What Have We Done (2)

Jenna watches a long moment as the woman crosses the street to avoid the other parents chatting on the sidewalk.

Back at the house, Jenna contemplates a shower. But it’s SoulCycle day. She’s already done her miles, so she could skip it, but they prepaid a fortune for the classes. Besides, what else does she have to do other than clean the house, which Simon already keeps immaculate? Tax lawyers, she’s learned, are people of precision. Still, there’s dry cleaning to pick up, a run to Whole Foods for Simon’s favorite steaks, Willow’s veggie burgers.

After running her errands, she again considers skipping spin class. Then a text arrives: See you at SoulCycle!

That’s weird. She’s not meeting anyone at class. She doesn’t really have any friends. The message is from an unfamiliar number. Maybe it’s the next wave of advertising technology. They not only read your mind on your social-media feed; now it’s your texts. Maybe it’s the person she met in class last week who was friendly to her, though Jenna doesn’t recall giving the woman her number.

By noon, she’s rushing into the lobby of the SoulCycle on Massachusetts Avenue, downtown.

Though the studio is only seven miles from Jenna’s house, it took forty minutes to get there. D.C.

traffic is brutal, but it’s still nothing compared to Shanghai or Kabul. There’s a SoulCycle in Bethesda, much closer to home, but old habits from her single days are hard to break. And Emma L is her favorite instructor.

She smiles at the receptionist, signs in.

In the changing room, Jenna opens her locker. She’s surprised. There’s a cell phone inside. It’s the cheap burner-phone variety. She examines the locker’s door to make sure she’s opened the right one, but it’s her monthly rental. And the combination on the lock worked.

Dread courses through her.

The phone pings. The text is three words:





bathroom second stall


She scoops up the phone, shuts the tiny door to the locker, and heads to the restroom. Class is starting, she can hear music and the instructor’s distorted voice coming from the studio. The restroom is empty. Lowering her head, she peers under the row of stalls. No feet.

She faces the second stall, opens the door slowly, the pulsing beat of the music still vibrating through the walls.

A jolt rips through her. Inside the stall is a woman. She’s sitting on the toilet tank, her feet resting on the seat.

Another lightning bolt to the chest. It’s the young woman from the bus stop. The woman steps gracefully onto the floor and shoves a duffel bag into Jenna’s hands.

“I said I was done with all this,” Jenna tells her. “They said I was free and they wouldn’t—”

“That’s above my pay grade.”

“Please, I can’t.”

The woman shakes her head. “You’d better. For Simon, Willow, and Tallulah’s sake.”

The woman steps past her calmly and disappears.

Jenna’s heart is banging in her chest, sweat forming on her forehead. She steadies herself, then unzips the duffel. Inside, there’s a pair of movie-starlet sunglasses, a wig of flowing black hair, a denim jacket, and a keycard that says, HAMILTON HOTEL. Handwritten on the sleeve, a room number: 1018.

Five minutes later, Jenna slips out of the SoulCycle studio and struts down the street in her disguise. The Hamilton’s only a block away. Her gut is full of butterflies, but her training is coming back to her. Like riding a bike.

She’s not this person anymore. She can’t, she won’t.

But her family.

Inside room 1018, she finds a rifle with a high-end scope on a tripod positioned at the window.

The phone pings again and Jenna reads the instructions.

The bald man at the Capital Grille’s outdoor table won’t be making it to dessert.





CHAPTER TWO

DONNIE

Donnie wakes to loud thuds on his cabin door. Each pound reverberates through his head like an explosion. He’s on the floor of the tiny room in the belly of the cruise ship. Twenty years ago, he and the band would have been in the concierge suites. He pushes himself away from the vomit puddled on the floor. The ocean is choppy today and it’s making him feel even worse.

The thumping continues and he manages to climb to his feet. Wearing only tighty-whities, he opens the door, and the light from the hallway sends another bullet through his skull.

“Donnie, what’s going on?” Pixie has a concerned look on her face. “Rehearsal started half an hour ago. Tom is pissed.”

Before he responds, Pixie pushes her small frame inside. She makes a face at the stench, looks around, and before Donnie can conceal the evidence sets her eyes on the empty bottle of J?germeister.

The razor blade and rolled dollar bill on the table.

“Oh, Donnie,” she says. She puts her delicate brown hand on his ghost-white bare shoulder.

“I can’t do this right now,” he says, with more edge than she deserves.

Pixie’s new. She joined the band last year—Tracer’s Bullet has only two original members from back in the day, including Donnie. But it’s enough for the Legends of Rock Cruise. Pixie’s the only bandmate Donnie considers a friend. The rest merely tolerate him.

Her downcast expression is the worst. One thousand percent pity. He’s been sober for three months, the longest stretch in a decade. But then he got word last night about Ben. The closest thing he had to a brother. Then he ran into that aging groupie—the one with the same bleached hair she probably had when she raised a lighter to their hit power ballad two decades ago.