by Josh Lanyon
“No.” Taylor believed Zamarion had wanted to talk. And he’d wanted the money more than he’d wanted to talk.
Or maybe it was Taylor who had it wrong, and Zamarion was lying in the hills with an infrared scope, waiting to pick them off.
No. He could already have tried that a dozen times over, starting with their disembarking from their vehicle in the parking lot.
Taylor glanced around the mounds of soft, wet sand, switched his pocket flashlight on. The white beam illuminated a kaleidoscope pattern of footsteps. Rain puddled in the deeper footsteps, and in one pair of indentations pooled something much darker than rain.
He felt a kind of internal slump. Since he’d climbed into Will’s SUV, he’d been trying to convince himself Will was jumping at shadows, that people didn’t change that much…
“Will.”
Will turned, followed Taylor’s gaze, and turned his flashlight beam in the direction of Taylor’s. They looked at each other. Taylor glanced up at the boarded face of the lighthouse tower.
Will grunted, aimed his flashlight at the bottom step, at the water splash of darkness. He let out a soft sigh.
“Cover me,” Taylor said, and Will stepped to the side, resting both hands on the railing, aiming his SIG Sauer P229 at the doorway.
They already knew this precaution was unnecessary.
Taylor sprinted up the stairs, crossed the balcony in two steps, pushed open the cracked door. His flashlight beam picked out a motionless form facedown on the floor. He had a quick impression of shaggy silver hair, bulky shoulders, and a black-leather clad back with a wet and glistening hole in the center.
Funny how without ever meeting Zamarion, he had managed to form a picture of him. The truth was older—much older—heavier, and carrying a lot more wear and tear.
Taylor stepped back from the doorway and called down to Will. “He’s dead. Phone the sheriffs.”
* * * * *
The rain had stopped when they finally pulled up in the courtyard of 3000 Foothill Road. Every light in the house appeared to be blazing, though it was after midnight.
Taylor and Will had spent a long time talking to the sheriffs—and a long time not talking to the sheriffs. Will was not happy with the not-talking part, but he had acquiesced to Taylor.
“I want to speak to him first, that’s all,” Taylor said.
“You can’t get him out of this. You understand that, right?” The concern in Will’s gaze was all for Taylor. He hadn’t wanted Ashe as a client to start with.
“If he did this, I don’t want to get him out of it.”
“If he did it?” Will questioned. “Do you have an alternate theory?”
No. He did not have an alternate theory. And he was the guy known for coming up with alternate theories.
Will did not approve of keeping things from law enforcement, but he followed Taylor’s lead and kept his answers brief and largely uninformative, and for that Taylor was grateful.
He was less grateful that Will had hired Stuart Schwierskott to investigate Ashe, but he had listened in silence as Will had told him everything Schwierskott had learned about their former client. And hey, kudos to Schwierskott who, while not great at fieldwork, turned out to know his way around an intelligence report.
The most disturbing piece of information Schwierskott had uncovered was that Ashe’s boyfriend, Josip Marić—a low-level drug dealer—had died falling off the balcony of their Zagreb penthouse, a suspected mob hit.
Gee, no wonder he’d had trouble getting that travel visa. Being dead would cramp anyone’s travel plans.
If Taylor had been a guy prone to freaking out, that news would have freaked him out. But it also explained why Ashe was so terrified.
“I don’t think you should go in there on your own,” Will said as they studied the brightly lit windows.
“He has nothing to gain by harming me now.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know that. Maybe he still thinks his main worry is Bashnakov. He never struck me as the most rational guy.”
“He’s not stupid.”
Will made an if-you-say-so sound. He said, “He’s got a thing about you. That worries me. There’s a reason he was tapped by Bashnakov.”
“He was tapped because he owes the Russians millions.”
“You know what I mean.”
Yes, he knew. And yes, Ashe did seem to bear him a considerable grudge. Although likely his main motivation had been self-preservation.
“I think there’s less chance of it all going sideways if I talk to him on my own. If I can make him see the advantage of being first through the door—”
Will was shaking his head. “He’s not going to roll over on Bashnakov. Anyway, he won’t have had personal dealings with The Technician. You know how it works.”
“I know.” Taylor reached for the door handle, stopping when Will grabbed his arm.
“Be careful in there,” Will growled. “I mean it. Don’t give him the benefit of the doubt—” Taylor cut him off with a kiss, and got out of the SUV.
Ashe did not answer Taylor’s knock or the doorbell.
With a sinking feeling, Taylor tried the door, and it swung open on well-oiled hinges.
“Ashe?”
No answer.
The unlocked door could mean a lot of things, including the fact that Ashe had asked him to stop by for drinks and a little bit of Auld Lang Syne earlier that evening. It did not have to mean what he feared: that finding himself cornered, Ashe chose the easy way out.
Not that it would be easy for Ashe. He had a strong sense of self-preservation. As indicated by recent events.
Taylor glanced back at Will’s Toyota Land Cruiser. The clouds had parted, and the full moon shone, bathing the courtyard in eerie silver light. He couldn’t see Will inside the vehicle, but he raised his hand in reassurance, and stepped inside the tiled hall.
Once inside, he pulled his weapon and proceeded down the corridor.
Despite its grand facade and 3.5 million price tag, the house proper was not even four thousand square feet. It took him less than three minutes to conduct a rudimentary search for Ashe.
There was plenty of indication he was around somewhere. An empty tequila bottle sitting on the kitchen counter, the washing machine sudsing through its cold-clean cycle, the television in the family room blasting out a local newscast.
“The body of a gunshot victim was discovered this evening by two private investigators, in a lifeguard station on Carpinteria State Beach. The victim, whose identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin…”
The back door to the outdoor covered veranda stood open. Taylor went out, walked down the steps leading to the pool yard, and found Ashe sitting next to the burning fire pit. He was hunched forward, holding his father’s Ruger, staring at the fire.
He didn’t look up at Taylor’s approach, but he said, “That could have gone better.”
He sounded calm. Even a little wry.
Taylor’s heart stopped skipping in dread. He holstered his weapon. “Why didn’t you tell me what was really going on?”
Ashe laughed. “Really? How do you think that conversation would have gone? Hey, long time no see. If I don’t want to wind up like my boyfriend, I’m going to have to arrange for you and your boyfriend to have a little accident.”
Taylor sat down across from him. “But you know what I do for a living. You must have realized I had the contacts and resources to help you.”
Ashe gaped at him. “You can’t— Taylor, wake up. You’re so goddamned… I don’t know. Impervious.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Oh, I know. You really just don’t get it. You can’t touch people like Bashnakov. You don’t bring people like that to trial. You don’t put people like that in jail.”
“What do you think this is about, if not that?”
Ashe looked at him without comprehension, firelight flickering in his eyes.
“Hell, yes, you put them in jail,” Taylor
said. “No one is above the law.”
“You and the Boy Scout.” Ashe’s voice wobbled. “You think you’re living in a movie where the good guys rush in at the last minute and save the day. You think you’re the good guys.”
“We’re sure as hell not the bad guys. We’re the guys who are going to help put Bashnakov away. And if you want to make sure Bashnakov stays in jail, give yourself up and cooperate—”
Ashe jumped up, walking agitatedly up and down along the pool. He waved the pistol in Taylor’s direction. Maybe more in illustration than threat, but Taylor tensed, pulse quickening. Guns had a way of going off.
“This is why I didn’t tell you. Because that’s your idea of a solution. Cooperate with the feds! Are you kidding me?”
“Okay,” Taylor said quickly, reassuringly. “Fair enough. I can’t be right all the time.”
“No, you sure as shit can’t. But you think you can. You always did.”
“I promise you, I really don’t. Ashe, come on. Sit down and let’s talk.”
Ashe laughed unsteadily.
“I’m on your side.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Ashe muttered. He stared down at the pistol in his hand.
Taylor continued to try and coax him to sit again. “Why don’t you give me your side. Tell me what happened tonight?”
Ashe glared. “Well, what happened tonight is you didn’t tell me you were going to meet Mike, even though I specifically told you not to. So I didn’t know until it was too late. If the asshole had just stuck to the plan, everything would have been okay. He’d have gotten his share of the money from the sale of the house, and nobody would have put two and two together.”
“Because you were known enemies.”
“Exactly! But no. He had to try and back out.”
Taylor kept hoping he was going to hear some extenuating circumstances, but with every word, Ashe was confirming the worst-case scenario: a cold-blooded murder plot.
“And that was just greed. He wanted more money.” Ashe added, “And gutlessness. He was also gutless. He was afraid there would be some big investigation if two ex-feds got killed.”
Right. Because Will would have to go too. It was a two-for-one deal. The thought of Will dying because of…because of what? Why? Because this selfish little shit thought everyone else was expendable? Jesus. He had been sorry for Ashe, guilty about Ashe, but now he was close to hating Ashe.
Still, he kept his voice even, unemotional. “He was probably right.”
“Yeah, well…” Ashe abruptly pointed the pistol at Taylor. “That doesn’t mean you get off scot-free. This is partly your fault.”
Taylor sat up straighter. He said with the calm of long experience—granted not this particular experience, “You can make the argument you killed Zamarion in self-defense. If you shoot me, it’s murder one, and Bashnakov will be the least of your worries.”
“Maybe it’s worth it.” Ashe’s voice wavered. “Maybe—”
“Maybe I’ll blow your head off if you don’t put the gun down,” Will said.
Will stood in the shadows on the other side of the pool near the stone staircase. Pretty much invisible, though Taylor knew him well enough to discern his outline among the silhouettes of rock and plants.
Ashe threw a frantic look over his shoulder but did not lower the pistol. “You can’t stop me. I’ll—”
No. Goddamn it. No, Will.
“Will, stand down,” Taylor called.
Will ignored him. “Lower your weapon, Ashe. I won’t ask nicely again.”
For such a reasonable guy, Will could be so goddamned intractable sometimes.
Ashe turned tearful eyes toward Taylor. “You couldn’t even come alone. Even now, even after everything, you couldn’t even give me that.”
Taylor said desperately, “Ashe, I’ll sit here with you as long as you want. Just you and me. Will’s going back to the car. Aren’t you, Will?”
“Not a chance in hell,” Will said.
Ashe sucked in a sharp breath. His hand wobbled, the pistol glinting in the firelight.
“Ashe, listen to me,” Taylor was speaking quickly, urgently. “There are things you want to say, and I want to hear them. Let’s talk. There’s no hurry here. No one’s coming. It’s just us.”
Jesus, he sounded like someone on a terrible TV cop show. You don’t want to do this! But Ashe didn’t want to do it. And if Will would just back off and give them space, let Taylor handle this…
“Sure,” Ashe said bitterly. “Just us. You and me and him. The time for talking was ten years ago, so don’t pretend you give a shit now. You walked away and never looked back. The only reason you care now is him. You’re worried about him.”
“No, I’m—”
Ashe swung the Ruger in Will’s direction, and Taylor launched himself forward. Ashe caught the movement, swung the pistol back toward Taylor, and Taylor heard the loud report of Will’s SIG Sauer P229.
Ashe staggered back, fired skyward, and fell into the pool.
“No no no no…” Taylor ran to the ledge of natural rock. “No.” He stared across the choppy water. “Jesus Christ, Will. I said I had this. I said…” He was suddenly, abruptly, out of breath, feeling very weird, almost light-headed as he stared at Ashe floating facedown, not moving. An inky cloud unfurled lazily around Ashe’s head.
“He was going to shoot you.” Will stood on the other side of the pool, pistol still trained on Ashe’s bobbing body.
“He wasn’t going to shoot!”
Will’s icy calm shattered. He shouted, “He did fucking shoot. At you.”
Taylor shook his head and dived into the pool.
Chapter Seven
You had to wonder at whatever data insights and advertising algorithms determined who got what catalogs in the mail.
Like Occupant receiving a brochure for Christmas in Hawaii.
Why?
Just…why?
What did people even do in Hawaii for the holidays?
Will scowled at the colorful cover of a happy, laughing couple running on white sand and splashing in turquoise water. First of all, despite the background sandcastle with the star on top, that did not look like Christmas. Secondly, that couple was just goddamned annoying in their airbrushed perfection. Thirdly…
“And when this is over, you owe me a real vacation,” Taylor said, precariously balanced in the window. “We’ll call it a honeymoon.”
Will’s heart seemed to shrivel within the cage of his ribs.
A lifetime ago.
Eighteen months, if you wanted to get technical. But a long eighteen months, and the longest stretch had been the grueling last eight days.
Was Christmas in Hawaii something Taylor would like?
Was Christmas anywhere, anything something Taylor would like?
For an instant Will was back at Ashe Dekker’s house in Carpinteria, watching Taylor working over Dekker’s drenched, bloodstained body, shivering in the winter air and cursing as he tried to resurrect him.
And then, when it was clear nothing could be done, Taylor had stumbled to his feet, fighting Will’s efforts to take him into his arms.
“I told you to wait in the car!”
“I’m not your goddamned chauffeur. Lucky for you.”
“I had this. I had it under control.”
“Oh yeah, it was going great if your goal was to be dead by Christmas.”
“You had to push him. Couldn’t let me handle it. Couldn’t trust me—”
“That’s rich coming from you. I told you that first night I didn’t want to take this job. That I thought it was a mistake. Where was your trust? You brushed me off. You kept me out of the loop. You just assumed I was jealous.”
“You were jealous. Because you don’t trust me.”
They had argued before. That was a given. But not like that. Never like that. They had nearly come to blows. Will’s brain hurt from the things they had said to each other. His heart felt bruised.
Of course, it was a different story once the sheriffs and emergency services had arrived. Taylor had been stone-cold and completely professional. He had come to persuade his friend and client to surrender himself to the authorities. Dekker, drunk and terrified, had panicked and turned his weapon—the weapon used to murder Mike Zamarion earlier the same evening, as it turned out—on Taylor. Taylor’s partner had come to his aid, and Dekker had been killed.
It was the truth, but it probably didn’t hurt their credibility that the victim had a 0.15 blood alcohol level and his fingerprints on a murder weapon.
Will blinked away the memories.
Anyway. Hawaii had to beat what they usually did for the holidays, which was work their asses off.
In fact, the last time Will could remember one of them taking Christmas off was a year ago when he’d had the flu. He’d been hoping to fly home from Paris to surprise Taylor, but that plan had gone down the drain with half a box of Fervex.
They needed a break. And here they were, unexpectedly free for the holidays, having managed to complete the surveys for Webster Fidelity in record time. Partly that was because they had worked nonstop—mostly apart from each other—after the disaster of Ashe Dekker. Partly that was because Euphonia had turned out to be a genius at organizing and interpreting their scribbled and sometimes chaotic notes and less than pristine surveys. Nee was very good, even scary good, at calling the clients and worming out the information needed to fill in the blanks.
Sure, Will could head back to Oregon for Christmas, give Taylor some space. But they had been giving each other a lot of space this last week—had barely seen each other—and things weren’t getting better. No. The strain and silence were only solidifying. And Hawaii was everything Taylor loved: sun, sand, water, and plenty of comfortable alternatives to camping.
Will frowned at the framed photo of a smiling Taylor that sat on his desk. Not many smiles out of Taylor these days.
No. Not true. Taylor smiled all the time. If the curve of lips, the crease of cheek, the flash of teeth equaled a smile. Taylor was brisk and cheerful—and hard as a slammed-shut door. But the sunlit unguarded happiness of the photo? That smile hadn’t been seen in what felt like a long time.