Kim Oh 2: Real Dangerous Job (The Kim Oh Thrillers) Read Online Free Page A

there’s nothing to worry about, is there?” He smiled down at me from his wheelchair. Weirdly, almost kindly. “You’ll do fine.”
     
    “Maybe . . .”
     
    “No maybe about it. You’re cut out for this sort of thing. As much as anybody is.”
     
    I had my doubts. It’s not really something you can take an aptitude test for.
     
    In the distance, I heard the outside door of the warehouse, the small one on the side, slam shut. A moment later, Monica appeared at the edge of the space where Cole and I were.
     
    “For Christ’s sake.” She looked around in disgust. “Do you have to blaze away at every wall around here? Keep it up, and this whole place is going to fall down around our ears.”
     
    Cole managed to look abashed. “We were just practicing –”
     
    “Practicing being jerks.” She set her purse on the wobbly little table. “You know, if a slug ever goes through a wall and nicks me when I’m pulling up outside, I’m going to be super ticked.”
     
    “That won’t happen,” said Cole. “I promise.”
     
    “Yeah, right.” She already had a lit cigarette in her hand. “Whatever that’s good for.”
     
    * * *
     
    Donnie and I kept the TV on while we were eating dinner. Usually we didn’t do that, but I had come home so tired from my latest session with Cole that I could barely talk.
     
    While my younger brother picked at the spaghetti I’d fixed – he seemed in a quiet mood as well – I numbly watched the evening news. The woman on the TV screen was a reporter named Karen Ibanez; she was talking about some scandal going on down at City Hall, that an audit of the financial controller’s office had uncovered. That was the sort of thing she specialized in. I’d actually talked to her once, face to face, right after I’d gotten fired by McIntyre, and I’d been trying to find some way of getting back at him. Before I’d come up with the bright notion of killing him, that is.
     
    “Kimmie . . .”
     
    I could hear Donnie say my name, but it took me a while to turn around and look at him. When I did, I saw him gazing at me with deep, almost mournful somberness.
     
    “When were you going to tell me?”
     
    His question took a moment to penetrate the fog inside my head. “Tell you what?”
     
    He pushed aside his barely touched plate, then reached down and picked up something from next to his wheelchair. He set my backpack down on the table between us.
     
    I’d gotten into the habit of sticking the pack on top of the rack where I hung up my clothes, next to the apartment window, whenever I came home. So the little snoop couldn’t get into it. But I’d been so exhausted this time, I’d forgotten and had left it sitting on the couch instead.
     
    “Oh.” I stared at the unzipped backpack. I had a good idea where this was going to go next.
     
    Donnie reached into the pack and pulled out the .357, the shiny steel one that Cole had given me. The one that I’d used to kill Pomeroy. The one that I was probably going to kill other people with.
     
    “All right,” I said sternly. “I want you to put that down. Right now. I don’t want you fooling around with it.”
     
    Usually my big sister routines got at least a little traction with him. This time, it didn’t.
     
    He set the gun down on top of the backpack, then folded his hands in his lap. And kept on looking at me with his dark, accusing eyes.
     
    I took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t want you worrying about it. I got it . . . to protect us. In case there’s trouble. There are still all sorts of bad things that could happen.”
     
    He didn’t have to hear that from me. My little brother was pretty much on top of things. At least when it came to the bad place we had found ourselves in. He knew all about how I’d gotten fired by McIntyre. And he was partners in crime with me, when it came to hanging on to the money that had accidentally fallen into my hands, money that actually belonged to