Free HARD FAL by CJ Lyons

using the reflection in the computer monitor to aim, shot the other one with his pink pistol, firing over his shoulder.
    “Awg…” Both techs moaned in fake dying agony as they writhed on the floor.
    Then Taylor caught sight of Lucy. She was smiling but he spun in his chair, suddenly serious. Not because of her, she realized. Because of the damn cane.
    “Clean that up,” he ordered the techs. “Someone could slip and fall.”
    They scrambled to clear a path for Lucy, mumbling, “Sorry, boss.” She wasn’t sure if the words were for her or Taylor.
    She crossed to his workstation without incident. “Thought you went to lunch with everyone else.”
    “No.” His gaze slid back to his monitor with its lines of code. “This medical records hack…it’s…poetic.”
    “Right.” She knew better than to question his sense of cyber-esthetics, or to interrupt him when he was in the middle of analyzing code. “Want me to bring you back something?”
    “Walden’s got my order. I think I’m close to isolating his signature—”
    Lucy left him to his cyberprowling and took the elevator down to the garage. She hated elevators so it was almost as much punishment as the stairs but she was already exhausted and hungry and needed to conserve her energy. She was ready for another of the anti-inflammatory pills the doctors had prescribed—ibuprofen on steroids, he’d described it—but they ripped her stomach apart so she could only take them with food.
    Her foot and ankle—hell the whole damn leg, not to mention her back spasming from holding her body so stiffly—throbbed with the force of a sledgehammer. She opened the door of her Subaru Forrester and carefully shifted her weight onto the driver’s seat. Before her injury she never would have imagined how complicated the mechanics of getting into and out of a vehicle could be. After she’d come home from the rehab hospital, she’d tried riding in Nick’s Explorer but it was too high to climb, forcing her to always put weight on her injured foot.
    She’d needed a new car anyway, thought she’d just get another Impreza like her old one. She’d loved that car, the way it could out-accelerate just about anything on the road, especially around the twisty switchback mountain roads. But it was too low-slung. So she’d sacrificed both her five-speed manual transmission and her sports car for the SUV. She had to admit she did like riding up higher and she’d been able to adjust the seat and steering wheel so that it was as close to comfortable as any vehicle could get with her foot howling with each pothole, sharp turn, or sudden stop.
    Thankfully the Hofbräuhaus was a straight shot down Carson from the Federal Building. And no potholes.
    She pulled alongside the Cheesecake Factory, hoping to find a parking space. The Hofbräuhaus was directly in front of her. Beside it was the terraced amphitheater where summer concerts were held. The concrete steps that served as seating also led down the steep hill to the Heritage Trail that ran alongside the river and the boat landing. On either side of the steps were zigzagged handicapped accessible ramps and there were large concrete planters with small trees and shrubs scattered throughout the plaza.
    No joy with parking, she’d have to circle around the block or hit the garage on Carson. As she pulled up to the stop sign on Water Street and signaled her turn, a group of people emerged from the Hofbräuhaus across the street . June and the others.
    Seth had his arm around June’s waist but he was in earnest conversation with Oshiro. June tilted her head up, her gaze searching the clear blue sky, hair ruffling with the March wind. There was supposed to be a storm front moving in later today but right now the sun was shining. June broke away from the men, her fingers trailing down Seth’s arm, squeezing his hand before wandering off to perch against a nearby planter. The way she closed her eyes and stretched her body, basking, it