Newfound Clarity: Newfound Sanity

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Red Eye.

Chapter Two

"You left me hanging from a thread we once swung from together/I lick my wounds but I can never see them getting better/Something's gotta change/Things cannot stay the same/Her hair was pressed against her face, her eyes were red with anger/Enraged by things unsaid and empty beds and bad behavior… " ~ Goodnight, Goodnight by Maroon 5

"How the hell did you get this number?" Jackson growled. This was one person from his past better off left in the past. He didn't miss her one bit.

"You forgot about me already? And all the nights we shared…"

He remembered alright. Bloody Irish-born temptress. She didn't have flaming red hair, no, no, Fiona Larsen's hair was jet black, a sharp contrast to her green eyes. She had a toned, tight body with a few tattoos. And God, she knew more than a hooker or call girl when it came to the bedroom.

Jackson cleared his throat. "Fiona, kill anyone interesting lately?"

She laughed, a bell-like sound, on the other end. "Oh, Jackie, where have you been? I'm retired."

It was his turn to snort. "You? Retire?"

The Irish-born assassin was a cold-blooded killer. In the past, he'd designed the jobs after target selection, and she'd carried out the kills while he managed the unwitting "assistants". She was the most vicious, blood-thirsty woman he'd ever met until he hooked up with Lisa Reisert.

"Well, sort of. You see, I have a sensitive matter I need taken care of. I can't be seen because of my involvement. You understand, don't you?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

She paused, taking a deep breath. "Remember my boyfriend? The one I told you about that left me? I found him."

"And?"

"He's married. He wants to be with me, but he needs me to take care of his wife first. The only problem is that she's rich. I can't be seen near him or her without the blame falling back on him. So I thought of you… and your ability to make accidents happen."

"I don't do that anymore," he insisted, glancing toward the stairs. He hoped Lisa already went back to sleep. She'd bitch him out for talking business in their kitchen.

"Too bad. The commission would be a few hundred grand… just spare change to my soon-to-be husband…"

That was a decent amount of money for a routine hit. Hell, even for an accidental hit, that was a good chunk of change. Lisa didn't have to know, right?

"Who's the target?"

"Great, I knew I could count on you, Jackie!"

He rolled his eyes. He always hated cutesy nicknames. He only let Lisa get away with calling him Jack because he called her Leese. Their hated nicknames were pet names when they used them.

"Who is the target, Fi? I don't have time for games."

"Oh, just some bitch named Katherine…"

Jackson almost dropped his phone. "What?"

"Katherine. First name, Katherine. Last name… Murphy. Or is it Robertson? I'm not sure…"

"You mean Katherine Robertson-Murphy? Wasn't she just in the news?" he tried to say casually. He didn't want to expose his personal connection if he could help it.

"Actually, yeah, she was. So…."

"So what?"

"Are you going to take the job?"

"Too damn risky," he said, hanging up on the voice from his past.

Kill Kat? No way in hell.


Fiona Larsen sat outside the Murphy home. She glared at the phone in disgust. Jackson Rippner had wimped out on her. Well, there was a first time for everything.

Especially since his lover often visited the Murphy home alone. Could Aidan have started sleeping with his wife's friend? If so, why didn't Jackson want to help?

She couldn't imagine Aidan cheating on his wife with her friend. But then again, he had gone out for dinner and never returned, leaving her naked and alone in their bed. She never would have thought he was an adulterer back then.

Yet he was. They'd been engaged when he ran off and married Katherine without even a good-bye.

Part of her wanted to kill him, but another, more animalistic part of her wanted him back. Aidan belonged to her. Sure, Dillon O' Connor, her boss and part-time fling, gave her attention and presents. But he wasn't Aidan.

Fiona would get her man back. No matter what.


Lisa Reisert knocked at the double front door of her best friends' home. After a fire-bombing, meant to kill her and her lover, the Murphys´ previous home burned to the ground. During the fire, Lisa and Jackson were trapped in an underground passageway until Aidan managed to free them through a locked cellar door.

The same evening their home burned down, Katherine fought with her husband. Their fight ended with the couple sleeping in different beds for the first time in years. Because of the fire, Katherine fell for trap that ended with her lying dead in a ditch—except she wasn't really dead.

It took more than bullets to kill Katherine Murphy. The slight redhead had more spirit and spunk than most people and she was still only in her twenties. When the bank where the two women worked at was robbed, Katherine was tortured and molested in the vault. A few months later, the young woman was lying in a coma.

Now, after surviving a poisoning attempt, Katherine was at home—in her new, improved home—and out of her coma. She could walk as well, with a slight limp from one of her numerous injuries. Not that it stopped the self-defense instructor from wearing high heels.

Her friend had a shoe fetish. Lisa had seen her closet before—it resembled a well-stock shoe store. Most of her shoes had at least a two-inch heel. That was considered low for Kat. She routinely went shopping at the mall or even the grocery store in four-inch stilettos. She even owned a few modified pairs of boots that concealed a set of knives in the sides.

Aidan often joked that his wife carried more weapons than most army officers. He once confessed that even during sex, Kat kept more than one weapon close at hand. Her clothing occasionally had extensive tailoring that provided her with hiding places.

Of course, being a petite woman, there wasn't exactly a lot of places for Katherine to hide, well, anything. Not that it stopped her. Lisa had long ago learned to except the eccentricities that came with her best friend.

"It's open," Lisa whispered, frowning.

The Murphys were fastidious about locked their doors. Even car doors were locked immediately once they climbed inside a vehicle or out of one. They would never leave their front door unlocked.

Her lover slipped ahead of her. "Get back in the car, Leese."

"Not on your life!" she snapped. "Kat—"

"She can take care of herself. Get back in the car and phone it in."

"No! I'm perfectly—"

"Get in the car, Leese. I'm not gonna ask you again."


Green eyes met steely blue. Both of them were stubborn and pig-headed to the very core. Neither of them would win this battle of wills. It would only upset them both and led to sulking later. Of course, she might very well sic her dog, Damien, a black mutt with an innate dislike of Jackson, on her lover once they returned home.

Jackson would never dream of hurting Damien. He hated "that damn dog", but he loved her too much to kill her pet. She couldn't say the same for her best friend. Jackson and Kat's relationship was complicated to say the least.

Kat was used as bait to draw Jackson in. His old boss went after the wrong woman and quickly switched targets. At the same time, he reeled Lisa in with promises of freeing Katherine. Jackson was forced to abandon a good friend—and the daughter of an even older friend and co-worker and sometimes boss—to save a woman he once tried to kill.

He knew Katherine as Lynn Carter or Lynn Robertson, the daughter of Jim Robertson, a multi-millionaire technological magnate. Jim and Jack worked on several projects together in the past. In fact, it was Jim who nursed Jackson back to health after his first encounter with Lisa.

Lynn became a friend during his recovery. At the same time, he began to care for her like a brother cares for his sister.

The brother-sister dynamic stuck, surprising both Kat's husband and Lisa. It was a pleasant surprise of sorts, especially when he admitted his feelings at Kat's bedside, moments before they turned off the life support machines.

That dynamic kept them in close touch after her return to life. Lisa and Jackson visited almost every day while Aidan was at work and the two couples had dinner together at least once a week.

Which was why, in the middle of the day, they stepped through the unlocked front door in search of their best friend.

Neither Jackson nor Lisa expected the bloody scene that awaited them.

Author's Notes:

Now you finally got a good look at Fiona. Scary little thing, isn't she? Bits of her personality, not her looks, are based on Fiona from the TV show Burn Notice, but they're not the same person. My Fiona looks differently and has a different background and is younger than her kick ass counterpart.

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(Newfound Clarity)

Lily – Me too! I love them. They're my favorite original characters.