Free Retribution by Jilliane Hoffman Page A

conversation. And it was money. She worked the 11:00 P.M. to 7:00 A.M. shift.
    It was only her fourth week on the job, when she received the phone call. It was almost six o’clock, the last hour of her shift.
    ‘Marriott La Guardia. This is Reservations. Can I help you?’
    ‘Yes. I’ve unfortunately missed my flight, and now American can’t get me out until tomorrow morning. I think I’ll need a room. Do you have anything available?’ She recognized Bach’s ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ softly playing in the background.
    ‘Let me check, sir. Are you a Marriott Rewards member?’
    ‘No, I am not.’
    ‘Single or double, sir?’
    ‘Single.’
    ‘Smoking or non?’
    ‘Non, please.’
    ‘How many in your party, sir?’
    ‘Just me. Unless you care to join me, Chloe.’
    Her heart stopped. She ripped the headset off and threw it on the floor and stared at it as if it were a cockroach. Adele, the manager came up, followed by several other front-office clerks. From the floor, a tiny voice repeated, ‘Miss? Miss? Hello? Is there anyone there?’
    ‘Are you okay?’ Adele asked. Chloe pulled away from her touch.
    Had she really heard that?
    The cracks were spreading, branching out all over. The façade would surely fall. She stared at the headset that Adele picked up off the floor.
    ‘Hello, sir? I’m sorry. This is Adele Spates in Reservations. Can I help you?’
    Chloe backed away toward the door, grabbing her purse from the table as Adele finished the reservation. The room spun. Voices filled her head.
    A pretty girl like my Chloe shouldn’t be left all alone.
    You look so good, I may just have to eat you up.
    I just wish you had let me stay with you last night.
    Be assured, we are actively pursuing the investigation.
    She ran as if the devil himself was behind her through the Marriott parking lot to her car. She had forgotten her coat, and the cold autumn wind ripped right through her. At seventy miles an hour she sped home on the GrandCentral Parkway, frantically checking behind her, expecting to see his clown face in the car behind her, maybe flashing his headlights at her with a wink.
    She parked the car and ran to the elevator, rushing past the security guard still sleeping in the lobby. In her apartment, she turned on all the lights, reset the alarm, and dead-bolted the front door.
    A fear that Chloe had never known before gripped her, and her body trembled uncontrollably. She frantically raced through each room, flinging open the closets, checking underneath the bed, behind the shower curtain. From the nightstand in her bedroom, she grabbed the small .22 caliber pistol that her father had bought for her before he returned to California. She carefully checked and double-checked to make sure that it was, in fact, fully loaded.
    In the living room, the light from the motion sensor continued to blink red, the alarm green.
    She held the gun on her lap on the living room couch, her sweaty hand a death grip on the black handle, her index finger toying nervously with the trigger. Tibby the cat nudged his way gently under her arm, purring against her chest. The sun had started to come up, and yellow light began to creep in through the cracks in the drawn curtains. The weatherman had said it was going to be a beautiful day. Chloe stared at the white front door and waited.
    The façade had finally come down. And it was in a million pieces.

Part 2
    15
September 2000
    All the once-pretty faces gazed back at him with dead, empty stares. Eyes of sea green and smoky violet, their long lashes still thick with mascara, gazed out at nothing – vacant and lifeless. Painted, full mouths now only gaping, twisted holes of black. Eyes whose last witness was one of unthinkable horror. Mouths forever silenced into eternal screams.
    Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent Dominick Falconetti sat alone in the gray former conference room. He stared at the montage of photographs that adorned The Wall, his head in his