Page 5 of The Kill Clause
When I keyed my way into our (sick, crazy, omg) suite and Julian greeted me in the foyer, he started to laugh. It was a warm, friendly sound, not mocking or derisive.
“Oh my god, you have Nora written all over you,” he said, taking my bags, setting them down.
I couldn’t help but gaze, awestruck, around the room: plush sectional, big-screen television, full dining table, floor-to-ceiling windows with an unobstructed view of the city, already glittering as afternoon turned to evening. Through the double doors a giant bed. In my life, I’d never been anywhere so luxe, not even close. Nora’s house had seemed like a castle to me. But this wasbeyond.
“How old are you?” he asked, watching me with an amused smile.
“How old areyou?” I countered.
“Never mind,” he said, lifting his palms. “I don’t want to know. Look. Are you ready for this?”
He moved in close.
“Of course,” I said, sounding confident, even though the only things I’d killed so far were the deer on Nora’s property.It’s not that different,Nora had promised. I thought of the doe I’d held in my arms as she bled out. I couldn’t imagine anything feeling worse than that, her dark eye staring into mine, blood pooling at my knees. After all, animals are innocent. People, not so much.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Sure you are.”
Julian. He says it was love at first sight, that he saw me and knew we were meant to be together. What do I remember about that moment? That I was young and scared, that I was about to do a thing I didn’t really understand. That his hair looked like it had been drawn by ink pen, that his jaw was stylishly stubbled, that his eyes were this weirdly faceted hazel. That he dropped to one knee and pulled a velvet box from his pocket and showed me the biggest diamond—okay, theonlydiamond—I had ever seen.
“Alice,” he said. Not my name. “Will you marry me? You know, for like the next seventy-two hours.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Was I going to wake up from this silly dream? “I will.”
He slid the ring on my finger. I was as giddy as a schoolgirl on prom night. And then he rose, took me into his powerful arms, and kissed me. Tender at first, then bolder. And everything inside me turned to ice cream.
“There’s got to be chemistry for this to look authentic,” he said softly. “What do you think? Do we have it?”
For me, it wasn’t love at first sight. It was love at first kiss.
“Yeah,” I whispered, embarrassingly breathless. “I think so.”
He pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes.
Then he pulled away, all business. “Okay,” he said, moving over to the coffee table, where a neat stack of files and an open laptop sat. “Let’s go over the plan.”
I didn’t want to tell him that it was the only time I’d ever been kissed.
Why am I thinking about him? That first night, and all the nights that came after, when I felt safe and loved, seen as a woman and not a child, for the first time in my life. I guess I get maudlin around the holidays too.
Now, I’m pulling up to the deserted strip mall far outside town. It’s isolated, the area studded with abandoned warehouses and factories, the last town more than a half an hour south. Gun shop. Liquor store. A topless bar. All shuttered, long out of business. As the factories failed, so did the businesses that served the workers.
I park my car around back and step outside, listen to the wind.
It’s bitterly cold, sky a misty gray black, bare trees etching the landscape. At the back entrance to the gun shop, I push in through a heavy door that squeaks on its hinges. The concrete floor is gritty beneath my boots. The space looks as if it’s been looted after the zombie apocalypse, shelves toppled, a box of ammo spilled and scattered across the ground, holes punched in the walls exposing bare wood studs and insulation. I know there are eyes on me. Pinhole cameras activated as I stepped inside. In the far corner of the room, behind the only shelving unit still standing, is a shiny metal door, beside which akeypad is mounted. I enter my identification code. Once. Twice.
No access.
I breathe back a flutter of panic.
Then my phone pings.Hey, sorry. System glitch. I’ll let you in.
It’s Buz, Nora’s longtime assistant. (And some say lover, but again just another Nora rumor. She’s an enigma wrapped inside a riddle.) If you want to talk to Nora, you call Buz. Ageless, refrigerator size, stone faced, he taught me how to fight a man twice my size and maybe not win but at least get away. Nora calls him her man Friday. The reference was lost on me until recently.
I have a soft spot for Buz. Nora’s all hard edges, unyielding consequences. Buz was always willing to pick me up, dust me off, and let me try again when I face-planted. Which was often in training. I would never dream of letting Nora see me cry, but Buz was good for a bear hug when things got rough.
The door unlocks with a loudwhirr-click, and I step into the elevator, then stand and grip the railing as it goes down and down into the subbasement where the offices of Nora’s firm, the Company, are housed. I’ve come unarmed because those are the rules. But because of last night, Nora’s text, Julian’s words of warning from long ago ringing in my ears, I am feeling terribly unsafe.
“Have you ever taken a good look at your contract?” he asked that first night as we lay in bed.
