He’d left the window slightly ajar during his visit that morning, knowing housekeeping had already been by and gambling that Morgan wouldn’t notice—or if he did, wouldn’t think it was significant. It was a small opening, barely the width of a drinking straw. Not enough to allow for much of a breeze, and with the heavy polyester curtains drawn, any air that made its way through wouldn’t penetrate. He saw as he approached that the window was as he’d left it, so he crouched beneath it, pulled the monitor out of his pocket, and turned it on.
Morgan was still on the bed, unmoving. The picture wasn’t crystal clear, and the distance between camera and subject was just enough that Ethan couldn’t tell if Morgan was still breathing, but the man was almost certainly unconscious. He took a risk and used the toggle on the monitor to move the camera, slowly scanning the room for any other sign of life, for anything out of place. After a thorough scan of the room, he turned off the monitor, slipped it in his pocket, and went to work.
He untied his boots, loosening the laces as much as possible, then slipped out of them and carefully stepped on their toes. The rain had chased away any potential witnesses, but he couldn’t afford to track mud and sand into the room. A pair of thin, nitrile gloves came out of his pocket and were snapped on. The window slid soundlessly open under his hand, and he hoisted himself up, sliding into the darkened bathroom with only a whisper of sound. He shut the window at his back, leaving it open just enough to easily get his fingers into the opening, but not enough that the curtains would billow and advertise its open state. It was going to be closed when he left, and he didn’t want anyone to be able to tell the cops they’d noticed it otherwise.
He moved silently through the bathroom, the bedside lamp in the adjacent room giving him plenty of light to see. Even though the maid service had been in that morning, there was a large pile of dirty clothes shoved against one wall, and the trash can under the cracked pedestal sink already held empty fast food containers and junk food wrappers. He paused in the doorway to the bathroom, facing the bed. Though the curtains were drawn across the wide window at the front of the room, he took care to stand still. With the dark bathroom at his back, he blended so perfectly that anyone glancing in the window wouldn’t notice him. He stood still and studied Morgan.
While he’d been strolling down to the beach and back again, the drug had done its job. Death was never pretty, but it could certainly get a hell of a lot uglier than this.
Morgan lay on the bed, and to the untrained eye, he looked like a passed out drunk. At first glance, only a trained observer or medical professional would think anything else.
Ethan studied the corpse dispassionately, a feeling of dissatisfaction coming over him. He was tired of standing over the bodies of dead scum—tired of tracking them down, digging through the waste and dregs of their lives to determine the best way to kill them. What once had been an exciting challenge was now almost an unbearable annoyance. Worse, it was a tedious bore, and it was that realization that clinched it. There, in a dingy motel staring at the body of Stanley Morgan, wife beater, child abuser and embezzler, for whose murder he’d been paid a cool two hundred thousand dollars, Ethan made a decision.
This was the last corpse he’d stand over. The last job. He was done.
He drew a deep breath and smiled. The room, rank with the smells of stale cigarette smoke, greasy food, and the soon-to-be decaying Stanley suddenly seemed filled with sunshine. The realization that he’d never have to do this again made him want to both collapse in relief and jump for joy.
He did neither, of course. He still had a job to do.
He stepped closer to the bed and leaned over, careful not to brush against the mattress or its occupant and used his left hand to pluck the empty glass from Morgan’s limp grip. It disappeared into the inside pocket of his jacket. With his right hand, he pulled a glass from the opposite pocket. Liberated from the room two days previous, it held traces of gin, saliva, and Morgan’s fingerprints, but without the pesky traces of drugs on the glass Morgan had been drinking from tonight. While he knew the drug to be undetectable by autopsy—this wasn’t the first cardiac arrest he’d facilitated in his long career—his chemist friend wasn’t able to guarantee that it wouldn’t be picked up on outside, non-porous surfaces.
Better to be safe.
The first switch made, he moved into the bathroom to make the second. Since he’d had no way of knowing which of the two drinking glasses Morgan would choose, he’d laced them both, and now he once again snagged a tainted glass with his left hand and replaced it with a clean one, liberated from the housekeeping closet, still with its little paper cap.
He tucked the second glass in his pocket along with its mate and moved swiftly to the camera under the television. He had it unhooked and in his pocket in less than ten seconds. Five more seconds and he was easing the bathroom window open and sliding into the night. The window shut soundlessly behind him. He crouched to shove his feet into his boots and moved quickly back toward the beach steps. The rain had started again, pounding his shoulders and helping to obliterate his tracks in the sand. Shoulders rounded, steps unhurried, he made his way back to the rented Taurus.
He drove unhurriedly toward the edge of town to merge smoothly onto Highway 101 North. Traffic at this time of night was nearly non-existent, and he made good time.
Sixty minutes later he strolled through the lobby of the Seaside Holiday Inn thirty miles away from the Coast Road Motel. He wore a brown bomber jacket that emphasized his broad shoulders over a grey t-shirt, and clean blue jeans paired with battered Chucks. His face was clean, with only a hint of shadow on his jaw. His hair was chestnut brown, trimmed short, and his eyes were now a bright and piercing blue. He flashed a dimpled smile at the young woman manning the front desk, making her flush and sigh as he strode past to the elevator.
The next morning, about the same time three FBI agents were flashing their badges for the manager of the Coast Road Motel and asking him to open the door to room number eleven, Ethan was driving east on US 26, right on time to catch the noon flight out of Portland.
Chapter One
May 29, Western Michigan
The sun was out, the breeze was cool, and all was right with the world.
Relatively speaking. All things being equal, a cleaner kitchen would be nice.
Honoria Foster—Honey to her friends—pursed her lips and surveyed the wreck of her kitchen. She’d remodeled a couple of years ago, opening up walls and adding storage. She’d insisted on double wall ovens and a big center island with a marble top that was just perfect for rolling out dough. She enjoyed baking, and she’d wanted the space to spread out a little while she did it. The kitchen’s original footprint had been cramped with limited counter space, and largely responsible for her inability to keep things neat while she baked.
Or so she’d thought. As it turned out, while the narrow countertops and lack of storage certainly hadn’t helped keep things tidy, the real obstacle to neat and organized baking was...well, her.
Every surface was dusted with flour, including the floor, and the pink tank top she wore was liberally streaked with white. There were dusty handprints on the thighs of her cutoff jeans, and though she didn’t have a mirror in the kitchen, she gave it better than even odds her face and hair held the same random streaks of flour.
Not even the dog had been able to avoid it, she realized with a laugh. Milo, ever hopeful, had planted himself at the end of the center island in the hopes some cookie dough might make a break for it. He was big enough to rest his droopy face on the edge of the high counter, and he looked as though he’d dipped his muzzle right in the flour bin, except where his long, agile tongue had managed to lap it off. There, it was more like flour paste, sticking in clumps to his whiskers. She hoped she wouldn’t have to give him a bath.
Which would make the bathroom a bigger mess than the kitchen, and ruin both of their evenings.
Honey shrugged philosophically. So, she wasn’t the neatest woman
in the world. One of the benefits of living alone was that she could be as messy as she wanted and not have to put up with anyone scolding her about it. As a substitute for regular sex it pretty much sucked, but she’d take her silver linings where she could find them.
She’d used her springtime cookie cutter set, and a few dozen freshly baked tulips and daisies covered her counters. She grabbed one of the misshapen ones and bit in, a little moan of delight escaping as she chewed. “Milo,” she told the dog. “These are amazing.”
Since she could hardly expect him to agree without sampling some himself, she broke off a piece and tossed it to him. His great head moved like lightning, jaws opening and drool flying as he snagged it out of midair and swallowed it in a single gulp.
She winced as a string of drool landed on the counter, dangerously close to where the latest batch of tulips was cooling. She tugged the dishtowel out of the back pocket of her cutoffs and carefully wiped it off. “Maybe you should back away from the counter,” she told him.
To ensure compliance, she grabbed a daisy with a broken stem and tossed it onto the dog bed tucked into the corner. He took the hint, lumbering his bulk over to the bed. He gobbled the cookie in one bite, then arranged himself into a dog-shaped lump with a heavy sigh.
“Sorry, buddy,” she told him. “I just don’t think the attendees of the library fundraiser would appreciate the unique flavor that is your drool.”
Milo merely closed his eyes, clearly not caring, and went to sleep.
Honey turned back to the cookies and her current dilemma.
She was out of sugar.
She’d made up the dough for the cookies the day before, and that had used the last of the sugar in her cupboard. She’d intended to stop on the way home from her afternoon art class to pick up more, but Oliver Jackson had asked for her help on one of the drawings he was working on for his graphic novel. She’d gotten so caught up, she’d left the community center a full hour behind schedule, and drove right past the market without giving it a second thought.
Now, dressed in her oldest cutoffs and the thinnest, most comfortable tank top she owned, covered in flour, she was going to have to run to the store if she was going to get them iced tonight.
She could put it off until the morning. The library fundraiser didn’t start until tomorrow afternoon, and the refreshments didn’t need to be there until noon. But if she didn’t do it now, she’d have to get up early to have it done before her oil painting class met at ten, which meant she’d have to skip her walk on the beach with Milo.
Plus, she’d have to clean the kitchen twice. Once tonight, because she certainly wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing the kitchen was covered with flour, and once after the icing tomorrow morning.
No, she wanted to do it tonight. But she needed sugar.
“Dammit,” she muttered. She was reaching for her keys and her purse, wondering if she needed to go put on a bra or if she could just toss on a hoodie over the tank top and call it good when she thought of Winnie.
She frowned at the clock. Her neighbor wouldn’t be home yet, of course. Tuesday was book club night, and even though the meeting was officially over at 8:30, it almost always ran late. Sometimes, depending on how many boxes of wine Mrs. Paulson donated as refreshments, the members of the Sweetwater Literary Society ended up camped on the floor of the library for the better part of the night. Once Jessie Middleton, the librarian, had had to wake them all up when she opened the library doors the following morning. After that, Mrs. Paulson limited herself to two boxes of wine; Mr. Paulson, who was the minister of First Methodist Church of Sweetwater, had put his foot down.
Of course the other members, with Winnie leading the charge, almost always made up for the lack of wine with whatever flavored vodka was on sale at Meijer that week, mixed with whatever flavor of Faygo was on sale. So, Jessie still had to boot them out every once in a while.
But it didn’t matter if Winnie was home or not—Honey knew her neighbor and borrowing a cup of sugar, or whatever else she needed, fell firmly into the category of things-friends-do-for-one-another. Winnie had very firm ideas of what constituted neighborly behavior.
And since Winnie’s philosophy on neighborly etiquette was currently saving her from having to put on a bra, Honey was all for it.
She didn’t bother to grab her keys—Winnie never locked her back door—or put on her shoes. She stopped to fiddle with her hair only because it was falling into her face, solving the problem by shoving the trailing pieces back into the clip on the top of her head without benefit of a mirror.
She paused to slip the last batch of daisies into the oven and set the timer on her phone before tucking it into the back pocket of her shorts. After a moment of consideration, she pushed the cookies cooling on the counter into a pile on the center of the island. Milo wasn’t likely to counter surf, but there was no sense tempting him unnecessarily. Satisfied that he’d have to expend a very un-Milo-like level of effort to get to the cookies, she slipped out the back door and crossed the lawn.
The trip from her backyard to Winnie’s took less than a minute. The grass was cool under her bare feet, the air going crisp as the sun blazed low in the sky. She jogged up the steps to the back porch, knocked twice on the door, then poked her head in.
“Winnie?” she called out. “It’s Honey. I need to borrow some sugar.”
She paused, waiting for a reply out of courtesy. When none was forthcoming, she stepped into the kitchen.
As at home in Winnie’s house as she was in her own, Honey padded on bare feet across the worn linoleum floor to the canisters Winnie kept on the counter next to the stove. She pried the lid off the jar marked “Sugar” and peered inside. Seeing it was nearly full, she sighed with relief. If Winnie had been nearly out, Honey would’ve felt bad for taking the last of it, and then she would’ve had to put on a bra and make the trip to the store after all.
Grateful she could remain braless and comfortable, she opened the cupboard over her head and pulled out a bowl. Using the scoop in the canister, she transferred sugar until she figured she had enough. Then she replaced the lid on the canister and walked over to the opposite counter where Winnie kept a pad of paper under the ancient rotary dial phone that sat on the wall. It didn’t work, and Winnie had long since canceled her home telephone service, preferring to use her cell, but she always said she liked the way it looked on the wall. “A kitchen is supposed to have a phone,” she’d told Honey when she’d asked about it. “It’s not a kitchen without a phone.” Which was weird, but then, Winnie had always been a little offbeat.
The bowl of sugar in one hand, Honey snagged a pen in the other and jotted a quick note: Borrowed sugar and a bowl, will get back to you tomorrow–Honey.
She started to go out the back door again, then reversed course. Winnie had told her to take a look at the flowers in the front bed to see if there were any she wanted to cut and bring in for her art class this week. Her students were working on still life, and the bowl of fruit they’d been using as a subject was down to a couple of wrinkled apples and one very sad looking banana. By the time they met on Friday a new subject would not only be welcomed but necessary. The petunias Winnie had planted along her front walk were colorful and plentiful, and with simple blooms in vibrant colors, perfect for the beginner class.
The bowl of sugar cradled in one arm, she pushed through the swinging door separating the kitchen from the dining room and headed for the front of the house, bare feet slapping lightly on the gleaming hardwoods. She was five feet from the front door when it opened. Her eyes darted up, widening in surprise and horror when she realized a man stood there — a very big man who looked very unhappy to see her.
She froze for a heartbeat, then did the only thing she could think of. She screamed, threw the bowl of sugar in the general direction of his face, then turned and bolted for the kitchen.
She didn’t get three steps.
A big, muscled forearm went around her waist, yanking her back and of
f her feet and sending her hair flying into her face as the hair clip clattered to the floor. The breath left her lungs in a grunting gasp as her back hit his chest, and before she could draw breath to scream again, a big hand clamped over her mouth.
Not good, this is not good, she thought, and concentrated all her efforts into getting free.
She wasn’t a weak woman or a small one, but she might as well have been an anemic third grader for all the effect her struggles had. One of her arms was caught under the one he had wrapped around her abdomen like a steel band, and since she knew she’d never be able to tug it free she didn’t even try. Instead, she flung her other arm back, aiming blindly for his face, and hopefully his nose. It met nothing but air as he threw his head to the side, and in a lightning move, she found that arm pinned as well.
But he had to release her mouth to do it, and the second he did, she started screaming again. She screamed loud and shrill, kicking and throwing herself from side to side as hard as she could, working her hair into a tangle and making it as difficult as possible for him to keep holding on to her. It must have worked because all of a sudden the arms around her middle let go and she fell, landing hard on her butt on the sugar-dusted floor.
“Oh!”
She was moving as soon as she realized she was free, scrambling forward on her hands and knees then spinning around in a crouch to face her attacker through a curtain of tangled blonde curls.
Her heart was pounding so loudly he could probably hear it as she looked at him, her panicked eyes taking in the details in a blink. There were feet, planted solidly on the floor and encased in worn leather boots. Long, long legs in faded jeans led to lean hips. The faded grey t-shirt clung like a second skin to an impossibly broad chest and muscled arms. The tanned column of his neck preceded a strong face, covered with stubble…and sugar.
Honey and the Hitman Page 2