Shadow Woman A Novel Page 0,93

came with an eventual blessed downslope, but really, how could Virginia be mostly uphill? Why didn’t the down portions ever seem as long as the up portions? That was just wrong. She treasured the moments when she could sit up and catch her breath, let the wind rush into her face, let her aching muscles relax. Traffic was light on the two-lane road, but on occasion she’d be forced to move to the far right edge, coasting along as a car sped past. Usually those cars would shift over and give her some breathing room, but now and then they didn’t, blasting by so close that the force of the air would make her wobble. Some people were jerks.

She wasn’t oblivious to the possibility that X might be driving one of those cars. All he’d have to do was run her down, plow his car into her and then drive off, leaving her as nothing more than a wet spot on a back-country road.

Her instincts had tried to tell her about him, there in Walgreens when she’d panicked and run. Then her hormones had played a nasty trick on her with those sex dreams, and she’d let that tangle up her thinking. It really pissed her off now, that she’d wasted perfectly good dreams on the asshole who was trying to kill her.

Thinking about X distracted her for a while, but not long enough. Soon her aching legs had retaken priority in her thoughts, damn it.

When she rounded a gentle corner in the road and saw the gas station straight ahead, she could have cried, she was so happy. Bathroom, more water, something to eat, a few minutes of rest, however brief. She had to keep moving, and she was already so sore that she knew if she stopped for too long she’d never get started again.

Two meetings with Felice in the tank in less than a week was noteworthy. Al hoped that no one in the building was actually making note. He was surprised that she came as quickly as she did when he contacted her, but considering what she’d done…

This time he was waiting for her, standing with his arms crossed. As soon as the door closed behind her, he spoke.

“You stupid bitch.”

She stopped in her tracks; her shoulders went back and her face tightened. He had her on the defensive.

“I did what needed to be done,” she responded. “I did what you wouldn’t do.”

“No, you’ve royally fucked things up. It’s bad enough that you made this decision on your own and then went outside, but to go to an outside team of incompetents calls into question your competence. It was a stupid move.”

It wasn’t smart to call Felice stupid twice in a couple of minutes, but at this point he didn’t care if he pissed her off. If she was going to send a team after him, she’d already done it. Even worse, if Xavier thought for a minute that Al had been in on the plan, he was coming, too. Al had always known what they’d done might come back to bite him in the ass, and here he was, waiting for a bullet or worse. Xavier was the “worse.”

Felice recovered her composure and walked toward the coffee machine. “I have people on it.”

“Your people,” he said, “not mine.” She continued to methodically make herself a cup of coffee. Al hadn’t heard from Xavier since the failed hit on Lizzy, not a word. And that meant Felice hadn’t just gone after Lizzy, she’d also made an attempt on Xavier. She’d obviously failed, or she already would have bragged about her success in taking out the infamous Xavier.

“I understand that this isn’t what you wanted, but now that it’s under way, you have to agree that we can’t call it off. The ball is in play. We have to see it through.”

“Agreed,” Al said curtly.

Felice sipped her coffee, fighting to keep her gratification at his acquiescence from showing on her face; that would be too much like gloating. “I ordered the elimination of both Subject C and Xavier. Given his interest in her, I saw no other choice.”

“You should have come to me.”

Her look was withering. “You never would’ve agreed. You’d have tried to talk me out of it, at the very least. I saw what needed to be done, and I took care of it.”

“No, you tried to take care of it and you failed.”

Again, that withering look. Felice didn’t like to fail, and even more