SS: TIE 022

The picture had been taken at a live-audience FUTA game. The pink and blue confetti is frozen in the air. Mary Jameson squeezes her daughters and beams. Kayla’s sister, Riley, holds a trophy while Kayla simply smiles for the camera. It’s a good picture. Kayla’s had it as her wallpaper for a long time. If she ever changes it, her mother will ask questions.

She stands in her tiny apartment, staring at the glowing screen in the dark.

Her TV is behind her, muted, but still playing the news. She can see it reflected in the mirror. Rey and three other women are all over it, as well as the numbers of dead, and words like ‘slaughter’. She’s already thrown up once, but a second time isn’t out of the question.

She puts the phone down and leans on the tiny desk by the window, squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her jaw.

SS: TIE

The chaos at the marina is a blessing. Adella Salazar has retained the bulk of the money, and the bloodbath has created an opportunity for her attorneys to take a whole new approach to her case. It’ll be expensive, but everything’s about to change. Rather than fleeing the United States, she will consolidate and strengthen her positions on the eastern seaboard. If her trial becomes a drag-out fight, that’ll let her identify everyone in the DEA that can possibly be a threat through discovery. Whoever she can’t buy, she’ll frighten. Whoever she can’t frighten, she’ll kill. Retiring to Belize with thirty million dollars would have been all right. Now, she sees an opportunity to earn ten times that much.

She quietly gets up without disturbing the three sleeping blondes in her bed. Pouring herself a drink, she reflects that it’s good to be back in her own home.

These women, of course, will still need to be dealt with. One of them is in custody; arranging an accident for her in pre-trial detention will be trivial. It’s the other three that will be trouble. Finding them will be more difficult than killing them; Adella has enough people in the police that she knows everything there is to know about these veterans. At least one of them has left behind a wife that Adella can use to flush her out, although the police are watching her. The other two may be trickier, but she will spare no expense.

But there’s a problem: all the dead men at the marina. Working for Adella Salazar is now known to be dangerous. Getting good help will be expensive, and it’s not as though there’s a rental agency for hired killers. Adella will have to spend money and make some phone calls. The news only talks about the policemen that were killed today, not the nine men working for Adella, who are not easily replaced.

Dozens of men work for Adella locally, but relatively few of them can be relied on with a gun. Hell, it’s all she can do to keep enough guards around the house tonight. She’ll need to call in favors and shore up her forces, then send people after these thieves.

She pulls on a robe and slips out of the bedroom. Doing all of this while also handling her court case will not be easy, but Adella hasn’t gotten to where she is because she’s afraid of hard work. She descends past glowing tanks containing a fortune in rare fish. She pays a man to care for them; will he show up to work after what happened today? She can’t trouble herself with worries like that. Instead, she should be thinking about how she’s going to convince her rivals to lend her manpower without looking weak. For that, she needs a drink.

Miami’s pretty at night, and the view is best appreciated with the lights off, but she doesn’t want to be bumping into things in front of bodyguards she hardly knows. She flicks the light on in the kitchen and nearly trips over the man lying on the floor.

She blinks at the man and the blood, then flinches at movement reflected in the brushed-steel refrigerator. Swallowing, she turns around to find a tall, serious-faced woman in her kitchen. She looks much rougher than she did on the yacht. It’s hard to make out much about the woman herself; Adella stares instead at the muzzle of the pistol in her hands.

Adella licks her lips. “You brought me champagne.”

“Should’ve tipped me,” Rey replies.

SS: TIE

Sally slaps the magazine into her pistol. This is her personal gun; her service weapon had to be surrendered after being involved in a shooting. She struggles with the paddle holster as she hurries into the garage.

“Where are you going at this hour?” Tracy demands as Sally jerks the car door open.

Sally hesitates, but only for a second. She doesn’t waste time looking at her watch; she just hurries back to her wife and kisses her.

“I love you,” she says, then pulls away and slides behind the wheel, hitting the button to open the garage door. She’s been waiting for her chance, and it’s here.

SS: TIE

Even under normal circumstances, coming to a place like this would be terrifying. Kayla clutches her backpack as she walks briskly along a concrete path in this park on the outskirts of Wynwood. The night is muggy, but she feels cold and stiff.

A footstep makes her jump.

“It’s just me,” Rey says, stepping into the light with a grimace.

Kayla hesitates, rigid from head to toe. She’s stunned. “I can’t believe you’re really here.” Rey doesn’t look good, but that’s understandable.

“I can’t believe you didn’t bring the cops,” she says.

“Yeah. Me too.” Nothing feels real to Kayla.

Rey comes closer but doesn’t touch her. “Why didn’t you?”

Kayla looks away and doesn’t answer for a long moment. “I guess that would’ve been the right thing to do. But you don’t do the right thing. Why do you do what you do?”

Something cracks, and Rey looks down at the hypodermic needle that she’s stepped on.

She snorts. “What’s the right thing, Kayla? Go to work every day so a handful of people can have everything while you can’t afford to see a doctor? There’s nothing right about that.”

“What about killing cops?”

“The same cops that would beat the shit out of that guy just for existing,” Rey says, glancing at a nearby bench.

Kayla blinks; she didn’t even notice the shape there. There’s a homeless guy sleeping only ten feet away.

Rey’s gaze is direct. “Why’d you come?”

“You know why. Don’t look at me like that.” Kayla blushes. “I dropped out of college. I’m the family fuckup. I’m dumb. I do dumb things.”

“I think everyone and everything has treated you like shit,” Rey says, touching Kayla’s nametag. She’s been so messed up that she forgot to take it off. Kayla hurriedly does so. “And you don’t think you have any value.”

“Not everyone,” Kayla says, embarrassed.

“I think you have value. Do you want to come with me?”

Kayla lets out a strange little laugh. “Yeah. I actually do.” Of course.” She hugs Rey, who winces and hisses. “Oh. Jesus. You’re hurt.”

“I’ll live,” Rey says, stepping back.

Kayla’s phone starts to buzz. She pulls it out and frowns. It’s an unknown number. She taps and raises it to her ear with a glance at Rey. “Yeah?” she says.

SS: TIE

“It’s for you,” Kayla says, holding out the phone and looking shaken.

Rey takes it. “It’s me.”

“Are you all right?” Lora asks.

Rey lets out a breath of relief. It’s not a surprise, or even offensive that Lora knows about Kayla. Rey snorts. “What’d you do? Scrape my old phone? Where did you go?”

“They came to my door, Rey. I took my go bag and didn’t look back because I’m not bloody thick. Doesn’t matter. They have Glynda. They don’t think they’ll catch you, so it’s all going on her.”

“Fuck. Can they hold her?”

“People have to go down for this, Rey. Evidence doesn’t matter. There’s nothing they won’t do to make sure everyone believes that they caught the right people quickly. They have Elsa, but she’s not enough. Glynda will be an accessory to every homicide, but she knows everyone and everything. Do you know how many people will want her dead when they find out she’s in custody?”

A lot, of course. “The cops have to know that.”

“They do. That’s why she’ll be in solitary until she dies of old age if she doesn’t get the **** penalty. She’ll never see daylight again. Miami’s taking her to federal holding tonight in Jackson. It will be a long while before they move her again.”

Rey understands what Lora is getting at. Glynda is going away forever. There is one window to help her: when she’s being moved. And that window is closing fast.

Rey realizes that she’s still holding Kayla’s hand. Kayla watches her expectantly.

Go now?

Or go after Glynda first?