Tracking Shadows (Shadows of Justice 4) (3 page)

Calmer now, she looked around the office for a clue. There must be a way to corner a man who didn't let
himself get cornered. Well, she wasn't the best in the business because she was one dimensional, was she? She could do more than scare him to death.

Slipping her shoes back on, she sauntered into the hallway as if she belonged there. Within minutes, she discovered her target in a glass-walled conference room. With a direct line of sight it was no trouble to give him an immediate urge to use the restroom. Stepping aside as he rushed by, she followed him into his private bathroom, tweaking the perceptions of the people nearby so they saw one of his bodyguards rather than a woman.

He was dead by stiletto before he unzipped his slacks.

She wrestled the body into a corner, wiped the gore off her shoe, and made her way back downstairs to the shrink's office. He was still passed out, so she couldn't ask his opinion of her chosen career. But she knew herself and her motives well enough without the need for any professional letters trailing after her name. Slick
Micky had murdered her best friend and now she was back in town to return the favor.

Chapter Three

Virtually invisible in his stealth suit,
Micky listened from the hallway as the crime boss known as the Reverend rained fire and brimstone on the poor schmuck who'd failed him. "It was a simple God-damned order. The man is everywhere and you claim you can't find him. There is no place for liars in heaven, son!"

Micky
figured none of those who worked the rough streets of Chicago would end up on Saint Peter's side of the pearly gates, but personally, he preferred to put off the meeting as long as possible.

"My clients trust me to deliver when I give my word. I expect the same from those who give their word to me."

"Yes, sir. I will handle it. I'll bring him down."

"You're slothful and lazy. Gluttony is a sin, you fool. I won't tolerate you eating up my resources and screwing the merchandise. Perks are for those who earn them."

Micky heard the hard crack of a fist connecting with a face.

"A –
a question, sir?"

"What now?"

"Am I to coordinate with the other players?"

"The devil's got your mind, son. You're the only man on this."

"Begging your pardon, sir, but I recognized um, a kindred spirit the other night."

"Just go do the damned job on your own. And forget spirits of any variety."

The poor bastard shuffled out of the office and Micky pressed himself into the shadows. The single-minded Reverend had been trying to get his grubby hands on Micky's mules for years, but the contracted killer approach was new.

This guy looked seriously under qualified as he passed
Micky's hiding place. The dialect wasn't local and the tone too deferential and uncertain for a professional hitter. Knowing how the Reverend operated, Micky was sure he was someone labeled expendable. Maybe a new guard or strung out runner tapped for the extra duty. Which begged the question: why would the Reverend make a half-assed attempt at assassination if he really wanted to be the Slick Micky?

If
Micky's mules were typical street urchins in dire straights and ready to barter sex for their habit of choice, the Reverend might have had a chance to turn them into fodder for his brothels. But Micky protected his girls and their warehouse home as carefully as he protected his own identity.

Fortunately for him, the Reverend was less enamored with anonymity and privacy.

Micky followed the wannabe hitman out of the Gothic cathedral the Reverend had restored when the church gave up the neighborhood to encroaching crime and pervasive disillusionment.

It was a nice enough building for those who preferred snarling gargoyle overseers and towering archways of weathered stone.

"To every man his style," Micky muttered, relieved to be outside in the fresher air.

"What?" The no-chance assassin spun around, eyes wild. "Who said that?"

Micky froze, trusting the technology to keep him concealed. "You were thinking it, kid." It was a good bet the younger man didn't care for the old architecture, especially when it came with a lecture from an insane, hard-assed boss.

"Did not," he insisted, his gaze fixed on the nearest gargoyle stretching out from the stone facade.

"All right. What's your style?" While the unlikely hitman was distracted, Micky crept closer, whispering. "Do you kill up close or from a distance. With a gun or blade?"

"Guns are illegal."

Micky snorted. "Never met a hitman bothered by the law."

"This is a trick." The guy looked around, but at this time of day no one was hanging around the cathedral. "Who the hell is up there?"

"Just me. Got a lead on your target?"

"No. I mean yeah." He shook his head. "God this is stupid. I'm talking to a fucking rock."

"A rock with ears who knows you've got no name and no chance to impress the boss, Mr. Expendable."

"Bullshit. He knows my name and what I can do."

"Ha! He looked around for the one guy he wouldn't miss."

The kid thumped his chest. "He called for Ben
Trumble by name."

"Tremble sounds about right. You couldn't find Slick
Micky with a guide dog and a search light."

Micky
had to hold his breath to keep from laughing when the poor guy paled.

"H-how did –"

"I've been up here long enough to forget more than you'll ever learn. Nobody's ever seen Slick Micky. He's a ghost, you fool. How the hell are you gonna assassinate a ghost?"

Trumble
earned a point on Micky's scale when he whipped out a .45 and shot off the gargoyle's stone ear.

"
Ow!"

Then he lost the point, dropping the gun in his panicked scramble to get away from the injured gargoyle while
Micky's disembodied laughter followed him down the street.

Knowing the Reverend's habits, it wouldn't be hard to find the poor kid. He'd be the only one in this worn out neighborhood trying to raise a drink with a shaking hand.
Micky picked up the gun and tucked it into a pocket of the stealth suit.

With an apologetic glance at the gargoyle,
Micky jogged after Ben, a new plan for the kid's possible reform developing on the way.

* * *

Trina understood the rhythm of Chicago well enough. Neighborhoods and business districts might rise or crumble with funding or false hopes, but the city's heart hadn't changed. That pulsing undercurrent of energy was as strong today as the day she'd run away, a heartbroken and furious young woman saddled with a skill she didn't want or understand.

Taking this job meant returning as a woman of confidence intent on righting an old wrong, determined to shutter an uncomfortable past. She wasn't about to give up simply because things turned
glitchy.

From her balcony window, she stared down at the Magnificent Mile, amazed at the one stretch of Chicago that never seemed to tarnish. Anything a girl – a normal girl – could want was at her feet, but Trina's mind circled her primary target.

Where was Slick Micky?

Maybe Atlas had sent the wrong woman out the window. It was certainly possible.
If she overlooked Stanley Dakota's ruthless reputation for exacting detail and his unlimited funds to pay for the right information.

Yet Slick
Micky had not been apprehended by police, they hadn't even requested his appearance for questioning. No one, on any street she'd found, would admit he existed. The idea of a mythical smuggler earned a bitter laugh. Slick Micky was real enough and terrible enough.

Her memories were not exaggerated, but even without them, her bank account proved his existence. Chicago crime bosses didn't order the assassinations of myths.

Atlas's efforts to draw him out had failed. Her elimination of Dakota hadn't earned a sniff of inquiry from the notorious smuggler, police detectives, or even any mules. Assuming some of the rough neighborhoods she'd cruised through were connected to Slick Micky.

Soon, her client would be harassing her, demanding to know if she'd taken out Dakota. She planned to ask for a bonus for removing one of the big competitors from the field.

As far as she could tell, Slick Micky was still doing business as usual. But where did that usual business originate? Where could an 'empire' hide in a city as well-documented as Chicago?

Trina turned from the window to study the gear she'd laid out on the bed. None of her tools or clothes sparked any inspiration.

Frustrated, she brewed a pot of tea and stretched a little while it steeped. The exercise would be the real perk, since the government regulated nearly everything regarding food and nutrition. While her tea was as loaded as was legal, there was barely enough caffeine to keep her awake in Lincoln Park at high noon.

With a long sigh she counted as the first 'exhale', she started a yoga sun salutation and let her mind wander over the past.

She'd been a little girl when sugar substitutes had been outlawed for their link to certain cancers.

Forward bend, lunge, plank.

She'd been old enough to protest when the government started rationing natural sugar.

Chaturanga
, downward dog.

She liked her chocolate sweet and –

Joel
. Her elbows buckled as her breath hitched. She landed hard on her knees. Every time she thought of him, of his smooth voice and lopsided grin, the loss was as fresh and brutal as the day he'd died.

Sitting back on her heels, she struggled to remember the happy times before the grief and solitude.

She leaned forward to hands and knees, flexing her spine through cat and cow. Slowly, she pushed back to child's pose and rested until her breathing steadied. Sliding forward into cobra, then once more pressing her body back to downward dog.

Joel had been as inherently sweet and good as the sugar he'd been sneaking to their classmates.

Lunge, forward bend, back bend, mountain.

Trina closed her eyes as she held the standing pose, draping a black curtain over the painful memories. When her mind was calm, she went through the yoga routine twice more.

Her heart quiet again, she sipped her tea. Slick Micky killed Joel and she'd kill Slick Micky the very moment she found him.

As she stirred just a smidge of top-shelf honey into her tea she considered the angles once more, and then opened the file she'd been provided when she accepted the contract deposit.

Rumor had it Slick Micky could get anyone anything at anytime. A smuggler with that kind of influence and reach...well, it was too outrageous to believe the word on the street about the bastard's  soft side.

Fifteen years ago, he'd killed a young man, her best friend, just for running a little sugar in his territory.

She looked from the dossier to the mirror, working out the obstacles and odds of success.

Slick
Micky was the goal. If he wouldn't come out of hiding to deal with the trouble, she'd take the trouble to him. She just had to find him.

Changing her clothes, she prepared for step one: find a lead on a sugar fix.

Dressed to make a contribution to the retailers of the Magnificent Mile, she headed downstairs to the concierge. A woman of means on a shopping mission didn't expect to walk through anything more than the finest store aisles.

A car, driver, and an assistant were quickly arranged and soon she was striding forward with her plan.

She could read people – not minds, but the body language – and she intended to put her skills to good use. Surely out here on the most decadent street in the city, she'd find a young woman in a go-nowhere job who dealt a little contraband on the side.

But surely didn't happen. She bumped into plenty of young collegiate types but no one took the bait when she fussed about needing an afternoon pick me up.

All her pre-hit intel said Slick Micky had mules in every socioeconomic level in the city. What the hell was wrong? They couldn't all be off the clock today.

She purchased clothes she didn't need just to keep the assistant and driver busy. She gave the driver a thrill when she invited him to stroll with her through a designer electronics store. Devices of all sizes and for all purposes amused him, giving her cover while she listened to the monitors tuned to media outlets for news of either Dakota's or Atlas's death.

Still nothing.

For that matter,
her own client had yet to call. She shook her head, pretending she was amused by the latest game on a hand held display.

His staff would've found him within hours. They could only keep it quiet so long. The man was a fixture in the public eye, despite his known ties to serious crime.

Annoyed with the non-productive shopping, she rewarded the hotel employees with gift cards and asked them to take her back. They treated her like the royalty she impersonated, carting purchases to her room, fawning over her generosity, and wishing her well when she headed for the hotel bar.

Two martinis later, the bartender listened attentively to her ode to dessert, bringing her a slice of blackberry pie, and then bringing her the pastry chef when she insisted on making a personal thank you.

"How do you manage such clear taste without real sugar? My personal chef could use the advice, she's just not the genius you are with these substitutes."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Trina beamed her most expectant smile and waited.

The chef cleared her throat. "You know as a restaurant we are granted a bit more leniency."

Her tinkling socialite laughter put the bartender and chef at ease. "Of course. I didn't mean to imply anything. But really, don't you miss the easy days?"

The pastry chef sighed. "Yes. That is..." She shot an apologetic gaze at the bartender. He waved it off and moved off to serve a new customer and she turned back to Trina. "I studied abroad."

"France?"

A nod.
"It was a dream to create without the strangling regulations."