Hellbent (Orphan X #3)(42)

In a McMansion in the impressively named and decidedly unhilly gated community of Palm Hills, Candy McClure strode through the kitchen wearing two oven mitts patterned with cartoon drawings of the Eiffel Tower.

Classy.

Her fuck-me lips, which would be her best feature if there weren’t so many to choose from, were clamped around a candy cane. Sucking. She’d plumped them out further with lip liner and tinted gloss, which made things entirely unfair for anyone with hot blood in his—or her—veins. This was by design.

She had more assets than the other Orphans, and she was unafraid to deploy them.

Contour-fitting Lululemon yoga pants and a muscle tank gripped her firm body, showing off everything she had to show off while hiding everything she needed to hide.

Such as the scar tissue that turned her back and shoulders into an angry, swirling design better suited to pahoehoe lava than to human skin.

She leaned forward and removed a fresh apple pie from the oven. It smelled wonderful. On the counter rested a bag of powdered sugar, a tub of shortening, and a flask of concentrated hydrofluoric acid, effective at dissolving flesh and bone.

She was a domestic goddess.

On the easy-care quartz-topped island, her phone chimed. She flung off the mitts, leaned beneath the hanging copper pots, and picked up.

Her boss’s voice came through. “Code.”

She glanced at the screen. “‘Iridescent motor,’” she said. “My nickname in high school.”

“Are you still undercover?”

Steam rose lazily from the pie. A lawn mower started up somewhere outside. Curlicue writing on her apron read “Kiss The Baker!”

She said, “Deep cover.”

“Target identified?”

She smiled, felt the peppermint seep between her teeth, cool and tingly. “Yeppers.”

She pulled her red notebook over from its place by the salt and pepper shakers, tapped it with a Pilot FriXion pen. The notebook held her extensive and detailed mission notes. And a new recipe for delicious shortbread cookies.

For nearly two weeks, she’d been living here in this steamy slice of Boca Raton paradise, drawing the attention of the men and the ire of their wives. She’d been tasked with identifying who in the upscale community was on the verge of bundling $51 million in a super PAC opposing Jonathan Bennett. Van Sciver had backtracked bank records and data comms and found that someone in Palm Hills had masterminded the operation from a rogue cell-phone tower. Given that the negative campaign threatening to hit the airwaves was the start of a push for post-election impeachment, it was no wonder the mastermind was doing his best to keep his machinations—quite literally—off the grid.

So Orphan V had moved into the neighborhood and was doing a suburban divorcée hot-as-fuck desperate-housewife routine, renting the house for a few weeks as her post-signing-of-the-papers “gift to herself.” She mingled with the denizens and took plenty of night walks, surveilling who might be in their backyard or on the roof, erecting or disassembling a ghost GSM base station.

Last night she’d watched him through the slats of a no-shit white picket fence as he’d toiled red-faced over a tripod and a Yagi directional antenna.

“Neutralize now,” Van Sciver said. “I need you on X.”

Her expression changed. Orphan X always took priority.

“Something rang the cherries,” Van Sciver continued. “It requires your feminine wiles. Finish now, get clear, contact me for mission orders.”

She said, “Copy that.”

The call disconnected.

Time to clean up.

She placed the notebook on the rotating glass turntable of the microwave and turned it on. Pocketing her flask of hydrofluoric acid, she cast a wistful gaze at the apple pie. She’d grown oddly fond of this house and her time here in Stepfordia, nestled into real life—or at least a simulation of it. Living among families, privy to their hidden resentments and petty squabbles. Yesterday at the country-club pool, she’d witnessed a disagreement over sunscreen application escalate into a battle worthy of the History Channel. She enjoyed her neighbors’ small triumphs, too. Billy learning to ride a two-wheeler. A husband rushing out to the driveway to help his wife carry in her groceries. Teaching the new puppy to heel.

Candy had made a home here. A new wardrobe displayed on hangers in the walk-in. Essential oils by the bathtub to soothe her burns. Microfiber sheets on the bed, so soft against her aching skin. Satin sheets worked, too, of course, but they always seemed too porny.

The microwave dinged. She removed the notebook and, on her way out, dumped it into the trash atop a confetti heap of apple peelings.

She paused in the foyer, taking in the sweep of the staircase.

How odd to have grown fond of this place.

Was it a sign of weakness? Since Orphan X had inflicted the hydrofluoric-acid burn on her, Candy sometimes woke up late at night gasping for air, her back on fire. In those first breathless moments, she swore she could feel her deficiencies burrowing into her, seeping through her flawed, throbbing flesh, infecting her core. The sensation had worsened since last month. In an alley outside Sevastopol, one of Candy’s colleagues had turned a beautiful young Crimean Tatar girl into collateral damage.

Candy didn’t mind killing. She thrived on it. But this one had been unnecessary and the girl so sweet and lost. She’d come up the alley and seen something she shouldn’t have. Right up until she was stabbed in the neck with a pen, she’d been offering to help.