People were starting to miss Linda Crewes.The calls and texts were coming too often to ignore.And with the realty office Zoom meeting tomorrow morning, she couldn’t count on stalling any longer.It had to be tonight.
Fortunately, things were breaking her way.Her first stroke of luck was learning earlier this week that the neighborhood’s mail carrier was a woman.That meant that she could move along the streets without drawing a lot of unwanted attention.And that’s why Ash chose her.
The woman rounded the turn onto their street at her usual time just after 5 P.M.She walked up to Linda Crewes’s door and was about to slide her mail through the slot when Ash shot her with the dart rifle through that very same slot.Then she opened the door and caught the woman as she fell forward, pulling her in and closing the door again.The whole process had taken less than four seconds.
Now came the real work.First, she moved the woman, whose nametag read “Marnie,” into the living room and propped her on the couch.Unlike Ash, a petite 37-year-old brunette, Marnie was a forty-something, plump redhead.But that was okay, Ash had wardrobe resources for that.
She stripped the woman of her uniform and put her in one of Linda’s bathrobes, propping her up so that if anyone peeked through the window, they’d just see a woman on the couch watching TV, which she turned on with the volume low.
To make sure Marnie didn’t slump over suspiciously, Ash used electrical tape to strap the woman’s neck to the top of the couch.It mostly worked, though her head slumped ever so slightly.Worried that the tape might come loose if Marnie started to flop to the side, she came up with a workaround.She moved over to the fireplace and grabbed the pointiest poker there.
Then she stood in front of Marnie, aimed carefully, and then jammed the poker into her body right below the sternum, where the soft tissue gave more easily.The woman’s eyes didn’t open but she did gasp and then moan softly.Ash ignored it, pushing the poker through the woman’s forgiving flesh and then into the couch behind her, where it lodged.She took a step back to admire her handiwork.Marnie, almost dead but clueless to that fact, was securely in place now.
With that done, Ash retreated to the bedroom to collect the strap-on pouch.Depending on how one molded it, the wearer could look pregnant or just heavyset.Ash was going for the latter.Once that was done, she put on Marnie’s mail carrier uniform.It was a little baggy, as Marnie wasn’t just fifty pounds heavier than Ash, but also about five inches taller.Still, after a few alterations, it worked well enough.Ash put on the red wig she had in her case and adjusted it to Marnie’s hairstyle.
With that done, she put her equipment, including the disassembled dart rifle, in Marnie’s mailbag.She took one last look at Linda’s house, which had been a good temporary headquarters for the last four days.This would be her last time here and she wanted to allow a moment to appreciate it.
When she felt ready, she put on the floppy hat that Marnie wore to protect her from the sun, pulled the brim down low to cover her face, opened the door and stepped out, locking it behind her.She was now out in the open, vulnerable to any law enforcement officer who might come across her.
She couldn’t worry about that.Projecting the air of a tired civil servant, she adopted Marnie’s lumbering walk and returned to the woman’s mail truck, which was conveniently parked three doors down, right across the street from Jessie Hunt’s house.
She had just moved into the back of the truck when the squad car doing its regular patrol turned onto the street.Neither officer gave the mail truck a first glance, much less a second, as they drove slowly by.Once they were gone, she got to work, reassembling the dart rifle so that it would be ready when she needed it.
“Dart” was actually a misnomer.The projectile was actually more of a pointy bullet with a sedative-laced pellet inside.Regardless of the term, it served its purpose, quickly knocking out its target.Even when victims regained consciousness, their limbs would remain unresponsive for a good hour, if not more.That didn’t mean the person couldn’t feel pain.They just couldn’t do anything about it.That was important, because the people she was targeting needed to feel that pain.
Once the rifle was assembled, Ash settled into the back of the truck.Part of her wanted to actually deliver the mail so as not to draw any suspicion.But she needed to be in this exact spot when either Jessie Hunt or Ryan Hernandez returned home.
That way she would have a clear shot.
*
Ash was starting to get antsy.
A mail truck sitting unmoving for a while on a residential street wasn’t that suspicious.Most folks would just assume the carrier was down the way, making deliveries.But this wasn’t a normal street.This was Jessie Hunt’s street.There were regular patrols and permanent camera surveillance.Even though she was wearing Marnie’s uniform and her hat, which covered most of her face, she was exposed.At some point, her luck was going to run out.But not yet.
Just then, a car she recognized as Detective Ryan Hernandez’s rounded the corner.She waited until he’d pulled into his driveway and the garage door started to open before moving into the front of the mail truck, kneeling down, and positioning the dart rifle on the edge of the open window.
She took long, slow, calming breaths, trying not to fixate on the fact that this would be her one and only chance to make things right.But it was hard to keep focused.She thought of the challenges she’d been through over the last four months.
After escaping custody and shooting her way out of the L.A.courthouse, she managed to get to Mexico and later, Ecuador.After bouncing around for a month she was able to sneak back into the U.S., moving locations every week or so to stay ahead of the authorities.Her attempts to sneak back to L.A.to scout out potential opportunities to take out her targets were complicated by multiple law enforcement agencies constantly on the hunt for her.And yet here she was, almost at the finish line.
She noted that Hernandez had already made a mistake.Usually, he closed the garage door while still in his vehicle.In fact, in the four days she’d been observing the house, he’d never forgotten to do that.But tonight, he was on the phone as he got out of the car, and seemed distracted.She’d hoped for this but hadn’t expected it.
That meant she might be able to pull this off without exposing herself unnecessarily.Her original plan had been to dash under the closing garage door before it closed, incapacitate Hernandez, then forcibly deactivate the security measures by holding the man’s eye and finger up to the different panels.But that wouldn’t be enough.She’d still need to torture the numeric code out of him and there was no guarantee that the guy would give it up.
But he was making it easy on her.He first did the retinal scan, then the fingerprint confirmation.Next, he punched the code into the keypad, all while chatting on his cell phone.The garage door started to close.Now for the moment of truth.She exhaled halfway, paused to hold her body still, then aimed and fired.
Without waiting to see if she’d hit him, she tossed the rifle aside, grabbed Marnie’s mailbag, and hopped out of the truck.She first walked across the street to the house, but seeing that she wouldn’t make it before the garage door closed, broke into a sprint.She flung the bag first, then dived and rolled, just sliding under the door before it slammed shut.
Ignoring the scrapes from the concrete, she popped up and pulled out the small pistol she’d been hiding in Marnie’s pocket.She aimed it at the door from the garage into the house, ready to fire.But she didn’t need to.
From here, she could see that Hernandez had collapsed onto his front, with his legs jutting out into the garage, blocking the door from closing.She approached carefully on the off chance that it was a ruse.When she got closer, she saw that he was truly out.The first part of her plan, as risky and unlikely as it was, had succeeded.
But to complete her mission, she’d need to get to work.Time was short.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Hannah stared at the screen, trying to pick out what had Kat so excited.
