Page 5 of Pulling Strings

When I rushed up behind her, she jumped and spun. The Dust Buster vacuum swung upright, still running. Thankfully, she didn’t scream. I’d raised enough ruckus without her piling on.

I tucked my hands quickly out of sight and smiled.

“Hey! Hi,” I greeted, trying to slow my rapid breathing. “I’m looking for the conference room. Could you point me in the right direction?”

The maid’s dark eyes softened. She returned my smile purely out of reflex, but I was grateful regardless.

“There.” She gestured toward a bend in the hallway ahead. “But is busy now.”

“Appreciate it.” I nodded, then moved forward with renewed speed.

The hall extended another twenty feet or so, uninterrupted by doors or windows of any kind. At the end, a forced right turn directed me to a long wall ofpartly-frosted glass. An interior room lay behind it, made apparent by the fluorescent lights mounted in the ceiling and wood paneling framing the exterior windows. The brass plate beside the room’s closed door read Conference 1.

Drawing up to the glass, I stretched onto tiptoes to see my target seated at the head of a long table, joined in discussion by a dozen men in suits.

A dozenwitnesses, you mean.

I nipped my pierced lip between my teeth, worrying the steel ring as I stepped back to lean against the opposite wall. I’d been seen by too many people already; been recognized by at least one. And I hadn’t traveled far enough from the threat of the building’s security team. I was still on the same floor, ten stories above the ground exit.

I scanned the hall for cameras and found one in the corner angled toward me. Keeping my hand at my side, I pressed my thumb to my forefinger and twisted. The camera swiveled, aiming its lens away from the show I was about to put on.

Creeping forward, I peeked into the conference room again. Coffee cups and a half-empty box of bagels sat on a long table. Men lined both sides in matching swivel chairs, sipping or chewing while chatting.

The plan wasn’t a plan anymore. I had meant to kill the old man at his desk. Stab him to death with a pair of scissors or twist his head off his shoulders like a soda bottle top. Then I could walk out and leave his corpse for the secretary to find.

This was a different playing field. There were no weapons in sight; no means of dispatching Warren Reeves quietly or quickly. I could strangle him at this distance, leave him purple with his tongue lolling in front of the gaggle of gawkers. But was that big enough?Attention-grabbing, Grimm had told me. Send a message.

Another search of the room found only the barest essentials. All the chairs were occupied and everything else was bolted down or wall mounted.

Windows. There were so many fucking windows in this place. The conference room occupied the building’s corner opposite Reeves’s office, meaning it, too, had glass walls overlooking the city. Ten floors was pretty high off the ground. A hundred feet or so. If Warren took a fall, that would do the trick.

I skimmed the faces of the men casually conversing over their breakfast. They’d get a message, all right.

Fifteen feet separated Reeves and me. Far from the limit of my mental range but, with the added ten feet between him and the window, and his significant body mass actively working against me, I’d given myself a difficult task.

My brain thrummed, an annoyance I shooed away before fixing my attention on Warren Reeves. Such an average fellow to have drawn Grimm’s ire. An easy mark that I had let turn into my white whale.

I splayed one hand against the glass, ready to live up to my namesake. Marionette, the gang called me—the media, too. I was a puppet master who pulled invisible strings.

The first step was to pin Reeves’s lips together, easy as a pinch. The old man’s eyes bugged the moment he realized. I imagined a bit of bagel stuck in his craw, half-chewed and ready to choke him.

Warren cupped both hands to his mouth, then groped his throat. I couldn’t hear well through the wall between us, but he must have been raising a ruckus already. His associates turned toward him one by one.

It took greater effort to draw Reeves to standing,scraping his belly against the table on the way up and sending his chair rolling backward.

His feet moved one painstaking step at a time while he clawed at his sealed lips. My fingers pressed tighter. The volume in the room rose. Muffled questions and shouts clamored together as the other men stood.

Reeves staggered two more steps before I considered the nature of industrial glass. It was made to withstand strong winds, foundational shifts, and birds crashing into it at full tilt. It would take more than the potbellied man’s girth to break through.

I broke visual contact for a rapid moment, searching.

Table? Too big.

Framed pictures on the walls? Of course not.

Coffee cups?

I snorted.

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