Alliance – Chapter 1

Wednesday, March 17

No witnesses in the park today, as expected.  March brought its chilly winds with it this year, but even if it hadn’t, it was still much too early for children to be outside playing. No self-respecting adult would be out in this weather. And the unrespectable adults? They were sleeping in before a night of St. Patrick’s Day debauchery at the bars. Yes, this meeting had promise.

As I pulled my auburn hair into a quick bun at the base of my neck and opened the door to my silver coupe, I could only imagine what a passerby would think if they saw me.  Not many 24-year-old women would choose to wander alone in a near-dark park in this part of town. They’d probably think I was looking to score a fix for my addiction.

Close. My drug of choice was a little stronger than anything a drug dealer could offer. What the information dealer offered, well, it left me jonesin’ for this meet worse than any heroine junkie would experience.

The wind cut through my trench coat the moment my heeled boot stepped out to touch the pliable dirt, but I knew turning back wasn’t an option anymore. If I’d wanted to stay safely curled in my bed on the cold mornings, I should’ve figured it out years before now. Without another thought for the frigid morning, I hurried to the benches on the far side of the pond.

My lips twitched at the thought of what might happen. It was the closest they’d come to a smile in years.  If my instincts were correct about the cryptic call I received last night, I would succeed where the FBI failed.  I would finally discover what happened to the man who murdered my father.

Vengeance, justice, reckoning, revenge…Call it what you want. The semantics don’t matter so long as I get what I want.

And I’ve wanted this for a very long time.

Just over two years, to be exact. That was when Raptor destroyed my life. That was when the FBI let the man who murdered my father during a bank heist get away like a wisp of smoke in the wind. One of the agents swore he’d do whatever was in his power to bring this man to the unfeeling judgment of Lady Justice. Apparently, he didn’t have much power. His entire case evaporated when, one by one, Raptor’s gang turned up dead.

I’m perfectly aware that normal people would grieve, not submerge themselves into Dallas’s criminal underground. A normal woman might acknowledge her feelings of powerlessness over the loss instead of taking on the alias of Songbird. I’ll get to that.

Once Raptor’s dead.

But Raptor’s been at this longer than me. I could put word on the street that I had a bank score planned and anyone willing to face some danger would get a big take, but I couldn’t know if the man I sought would ever hear about it. My two-bit con connections probably didn’t swim in the same lake as the man who walked away with millions from a single bank job.

Last night’s call wasn’t from just another garden variety con. The adrenaline marathon racing up my spine during the brief conversation told me as much. This guy could get me to Raptor. I knew it, even though Raptor’s name never came up.

I was so caught up in the moment of the call that I never considered the isolated nature of the location a problem. Sitting alone on the bench, I realized no one would hear me scream here. At five feet four inches, I’m hardly physically intimidating. If things went bad…

No. Don’t go there. Focus. Play the role. Sell the character.

At this point, it didn’t matter if things went bad anyway. With slight pressure from a trigger finger, I lost everything that mattered to me. That gave me a distinct advantage over every criminal in this city. I don’t have anything left to lose.

“Well, this is a surprise.  I never imagined Songbird would really be Skylar Montgomery. Interesting,” a male voice said, startling me because I didn’t hear so much as the rustle of a crunchy leaf under his shoe.

I turned around and looked into the piercing green eyes of a dead man.

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