Kelley Armstrong - Made to Be Broken

"You bitch! You fucking bitch!"

The brief sound of a struggle, MacIver holding Leslie back, trying to reason with her. I pushed to my feet, gun still on that spot, ears telling me they were both a few feet away.

Ken moaned. The shot, if I'd aimed right, had gone through his left lung, dangerously close to his heart, but not fatal. Not yet. Better to keep him alive and in mortal danger, dividing their attention.

"I'm going for help," MacIver said.

I sidestepped to the tire wall and backed up past a gap between stacks. Through it, I could see across the entrance and aim a gun, but Leslie had stopped MacIver and they were arguing.

I pressed my hands against one tire stack, testing it, but it would take all my weight to knock it over and I couldn't predict where it would land.

"We have to reason with her," MacIver was saying. "Come to an agreement."

"Reason with her? She shot Ken!"

"We – we'll pay her. Insurance. We factored this into the forecast, and we have enough – "

"To pay blackmail money to a killer? Start and you'll never stop."

They continued talking about me as if this tire wall was soundproof. I staked out the area, creeping about as my eyes continued to adjust.

"For God's sake, Leslie! Ken's dying. Who cares about blackmail? We'll just pay her to let us out of here."

Leslie's harsh laugh echoed through the warehouse. "Let us out? Palmer, look around. We're ten feet from the door. She's the one trapped. Now, here's the plan."

Her voice lowered as she whispered instructions. I crept forward, straining to hear, but Ken's labored breathing drowned it out.

"No," MacIver said finally. "I mean it, Leslie. I've had enough of this, and I won't let Ken die."

His loafers slapped the concrete as he strode to the edge of the tire wall. Leslie called for him to stop, but his figure rounded the corner, stepping from the blackness into the gray gloom.

"I want to negotiate," he said.

I shot him in the forehead.

"You bitch!" Leslie shrieked as MacIver crumpled to the floor.

"Did I mention the part about people dying?"

I flicked on my penlight, the weak beam illuminating MacIver's outstretched hand, still holding Ken's gun. Leslie stopped cursing.

"Yes, I knew he was coming around that corner to shoot, not negotiate," I said. "Did you really think I'd fall for it? Or just good enough odds… so long as someone else was taking the risk? That's how you operate. Get the guys to do the dangerous parts. It's easy, isn't it? We can slide into damsel-in-distress mode without even realizing it."

The barrel of Leslie's gun slid around the corner. I fired. She yelped and stumbled back, shoes scratching against the pavement as she recovered.

"The difference between you and me?" I went on, un-fazed. "You do it intentionally. You tell them what you need, the ugly job that has to be done, say you're too scared to do yourself, and they jump right in to help."

"Would you shut up?" she said between gritted teeth.

"Why? Am I distracting you? I could talk all night, but Ken doesn't have that long." I paused. "Are you even thinking about Ken? What's little Miranda going to do without her daddy?"

"She's got me."

"Ouch, and you call me cold. He can still hear you, you know, lying on that cold floor, dying. Think of all he's done for you. And this is how you repay him."

"Because he helped me get a baby? He sure as hell better. He robbed me of my own. Do you know what he did?"

"No idea, Leslie."

I mentally added "but, please, tell me" as I snuck along the wall of tires, trying to find a gap on the right angle to aim through.

"He knew I wanted kids, so when we were dating he said, 'Sure, we'll have three, four if you like.' Then on the honeymoon – the fucking honeymoon – he tells me he had a vasectomy after his second kid. But no problem. He'll get it reversed, just for me. Only it didn't work."

"Huh."

Through a gap I could see her elbow, but there was no way to fire a lethal shot without sticking my gun barrel through. I stepped back, staying in line with the gap, in case she moved this way.

"So I say, 'How about a sperm donor?' But no way, no goddamned way, is he having his wife pregnant with another man's baby. Adoption then. Fine, but it has to be a white baby, so his parents don't flip out."

Leslie finally moved… the other way. From the sound of her voice, she'd begun pacing as she worked herself into a righteous fury.

"And finding an agency that suits his needs? Well, that's my job. Even though I made more money, worked longer hours…" Her voice trailed off.

A blur of motion. Leslie's gun flew into the gap, firing. I'd swung to the side at the first sign of movement, my back slamming against the tire stack.

"You've got a real sob story there, Leslie. Poor little rich girl. Hubby's shooting blanks so she has to buy herself a baby. I'm crying for you. Really I am."

A sharp intake of breath. I kept my back against the tires, gun fixed on the end of the wall.

"Is Destiny worth it?" I asked when she didn't respond.

"What destiny? If you start some New Age bullshit – "

"That's her name, Leslie. The baby you bought. Destiny. Her mother's name was Sammi. Not that you bothered to find out."

A sharp bark of a laugh. "Oh, my God. Is that what this is about? Let me guess. You're her sister. Or aunt. No, Sunday school teacher, right?" The laugh took on a manic edge. "So my daughter has a hitwoman in her family tree."

"Are you worried about that? What's bred in the bone…"

I tried to read the play of light over the gap, telling me whether she was still there. Wheel, shoot fast… No, I couldn't take the chance.

"It's a good thing I believe in nurture over nature," Leslie said. "Otherwise do you think I'd go through all this trouble to get the daughter of a white trash whore?"

My finger clamped around the gun. "Sammi wasn't – "

"Oh, you know what she was, even if she was your sister or whatever. We went to school with girls like her. We'd see them every day. Empty-headed sluts who think of nothing but boys and partying. Too stupid to even take birth control. They get knocked up, go on welfare, and start pumping out babies like kittens, with no idea how to care for them, no interest in caring for them, because they have no interest in anyone but themselves."

"Did Destiny look neglected to you? Mistreated? Mal treated?"

She snorted. "Even a cat looks after its babies for a little while. Miranda was a novelty to her. Like a doll. That's what babies are to these girls. You've seen them, in the malls and the parks, running in packs, not a one of them over eighteen. Pushing their strollers like little girls with dolls. That's what gave me the idea. I was having coffee with a few other women – a support group we'd formed. There, at the next table, were three teenage girls, bitching about their babies, about how much trouble they were, about how they'd only had them because all their friends had one, like it was a goddamned fashion trend. The babies are right there, dressed wrong, fussing because they're ignored and uncomfortable, and here we were, four women who'd give anything to have those babies."

"Tragic." I'd taken a few steps as she spoke, but had reached an opening. I hovered on the far side of it. "So it's not fair. And that entitled you to find girls, kill them, and take their babies?"

"Are you telling me those babies would be better off with those mothers?"

By her voice, I knew she was far enough away. I sidestepped past the gap.

"We can give those babies everything," she continued. "The best care. The best schools. Stable, two-parent families."