Original: "Girls Don't Hit," Chapter Twenty-Nine and Epilogue
91,741 words, 26 days, and first draft is done! Brace yourselves for the ending, people!
AO3
29
“Ninety-nine.”
Joss thought for a moment and then confirmed it with a nod. Echo was standing in the bathroom doorway, dressed in a black leather overcoat with the collar turned up. Joss wore a black turtleneck with a surgical mask over the bottom of her face and goggles she’d found in the garage protecting her eyes. Steven Colt was lying in the bathtub, his naked body doused with bleach as she’d been instructed. She splashed some onto his face and hands as well, unsure if it would help but certain it couldn’t hurt. She stepped out of the fumes and pulled down her mask as she leaned against the sink.
“The next person you kill is going to take you to triple digits. Got any big plans?”
“Yeah. I’ll tell Myles that my next target should be a head of state. Maybe the President or the Pope.” She grinned and shrugged. “It’s just going to be another murder, Echo. Just a number.”
“But it’s a milestone.”
Joss shrugged and looked at the bathtub. “Why should number one hundred be any different from the rest? He or she won’t be any different than the ones who came before.”
Echo sighed. “Well, maybe I’ll make it special. Maybe it’ll be somewhere nice where I can take you out and paint the town red.”
Joss smiled. “I would like that.”
After a few minutes Joss decided it had been long enough. She leaned over the edge of the sink and turned on the shower, letting it dowse the corpse until most of the bleach had been sluiced away. Echo took off her jacket to help haul him up, carrying his feet as Joss hooked her hands under his arms to carry him back into the bedroom. They placed him on the bed, where Echo stretched out his legs and folded his arms over his chest. Joss took a tube of lipstick off the vanity and leaned over the mattress to draw on his chest.
“I AM NOW CLEAN.”
Echo watched the words being spelled out. “Do you think...”
“I try not to think,” Joss said. “Especially about jobs like this. We’re being paid to do a job. It stands to reason that we won’t agree with all our clients.”
“I guess.” She scratched her cheek and looked around the bedroom. “Anything else in the instructions?”
“Just the bleach bath and the posing.” She looked at Echo who was still staring at Colt. “Hey, Audrey. Did you notice he didn’t fight? He didn’t put up any struggle whatsoever.”
“So?”
Joss sighed. “He put the hit out on himself.”
Echo furrowed her brow. “People can do that?”
“Sometimes. Not a lot, but it happens. Suicide is harder than some people think. If you can’t go on anymore, but you also can’t bring yourself to end it all, sometimes it’s easier to spend the cash and have someone do it for you.”
“But how can you tell he was the client?”
“The instructions. Posing the body, washing it, the message. It’s a suicide note. The client also said to minimize the blood or, if that wasn’t possible, to prevent our exposure to it. He has HIV or AIDS. He chose how to go out.”
“That’s so sad.”
Joss said, “I guess.”
“Have you had many jobs like that?”
“Not many. I had a woman who was dying of Huntington’s. She was only thirty-six. She wanted someone to take her out on the town since she’d resisted dating since the diagnosis. So we went to dinner, movies, dancing, I got her off and then I offed her.”
“Wow. That’s... bleak.”
“I was kind.”
Echo stepped close and kissed Joss’ shoulder. “I know.”
Joss didn’t like thinking about that job; it was the only time she’d cried afterward. “Come on. The fog is going to lift soon.”
They’d been in San Francisco for three days. Joss had marveled at Echo’s ability to put her life in Waukegan on hold so she could leave town for an undetermined length of time. First she told her parents that she and Joss needed to head up to Green Bay because an apartment was available to be looked at and they didn’t want to miss the opportunity. She got a few coworkers to cover her shifts at the gas station with a promise she would take the early-morning and rush hour shifts to make up for it when she got back. She was a fantastic liar, and Joss was impressed with how smoothly she cleared her schedule. It was just another example of how Joss had assigned her needs to Echo’s life. If she could put her cover on hold so easily, there was no need to retreat to the middle of nowhere to wait for a phone call.
They went back to their hotel and had sex, working off the excess adrenaline that came with a finished job. Afterward they lay in bed and Echo sighed as she fanned the sweat from her face.
“I’m going to miss this when we go solo. It won’t be the same waiting until I get back to wherever we’re living.”
“You can always casually fuck someone while you’re on the job?”
Echo looked up. “Yeah?”
Joss shrugged. “You’re young. You need to sow your wild oats. You need to experience a full spectrum of lovers. Besides, in this case it’s a matter of biology. You and I both need the release that comes with orgasm. It’s part of the job. Like... letting off steam. If you want, it can even be foreplay. Getting each other all worked up telling each other who we were with.”
Echo said, “Ooh. Let’s try it. Tell me about one of your conquests.”
“You sure?”
“I’m not the jealous type. Besides, I know you’ve been with a lot of people. At least ninety, right? If there’s one after each death.”
“Not necessarily,” Joss said. “But I’ve had my fair share, I guess.” She thought for a moment. Skye. She was a tattoo artist in Utah. Dark, dark eyes, really short hair. She showed me her tats... she was covered with them, and asked if I wanted one. I don’t like anything permanent, no distinguishing marks, so I said no. But she offered to do some temporary tattoos with markers. This was before Colin so I could get away with certain things that would be hard to explain if there was someone at home who would see me naked. So I stripped down and she spent four days drawing this entire fucking comic book onto my skin. There were characters, speech bubbles, fight scenes. She used parts of my body to expand the story. She made it look like my hand was emerging from a crack in the pavement.” She held up her hands. “That was my left hand. She tattooed a cock onto the first two fingers of my right hand. I told her it looked so real I was tempted to try making it come. She said she was willing to be a guinea pig for that experience. So I fucked her. Didn’t quite succeed, but it looked good.”
“Mm.” Echo picked up Joss’ right hand and popped the first two fingers into her mouth. She sucked and slipped her tongue between them. “Yeah. I think I’ll be good hearing about your conquests in the future.”
Joss smiled. “Are you sure you’re okay with this assignment?”
“Yeah. We can’t put our personal thoughts and feelings onto the assignments. We can’t pretend to know the reasoning behind why we’ve been hired and trying to fill in the blanks ourselves can only make us insane.”
“Right.”
Echo lifted her head. “Oh no. Did I take away your chance to speechify?”
“Don’t make me slap you, you little brat.”
“Oh, mama, treat me mean.” She rubbed herself seductively against Joss’ side, and Joss couldn’t help but laugh. “So tomorrow I go back to Waukegan and start looking for places online. You go back to Pierre and start easing out of your old life. Then at our next meeting we’ll figure out where we are.”
“Right.”
“Your one hundredth job.”
“My one hundredth kill,” Joss said. “And after that... you’ll go solo.”
Echo’s hand went still between Joss’ breasts. “I’m not ready for that.”
“You are. You were close in New Orleans, you just made one mistake. Before that you did an amazing job. You got away and you stayed safe until I showed up to help you with the mess. You’re good at this, Audrey. I know you love the name Echo, but you’re more than that now. You’re more than my apprentice now. You’re going to stand on your own two feet. And if you stumble, I’ll be there to catch you. But I don’t think you’ll need me.”
“Shows what you know.”
“At work,” Joss clarified, tightening her grip on Echo’s waist. “You won’t need me at work.”
They slept, and in the morning they drove to the airport. Myles had arranged their flights together, so Joss would fly back to O’Hare with Echo, pick up her car, then drive another half-day back to Pierre. It was almost worth it to spend another few hours with Echo. On the flight, as Echo dozed, Joss watched the desert pass underneath the wing. She thought about Echo’s insistence that she celebrate her hundredth death somehow, but she couldn’t imagine what sort of ceremony that would entail.
She’d spent her entire career insisting that the deaths didn’t matter. How could she justify commemorating one even if it was the one-hundredth. But the thought of spending the job with Echo would be enough of a celebration for her.
#
Joss put her bags in the backseat of her car, then turned to Echo. “Sure you can’t stay?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how long it’ll take to tie up everything in Pierre. I have to be subtle about it so no one comes looking.” She kissed Echo and held her close before reluctantly parting. “I’ll keep in touch. Let you know how things are going.”
Echo nodded. “I’m glad you got to see me at home. It kind of, um...” She searched the street behind Joss as she tried to find the words. “It makes the transition easier.”
“I know what you mean.” She kissed Echo once more and then let her go. “I should get on the road. I’ll be arriving in the middle of the night as it is.”
“Okay. Love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Joss saw Echo’s parents watching from the doorway and waved goodbye to them. She got in the car, glanced at Echo in the rearview, and reluctantly pulled away from the curb.
For the trip to Waukegan she’d stopped only when it was absolutely necessary. Returning to Pierre she took advantage of gas stations, topping up her tank because she saw a low price, and she lingered over meals in restaurants that she had to leave the highway to reach. She decided to split her trip into two days, stopping in a motel and getting a good night’s rest before she continued on. The speedometer dropped as she neared South Dakota’s border to the point where cars were weaving around her like she was a stone in a stream.
Finally she’d stalled as long as possible and pulled into her driveway. Madison came out as she was unloading the car and offered to help carry the bags inside. “How was your trip?”
“Fine,” Joss said wearily.
“Lots of problems to sort out?”
“No. Not really.” She put a hand on the back of her daughter’s head. “Sometimes to fix a problem, you have to put in a lot of hard work. People’s feelings can get hurt.”
Madison nodded. “Yeah. But if everyone’s happier in the end, it’s for the best. Right?”
“Exactly so,” Jocelyn said, slipping back into the mother role as she took the last bag and followed Madison back to the house.
The girl stopped at the front door. “That woman was over here while you were gone. She didn’t spend the night. I made sure she didn’t. But Daddy said you knew.”
“I did. It’s okay if she spends the night. But thank you for looking out for me, Maddie.”
Madison looked at her. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You never call me Maddie. You call Tommy by his full name, too.”
Jocelyn smiled. “Just a little tired. Come on, let’s go inside.”
Madison took her bags upstairs, and Colin came out of his nook to greet her. “How was it?”
“Fine. I was going to get the kids some Golden Gate souvenirs but I didn’t have a chance to pick anything up.”
He frowned. “I thought you were going to Chicago.”
She stared at him. “I did. What did I say?”
“Golden Gate? San Fran is pretty far from Chicago, Jocelyn.”
She closed her eyes. “Right. Jesus, I’m tired. Is there anything in the fridge I can nuke?”
“Yeah, some pizza.”
Jocelyn went past him into the kitchen and retrieved the pizza. She was tired, but she was also looking too far ahead. She foresaw a very near future where she wouldn’t have to lie about what she was doing and it made her sloppy. She rested her hands on the counter as the microwave slowly spun, eyes closed as she tried to accept the fact she would be trapped in the Webb house for at least the next few weeks. Maybe even a few months. The divorce and disappearance would have to be done gradually. All the threads she’d tied so neatly to form a web of protection would have to be undone slowly.
Colin came into the kitchen and watched her. She hadn’t turned on the light, and he was just a dark shape outside the reach of the microwave’s glow.
“I’m being transferred,” she said.
“What?”
“Green Bay.”
He thought for a moment. “That doesn’t make any sense. You fly all over the country anyway; what does it matter where you’re based?”
“Don’t ask me. Management made the decision to close down the Pierre branch, so unless I want to commute ten hours each way...”
Colin sighed. “Well. Okay. Uh, Maddie won’t be happy. She’ll want to graduate with all her friends.”
“She can stay.” Joss took her slices out of the microwave and tore off a few paper towels to serve as a plate. “You can all stay. I want a divorce.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jocelyn. This again?”
“Madison told me Shannon was over while I was gone. Cut me out, you guys can be a nice little family.”
“Madison doesn’t like Shannon. And besides, we’ve gone through all of this before, Jocelyn. We were on the edge, I told Shannon the end was nigh, and now we’re in counseling. You have no idea how hurt she was when I told her divorce was off the table again.”
“Poor little mistress.”
Colin rubbed his eyes. “You win, Joss. Either way, you win. So why do I even bother fighting?”
Jocelyn looked at him. “I told you not to call me Joss.”
“Right.” He sighed. “If we have to pack up and move to Green Bay, we’ll do it as a family. We’ll talk about it with Dr. Teague. I’ll break it off with Shannon and find someone who hasn’t been on this roller coaster. You’ll go off on your little assignments, and I’ll stay here to write. It’s what we do, Joss. It’s what we’ve always done. And until Maddie goes to college, it’s what we’ll continue to do.”
Jocelyn watched him walk out of the kitchen, his shoulders slumped in defeat, and she chewed the pizza that had turned to tasteless cud in her mouth. Madison had two years of high school left. Two years before she could entertain the possibility of going to be with Echo. It wasn’t impossible, but at the same time it devastated her.
She could just run. Pack for a job, fly out, and then just never return. She could disappear in the night. She looked at the silverware drawer and thought of a particularly sharp knife they rarely used. She could just eliminate the Webb family like shedding a costume. She’d sworn she would never kill for free, but in this instance the reward would be escape. But as much as that would solve, she doubted she could actually kill a kindergartner. And Madison was a great kid. Colin... she could kill Colin, but then she’d have to find a place for the kids, and Jocelyn Webb would be the prime suspect. She’d be a fugitive.
No. She wanted a clean break. And if it took her two years to get one, she would just have to find a way to make that work.
#
Madison was at a pizza party with her friends, and Colin had taken Thomas to some animated monstrosity with a group of raucous children. Jocelyn stayed home and called Echo, a conversation that quickly denigrated into phone sex and mutual masturbation. Jocelyn revealed the hiccups in their plan, and Echo assured her that two years would be nothing.
“It would be good, in fact. It would give me a chance to breathe, you know? Get away from my parents, live on my own a bit. I would love to jump right into a place with you. But if we have to wait to do it right, then let’s do it right.”
Jocelyn smiled. “You are worth waiting for.”
“You are, too. I waited my whole life for you to show up. What’s two more years?”
She closed her eyes. “I’ll call you again this weekend. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to find the time.”
“Okay. Oh, uh. This weekend is actually pretty busy. I’m driving up to Green Bay to look at apartments. I should be available in the evenings, though.”
“And Green Bay is only about ten hours from Pierre if you get lost on the highway.”
Echo laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. I love you, Joss.”
“I love you, too.”
She hung up feeling farther away from Echo than ever, then went to do some busywork just to occupy her mind. She was trying to remember where they kept the vacuum when the doorbell rang. Jocelyn checked the clock as she went to answer, wondering who would be bothering them on a Friday night. She checked the peephole, groaned, and opened the door.
“Hi, Shannon.”
“Jocelyn.”
The two women stood awkwardly on the front porch, the threshold between them. Finally Shannon broke the silence.
“We haven’t officially met. Not without the secret out in the open. So, um.” She tightened her jaw and narrowed her eyes, and her voice broke when she said, “Let him go.”
Jocelyn stared. “Who?”
“Colin. You don’t love him. He’s known for a long time that you don’t love him. But he just broke up with me, and it’s because of you.”
“Shannon, trust me, I tried to let him go. I brought up divorce. He refused to hear it.”
“Make him hear it. I love him. He deserves to be happy, not chained to you.”
Before Echo, Jocelyn would have slammed the door in the smitten cop’s face and dealt with whatever fallout it caused. Now, though, she couldn’t help feeling bad for the girl.
“How old are you?”
“What?” She hesitated and then finally said, “Twenty-nine.”
Jocelyn shook her head. “A baby. You’re a baby, Shannon. You came here to make me let Colin go, but I’m telling you to. You’re young and he is an anchor. I believe he loves you, and I believe he wants to be with you. But he’ll use you. He can’t help it. You’ll end up shackled to this man, supporting him, letting him leech off of you for the rest of your life. He broke up with you and one day you’ll see that as the best thing that could ever have happened to you. Take the win, Shannon.”
“Bitch.”
“I’m trying to be kind.”
Shannon’s eyes were wet now. “Divorce him.”
Jocelyn said, “No.”
If she hadn’t started closing the door, she might have had time to react. As it was her balance was off and her mind had effectively considered the confrontation over by the time Shannon took her hand out of her pocket. The gun was small, definitely not police-issue, but they were close enough that the first bullet still rocked Jocelyn back on her feet. She stumbled to the right, then to the left as the second bullet hit just below her clavicle.
Jocelyn hit the tile of the entryway and stared at the texture of the ceiling. Her eyes were wet, and her face was splattered with warm droplets of blood
“Oh, motherfucker,” she gasped.
Shannon came into the house, the sound of Jocelyn’s desperate inhalations like the rattle of an industrial machine. She lifted her hand in a futile attempt to fend off the cop as she knelt beside her, and she felt the rough grip of a gun being pressed into her hand. Shannon carefully applied Jocelyn’s fingerprints to a weapon she had never fired, but would ironically label her as an attempted murderer. Her eyes were wet as her mind provided the story even as her vision dimmed at the edges.
I came over to talk to her. Yes. I’m her husband’s mistress. But we had an understanding. God, I thought we had an understanding. She came at me. I tried to resist, tried to get away, but eventually I had to take the weapon and... I can’t stop thinking about those poor children.
Jocelyn closed her eyes. She conjured up an image of Echo, a pale strip of her cheek lit by moonlight and one pebbled nipple under her thumb, a Picasso-disaster of the beauty she’d had for much too brief a time. She wondered if there would be a moment when she passed, if it would be like drifting off to sleep or if she would just cease to think. She gathered her will, a quickly-drying commodity, and focused it all on a single final thought.
Echo. Audrey... I’m so sorry.
Epilogue
Echo parked down the street from her target and settled in for a long wait. Her hair was longer now, still dyed red although she’d gone a shade darker the last time she touched it up. It had been a year since Joss’ murder. She still had nightmares where she was present when the cop pulled the trigger, watching but unable to stop it from happening. She would wake in a cold sweat, gasping for air between sobs, clutching her chest until she stumbled out of bed and curled in a ball on the floor. She cried less now, suffered fewer anxiety attacks, and she was back on a regular schedule with Myles. She unofficially took Joss’ place as the organization’s Midwest operative, and she honored her with every hit she carried out. There had been no further situations like the one in New Orleans, no messes where she had to be bailed out. She owed it to Joss to be the best assassin working, and she strove to make it true.
She’d been startled when Myles showed up at her home one afternoon wearing a dour suit and, for the first time since she’d met him, actually looking his age. She’d known he was older than Joss, but his hair was gray at the temples and his skin was ashen and pale. As he explained why he was there, Echo felt herself aging as well. He told her Joss was dead, swore backwards and forwards that he’d had no involvement, and she reluctantly believed him. She wasn’t aware she’d fallen until he crouched next to her and rubbed her shoulders, telling her Joss had sent him something. A video.
She still had the disc, but she didn’t really need it. She had the entire thing memorized. Joss was sitting on the couch in the guesthouse, wearing a shirt unbuttoned at the collar.
“Hi, Echo. You can probably guess I’m making this on your laptop. I filmed it the weekend I came down here to meet your parents, to see how you lived. You brought up Greta, and the whole New Orleans situation, and I... I told you the truth. Myles sent me there to clean up your mess, and in the past that would have meant killing you. I couldn’t do it. Even then I loved you too much to do what I was supposed to. I wanted to spare you that angst in the future, so I made this video and I’m sending it to Myles. I hope he never has to use it, but if he does... well... hopefully you’ll follow his instructions with a clear conscience.
“In Astoria, Oregon, I failed the mission. You thought it was a test for you, and I was willing to let you believe that. The truth is, I told the target to run because I didn’t want to kill him. I decided to let him live even knowing what it would mean for me professionally. I would have told Myles I failed and I would have been a liability for all my future jobs. I know how it would have gone down. He would have let me keep training you, the whole time thinking I was unreliable. When I finally reported you were ready, he would have made me your first solo target. He would have sent you after me.
“There’s a chance it will happen again in the future. You’ve awakened so many things in me that I thought were dead that I have no way of knowing what will come up next. There’s a very real chance the next time we go out I’ll pull my punches. Or I’ll decide to come home without pulling the trigger. I don’t know what will happen next, and I love that about you, Echo. You make me excited for what’s next, even if it’s bad.
“So if something does happen, and if Myles has to order my death, I want you to know three things. One, I’m glad it’s you. I want yours to be the last face I see, and if you have to be holding a gun to make that happen then... well. I can accept that. Two... do it. I know it’ll hurt. But I also know that refusing or backing out will only make you a target in Myles’ eyes. And three. I forgive you. When and if the time comes I’ll try to say it in the moment but just in case it’s not possible. I forgive you.
“So that’s all.” She looked down, looked to her left, and then looked back into the camera. “I love you, Audrey.”
Echo wiped her eyes with the back of her hand as she remembered the video. One year ago on this date, she’d been in Green Bay looking at properties to begin their life together while Joss lie dead in her foyer with the cop who killed her waiting for backup to come so she could file a fictional report. In that time Echo had only gone on three assignments. Myles was willing to give her bereavement time, but his patience wore thin and she knew she would have to start agreeing to jobs if she didn’t want to get cut loose. So she started saying yes when he called, and she felt as if Joss’ spirit guided her as she stalked and planned each death.
She had just gotten back from Iowa, where she’d killed a “businessman” whose knuckles were still bruised from beating his “girls.” She gave the client a slight discount in exchange for a threesome, taking two of them to bed before hightailing it out of town. Both of the girls she chose were older than her, and both had more than a passing resemblance to Joss.
Down the street, a minivan pulled out of a driveway and Echo focused on her assignment. The target was alone in the house, most likely getting ready for bed after a long night shift. Echo took her gloves from her pocket and put them on.
In the year since Joss’ death, Colin Webb’s novel had been released to wide acclaim. He was heralded as a rising star, a Midwestern blend of Robert B. Parker and Dennis Lehane. He and Shannon Molloy were newly-married. Madison Webb had arrived home to find her mother dead in the foyer and her father’s mistress standing over her. She had shouted to anyone who would listen that Shannon had killed her in cold blood, but people wrote her off as a hysterical kid. She’d moved out of the house, living with her boyfriend’s family until she finished school and could move away to college. Echo briefly considered contacting the girl and bringing her into her mother’s business, but she didn’t want to take that step. Not yet. Maybe in the future, after she finished school.
Echo got out of the car and walked down the street. People only noticed if strangers acted peculiar, if they were hunched over or furtive. Echo walked as if she belonged, and no one ever looked twice at her. She kept one hand in her pocket, stroking the gun she had brought and wondering if she should check the kitchen for a knife. She liked knives, and she employed them whenever she could.
The front door was locked, sensibly considering her target’s profession, and she walked around to the side door. It led to the husband’s work space and, naturally, it was unlocked. Sloppy and lazy, as she expected him to be. She stepped inside and shut the door silently behind her. There was a small desk with a laptop on it, and she walked over to it. She was an assassin of people, but she could kill thoughts as a bonus. She opened the mini-fridge, took out a can of beer, and opened the laptop. She slowly soaked the keyboard with the beer, watching it foam up around the keys. If he was smart he would have backed his work up in an online cloud. If not... well, poor Colin would just have to start from scratch.
Colin and Shannon had moved into the house after his book went off the charts. He made the down payment with the check he got for the movie rights, which had been fought over until they were in the high six-digits. Echo felt betrayed in Joss’ stead. She supported him for twenty years, and when he finally wrote the book that would make them rich just before his mistress killed her. Now the bastard could cry over spilled beer.
She slipped through the interior door to a laundry room, leaving the writing room behind for the kitchen. A rack of gleaming knives stood next to the stove, their sleek black handles so inviting as she passed them. Maybe later, just for fun, she would come back and get one to finish the job. She could hear the shower running upstairs and moved carefully toward the stairs. She took her gun out of her pocket and held it by her side as she began to climb.
Echo was in Pierre unbidden, traveling there on her free time (it was closer to eleven hours away, but she wouldn’t hold the error against Joss). The bullets in her gun had the word “JOSS” written on them in small black ink. She would dedicate this death to Joss’ memory, would let Joss’ spirit guide her as she pulled the trigger. Shannon Molloy would be Joss Kurtis’ one-hundredth kill. It was only right.
She still believed in Joss’ tenant, her first-and-foremost rule that she never killed for free. Echo believed in that rule and she followed it to the letter. She rested her hand on the bedroom’s doorknob and closed her eyes to listen to the sound of water in the pipes. She slipped into the bedroom and left the door open behind her for a quick getaway. She moved over to a blind spot near the closet where she couldn’t be seen but from where she could see the bathroom door when Shannon came out. She tightened her grip on her gun and brought it up to the ready.
It didn’t matter if she wasn’t receiving money for this kill. Some deaths were their own reward.
AO3
29
“Ninety-nine.”
Joss thought for a moment and then confirmed it with a nod. Echo was standing in the bathroom doorway, dressed in a black leather overcoat with the collar turned up. Joss wore a black turtleneck with a surgical mask over the bottom of her face and goggles she’d found in the garage protecting her eyes. Steven Colt was lying in the bathtub, his naked body doused with bleach as she’d been instructed. She splashed some onto his face and hands as well, unsure if it would help but certain it couldn’t hurt. She stepped out of the fumes and pulled down her mask as she leaned against the sink.
“The next person you kill is going to take you to triple digits. Got any big plans?”
“Yeah. I’ll tell Myles that my next target should be a head of state. Maybe the President or the Pope.” She grinned and shrugged. “It’s just going to be another murder, Echo. Just a number.”
“But it’s a milestone.”
Joss shrugged and looked at the bathtub. “Why should number one hundred be any different from the rest? He or she won’t be any different than the ones who came before.”
Echo sighed. “Well, maybe I’ll make it special. Maybe it’ll be somewhere nice where I can take you out and paint the town red.”
Joss smiled. “I would like that.”
After a few minutes Joss decided it had been long enough. She leaned over the edge of the sink and turned on the shower, letting it dowse the corpse until most of the bleach had been sluiced away. Echo took off her jacket to help haul him up, carrying his feet as Joss hooked her hands under his arms to carry him back into the bedroom. They placed him on the bed, where Echo stretched out his legs and folded his arms over his chest. Joss took a tube of lipstick off the vanity and leaned over the mattress to draw on his chest.
“I AM NOW CLEAN.”
Echo watched the words being spelled out. “Do you think...”
“I try not to think,” Joss said. “Especially about jobs like this. We’re being paid to do a job. It stands to reason that we won’t agree with all our clients.”
“I guess.” She scratched her cheek and looked around the bedroom. “Anything else in the instructions?”
“Just the bleach bath and the posing.” She looked at Echo who was still staring at Colt. “Hey, Audrey. Did you notice he didn’t fight? He didn’t put up any struggle whatsoever.”
“So?”
Joss sighed. “He put the hit out on himself.”
Echo furrowed her brow. “People can do that?”
“Sometimes. Not a lot, but it happens. Suicide is harder than some people think. If you can’t go on anymore, but you also can’t bring yourself to end it all, sometimes it’s easier to spend the cash and have someone do it for you.”
“But how can you tell he was the client?”
“The instructions. Posing the body, washing it, the message. It’s a suicide note. The client also said to minimize the blood or, if that wasn’t possible, to prevent our exposure to it. He has HIV or AIDS. He chose how to go out.”
“That’s so sad.”
Joss said, “I guess.”
“Have you had many jobs like that?”
“Not many. I had a woman who was dying of Huntington’s. She was only thirty-six. She wanted someone to take her out on the town since she’d resisted dating since the diagnosis. So we went to dinner, movies, dancing, I got her off and then I offed her.”
“Wow. That’s... bleak.”
“I was kind.”
Echo stepped close and kissed Joss’ shoulder. “I know.”
Joss didn’t like thinking about that job; it was the only time she’d cried afterward. “Come on. The fog is going to lift soon.”
They’d been in San Francisco for three days. Joss had marveled at Echo’s ability to put her life in Waukegan on hold so she could leave town for an undetermined length of time. First she told her parents that she and Joss needed to head up to Green Bay because an apartment was available to be looked at and they didn’t want to miss the opportunity. She got a few coworkers to cover her shifts at the gas station with a promise she would take the early-morning and rush hour shifts to make up for it when she got back. She was a fantastic liar, and Joss was impressed with how smoothly she cleared her schedule. It was just another example of how Joss had assigned her needs to Echo’s life. If she could put her cover on hold so easily, there was no need to retreat to the middle of nowhere to wait for a phone call.
They went back to their hotel and had sex, working off the excess adrenaline that came with a finished job. Afterward they lay in bed and Echo sighed as she fanned the sweat from her face.
“I’m going to miss this when we go solo. It won’t be the same waiting until I get back to wherever we’re living.”
“You can always casually fuck someone while you’re on the job?”
Echo looked up. “Yeah?”
Joss shrugged. “You’re young. You need to sow your wild oats. You need to experience a full spectrum of lovers. Besides, in this case it’s a matter of biology. You and I both need the release that comes with orgasm. It’s part of the job. Like... letting off steam. If you want, it can even be foreplay. Getting each other all worked up telling each other who we were with.”
Echo said, “Ooh. Let’s try it. Tell me about one of your conquests.”
“You sure?”
“I’m not the jealous type. Besides, I know you’ve been with a lot of people. At least ninety, right? If there’s one after each death.”
“Not necessarily,” Joss said. “But I’ve had my fair share, I guess.” She thought for a moment. Skye. She was a tattoo artist in Utah. Dark, dark eyes, really short hair. She showed me her tats... she was covered with them, and asked if I wanted one. I don’t like anything permanent, no distinguishing marks, so I said no. But she offered to do some temporary tattoos with markers. This was before Colin so I could get away with certain things that would be hard to explain if there was someone at home who would see me naked. So I stripped down and she spent four days drawing this entire fucking comic book onto my skin. There were characters, speech bubbles, fight scenes. She used parts of my body to expand the story. She made it look like my hand was emerging from a crack in the pavement.” She held up her hands. “That was my left hand. She tattooed a cock onto the first two fingers of my right hand. I told her it looked so real I was tempted to try making it come. She said she was willing to be a guinea pig for that experience. So I fucked her. Didn’t quite succeed, but it looked good.”
“Mm.” Echo picked up Joss’ right hand and popped the first two fingers into her mouth. She sucked and slipped her tongue between them. “Yeah. I think I’ll be good hearing about your conquests in the future.”
Joss smiled. “Are you sure you’re okay with this assignment?”
“Yeah. We can’t put our personal thoughts and feelings onto the assignments. We can’t pretend to know the reasoning behind why we’ve been hired and trying to fill in the blanks ourselves can only make us insane.”
“Right.”
Echo lifted her head. “Oh no. Did I take away your chance to speechify?”
“Don’t make me slap you, you little brat.”
“Oh, mama, treat me mean.” She rubbed herself seductively against Joss’ side, and Joss couldn’t help but laugh. “So tomorrow I go back to Waukegan and start looking for places online. You go back to Pierre and start easing out of your old life. Then at our next meeting we’ll figure out where we are.”
“Right.”
“Your one hundredth job.”
“My one hundredth kill,” Joss said. “And after that... you’ll go solo.”
Echo’s hand went still between Joss’ breasts. “I’m not ready for that.”
“You are. You were close in New Orleans, you just made one mistake. Before that you did an amazing job. You got away and you stayed safe until I showed up to help you with the mess. You’re good at this, Audrey. I know you love the name Echo, but you’re more than that now. You’re more than my apprentice now. You’re going to stand on your own two feet. And if you stumble, I’ll be there to catch you. But I don’t think you’ll need me.”
“Shows what you know.”
“At work,” Joss clarified, tightening her grip on Echo’s waist. “You won’t need me at work.”
They slept, and in the morning they drove to the airport. Myles had arranged their flights together, so Joss would fly back to O’Hare with Echo, pick up her car, then drive another half-day back to Pierre. It was almost worth it to spend another few hours with Echo. On the flight, as Echo dozed, Joss watched the desert pass underneath the wing. She thought about Echo’s insistence that she celebrate her hundredth death somehow, but she couldn’t imagine what sort of ceremony that would entail.
She’d spent her entire career insisting that the deaths didn’t matter. How could she justify commemorating one even if it was the one-hundredth. But the thought of spending the job with Echo would be enough of a celebration for her.
#
Joss put her bags in the backseat of her car, then turned to Echo. “Sure you can’t stay?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how long it’ll take to tie up everything in Pierre. I have to be subtle about it so no one comes looking.” She kissed Echo and held her close before reluctantly parting. “I’ll keep in touch. Let you know how things are going.”
Echo nodded. “I’m glad you got to see me at home. It kind of, um...” She searched the street behind Joss as she tried to find the words. “It makes the transition easier.”
“I know what you mean.” She kissed Echo once more and then let her go. “I should get on the road. I’ll be arriving in the middle of the night as it is.”
“Okay. Love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Joss saw Echo’s parents watching from the doorway and waved goodbye to them. She got in the car, glanced at Echo in the rearview, and reluctantly pulled away from the curb.
For the trip to Waukegan she’d stopped only when it was absolutely necessary. Returning to Pierre she took advantage of gas stations, topping up her tank because she saw a low price, and she lingered over meals in restaurants that she had to leave the highway to reach. She decided to split her trip into two days, stopping in a motel and getting a good night’s rest before she continued on. The speedometer dropped as she neared South Dakota’s border to the point where cars were weaving around her like she was a stone in a stream.
Finally she’d stalled as long as possible and pulled into her driveway. Madison came out as she was unloading the car and offered to help carry the bags inside. “How was your trip?”
“Fine,” Joss said wearily.
“Lots of problems to sort out?”
“No. Not really.” She put a hand on the back of her daughter’s head. “Sometimes to fix a problem, you have to put in a lot of hard work. People’s feelings can get hurt.”
Madison nodded. “Yeah. But if everyone’s happier in the end, it’s for the best. Right?”
“Exactly so,” Jocelyn said, slipping back into the mother role as she took the last bag and followed Madison back to the house.
The girl stopped at the front door. “That woman was over here while you were gone. She didn’t spend the night. I made sure she didn’t. But Daddy said you knew.”
“I did. It’s okay if she spends the night. But thank you for looking out for me, Maddie.”
Madison looked at her. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You never call me Maddie. You call Tommy by his full name, too.”
Jocelyn smiled. “Just a little tired. Come on, let’s go inside.”
Madison took her bags upstairs, and Colin came out of his nook to greet her. “How was it?”
“Fine. I was going to get the kids some Golden Gate souvenirs but I didn’t have a chance to pick anything up.”
He frowned. “I thought you were going to Chicago.”
She stared at him. “I did. What did I say?”
“Golden Gate? San Fran is pretty far from Chicago, Jocelyn.”
She closed her eyes. “Right. Jesus, I’m tired. Is there anything in the fridge I can nuke?”
“Yeah, some pizza.”
Jocelyn went past him into the kitchen and retrieved the pizza. She was tired, but she was also looking too far ahead. She foresaw a very near future where she wouldn’t have to lie about what she was doing and it made her sloppy. She rested her hands on the counter as the microwave slowly spun, eyes closed as she tried to accept the fact she would be trapped in the Webb house for at least the next few weeks. Maybe even a few months. The divorce and disappearance would have to be done gradually. All the threads she’d tied so neatly to form a web of protection would have to be undone slowly.
Colin came into the kitchen and watched her. She hadn’t turned on the light, and he was just a dark shape outside the reach of the microwave’s glow.
“I’m being transferred,” she said.
“What?”
“Green Bay.”
He thought for a moment. “That doesn’t make any sense. You fly all over the country anyway; what does it matter where you’re based?”
“Don’t ask me. Management made the decision to close down the Pierre branch, so unless I want to commute ten hours each way...”
Colin sighed. “Well. Okay. Uh, Maddie won’t be happy. She’ll want to graduate with all her friends.”
“She can stay.” Joss took her slices out of the microwave and tore off a few paper towels to serve as a plate. “You can all stay. I want a divorce.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jocelyn. This again?”
“Madison told me Shannon was over while I was gone. Cut me out, you guys can be a nice little family.”
“Madison doesn’t like Shannon. And besides, we’ve gone through all of this before, Jocelyn. We were on the edge, I told Shannon the end was nigh, and now we’re in counseling. You have no idea how hurt she was when I told her divorce was off the table again.”
“Poor little mistress.”
Colin rubbed his eyes. “You win, Joss. Either way, you win. So why do I even bother fighting?”
Jocelyn looked at him. “I told you not to call me Joss.”
“Right.” He sighed. “If we have to pack up and move to Green Bay, we’ll do it as a family. We’ll talk about it with Dr. Teague. I’ll break it off with Shannon and find someone who hasn’t been on this roller coaster. You’ll go off on your little assignments, and I’ll stay here to write. It’s what we do, Joss. It’s what we’ve always done. And until Maddie goes to college, it’s what we’ll continue to do.”
Jocelyn watched him walk out of the kitchen, his shoulders slumped in defeat, and she chewed the pizza that had turned to tasteless cud in her mouth. Madison had two years of high school left. Two years before she could entertain the possibility of going to be with Echo. It wasn’t impossible, but at the same time it devastated her.
She could just run. Pack for a job, fly out, and then just never return. She could disappear in the night. She looked at the silverware drawer and thought of a particularly sharp knife they rarely used. She could just eliminate the Webb family like shedding a costume. She’d sworn she would never kill for free, but in this instance the reward would be escape. But as much as that would solve, she doubted she could actually kill a kindergartner. And Madison was a great kid. Colin... she could kill Colin, but then she’d have to find a place for the kids, and Jocelyn Webb would be the prime suspect. She’d be a fugitive.
No. She wanted a clean break. And if it took her two years to get one, she would just have to find a way to make that work.
#
Madison was at a pizza party with her friends, and Colin had taken Thomas to some animated monstrosity with a group of raucous children. Jocelyn stayed home and called Echo, a conversation that quickly denigrated into phone sex and mutual masturbation. Jocelyn revealed the hiccups in their plan, and Echo assured her that two years would be nothing.
“It would be good, in fact. It would give me a chance to breathe, you know? Get away from my parents, live on my own a bit. I would love to jump right into a place with you. But if we have to wait to do it right, then let’s do it right.”
Jocelyn smiled. “You are worth waiting for.”
“You are, too. I waited my whole life for you to show up. What’s two more years?”
She closed her eyes. “I’ll call you again this weekend. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to find the time.”
“Okay. Oh, uh. This weekend is actually pretty busy. I’m driving up to Green Bay to look at apartments. I should be available in the evenings, though.”
“And Green Bay is only about ten hours from Pierre if you get lost on the highway.”
Echo laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. I love you, Joss.”
“I love you, too.”
She hung up feeling farther away from Echo than ever, then went to do some busywork just to occupy her mind. She was trying to remember where they kept the vacuum when the doorbell rang. Jocelyn checked the clock as she went to answer, wondering who would be bothering them on a Friday night. She checked the peephole, groaned, and opened the door.
“Hi, Shannon.”
“Jocelyn.”
The two women stood awkwardly on the front porch, the threshold between them. Finally Shannon broke the silence.
“We haven’t officially met. Not without the secret out in the open. So, um.” She tightened her jaw and narrowed her eyes, and her voice broke when she said, “Let him go.”
Jocelyn stared. “Who?”
“Colin. You don’t love him. He’s known for a long time that you don’t love him. But he just broke up with me, and it’s because of you.”
“Shannon, trust me, I tried to let him go. I brought up divorce. He refused to hear it.”
“Make him hear it. I love him. He deserves to be happy, not chained to you.”
Before Echo, Jocelyn would have slammed the door in the smitten cop’s face and dealt with whatever fallout it caused. Now, though, she couldn’t help feeling bad for the girl.
“How old are you?”
“What?” She hesitated and then finally said, “Twenty-nine.”
Jocelyn shook her head. “A baby. You’re a baby, Shannon. You came here to make me let Colin go, but I’m telling you to. You’re young and he is an anchor. I believe he loves you, and I believe he wants to be with you. But he’ll use you. He can’t help it. You’ll end up shackled to this man, supporting him, letting him leech off of you for the rest of your life. He broke up with you and one day you’ll see that as the best thing that could ever have happened to you. Take the win, Shannon.”
“Bitch.”
“I’m trying to be kind.”
Shannon’s eyes were wet now. “Divorce him.”
Jocelyn said, “No.”
If she hadn’t started closing the door, she might have had time to react. As it was her balance was off and her mind had effectively considered the confrontation over by the time Shannon took her hand out of her pocket. The gun was small, definitely not police-issue, but they were close enough that the first bullet still rocked Jocelyn back on her feet. She stumbled to the right, then to the left as the second bullet hit just below her clavicle.
Jocelyn hit the tile of the entryway and stared at the texture of the ceiling. Her eyes were wet, and her face was splattered with warm droplets of blood
“Oh, motherfucker,” she gasped.
Shannon came into the house, the sound of Jocelyn’s desperate inhalations like the rattle of an industrial machine. She lifted her hand in a futile attempt to fend off the cop as she knelt beside her, and she felt the rough grip of a gun being pressed into her hand. Shannon carefully applied Jocelyn’s fingerprints to a weapon she had never fired, but would ironically label her as an attempted murderer. Her eyes were wet as her mind provided the story even as her vision dimmed at the edges.
I came over to talk to her. Yes. I’m her husband’s mistress. But we had an understanding. God, I thought we had an understanding. She came at me. I tried to resist, tried to get away, but eventually I had to take the weapon and... I can’t stop thinking about those poor children.
Jocelyn closed her eyes. She conjured up an image of Echo, a pale strip of her cheek lit by moonlight and one pebbled nipple under her thumb, a Picasso-disaster of the beauty she’d had for much too brief a time. She wondered if there would be a moment when she passed, if it would be like drifting off to sleep or if she would just cease to think. She gathered her will, a quickly-drying commodity, and focused it all on a single final thought.
Echo. Audrey... I’m so sorry.
Epilogue
Echo parked down the street from her target and settled in for a long wait. Her hair was longer now, still dyed red although she’d gone a shade darker the last time she touched it up. It had been a year since Joss’ murder. She still had nightmares where she was present when the cop pulled the trigger, watching but unable to stop it from happening. She would wake in a cold sweat, gasping for air between sobs, clutching her chest until she stumbled out of bed and curled in a ball on the floor. She cried less now, suffered fewer anxiety attacks, and she was back on a regular schedule with Myles. She unofficially took Joss’ place as the organization’s Midwest operative, and she honored her with every hit she carried out. There had been no further situations like the one in New Orleans, no messes where she had to be bailed out. She owed it to Joss to be the best assassin working, and she strove to make it true.
She’d been startled when Myles showed up at her home one afternoon wearing a dour suit and, for the first time since she’d met him, actually looking his age. She’d known he was older than Joss, but his hair was gray at the temples and his skin was ashen and pale. As he explained why he was there, Echo felt herself aging as well. He told her Joss was dead, swore backwards and forwards that he’d had no involvement, and she reluctantly believed him. She wasn’t aware she’d fallen until he crouched next to her and rubbed her shoulders, telling her Joss had sent him something. A video.
She still had the disc, but she didn’t really need it. She had the entire thing memorized. Joss was sitting on the couch in the guesthouse, wearing a shirt unbuttoned at the collar.
“Hi, Echo. You can probably guess I’m making this on your laptop. I filmed it the weekend I came down here to meet your parents, to see how you lived. You brought up Greta, and the whole New Orleans situation, and I... I told you the truth. Myles sent me there to clean up your mess, and in the past that would have meant killing you. I couldn’t do it. Even then I loved you too much to do what I was supposed to. I wanted to spare you that angst in the future, so I made this video and I’m sending it to Myles. I hope he never has to use it, but if he does... well... hopefully you’ll follow his instructions with a clear conscience.
“In Astoria, Oregon, I failed the mission. You thought it was a test for you, and I was willing to let you believe that. The truth is, I told the target to run because I didn’t want to kill him. I decided to let him live even knowing what it would mean for me professionally. I would have told Myles I failed and I would have been a liability for all my future jobs. I know how it would have gone down. He would have let me keep training you, the whole time thinking I was unreliable. When I finally reported you were ready, he would have made me your first solo target. He would have sent you after me.
“There’s a chance it will happen again in the future. You’ve awakened so many things in me that I thought were dead that I have no way of knowing what will come up next. There’s a very real chance the next time we go out I’ll pull my punches. Or I’ll decide to come home without pulling the trigger. I don’t know what will happen next, and I love that about you, Echo. You make me excited for what’s next, even if it’s bad.
“So if something does happen, and if Myles has to order my death, I want you to know three things. One, I’m glad it’s you. I want yours to be the last face I see, and if you have to be holding a gun to make that happen then... well. I can accept that. Two... do it. I know it’ll hurt. But I also know that refusing or backing out will only make you a target in Myles’ eyes. And three. I forgive you. When and if the time comes I’ll try to say it in the moment but just in case it’s not possible. I forgive you.
“So that’s all.” She looked down, looked to her left, and then looked back into the camera. “I love you, Audrey.”
Echo wiped her eyes with the back of her hand as she remembered the video. One year ago on this date, she’d been in Green Bay looking at properties to begin their life together while Joss lie dead in her foyer with the cop who killed her waiting for backup to come so she could file a fictional report. In that time Echo had only gone on three assignments. Myles was willing to give her bereavement time, but his patience wore thin and she knew she would have to start agreeing to jobs if she didn’t want to get cut loose. So she started saying yes when he called, and she felt as if Joss’ spirit guided her as she stalked and planned each death.
She had just gotten back from Iowa, where she’d killed a “businessman” whose knuckles were still bruised from beating his “girls.” She gave the client a slight discount in exchange for a threesome, taking two of them to bed before hightailing it out of town. Both of the girls she chose were older than her, and both had more than a passing resemblance to Joss.
Down the street, a minivan pulled out of a driveway and Echo focused on her assignment. The target was alone in the house, most likely getting ready for bed after a long night shift. Echo took her gloves from her pocket and put them on.
In the year since Joss’ death, Colin Webb’s novel had been released to wide acclaim. He was heralded as a rising star, a Midwestern blend of Robert B. Parker and Dennis Lehane. He and Shannon Molloy were newly-married. Madison Webb had arrived home to find her mother dead in the foyer and her father’s mistress standing over her. She had shouted to anyone who would listen that Shannon had killed her in cold blood, but people wrote her off as a hysterical kid. She’d moved out of the house, living with her boyfriend’s family until she finished school and could move away to college. Echo briefly considered contacting the girl and bringing her into her mother’s business, but she didn’t want to take that step. Not yet. Maybe in the future, after she finished school.
Echo got out of the car and walked down the street. People only noticed if strangers acted peculiar, if they were hunched over or furtive. Echo walked as if she belonged, and no one ever looked twice at her. She kept one hand in her pocket, stroking the gun she had brought and wondering if she should check the kitchen for a knife. She liked knives, and she employed them whenever she could.
The front door was locked, sensibly considering her target’s profession, and she walked around to the side door. It led to the husband’s work space and, naturally, it was unlocked. Sloppy and lazy, as she expected him to be. She stepped inside and shut the door silently behind her. There was a small desk with a laptop on it, and she walked over to it. She was an assassin of people, but she could kill thoughts as a bonus. She opened the mini-fridge, took out a can of beer, and opened the laptop. She slowly soaked the keyboard with the beer, watching it foam up around the keys. If he was smart he would have backed his work up in an online cloud. If not... well, poor Colin would just have to start from scratch.
Colin and Shannon had moved into the house after his book went off the charts. He made the down payment with the check he got for the movie rights, which had been fought over until they were in the high six-digits. Echo felt betrayed in Joss’ stead. She supported him for twenty years, and when he finally wrote the book that would make them rich just before his mistress killed her. Now the bastard could cry over spilled beer.
She slipped through the interior door to a laundry room, leaving the writing room behind for the kitchen. A rack of gleaming knives stood next to the stove, their sleek black handles so inviting as she passed them. Maybe later, just for fun, she would come back and get one to finish the job. She could hear the shower running upstairs and moved carefully toward the stairs. She took her gun out of her pocket and held it by her side as she began to climb.
Echo was in Pierre unbidden, traveling there on her free time (it was closer to eleven hours away, but she wouldn’t hold the error against Joss). The bullets in her gun had the word “JOSS” written on them in small black ink. She would dedicate this death to Joss’ memory, would let Joss’ spirit guide her as she pulled the trigger. Shannon Molloy would be Joss Kurtis’ one-hundredth kill. It was only right.
She still believed in Joss’ tenant, her first-and-foremost rule that she never killed for free. Echo believed in that rule and she followed it to the letter. She rested her hand on the bedroom’s doorknob and closed her eyes to listen to the sound of water in the pipes. She slipped into the bedroom and left the door open behind her for a quick getaway. She moved over to a blind spot near the closet where she couldn’t be seen but from where she could see the bathroom door when Shannon came out. She tightened her grip on her gun and brought it up to the ready.
It didn’t matter if she wasn’t receiving money for this kill. Some deaths were their own reward.