Cold Pursuit (4 page)

T
homas Asher folded the
Washington Post
and set it to the side of his table with a chuckle of amusement after reading a rip-roaring, tongue-in-cheek op-ed on the Jo Harper incident. It focused on her and the vice president's beloved, unruly family—the point being, how could anyone expect the Secret Service to keep track of such incorrigible rascals?

The furor over Jo's encounter with Charlie Neal should have abated by now, but it went on because politicians and media hounds wanted it to.

And because there was that video, of course.

To Thomas—and to most people, he had no doubt—Jo came across as a competent professional who hadn't lost control but had simply, finally, done what the vice president or his wife should have done a long time ago: take their one and only son by the ear and read him the riot act.

Thomas settled back in his upholstered chair. The restaurant was on the first floor of an elegant, historic hotel a few blocks from Lafayette Park and the White House. He'd walked from his office where he worked as a political scientist for a respected think tank. Alex Bruni had called late yesterday afternoon to ask Thomas to breakfast. Of course, Alex was late. It was an annoyance, but not a surprise.

Thomas thought about Jo again. He suspected she was finished in the Secret Service, if only because it prized anonymity and discretion and both had gotten away from her after Charlie Neal's prank.

Unfair, perhaps, but he was secretly glad. She was capable of doing more with her life than working for the Secret Service. An elitist position on his part, he supposed, but an honest one. He'd met Jo in February on a long weekend in Vermont with his daughter. The trip was against his better judgment, but Nora, then a high-school senior, had pleaded with him to go. He was still licking his wounds after his wife—his
ex
-wife—had married Alex, one of Thomas's closest friends, and Nora was desperate to find a way for them to make peace with each other. She'd wanted beautiful Black Falls, Vermont, to be their common ground. It wasn't that simple, of course, but Thomas would do anything for his daughter. They'd gone snowshoeing in an apple orchard one morning, and he'd spotted an attractive woman battling her way up an icy, treacherous incline—Jo Harper, as it turned out. He remembered his surprise at discovering she was not only a Black Falls native but a federal agent with an impeccable reputation.

When he returned to Washington, he'd debated asking Jo out, but she hadn't shown an interest in a romantic relationship. In the end, he hadn't risked more rejection.

Now he realized his hesitation had worked in his favor. In April, when he'd gone back to Black Falls with his daughter, a lovely woman had asked to share his table at a bustling, popular village café. She'd introduced herself as Melanie Kendall and said she was taking a few days to get away from New York and her work as a self-employed interior decorator.

Thomas's life hadn't been the same since. With Melanie, he finally understood how dull and routine his first marriage had become. He wouldn't have ended it if Carolyn hadn't made the first move, but now, in retrospect, he could see how tedious their relationship must have become for her, too.

His waiter had left him a heavy silver pot of strong coffee and a small, chilled silver pitcher of cream—Thomas knew he should request low-fat milk, but he didn't.
Go with the real stuff.
He was, after all, meeting the man who'd stolen Carolyn from him, and passing on cream in his coffee struck him as something that Alex would seize upon as a sign of weakness.

When he'd called yesterday Alex claimed he wanted to discuss Nora, but Thomas couldn't imagine that Alex really cared that she'd dropped out of Dartmouth and moved to Black Falls to work in a café. The same café, in fact, where Thomas had met Melanie seven months ago.

He suspected Alex's motives for inviting him to breakfast weren't that simple—nothing with Alex ever was.

And everything, Thomas thought with a fresh surge of annoyance, was always on Alex's terms. When to meet. Where. What they'd discuss. But not only would Thomas do anything for his daughter, he also had to admit he was curious about what else was on Alex's mind—something, certainly. He had called instead of e-mailed and insisted on speaking directly to Thomas, refusing to leave a message with his secretary.

“We need to talk about Nora and Vermont,” Alex had said. “It's complicated. I'll explain when I see you.”

Alex had obviously assumed Thomas would drop everything and show up, which was exactly what he'd done. He'd also kept their meeting to himself, not out of paranoia, he told himself, but habit and discretion.

And because it was Alex. He had recently ended a stint as the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Speculation about what he'd do next was rampant. Persistent rumors put him in consideration for a very high-level appointment, possibly even Secretary of State. Washington thrived on gossip and scandal, turning the innocent into the sensational. Alex Bruni was born knowing how to play such games; Thomas had never quite learned.

He opened up another section of the
Post,
flipped through it, studied the ads, read the commentaries and drank his coffee.

Ten minutes ticked by. Where the hell was Alex?

Thomas glanced at his watch.
Fifteen minutes late.
Any lingering amusement over the op-ed on Jo faded. Although he'd cleared his calendar for the entire morning, he was a busy man—as busy in his own way as Alex. But Thomas knew better than to compare himself to Alex, a lesson learned twenty years ago when he and his ambitious, overachieving friend were law students at Yale—long before Alex had taken up with his best friend's wife.

In spite of that blinding act of betrayal, Thomas couldn't hate Alex, and there was no gain to such negativity and strong emotion, anyway. Alexander Bruni was a respected diplomat on everyone in Washington's short list of “good people to know.”

And if his longtime friend had any fresh insights into what to do about Nora and her behavior, Thomas was willing to listen. He was convinced the combination of the early northern New England winter and limited funds would nip her sense of romance and adventure about life in Vermont in the bud. Alex and her mother had decided to help Nora out with cash and a car, a source of friction, but Thomas doubted it was what had prompted Alex to arrange this meeting. At least Carolyn, an expert on emerging markets, was in Hong Kong at a conference and wouldn't be there.

Thomas's newspaper moved, startling him, until he realized he'd put it on top of his cell phone, which was set on vibrate. He picked up the phone, flipped it open and saw that he had a text message.

Melanie.

Not Nora, of course. His daughter had stopped most communications with him after he had cut off her funds. He hadn't been harsh—he'd hardly had a chance to say a word before she'd hung up on him. Nora was, technically, an adult. She'd made her decision to quit college on her own and only informed him, her mother and Alex after she'd already moved to Black Falls and gotten a job.

Thomas found his way to the text message and smiled as he saw that, indeed, it was from his fiancée.

After two tries, he managed to type in his reply.

He'd never get used to text-message shorthand, but Melanie was young, hip, beautiful and had no trouble whatsoever. She'd never have a YouTube moment like Jo or stick him with a fait accompli like his daughter.

A shriek jerked him half out of his chair.

More screams penetrated the quiet of the elegant dining room, and he leaped to his feet, his napkin falling onto the floor as his fellow diners responded in kind.

“Oh my God!” A woman's voice, panicked, came from the adjoining lobby. “That car just ran him over! Call 911.”

“Get the license plate,” a man yelled. “Run…run, damn it!”

Thomas heard more urgent comments, orders, questions, exclamations. Once he was assured of his own safety—the hotel wasn't under attack—he grabbed his cell phone and briefcase and joined a dozen or so people rushing from the restaurant to the lobby, where all the commotion was occurring.

A car accident? A hit-and-run?

In the glittering lobby, doormen and bystanders scurried, yelling, motioning wildly as they tried to come to terms with some kind of emergency outside on the sidewalk.

Thomas felt his step falter. He stood next to a polished round table with a massive vase of fresh flowers as its centerpiece and peered through the revolving doors.

People had gathered in front of the body of a man sprawled on the edge of the busy street. Thomas made out shiny black loafers and dark gray pants, but the man's upper body was screened by two men crouched at his side, obviously trying to help.

I need to see his face….

But Thomas's eyes fixed on a briefcase that lay, intact, on the sidewalk.

Bile rose in his throat. His heart pounded.
No
.

The scarred leather…the broken buckle…

“Alex,” he whispered. “No, no. No…please.”

A young woman with a long, tangled ponytail caught her breath in front of him. He'd noticed her burst into the lobby through the revolving door. She carried a messenger bag and wore bike shorts and shoes. “Do you know him?” she asked, gesturing outside at the street.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The guy who was hit—I can't believe it.” Her entire body was shaking, her lips quivering as she held back tears. “This car came out of nowhere and just mowed him down. He went flying. I…” She seemed to gag.

Thomas pushed back his own panic. “Are you going to be ill?”

She shook her head. “I'm okay. I just want to get out of here. I heard people calling the police, and someone else must have seen—” She broke off abruptly, squinted tightly as if to gather her thoughts. “The car never stopped or hesitated. It was horrible.”

“You should wait and talk to the police—”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I'll just go deliver this package upstairs first.” Clearly in shock, she clutched the strap to her bag. “It's supposed to be there in five minutes. Not that anyone will care if it's late given the circumstances. I just don't know what else to do.”

“The victim—he's dead?”

Her face paled to a grayish white. “There's no hope. He wasn't a friend, was he?”

Thomas thought quickly. Alex wouldn't have mentioned the breakfast to anyone. It wasn't a secret, but why give people a reason to chatter? He was a regular diner at the hotel. No one would question his presence outside its doors.

“No,” Thomas told the young messenger. “He's not a friend. I'm just in shock. What a terrible thing.”

“Pretty awful.”

“Maybe the driver didn't realize—”

“Oh, no. It was deliberate. I mean, that's what it looked like to me. I'm sure there were other witnesses.”

“I'm so sorry you had to see such a thing.” Thomas tried to give her what he hoped was a reassuring look. “If you'll excuse me, I have a meeting I must get to.”

“Right. I'll get this package upstairs. It's so weird, to be flying down the street on my bike one minute, thinking this was the most important thing in the world, and then…” She blew out a breath. “Whatever. I have to go. Have a good meeting.”

She rushed toward the escalators, and Thomas fought back a choking sob.

Alex is dead. There's nothing I can do now.

In Thomas's place, Alex would protect himself, without question. He would protect Carolyn, protect Nora, protect his adult children from his first marriage. As difficult as he could be, Alex did care about the people he loved.

As do I.

Nora and even Carolyn, whom Thomas still cared about despite her betrayal, didn't need the scandal, questions and scrutiny that his presence at the hotel would spark. The headlines screeching about this morning's tragedy would be horrendous enough without mention of how the great Ambassador Bruni had been on his way to have breakfast with the longtime friend whose ex-wife was now his widow.

No, Thomas thought. He wouldn't put any of them through such an ordeal.

Best just to melt into the crowd, go back to his office and pretend he knew nothing about why Alex was on his way into the hotel on that particular morning.

Thomas had lied to the young messenger. He had no meeting he needed to get to. His only meeting was his breakfast with Alexander Bruni, which had just been cruelly canceled.

M
elanie Kendall vomited in the ladies' room of an upscale restaurant several blocks north of the hotel where Alexander Bruni had just been killed in what police were already describing as a suspicious hit-and-run.

Suspicious, indeed.

She had resisted the impulse to peek down the street as she'd rushed past on foot, her car—the one that had struck Bruni—safely abandoned in a nearby garage, along with her wig and the black poncho she'd worn. She'd discarded them in a trash can, avoiding any surveillance cameras.

Everything had been carefully planned, although not by her. She wasn't a planner. At least not of murders. A beautiful decorating scheme—that she could plan.

But she could execute a murder with precision and daring, and that, she'd discovered, was a rare skill. Five kills in seven months. Murder investigations in London, San Diego, New York and now Washington, D.C. Her first kill had been declared an accidental death, but that, apparently, was what the client had wanted. Melanie didn't know the specifics.

Not my job,
she thought as she gave one last dry heave. She wasn't repulsed by killing. Vomiting was simply her release after all the excitement.

No one was in the ladies' room with her, but Melanie didn't care. She knew how to puke without making a sound. She flushed the toilet, let the stall door shut behind her and splashed her face with cold water in the spotless shiny black sink, then took a thin, folded towel from a neat pile on the granite counter and patted her skin dry.

In the mirror, her reflection looked fine. Her eyes were a little bloodshot, but they'd clear up in a few minutes.

They always did.

She was small—tiny, really—with long, straight dark hair that she could make elegant or informal with just a quick twist or a flip. Her fiancé, Thomas Asher, the incongruous man of her dreams, had once told her that his first wife had always agonized over her hair.

His first wife being Carolyn Asher Bruni, now Alex Bruni's widow.

Being a decent man, Thomas would probably feel bad for Carolyn, but Melanie couldn't help that.

She adjusted her expensive jeans and made sure she would blend in with the upscale, professional crowd at the restaurant. Now wasn't the time to draw attention to herself. Thomas liked her natural flair for clothes, too, and how she always dressed appropriately for whatever she was doing, whether business or pleasure.

She liked thinking about him. Saying his name to herself. That she was fifteen years younger than he was—she was just thirty—blew Thomas away. She knew he saw her as sophisticated, worldly, well read and yet completely charming.

Not as a killer.

Melanie tossed the towel into a wicker basket and returned to her two-person table in the main dining room. It wasn't quite eleven yet. Breakfast was still being served. She picked up her menu, smiling at the waiter. “I'll have the oatmeal with fresh berries on the side—and coffee. Low-fat milk, please.”

“Of course, ma'am.”

She hated being called ma'am. But she noticed Kyle Rigby making his way toward her and told the waiter, “Make that two coffees, and add a muffin. What kind do you have today?”

“Raspberry and—”

“Whatever. Anything. Warm it up, will you?”

He retreated as Kyle dropped into the chair opposite her. She hadn't been this close to him in over a week. With his very short silver-streaked hair and broad shoulders, he looked more like a high-priced Washington lobbyist in his expensive tan suit than a thug. A killer.

She might be a killer, too, Melanie thought, but she wasn't a thug.

And she was giving up killing. She had no regrets about her life over most of the last year, but she was moving on. It was time. Ever since she was a little girl on Long Island, she'd envisioned marrying a man like Thomas. Quiet, intelligent, privileged—a true blue blood, as her mother, who had always wanted Melanie to marry well, would say.

Melanie wanted nothing more than to be a real, old-money Virginia lady, attending luncheons, hosting teas and benefits, sitting on charity boards. Carolyn had been uninterested in any of those traditions. His daughter was hopeless in that regard. Melanie looked forward to them.

But first she had to finish her business with Kyle, preferably before people started hanging their Christmas wreaths. As she'd donned her blond wig earlier that morning, Melanie had considered how little she knew about him. His real name, where he'd grown up, if he had family. Whether he was poor or middle-class or rich. Whether his father had beat him or his mother had loved him. If he had brothers and sisters, if they all were thugs or killers.

She supposed she hadn't wanted to know. He had come into her life eight months ago, when she'd caught him about to shoot a would-be decorating client, a rich, scummy defense attorney she knew would never pay her on time. She could have stopped Kyle. She could have called the police, distracted him, done
something,
but even as she'd stood there in near shock, he'd known she wouldn't do anything. She'd never killed anyone or witnessed someone being killed, but she'd been mesmerized as Kyle had smiled at her then fired. She'd never felt so alive. With her would-be client's body still warm on the living-room floor, Kyle had swept her into an upstairs bedroom and made love to her. Every second of that night was burned into her soul.

Never, ever would she have such an experience again.

He'd made her help him clean up the scene. The body wasn't discovered until four days later. The police still had no leads. The dead lawyer hadn't noted anywhere that he'd had an appointment with an interior decorator about redoing his sunroom. Fingerprints and DNA weren't an issue for Melanie. She was Ms. Perfect. She'd never had so much as a speeding ticket.

As little as she knew about Kyle, here they were, she thought—partners, lovers. Their months together had been an adventure she would never forget, but whatever he did after she made her exit was his problem. She'd be planning the last details of her wedding and honeymoon.

She didn't like the smug look he gave her from across the small table. It reminded her of the night they'd met. She often wondered what he'd have done if she hadn't reacted as she had, but that didn't bear thinking about right now.

She placed her cloth napkin on her lap. “Someone could see us,” she said, her throat still raw from puking.

“If you're expecting paparazzi, forget it.” Kyle lifted his own napkin, his nails, she noticed, neatly buffed and filed. He had the biggest hands she'd ever seen, but in his suit and cuff links, he managed to blend in with the Washington types. “No one in Washington cares you're marrying Thomas Asher.”

“A prominent ambassador was just killed a few blocks from here.”

“Really? Did he have a heart attack?”

“When the car hit him, maybe.”

Melanie couldn't hold back a smile. It seemed to erupt from deep inside her, along with a giddy excitement. She always felt this way after taking risks. There was nothing like it. The mix of power, relief, fear, guilt, energy—the tension that existed among such contradictory emotions.

Indescribable, really.

Kyle didn't smile back. He was doing a job, and it was serious business for him. He didn't have the imagination to understand the psychological addiction of killing, the emotional draw—the satisfaction that went beyond a paycheck. Melanie liked money. But money wasn't why she'd become a paid assassin.

“I'm not letting you screw up a good thing for me.” He sat back and gave her a grim look. “You should never have gotten involved with Thomas Asher. You should have at least told me when you did.”

He'd found out two weeks ago when he'd come to Washington to discuss the Bruni hit. “I didn't know we'd be given Alex Bruni as a target.” Melanie kept her voice low, but she was careful not to sound defensive. “We're partners, Kyle, but you don't own me. You and I are together
maybe
a week, at most two weeks, a month. You don't live in Washington. I'm not even sure where you
do
live. I'm entitled to have a life.”

“Not with someone you met in Black Falls, Vermont.”

She ignored him. “Thomas could have seen me this morning,” she said.

Kyle shook his head. “No, he couldn't have, and it wouldn't have mattered. Your disguise was good. Your timing was perfect. You did exactly what you were supposed to do.”

“Your plan worked,” Melanie said, hoping flattery would distract him from how annoyed he was about her relationship with Thomas.

“Yes, it did.”

There was no pride, no sense of accomplishment, where there should have been. She never could have pulled off such a hit by herself—she wasn't the planner Kyle was. Calculating the details of running a prominent ambassador over in broad daylight was where his limited imagination kicked into action and combined with his logical, lethal mind. He'd left nothing to chance. The hit-and-run death of Alex Bruni was pure choreography.

But thanks to her relationship with Thomas, she'd known Bruni would be at the hotel that morning, thus making the final choice of the time and place to kill him that much simpler.

“There was a messenger,” she said in a near whisper. “A young woman on a bicycle—I almost ran her over, too.”

“She didn't see anything that can identify either of us.”

He was so calm. So certain, so reassuring. Melanie felt a twitch of desire and knew it would become more urgent—it always did after a successful mission. Very soon the twitch would become an ache that would take over her body, her mind, every fiber of her being. She wouldn't be able to think about anything else until it was satisfied.

“Kyle…”

He was like a rock. “Meet me at my hotel in an hour. Room 257.”

She glanced around the restaurant. “If we're seen together—”

“I'm one of your decorating clients. Nothing more.”

Melanie hesitated. “Kyle…why did we kill Alex Bruni?”

“He had enemies. One of them wanted him dead enough to pay to make it happen.”

The equation was always so simple and direct for him. “I don't like it that Bruni vacationed in Black Falls. He knew Drew Cameron. I don't understand why we killed him, either. Who wanted Bruni dead? Who hired us? It wasn't his wife—his ex-wife?”
Or Thomas. It couldn't have been Thomas.

“You know as much as I do.”

Melanie doubted that. Kyle dealt with their employers. Their transactions were conducted entirely over the Internet—no names, no faces. Just codes and passwords. He claimed even he didn't know who paid them to kill people, who served as the middleman between them and the enemies of their targets. She executed her part of Kyle's plan and asked no questions. She was paid well and accepted that nothing short of perfection was expected of her.

But soon none of that would be of any concern to her. “I haven't changed my mind,” she said. “I'm still retiring.”

“Sure.”

“I'm willing to give up the thrills for what Thomas can offer me.”

“No, you're not.”

His sarcasm—his certainty—bothered her. “You don't know me. You think you do, but you don't. Ever since I was a little girl, I've wanted to marry a man like Thomas.”

“One with a trust fund.”

“You don't understand. I'm talking about my destiny.”

“Doesn't matter right now, does it?”

He leaned toward her, and his eyes narrowed into slits, making him look more like the coldhearted killer he was. Part of Melanie expected the handful of well-dressed Washington elites at some of the other tables to notice and quietly exit the restaurant. But no one paid any attention to her or to Kyle.

“We still have work to do,” he said.

Her stomach lurched. She'd hoped he'd just used the threat as leverage to get her to focus on the Bruni hit, but his mind didn't work that way. From the moment they'd met in the middle of the murder of her client, Melanie had been drawn to his straightforward simplicity.

She nodded, picked up her coffee, her hands steady now. She'd pushed back any irritation—any desire, even, at least for the moment. “Yes. I know.”

Nora Asher.

Melanie's future stepdaughter was a spoiled, headstrong college dropout who was asking too many questions—questions that cut too close to the truth for Kyle's comfort. Or hers. Nora hadn't put together what she'd gathered on Melanie into a coherent whole that posed a danger to her or to Kyle—or their employers—but it could happen. With Bruni's death, Nora could become emboldened, frightened, perhaps more determined.

And that was a problem.

“Nora's just jealous of me. Thomas unconsciously looked to her for reassurance after Carolyn left him for Alex. Nora got used to being needed. There's no reason to think she's discovered anything that would get us in trouble.”