These weren't cool and experienced criminal masterminds. They were suburbanites, panicked and ready to kill everyone involved to cover their tracks. That's why MacIver had told me this was a one-shot job. Spooked by Fenniger's disappearance and the "FBI" visit, they were shutting down all connections to their hitman – killing the guy who'd hired him, then the hitman who'd done the job.

Once the smoke cleared, they could get a new hitman elsewhere, which I was sure they'd do. It was a very profitable endeavor.

After coming up with the scheme to get babies for themselves, they'd recruited Payne to provide the documentation, and he'd convinced them they could sell babies to other desperate parents-to-be, who'd believe they were getting a child from a willing – and living – teen mother.

So they'd hired Fenniger to find girls and take pictures. If the child wasn't quite what they wanted themselves, he went to one of the paying parents. MacIver had taken Connor, the first baby. The second was sold to a pair of the "innocent" parents. Ken and Leslie held out for a girl: Destiny. There were two other couples in the scheme, still waiting for children; plus a half dozen more innocent prospective parents.

"Ted and Doug couldn't make it tonight, I take it?" I said. "Big poker game planned? Or since you guys have kids already, and the most to lose, they pawned off this nasty bit of business on you? Hardly fair."

"Shoot her," Ken mouthed.

"Payne isn't dead," I said quickly.

"What?" Leslie said.

"MacIver only asked for his ring. Do you think I needed to kill him to get it? He didn't even ask for proof that the files were destroyed."

MacIver's chin shot up, eyes bugging. "You didn't tell me to ask – "

"She's stalling," Ken said. Sweat trickled down his forehead. He couldn't tear his gaze from the gun pointed at his chest.

"Nervous, Ken?" I said. "You're praying Leslie shoots me before she finds out how badly you fucked up. I cut a deal with Payne. How else would I know your names? Your scheme? Know about that visit from the Feds?"

"Les, she's stalling." A note of pleading seeped into Ken's voice.

"You know what the problem is with hiring criminals? We aren't the most loyal employees. Right now, Payne is awaiting my call to say it went fine and his half of your hit money will be transferred tomorrow."

"His half?" MacIver sputtered. "Why would you pay him?"

"For the most valuable commodity of all: information. He gets his life and half your money, and I get all his files. He runs to Cancún. I blackmail you, and get an amazing rate of return on my investment. But, if he doesn't hear from me in an hour, he's going to run… with those files. One advantage to dealing with criminals though? If I double-cross you, I double-cross him, too. So how's this? I call Payne and tell him you paid me in cash, so we can make the transaction right now. He'll bring the files. I bring you…"

The pressure on my back eased as Leslie shifted.

"Les, don't listen to her," Ken said. "What's to say she won't just trick us again?"

"You'll be there to make sure I don't. Believe me, between money and my life, I'll take my life. I can always earn more – "

I fired. Ken gasped. I was already diving to the side. Leslie fired once, but the bullet went wild. I scrambled behind the wall of tires, skidded to the floor, then flipped around, on my back, gun raised, pointed at the edge of that tire wall.

"She shot him," MacIver breathed, the words coming in disjointed puffs.

"See?" I called, gun fixed on that tire wall edge, ready to fire at anything that came around it. "That's another problem with hiring professional killers. When things go wrong, people tend to die." I listened and caught the gurgling rasp of Ken's breathing. "Seems my aim was less than perfect, though. That gurgle you hear, Leslie? That's blood filling his lungs. I'd say he's got, maybe, fifteen minutes."

"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."