literature

Just One More

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Dalton & Cross
Part One
"Just One More"
     

     There had been no killing for years, nine years to be exact. She had remained dormant; many believed her to be dead. But the few who knew her well knew otherwise. In truth Reba lived above the shop of a tiny old Japanese woman in the very heart of the city. The building was a drab sparrow of a place, perfect for concealing the brilliant bird of prey that lived within it. Reba herself was like the building; like the three books on her crowded shelf that had been written about her: monotonous and unassuming, the ragged coverings belying the luminous and haunting secrets within. But for nine years the door had been firmly shut and the books remained closed upon the shelf to gather dust. However, this was a precarious arrangement, and all it took for the sedate balance to be upended was a single phone call.

     Reba was sprawled in an overstuffed armchair and absorbed in the large book that was spread open on her lap. Outside rain was lashing against the grimy window of her loft and seeping in along the bottom of the frame. Then the phone rang. It was an unwelcome sound, splitting through the near silent solitude of peace like the ripping of a poorly woven piece of cloth. Stormy violet eyes never leaving the page Reba reached behind her and clutched the hand set of the cordless phone.
“Hello?” Her voice was firm, holding more than a lilt of agitation at the interruption.
“Ms. Dalton, I’m calling on behalf of…”
Great, just what she needed, a telemarketer. “I’m not interested,” was her automatic reply and she had already begun to move the phone away from her ear when two words stopped her.
“…Dimitri Cross,” the thick voice on the other end of the line finished.
There was a pause as Reba considered her options. On one hand she would very much like to scream obscenities and threats into the innocent ear of who was no doubt Dimitri’s chosen lackey for the month. On the other she was eager to know why, after nine long years, Dimitri had chosen to contact her…even if it was through another. She abruptly shut the book and cradled the phone against her ear once more.
“I’m listening.”
“Ms. Dalton, Mr. Cross has a proposition that it will behoove your greatly to accept, if I may be so bold as to say so.”
Reba smirked into the receiver and stood from her chair, bare feet pacing over the cold hardwood floor, muscles acting without the permission of their owner. “You may not. Get on with what you have to say, I’m quite busy.”
She could hear the lackey swallow noisily on the other end. “Mr. Cross would like you to come out of retirement for a single night. Only one. And he promises the endeavor will be worth your while.”
Reba’s eyes narrowed dangerously as she replied, “He would? I bet that arrogant, pompous, low-life…” Her venomous biting words were cut off suddenly by that all too familiar syrupy sweet drawl.
“Same as always, aren’t you precious? All spit and vinegar in a tightly coiled viper,” Dimitri purred before letting out a violent laugh. The sound made the back of Reba’s neck prickle, each peal setting off minute sparks of shattering ice under her skin.
“Do your own dirty work. I got out of that business.”
“Why is that darlin’?” the smooth voice goaded.
“You know why. The whole cursed country knows why. It got too messy is all,” Reba hissed. After a moment she cooled and drew a hand down through the silk of her red hair. “Now what do you want? Mr. Lackey-Of-The-Month didn’t say…only that you wanted me out of retirement. Why? If this is a setup Cross, by god you’ll get hurt before I will.”
That sickening laughter again. “No, no, of course not. This guy’s in my way. Really in my way. I thought you might be getting bored…making sushi isn’t exactly your cup of tea. And I know for a fact that you could use the money.”
Reba had opened her mouth to unleash something that would tear a hole in Dimitri’s smooth exterior, but instead she found herself stopping for a moment to think. Would one night really be so bad? Just one more couldn’t hurt. Could it? “How much?”
When Dimitri answered her Reba stopped her mindless pacing and nearly dropped the phone. Seconds ticked by painfully. Time was measured by the steady drip-drip from the cracked ceiling in the corner. Slowly a smile began to creep over the soft cupid’s bow of her lips. “You’ve got your wish Dimitri. Send me the details.”

The next night found Reba emerging from the front door of that shabby restaurant and into the thick ink of another humid city night. Behind her the old Japanese woman stood in the doorway, bestowing blessings on the unworthy woman with the air of a protective mother sending her child off to school. Reba did indeed feel unworthy; though this emotion was quickly shaken off because there was work to do. After tonight she would no longer have to live in that drafty loft. After tonight there would be no more meals leftover from the kitchens downstairs. After tonight there would be more books to place on her already crowded shelf.
In her hand she clutched a good quality Polaroid, showing the smiling face of a man barely out of his teens. How could this man, this boy, be keeping Dimitri from getting where he wanted to be? But it wasn’t Reba’s place to ask. Her place was to shoot first and ask questions later, as the old saying went. She studied the photograph for another long moment, then glanced at the dark black scribbles on the white portion below the insta-picture. His name had been written here, formed in perfect block letters to assure anonymity, but she had scratched it out before even looking at it. Names made one get attached to their victim, this she had learned the hard way when she had first began her string of murders. Now she was a seasoned expert and knew better than to make those types of petty mistakes.
Once that face was etched forever onto her retinas and sculpted in everlasting marble in her mind, she casually tossed the picture of the young man into a burning barrel that she passed. The street bums gave her more than a passing glance: Reba took the term dressing for success and applied to her every endeavor. That meant long and elegant evening gowns for her more established victims, and short vibrant cocktail dresses for the everyday run-of-the-mill Joe. Tonight it was the latter.
She was well into the slums of the city now, passing alleyways with graffiti-scarred walls and refuse carpeting the steaming asphalt. There it was: the address where inside waited her unsuspecting target. Reba knew the place well. In this unassuming brick faced building cards and chips flew round the tables all night and sometimes well past dawn. She might be looking at quite a wait.
Reba leaned against the ragged stone of the alley wall, heedless of the delicate fabric she was clad in. Her determined chin tilted up to the starlight smeared sky and she sighed inaudibly. It was odd that now was the time she chose to remember the old fairy tale her mother had told to her on all of those near sleepless nights in her early childhood. It had been a story of how the stars had been created. Reba recalled that her mother loved stories of creation, twisting even the stories of Genesis to mesh with her own ideas. According to her mother, the stars were made when the world was still new. The very first flock of white doves, ambitiously wanting to test the limits of their new wings, had flown as high as the world would allow and had somehow gotten themselves lodged fast in the blue-black stickiness of the night sky. Odd that Reba’s mother had always likened her to a dove, apparently failing to make a connection in her daughter and the fabled birds of long ago.

Reba smiled ruefully and reached down, unsnapping the small holster that was clipped to the top of one knee high leather boot. Dawn was fast approaching and the sounds from inside the brick structure were gradually fading as the gamblers tired and prepared to leave. She moved to a spot nearer the door and watched as they all began to exit one by one or in pairs. Her head was kept down and her face may have been made of stone if it were not for the requisite twitch of facial muscles that mimicked a fresh smile as each patron stumbled past. And then, all of a sudden, there he was: the man who was allegedly the cause of so much trouble for Dimitri. Casually Reba peeled herself away from the brick and fell into step with him.
“Who’re you?” he slurred as his liquor-blurred eyes tried to focus on the woman.
Reba smiled tightly, running a finger over the impossibly smooth silver-and-ivory weapon she concealed at her side. She flicked off the safety.
“No one of consequence,” she replied simply as she stepped gracefully in front of him.
It took half a second to aim for the most cliché internal organ, the heart, and even less than that for Reba to apply the needed amount of pressure to the awaiting trigger. That lone peal of thunder that had not been heralded by a lightning strike rolled down the steadily brightening alley way and emerged as an explosion of deadly sound on the main street. The tattle-tale scream of a siren and the fearful wailing of a suddenly awakened child lifted to blend seamlessly with the reverberation and promptly took over where it ended. But by then Reba was nowhere to be seen; she had melted away as she had always done into the scenery of the slums, making her way back to the little Japanese restaurant undetected.

          The sun had freshly broken over the skyline, flinging the metropolis into another bustling day. Reba was hunched over the free standing sink in the small bathroom in her loft, scrubbing fiercely at her hands. Why? Why did this always happen? She hadn’t even seen the body of the young man fall, let alone touched it, and yet here was his painfully hot blood slick and dark on her pale hands. She thrust her hands under the forceful stream of cold water, trying to remove the stains that refused to leave her skin. In the moment that she pulled them out from under the flow they were clean again. Then the blood would seep back into the lines of her palms, etching the dizzying patterns of her fingertips in startling clarity before it began to drip once more. It seemed to Reba as if her very pores were weeping for the terrible crime she had committed.
          The phone rang, its hard metallic trill making Reba start. She turned the water off, leaving behind no bloody handprints on the faucet’s knob even though her hands continued to bleed. Her mind’s eye saw the dark droplets fall and splash onto the cool sky blue tile of the bathroom floor, dripping out a trail as she headed for the phone, but when the old Japanese woman came to bring her fresh towels there would be no blemish there.
          “Hello?” Reba asked the silent receiver.
          “Ms. Dalton, Mr. Cross was quite pleased with your efforts last night and would like to congratulate you himself. Let me connect you,” the familiar voice answered. Dimitri’s lackey of the month.
          There was a click and that sickeningly sweet drawl took over. Reba smiled in spite of herself as she listened. “Good show dearest. Now listen to this…”
          And against her better judgment, Reba did indeed take note as Dimitri spoke. There was a lengthy pause when he had finished his spiel and then, ever so slowly, her lips once again tipped up into that devious smile. Reba looked to her free hand and stared for a moment at the tiny rivulets of crimson that flowed to the hardwood floor and pooled silently there. She clenched her fist.
          “Just one more…”
The first part in the Dalton & Cross Trilogy. Part two is "Back in Business" and part three is "The Desert". Be sure to read them as well. <3


All characters, settings, and actions are fictional and not based on any actual person, place, or event. Any similarities are coincidental and unintended…so on and so forth, you know the rest. I would like to note, however, that a certain character’s actions were inspired and influenced by the “Out damn spot!” scene performed by the character Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Furthermore, the main character’s name is not a play off of my own; she was named for Reba McEntire. One last quick note: I want to thank Stephanie Hamilton for helping me as I developed these characters, and also give her a big thank you for all the writing practice!
© 2007 - 2024 RebeccaStapp
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