Assassin

by Tara Moss

  Mak and Andy were both quiet for a while. She would have to keep changing her appearance, her phone, hotel rooms. She wouldn’t be able to frequent any establishments, keep any routines. And it would be unwise to be near Andy or anyone else who’d been a known associate of hers.

  Andy sat on the bed beside her. ‘So, tell me about this gun.’

  ‘You really want to know? It’s a Glock. Like yours.’

  ‘Why did you bring it for this meeting?’

  ‘Why?’ Mak laughed. She reached around and patted her lower back, feeling the Glock tucked into the waist of her jeans. ‘I always have it now.’ She could tell by his face that he hadn’t noticed it when they’d embraced.

  He absorbed that bit of information with displeasure. ‘A gun. False ID …’

  She tilted her chin and gave him a look. ‘Are you quite finished?’

  He pushed his glass to his lips again and, on finding it was still empty, asked her to relay what had happened at the construction site.

  ‘I rode to the location of the meeting early,’ she explained. ‘When the journalist was supposed to arrive, Jimmy showed up, calling my name. He said he knew I was there, and that he was to bring me in for questioning. Some crap about harassing the Cavanaghs? Please. Now I’ll admit I’ve taken a few tours past their Point Piper and Palm Beach places, but I have been quite careful.’

  She needed to keep tabs on Jack. She had to understand who she was dealing with. She might have to confront him or … worse.

  ‘I doubt I’ve been seen and I certainly haven’t approached anyone.’ She registered Andy’s obvious vexation and soldiered on with her story. ‘Anyway, he said I just needed to come in and it would all be cleared up. I think he really believed that could happen. Well, I wasn’t about to come in. You know why. But before I could do anything, there was a gunshot and Jimmy went down. I think he took it in the chest. He fell backwards.’ Mak watched Andy carefully. His eyes glistened and his brows were pulled together. In her experience, he was not a man who cried. His inability to let his emotions out had frequently frustrated Mak in their time together, and here he was, his best friend shot only hours before and everything so messed up, and he was still holding it together. She supposed he thought he had to. ‘I had my gun, as I’ve said,’ she continued. ‘I came armed in case anything happened, but I didn’t draw my weapon. And I certainly could not have shot him square on like that, as I was above him, on a mezzanine.’

  Andy appeared to snap out of his thoughts. ‘Where were you standing and where was he standing? Can you draw me a diagram?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. And I can do better than that.’ She pulled out her iPhone. ‘I have some recordings. Unfortunately, they aren’t very clear. I can’t seem to see where the shot comes from.’ She set it up to play.

  ‘Hidden cameras?’ he remarked, with an air of disbelief. Perhaps he’d forgotten what she’d been taught in her Certificate III in Private Investigation. He hadn’t been very enthusiastic about her becoming a PI, so she supposed it was natural that he hadn’t paid a lot of attention.

  ‘I needed a record to cover myself, and I also thought it was a good idea to see if Staples was coming alone, as he’d promised,’ she said matter-of-factly and started the recording. ‘This camera was aimed at the entryway. You can see Jimmy.’ They both went quiet as the footage played. She fast-forwarded until it showed Jimmy walking into the space alone. ‘It shows him getting shot now.’ Andy appeared to brace himself. When the shot rang out, the sound distorting, he remained silent. She watched his face to see if he was okay. He was. She rewound it and played it again. Jimmy was talking when the shot hit him, pushing him back.

  ‘Where were you standing?’ Andy finally said.

  Mak took the hotel notepad and pen off the bedside table. ‘I was above, on a mezzanine, here.’ She made an X. ‘Jimmy entered from here and walked out to this spot. This is the rough area we can see on the video.’ She made a circle.

  ‘Now look at this. There is someone else for a split second in the entryway. See?’ She rewound the recording quite a way, and they watched again as a shadow moved over the doorway about twenty minutes before Jimmy walked in by himself. She’d missed it at the time because she was reading. Whoever it was had come quietly, and alone. Now she paused it and the shadow was freeze-framed into the shape of a tall figure.

  ‘It took me a few times to spot this guy. I want to know who that is.’ She pointed at the screen. ‘It’s not the guy who comes in to aid Jimmy. The clothing is wrong. And it isn’t either of the two uniformed officers who came after me later.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure that’s Brad Hunt at Jimmy’s side after he goes down,’ Andy remarked. ‘A detective inspector. The one who fingered you for the shooting. I don’t recognise anyone else. Who would this be?’

  Mak showed him the footage from the second camera. Unfortunately, it didn’t show much, but it did provide a clearer account of her dialogue. It distorted when the gunshot rang out.

  ‘The police need this.’

  ‘Of course they do,’ she agreed.

  ‘I’ll go in with you.’

  ‘I’m not going in.’

  He closed his eyes, his face contorted with frustration. ‘Mak. Jesus.’

  ‘No way,’ she said. Case closed. She’d leave if she had to. Mak had not been visibly armed. How could anyone have been aiming for her and hit Jimmy? No. She had to believe they had not wanted to hit her at all. They had wanted to kill Jimmy and frame her for it.

  ‘Hunt claims you shot Jimmy in cold blood because you didn’t want to come in. He says it got heated and you were angry and you shot him. He says you’ve been harassing the Cavanaghs and we have a duty to bring you in. Come in with me. We can sort this thing. If you didn’t even fire your weapon —’

  ‘They need only say it was a different gun. I’ll have residue on my hands. I’ve been practising.’

  ‘Mak, you can get out. Give me the green light and I’ll make sure you are looked after,’ he pleaded. ‘We can do it tonight. We can do this thing together.’

  She shook her head. ‘Witness protection? After what happened to Jimmy today?’ she said, scoffing. ‘I don’t think so. Neither of us believes that’s possible now. I always thought he might have people on the inside. Now I know for sure.’

  The window for that option had closed when Jimmy was shot. Perhaps that was precisely why he was shot.

  ‘Mak, please. You don’t have to do this alone.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Makedde began gathering her things. She trusted Andy more than anyone else, but maybe that wasn’t enough right now. He was still an officer and she was still a woman on the run. She suddenly felt trapped. It was a mistake to have come. This was pushing it too far.

  He grabbed her hand and she shot him a look.

  ‘Okay.’ He backed off, palms raised.

  She put her bag over her shoulder and eyed the wig on the edge of the bed.

  ‘You don’t have to go,’ Andy told her. ‘Please …’

  She closed her eyes. A wave of panic went through her.

  ‘Mak!’

  She opened her eyes and held a finger over his lips. ‘Keep it down,’ she said and walked across to the bedside to turn the clock radio on to a rock station. The Black Keys were singing ‘Lonely Boy’.

  ‘Please stay for a while. We can talk about something else if you want,’ Andy said. ‘I won’t try to convince you again. It’s your choice.’

  She wanted to stay. If she could. If it was safe for a while. She didn’t want to be alone. Not all the time. And if she was honest with herself, she wanted Andy, just for a while. Just for another few minutes. That would be okay, wouldn’t it? Mak sat back on the bed, and let her bag drop to the floor. She watched Andy. His eyes went to the window, to the minibar, to the floor. He couldn’t stay still. Soon Andy was walking back and forth, ruminating.

  ‘I want to fix this,’ he finally admitted.

  ‘And you can’t. I don’t want you getting wr
apped up any worse in it,’ she told him firmly. ‘I’m not going into witness protection, period. And no one can know you’ve seen me. It’s too dangerous. But you’re right that the police need this footage. I can post it to someone you trust if you think that will work. Someone smart and honest.’

  ‘Kelley,’ Andy replied immediately. ‘Detective Inspector Roderick Kelley.’

  She knew him from Andy’s time working in NSW.

  ‘He’ll want to know that Hunt’s account doesn’t match up with this footage. His version of events doesn’t fit and that might be enough. I think Kelley’s starting to suspect something isn’t right. Jimmy was starting to suspect Hunt as well … Is,’ he corrected himself. ‘Jimmy is suspicious of Hunt.’

  A fresh wave of sadness went through her. ‘Okay,’ she replied. ‘Don’t give him any idea that you know about the footage, or you’ll be accused of harbouring a criminal. And it will make it harder for me to see you if I need to.’

  ‘I hope you’ll need to,’ he said, and for a moment he looked at her with such vulnerability it took her breath away.

  She placed her hand on the bed and he came to sit next to her. ‘I know I got in deep with all this, Andy. You tried to warn me.’

  Jack Cavanagh was more ruthless than she could have imagined.

  Mak lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a long time. Despite everything, she felt almost human for the first time in months, she realised. She was talking to someone, someone who knew her, someone who knew at least some of what she’d gone through to get here — someone she could confide in, if she could confide in any living person on earth. It was some return to her former self.

  ‘Just tell me, why do guys like Jimmy get shot while crooked pieces of shit like Hunt and Cavanagh and like this psycho fucker Dayle keep walking around?’ Andy lamented, his pain and frustration palpable. ‘That’s all I want to know.’

  Mak pulled her knees up to her chest. John Dayle. ‘So you didn’t get your warrant,’ she said quietly, feeling her mind sharpen.

  ‘We didn’t get our fucking warrant. And they pulled the surveillance off him. They pulled the fucking surveillance off!’

  Andy’s face screwed up as if he’d been hit. He downed another drink while she sipped hers slowly, thinking. So there’s a killer roaming the streets. Another killer preying on women for his own sadistic pleasure. There was so little justice in the world. It seemed to Mak that if there was a god, she was far from benevolent.

  She was quiet for a long while, thoughts crystallising behind her closed eyes.

  ‘What about the boyfriend?’ Andy asked after the long stretch of silence, trying unsuccessfully to sound casual. Ah, yes. The boyfriend. To deflect the seriousness of his question he got up and walked to the minibar. He kept his back to her as he pulled another couple of miniature bottles from the small fridge.

  ‘He’s dead,’ Mak replied. ‘Bogey was his name.’

  Andy stopped and turned. ‘I’m … sorry to hear that. What happened?’

  ‘The hit man. He happened.’

  Andy cracked another miniature bottle open. ‘These things are so effing small,’ he complained, emptying half of it into her tumbler. ‘Another?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you’re sure he is dead?’

  She had a flash of Bogey’s open grave. The dirt falling on his naked face. ‘They’re both dead,’ she said.

  Andy held their drinks. He watched her carefully, searching for signs of the emotion she found she’d run out of. She didn’t have tears left for any of them. Not right now. She had reached her threshold.

  ‘Yeah, sometimes I think I’m not such a good person to know,’ she said and shook her head. ‘I’ve done things you wouldn’t believe, Andy,’ she told him. ‘I’m not who you thought I was. I’m not who I thought I was.’ Things between them had started at a murder scene and only got worse. Andy had been the investigating officer and Mak the grieving friend. He was going through a divorce. She was dealing with her own grief. It had always been a mess. She’d been so naïve then — so naïve compared to what she was now. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nostrils, exhaled. When she opened them again he was next to her. She accepted her tumbler and they drank together.

  She leaned towards him. ‘I want a kiss.’

  His face screwed up, and for an instant his stubborn composure cleared away to reveal a deep hurt. ‘I want more than a kiss, Mak,’ he said. He slowly placed his glass on the bed cover and she leaned in to him and pressed her lips to his. A rush of pleasure and emotion came to the surface as they kissed. Mouth to mouth. Tongue to tongue. It felt fucking good to kiss him again. She dropped her empty glass and it rolled off the edge of the bed, hitting Andy’s foot and landing on the hotel carpet.

  ‘Fuck!’ he exclaimed.

  She laughed.

  Andy turned and pushed her down on the bed, propping himself up on his strong arms above her. ‘Think that’s funny, hey?’ He gently touched her face and ran his fingers back from her temples and through her dark hair while she looked up at him, liking what she saw. Instinctively, her body rose to meet his, one long leg twining around him. He lowered his face to her, his light stubble brushing her cheek. They locked together. Their problems, their history, all the things that had come between them seemed not to matter in that moment. All that mattered was that they were together, finally, right here, right now. She pulled at his buttons, opening his shirt and running her hands over his warm skin, the soft hairs of his chest. He sat up and pulled his shirt off and she did the same. He ran eager fingers over her black bra and pushed his face into her cleavage, inhaling her. She unclipped her bra, freeing her breasts, then pulled the rest of her clothes off, tossing her jeans and underwear on the hotel-room floor. His intense green eyes took her in hungrily. When he pushed her legs open and went down on her, he looked up for a moment. They locked eyes.

  ‘I love you, Mak.’

  His tongue darted out and she closed her eyes, arching her back.

  Mak held her orgasm for what seemed an eternity. When it finally crashed, the pleasure rippled out like waves through her whole body, shooting up through her arms and out through her fingertips. She shuddered and sighed beneath him as he raised himself up between her legs and undid the buttons on his jeans. She felt his bare cock push at the hollow between her legs and she lifted herself and ground her hips against him, teasing. She was wet and warm, and once she could wait no longer she grabbed his buttocks and asked for what she wanted, whispering in his ear. He slid inside her inch by inch, gasping with every millimetre of progress.

  ‘Yes …’ she whispered with her mouth, as if her body was not already saying it louder.

  They rolled to one side across the stiff hotel sheets and she pulled herself atop him, barely keeping him inside her for a moment. He held her hips as she leaned over him and inhaled the nape of his strong neck, her plump lips pressed to his stubble, smelling that masculine scent she’d always found so intoxicating — a scent like honeyed spice. Slowly, she slid her hand across his firm chest, from one nipple to the other, and pushed her hips down. He arched beneath her, body tense, impatient. She rose again until both of his hands grasped her buttocks, begging her not to move. She slowly slid back over his length, and he tilted his head back.

  ‘Fuck.’

  Again and again she slid over him.

  He gripped her.

  It was over too fast. So they began again and took their time.

  CHAPTER 32

  Jack Cavanagh sat at his impressive mahogany desk on the fourteenth floor of the city offices of Cavanagh Incorporated. It was late and he had not gone home.

  Mr White watched him closely, hands laced behind his back like a general. He broke from his stance to pour them each a whisky from Jack’s limited edition 1960s bar cabinet. He handed Jack a drink and sat down.

  ‘Tell me what’s happening, Bob,’ Jack said eagerly. He’d been waiting for an update.

  ‘There has be
en another development,’ The American told his client calmly. He only pretended to sip his drink.

  As Jack nursed his whisky, Robert White outlined what had happened at the construction site, leaving out whatever incriminating details Jack did not need to know. White, ‘The American’, had authorisation to do whatever was necessary to remove the threat, and the less his client knew about the details, the better. That had been agreed upon.

  When he finished explaining what had happened, Jack’s eyes were wild. ‘What about the cop?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m monitoring it. It’s unlikely he’ll pull through.’

  Jack nodded, seeming conflicted. ‘Okay. That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘In my opinion this is a good result,’ White explained. ‘Vanderwall will get no support now. She’s wanted. Any remaining credibility to her stories has been destroyed. The police don’t appreciate cop killers. She’ll be hunted down.’

  ‘Should we be worried about the journalist?’

  ‘We’ve been watching him for a while. My opinion is that he will back off for now.’

  ‘Well, keep watching him,’ Jack urged, unnecessarily.

  The American nodded. ‘There may be some press tomorrow about this incident with Vanderwall. It’s a cop shooting, so that can’t be avoided. It will work in our favour.’

  Jack screwed up his face. ‘I don’t want press.’ He hit his fist on the desk.

  The American’s eyes narrowed just a touch. ‘You will not be mentioned, unless it is in passing. Her harassment of you is on public record. Again, unavoidable that it would be mentioned. It will work in our favour. Discrediting her is a credit to you,’ he explained.

  He had a contact handling things with the major newspapers. Journalists tended to be poorly paid, thus only the most stubbornly ethical amongst them could resist being guided towards the ‘right’ story using the right methods. Influence could be handled delicately, invisibly. Access. Favours. Never anything so gauche as a cheque. Most of his best journalists would not even think of themselves as having been bribed. ‘This will be nothing for you to worry about, I assure you,’ The American added.