Redemption Key (A Dani Britton Thriller) by S.G. Redling Page B

door frame while shitting yourself will not get you thrown out of a men’s room in Penn Station.”
    “Oh Choo-Choo . . .”
    “I think it took two days for my family to find me. Nobody asked me any questions after that. Clearly the pirate story had been a little fantasy I’d spun for them. The ‘real’ story was as convincing as they’d figured it would be. Junkies
will
get shot from time to time, after all.”
    Dani didn’t know what to say. She watched him turn the cigarette end over end. “Are you clean now?”
    He laughed. “As a whistle. You could give my blood to a Girl Scout.”
    “Well that’s good, right?” She rubbed her hand along his leg. “You’ve kicked it.”
    He caught her wrist and squeezed hard enough to make her wince. His voice was a hiss. “I haven’t kicked shit. I would do anything—anything—for one taste. I would sell my eyes. I would peel off every inch of my skin and crawl over salted razor blades for one drop. Nothing compares to it. Smack, crack, oxy—nothing comes close. I’ve tried. It’s like jumping off a stepladder to reach the moon. I can’t even kill myself because I’m afraid I’ll miss a chance to feel that one more time. There isn’t anything that comes close. So I don’t do anything.”
    He dropped her arm and stared straight ahead. “I don’t do anything but want. I want and I want and I want. And I hate.”

Murfreesboro, TN
    9:50pm, 82° F

    “You have got to be kidding me!”
    The secure phone he had been given by his handler chirped again. Two jobs in one state? In one day? Booker figured if he had done this many jobs on his own before being compromised by the US government, he could have retired five years ago. As it was, he worked twice as hard now for a tenth of the money and it was really starting to annoy him.
    Did they not have anyone else they could call?
    Booker had never minded killing people. It didn’t thrill him; it didn’t repel him. He was never haunted by any of his victims. Except his first one, and she haunted him for reasons other than the bloody mess he’d left her in over twenty years ago.
    Almost thirty years ago.
    God, he was getting old.
    This job, this new “arrangement,” wasn’t helping things. Thanks to the broad reach of his new employer, Booker had clocked more air miles this year than ever and Booker hated airports. He could feel his soul wearing thinner and thinner with every pat-down, everyinane TSA checkpoint. And because his employer was also the employer of every TSA agent in America, his documents and identity passed inspection without a second glance.
    It was boring.
    Booker scrolled through the message on the screen, reading the details of the next target, and started to laugh. Unbelievable. No, completely believable. And predictable. He had known it was just a matter of time.
    Booker typed in his obligatory assent—like he could say no—and his smile widened. This could work out very well for him. The doctors had been right. Booker was lucky.

    11:35pm, 77° F

    “I thought you’d be scarier looking.”
    “I get that a lot.”
    “Where’s your piece?”
    Booker sighed, reaching for the plastic tote bag in the floor well between his feet. “I’ve got everything I need.”
    Agent Gregory Davis took another bite of his shawarma, ignoring a dribble of greasy white sauce that fell on his suit. The car they were parked in stunk of garlic and onion and the stinging smell of the athletic cream the federal agent wore. Davis’s sunburn made his pale red hair paler. When he’d picked Booker up at the hotel, the agent had tried to regale him with tales of the weekend softball game where he’d gotten the burn and the pulled shoulder muscles. Booker had shut the conversation down with an icy stare. Judging from the stuttered mid-sentence halt, Booker figured the agent found him scary enough.
    “So you’re some kind of consultant, right?”
    “Something like that.” Booker felt around in the tote.
    “Not