Chapter 17

Rain quickly released the ropes that held her wrists tied behind her back. Luckily, the ropes had been bound over the puffy cuffs of her dirty white poet shirt and her maneuvering of the sleeves out from under the ropes had given her the slack she'd needed.

The ropes dropped from her hands and she stood up from the grimy floor of the basement she'd been locked in. It only took a moment for her to force the lock on the door and she ran into the main part of the house. She looked above the stone fireplace and saw the crossed swords.

"Perfect," she said, as she took one down and hefted its weight.

It felt good in her hand and she turned to dash out the front door. She ran over green grass made dull by the misting fog that had settled over the land. She looked down and saw that her feet were bare, but she didn't feel the chill of the morning dew. A flash of lovemaking and then being marched into the basement by her duplicitous lover explained the lack of footwear.

She saw the castle through the haze and ran faster. There, just coming through the gates and readying their horses, were the ruffians she sought. She slowed her pace as she came upon them and called the leader out.

"Don't do this," Rain told her now ex-lover.

"I didn't think you were this stupid. Get out of our way," she replied.

"No. I challenge you," Rain said.

The men and women all looked at their leader. She couldn't refuse or she'd lose face.

"Fine, I accept."

Rain backed away to let the woman get down from her horse and readied herself for the coming battle. They'd sparred before, but Rain knew they'd both been holding back.

"You don't have to do this. You could come with me," the short blond-haired woman offered.

"And you could come with me," Rain replied.

"You know that's impossible."

"Just as it's impossible for me to go with you," Rain sadly responded.

The woman nodded and then took a ready stance.

"On Guard!" she yelled, and they joined the fight.

Their metal blades clashed as the woman's band of thieves and cutthroats looked on. They were both impressive in their manipulation of their swords, but Rain was the first to find an opening and she plunged the blade home. She withdrew it just as quickly and the woman looked down at her shirt where red was beginning to appear in the middle of it.

One of the women from the gang screamed and charged forward with her sword drawn and Rain let her own sword point to the ground to allow the oncoming blade to find its mark in her chest. But her ex-lover turned around to face the attacker and spread her body in front of Rain to protect her. She began to fall and Rain grasped her under the arms and backed away from the screaming woman, who Rain now knew had been this woman's lover before Rain.

Rain continued to drag the woman back toward some trees and finally found a place to sit and cradle her dying love. As the gang mounted their horses and rode off, Rain never released her hold on her lover and tried to think of something to say.

"I care about you. I think I'm even in love with you."

The woman nodded and smiled. Her eyes began to fog over and Rain knew she was losing her. She grabbed the sides of the woman's head and forced eye contact.

"Wait. You have to promise me something first. You have to promise me this won't happen again in our next lives."

"I love you," she whispered and then coughed as blood spilled over her lips.

Then she was gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rain sat up. It wasn't until she opened her eyes that she realized she had tears in them.

"What the hell was that about?" she whispered to herself.

She looked over at the other bed and saw Case's naked body sprawled across the sheets with the blanket bunched up around her feet. Her hair was a tousled mess and it made Rain grin. Then she remembered the dream again and the grin disappeared.

"No, it's not going to happen again."

The woman in the dream had definitely been Case and it wasn't too difficult for Rain to figure out what her subconscious was trying to tell her. She was worried about the choices she would make when it actually came time for her to make them. Would she make the right ones? And the right ones for who? For herself, for Case, or for the FBI?

Rain shook her head. She could think about it as much as she wanted, but she would only know for sure when she actually made her decision in reality and had to deal with the consequences. She knew she'd been stupid for getting involved with Case. But looking at Case's sleeping face, she also knew there'd been no other choice for her.

In the dream, she'd said she thought she loved Case. Looking at her now, Rain knew it was true. Only love could feel like this, overriding all her sensibilities and putting her in a position she didn't want to be in, though she wouldn't give it up for anything in the world. She'd only spent a few days with the assassin, but the hit woman's first bull's eye had been Rain's heart. And that was going to make doing her job almost impossible.

Rain looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand and then swung her legs over the side of the bed. It was just after seven, meaning she could have gone back to sleep for another three hours, but she was awake now, so she decided to get up and take a shower. She was a little sweaty from the dream and didn't like the grubby feeling it was giving her. She lifted her arm and took a whiff.

"Oookay, definitely need a shower," she told herself and stood up.

Ah hour later, she was showered, blow-dried, and dressed. She looked at Case, who was still asleep and didn't look like she'd moved an inch during that whole time.

Rain picked up one of the pillows off her bed.

"Case. Case, wake up."

Case didn't move. Rain tried a little louder.

"Caaase. Wake uuup."

Case mumbled something unintelligible and turned her head to the other side.

"Case. This is your last chance and then I'm going to have to get rough with you," Rain repeated Case's warning from the morning before. "Wake up, Case."

Case didn't show any sign of acknowledgment, so Rain threw the pillow at her head. It bounced off and Case's face wrinkled into an expression of annoyance. Rain picked up the other pillow on her bed and tossed that one at her sleeping beauty, too. This time, Case opened her eyes up to slits and looked around for the offending party.

"Hey, what you doin'?" Case slurred in a hoarse voice.

"Time to get up, sleepyhead."

Case turned her head to look at the clock and then groaned when she saw the time. Technically, she still had two hours left of sleeping to do. Her head flopped back on her pillow and then she made a concerted effort to sit up. Being early on Rain's first hit wouldn't be a bad thing.

She groaned again and got to her feet. She slowly leaned all the way over until her hands were flat on the carpet and listened as her back popped and stretched into a relaxed pose. She straightened her legs as much as she could to increase the stretch and then stayed in the position for a minute to help her circulation get going.

She stood back up and then started jumping a little in place, mostly just bending her knees and pumping with her thigh and calf muscles. As her strength picked up, she went into full-fledged jumping jacks, crossing her ankles in front of each other instead of just bringing them together. After a hundred of them, she stopped and stretched some more.

"Okay, now I feel awake," Case said, as she headed into the shower.

Rain was still entranced from watching the nude mini-workout and shook her head to try and break the spell.

"Oh, that was mean," Rain mumbled under her breath, and then set to work getting their stuff together while Case took her shower.

There wasn't much to do, since Case had made sure to put everything away the night before, so Rain just double-checked to make sure they hadn't forgotten anything. Then she moved everything closer to the door and sat down on her bed and waited.

Case was done in less than ten minutes and she dressed in half that time.

"McDonald's?" Case asked.

"Yeah, sure," Rain replied, and picked up her half of the bags.

Case grabbed up the rest and they left. They decided to eat their bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits on the way to the closest firing range and were finished by the time Case pulled into the parking lot. She found a space close to the entrance and turned off the ignition.

"All right, we've got about four hours to spend here if you feel like you need to, since we got a much earlier start than I thought we would. We're running about two hours ahead of schedule, so don't feel like you have to rush or anything," Case said.

"Got it," Rain replied.

They exited the black SUV and Case grabbed the rifle bag. It only took a few minutes to get onto the enclosed outdoor range. Rain set up the gun and loaded the ammunition. The first magazine of five bullets was exhausted in a few seconds, as Rain triggered multiple shots to get a quick idea of how the weapon felt as it was being fired.

The next five shots took longer with Rain carefully lining up her aim and learning which direction the gun wanted to pull. By the seventh clip, Rain was hitting dead center of the target with every bullet.

"When did you say the last time was that you used a rifle?" Case asked.

"About three years ago," Rain replied.

It had been during her last training exercise before going undercover. She'd run the entire obstacle course, then gone to the range to practice with several different weapons, a rifle being one of them. The fact that she'd only missed one shot out of ten with the long-barreled weapon, after running through a strenuous physical test, hadn't escaped the notice of her superiors.

"Well, you've still got it. I think you're better with a rifle than anything else I've seen you pick up. I guess I know who to call the next time I have a long-range job," Case grinned.

"Yeah," Rain said, and tried to put a little enthusiasm into her voice.

Case noticed it and put a hand on her shoulder.

"You'll do fine. All you have to do is aim, don't think about it, and pull the trigger. Then we run."

Rain nodded and then went back to working with the rifle. She felt comfortable with the gun, but she knew she was going to be nervous and she could use all the practice she could get.

Case walked off to leave her to it and found a few people who were willing to take her up on her challenge that she could hit any target they could and with any gun. A round of betting was started and then she got down to business. Once she'd proven her expertise, she was able to relax and more people arrived to offer her new challenges with different guns. After a while, the betting was forgotten and she simply went through her normal routine of picking up the guns she was loaned and firing them without thinking.

Finally, she'd had enough and left the group with a few farewells and promises to do it again sometime. She returned to find Rain packing up the rifle.

"You feel good?" Case asked, as she nodded toward the rifle bag.

"Yeah. Thirty shots in a row, no misses."

"Sounds good. As long as thirty-one isn't the exception."

They left the range and Case drove them to another McDonald's where they bought lunch.

"Your home away from home?" Rain asked with a smirk.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, I've always liked McDonald's. Grew up on their cheeseburgers until I graduated to the Big Mac when I was about four."

"You could eat a Big Mac when you were four?" Rain asked in amazement.

"Yeah. I ate like four or five hamburgers one day and my dad kept going back to the counter to get me another one until he came back with the last one and said, "Next time, you're getting a Big Mac." So, the next time we ate at McDonald's, that's what I got. I could eat a lot when I was a kid."

"Yeah, it sounds like it."

"Yeah, well, you're a big girl. Don't tell me you ate salads as a kid," Case shot back with a grin.

"No. Steaks. I think my mom used to put them in the blender and feed them to me when I was a baby. I can't remember a meal that didn't include beef, or something from a cow, at any rate."

"What, are you from Texas or something?"

"No, but my mom was. She was raised on a cattle ranch. She used to play this game with my brother and me where she'd lasso us and then hogtie us. She'd get one of us to time her while she went after the other one. I didn't get to be the one with the stopwatch until I could tell time. Man, was I in a hurry to learn how to read a clock," Rain laughed, as she remembered begging her older brother to teach her what the numbers meant.

"You have a brother? Where is he now?" Case asked.

Rain came out of her reverie and realized who she was talking to and who she was supposed to be.

"He died a long time ago."

"Oh. I'm sorry. Guess that's why you don't talk about him."

"Yeah."

"So, I guess it was your dad that was Italian."

It took a moment for Rain to understand what Case was referring to, but then she nodded.

"Yeah. I don't know too much about it. He didn't talk about it very much. I don't think he wanted me involved in this stuff, but I guess that's life."

"Yeah."

Rain mentally hit herself. Her name was Erica Raineri in this life she'd made up, which made her Italian. It was something she'd chosen on purpose in order to have an inborn association with the group she was trying to infiltrate, which was mostly made up of people of Italian descent. And now she'd practically denied having any Italian heritage whatsoever.

They finished their lunches and headed back out to the SUV. In less than half an hour, they were parked in an alleyway and Case jumped out of the truck before Rain could say anything about it. She quickly joined the short blonde outside.

"Hey, what are we doing here?"

"Inventory," Case said, as she opened up the back and dragged out the black garbage bag.

She set it on the ground and opened the top of the bag. There were clothes, wire segments, used surgical gloves, mail, loose papers, pens and pencils, bubble gum wrappers, and a whole host of other objects too numerous to name. Case methodically went through it all and shredded certain things and threw them into the nearest dumpster, while tossing other things into the truck, and shoving the rest back into the huge plastic bag.

"We need to get to an incinerator for the rest of this stuff," Case said.

"People still use those?"

"Hospitals and morgues do. You just have to know the right people," Case said confidently.

It didn't take them long to get to the hospital with Case's nearest contact and they were emptying the garbage bag in the basement furnace soon after. Case snagged another box of surgical gloves on her way out and smirked at Rain's raised eyebrow.

"What can I say? I've always loved five-finger discounts."

"Do you steal silverware from restaurants, too?" Rain asked mischievously.

"Nah, don't need it. I wouldn't have anywhere to put it anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"Huh, I thought you would've noticed by now. I don't actually live anywhere. For one thing, it would give me a weak spot, a place for people to attack me. And it's too easy to end up with documentation that could lead the police to me. So, I just live in hotels or in my truck. I move around so much for work that I'd never see home anyway, so what's the point?"

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Thanks for the tip."

"No problem."

They got back into the truck and Case looked at the dashboard clock. It was just past one o'clock.

"Okay, lets go get some snacks and then we can lead Danny Cutillo to his maker."

It took a moment for the name to sink in.

"What?" Rain asked a little hollowly.

She knew that name very well. Several surviving officers from her brother's police unit had named him as his killer.

"I said lets go get some snacks and then we'll go to Cutillo's." At Rain's questioning gaze, Case continued. "Look, you said you wanted to know who it was you were going to have to shoot, so I figured telling you his name wasn't that big of a deal. It's my compromise for the year, so don't ask me for another one," Case said lightly.

"But how do you know his name? It wasn't in the report Doc sent."

Case started the truck and kept her eyes on the road. She knew she had to play this off as nonchalantly as possible, or Rain would know something was up.

"I recognized him. I've seen him before and Antonio hates him. He blew some drug deal a long time ago and Antonio never agreed with his father about not punishing him. I guess what goes around really does come around," Case added.

Rain nodded her head as her thoughts reeled. She'd been worried before about what she was going to feel when she finally looked down the gun sight and saw a total stranger. She hadn't been sure that she would be able to pull the trigger. For some reason, this new information didn't seem to make her any more confident about it.

Then a feeling of excitement began to form in the pit of her stomach. She was finally going to get the man who killed Timmy. For the last few years, she'd been focusing all of her anger and loss on the head honcho, Salvatore Carlotti, and his son, mostly because they had been an easier target and made more sense in her line of work for the FBI. But now, all of that rage pinpointed itself on the man she was supposed to kill in only a few hours.

Rain had thought of revenge on many different occasions, but she'd never considered herself a vengeful person. Now, with the life of the man, who'd dealt the final deathblow to what had been left of her family after her mother's death, solely in her own two hands, she understood what the power of life and death and revenge truly felt like. It was invigorating and consuming all at once.

"Hey, don't psyche yourself up too much yet. You'll overload and be no good for the job later," Case said, as she watched Rain's breathing out of the corner of her eye.

"Right," Rain agreed, and tried to calm her breathing down from its steadily increasing pace. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it."

They stopped to get candy and chips, as well as soda and water to wash it all down with, and then went directly to the site Case had decided would be the best place to leave the truck while they waited to complete the hit on Cutillo.

They pulled off the road and the two women went around the side of the truck to the back door. Case pulled it open and put on a pair of surgical gloves. Then she handed Rain a similar pair to put on before she gave the tall woman her clothes, boots, and weapons. They quickly changed in the shelter of the open door and then Case grabbed up her backpack with the food and drinks and the night vision goggles. Rain picked up the rifle bag and slung it over her shoulder, as Case locked up the truck.

They slowly made their way into the hills that surrounded one side of Cutillo's property. Case checked her watch and motioned for Rain to wait while she looked back to the road to see if there was an influx of cars on it yet. The trees hid both her and Rain from anyone looking towards them, but Case made sure to place most of her body behind one of the tree trunks and Rain did the same.

After a few minutes, Case saw a string of cars go by and she gestured to Rain to get moving. They crested the first hill and Case made sure the coast was clear before urging Rain forward again. They both felt rather vulnerable in their black clothing in broad daylight, but Case knew that once they made it to the spot she'd selected they'd be fine.

They topped the second hill that overlooked the employees' entrance/exit gate and saw the guard, who was supposed to be patrolling the inner hill, watching over the arriving and leaving staff members. They quickly went in the opposite direction and settled into the secluded and bush-covered area that looked out across the courtyard to the garden.

Case checked her watch again. It was three-fifteen and the report had said Cutillo always ate at seven-thirty. He usually finished around eight-thirty or nine and then went out to have his cigarette alone, no matter who he'd invited to dinner. Case set her watch's alarm for eight o'clock. She looked over at Rain and drew her gun and screwed a silencer into place on the end of the barrel. Rain followed suit with her own weapon.

"Now, we wait," Case said quietly, as she sat back and tried to find a comfortable position on the hard ground from which to keep guard on their surroundings.