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Alina glanced at her watch as she sat down. The mass was underway at last, with Father Angelo at the helm. He’d aged in eleven years, with silver gracing his temples, and new lines on his face, but his eyes were still every bit as warm and filled with wisdom as they had been the last time she saw him. Once he turned to face the congregation after the procession, his eye caught hers and he gave her an imperceptible nod. Alina was uncomfortable with the recognition. She’d been away for so long that it seemed unreal that people remembered her. She’d seen so much over the years, things that changed her down to her very foundation. Viper was an entirely different person from the heartbroken girl who went away eleven years ago. It felt as if no one should recognize her.
Her eyes shifted from the priest to the shiny black casket now closed before the altar. Inside was the very man she’d run from all those years ago, and now here she was saying goodbye. Alina resisted the urge to shake her head. There was no point in dwelling on it. The past was the past, and nothing could change the course that had led them here. John was killed by an assassin because of letters her brother wrote twelve years ago.
Everyone in the church believed John was killed by injuries sustained when his Firebird flipped and hit a tree during a night street race in the Pines. Only she knew the truth: that Kyle March had gone into John’s hospital room and injected potassium chloride into his IV, inducing the fatal heart attack that killed him. Viper listened to Father Angelo recite the opening prayers of the mass, her mind back in the wide corridor of the hospital. If she’d arrived just ten minutes sooner, John might still...she stopped the thought impatiently. No. Kyle would simply have found another way, and they still would have ended up right here.
It was John’s own fault, of course. If he’d just come to her with the letters, Viper could have taken on the investigation that got him killed, but he didn’t. She frowned. Why hadn’t he? Hawk thought it was suspicious, and it didn’t sit well with Alina either. She had no answers, though.
“Will you stop scowling?” Angela hissed.
Alina glanced at her in surprise.
“Would you like me sit here grinning like a loon instead?” she whispered back.
“No. Just look tragically calm!”
Alina blinked.
“Good Lord,” she muttered under her breath.
The congregation stood up as a hymn began playing and Alina stood with them.
“Who am I looking tragically calm for?” she asked Angela in a low voice.
“Everyone!” came the exasperated answer. “How many times do I have to tell you that everyone is watching you?”
“And how many times do I have to say that I don’t give a flying–”
“Ssshhh!!!” Stephanie hissed, stopping Alina mid-whisper. “For God’s sake, Father Angelo will hear you two!”
“Father Angelo can’t hear anything up there,” Angela retorted, falling silent nonetheless.
Alina felt her lips curving despite herself and repressed the smile firmly. As the hymn ended and they began to seat themselves again, Stephanie remained standing and moved past them out of the pew. Alina raised an eyebrow in question and Stephanie made a face.
“First reading,” she whispered in explanation, stepping past Alina and out of the pew.
Alina grimaced in sympathy, turning her attention to Father Angelo as he recited another opening prayer, his voice booming through the crowded church. A stray lock of hair escaped from the chignon at the back of her head, and Alina raised a hand to brush it behind her ear.
A chill streaked down her spine and the fine hair on the back of her neck prickled in warning. Her hand dropped and Viper turned her head, casting a sharp glance behind her over the sea of faces.
Michael caught the look and raised his eyebrows questioningly. She shook her head imperceptibly and turned her head back, her lips pressed together grimly.
Something was wrong.
Every fiber in her being was suddenly and inexplicably tense, humming in warning. Viper had learned over the years not to dismiss her sixth sense, and it was screaming now. She shifted on the wooden pew, conscious of the holster strapped around her upper thigh holding a modified Glock G43. Thanks to Angela’s wardrobe requirements, Viper’s SR45 had been out of the question. Now, her skin crawling with warning, Alina wished she had the more powerful weapon.
The opening prayer was winding down and Alina watched Stephanie move forward to the lectern directly in front of her. Alina slid her eyes to the left. Mary the Blessed Virgin gazed tranquilly over the congregation, but it was the double-door exit drawing Viper’s attention. With a quick glance, she gauged the distance to the exit, estimating the number of seconds it would take to clear it.
Stephanie mounted the shallow steps and moved behind the lectern as a hush fell over the church. Father Angelo fell silent and someone coughed in the back, the sound echoing through the sanctuary. All eyes turned to the left of the altar where Stephanie stood behind the tall, ornately carved podium elevated above the congregation.
Viper cast another glance around. Her heart was pounding now, thumping against her ribs almost painfully. She had to move! She was too exposed here in the front pew. There was nothing to protect her, nothing to shield her.
“A reading from the Book of Wisdom,” Stephanie said, her voice strong and clear in the microphone attached to the lectern.
Alina forced herself to focus on her friend’s face as she took a deep, calming breath. As soon as the reading was over and Stephanie returned to the pew, she would slip out of the exit doors and double back to the rear of the church. She would watch the rest of the mass there, where she could see everyone and no one was behind her.
“`The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them,’” Stephanie read, her eyes on the large book open before her. “`They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace.’”
A loud bang interrupted the reading as a kneeler slammed down, wood striking marble with sudden and irrepressible force. The sound cracked out like a shot, echoing through the church. Viper reacted on pure instinct, sliding off the pew and lowering her head toward the floor even as her brain registered the sound. It was just a kneeler, not a gunshot.
Then all hell broke loose.
Viper raised her head to see Angela staring, dumbfounded, straight ahead. She straightened up a bit and glanced over the waist-high wooden wall in front of her. Stephanie was nowhere to be seen, and the lectern had a hole the size of a golf ball halfway down the front. The gaping hole looked black against the cream paint and the wood surrounding it had splintered from a high impact force. Alina twisted her head around, her eyes going straight to the only possible point of origin for a shot at that angle.
Michael straightened up from where he and Blake had also hit the floor with the sound of the kneeler, their years at war showing its toll as it had with Viper. He saw the mangled lectern and turned his brown eyes to hers.
“Where?” he demanded, knowing her thought process was already a few seconds ahead of him.
“The organ loft!” Viper answered, reaching under her skirt to pull the small gun out of her thigh holster. “I’ll go out the door and cover the alley. You take the inside and flush him out.”
“You’re not going out there alone,” Michael objected. “Blake can handle inside. I’m coming with you.”
“It’ll take both of you to keep track of him in this crowd.” Viper stood up, her eyes icy. “I’ll be fine.”
“What? Wait! What are you doing?!” Angela cried, snapping out of her stupor. “Was that a gunshot?!”
“Yes.” Viper grabbed her wrist and pulled her up. “Come with me!”
She turned and pulled Angela behind her as she stepped out of the pew. Panic was sweeping through the church as the words ‘gun’ and ‘shot’ echoed down the aisles. Michael and Blake raced up the side toward the organ loft in the middle of the church, their guns drawn. Viper glanced over her shoulder to see them go, then turned back toward the exit. Releasing Angela’s wrist, she sprinted toward the doors.
Someone screamed and Viper registered a muffled ‘pop’ as the Virgin Mary’s tranquil profile shattered. Angela shrieked behind her as the upper half of the statue blew into pieces, heavy cast ceramic flying in every direction. Glancing back, Alina registered the look of horror on Angie’s face and she reached out to grab her wrist again, dragging her relentlessly toward the double doors. A second later, she hit them at a run, pulling Angela through behind her.
“Lina...” Angela gasped as the doors swung closed on the chaos erupting behind them. “I don’t think...I feel....”
Alina turned and stared at the blood covering the side of Angela’s face. As she did, Angela swayed before her eyes slid closed, and she fell into Alina’s arms.
She caught Angela as she fell, her heart surging into her throat. Quickly moving to the side, she eased her down against the wall. Blood was everywhere, pouring from her temple and her shoulder. Alina quickly tilted Angie’s head, examining the gash on the temple first. It was large and deep, but on the bone, missing the dangerous soft spot by mere millimeters. A wave of relief washed through her and she turned her attention to the blood on the shoulder. Ripping open Angela’s blouse at the shoulder, she found a large chunk of the Virgin Mary embedded between her collarbone and neck.
Satisfied that neither of the wounds were life-threatening, Viper stood up swiftly and turned away. If she felt a twinge of guilt at leaving her friend unconscious in the alcove, it was quickly pushed aside.
A few seconds later, Viper was in the alley between the church and the school, running toward the steps where she entered the church earlier. If Michael and Blake did their job, the only exit available to the shooter would be that door. She could hear the commotion in the front of the church as people streamed out in panic. If the shooter made it to the crowds in the front of the church, there would be no stopping him. He’d disappear in seconds.
The door at the top of the flight of stone steps flew open and Viper raised her pistol, flipping the safety off as she did so. Blake emerged from the church and looked over the railing.
“Did you see him?” he demanded breathlessly.
She shook her head, lowering the gun.
“Damn! Where’s Michael?”
“He went to the front of the church,” he replied, jogging down the steps. “The door to the organ loft was open when we got there, so we split up.”
Viper hesitated. Her instinct was to go to the front of the church where the mass exodus of mourners swarmed, even though she knew the chances of finding him in the crowd were slim. And yet, something gave her pause.
“Angela was hit by shrapnel from a statue,” she told Blake, turning her dark eyes on him. “She’s in the alcove in the far door, unconscious. Can you...?”
Blake was already nodding and turning to head down the alley toward the door she indicated.
“I’ve got it,” he said over his shoulder. “You just find the bastard!”
Viper nodded and looked up at the church beside her. Logic dictated that he would follow the flow of people and blend in to disappear. He was a professional. He would have planned for the chaos, and planned to use it to his advantage. That was why Michael headed straight to the front of the church once he realized the shooter had already flown the nest.
The door above her opened and people began swarming out of the church. Viper glanced at the first wave of people coming through the door as she moved her pistol to her side, concealing it from their view. She glanced toward the back of the church. Michael was in the front, but he didn’t know who he was looking for. With every second, her chances of catching the assassin slipped lower and, with a curse under her breath, Viper turned to move toward the front of the alley. Sirens were sounding in the distance now. She was almost out of time.
Viper had only taken a few steps when a streak of awareness shot down her spine and her heart leapt in reaction. She snapped her head around in time to see the far door where she exited a few moments before open. A priest stepped out, a cassock covering his black pants to mid-calf. Turning his head, he looked directly at her.
Viper’s breath caught in her throat and an icy chill ran over her skin as she recognized the face from the corridor outside John’s hospital room.
They stared at each other down the length of the alleyway for a charged moment before he turned and began to stride away from the church, heading toward to the parking lot in the back. Fury, hot and swift, rolled through her and Viper darted after him. She ignored the people streaming out of the side door of the church, running through them, her eyes on the priest. As she moved, Viper took a deep breath, pushing the anger aside. Emotion had no place here. He was an assassin who targeted her at a funeral, of all places. This was business.
By the time she had navigated the crowd, Kyle had disappeared from sight around the back of the church. With a low curse under her breath, Viper broke into a full sprint, flying down the alley. Her heart settled into the steady, rapid rhythm she knew so well and her senses tuned to everything around her. The smell of the old stone church beside her, the sound of her heels on the pavement beneath her, and the distant chaos ensuing from the church behind her all faded into the background, noted but set aside for the time being. The only thing that mattered was getting to the assassin before he disappeared.
She rounded the corner of the church, and emerged into the large parking lot, her eyes scanning the rows of parked vehicles.
There! A dark head was just ducking into a sedan at the far end of the first row.
Viper ran to her right, both hands on her pistol, her eyes on the late model sedan. The engine roared to life and it backed out of the spot quickly. Her eyes narrowed as she saw the driver’s side window open and sun glinted off metal.
Viper dove between two vehicles on her left as the shot rang out. She hit the side of a black Cadillac Escalade as the bullet whizzed past. The Cadillac’s alarm began shrieking and she ducked down, dropping onto her knees and rolling under the SUV as tires squealed and Kyle gunned the sedan. Viper settled on her stomach and waited, the gun pointed toward the expanse of pavement. A second later, the sedan’s front tires came into view and she fired.
The shot was deafening under the Cadillac, but her aim was true. The bullet ripped into the front left tire and the sedan swerved as the vehicle pulled to the left. Kyle kept control, however, and the sedan skidded around the end of the row of vehicles, heading for the exit at the back of the parking lot.
Viper rolled out from under the SUV and jumped up, darting between cars to emerge into the wide aisle leading to the exit. She raised her pistol, firing three rapid shots. One hit the right taillight and another hit the back windshield, but Kyle was almost to the exit. She lowered her gun as the approaching sirens wailed less than a block away, watching as the sedan swung into the empty street.
He was gone.
Alina flipped the safety on and tucked the gun back into the holster on her thigh. She turned back toward the church as lights from the first police cars lit up the front of the alley between the school and church. Viper glanced at the crowds filling the alley and front of the church and turned to weave her way through the rows of parked vehicles to her right. Moving quickly, she passed the back of her old elementary school on her left, then the convent beside it. The parking lot narrowed and Viper used the trees along the edge to help shield her as she moved rapidly, emerging onto another side street. She turned right and went halfway up the street to where her black Rubicon was parked along the curb.
Kyle wouldn’t get far before the tire she shot expelled all its air. He also stuck out with a shattered back windshield. He would dump the sedan as soon as he could.
Viper opened the driver’s door and climbed into her Jeep. She started the engine, slamming the door closed behind her. With any luck, she’d find him before that happened.