Free Flash Point by Colby Marshall

come up with a way to implicate Jenna in the crime, too.
    And yet she’d tracked him down, gotten him trapped far away from Jenna or any help – or his gun – instead. If she’d ambushed him so she could murder him and torture Jenna by sending his fingers to her one by one, she’d have started it. If her plan to torment Jenna forever had been to kill him then make sure his body was never found, she’d not be sitting here chatting. If there was one thing Yancy was positive of, it was that Claudia was getting whatever little thrills these jabs she was taking could give her while she happened to be there for another reason. She might’ve been bantering, but it was true that he wasn’t her type. Nor was this sort of adventure. Part of the game was blending in, seeing how deep she could entrench a target – usually a man she was dating – before she yanked everything from under him. She couldn’t get the same kicks from Yancy.
    He knew what she was.
    â€˜So did you come all this way to compare notes? Ridicule my killing skills by showing me some pictures you snapped of my leg’s hook tracks in the mud somewhere or something?’
    â€˜Actually, I came because of some other tracks you left,’ Claudia said, her smile disappearing. ‘I need a little favor from you, Mr Vogul.’
    â€˜Right. And I need to not be ambushed by a psychopath who’s so hung up on her own past she can’t use her newly found free time outside incarceration for something better than skulking around the loved ones of the one person who could put her back in again,’ Yancy said.
    Claudia snickered. ‘Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, Mr Vogul. I do have much better things to do. And it just so happens that you’re the type of person I need to do it. And what I saw you do puts you in a position to ensure you will. As long as you’re still good enough with computers to, say, hack into the mainframe of a hate group database and post the anonymous group members’ real names and addresses from their own website because they pissed you off.’
    The house’s front door swung open to reveal the silent, shadowed contents of an empty home, and Beo released the breath he’d been holding.
    Don’t look around. Don’t act suspicious.
    He walked in and closed the door, hopefully by all appearances as though he had every right to be there. The sun had lowered on the horizon, and the inhabitants of the quiet suburb were all retreating inside for frozen lasagnas or to catch the evening news.
    The inside of the house was a bit dim, but he didn’t need a light. The foyer was still familiar, despite that it had been years since his last visit.
    At one time in his life, this had felt like his second home. A place of safety and warmth. Friendship.
    Trust.
    Yep, Athos’s parent had said never hesitate. Any time, any day; an open invitation that, during the darkest days of his life, gave him a place in the world.
    Yep, once upon a time, he’d been welcome here.
    He wasn’t anymore. Probably for good reason, all things considered. He was the type of person who would do what he was doing now, after all. Friends or not, if Athos wasn’t all in, better their friendship had ended the way it had. Better Athos walk away as a punk without a backbone, unable to muster the courage to make a difference in the world.
    Better Athos turn his back on Sabine and break my sister’s heart while I was a state away, lest whatever backbone he did have be tested across my knee.
    As Beo’s mind drifted to the cold wood of the park bench where he’d sat only hours ago, flipping one of the well-worn, tanning pages of his tattered old copy of Heller’s
Catch-22
, when Atticus had plopped down on the bus stop bench next to him.
    Beo had continued his reading, careful not to so much as chance a sideways glance at Atticus, as the red-hooded man had slipped a