Free Forced Out by Stephen Frey

bouquet of two dozen red roses on the wet ground, then ran his fingers gently over the chiseled letters. Karen Nicole Robinson. She'd died seventeen years ago, shortly before they were supposed to be married. He'd never gotten over her, never been able to move on in that part of his life. His grandmother used to tell him time healed all wounds. It was the only thing he could remember her ever being wrong about. This wound would never heal. Johnny took a deep breath as he gazed at her beautiful name, pictured her beautiful face as she lay in the open coffin that day. He still loved her so much.
    Marconi wanted Kyle McLean dead. Fast. The old man had made that very clear last night at the end of their second session, and the incentive to get on it right away was the million bucks. Which, after all, was a damn good incentive. It would be an all-cash deal, too--so no taxes. A million dollars with no need to cut Uncle Sam in on a cent. Marconi was going to move the money multiple times in odd amounts through several of the family's Swiss, Belgian, and Antigua accounts so U.S. authorities couldn't trace it. The old man seemed obsessed with McLean. Like he couldn't think of anything else but the kid sprawled on the ground with a bullet through his head. Last night he'd reminded Johnny again to make no judgments, just to follow orders. Johnny shook his head. He was going to keep doing the things that mattered despite the warning. Coming out here was at the very top of that list.
    Karen had lived in an apartment building across the street from his grandmother's place in Bayshore. They'd met one summer afternoon during a thunderstorm when they were both running home with schoolbooks over their heads, when they were both thirteen. They'd never dated anyone else, been almost inseparable from that moment on. They'd done everything first together: first beer, first kiss, first sex. He'd loved her so much and not because she was beautiful, which she was: a stunning brunette with long legs and haunting hazel eyes. He'd loved her so much because her heart was pure. She never hated anyone no matter what they did to her. She always turned the other cheek, always forgave, always figured they must have been abused as a child or were just having a bad day. He loved her for that because it was something he wasn't capable of. It wasn't in him to be forgiving or pure to people he didn't care about--sometimes not even to people he did--and he admired her deeply for it. Then she was taken from him with no warning. And that was how it all started.
    Her operation was supposed to be no big deal, a routine appendectomy. But somehow something had gone terribly wrong on the table. When the surgeon came trudging out to the waiting room, red eyes riveted to the scuffed tile floor, Johnny knew his world had been shattered before the man even opened his mouth. There would be no wedding, no house in the country with two boys and a golden retriever, no happily ever after. Because he could never love another woman the way he loved Karen.
    For several years after her death he'd tried going out with other women, but the dates had all ended up disasters. All hollow reminders of what he'd had with her. So he didn't bother anymore. Now he just called Marconi when he wanted female company, and Nicky arranged it for him. Whenever he did, he always took down the hundred pictures he had of Karen in the Long Island house. And the first thing he did when the girl was gone was put the pictures back up exactly where they'd been before. The anesthesiologist attending on Karen's "routine" operation had given her the wrong dosage, though hospital officials tried to hide the truth. They'd tried to pass it off as her having a weak heart, just one of those unfortunate deaths. But Johnny heard the real story from a nurse who'd been in the operating room. A woman who was friends with his brother. It was his first lesson in the value of firsthand information. He'd waited six months to