Made to Be Broken

Chapter Twenty-eight

While Jack covered me, I made the short dash, and moved quietly around the heap. I lifted my hand to signal that I was going to run, as he'd asked.

Still, it was a slow trip along the wall, step by step, gun ready. I was about three paces from the back when a clang reverberated through the yard, from the far side of the building, where Jack waited.

Signal…

He hadn't meant for me to signal him before crossing. The missing pronoun was "I"… as in "I'll signal you with a distraction that'll draw his attention to the opposite side of the building, so you can get around the back corner unseen." Damn him. One of these days, I was going to be the first hitman killed by verbal shorthand.

I dashed to that corner. One quick peek. Sure enough, Fenniger was at the far end of the building, looking in the direction of the noise. I wheeled silently around. As the toe of my sneaker was about to touch down, I remembered the crunch of gravel that had given Fenniger away. I looked to see a six-inch border of it along the foundation, and slid my toe to the dirt beyond.

Fenniger leaned out, around the opposite corner, hunched over. He glanced left, probably gauging the distance to the fence. A muttered "shit" as he realized it wasn't any better an escape route than it had been five minutes ago.

He rolled back onto his heels, straightening, flexing his gun arm. His free hand reached up to rub a kink from the back of his neck. When he pulled his fingers away, I pressed my gun barrel into the vacated spot.

He went rigid. Then his elbow shot back. I grabbed his arm, wrenched it behind his back, and peeled his fingers from the gun. He shifted his weight, putting all of it onto one leg and lifted the other to kick back at me. I slammed the weight-bearing leg out with a knee to the back of his. He went down, and I let him, arm still behind his back, guiding his fall.

"So predictable," I said as I dug one knee into the small of his back, gun back in place at the base of his skull. "You make it too easy, you know that?"

He struggled. I pushed his arm up and he grunted in pain.

"You like killing pretty girls, Ron?"

He went perfectly still, and I swore I could hear his heart thumping against his rib cage.

Facedown on the ground? Arm a half inch from breaking? Gun to his head? Nothing he couldn't handle. But an attacker who knew his real name? That was a problem.

"Ronald Fenniger," I said. "Aka Rainman. Still putting your profits up your nose, Ron? Or are you making too much to snort these days? Got yourself a sweet little business enterprise there. Killing teenage girls and selling their babies."

"You want in?"

I'd been doing well until then. Keeping my cool, playing my part. But at those words, a white-hot ball of rage exploded behind my eyes. Fenniger let out a high-pitched squeal of agony, and his arm went limp. I looked down to see it bent backward, the forearm almost perpendicular with the upper arm.

Then the icy anger slid away, leaving something warm and blissful. I lifted his broken arm, then dropped it and smiled.

"That's gotta hurt," I said.

"You bitch." Spittle rained on the dirt as he twisted under my knee. "You fucking -!"

I grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. He gagged, choking on his own curse.

"Ever snapped a man's neck, Ron? They say if you know how to do it, one wrench is all it takes." I pulled his head back another inch. He gurgled, but his eyes were slits, hiding his fear. "As fast as a CNS shot, with none of the noise and none of the mess. You don't even need a weapon. How cool is that? But it's not something you can get right on the first try. You'd need practice, and I bet you'd have trouble finding people willing to volunteer."

I eased back, knee digging into his spine. "That's the problem with postindustrial society. People just don't volunteer the way they used to. That sense of community, of helping a neighbor in need… people just can't be bothered. A girl and her baby go missing? If it's the wrong kind of girl, no one cares. They barely even notice."

I entwined my fingers in his hair, leaning forward again, weight back on my knee. "And you've taken full advantage of that, haven't you? Well, I'm going to give you the chance to make amends by volunteering for a worthy cause." I yanked his head back another inch. His eyes bugged, mouth working. "What do you say, Ron? Spend the last few minutes of your life helping a colleague further her education?"

"Let him go." The words rippled through the air, wrapped in a sigh.

Fenniger's hair pulled tight against my fingers as he struggled to see the newcomer.

"Come on, girl." Jack walked up behind me. "Get off him. You've had your fun."

"I'm not done yet."

"Yes, you are." A few seconds of silence passed. "Did you hear me?" His words came sharper now, that laconic, almost bored tone evaporating.

"He killed those girls. Shot them and took their babies."

"Yeah? And it's none of your fucking business, is it? You're here because I brought you in. My job. Now get the fuck off him."

I shifted, rising just enough to take the pressure off Fenniger's back. Jack's fingers closed on my shoulder.

"Hey, watch the hands. I'm getting – "

I propelled myself up, as if being yanked off, flying to the side, and landing hard with a squawk of outrage. Jack's good foot slammed into Fenniger's back as he tried to get up. Pinned again, Fenniger settled for straining to look over his shoulder at me as I pushed to my feet, brushing myself off, cursing and snarling.

Jack's gun pressed into the base of Fenniger's skull. "Eyes forward."

When Fenniger didn't look away fast enough, Jack smacked the barrel against his skull, knocking his face into the dirt.

"Bastard," I said to Jack.

"Just how you like it. Now go park yourself around front and watch for trouble." As I turned to go, he lowered his voice. "I'll make it up to you later."

"Think so?"

A growl of a chuckle as he slapped my ass. "Know so. Now get going."

I headed the way I'd come, behind Fenniger. Jack watched over his shoulder and gestured for me to stand near the corner, where I could watch the proceedings and still see anyone drive into the lot.

When I motioned that I'd broken Fenniger's arm, and mouthed an apology, Jack only nodded, unconcerned.

"What a piece of work," Fenniger muttered when he figured I was gone.

"Watch your mouth," Jack said.

"Hey, no disrespect. I bet she's worth it." A dirty old man chuckle. "She sure looks like she is. Hot little bitch with a temper to – "

"Watch. Your. Mouth."

Fenniger fell silent, struggling to find his footing now, thrown off balance by the edge in Jack's voice. After all, this was the good cop, the one who'd understand him, who'd rescued him from the bad cop. Had Fenniger realized how quickly – eagerly even – he'd fallen for the hackneyed routine, he'd have been horrified. But no matter how many times they see it in cop shows, perps still snap it up. It's the survival instinct. When faced with danger, we run for shelter, whether it's a solid building during a storm or a sympathetic face during an interrogation.

For a minute, Jack let Fenniger dangle in fear that he'd misread the signs, that Jack was not the reasonable colleague he'd believed. Then he said, "My partner takes issue with your new line of work."

In the silence that followed, I could have laughed, imagining Fenniger struggling as hard to interpret the meaning of Jack's full sentences as I did with his three-word ones.

Jack let him flounder in uncertainty some more, then said, "She doesn't like you killing teen moms."

"Oh, right. I-I can see that, her being a woman – "

"I don't much like it, either."

I swore I heard Fenniger suck in the rest of his words. I grinned as I flexed my hands, trying to still the giddy bubbles in my stomach. It was all but over. Now I could just sit back and watch Jack work.

After another thirty seconds of uncomfortable silence, Jack said, "But business is business. I suppose it'd be a lucrative way to make some fast money."

"It is," Fenniger said, words tumbling out. "If you want, I could cut you – "

"Not interested."

Reel him in. Let him drop. Keep him off balance, searching for equilibrium.

"Can I at least ask who I'm dealing with?" Fenniger said.

"No."

An audible sigh of relief. If Jack gave his name, even his street name, that would mean Fenniger would never get the chance to use it against him. By withholding it, calling me "girl," and getting pissy when Fenniger looked my way, Jack was suggesting that while he might intend to kill Fenniger, the matter was still open to negotiation. That was essential – a man who's about to be executed has no reason to talk.

"I suppose it'd be a decent gig, though," Jack said. "If you could stomach it. I can't blame a guy for that. I've done stuff…"

I'm sure Fenniger was barely breathing, eyes screwed shut as if he could mentally swing the pendulum his way. Thoughts of escape wouldn't enter his head. Jack was a pro, at least as good as he was, plus armed, physically bigger, and with a psychotic partner. Fenniger's only escape would come through cooperation. There was no cowardice in that, no loss of face… or so he'd keep telling himself.

"Shit like this?" Jack continued. "Not my style. But business is business, and you take what you can get. If you don't take the job, someone else will."

Ah, hitman justification at its finest. I'd used that one a few times myself.

"The sick fucks are the ones who put out the contracts," Jack said.

Fenniger's nods punctuated every word, though he probably didn't even realize he was doing it.

"Something like this?" Jack said. "Who dreams this shit up?"

My fingers stopped drumming against my thigh and I squinted into the darkness, as if I could see Jack's expression, though he had his back to me. What was he doing? We'd discussed what we needed from Fenniger. First, confirmation of the hit. Second, the name and location of the people who'd bought Destiny. I had no idea what I'd do with the latter – probably nothing – but if I didn't ask for it, I'd be waking up at 2 a.m., certain Destiny had been sold to a Satanic cult or something.

Parents… buyers… That's where he was heading – giving Fenniger an "out" by blaming them. The muscles between my shoulders tightened. Letting this bastard lay the responsibility on people whose only crime was desperation? But Jack was right. It provided Fenniger with an excuse for giving them up.

"That's who I'm interested in," Jack said. "You? You're just a means to an end."

"Okay," Fenniger said, head still bobbing. "So you want to know who hired me?"

"Yeah, that's what I want to know."

Silence.

Damn it, Jack. He's not that bright. Prod him. Dangle the buyer as his scapegoat and he'll -

"They made contact through the broker. A guy named Honcho."

"I've heard of him. Headhunter, right?"

A headhunter was a broker who took contracts based on a price, with only the barest of details: number of marks, deadline, international versus domestic, political versus personal. Then, he offered it to his hitman contacts, who'd get the specifics directly.

The broker would argue that he's providing an invaluable service by tightening the security between client and pro. He's really just covering his butt. Any advantage to the hitman is more than wiped out by the liability of accepting a job based almost exclusively on price. That's the best a second tier has-been like Fenniger can get while still making enough to finance his drug habit.

So I didn't doubt he was doing other work for this "Honcho" guy. But to blame him for this job, one he'd created himself? Low. Risky, too, presuming Jack would follow up.

And yet… maybe Fenniger was more clever than I gave him credit for. If Honcho didn't know the details of the jobs he gave Fenniger, how would he know he hadn't given him one for killing teen moms?

"So Honcho sets up the meeting…" Jack prompted.

"Byrony Agency."

"What?"

"That's the name of the company. Or, at least, the name of the office the client works at. I don't know if it's legit or a cover, but after the meeting, I followed him back and that's where he went. Byrony Adoption Agency in Detroit. Moron walked away from the meeting and never even looked over his shoulder. Complete amateur. Got the bright idea to hire a hitman to help him steal babies, and had no fucking idea how to go about it. I had to hold his hand through the first two."

So this hadn't been a one-man project. It hadn't even been Fenniger's idea. The way he was now spitting details, I knew he wasn't dreaming up a story on the fly. He gave us a description of the client, a play-by-play of their meetings, and the address where he'd dropped off Destiny. With the first two babies, he'd taken them to the client in a park, but after the second hand-off caught the attention of a passerby, the client decided they'd do this more privately. With Destiny, he'd given Fenniger a suburban Detroit home address, met him there, and taken her.

The scheme had been orchestrated by this Byrony Agency. They found the parents and they sold the babies, while Fenniger juggled the roles of scout, killer, and delivery boy. Earlier, Jack had said it was a lot of work, considering his pace. This is what he'd meant. It was too much work for one man.

Why the hell hadn't I seen that?

Because I hadn't allowed myself to consider the possibility. I'd been completely focused on my goal, and that goal was one man. Like Drew Aldrich. Like Wayne Franco. Like Wilkes. One perpetrator. One target. That I understood. That I could stop.

An entire organization… How could I stop that?

Forget it for now. I had to concentrate on the immediate situation. The immediate resolution. The immediate vengeance.

By the time Jack finished, I'd found my focus again.

"Dee?" he called.

At that word, Fenniger's head jerked up. In that second, as he heard Jack say my name, he knew he wasn't walking away. He started to struggle, to protest, to promise, to threaten. The words passed by me, meaningless. All I heard was the rich undercurrent of fear.

I thought about Sammi, her fear and rage in those final moments, and I slowed my pace, dragging it out until I hoped his panic outweighed anything she'd suffered.

I stood in front of him, and let him see me, and he knew that meant he wasn't walking out of here alive. And I prayed that in that last second, maybe he thought of Sammi and the other girls, maybe he thought "so this is how they felt."

Then I lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.