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I knew I was pushing my luck, but for some reason I couldn’t seem to help myself. “What about the thing that put you here in the first place? Do you ever talk about that?”
She stared at me again. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I told you. My name is X.”
“Since when did a goddamn hit man know so much about his target’s past? Aren’t you supposed to just be shown a photograph and given a time and place, and that’s it? Clean. No connections. In and out.”
“I told you. I like to know who I’m dealing with.”
There was an element of truth in what I’d said, but the whole truth was that I’d been sent her photograph, name, and location, and the moment my eyes met with her image, I’d been fascinated. My heart had quite literally skipped, my breath catching in my throat. The camera had caught her unexpectedly, so she was partly looking over her shoulder, her dark eyes locking with the lens. There hadn’t been so much as a hint of a smile on her lips—if anything, I’d sensed the start of a scowl on her features. I’d reached out and traced the scrolls of tattoos down her arm—the shaded roses and skulls that made up the sleeve. From that moment, I’d done everything I could to learn about her, including the reason behind why she’d gone into Witness Protection, and why her father wanted her dead. Perhaps I should have said no and let this job pass, but if I did, someone else would be sent to kill her. For some reason the thought of that was even worse than the idea of killing her myself. Perhaps it was that her death would have been certain if I’d refused the job.
I might not have been able to stop another person, but I was always able to stop myself.
The realization jerked through me. Was that the reason I’d accepted this job, so I could make sure she didn’t die? I had never killed a woman before, and it had been my hard limit, but I’d been told of who she’d killed, and I knew she wasn’t any more innocent than some of the men I’d executed. Besides, there were some people it just wasn’t a good idea to say no to.
She’d stayed in my thoughts, penetrated my head, this picture of a woman I’d never even met, and was supposed to kill.
And had been planning to. I still planned to, I thought, if my hand was forced.
But now it seemed like such a waste, to snuff out a light that burned so fiercely.
Not that I was in a position to kill her right now even if I wanted to.
“Listen to me,” I said. “I’m worried about the two dead men over there.”
She gave me a look that made me think she was concerned I’d had too big a knock to the head and said, “They’re dead.”
“I’m aware of that. I mean I’m worried that whoever sent them is going to expect to hear from them sometime soon. If they don’t, they’re going to know something is wrong and send someone else in after them.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You think?”
“Yes, I think. Have you searched the bodies? I doubt they’d have anything on them to identify them, but they might have cell phones.”
I was taking a risk by mentioning this. Even though she’d taken the gun from me, she hadn’t actually searched me yet, and was unaware of the cell phone in my own back pocket. Miraculously, it hadn’t fallen from my pocket when I’d tumbled down the stairs. I was supposed to have used it to take a photograph of Verity after I’d killed her—proven to her father she was dead via a picture of her with a bullet hole in her forehead—but obviously that hadn’t happened yet. The other two men weren’t the only ones who would soon be getting messages questioning what was happening.
“We don’t get any coverage down here,” she replied.
“So if someone has been trying to get hold of them, they’d know something was off.”
Her lips pressed together, her nostrils flaring.
I continued. “What about strange vehicles parked close by? They must have traveled here in something. They wouldn’t use a cab, and wouldn’t have parked too nearby, so I’d look at least a couple of blocks from here.”
“You’re just trying to get me out of the house.”
“I’m not, I swear.”
“So why help me, if you were sent here to kill me anyway?”
“Because if the friends of those guys turn up here, I’m as good as dead as well.”
She exhaled a sigh, standing there with her hands on her hips, looking between me and the pile under the dust sheet.
A sudden bell chimed through the house, slightly distant as we were in the cellar. Vee straightened and turned toward the stairs. It rang again, insistent.
“Shit,” she swore.
“Are you going to get it?”
