Her head began to pound and she ejected the DVD from the computer.

  Hellen’s hands shook and her claws grew. She wanted to shatter the disk but knew better.