The Housewife Assassin's Deadly Dossier (16 page)

Whereas Rory’s penthouse suite in the Setei Hotel took up the whole top floor—the fortieth—the other band members’ rooms were on the floor beneath their lead singer. Jack had also booked a room, not under his name or the
Esquire
reporter pseudonym of Anders Zorn, but a different alias and disguise altogether—Steve Stover. As Stover, he had arrived a few days before the band, and was scheduled to leave a few days after, as would any single guy vacationing in South Beach and on the prowl for fun in the sun. The hotel’s hallway security webcam was running a recorded loop in which no one was in the hallway. A ghost loop will also play on the penthouse elevator loop, until Jack had cleared the building. Should anything go wrong during or immediately after the extermination, he could use the room as a safe house.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to.

He knocked on the bedroom door.
 

“What are you waiting for, dude, a written invitation?” Rory’s laugh rolled into a cannabis cough. “Quit eyeing my sluts and come on in. What’s your name again? My fucking press bitch left it for me in a message, but I’m too stoned to remember.”

“Anders Zorn,” Jack murmured.
 

Sally, this one’s for you.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, yo,” Rory laughed through a smoke ring. Then he turned to where the reporter was staring:

At the raven-haired groupie in the bed beside him.

She was staring back at the reporter, too.

Then she laughed.

Then Tatyana Zakharov pulled a gun.

Rory got the bullet—up close, to the temple.
 

When she turned around, Jack’s gun was on her temple—up close.
 

“Don’t worry,” she said sweetly to Jack, “He was a righty, and I’m on his right.”

Jack dug the gun into her temple with one hand, and yanked her gun out of her hand with his other, pocketing it. “You told Rory to kill Sally Maxwell, didn’t you?”

She snorted. “Who, Rory? Ha! He didn’t have the guts. He’s all talk, no action. Just like he was in bed.” She held the pinky of her right hand straight out, only to let it curl down. “The fucking braggart. He told her too much, let her see everything. She had to go.”

Jack grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the striped mahogany headboard. “The Quorum is an arms supplier, isn’t it?”

“Clever man! Go to the head of the class.” She smiled up at him.
 

“And the little cretin who came with you, at Leonid Romanov’s party, put the plastic explosives under Carl Stone’s car that killed him, didn’t he? Because you found out he’d infiltrated your organization?”

She stared at him, then burst out laughing. “My, my! We have all the answers, now don’t we? If you’re so smart, Mr. Craig, then enlighten me—who do you think has the files you’ve misplaced?”

“Oh. My
. Gawd
!” the twins screamed, in unison.

Instinctively, Jack turned to where the two girls stood—in the threshold of the sliding door leading out to the pool.

In that short moment, Tatyana smacked the gun out of his hand.

It fell on the floor, landing at the feet of the twins.

Tatyana grabbed her gun from Jack’s pocket. Rising to her feet, she pointed it at his chest.

One of them picked up Jack’s gun. Her hand shook so hard that a bullet ricocheted as she pointed it at Tatyana, then at Jack, then back to Tatyana.

“Brittney, sweetheart, hand me the gun, before you hurt someone—or yourself.” Tatyana’s voice was gentle, but firm.

“Brittney, don’t do it! She’ll shoot you,” Jack insisted.

“Whitney, what should I do?” the girl whimpered.

The other girl frowned. “I never liked her. Whenever she came around, we were Rory’s sloppy seconds.”

Tatyana sighed. And shot Britney in the chest.

As she fell back, the gun dropped to the floor.

Jack lunged for it, tackling Whitney to the floor with him. He grabbed the gun, and rolled behind a chair, taking aim at the bed—

Tatyana wasn’t there.

She’d gone out the door.

“Stay here,” he commanded the whimpering girl as he ran out of the room.

Tatyana made it all the way to the elevator, and frantically pushed the DOWN button. The doors were just closing as Jack got off a shot.

He pounded the OPEN button with his fist, but it was already headed down, directly to the lobby.

He couldn’t let her get away. He had to find out what she meant when she taunted him about the missing intel. Maybe it hadn’t blown up with Carl after all.

But if that were the case, where was it?

He ran to the fire exit, and down the steps to the thirty-eighth floor and got on an elevator there, skipping the thirty-ninth floor so as not to run into any of Rory’s entourage. He knew where the elevator’s webcam was placed and made sure not to show his face to it.

When the elevator slowed to open on the twelfth floor, he slammed his hand against the wall. A couple was standing in front of the doors. They were kissing, as if they had all the time in the world.

To hell with that
. He pushed the lobby button again—hard. “Sorry, this elevator is full,” he declared.

The doors shut on their surprised faces.

His prayers were answered, and the rest of the ride was a straight shot to the lobby.

When the doors finally opened on the lobby level, he strolled casually toward the penthouse elevator door and pushed the button—

It was coming up from the underground parking garage.

Shit—she’s down there, he thought to himself. He walked as fast as he could, out of the lobby, and down into the garage, through the vehicle exit lane.

No cars were headed toward him. He walked briskly toward the penthouse elevator.

It was open.

It was empty.

A wide streak of blood led to an empty parking space.

Somehow, she had driven away.

He tapped on his cell, calling Arnie’s direct line.
 

He answered on the first ring. “Whazzup, dude?”
 

“Clean up on aisle five,” he muttered.

He paused, then asked, “How many cans?”

“Two. And one…rolled away.”

“I see. Let me guess—I’m supposed to check every doghouse, outhouse, steakhouse, lake house—”

“Just the emergency rooms.” He gulped for air. “Female, late twenties, Caucasian, long dark hair—almost black. One bullet wound. Tell the boss man it’s Tatyana. Just in case the bullet wasn’t fatal, there should be an APB put out on her.” He winced when he thought of Whitney. “Oh yeah, and there’s a witness. Her name is Whitney. She’s one of the band’s groupies. The shooter killed her twin sister in front of her, so she should be able to give a good description of her—and of me too, unfortunately.”

“Don’t worry, I’m on it,” Arnie murmured, then hung up.
 

Jack ran to his car.

He pulled out just as the black-and-whites were pulling up.

Arnie’s call came just as Jack hit the street. “There’s a woman matching Tatyana’s description found in a car. It looks like she was trying to make it to Mount Sinai on Miami Beach.” He paused. “She didn’t.”

“Can we get a photo ID from the hospital morgue?”

“I tried. When the morgue attendant went to check, he said the body had been checked out.”

“Damn it! By whom?”

“Apparently, someone with Federal clearance. But it wasn’t anyone here. Ryan is checking with our client, to see if it was someone there. I’ll keep you in the loop.” He clicked off.

She must have known she wasn’t going to make it, and notified the Quorum to send a cleaner, he thought.
 

That night, on the plane back to Paris, he dreamt he told Donna about Tatyana.
 

She was so happy, she cried.

Then she kissed him.

When he woke up, he could have sworn it all happened.

ONE YEAR LATER

Chapter 12
Enigma

The word, enigma, means riddle, or puzzle.

During World War II, Nazi Germany created a roto-cipher machine called Enigma, as a way of coding and deciphering messages. This was first discovered by one of its enemies—Poland, with the help of mathematicians from France. When Great Britain entered the war, Enigma cryptology went into full gear.

It provided the intel that helped in winning the war.

It’s much easier to break a machine-made code than to decipher the emotions and feelings of a human. Machines may be able to calculate outcomes, but most humans act first and think later.

Sadly, the end result isn’t always what we hope.

We are the ultimate enigma.

Jack was up for Ryan’s suggestion that they break bread at Duke’s Malibu restaurant. The food was great, the dress code was casual, the patrons were laid back, for the most part, and it was far enough north on the PCH that it didn’t attract the tourist flow from the Santa Monica strip.

By the time Jack got there, Ryan was already seated at one of the inside tables near a window—a great place to be as the sun set below the horizon.
 
Jack knew Ryan would have asked that their order be put on the grill the moment he walked through the door. The menu was small, and those who came knew to order the catch of the day—seared rare and rubbed raw with seven spices—along with the grilled Brussels sprouts, and a hunk of the hula pie for dessert. Case closed.

Ryan beckoned Jack over, then tapped his glass to the waitress and held up two fingers. She nodded and by the time Jack had reached the table, she was at his side with a tumbler of Johnny Walker Blue.

When he smiled at her, she blushed.

Ryan laughed. “Does it ever get old?”

Jack looked at him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“You know—the effect you have on women.”

Jack shrugged. “You didn’t call me here to talk about my love life.”

“You’re right. In fact, it’s the last thing to do with what I’ve got to ask you.” He placed his napkin in his lap. “However, you’re close enough to the subject that you may have some useful insights.”

“Sure, what’s up?”

Ryan looked him in the eye. “I’d like to ask Donna to work for us.”

“Say that again?” The place was buzzing with talk and laughter, not to mention the crash of the waves just outside the window, so it seemed to Jack that he had good reason to ask Ryan to repeat himself, when in reality he’d heard his boss perfectly well.

He just hadn’t liked what he’d heard.

“I said I’d like to ask Donna to work for us.” Ryan popped a Brussels sprout into his mouth. “What do you think about that idea?”

Jack stared out at the water for a moment while he tried to think of a way to back Ryan off this harebrained scheme without seeming unprofessional, or worse yet, irrational about it.

Not to mention, the last thing Jack wanted was for Ryan to realize he’d fallen in love with a woman he’d never formally met. “I…I think it’s crazy. And stupid. She’s a wild card! She’s—”
 

Ryan nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I agree. I’m doing it.”

Jack put down his glass with a thud. “Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“Yes. But you’re not talking from your head, you’re talking from your dick.”