Page 8 of The Kill Clause
She sighs, walks around her desk, heels clicking on concrete.
“That’s the thing,” she says, sitting. She leans on her elbows and steeples her fingers. “You don’t get to make judgment calls. The rules are simple. Complete the job in the time allotted. No witnesses. You let the kid see you. What happens to her in that circumstance is your fault. You have to follow the rules and live with the consequences.”
Something squeezes my heart and tries to crawl up my throat.
I can almost hear myself say it.I’m tired, Nora. I don’t want to do this anymore. Yes, I need a vacation somewhere warm. Permanently.But the thought of disappointing her, even now, is unbearable.
“I’ll take care of it tonight. Give me a chance to make it right.” I don’t like how desperate I sound.
She bows her head and offers another sigh. “Okay,” she says, looking at me again. “And then maybe a break, sometime off. If we don’t take time to recharge our batteries, the work suffers.”
It sounds like something from one of those productivity posters you find hanging in a normie office. Does Nora take time off? Do she and Buz take off to someplace warm torecharge their batteries? I can’t see it. Maybe they go to one of those ice hotels in Scandinavia and have painful, silent sex.
“Sure,” I say. “Thank you. I won’t let you down.”
Nora nods, and I rise. There’s not a lot of lingering and chatting with Nora. We don’t “catch up” or get personal. I’m making my way toward the door when she speaks again.
“Paige, you’ve always been like a daughter to me.”
Which strikes me as a little sad, that she thinks our relationship is anything like it would be between mother and daughter. I had a mother; I remember her touch, her laughter, the feeling of being loved and cared for. Vaguely. So very long ago. It wasn’t like this.
“I’m so grateful to you for everything you’ve done for me.” Is that even true? I don’t know.
I turn back to her, and she’s already on her computer, tap-tap-tapping away. After taking a last look at her, I walk through the door, that thing clenching at my heart again.
Buz is still outside the door as I exit.
“My access code?” I say when we exchange our farewells.
“Don’t worry,” he says as he walks me to the elevator. “I’ll handle that for you.”
Before the door closes, he steps to me so suddenly that I reach for the knife that’s not there. He grabs my arm and pulls me close.
“Be careful, kid,” he whispers fiercely. “The game is about to change. For all of us.”
After he releases his grip, I can still feel the heat of his grasp on my arm.
“What does that mean?” But the doors close while he watches, and I’m alone, elevator rising toward the cold light of day.
In my car, I try Buz to get some clarity. Did he seem ... scared? But he doesn’t answer. I sit a moment, pondering.
Talk about job insecurity.
5.
Istill have my wedding picture on my phone. Julian and I are in the world’s tackiest wedding chapel, all baby blue and glinting chandeliers, a gowned, big-busted woman with a helmet of blond curls at a white grand piano. Julian and I stand with a sweaty Elvis officiating. I’m almost embarrassed by the look on my face, so soft with adoration as I gaze upon my new husband. And Julian looks at the camera, smile movie-star bright. It’s clear to me that we both thought we were in love. That for a single moment in time, we were “happy.” See what I mean? Vegas.
We spent our honeymoon night in that big suite, but in the morning we had to go our separate ways. He had another job, and I had to get back to debrief Nora. Lying in bed as the sun rose, he must have seen my uncertainty. The night before seemed like a dream.
“This is real,” he promised. “I’ll call you after my next job, and we’ll meet somewhere. Whatever you do, don’t tell Nora.”
We made love again as the hot-pink sun painted the sky.
Obviously, we were doomed from the start. The very foundation of our relationship was a sinkhole of lies, deception, and murder. Like, literal murder.
They don’t call it that at the Company, of course. They refer to our jobs as solutions. Nora is the chief solutionengineer.Solutions, especially at a certain level, for a certain type of client, are often messy. The Company makes wrong things right.That’s what she told me, and I never doubted her.It’s no different than working for the government, except that most of our clients are in the private sector.I always believed Nora; her word to me was law and gospel.
Since his text last night, Julian has been silent. Which is slightly scarier than when he’s texting and calling nonstop. It means he’s given up trying to reach me by phone and is likely going to show up somewhere.
