The Fixer Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eightteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Acknowledgements

  Teaser - The Cruelest Cut

  The Fixer

  T E Woods

  (2012)

  * * *

  Rating: ★★★★★

  Tags: Mystery & Detective / General

  READ THE BOOK KIRKUS REVIEWS CHOSE AS THEIR "PICK OF THE WEEK"!

  "...Solid characters, unpredictable twists, and excellent plotting; a must read for those who enjoy crime fiction..." Kirkus Reviews

  An enigmatic vigilante known as The Fixer steps into the lives of the most depraved criminals and balances thwarted scales of justice. For those who employ her, she’s their last hope. For her targets, she’s an inescapable date with righteous payback.

  And for The Fixer, each contract she accepts is a futile effort to silence her own demons. In her latest assignment she violates every rule that has kept her safe. The Fixer is trapped into serving as personal assassin for an invisible employer who strips her of the safety she’s deluded herself existed. As she begins to mentally unravel, she knows her only hope for survival is to identify and destroy her controller.

  When Mort Grant, Chief of Detectives for the Seattle PD, learns the death of a prominent university faculty member wasn’t the heart attack it was designed to look like, he uncovers the dark underbelly of animal research and academic politics. Where sex is as viable a currency as a million dollar grant and power is held with an iron grasp. His search for the killer puts him on the trail of The Fixer.

  Mort encounters Lydia Corriger, a talented psychologist, with a beautiful and mysterious new patient who mystifies her and tests her considerable clinical skills. Together, Mort and Lydia work to untangle a complex weave of sadistic cruelty, sexual manipulation, and limitless money that finds them fighting for their sanity and their lives.

  The Fixer

  By Teresa E. Woods

  Text copyright ©2012 Teresa E. Woods

  All Rights Reserved

  Dedication

  For L.G., who never doubts.

  "Can I get you another cup of tea, Agatha?"

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Acknowledgements

  Teaser - The Cruelest Cut (Book 2)

  Chapter One

  The prospect sat in the hot tub, fat and doughy. Looking like he would leave an oil slick as he melted in the steaming water. The Fixer crossed the redwood deck, dropped a robe, climbed down three steps and sat across from the sweating mound of human flesh.

  “You Martin?”

  The prospect’s mouth flapped up and down. No words. A three hundred pound manatee gurgling as the whirlpool teased bubbles around his hairy D-cup breasts.

  “I asked if you’re Martin.”

  The fat man scanned the pool area. Two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon at an airport conference hotel. The Fixer knew the place would be empty. Perfect for sensitive conversations.

  Martin brought his hand to his face. Two pink hams rubbing water out of his eyes. “Graham? You’re Graham?”

  The Fixer nodded.

  A slow smile crossed the fat one’s face. “You’re not what I expected.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

  Yellow teeth peeked out between Martin’s fleshy lips. “I like your tattoo. A dagger through the heart. Nice for your line of work. What I don’t like is meeting in a jacuzzi.” He leaned his arms across the back of the tub. A porcine crucifix. “What’s the deal?”

  “Bathing suits and hot water. Great for making sure no one’s wearing a wire.”

  “I get it. Brings whole new meaning to the term ‘wet work’.”

  “You have a job for me, Mr. Martin?”

  The prospect craned his fat head, scanning the pool area again, assuring himself no one was within earshot. “My wife.”

  “What about your wife, Mr. Martin?”

  He fidgeted in his seat. “What? I gotta say it? That how this works?”

  The Fixer stared at him. Steel blue eyes shut down any resistance the obese man may have considered.

  “I want her gone, okay?” He swiped a hand through thinning brown hair. “I need her gone.”

  “Tell me why, Mr. Martin.”

  “What? You got standards?” Martin regretted the challenge the moment it left his lips. “Sorry. That was rude. You’re a professional. I respect that. It’s just you gotta understand.” He made a failed attempt at humble. “It’s not like I do this every day, you know what I’m saying?”

  “Tell me why, Mr. Martin. Why do you want your wife gone?”

  The enormity of
the man made his subservience all the more pitiful. This was the Fixer’s favorite part. When the prospect realized who held the power.

  “She’s become a liability, let’s just say. Spends my money like a sailor on shore leave. She’s drunk every day by three. She used to be gorgeous but I gotta face it. She’s really let herself go. My business, I need a looker on my arm.”

  “Why not divorce her, Mr. Martin?”

  The prospect narrowed his eyes, considering another stab at defiance. The Fixer’s steadiness stopped it. The smell of chlorine mixed with his sweat to produce an unctuous odor of sanitized panic. “It’s complicated. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Which means there’s money involved. Money a judge might think she deserves but you don’t want her to have.”

  “It’s not just the money. It’s a whole thing. Like I said, complicated.”

  “Which means there’s another woman. Someone who doesn’t want to wait through a messy divorce.”

  Martin found a sliver of backbone somewhere in his fleshy insulation. “Listen. I don’t gotta explain myself to you. You gonna do this thing or not?”

  The Fixer’s hand toyed with the bubbles. “No, Mr. Martin. I’m not. I do have standards. You don’t meet them.” Rising and grabbing the rail, The Fixer climbed the stairs and reached for a robe.

  “What the fuck is this? You jerking me around?” Martin attempted to stand but slipped, sending a chemically-treated tsunami over The Fixer’s feet.

  “Relax, Mr. Martin.” Robe tied tight. “I have colleagues whose criteria aren’t as high as mine. Consider this a first interview. The good news is you made it to the next round. Be here tomorrow. Same time. Same tub. My colleague will meet you. Name’s Allen. I think the two of you will make perfect partners.”

  “What is this? You got the rep, Graham. Who the fuck’s Allen? I need you. Not some dumb fuck associate of yours.”

  The Fixer looked down at the floating flesh flailing in the spa. “One more word, Mr. Martin and Allen takes another job. Are we clear?”

  Martin settled back onto the hot tub bench and nodded. “Tell that Allen of yours I want to do business.”

  The Fixer smiled and headed toward the locker room. A quick shower and change before heading home. Special attention to scrubbing off the heart-and-dagger tattoo. A long walk to the far end of the hotel’s parking lot. The Fixer pulled out a pre-paid cell phone, fitted a small voice digitizer over the mouthpiece, and punched in a number. An answer on the second ring.

  “West Grove Station, Officer Jenkins speaking.”

  “Detective Llaird, please.”

  Officer Jenkins reacted to the synthesized voice. “Who is this?”

  “Put me through to Detective Llaird. I won’t ask again, Officer.”

  A brief pause followed by a click signaled Jenkins had weighed her options well.

  “Llaird, Homicide.”

  “Detective Llaird, listen carefully.” The Fixer knew the digitizer sometimes garbled sounds. “Have one of your plainclothes meet a man at the airport Hilton tomorrow at two p.m. His name’s Martin. He’ll be the fattest guy your man’s ever seen and he’ll be waiting in the hot tub.”

  “Who the hell is this?” The digitizer attracted that question a lot.

  “Listen to me, Detective and you’ll save a life. Ignore me and you’ll have a homicide on your hands. Martin’s looking for somebody. Wants his wife dead and is ready to pay. Tomorrow. Two o’clock. Hot tub at the airport Hilton. He’ll be expecting a shooter named Allen.”

  “What the fuck is this?” Llaird offered a variation on the theme.

  “This, Detective, is a guaranteed head’s up. I’ve done my job. Now you do yours.” The Fixer clicked off. Digitizer removed and returned to pocket. Pre-paid’s battery ejected. Crossing the parking lot back to the hotel, The Fixer passed several cars with windows open to the July heat. Cell phone mechanism placed under the tire of a six-year-old Ford. Cell phone battery tossed into the open dumpster behind the coffee shop. Never breaking stride, The Fixer moved through the lobby and out the main entrance, nodding to the nearest bellman past the revolving door.

  “Cab, please. Airport.”

  The bellman whistled the first car in the taxi line forward. The Fixer stepped to the open door and handed the bellman a five before settling into the back seat. Two doormen and three bellhops watched the cab pull away.

  “That,” said the twenty-year old bellhop, “is one gorgeous woman.”

  Chapter Two

  Lydia Corriger clenched the paper coffee cup in her teeth, tucked her files under her left arm, fumbled with the keys, and bumped the door open. Stumbling three steps, she shrugged her briefcase off her shoulder and tossed the files onto her waiting room couch, pleased she hadn’t spilled a drop of her four dollar latte. She took a long sip before setting the cup on a side table. Gathering envelopes from beneath a bronze slot, she scanned them as she crossed into her office, settled down behind her secondhand oak desk and divided the mail into piles. Reaching for her coffee somewhere around the fourth credit card solicitation, she cursed her absent mindedness and returned to the waiting room to retrieve it.

  Lydia had a light day. One patient in the morning. Three more scattered throughout the afternoon. With any luck home before five. She ran a letter opener across the first envelope on a stack of remittances. If she hurried she could make her deposit before Jeffe Moldanado arrived for his ten o’clock appointment. She took another sip of coffee and promised herself a bagel on the way back from the bank.

  “Jeffe?”

  The tall Hispanic man stood on two aluminum crutches, moving slower than usual.

  “Back bothering you?” She motioned toward the recliner opposite her desk. “Want the La-Z-Boy today?”

  “I am good, thank you, Dr. Corriger.” Jeffe had arrived in Washington two years earlier. Up from a dusty backwater seventy miles south of Juarez. The only English he brought was “Yes, Boss.” He was eager to make his fortune following the crops. Apples, soybeans, lettuce, onions. Yakima, Moses Lake, Ellensburg, Walla Walla. He’d been in Yelm, unloading a flatbed of pumpkins at the end of a twenty-hour day when an exhausted tractor driver backed up and left him with six cracked vertebrae and one broken hip. Excellent surgeries were followed by medieval rehab in a filthy hellhole that warehoused him as long as the charity dollars held up.

  “My therapist is working me hard. I tell her to go fight the terrorists, she is so strong.” Jeffe smiled through his pain. “But I am walking now. So it’s good.”

  Lydia settled onto the sofa. “Eastview is working well for you, then?”

  “Ah, Madre de Dio, Dr. Corriger. You did not see the other. I was there for a year. It was no good. Bad food. Dirty sheets. No help. Now I am in Eastview less than one month and I am walking. I tell my wife not to worry. She can expect checks from me soon.”

  Lydia reached for her notebook. “Last week we talked about how you wanted to kill the farmer who hired you. What are your thoughts today?”

  Jeffe’s face hardened. “Bastardo!” He raised one crutch. “For three dollars an hour I sacrifice my legs. I cannot work. I cannot send money to my home.”

  “I hear your anger, Jeffe. But if you go after that man, you’ll end up in jail. How will you help your family then?”

  Jeffe leaned forward, his words cold and hard. “I will give them a greater gift.” He winced in pain. “Justicia!”

  Lydia opened the door to her waiting room at two o’clock sharp to greet a new patient. Savannah Samuels had called last week saying she was familiar with Lydia’s success with tough cases. Lydia had asked routine insurance information, but Savannah told her not to worry. She’d pay in cash at each appointment. Savannah stood at the window, gnawing a cuticle. Shoulder length hair, expertly cut with sharp angles, so shiny-black it gleamed blue in the afternoon light. Creamy skin, smooth as Dresden china. Three hundred dollar jeans and a soft silk shirt. Coach shoulder bag matching knee high leather boots. Burberry trench d
raped over her arm.

  Savannah looked up. Delicate cheekbones and chin gave her face an air of elegant fragility. Blue eyes, framed by thick dark lashes, telegraphed a silent sadness. Lydia put on a gentle smile and ushered her into her office.

  “You look just how I knew you would,” Savannah said.

  Lydia raised an eyebrow. “You’ve imagined what I look like?” She watched her newest patient settle onto the sofa and tried to interpret the wistful expression on her face. “Do I pass inspection?”

  “You look fine.” Savannah shifted into a mask of business cordiality. “It’s good to see you.”

  Lydia sat in an opposite chair and began her routine orientation to the confidential nature of therapy.

  “I’m not worried about confidences, Dr. Corriger. Is that what I should call you?” Savannah’s voice hummed with a slight accent Lydia found familiar, but couldn’t quite place.

  “Would you be more comfortable calling me something else?”

  “A question answered with a question. How very expected. Will I always be able to anticipate what you’ll say next?”

  Lydia had long ago grown weary of power dances. “Were you expecting me to ask what has you so frightened that you’re being immediately confrontational?”

  Savannah sat still. A slight smile crossed her pillowed lips. “Now there you go, Dr. Corriger, I wasn’t expecting that at all. Well played.”

  “Is that what we’re doing, Savannah? Playing?” Lydia didn’t wait for an answer. “Tell me why you’re not worried about keeping our work confidential.”

  Savannah drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly as she glanced around the room. She crossed her long legs and leaned back in the chair, her voice a world-weary monotone. “It won’t matter one way or the other what you tell to whom. Everything I say will be lies.”

  Lydia was intrigued with this new step. “How do you expect that to help?”

  Savannah fixed her sapphire eyes on her therapist. “Everything I tell you will be lies, but all of it will be true. You’ll be able to figure it out, Doctor. I’ve read every article you’ve written. I know about the award you got. You’ve always been able to figure out a way to help people and you’ll do it again for me.”