Who: Caroline West and an ex-CORE NPC What: Revenge. Where: An penthouse on Rivadavia, Buenos Aires, Argentina. When: Before dawn, February 26, 2011 Warnings: When it comes to revenge, Lisbeth Salander doesn't cut corners. Hard R.
All it took was a pack of cigarettes.
Caroline West had one alarm and one alarm only in her apartment, and when it finally went off two months and two days after her sister had been murdered, she was out the door and on her way to Buenos Aires within minutes. This was what she'd been waiting for. A slip. He was kind enough to make one, and she was kind enough indulge him. Just like she'd done with the other two.
He had to know that somebody was closing in on him. Didn't he? Pigs like him were paranoid – they always took precautions, ruining the lives of anyone who got between them and their freedom. One of the names Natalie had given her, he had a family. He forced them to be his accomplices. When Caroline had found them, they had actually thanked her.
No one would thank her for the death of Ray Keyes. She doubted no one would even know he was dead. He was so off the grid that even his aliases were inactive. Not an easy feat. But at 11:31 PM, in some no-name corner drug store in the seedy part of Buenos Aires, he charged a pack of cigarettes. It was so sloppy it legitimately made her laugh. She watched the in-flight movie from Stockholm to Miami, some rom-com with a stupid premise, but when she smiled and laughed whole-heartedly, she wasn't laughing at the dumb hero or the equally dumb object of his affections. She was laughing at Ray Keyes. How could he be so stupid?
Finding where Keyes lived was a cinch after that. Buenos Aires was a dirty town, but it didn't like his kind of dirty. A sweet smile and a little cash got her all the information she needed. She found the street address of his penthouse, then found a little all-night café just down the street. From there she hacked into the building's alarm system from within its security provider. No alarms. No camera. Easy as pie.
If Lisbeth had had her way, what happened next would have been much quieter. Much... neater. But Caroline had never killed a man before, not even the other two who had been responsible for her sister's death. They were both in jail, courtesy some very helpful evidence from an anonymous but reliable source. This man was different. Both his lackeys were unanimous in pointing the finger at him. He tortured Natalie. He tracked her down. He killed her. She was just going to return the favor.
At 7:52 AM, she rang his doorbell. At 7:53 AM, a half-naked prostitute answered. Caroline rolled her eyes and shot the woman with a tranquilizer without hesitating. That explained the cigarettes. By 7:56 AM, the woman was safely tucked inside a closet, and Caroline was in the bathroom, putting on her face.
At 8:07 AM, she went into the bedroom, tattoo kit in one hand and semi-automatic in the other. She didn't leave until 3:24 PM.
She didn't watch the in-flight movie on her way back to Stockholm. Instead, she slept, peacefully, for the first time in months.