Vengeance (24 page)

I'd like to thank my agent, Carrie Pestritto, for taking a chance on a new author with a very weird idea. I'd also like to thank my excellent editor, Madeleine Colavita, for frustrating the hell out of me by pointing out areas where my manuscript needed work that I was sure were already perfect, then proving me wrong when the final product turned out to be a hundred times better than the original.

I'd like to give a shout-out to my writing group partners in Dayton Write Now who had to suffer through the crappy first drafts of my story: Karen Brandin, Amy Jomantas, and Daphne Burgard. Another big thanks goes to my other awesome writing group, Western Ohio Writers Association, including their fearless leader Gery Deer and his beautiful wife Barbara, and the three sexy amigos: Bill Bicknell, Michael Martin, and Philip A. Lee. Without their #RealTalk and much better grasp of the English language than me, I never would have made it as a serious author, or known the difference between a participle and a gerund (…I still don't, but they remind me!).

Thanks to the men and women of the US Armed Forces for giving me the opportunity to serve and protect my country, as well as a steady paycheck that allowed me to write for the love of it. Specific thanks to my military friends and coworkers who managed to stifle their shock and express support when I told them I wrote romance rather than military sci-fi.

Finally, I'd like to express my extreme gratitude to my family: my mom for encouraging me to follow my dreams; my sister for giving me her love and support; my pugs for being my writing buddies and arm rests; my daughters for tipping the scales of my lifelong memories from mostly bad to mostly good; and my husband for keeping the home fires burning and giving me his unwavering support when each day I went to work, then came home and sat in a corner and plinked away on my laptop.

Much like an Oscar speech, there are dozens of other people who contributed to my success and deserve to be recognized, but at this point I'm being figuratively played off the stage. So if you're one of those people, please accept my apologies, and my thanks!

Shana Figueroa is a published author who specializes in romance and humor, with occasional sojourns into horror, sci-fi, and literary fiction.

She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, two young daughters, and two old pugs. She enjoys reading, writing (obviously), martial arts, video games, and SCIENCE—it's poetry in motion! By day, she serves her country in the US Air Force as an aerospace engineer. By night, she hunkers down in a corner and cranks out the crazy stories lurking in her head.

She took Toni Morrison's advice and started writing the books she wanted to read. Hopefully you'll want to read them, too!

Learn more at:

ShanaFigueroa.com

Twitter @Shana_Figueroa

Facebook.com/Shana.Figueroa.9

V
alentine Shepherd ran so fast, she felt her heart might explode from the strain. She rounded a corner and sprinted down her Tacoma suburb street, quiet in the late morning when most people were at work. With the mid-July sun hard on her back, she crossed the invisible finish line in front of her house and slowed to a halt, put her hands on her knees, and threw up into the bright green grass. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and cast a glance around her neighborhood to ensure no one had seen. No workout felt good enough without a dollop of pain—sore knees, joint aches, pulled muscles, nausea. Going easy on herself meant letting weakness fester, giving her enemies the upper hand. She'd be damned if she let that happen again.

Val walked half a block away from her house to cool down, then turned and walked back. She stopped and stared at a car she didn't recognize, parked on the corner in front of a fire hydrant.

“BFG three thousand fifteen. BFG three thousand fifteen,” she said to herself, committing the car's license plate number to memory so she could track down who it belonged to, who Delilah Barrister had sent to watch her. Then again, why would she bother having someone stake out Val's house? She was a goddamn prophet—like Val, but better. More devious at least. Norman Barrister's widow probably knew what Val was doing every second of every day.

Val shook her head at the mystery car. “Shit,” she muttered, turning away from yet another shadow to obsess over.

She stalked back into her house, kicking aside one of Stacey's raincoats splayed on the floor next to the door. She'd need to have another talk with her friend about leaving crap lying around for clients to stumble upon. Very unprofessional for the recently popular Valentine Investigations. Business had been booming since she'd “solved” the mystery of who killed Seattle millionaire Lester Carressa and exonerated his only son and heir to his fortune, Maxwell Carressa, of the crime back in October. They'd even had to turn some clients away. She hated saying no; she was often their last resort for justice. But even with Stacey's help and her own ability to glimpse the future, she was only one person against a world where cruelty and injustice were the norm.

Val rubbed her sweaty face on a dishcloth and threw open her fridge, then shoved aside bundles of kale Stacey bought but would never eat and grabbed a beer from the back. She touched her hot cheek to the cold glass bottle, rubbed the condensation on her skin, and let it trickle down her neck. Then she twisted off the top and took a long drink. The immediate buzz was comforting. Dwelling on things she couldn't change would drive her mad. She should accept it and move on, like Max had done—

A lump grew in her throat.
Don't even start
, she chastised herself. She chugged the rest of her beer.
Don't think about him. He went on with his life. You can, too.
She looked at herself in the gold-burnished decorative mirror—the one she'd put up in the hallway across from the kitchen a million years ago, when she'd lived there happily with Robby and gave a shit about home furnishings. Her strawberry-colored hair hung in a high ponytail glistening with sweat, flushed face dominated by gray eyes the color of steel. She sneered at the woman behind the glass.

“How's being mayor?” she said to her reflection. “Working your way up to governor, still milking your dead husband's glorious legacy?” She stepped closer to the glass, imagining Delilah's premonition of this moment, the good laugh the mayor would have about it. “You know I'll kill you, right? I never thought I was capable of cold-blooded murder, but you've made me reconsider—”

“That's some crazy shit, Shepherd.”

Val jumped at the man's voice coming from the living room. She dropped her beer bottle and lunged back into the kitchen. Staying low to the ground behind the counter, she threw open the cabinet door underneath her sink and grabbed the gun she kept there—one of many she hid around the house in case of emergency. She braced her arms on the countertop, gun pointed at the voice. Her eyes narrowed when she recognized Sten Ander, corrupt Seattle PD Vice Squad detective and Delilah's henchman, where he lounged on her sofa with his legs crossed and fingers bridged behind his head.

“Come here to finally kill me?” Val said to Sten, the psychopath who'd tried to murder her and Max on three separate occasions. She hadn't seen Sten since he'd shot Max in the stomach at the Pacific Science Center. He'd shaved off his giant 1980s beat cop mustache; now he looked like a darker, crazier version of Jeremy Renner with a narrower nose and thicker eyebrows.

“Yes, I came to kill you,” he said as he bounced his foot in the air. “That's why I'm unarmed—to show off my head-exploding psychic powers.” He stared at her and scrunched his face in mock concentration, then relaxed and sighed. “Damn. I was sure that would work.”

Fucking Sten. She'd never met a person so full of shit, and she'd met a
lot
of shitbags in her line of work.

Val kept her gun trained on him. “What do you want, Sten?”

“I came to deliver a message.”

“So spit it out.”

“See, here's the thing. It's kind of complicated. I think—”

“Oh, for God's sake.” Val lowered her gun, turned away from him, and opened the fridge. She pulled out another beer. “If you're gonna start with the bullshitting, I'd rather you just kill me.” She popped off the cap and took a long swig.

“
I think
, before I give you the message, we should talk about your budding drinking problem. You'll never score another rich boyfriend as a paranoid drunk.”

Val slammed her bottle down on the countertop.
Fucking Sten
and his mind games. “You wanna talk?” She stomped around the partition and shoved her gun in Sten's face. “Let's talk.”

He looked down the barrel of her Glock and lifted an eyebrow, more surprised than scared.

“Tell me why you're working for Delilah.”

“‘Working' is a strong word. ‘Indentured' is more accurate.”

“Why?”

Sten sighed, and for half a second his laidback-asshole demeanor betrayed a hint of sadness. “Because I owe a debt I can never pay back.”

Val gritted her teeth. “What does that mean?” She grabbed the lapel of his cheap suit coat and yelled into his face, “
What the fuck does that mean?
Why does everyone have to talk in goddamn riddles?”

“That's the condensed version,” he said, “The full story would take all day, maybe all week…” Sten trailed off as his eyes drifted down to her wet cleavage, bulging out the top of her sports bra.

Of course he'd be thinking about sex as she assaulted him. Or maybe he just pretended. He'd throw up any distraction to avoid telling her the truth about whatever game he and his coconspirators played. She could play games, too.