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Kate woke from an afternoon nightmare. This time, Sal was beating her over the head with Marco’s gun, Sal’s gaping gunshot wound to the jaw spilling blood down onto her face. He pressed her back against the driver’s side window, a force she could not overcome.
Her own scream was what jarred her to her senses. She bolted upright, breathless. Her heart pounding. She sat there for a moment, gathering her wits before running to the window to peek out. This new constant sense that someone was watching her had intensified.
Seeing no one in the yard, she returned to bed and turned on the TV. She flipped through the local channels and stopped short at the newswoman speaking to the viewers. The words “Man Found Dead” hovered under her image. Raising the volume, Kate watched the news of Sal’s murder unfold before her as panic rose in her throat.
She jumped from the bed and began to pace in front of the TV. The news story mentioned an “unknown woman” who’d been at the bar with him Saturday night. Police were interested in speaking with her.
Oh God.
Her cell phone rang, startling her. She looked at the phone’s screen. Her mother. She let it go to voicemail, again, making a note to call her back. The last thing she needed was her parents coming over to see her in this state.
Kate continued pacing the entirety of the house, her nerves thinning, as she tried to remain calm, reminding herself that this had been the plan all along. Things were going as expected. Still, being the subject of a manhunt was not something she’d ever imagined.
Kate found herself sitting on the floor at the end of Renzo’s bed, his pillow in her arms, a framed picture of her, Renzo and Marco in her hand. She sat there for a while before climbing on top of his bed. She wrapped his blue and red basketball comforter around her, and curled into a ball as she stared at the photo. Tears flowed as a fire reignited in her belly.
After hours of grief surrounded by bouts of panic, Kate had regained some of her composure. Marco and Renzo returned to the forefront of her thoughts. They were her everything and, going forward, her primary motivation. She needed to stop caring about the outcome of her actions. An almost impossible thing to ask of herself, but she needed to numb her emotions in order to continue.
She called her mom, reassuring her enough to keep her parents at bay—at least for a while. She then called Detective Steber inquiring about any updates to Marco and Renzo’s case, hoping to keep her out of his realm of suspects for Sal’s murder. She thought her voice sounded rattled and nervous, but the detective hadn’t seemed to notice.
Her next thoughts were of Dario, Tau, and then, Eddie.
By evening, Kate’s resolve had returned—somewhat. She climbed back into her latest rental, a black Hyundai sedan, and resumed her surveillance at the parking lot across from Fortunato’s.
Her primary target: Dario. Over the next several days, she’d followed him all over the Payne Avenue area, quickly learning his hangouts and the timing of his routines. But he was with Tau a lot, which made it tough for her to plan anything. She could not handle both of them at once.
After a few frustrating days struggling to keep up with Dario, she decided to switch directions. She’d save him for later.
