With a concentrated look of intense hatred, she stared down at her muddy shoes. All of the time she spent that morning cleaning them had gone to waste. And now, she would waste even more time in the evening having to clean them up again. She was a long way from her home and her pristine shoe collection, which meant that she was stuck staring at this disgraceful, muddy pair for the foreseeable future.

With her blazer hung over her shoulder, the hotel slasher stomped up the street, cursing the names of the men who caused her to fail at her job. Having called for an ambulance, the hotel was now teeming with police officers investigating the scene and trying to piece together what exactly had happened. Now, she was forced to move to a new rendezvous point and alter her meticulously devised schedule.

Looking up to the empty road, she brought her orange gaze back to her muddy shoes, and scowled hard as she saw the cuffs of her black pants getting muddy too. “Where is the pickup?” she asked aloud. To think that she could have been back home by now, enjoying a cold shower rather than walking down the street and ducking into nearby bushes and behind trees to avoid the eyes of incoming police cruisers and ambulances. She could have. She should have. If it weren’t for those men. Those men that made her look bad. How dare they make her look bad.

With her eyes on the road ahead, an incoming Truck zoomed past, and the slasher could have sworn she saw something through the window. She turned her head to get a good look at the outgoing car only to see it come to a halt a few dozen yards down the road. Its reversing lights came on, and it backed up at a rapid pace, approaching her. She got an eyeful of the car’s license plate so there was no panic in the slasher’s stance or her gaze. Instead, she reached out to get her hand on the passenger’s side door handle as it drove past.

But she didn’t get a grip on the passenger’s side door handle, as the car zoomed past her in reverse this time, with the slasher certain of the grimace on the other side of the glass. Again the car stopped a few dozen yards away, with the slasher’s annoyed expression turning into one of fury. The car slowly drove forward, and once the passenger’s side door was in her reach, she grabbed it and forced it open.

“Heya, Claire!” Holly said from the driver’s seat, drinking a coffee and nodding to a box of doughnuts on the passenger’s seat. “Help yourself!”

Claire’s expression did not change as she slammed the doughnut box shut and kicked her muddy shoes on the truck’s side. Sliding into the passenger’s seat, she placed the doughnut box on her lap and adjust her seat belt, all without a word to the driver.

Holly drank her coffee and put it back in her cup holder with a loud exhale. “So how was work?” she asked, putting the car back in drive and launching forward. Claire shot her a dirty look and crushed the box a bit in her hands. “Alright alright, don’t tell me. I’m good at keeping secrets too, you know.”

The two drove in abject silence for a solid minute, before Holly pulled her hands off the steering wheel and threw them into the air. “Alright! You twisted my arm!” Claire wordlessly shot her arm across and grabbed the steering wheel until Holly lowered her hands back to it. “We’ve got eyes on Chamomile. The guys have landed there and we’ve information on where they parked their car.”

With her hand now free, Claire grabbed her coffee cup from the cup holder and, upon inspecting it for any imperfections caused by a prank, took a short sip. It was black, and her frustrated demeanor softened and a small smile crept over her face.

“Claudia wants us to intercept them there. And boy is she mad at you.” Claire’s softened expression hardened once more, as she shot a stare at Holly’s direction. “Don’t get mad at me, I wouldn’t have failed Scarlatto like that, that’s for sure.”

Claire almost crushed her coffee cup, but stopped herself short. The last thing she wanted to do was let her drink go to waste and stain her white shirt. “I was close” Claire said in a raspy voice, taking another sip.

“Close only counts in darts, ma’am,” Holly sharply said, raising a doughnut to her mouth. Claire looked down at the doughnut box in her hand and saw the side panel laying open. It was in her hands, and she didn’t even notice Holly opening it and grabbing a doughnut from right under her nose. “But don’t worry” she said before taking a bite. “I’m here to clean up your mess, as usual.”

Holly opened her mouth wide to dunk the entire doughnut at once, but suddenly found her delightful treat impaled by a long blade within a moment of her dropping it. The cream filled doughnut slid down the blade all the way down to its base sticking out of Claire’s index finger. “Hey hey, I’m just kidding around” Holly nervously said with a laugh, as the blade pressed against her chin. “I’m driving here, and these roads are bumpy. It’s not my fault you totally blew it today.”

“I’ll be looking forward to seeing you blow it next” Claire said, leaning towards Holly and bringing the blade closer to her chin, “These guys are always pulling out secrets, and if you underestimate them, they’ll embarrass you too!”

“Oh, I’ve got something they won’t be expecting either” Holly said with a smile. An unseen force tugged on the back of Claire’s shirt, and goaded her back to her seat. Claire knew better than trying anything while on the road. There was no point putting both of their lives in danger over an argument. “Here’s the plan” Holly said, grabbing another doughnut from the box as Claire retracted her finger blade and took a bite out of hers. “We find where they parked, and take care of their car. Once that’s out of the way, we’ll have them exactly where we want them.