Spectre

by Shiloh Walker

  “Listen, you stupid fuck,” Tommy growled into the phone.

  I hit end on the phone and pried off the back, removing the SIM card. The man next to me stared, petrified, as I wrapped the card in a strip of aluminum foil then held it over the flame of my lighter for a minute, effectively destroying it. “Normally, I’d just throw the card out in the nearest trash can and leave the area,” I told him, watching him with a faint smile. “But I suspect if I got out of the car to dispose of it, you’d take off running, wouldn’t you? Even if your condition.”

  Adrian Elmore shook his head and tried to smile, but it wobbled and fell away. “No, of course not.”

  “The condition of your pants says otherwise.”

  He’d taken off out the backdoor of his home three hours earlier when he’d shuffled into the kitchen to get a drink of water.

  He had a gym physique, muscled and perfect, and yet when he saw me and I told him why I was there, he’d left, ignoring his wife of two years and their sleeping child.

  Rather, he hadn’t taken notice of their absence.

  I’d been in his house twice already over the past five days, first looking for information on the best way to bring O’Holloran down, then to finalize my plan. His wife, sweet, ignorant thing, had no idea who she’d married.

  She hadn’t been in the mood to listen to me explain, either, but that was likely because I’d used the same tactic on her that I’d used on Tia, although with more success.

  I’d drugged her and put her in my car, then fetched the sleeping baby, lingering only long enough to look for food to feed it.

  Taking her to a hotel on the outskirts of town, I’d put in a call to Mac Bailey, who had gone through the roof. His shouting at me through the phone had woken the baby, and that had woken Trisha Elmore who’d screamed once the drugs cleared her system enough for her to realize the situation she was in.

  Life had been much simpler before Mac Bailey’s sister entered my life.

  An FBI agent had arrived to take Trisha Elmore and the baby into protective custody after a long conversation with Mac, who had managed to gather himself when a crying woman started speaking rather than me.

  I’d made another call to him after leaving the area, amused by the agents who’d been in place to watch for me, ready to arrest me no doubt. But they were looking for somebody in a car. I’d been a mile away, watching from the camera I’d left in the room.

  Once Adrian’s wife was safe, I was able to go back for him and had decided to make use of the well-stocked kitchen for a quick meal.

  He came in just as I finished eating the omelet I’d made—I hadn’t been quiet at that point. The bravado he’d shown had died at the sight of the gun I leveled on him. When I’d said Tommy’s name, he’d lied, and done a fine job of it, but then I’d started listing account numbers.

  That had been what sent him running out of the house wearing nothing but the pajama pants he still wore now. The urine and mud had dried. He now wore a faded NYU T-shirt, but he was a mess.

  We’d left immediately after I’d hauled him back into the house and thrown a shirt at him. The FBI, no doubt, was already on their way.

  “I would have thought more of you if you’d at least asked about your wife and baby,” I commented, staring at the back door of the house I watched. It was located in a neighborhood that was struggling to stay in the lower middle-class. The classic Ford Mustang Shelby parked next to a shining Mercedes SUV looked out of place, and there was also a Ducati and Suzuki Hayabusa, two motorcycles that likely cost more than every house on this small block combined.

  “You...” He cleared his throat. “You didn’t hurt Trish and Avery, did you?”

  “It’s a little late to ask that now, isn’t it?”

  He jerked against the zip cord holding his wrists. Another cord secured him to the seat belt, restraining him quite effectively. “Listen, you fuck—”

  “Be quiet. It’s a sad thing that you ask about them now. Look, there’s your boss, Elmore.” I glanced over at him as Tommy came tearing out of the house, followed by several muscled men with thick necks. “At least you proved to have some use. I won’t make you suffer when I kill you.”

  He paled, then swallowed.

  “Look, buddy...I...you don’t have to kill me. I can pay you. I can pay you a lot. I know where all Tommy’s bodies are buried, too.”

  “Shut up.” I backhanded him, more to silence him than anything else. A thought struck me a moment later and I glanced at him. “What will Tommy do to your wife when you’re not home and you don’t answer your phone?”

  His phone sat in the cup holder, missing the SIM card.

  “I...” Adrian turned gray.

  Cocking my head, I studied him. That was curious. Perhaps he did care.

  “You...fuck, man. Please. Let me call him. He can go anywhere else and you can do whatever you need to do. But if he gets there and can’t find me...” His voice hitched and his blue eyes widened, blank now with sheer, blind terror. “He’ll kill her. Her and the baby. He’ll let his men do whatever they want. Please—”

  He launched himself at me, regardless of the restraints and the seat belt jerked him back. Frenzied now, he continued to fight and something stirred inside me. I ignored it, though, lifting the Sig Sauer P210 and pressing it to his mouth, currently open with fury.

  The tinted windows of the car made it difficult for anybody to see inside unless looking through the windshield and at this hour, few were awake. Still, the moment he went quiet, I withdrew the weapon and tucked it back into my lap.

  “If you had such concern for them, perhaps you should have thought of them earlier.”

  Tears flooded his eyes, but surprisingly, he didn’t plead. “If they die because of you, I’m going to kill you.”

  “If they die, it will be because of you.”

  Casper...

  It was like she was there, shaking her head and scowling at me, exasperated.

  I made no conscious decision to say it, but the words were out in the next second. “Your wife and daughter were already out of the house when you woke. I took them to a hotel. Your wife is now in FBI custody. If you don’t piss me off, that’s where you’ll end up.”

  The strength drained out of him and he collapsed back against the door, gaping at me.

  “I...” He stopped and cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “I told Tommy you wouldn’t take the job.”

  I didn’t look at him, focused now on the taillights of the Mustang Shelby as the car swung into reverse. Tires squealed as he backed up, almost hitting the Suzuki. The bike’s owner lunged for it and somebody grabbed him, otherwise he would have gone down because O’Holloran wasn’t stopping.

  “He’s had your name for a while,” Adrian said, voice thick. “Rumor has it you took out that Yakuza guy who was in New York.”

  I could feel him watching me, but I didn’t speak. The car, SUV and two motorcycles were out of sight now, but somebody was still outside. I studied the cute, plump young woman standing in the backyard, arms wrapped around herself.

  “Who is she?”

  “Holly. Holly Boyd,” Adrian whispered bleakly. “They were sweethearts in high school. She dumped him when she found out what he was involved in but he never got over her. She’s married now...husband’s a trucker. He comes over here once or twice a week while her husband’s gone and...” He stopped for a minute. “He says she still loves him, but Holly knows if she doesn’t do what he wants, he’ll kill her husband. So she goes along.”

  Dispassionately, I watched as she bent over and picked up a rock, hurling it down the alley in the same direction of the vehicles.

  “You work for this man who destroys lives. If that was your daughter, or your wife...” I stopped and looked over at him.

  He was staring at his fisted hands.

  “And still, you want to blame me.”

  His shoulders started to shake.

  As the woman straightened, I started
the car.

  She spun around, startled. Her robe gaped open as she stared across the distance at me.

  You’re not a monster.

  Tia, again. Haunting me like a ghost.

  A monster wouldn’t care.

  Pulling out of the driveway of the vacant house where I’d parked, I turned.

  But left...not right, which would have let me avoid passing by her.

  She stepped into the alley, glaring at me.

  I stopped.

  When she stormed around the vehicle and slammed her fist against my window, I lowered it.

  She bent down and sneered at me. “Tell that dickhead I don’t want you assholes watching my house.”

  Her mouth was swollen. So were her eyes. It was clear she’d been crying.

  Instead of addressing her comment, I said, “Make sure you watch the news today, Mrs. Boyd. I think you’ll find your nights much easier in the coming days.”

  She straightened and backed away, her face blanking.

  “You...you’re not one of Tommy’s boys. They...” She swallowed. “They don’t talk like you. Who are you?”

  “I’m nobody.”

  Then, before she could ask anything else, I punched the gas.

  I wanted to be clear away from there before the fun started.

  EVEN WHEN THERE WAS relatively no traffic on the roads, the trip between Holly Boyd’s house and the extravagant home where Adrian Elmore lived took more than forty minutes.

  The differences between the two houses was stark.

  The ramshackle house in Roxbury was small, so small, it could have fit into the large, open main room of my cabin in the mountains twice over.

  Adrian’s home, on the other hand, located outside of Boston on the other side of the city, was large and sprawling, on a lot of land that likely cost almost as much as the house itself.

  The privacy had been perfect in a number of ways—from entering unnoticed to staging the scene to come.

  But that long drive left many empty minutes for me to do nothing but wait and worry.

  The cameras I had placed in the home and around the property gave me a perfect view and I’d seen when the police first arrived, followed by the FBI agents.

  Casper...don’t...

  Her voice, again. Haunting me.

  I could easily ignore it, and those law enforcement officers.

  Yet, instead of doing that, parked in the garage of the house I’d rented just two miles from the neighborhood O’Holloran claimed as his own, I reached for my phone. As I did so, I caught sight of my reflection and studied it, not recognizing the man looking back at me. It wasn’t just the disguise, either, although the round metal frames, the inserts I had in my mouth to alter the shape of my cheeks, the thicker brows I’d carefully applied, all of it worked to make my face look like somebody else entirely.

  No, the difference was in the eyes.

  Shaking the thought off, I made a call.

  Mac Bailey picked up.

  “Yes,” he bit off, sounding like he was chewing through rusty nails.

  “You have contacts on the ground in Boston.”

  A hard breath escaped him.

  “Tell me that my sister isn’t in Boston,” he finally said.

  “Of course not.” Rattling off the address of the house I was staring at on the series of monitors in the van I’d moved to, I said, “There are county sheriffs, agents from the Massachusetts Bureau of Investigation and the FBI all milling around that house. Within the next twenty minutes, Tommy O’Holloran will arrive, hoping to locate his missing accountant. He should enter that house, Detective Bailey. Alone and unimpeded. Interesting information will come from what happens if he’s allowed to do so. Enough, perhaps, to find out which dirty cops are involved in his network.”

  “You son of a bitch!” he shouted.

  I sighed.

  “I don’t have jurisdiction over some house in fuck-all Massachusetts! Where the fuck is my sister?” he bellowed.

  “Do you want Tommy O’Holloran shut down? His contacts rooted out and exposed?”

  “I want to know where my sister is, you mouth-breathing, psychotic piece of shit!”

  I smiled a little. “Once this is done, she’ll be safe and I’ll tell you.”

  Instead of another explosion, he went quiet.

  “You’re telling me that all I have to do is call off the boys in blue up in Boston and I get my sister back?”

  “You don’t have jurisdiction in Boston,” I reminded him.

  “Suck my dick,” he suggested. He went quiet again, then abruptly said, “I’ll make a call.”

  Chapter 26

  Tia

  “Nine days.”

  The sun still wasn’t up but I’d stopped trying to sleep after I’d woken the third time, just after three o’clock.

  Valkyrie flicked an ear in the direction of my voice, but she didn’t stir from her position at the foot of the bed.

  I sat in the middle of the wide expanse, my notebooks open around me, charcoal pencils, pastels and pens making a mess.

  Black from the charcoals smudged my pajama pants and the pristine white sheets. The sight of it made me smile. When he came back, he’d see signs of me everywhere.

  Even if I wouldn’t be here.

  The knowledge of that filled my chest with a hard, leaden weight.

  Downstairs, I could hear Leo moving around, preparing breakfast for now, but later, he’d be herding me out the door.

  I knew that because he’d been advising me of that very fact.

  Spectre has let me know his plan is going as expected.

  Spectre thinks he’ll have everything wrapped up within another seventy-two hours.

  If everything goes according to plan, you’ll be able to call your brother within thirty-six hours and he can make arrangements to pick you up soon. We’ll be flying out within a day.

  Not that he told me which city we’d be flying out from.

  I knew the tags on the car Leo had driven up here were from Idaho, but I also knew the vehicle was a rental so it could be from a city twenty miles away or from New York City. I had no idea.

  What I did know was that my time here in this house, where I’d stayed with Casper, was coming to an end.

  My hand moved across the heavyweight paper with near-frenzied energy, seeking to capture a moment that had been caught in my mind for days.

  You decide what happens.

  We’d been back at the rest area and the only other vehicle in sight had been the truck parked yards ahead.

  If I’d been quiet, the other person never would have known there was a problem.

  But I hadn’t been quiet.

  Casper had taken control of the moment, because that was what he did.

  My fingers shook as they worked to freeze that moment, to capture it on paper, so somebody else could see what I’d seen.

  You decide.

  It had been too dark to see the green of his eyes, but that hot, brilliant glitter had been too intense, too compelling and I couldn’t look away.

  I rubbed my pinkie against the line of his cheekbone, smudging it slightly, then applying more pressure. Almost, but not quite. Still, I’d never capture the haunting beauty of his face.

  And his voice, his eyes, in that moment as he’d looked at me.

  He’s ten feet away. You decide what happens, Tia.

  He’d kissed me and, I swear, I could feel the tingling of my lips even now. Pressing them together, I shifted my attention to that part of the sketch—his mouth. Too perfect, really. At least for a portrait. There should be some flaw. Something to detract from the beauty of him.

  But how did I take away from the sheer perfection of what he was?

  Memory assailed me and I dropped the charcoal I held. His tongue, breaching my lips, tasting me while his hand clamped on my thigh.

  It had been the first kiss I’d ever enjoyed. In my entire life, the first kiss that hadn’t been faked or forced. And I’d wanted more. I s
till did.

  Where was he?

  Somebody knocked.

  I ignored him.

  “Tia?”

  Long moments passed before he spoke again and I looked up with a snarl. “Go away.”

  Leo met my eyes solemnly. “I’ve heard from Spectre.”

  Surging up off the bed, I hurled the sketchpad at him. It made it halfway before falling to the floor. Valkyrie, already on edge, alerted to my mood and sprang between us, her lips peeling back from her teeth as she snarled.

  “That’s not his name!” I shouted.

  Leo drew his head back. “No. It’s not.”

  “Then don’t...” A sob hit then, square in the middle of my chest. If he died, would anybody ever know him to be anything more than a ghost?

  Yes, I told myself stubbornly. I would. Clearing my throat, I smoothed my shirt down, then my hair, and I finally met Leo’s gaze.

  “I don’t want to hear whatever soothing bullshit you have, whatever lies you’ve concocted. His name is not Spectre. That name was manufactured, given to the person who was crafted, because a monster tried to kill the boy who really existed inside that man’s body before he had a chance even to live. He’s his own person, even if he’s too scarred to see that.” Looking him up, then down, I sneered. “He has reasons why he can’t see beyond those scars, but you should be able to do it. Be man enough to try.”

  Leo rocked back on his feet, then to my shock, dipped his head.

  “You’re quite right.” He looked around, taking in the bedroom’s devastation, eyes lingering on the myriad sketches that littered the room. “We should talk, Ms. Jenkins.”

  Chapter 27

  Spectre

  I wasn’t surprised at the amount of surveillance.

  To be fair, I’d expected it.

  I’d worked my way past more intense security measures in my time, including those put in place to protect a presidential candidate. The contract on him hadn’t paid anywhere near what I’d invested to actually complete the job, but the more I’d dug into the son of a bitch’s background, the more determined I’d been to complete the job, contract or not.