Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,102

She listened to them play while she typed, until a noise behind her made her turn and that simple movement drew perspiration down her body, sticking the paper-thin sundress to her skin.

Logan walked out of the stucco building’s shaded terrace. She dangled a tablet from her fingers, like a frisbee she was getting ready to launch over the waves, and jogged the few steps down to the chairs Nora had set up under the palapa. Dropping the tablet on a vacant chair, she leaned over and closed Nora’s laptop with a decisive click. The whine of the computer’s fan shuddered off.

“I was working.”

“We’re taking a break.” Logan flashed a grin and pulled two beers out of a cooler. She cracked one and took a long pull before considering Nora, who sat bolt upright at the end of her lounge chair, drumming the fingers of her good hand on the top of the computer. Setting her beer down, Logan stepped closer and tipped her chin up with a finger. She rested the other, unopened can against the side of Nora’s nose. When Nora had checked it in the bathroom mirror this morning, the gash had been crusted black. Healing.

“The swelling’s already gone,” Nora objected, even as her eyes drifted closed.

“The cold still helps. It’s too fucking hot here.”

The trip had been Logan’s idea. She didn’t trust intermediaries, she said, so that morning she and Nora had walked into the Nevis bank, proven Logan’s identity to access nineteen million dollars, and sent wire transfers to every winner of Strike Down. Then they closed the account, ending the chase and concluding Nora’s investigation, before walking back to the hotel together.

“It’s eighty degrees and sunny with a light breeze. Most people would say that’s perfect.”

“I’ll take a blizzard any day. You know you’re alive when your face is freezing off.”

“Speaking of,” Nora murmured, and Logan moved the can gently from one side of her nose to the other, aligning aluminum to bone.

“It’s going to be a little crooked from now on.”

“The nose or my business?”

Logan snorted. Eyes still shut, Nora covered Logan’s hand with her own and held it for a moment, absorbing cold and heat together, before moving the can away.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do now. My career has been built on independence, on neutrality.”

“But you’re a partner.” Logan picked up her open beer and took another drink. “What are they going to do, frame you for embezzlement?”

Nora smiled. “Nothing so creative. Accountants prefer meetings, and voting, to force out the people who risk the company’s reputation.”

She’d stopped by the hospital before leaving town. Corbett’s condition had stabilized enough for him to be moved out of the ICU, and the doctors were optimistic. Physically, he might recover. Professionally, they were both finished. Neither Jim nor Rajesh had contacted her since she’d briefed them on the full details of the case, holding nothing back, and she knew they must be reeling. One of their partners had organized an illegal and unethical laundering of funds. The other partner had convinced a client to fake her own disappearance, and murdered another client by stabbing him in the jugular. The only real question was how long the paperwork would take to revoke her CPA.

“Some risks are worth it.” Logan’s smile melted from her mouth into her eyes, which seemed to glow as she studied Nora. She offered her beer and Nora drank.

A laugh from the beach drew both of their attention.

Mike had wiped out and was flopping theatrically at the water’s edge as Henry gleefully paddled over to him on his boogie board. It wasn’t immediately obvious, at first glance, who was the adult and who was the child. When Henry reached his father, he dove on top of him and the two began wrestling in the waves. Henry eventually won, pinning Mike and sitting up, shouting, his rail-thin arms thrown wide in victory.

“Detective Li called.” Logan picked up her beer again, watching the man and child splash back into the water.

Detective Li had been the first officer on scene after Gregg’s death. He’d taken one look at the body and the two women sitting next to each other at the edge of the ring, Logan stone-faced and Nora holding a fresh ice pack to her arm with blood trailing from her temple, nose, and mouth, and asked what the hell had happened. Nora gave the same account she would provide to the partners the following day, with all the composure of an expert witness—how Gregg had framed Logan and Aaden for embezzlement, killed Aaden when he discovered it, and tried to kill Logan for the same reason. For his company.

“So you killed him first.” Detective Li glanced at the blood splatter in the ring and then back to Nora, clearly skeptical. She wondered if she should cry, or exhibit more emotion in order to convince him, but all she felt was a searing numbness. In the end, they didn’t need oral testimony. After getting Nora’s text, Logan had left Bilan’s place in Little Mogadishu and arrived at Strike halfway through Gregg’s confession. Reactivating the security sensors, she’d crept into the gym and started recording. It was low-quality, barely audible, but the words were distinguishable enough to be damning. Logan had texted Detective Li as soon as she’d realized Gregg had a gun.

“I told you to stand back and wait for us to arrive on scene.”

“He was pointing the gun at Nora,” Logan said as they listened to the end of the recording. The series of garbled noises seemed meaningless, but Nora could see his eyes bulging, hear the body falling. She thought of how Aaden’s badge had haunted Gregg, and wondered if this would be her picture, if his dying face would be the one she carried into her dreams every night, but then Logan’s hand found hers.

“I’m taking this woman to a fucking hospital. You can find us there later, or talk to my lawyers.”

Nora’s nose and arm were fractured. She had eight stitches in her temple where Gregg knocked her out with the butt of the gun. Her right incisor was missing and she was treated for a mild concussion. The forensic team found no hair or skin under her fingernails, but the knuckles on her good hand were bruised. For a Strike fighter, those were defensive wounds.

Aaden’s case had been reopened and the police were going through the evidence in light of the recording and Nora and Logan’s statements. Detective Li had called with an update.

“Gregg’s prints were found on the bank information in Aaden’s wallet. And the closed-circuit downtown cameras spotted him walking toward the building about a half hour prior to the estimated time of death.”

“Is it enough?”

“It’ll never be enough.” Logan’s jaw, in sharp profile against the white sand, tightened. “If Gregg could die a hundred deaths, it still wouldn’t be enough. I’ll see him in every bag I hit for the rest of my life.”

Nora drew a breath. “I meant, is it enough evidence?”

One short nod. “They’re ruling it a homicide.”

They fell silent, passing the beer back and forth. Logan’s streaked face caught the reflected light of the sun off the water. Echoes within echoes. Waves from waves. Henry and Mike continued to surf, oblivious to the women under the palapa, one sitting straight-backed at the foot of the chair, the other standing with legs braced wide.

Logan drained the can and set it aside. She turned and Nora sensed her eyes running over the sickly green skin above her cheeks, the stitches and crusted, soon-to-be scars. She’d never been beautiful, but she hadn’t been prepared for the looks on the plane and from the islanders, some side-eyed, others openly staring. Her face had been a magnet in the bank this morning, drawing stark and uncomfortable attention.

“Come on.” Logan tugged her elbow.

Nora smoothed her good hand over the laptop. “I have a lot of work to do before they fire me. I need to hand off clients and finish the Strike report. Your management team deserves a full presentation of what happened, along with recommendations for implementing adequate controls.”

“I’ll need some recommendations on whose asses to can, too.”

Nora smiled. “Noted. But after that, I’ve got to get my résumé in order. Figure out what I’m going to do once I’m not an accountant anymore.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” Logan tossed the laptop aside and pulled Nora to her feet, leading her over the sand and toward her family playing in the sea. They looked so happy to see her coming.

“Why not?”

Logan squeezed her hand and looked at Nora as no one in her life had done, as though she was cut from something precious and rare. Despite the bruises, despite the broken bones, cuts, and fractures, she felt suddenly and achingly whole.

Beaming, Logan brushed a strand of Nora’s hair aside. “Because you’re the next face of Strike.”