Chapter 2

The shouting in the garage drew a crowd of coworkers heading home, and the security guards too.

The moment Alison saw the crowd swelling, she lunged at me, arms flung wide, trying to wrap them around my legs.

I didn't let her touch me. Just as she was about to grab hold, I drove my right knee up.

It caught her in the shoulder, and she let out a sharp cry.

Her body pitched backward, and she went sprawling half a meter away, flat on the ground.

Even then she kept wailing, tears and snot running down her face.

"I know you're rich. You drive a Porsche, you carry a Hermès bag. Just the scraps slipping through your fingers could save my life!"

"My daughter's only three. She can't grow up without a mother!"

Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

"Isn't that the gorgeous Ms. Fox from Legal? Those moves just now were unreal."

"Poor Alison, though. Terminal illness, and this one won't even give her money, just knocks her down. Isn't that a bit much?"

"Well, she's rich. Trained in taekwondo, too. People like us can't afford to cross her."

Resentment against the rich was an easy fire to light.

Seeing the mood tip his way, Bertram found his nerve. He pulled out a sheet of paper and held it high.

"Everybody, look! This is my wife's medical report!"

"It says right here, in black and white. Terminal stomach cancer!"

"Cordelia, you're a woman yourself. How can you be this heartless?"

Emboldened by the crowd, Bertram took a step forward and shoved the paper at my face.

My left hand closed around his wrist.

He flinched back, and my right hand slid the paper away from him.

My left hand pushed him off in the same motion, and I held the report up to the camera.

"A tumor screening report from the city hospital?"

"Carcinoembryonic antigen, normal."

"Alpha-fetoprotein, normal."

I lifted my head and looked around at my coworkers.

"Everyone, if I'm not mistaken, with terminal stomach cancer, these two markers would be off the charts, several times over."

"And the only thing abnormal on this sheet is right down here. Severe fatty liver and overnutrition."

The onlookers went quiet. Alison's face froze, and she rushed forward to snatch the report back.

"You're lying! You're not even a doctor. What do you know!"

I tossed the report up into the air.

Alison threw herself after it and slammed hard onto the ground.

"I'm not a doctor, no. But I know common sense, and I know how to spot a forgery."

I looked down at Alison scrambling on the floor.

"The official seal on this report has blurred edges, and the spacing between the characters is wrong. It's obviously one of those fifty-dollar fake stamps carved at some corner print shop."

"Forging the seal of a state agency or public institution. Well, Alison, that's one more charge to add to the list."

Alison came apart completely.

His scam exposed, Bertram flew into a rage and cast around for a weapon.

He grabbed a dry-powder fire extinguisher from the corner of the garage and swung it down onto my Porsche.

The door caved into a deep dent, paint splintering, and the crowd cried out and scrambled back.

The guards waved their hands in a panic.

"Don't, don't! That car's worth a few million!"

Bertram hoisted the extinguisher again and brought it down on the hood, cursing at me between swings.

"So you know martial arts! So you like showing off! So you like quoting the law!"

"Can't beat you in a fight, but I can sure as hell wreck your car! Today I'm turning this piece of junk into scrap!"

He hammered it three times. The hood buckled badly, and cracks spiderwebbed across the windshield.

Off to the side, the old woman clapped and cheered.

"Smash it! Smash the poisonous witch dead!"

I didn't move to stop him. I just held up my phone, filming, and looked at the crumpled front end with a cold smile.

"Bertram, do you know how they assess damage on a fully insured, custom-spec Porsche Panamera?"

He stopped and glared at me.

"Based on what you just did, the door, the hood, the front windshield all need factory replacements."

"Rough estimate, repairs over four hundred thousand."

"Willful destruction of public and private property, a large sum. That starts at three to seven years in prison."