Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
I sat, stunned silent, as she nodded to me.
“Your code name is Kelly Garrett, even if you’re a blonde.” She tipped her head to Luna. “You’re Jill Munroe. For short, you’re Garrett and Munroe.”
I turned my head toward Luna to see she was doing the same to me.
She looked excited.
I wondered what my wild vigilante hair got us into.
Clarice kept speaking.
“There will be times you have to come to this office. If you do, make sure you don’t have a tail. If this becomes more, and it’s necessary, we’ll create a headquarters for you.”
A headquarters?
Damn.
I raised my hand like I was in class.
Clarice looked at me.
“Um…we’re just servers,” I told her.
“Everybody is something until they’re a badass,” she returned. “You lugged a two-hundred and twenty-pound tight end to an empty warehouse, gained access and taught his nasty ass a lesson. As far as we can tell, you’ve got a finely honed sense of justice, you’ve got intuition, you’ve got skills in planning an operation, you fly under radar, because you’re ‘just a server,’”—her tone did the quotation marks for her—“but you get the job done.”
After saying that, she slid a manila envelope our way.
Luna didn’t hesitate to reach out and snatch it.
“I took a picture of your wall,” Clarice said. “We might have some names to go with those descriptions of players you’ve been watching that you wrote on your Post-its. You see if we got it right. We’ve added some intel. Now, it’s up to you.”
Luna had opened the envelope and had her head bent to it, fingers sifting through its contents without pulling them out.
I looked back to Clarice when she kept speaking.
“You get enough, you get it to me. I’ll feed it into the proper channels. This isn’t about takedowns. It’s about getting things to people who need them and can do something with them.”
“Getting them what?” I asked.
“Evidence. A solid lead. We aren’t supporting you in meting out vigilante justice. This is about real justice, the kind that happens in a court of law.” She slid another manila envelope toward us, this one much smaller, but it had some bulk. “Another car. You don’t need to be cruising the seedy sides of Phoenix in a Mercedes. Though, you meet with a real player, you take the Merc. They need to know you have resources. And you don’t take any ID with you, ever. In the field, only refer to yourselves as Garrett and Munroe.” Another envelope came over the desk, slightly bigger, much bulkier. “The phones you use for ops. They’re burners. Untraceable. Leave your own at home. The cars have tracking, as do the phones. We’ll keep an eye on you that way.”
“Who’s we?” Luna asked while again reaching for the envelopes.
“As far as you know, ‘we’ is me,” Clarice answered.
That was all she said.
At least about that.
“Learn vigilance,” she went on. “How to spot a tail. Learn to trust your gut. If you feel like someone is watching you, they are. If you feel in danger, you are, so you get the fuck out of wherever you are, shake the tail if you got one and get safe.”
“Why are you doing this?” I inquired.
Clarice’s gaze locked to mine. “Because that tight end should be facing ten years, his buddies with him. What they did to her after was just as bad as what they did to her. And Paul Nicholson had rented a house in Montana. Two more days and Elsie Fay would have been gone.”
Holy Moses.
I didn’t know that.
Goosebumps popped out all over my skin.
“And women are going missing,” she finished.
They totally were.
Something started stealing up my spine.
“You’re not just a server, Garrett,” she said quietly to me. “You’ve got natural instinct and history that drives you to right wrongs. Use both.”
So, she knew about me.
Not a surprise.
“You do know this is completely crazy,” I remarked.
She sat back in her white leather executive chair. “I laid out the deal. It’s up to you to take it, or otherwise.”
“We’re not detectives, and I know you know that,” I reminded her. “But I’ve gathered a bunch of info already, and I have no idea what to do with it.”
“That’s where the reporting-to-me part comes in,” she replied. “It’s not up to you to do something with it.” She looked between the two of us. “I laid it out. The choice is yours. I’ll know you’re in if you take those cars or we get a text for something you require. This isn’t about pressure. This is about getting the job done. If it isn’t your thing”—she shrugged—“then have a good life.”
That was her, I’m done, you can go now.
Luna read it too, which was why she popped out of her chair, clutching the envelopes.
“Thanks for the chat,” she said.
“My pleasure,” Clarice replied.
“If we get headquarters,” Luna went on, “are we gonna get to sit in a line of plush chairs in front of a desk you’re behind and talk to ‘we’ on a speaker?”