Kelley Armstrong - Made to Be Broken

We were finishing breakfast when Quinn phoned to say he was on his way. We'd meet him in Detroit at four and launch the third wave of attack. Three ideas, three paths, one of which we hoped would lead to the information we needed. It was more complicated than I liked, but all of us were under time constraints and couldn't afford to follow one avenue to a dead end before starting the next.

We took our coffees and moved into the living room as I mentally prepared to deal with the reason I'd been summoned – Evelyn's offer.

Evelyn and I had started our courtship dance last fall. Actually, she'd taken the first step almost three years ago, sending Jack to check out this intriguing new possibility she'd heard about from her former employer and good friend, Frank Tomassini. The invitation was never delivered. Jack met me and decided I'd make a better project for him. So he'd returned to Evelyn, told her it didn't work out, and kept seeing me on the sly. Then, last fall, she'd met me, decided I hadn't been irredeemably spoiled by Jack's tutelage, and begun her campaign of seduction.

She'd started by impressing me with her knowledge and her vast network of contacts. Then she'd wooed me with offers of vigilante work, and promises of a long, storied, and moneyed career pursuing only the cases that would scratch my itch. I'd played coquette, listening to her offers, but wary of the price tag. Mentor and protégée was no marriage of equals for Evelyn. She'd demand unswerving loyalty – even servitude – and slowly encroach on my regular life until there was nothing left but the job.

I hadn't refused her outright. I knew she'd be useful, but feared I'd end up the one used. What she was offering was exactly what I wanted, and while I felt I had the maturity and stubbornness to keep my life intact while enjoying her jobs, I was still wary.

All the while, Jack had stood to the side, the third party in this proposal, supporting and advising me, while letting Evelyn know that even if I accepted her offer, he wasn't stepping aside.

And now, she was back with something new to tempt me.

"Have you ever heard of the Contrapasso Fellowship, Dee?"

"Ah, fuck."

She shot Jack a glare.

"Contra…?" I began.

"Contrapasso. It's from Dante's Inferno"'

"Right," I said. "The punishment fits the crime. The idea that whatever sins you committed will dictate your suffering for eternity. Fortune-tellers walking backward blind. Adulterers stuck together. Sometimes the punishment is ironic, sometimes not."

Evelyn tried to hide her surprise and, maybe, dismay that I wasn't rendered clueless by her literary reference. I'd been taking college courses for a few years, for a diversion, not a degree – at this rate, I'd be fifty before I got a degree. I'd read the Inferno last year, so it was still fresh in my memory. But if Evelyn wanted to think I spent my free time reading Dante, let her.

"Yes, that's it," she said. "Ultimate justice, you might say, which supposedly is the goal of the Contrapasso Fellowship."

"Goal?" Jack made a rude noise. "The goal is entertainment. It's a story. One of those…" His lips pursed as he searched for the word. "Urban legends."

Evelyn fixed him with a look. "And that means it can't be true?"

He met her gaze. "That'd be the definition of urban legend."

"And it's not true because…?"

"Because it's not. I've been on the street how long? Never run into this 'Fellowship.' Never met anyone who did. All friend of a friend shit."

"So, having never personally encountered proof, it must clearly not exist?" She turned to me. "Have you noticed this about Jack, Dee? He deals only in tangible fact. If he can't hear it, see it, or touch it, it isn't there. It doesn't matter if it's dead obvious to the rest of the universe. If he can't prove it, it doesn't exist."

I sipped my coffee and waited for her to get back on track.

She threw up her hands. "Why am I asking you? It's like asking the skunk if he's noticed those other black-and-white vermin smell funny."

"I have no idea what this Contrapasso Fellowship is or isn't, but Jack's right. I won't chase rumors. If it exists, great. I'd love to hear about it."

"If it didn't exist, why would I bring it to you?"

"One, to get me chasing a rumor that interests you. Two, it's like the old joke about the guy asking a woman if she'd go to bed with him for a million dollars. You want me to work for you. I say I'm not interested. You offer me something incredible, and I accept it, which proves that I will work for you. You just haven't found my price."

A low rumble from the other end of the love seat. I turned to see Jack laughing.

"Oh, you liked that, didn't you?" Evelyn snapped. "You poison her against me, then get a good chuckle out of it?"

He dismissed her with an eye roll. She scowled, but there was no more anger in it than a mother cuffing her son for being cheeky. Evelyn once called Jack her favorite protégé, and he'd countered by saying he was just the only one still talking to her. I think there was some truth in both. Jack was her best and most successful student. But he was also probably the only one who saw through her, and didn't judge what lay beneath. He said, "I won't feed your ego and I won't take your bullshit, but if you want me to keep coming around, I will." And that was more valuable to Evelyn than the loyalty of any bootlicking sycophant.

I turned to Jack. "What do you know about this Contrapasso Fellowship?"

"Him?" Evelyn squawked. "He doesn't even believe it exists. You're stacking the deck, Dee."

"I want to hear the legend first. Then you can tell me what parts of it you've heard are true. If Jack's willing…"

"Sure." He moved to the edge of his seat and took a muffin from the plate.

"Oh, God, this is going to take forever," Evelyn said. "Let me refill my coffee, and you can call me when he works up the energy to speak in full sentences."

She stood, glancing at Jack, as if still willing to hang around if he showed any signs of getting to the story soon. He took a bite of his muffin and chewed slowly. She stalked off into the kitchen.

Once she was gone, he put the muffin back on the table. "Contrapasso Fellowship? Revenge for hire. Kinda like what Quinn does. Only free."

I knew Quinn didn't always collect a paycheck, but didn't say so – to Jack this would be a mark of incompetence, not integrity. I could point out that Jack himself wasn't collecting a paycheck for this job we were doing, but he'd say it wasn't the same thing.

"Pro bono vigilantism?" I said.

"Anonymous, too. Send them a newspaper clipping? They investigate. Decide whether it deserves attention. Then they pick the punishment. Something fitting the crime."

"They administer their own brand of justice."

"Nah." He propped his injured foot onto Evelyn's glass and silver table. "Judge and jury? Yeah. Executioners? No. Get others to do that. They foot the bill."

"Vigilante philanthropists, then."

"Pretty much. Why? Everyone's got a theory. Rich folks who lost kids. Retired judges watched juries let too many assholes off. Even heard one about it being cops. Steal drug money to finance it."

"So it's bullshit, isn't it?"

"Seems to be." His lips parted again, then he rubbed his mouth.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You were going to say more. You've heard something, haven't you?"

"Nah. Just…" He paused, his gaze studying mine with that quiet intensity that said he was trying to get inside my head. "Hear Evelyn out. If there's anything to it? Check it out. I'll help."

"Well, I blew that," I said as I backed the car from the parking lot.