Page 32 of Pretty Nightmare

“Adam?”

“You know it’s me, Wendy. Just fucking spit it out.”

She sighs. “I think we have a problem.”

“Explain.”

“OK.” She’s a little bit breathless. “We found a girl.”

“Hmm. Where?”

“Well, we didn’t find her. We saw her. And we don’t have her.”

“Where?” I repeat.

“Savannah.”

“Hmm.”

“I know.”

“Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”

“Boone was on that job we talked about yesterday. And he was just finishing up when someone hit him on the head.”

“Killed him?”

“No,” she snaps at me. “Obviously he came back and told me this story.”

“Don’t get short with me.”

“Sorry.”

She doesn’t sound sorry. “So how’s the girl fit in? If he’s not dead, he wasn’t her hit.”

“He was just coming back around when he heard voices. The little girl’s and another one too. A man. And he said he couldn’t place it, but it was very familiar.”

“But what did they want? Boone was just sent to kill someone. He wasn’t carrying any secrets.”

“They stole the body.”

“What?” I kinda laugh about this.

“Yeah, it makes no sense. But Boone swears up and down that this was one of our girls—”

I want to object here. I want to say she could just be any little girl. But very few men take little girls on a hit job. So I just shut up and let her finish.

“—and he recognized the voice of the man. Just couldn’t place him. He moaned and they hit him again. He passed out again. And then he woke up and everything was cleaned up. The whole room was spotless. No sign of blood, and he checked with the UV light and everything. No sign of anything. Even the carpet under his blood-caked head was clean. Like they picked him up, scrubbed that spot, and set him back down.”

I sigh.

“Sorry,” she says. “But you need to know. Someone is cutting in on us, Adam. And they’re not being shy about it. This is the third time.”

“I know.”

“Well, we need to do something about this.”

“I’m working on it.”