Color Me Grey: Book One of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles (16 page)

“
Yes, Ms. Grey. You should have already
received your first check. I know you weren’t home long before we
sent you on this job so you probably didn’t get a chance to check
your mail. I will be cutting checks for this job in the next day or
two. The company posts a fee for each job and keeps a small
percentage plus expenses. Which leaves the larger percentage of the
fee to be split among the players.”

“
Players?” I asked.

“
Yeah. You and Mr. Black were the
players for this job.”

“
What about Mr. Brown and you?” I
asked.

“
We were expenses this time. The
players who do most of the work get most of the money,” he
explained.

“
Oh, I see.” That sounded fair to me.
We sat for a while longer and watched the sky.

“
So, what’s everybody’s real name?” I
felt him jump slightly at my voice.

“
Well, you already know my real name.
To find out who the others are you’re going to have to ask them or
do some more snooping around,” he said.

“
Is there a time when you guys call
each other by your real names?” I asked.

“
Not on a job. When we get together for
other reasons we may or may not. It just depends on the mood at the
time,” he explained. “I suppose I better get you home, the sun is
going to be up soon.” He started to sit up.

“
Can we stay to watch the sunrise?” I
asked. I had gotten used to watching the sun lift it’s head over
the world around me while I was out at the cabin and was missing it
right about then.

“
Sure,” he said and relaxed back down
onto the hood of his car.

“
How many people have you killed?” I
asked out of the blue. I could pretend that it didn’t bother me for
only so long and I was beginning to feel more comfortable around
him. The scent of him still made me a nervous wreck, but I trusted
him.

“
I don’t know,” he said quietly. “More
than my fair share. It gets easier, but what really helps is
knowing why you’re doing it. In this line of work you kill or be
killed. There is no better reason to kill than to stay
alive.”

For some reason I trusted his motivations for
taking the jobs he did, but I asked anyway, “Do you take every job
that comes your way?”

“
No. I have to believe in the cause. I
don’t mind bending the law from time to time, but I won’t take a
job to do a hit on someone’s husband or wife. Is that what you
meant?” he asked.

“
Pretty much,” I said and we fell
silent to watch the sunrise.

When it was fully light we got back into his
car and he drove me home. I stepped out of the car and felt better
about the whole situation. I said thank you and was about to shut
the door when he said Mr. Black would be picking me up in a couple
of days and then reminded me to check my mail.

He drove away and I went directly to Mom and
Dad’s to collect my mail.

Mom was in the kitchen at the table painting
her latest creation. It was a small shelf she had already stained
but was now adding some finishing touches.

“
Hi!” she said happily. “I haven’t seen
you for a long time.”

“
I know,” I replied just as happily. “I
like your shelf, you did a great job.”

“
You know what it is? Your dad can be
such a pain. He pretends to not know what my stuff is. I knew he
had to be pretending. How could you not know this is a shelf?” she
said.

I smiled. My dad and mom were the perfect
couple. I had only seen them argue once and it was over me. As I
got older my mother had voiced her opinion to me about my dad’s
shortcomings, but then she would end it with some thing like, ‘I
suppose I should be used to it by now,’ or ‘I still love him
though.’

“
Do you have my mail?” I asked
Mom.

“
Yes. It’s over there on top of the
microwave.” She pointed with her paintbrush.

I walked over to the small pile of letters
and flipped through them. Credit card application, then another,
and another, bank statement and then I saw it. The return address
was stamped:

1324 Plaza Dr.

Suite 73

I tore it open and looked at the check. Wow,
I had no idea! Wow! If I kept working for these guys I would soon
be independently wealthy and I wouldn’t
need
Mom and Dad’s
money.

“
What’s that?” Mom asked motioning
toward my check.

“
It’s my paycheck,” I said with pride
as I handed it to her.

“
Oh, my. Your dad told me you were
working for these people,” she said.

Great, here it comes. She’s going to tell me
that it’s too dangerous and girls shouldn’t be doing that kind of
work and when was I going to find a good man to marry.

“
I’m glad that you found something that
you can like,” she said, handing the check back to me. “You’re
doing something that I would have loved to do.”

What!!! My mom, go kill people! I don’t think
so.

“
It’s okay, I guess,” I
said.

She smiled and went back to her painting. I
hugged her and said thank you for keeping my mail. Then I went
straight to my car to set up a new bank account. I wanted to keep
track of the money I made separately from my allowance afforded me
by my parents. My plan was to mooch off them for as long as I
could. Mom and Dad had given me lessons with money as I grew up,
you know… ‘Here’s your allowance, put half in the bank and do what
you want with the other half. Just remember once it’s gone it’s
gone.’ I actually could have been a shop-aholic but I was careful
with what I spent my money on. Usually I found myself wanting the
high-priced items like a car and a good stereo and a great computer
so I saved more than I spent. It had become a habit to hoard rather
than to spend. I’m not saying I didn’t splurge on stupid things,
like going to the bar. Fancy underwear that I would never share
with anyone was a downfall of mine. I just didn’t do it as much as
I used to.

I got everything settled downtown and headed
for home. The excitement of receiving my first paycheck and the
shock of seeing the balance of that check had begun to wear off. I
thought about the dead guy and quickly pushed him out of my brain
and decided to fantasize about Mr. White. I got to a part in the
fantasy where I said ‘Oh, Mr. White’ and it killed it for me. From
now on I was going to have to use his real name, Malone, in my
fantasies. Not that it was all that much better either.

Upon reaching my driveway I noticed I was
exhausted. I wondered why. It wasn’t even noon yet. Then I
remembered I had been up for a day and a half. I decided I’d go in
and go to bed.

When I got to my bedroom, I made sure the
door was shut tight before I changed out of my clothes into some
sexy pajamas. I had an urge to walk around in front of the cameras,
like I forgot they were there, but I hadn’t forgotten they were
there. Out of all the experiences I’d had since joining the
company, the cameras affected me the most. Well, other than having
to kill a man.

That brought back the vision of the guy
floating face down in the water. I tried to push it out of my head
but it wouldn’t go. I suppose I’m going to have to face it
eventually, I thought. I retraced every part of the mission trying
to find a way to not kill the guy
.
What if
I hadn’t dropped the end of the motorboat, if Mr. Black had waited
to see if he’d leave. All those and other thoughts came to mind but
my reasonable side shot them all down. The guy must not have heard
the splash or he would have been there sooner. Mr. Black knew what
he was doing and the guy probably would have conducted a search of
the deck after finding the motorboat the way it had been. Every way
I found to change the outcome, I found to be flawed. I guess it had
been unavoidable. That helped me a little. I finally fell asleep
with the image of the dead man floating around in my skull.

I woke up early that evening and decided to
go to Mom and Dad’s. I hadn’t been around them much lately and I
really missed them. Independence had always been my middle name,
but I still liked to be around my parents. They were good people.
Mom should have dinner ready soon anyway.

When I reached the back door of the main
house I could smell spaghetti. I hadn’t had spaghetti for a while.
I walked in and there was Mom, sitting at the table, painting. Dad
was at the stove stirring the noodles.

“
Is Dad cooking?” I asked
incredulously.

“
No, he’s just checking the noodles for
me,” Mom said. My parents were a bit old fashioned. My dad would
probably starve if he had to cook and my mom didn’t trust him to
cook either.

“
Here, Dad,” I said taking away the
spoon he was using. He looked relieved and went to sit at the
table.

“
Are you going to clean off the table
before we eat?” he asked Mom.

“
Yes, honey. I just want to get this
little part… done… right… here,” my mom replied and then stood and
began to clean off the table. I drained the noodles and started to
dish them up on plates for us. I got Dad’s plate put together and
then Mom’s.

“
Did you make garlic bread?” I
asked.

“
I knew I forgot something,” Mom
said.

“
Oh well, no big deal,” I said and
dished up my own plate.

We sat at the table like a normal family and
Mom talked about the projects she was working on. She had a sign to
make for the nice couple down the street. She was thinking about
going to a craft fair, she just didn’t know if she would like to
sit there all day. Then she began to tell my Dad about my paycheck.
How excited I was when I opened it, how much it was. All the
details about how I practically ran out to go get it cashed.

“
I hope you didn’t spend it on
something stupid. That’s a lot of money to be carrying around if
you didn’t spend it.” Dad said to me.

“
I didn’t spend any of it. I put it in
the bank.” I said like a little kid who had just gotten in trouble
for something she hadn’t done.

“
Oh, well good. Does this mean I can
cut your allowance off?” My Dad said.

“
No!” I yelled. I hadn’t caught the sly
look on my Dad’s face until after I shouted.

Him and Mom both found it funny. The rest of
the dinner was nice and we talked about other unimportant things. I
helped put the dishes in the dishwasher and headed home.

It wasn’t time for bed yet, so I decided to
play on the computer for a while. As I was killing aliens I toyed
with the idea of checking out the rest of the guys real names. I
was mostly interested in Mr. Black, but I thought the best way to
find his out would be to ask him. I felt guilty just thinking about
spying on him. Respect was a big part of our relationship. He gave
me my fair share and I had tons of respect for him.

I pushed myself away from the computer before
I found myself doing something that I would feel bad about later. I
decided I’d call Colin and catchup. We talked about my new job. I
gave him all the details about the training and the bank job I had
done. I left out the recovery mission where I had killed a man
though. I didn’t feel like talking about that anymore.

The next couple of days were pretty much the
same. I spent quite a lot of time with Mom and Dad. I even started
making a sign of my own to hang on my wall. I had borrowed some
paint and brushes from Mom and brought them home so I could work on
my sign in the evenings.

It was late evening and I was painting on my
sign to keep myself off the computer. Every time I sat at the thing
I wanted to go snooping for names. The phone rang so I set my brush
down on a paper towel I had at the table and got up to answer
it.

“
Hello?” I said into the
receiver.

“
I’ll be there to pick you up late
tomorrow morning.” It was Mr. Black.

“
Okay,” I said. “What are we doing?” I
asked.

“
Going back to the cabin,” he
responded.

“
For how long?”

“
Don’t know. Until you learn what I
have to teach,” he said.

“
See you then,” I said and he hung up.
He seemed a little short with me and I hoped he wasn’t mad at me
for screwing up the mission. You know what, I told myself, I
didn’t
screw up the mission. I
finished
the mission.
It didn’t help, I still felt bad about how the mission had turned
out. I thought on that while I went back to painting my sign. I
finally came to the conclusion that I felt embarrassed for Mr.
Black. I had found out he wasn’t unstoppable and
unconquerable.

I tucked myself into bed knowing that things
were going to be all right between Mr. Black and myself if I could
face the fact that he
was
human. That’s if he could face the
fact that I knew that now too.

*****

The backpack I had the first time was packed
and ready to go when Mr. Black arrived the next morning. I heard
him pull up and was in the SUV almost before the tires stopped
moving. I was ready to get out of there and start back into
training. The sooner we got this done the sooner we could go out on
jobs again.

I had gotten myself motivated for a long car
ride again and had brought books this time. We drove to the office
and when we got parked in the garage I asked him, “Should I wait in
here?”