Certified Public Assassin is available for pre-order. Once it goes live, it’ll be available KU, too. Right now, I can’t seem to get the formatting to NOT bleed into the margins, so I can’t make it available to order in hard copy…but I’m HOPING to figure it out later.

So. Without further ado:

Molly wished she could wear sneakers. It would make the fire stairs so much easier. Especially when carrying slightly more than her body weight of dead weight over her shoulders and upper back, as well as her attaché case resting against her hip.

The best she could manage, with corporate camouflage of slacks, blouse, and blazer, was comfortable loafers. Unfortunately, no loafers had arch support designed to deal with an extra two hundred pounds, give or take fifty, on top of her own weight.

Rather, no loafers she could afford on her portion of her salary. The lion’s share still went to the massive monthly debt payments. And almost all of the rest went on student loans, interest, and fines.

She’d taken over the payments on the medical debt completely this past year, since Amber had committed suicide. Sex work wasn’t easy work, even at the top levels where sex wasn’t the point as much as arm candy in public. Amber had never been suited to it, mentally or emotionally, even if she’d had the looks for it. It wouldn’t have bothered Molly the same way, but she readily admitted she lacked the looks to pull off the top levels.

The last of the debts would be paid off at the end of the fiscal year…which was in four more months.

Their birth mother had no idea what an utter bastard she’d married. She was lucky he’d loved her, or she would know. Or it might be would have known. Briefly. Because that woman was irritating enough to make a saint lose their shit.

And Molly’s father had never been a saint. More a serpent.

The target she was currently carrying down to the dumpster was a man very much like her father had been, only without a family. No, this guy had been doing illegal shit in business, and in such a way that there was evidence, but never enough, of the right kind, or found in the right way, for any of it to result in charges. Her attaché case held a four-inch-thick file of the proof of the bastard’s deeds, a psychological profile, and the few pages of termination paperwork, sitting on top.

A door two floors down opened, and Molly froze on the landing, easing the soon-to-be corpse down and squatting next to him. Out of habit, she glanced back up the stairs, looking to see if there was a blood trail—there shouldn’t be, of course, since she’d arranged for the bastard to ingest a strong soporific in his coffee, but she might have knocked him against something, moving him. She’d be putting a .25 bullet behind his ear when she got him down to the dumpster. It wasn’t just blood that leaked, and other leaks tended to draw attention by the smell.

Her phone vibrated in her blazer’s inside breast pocket. She sighed, pulled it out, and checked—Uncle Jack was texting for an update. She sent back a message that she was waiting in the stairwell with the package for an obstruction to move, and she’d be down as soon as she could.

The smell of cigarette smoke wafted up the stairwell, and the clack of stilettos marched down the stairs to the fire door out to the alley, the one she’d noted had its alarm disabled. The door slammed open, and the footsteps went out. She eased down just far enough to be able to crouch and look past the floor of the landing she’d left the package on to see the smoker—a woman in a red skirt-suit, with a very short skirt—squat to put a piece of a brick in place to keep the door from closing all the way.

Molly hustled back up to the landing, and heaved the bastard over her shoulder, then moved as quickly and quietly as she could past the first floor landing, into the parking garage beneath the office building, where the dumpster for the business documents was placed. She manhandled the load into place, and turned his head away from her. She pulled out the tiny, suppressed .25 loaded with sub-sonic rounds, and put the round into the soft spot in the angle of the jaw behind the ear, aimed up.

The loud pop was like stomping an air-bag from shipping packaging echoing through the basement. Suppressors were all about protecting her hearing, not preventing her gun from being heard altogether. She pulled the file out of the case at her hip and dropped it on the slightly up-slope side of the new corpse, so that any leakage didn’t get on the paperwork.

She waited for a few minutes until she heard the door on the first floor slam shut, and the heels go clacking back in through the door to the main part of the building. Then, she made her way up and out the same fire door, opening and closing it quietly as she left the building, and headed for the end of the alley.

A dirty white rented Toyota Camry—three model years old—sat idling in a loading zone, just past the end of the alley. Uncle Jack’s salt-and-pepper hair was visible above the driver’s seat head-rest. She picked up the pace and slid into the passenger seat. She glanced over her navy blazer, khaki slacks, and white blouse for any dirt or smudges, finding nothing but a few creases. She flipped the passenger side sun visor down and checked the mirror. No makeup smudges around her dark eyes (which was one of three reasons she didn’t wear much makeup), and her simple, chin-length bob only needed her to run her hands through it to smooth it out.

Jack glanced at her for a second, flipped the signal, and pulled smoothly into traffic as soon as she was buckled in. “AAR, please,” he said, signaling to make a right at the light.

“I inserted into the temp office that the business hired from two weeks ago. This office hired me out of the temp agency this week.  I gave it a couple days, so that I wouldn’t seem out of place. Yesterday, I added a really strong emetic, and a laxative, to the normal secretary’s last latte, so that she’d call in sick this morning—she should be back tomorrow morning, after her little bout with food poisoning—and I got tapped to take her place. I put a very large dose of Rohypnol in the subject’s plain, black coffee, and subject was out within minutes of ingesting half the coffee. I poured out the rest, and carried the subject down to the parking garage’s secured, shredded documents receptacle, and left the paper work with the terminated contract, next to the dumpster.”  Molly thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I don’t think there were any witnesses. The woman smoking in the alley was the closest possibility, and I know she didn’t see me, either loaded down or…afterward.”

Uncle Jack nodded, easing into the left-turn lane. “Sounds like it went off without a hitch,” he said. “Your usual attention to detail means there likely won’t even be an inquest. Well done.”

Molly nodded, and looked out the window. “My rent’s going up,” she mentioned casually. Since she’d gone in through a temp agency, she’d get paid minimum wage for the forty hours she’d worked for the week, and that would help. Unfortunately, temp agencies put the money directly into her bank account, flat refusing to consider issuing a paper check. Her rent got pulled automatically, before even her student debt payment…which would take literally everything but the rent from her account.  And she didn’t have anything left to sell for the minimal groceries she got.

Jack snorted. “Everyone’s rent is going up. Get a second job. You don’t have another hit scheduled for a while—there are possible targets, and we’re in negotiations, but we’re still in the evidence-gathering stage.”

“Anything interesting?” Molly asked listlessly. She wasn’t surprised by Uncle Jack’s response. It wasn’t like she talked to him about her problems.  Maybe she’d start buying Ramen packs when she got meals on the expense account while she was working…just to make sure she’d have something to eat, even if she didn’t get protein. 

“Only the normal fools that haven’t read the fine print beforehand, and attempt to schedule a hit on a political figure,” Jack snorted.

Molly hummed. “You’d think they’d realize, given how news coverage never mentions currently serving politicians among the serviced, that the politicians deliberately wrote the bill to specifically exclude themselves,” she mused.

“You’d think,” Jack agreed dryly. “The problem is that most people don’t. I’m not sure most people are capable of thinking.” 

“How long do I have to run a second job?” she asked.

“Likely about two weeks. Long enough to do some restaurant delivery.  You could do that.”

She snorted. “No. I can’t.”  She’d had to sell her car. The last time the rent had gone up, she’d had a choice between taxes and registration on her car, and rent. She hadn’t bothered mentioning it. Uncle Jack was her handler, not her friend. Only barely family, and that only by blood not sentiment.

“You could always move back in with your mother,” he pointed out.

“I’d be headed for prison in a week,” she said, voice flat. “Less than a week, if she talked to me.  At all.  I mean, everything is her fault.  If it wasn’t for Mother’s stupidity, Amber wouldn’t be dead, and I’d be a paralegal.”

Jack sighed through his nose, nodding tiredly. “There is that. She calls me about you, you know.” 

Molly raised an eyebrow. “Mother. Calls you. About me. Why?”

“Your father let her know that you and Amber were going to take on the debt. She’s not stupid, you know. She knows exactly how you girls would have had to be able to do that. Well, not Amber, but you. She wants to know how you’re doing.”

“I’m just peachy,” Molly said sarcastically. “Never mind that I’m pulling high seven figures and seeing in the lower third of five because of her stupidity. I’m living in the type of apartment Mom deserves, right now, and subsisting on Ramen and hot dogs. How the fuck does she think I’m doing?”

“You’re not suicidal,” Jack pointed out, “and that’s what she’s worried about. Just…call her.”

“No.”  Molly’s voice was flat and final. “You’re my handler, not my owner.”

Jack sighed, and the rest of the drive to the airport was quiet. “She loves you, you know,” he said as they parked.

Molly shrugged. “No, she doesn’t. She never loved either of us.  She only cares about how it looks for one daughter to have committed suicide, and the other daughter to have abandoned her.  I care about Mother about as much as Dad did about Amber’s well-being,” she said, stepping out of the car and stretching. “So, no, Uncle Jack.  She doesn’t love me.  She didn’t love Amber.  I’m not sure she loved Dad. She loves her image—which has taken some serious damage with both her daughters fleeing her presence and cutting off contact as soon as they could.”

“The next job could clear the debt,” Jack said quietly, “if I find the right one. What will you do after that?”

Molly sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “Find a different handler. One that doesn’t bother me about things that are flatly none of their damn business.”

“And if I never mention your mother again?” he asked.

Molly shrugged. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. It’s kind of hard to think that far ahead when I’m living on Ramen in a concrete box smaller than my college dorm room, and far less friendly.” 

Jack frowned. “Your take-home is…more substantial than that. I thought.” 

“It used to be,” Molly said tiredly, climbing into the small charter jet. “And then, the interest on my student loans jacked up. The student loans for a degree I only used for a year, before Dad and you rearranged my life to suit him. And somehow, the records show I’m in default, and I can’t afford to get that untangled.”

Jack walked up to the cockpit door and tapped on it, then back to the other seat, frowning thoughtfully. “How long has that been going on?” 

“About a year,” Molly said, leaning her head back against the seat. “After the interest, principal, and penalties payments, I’m left with just barely enough to pay for the box without a window. I’ve been subsisting on packet ramen, with a package of hot dogs once a week for protein, when I’m not using the business expense account while I’m on a job. Next job, though, you said pays for the last of what Mom owes, then I’ll have mine paid off in no more than one job after that. Even with the fines, penalties, and interest. I think.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me about it any sooner?” Jack asked as the engines spooled up and the plane started moving into position for takeoff.

“Why would I?” Molly asked, baffled. “I don’t talk to you about anything but the next job.” 

“I’m actually responsible for your well being as far as it impinges upon your job performance,” Jack reminded. “I’d noticed you were losing weight, and I was assuming it was because the job was getting to you, not that you were on the verge of fucking starving to death on a fucking seven-figure salary.”  He shoved both hands into his hair and swore quietly. “I’ll look into untangling your student loans.”

Molly nodded once and turned to look out the window to watch takeoff. She didn’t really think anything was going to come of that. He’d never actually helped her before.

Really, the job didn’t bother her that much. It might have at first, but…yeah, it just didn’t anymore.  Some of that was the way she planned and carried out a contract. The rest was on the type of contracts she accepted. She read through the files when she was assigned a target. Always. And she did her own research, as well. Most of the time, the contract was beyond warranted: her targets were almost always the type of scum she’d seen skating as a paralegal. However, there were a few times where, when she did her own research, the evidence just…wasn’t there. Those contracts she refused, and made sure Jack knew why.

And when someone else took and carried out the contract, the person who put the contract out almost always either went to prison for murder…or their file landed in her hands.

Those contracts she took with positive glee.

And one of her early contracts had named one of the worst scumbags that had ever skated out of being charged when she was a paralegal for the prosecuting attorney’s office, just after she’d graduated and gotten a job. She didn’t bother reading the paperwork for that one—she knew way more than was listed. And her reaction had had Jack concerned enough over her sanity to make sure she went through a thorough evaluation immediately after fulfilling the contract.

Thankfully, it hadn’t been her very first, before she’d figured out the best and easiest way to fill the contracts. That very first contract had…very nearly gone wrong.

She’d never told him she’d had prior contact or experience with any of her targets, much less that one. It simply wasn’t germane.

Molly sighed and settled in to doze for the rest of the two hour flight. The seat wasn’t particularly roomy, but it was soft, and she was comfortable, and her breakfast hadn’t been that long ago at the hotel they’d stayed at. And she’d made sure to eat more than enough, so that she’d sleep for the flight, and might be able to skate out of eating on her own dime for at least one more day. She glanced over at Jack without turning her head—she didn’t want to draw his attention because she didn’t really want to talk about it anymore—but Jack had his laptop out working, and ignoring her. She closed her eyes, and drifted off.

She woke as the plane started its descent. Maybe she’d be able to get a night job for a few weeks at the Stop-n-Rob down the street from her shoebox to cover food. Might even be able to negotiate being paid under the table. Since the shitbox was a government shitbox, they got first dibs on her account, even before the student loans that took the rest.

The seatbelt light blinked off, and Molly stretched, standing and pulling her bag down from where it’d been loaded for her while she was working. Jack looked up at her. “I have your student loan issue resolved. You’re done paying on it. If they send you a bill next month, bring it to me.”

“They haven’t been sending me a bill,” she bit off. “They’ve been taking it out of my bank account. Which I am locked out of, because it’s garnished on everything above the increased rent.” She blew out a frustrated breath.  “And the increased rent would have seen the fines and fees on the loan jack up again, making it take longer to pay off.”

Jack scowled. “I’ll deal with that. I’m shifting your account from the bank you were working with to the one I use. You’ll get your new card in the mail in two days. In the meantime, I want you to settle up with your building’s manager, and pack your shit. I’ll pick you up tomorrow, and you’ll sleep either on the hide-a-bed in the living room or on the twin in my guest room until everything is dealt with.”

Molly shrugged. “Rent’s paid through tonight—tomorrow’s the start of the next cycle. All I’d have to do would be clear out, and leave my keys. I don’t have much left, and it won’t take more than ten minutes to get everything together.”

“You don’t…have much left,” he said softly. “Did you sell everything else?”

She nodded. “I had to eat,” she pointed out.

Jack closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with a heavy sigh. “You were supposed to have a subsistence budget, not…what happened.”

“I don’t even fully understand what happened,” she snapped.

“The student loan repayment department of the government assumed you were shorting them because of how your payment plan was structured versus what your income was,” he explained.

“But…I explained what was going on, and where the rest of everything was going,” Molly said, confused.

“That never got entered into your records,” he said, shrugging. “No telling why. I’ll be investigating, though. It’s fixed, now, and all penalties have been retroactively rescinded, and the money applied toward the principle. Your student loans are gone, and you’ve got your original income back. I’ll give you half of this contract’s salary on a prepaid visa, and create your new bank account with the rest.”

Molly nodded, feeling whiplashed and numb. “Thank you, Uncle Jack.”

He smiled, briefly, but warmer than usual. “It’s no problem, Molly. Next time, bring things like this to me. I am responsible for more than just your paperwork, you know.”

“Sure,” she said.

She didn’t mean it.