Providence Descending by Sarah Boone (e book reader .txt) 📖

of gun shots down in your sector. Dave, do you copy? We're sending someone down, over.”
The door on the flight above Lucy busted open.
“It's her, it's her!” one of the newcomer guards yelled back to someone on the first floor.
Lucy dropped everything in her hands. Forced to choose between the radio, the gun, and the folder, Lucy snatched up the folder and scrambled down the stairs, through the broken door, and into the elevator. She pushed the button for the second floor. The door wouldn't close; the elevator wouldn't move. She pushed again, frantically tapping the button with no avail.
The fire. The alarm had turned off the elevators. She pulled out the guard's keys, looking for a little one, something that would work to override the elevator system. There were so many keys! Come on, come on. The guards were getting closer, there footsteps resonating on the other side of the wall to her left. The first one appeared in the doorway, gun drawn. Lucy swung a leg up, kicking the firearm out if his hands. Then she socked him hard in the stomach. He fell back into the other guard.
Lucy inserted the override key and the door slid shut.
“For you, Dad,” she whispered, shutting her eyes.
She rested her burned hand on the cool, reflective metal. Lucy looked at herself, those same cold eyes as her father's.
For you.

Chapter Four – Yesterday

Lucy got a phone call from her father, the morning before Turkey Dinner Thursday.
“Hey Luce, I'm feeling kind of tired today, and I'm probably going to skip lunch, so you might as well stay home, okay?”
“I'll come see you anyway.”
“No, honey, don't bother. I'll see you Monday.”
“Dad.” Lucy heard the echo of another voice through the speaker. “Dad?”
There was a brief clicking and then a rustling before she heard a reply. “Lucy? Hi darling, this is your Daddy's old friend, Uncle Jimmy.”
Lucy started off of her living room couch. Uncle Jimmy. Jimmy Reaper. He and Carl had been partners before Lucy was born. Every time her father went back into the criminal game after that was because of Jimmy Reaper. “What do you want?” Lucy demanded.
“ I think you should come by for lunch today. There's something the three of us need to discuss.”
“How did you find us?”
“Just get here, would you, darling? I'm a busy guy. I'm on a schedule tighter than your ass, so let's put a move on it.”
“Lucy, don't!” was Carl's muffled cry. “Stay away!”
Lucy ran out of her apartment, to her car, and drove straight to Rutherford.
The light in her father's room was dim, the shades drawn. Uncle Jimmy smoked by the window, his face split in half by a small sliver of light from outside.
“Well, look at you, Lucy. Pretty as ever.”
Lucy went to her father's chair in the corner. It was empty. “Where's my dad, Jimmy?”
“He's fine. He's waiting to see you. I wanted to talk to you first. Take a load off.”
“Where is he?”
Lucy turned on her heel, headed for the door. A man stepped out from the shadows, big and dark, henchman size.
“Lucy, I want you to meet my friend Barry. My friend Barry thinks you should sit down too.”
Lucy hesitated, thinking about making a break for the door.
Jimmy's voice went from pleasant courtesy to a sharp-edged order. “Sit down, Lucy.”
She lowered herself into the chair, arms hinged at ninety-degree angles, ready to spring.
“How are you doing, kiddo? Living the honest life seems to be treating you well.”
“Well enough,” Lucy replied; though her body remained still, her eyes followed him on his journey across the room to the other side of her father's bed.
“So, you like it?”
“Yes. We both do.”
“Such a shame, Lucy. Such a shame.”
“What is?”
Jimmy used the wall to put out his cigar, leaving a black mark against the clean, white paint. “That you're going to come out of retirement.”
“Excuse me?” Lucy swallowed a tremorous gasp of air.
“I've for a job for you,” Jimmy told her.
“We're not doing anything for you,” Lucy protested, “and that includes coming out of retirement. Forget about it. Not going to happen.”
Jimmy grinned at Lucy, eyebrows extended whimsically as if to say, “Think again.” He said, “Oh, no, Lucy. I think you're confused. Your dad is going to stay here with me. I want you to pull the job. He's too old and stubborn. The way you used to do things was rough around the edges, but you're still as good as he was, and he used to be the best. Right now what I need is the best, and that means I need you.”
“I won't do it.”
“I think you will, Lucy. For Carl's sake.”
Lucy shot out of her seat. “What kind of sick game are you playing?” she spat. “Please, just leave us alone!”
“I can't do that, darling. You see, it's not a game at all. I'm in the hole for a lot of money, and I need that money by the weekend or else it's my head.” Jimmy stood too. He advanced toward Lucy, forcing her into a backwards tango until she was pressed against the window. “Therefore, if you don't get me what I need by the end of the day tomorrow, it's your father's head. And yours too. Got it?”
“You're a monster,” Lucy said, “an animal!”
“You and I came out of the same egg, little Lucy. I know it. You know it. Carl knows it. That's why he wanted to quit at the top of your game. Because enough is never enough for people like us; we want too much too fast and we both know that sometimes that gets us into trouble, like the trouble I'm in right now, the trouble you're going to get me out of.”
“How?” Lucy asked. The impossibility of her situation sucked her free of all coherence and she began to shake her head in desperation.
“All you need is in this envelope.” Jimmy tucked it into her inside coat pocket. “Do we understand each other?”
“I want to see him,” Lucy said.
“Briefly,” Jimmy agreed. He nodded to Barry; Barry took Lucy's arm. “Shall we head downstairs?”
Lucy pulled away from Barry's grip, and followed Jimmy left down the hallway, around, the next corner, and down into the building's lower floor. A man, tall and stoic like Barry stood in front of the last door on the right. Jimmy introduced him as Larry, and he opened the door.
Carl lay, cuffed to a bed, his eyes wavering between being awake and asleep. His skin gleamed dully under the fluorescent light. An IV attached to his arm pumped orange liquid.
Lucy knelt before the bed. “What have you done to him?”
Jimmy said, “He's under the influence of a mild sedative. God knows he would rip me apart if he were able.”
Lucy stared up at this man, this man made of silk suits and seductive threats and hired body guards. “Coward,” she said. “My dad should have ripped you apart years ago.”
“Well the past is in the past. Now what matters is the future, making sure that you and dear Daddy get to stay in it. Follow the instructions on the envelope, bring me back what I've requested, and I'll make sure that my old pal Carl doesn't accidentally overdose on his anesthetics.”
“Coward!” Lucy accused again, louder, more primal, like the roar of a caged lion.
“Would it more clearly portray my control of the situation if I did this?” Jimmy pulled a pistol from his waste band and aimed the gun at her father's head. He cocked the hammer.
Lucy lunged at her father's old friend and enemy. A swift cut from her left hand – he dropped the gun. She struck out with her right hand and smacked him across the jaw.
Strong arms pinned her shoulders from behind. Lucy swung a leg back, forcing in Larry's knee. Barry lifted her by the waist and tossed her into the corner. He drew a gun and aimed it at her.
Jimmy ran a hand over the welt on his face as he walked over. “Since you're like family to me, and we're all going through a rough patch, I'm going to forgive you. This once.” He pulled her to her feet by her hair. “Just once. I figure, I even deserved that in a lot of ways, but I'm in a tight spot, so this is the way that it has to be.”
“Lucy,” Carl rasped. “Lucy...”
She went over to him. “Dad? Dad!”
“I...said...run...”
“I came to get you.”
“Hard-head,” he whispered. It was what he'd always called her – as a child when she fell from a thirty foot tree and broke her leg, as a teenager when she'd gone to an unlicensed body artist to get her belly-button pierced, and as an adult when she took a job so far that she'd gotten her fiance killed. That was when he'd called for their promise: no more stealing, and now Lucy would have to break that promise again to keep them alive.
“Dad, I won't let anything happen to you.”
“I've had a good life, Luce, if only because I had you. Whatever he's asking for, don't do it. Get away from here. Run.”
“I'm going to do this, Dad.”
“Don't,” Carl rasped again, more urgently.
“For you, Daddy. I have to do this for you.”

Chapter Five – The Second Floor

The elevator was peacefully silent, a brief shelter from the chaos all around her. Lucy peeled her burned hand off the side wall and examined the raw spots on the inside of her fingers. They throbbed incessantly and stung at the slightest touch. Lucy hissed at the sharp pain, trying to cushion her hand with the end of her sweater sleeve.
The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and once again the sirens imposed themselves on Lucy's senses. Everything seemed to pulsate with changing pitch, her vision from hard to soft focus, the throbbing in her hand, and the rapid beating of her heart.
She stepped out of the elevator into another deserted hallway. Two office-workers crossed the other hall ahead. Lucy stepped back into the elevator's indent.
“Come on, the stairs are this way!”
Lucy ran after them, treading softly. They knew a way out. Maybe if she left with them she wouldn't be recognized. She peeked around each corner before turning and followed them beyond the tinted glass of an automatic door. Lucy realized what was on the other side. She ducked back into the hallway. No exit here. Not unless she wanted to stroll down the marble staircase and through a main lobby filled with cops, fire-fighters, and security guards.
Lucy approached the automatic door, as close as she dared before opening it. Through the glass she could see the shadows of the men moving; she heard the faint yelling of orders as guards waved the office workers through to the outside. The head of security's name was Brenner, a buzzed cut hard ass with a sharp mind and an even sharper attitude. He barked something at the guards exiting the stairwell – the two Lucy had tuned up; they carried in the unconscious Officer Dave. Lucy leaned forward more, hoping to catch some of the exchange between them.
The automatic door slid open. Brenner's eyes swiveled up toward the portal.
Lucy fought the urge to drop low. She tried to say completely still.
Brenner pointed up at the balcony. He'd seen her.
Lucy ran back to the elevator where it waited, stalled by the fire alarm. She fumbled through her stolen keys. She heard pounding