Page 136 of Ricochet

It was a dinner, and there would be knives. She’d kill Gloria with whatever was available. Simple. Even if Javier recognized her, he wouldn’t be able to get to her in time.

Could she really stab someone to death? It’d take a lot of strength, but Adelia had a lot of people to avenge on behalf of, and that had to give her an extra push. Sheraised her arm and chopped it down, but the foreign motion made her grimace.

What if Javier was close by…? She bit her lip and then decided a disguised would help, grabbing extra clothes to pull over what she wore now. If her figure was off, and her hair and makeup weren’t how he’d expect it, she’d have a moment on Javier and his team.

Make-up, hair ties, extensions, and scarves littered thecounters, and now that she was dressed, Adelia perused her options. Dress-up wasn’t her forte. She and Javier weren’t allowed to play like regular children.

Quickly, she smeared on dark red lipstick and wrapped her hair into a bun, adding a tightly curled ponytail hair extension. She darkened the shading around her eyes and gave herself a cute mole on her cheek.

A studious look would haveseen through her in a heartbeat. But she counted on poor lighting and an expectation that she wasn’t this bold or stupid. “One could always wish.”

Staring at the semi-un-recognizable woman in the mirror, she trembled and hated what she was becoming.A destructor incarnate. A monster of a new making, no better than Gloria, making decisions about the life of another. Adelia scowled at the mirror.“Yeah, a monster’s life.”

Get over it.There were no other options other than her decision of how. Strangling? That would take as much strength but longer. Someone could stop her—a twinge of relief teased Adelia, and God, now was the worst time to have a conscience kick in.

Uneasy, she turned away and walked into a section of lockers. A woman stood near where Adelia had been and sang in likeshe had a microphone in her hand. This was New York. New Yorkers were peculiar. At least, according to Tex.

She twisted, snapping off her mic—which was an old school cassette recorder—and glared. “Got a problem?”

“No,” Adelia said.

“Broke my concentration.” She rolled her eyes then pulled open her locker, tossing the recording device onto the top shelf, locked it with a small key, and stompedaway.

“Jeez. Tough crowd.” For living in a motorcycle compound a decent portion of her life, Adelia was feeling a little innocent and naïve—

The recorder!

Innocent and naïve scooted over for devious and creative. What it…? Adelia bit her lip, wondering if she’d gone soft, though if soft meant avoiding murder… “I could be a softie.”

Loose strings of a possible plan started to gather in hermind, but she needed the record first. Thank goodness for Tex teaching her how to pick any lock.

After thirty seconds of searching the ground for a hair pin or a hair barrette, she’d come up with several options, and the flimsy lock was no match for her Mayhem training. She had the recorder in her hands and opened the cassette holder. The tape labelDreams Can Come True. Demo Ideas.

The BigGuy Upstairs was testing her, wasn’t he? Adelia wasn’t stealing a tape filled with hopes and dreams. But if this was one of those life test, it was better to steal from a dreamer than murder another.

Or was it? Because Adelia wasn’t murderinganother. She was second-guessing the consequences of her actions for stopping a human trafficker. Tex’s life lessons were failing Adelia now, and thiswasn’t the kind of lesson a fortune cookie might teach.

Dressed in layers of unfamiliar clothes, she didn’t know herself and backed until the wall stopped her. Her head hung down too heavy to hold up, just like her eyelids.

“What am I doing?” she whispered. Mayhem would kill her, but she couldn’t kill a woman who deserved to die. Adelia longed for Colin, and sliding down the wall, she watchedpeople come and go.

A sickly woman scooted into the same locker area, eyeing Adelia on the floor, but said nothing. She dropped her purse on a bench and a paper bag. Shrugging off her coat, her frame revealed shoulders pinched and shivering.

“Are you okay?” Adelia asked.

She glanced down. “The flu.”

“Yikes. Why’re you here?” Adelia could almost see through the woman’s pale skin and dark circlesoutlined her eyes.

“Why does anyone work? Money. Rent. Food.” She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but I live paycheck to paycheck. I don’t work, I don’t eat, and I like to eat most times. Maybe not today though.”

Sometimes, Adelia had no clue how good her life was. Regular meals and knowing where she was going to sleep at night had become a luxury, so much so that now, her mind wonderedwhat was in the brown paper bag when she should get up and go do… something, or at least, focus her attention on the conversation.

“Are you hungry?” the other woman asked.

Adelia’s eyebrows arched. She hadn’t thought about food much, but now her mind was in overdrive. “A little.”

“My man made me grab something on the way in.” Her nose crinkled in disgust. “I didn’t touch it and can’t standthe idea of eating when I feel like this, but I couldn’t tell him that since he spent the money on food I didn’t have to make.” She nudged the bag. “If you want—it’s just white rice from the Chinese place next door. It’s all I thought I could stomach. But really, I can’t.”

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