“Can we not? Can we be done with this conversation? I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay.”
The sun is up by the time we reach the station, deceptively warm and bright on this cold November day. We do a quick wash and rinse of the ambo and head inside to grab our belongings from our lockers, shift over for the next forty-eight hours.
Exhaustion pulls at every muscle like a Benadryl cocktail, but it’s simply lack of sleep. Sleep is non-existent when you work Chicago’s night shift emergency services.
But it makes it all the sweeter to sink into when you finally get the chance.
God willing, my loud freaking neighbors will be off somewhere, and the building will be quiet. I’ll pull the blackout shades, snuggle into my bamboo comforter, pull the weighted blanket up, and?—
“Hart!” Captain Lange barks my name, interrupting my fantasy and pausing me midstep.
“Sir?”
“Mail for you on your bunk.”
“Thanks.” I begin walking away.
“Tough call tonight. I hear you did as well as you could.”
Fuck.Images of terror-filled eyes, a tiny infant that refused to cry, and blood…so much blood…fills my vision.
Back to my captain, I squeeze my eyes closed and snap the rubber bands again. My wrist aches in protest. “Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t forget the city offers counseling if you need to talk?—”
“I don’t.”
Cap doesn’t reply, his disapproval palpable in the air.
“Thank you, anyway.”
Finished, I continue down the hall to the dorm. My bunk is a top one in the back corner, the envelope Cap spoke of glaring white against the dark coverlet.
Plucking it off the bed, I study it curiously. It’s hand-addressed to the station care of my full name, Reva Leigh Hart, in thick black Sharpie, which is a curiosity, given I haven’t used my middle name in close to a decade. Instead of a return address, the words, “WHAT YOU SEEK” is written in all caps on three lines.
My heartbeat quickens.
There’s only ever been one thing I’ve looked for.
Revenge.
Removing one of the hairpins I use to keep my thick mop of nut-brown hair out of the way, I use it to slit theenvelope and draw out the contents: a single Polaroid photograph of what appears to be a bar, the picture faded and discolored by age. In the white space at the bottom, a few words are scrawled in the same ink and handwriting as my name and address:Noir, Toulouse Street. Ask for Midnight.
A spidery chill skitters along my spine.
The name is familiar. When I turned eighteen, bursting with nine years of repressed rage, I used a frightening amount of my parents’ life insurance payout to acquire a list of guns for hire from my techie friend Joss.
I had no idea what I was doing, no idea how to go about finding and hiring someone to kill a person…but I was determined to figure it out.
I had a name, overheard on a one-sided phone conversation one night when my foster father thought I was in bed asleep, and just like that, I had an unquenchable desire for revenge. The person apparently responsible for the murder of my parents and sister, identified by my view of that rosary tattoo, was a man named Deacon.
Whether he was acting on his own volition or had been hired by someone else, I still didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Deacon needed to die, and I was going to hire someone to take care of that.
Joss actually came through, providing a list of several potentials. Each had their own unique way of ‘scheduling.’ Some liked everything to be one hundred percentdigital. Others wanted to meet in person, and provided a location rather than a name or email.
One of the names on the list had been Midnight, listed with, like several of the others, a phone number to call. For the right price, Midnight could supposedly help me in my quest for revenge.
