Cold Pursuit

by Carla Neggers

But Thomas’s eyes fixed on a briefcase that lay, intact, on the sidewalk.

  Bile rose in his throat. His heart pounded. No.

  The scarred leather…the broken buckle…

  “Alex,” he whispered. “No, no. No…please.”

  A young woman with a long, tangled ponytail caught her breath in front of him. He’d noticed her burst into the lobby through the revolving door. She carried a messenger bag and wore bike shorts and shoes. “Do you know him?” she asked, gesturing outside at the street.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The guy who was hit—I can’t believe it.” Her entire body was shaking, her lips quivering as she held back tears. “This car came out of nowhere and just mowed him down. He went flying. I…” She seemed to gag.

  Thomas pushed back his own panic. “Are you going to be ill?”

  She shook her head. “I’m okay. I just want to get out of here. I heard people calling the police, and someone else must have seen—” She broke off abruptly, squinted tightly as if to gather her thoughts. “The car never stopped or hesitated. It was horrible.”

  “You should wait and talk to the police—”

  “Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’ll just go deliver this package upstairs first.” Clearly in shock, she clutched the strap to her bag. “It’s supposed to be there in five minutes. Not that anyone will care if it’s late given the circumstances. I just don’t know what else to do.”

  “The victim—he’s dead?”

  Her face paled to a grayish white. “There’s no hope. He wasn’t a friend, was he?”

  Thomas thought quickly. Alex wouldn’t have mentioned the breakfast to anyone. It wasn’t a secret, but why give people a reason to chatter? He was a regular diner at the hotel. No one would question his presence outside its doors.

  “No,” Thomas told the young messenger. “He’s not a friend. I’m just in shock. What a terrible thing.”

  “Pretty awful.”

  “Maybe the driver didn’t realize—”

  “Oh, no. It was deliberate. I mean, that’s what it looked like to me. I’m sure there were other witnesses.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to see such a thing.” Thomas tried to give her what he hoped was a reassuring look. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting I must get to.”

  “Right. I’ll get this package upstairs. It’s so weird, to be flying down the street on my bike one minute, thinking this was the most important thing in the world, and then…” She blew out a breath. “Whatever. I have to go. Have a good meeting.”

  She rushed toward the escalators, and Thomas fought back a choking sob.

  Alex is dead. There’s nothing I can do now.

  In Thomas’s place, Alex would protect himself, without question. He would protect Carolyn, protect Nora, protect his adult children from his first marriage. As difficult as he could be, Alex did care about the people he loved.

  As do I.

  Nora and even Carolyn, whom Thomas still cared about despite her betrayal, didn’t need the scandal, questions and scrutiny that his presence at the hotel would spark. The headlines screeching about this morning’s tragedy would be horrendous enough without mention of how the great Ambassador Bruni had been on his way to have breakfast with the longtime friend whose ex-wife was now his widow.

  No, Thomas thought. He wouldn’t put any of them through such an ordeal.

  Best just to melt into the crowd, go back to his office and pretend he knew nothing about why Alex was on his way into the hotel on that particular morning.

  Thomas had lied to the young messenger. He had no meeting he needed to get to. His only meeting was his breakfast with Alexander Bruni, which had just been cruelly canceled.

  Four

  Melanie Kendall vomited in the ladies’ room of an upscale restaurant several blocks north of the hotel where Alexander Bruni had just been killed in what police were already describing as a suspicious hit-and-run.

  Suspicious, indeed.

  She had resisted the impulse to peek down the street as she’d rushed past on foot, her car—the one that had struck Bruni—safely abandoned in a nearby garage, along with her wig and the black poncho she’d worn. She’d discarded them in a trash can, avoiding any surveillance cameras.

  Everything had been carefully planned, although not by her. She wasn’t a planner. At least not of murders. A beautiful decorating scheme—that she could plan.

  But she could execute a murder with precision and daring, and that, she’d discovered, was a rare skill. Five kills in seven months. Murder investigations in London, San Diego, New York and now Washington, D.C. Her first kill had been declared an accidental death, but that, apparently, was what the client had wanted. Melanie didn’t know the specifics.

  Not my job, she thought as she gave one last dry heave. She wasn’t repulsed by killing. Vomiting was simply her release after all the excitement.

  No one was in the ladies’ room with her, but Melanie didn’t care. She knew how to puke without making a sound. She flushed the toilet, let the stall door shut behind her and splashed her face with cold water in the spotless shiny black sink, then took a thin, folded towel from a neat pile on the granite counter and patted her skin dry.

  In the mirror, her reflection looked fine. Her eyes were a little bloodshot, but they’d clear up in a few minutes.

  They always did.

  She was small—tiny, really—with long, straight dark hair that she could make elegant or informal with just a quick twist or a flip. Her fiancé, Thomas Asher, the incongruous man of her dreams, had once told her that his first wife had always agonized over her hair.

  His first wife being Carolyn Asher Bruni, now Alex Bruni’s widow.

  Being a decent man, Thomas would probably feel bad for Carolyn, but Melanie couldn’t help that.

  She adjusted her expensive jeans and made sure she would blend in with the upscale, professional crowd at the restaurant. Now wasn’t the time to draw attention to herself. Thomas liked her natural flair for clothes, too, and how she always dressed appropriately for whatever she was doing, whether business or pleasure.

  She liked thinking about him. Saying his name to herself. That she was fifteen years younger than he was—she was just thirty—blew Thomas away. She knew he saw her as sophisticated, worldly, well read and yet completely charming.

  Not as a killer.

  Melanie tossed the towel into a wicker basket and returned to her two-person table in the main dining room. It wasn’t quite eleven yet. Breakfast was still being served. She picked up her menu, smiling at the waiter. “I’ll have the oatmeal with fresh berries on the side—and coffee. Low-fat milk, please.”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  She hated being called ma’am. But she noticed Kyle Rigby making his way toward her and told the waiter, “Make that two coffees, and add a muffin. What kind do you have today?”

  “Raspberry and—”

  “Whatever. Anything. Warm it up, will you?”

  He retreated as Kyle dropped into the chair opposite her. She hadn’t been this close to him in over a week. With his very short silver-streaked hair and broad shoulders, he looked more like a high-priced Washington lobbyist in his expensive tan suit than a thug. A killer.

  She might be a killer, too, Melanie thought, but she wasn’t a thug.

  And she was giving up killing. She had no regrets about her life over most of the last year, but she was moving on. It was time. Ever since she was a little girl on Long Island, she’d envisioned marrying a man like Thomas. Quiet, intelligent, privileged—a true blue blood, as her mother, who had always wanted Melanie to marry well, would say.

  Melanie wanted nothing more than to be a real, old-money Virginia lady, attending luncheons, hosting teas and benefits, sitting on charity boards. Carolyn had been uninterested in any of those traditions. His daughter was hopeless in that regard. Melanie looked forward to them.

  But first she had to finish her business with Kyle, preferably before people started hanging t
heir Christmas wreaths. As she’d donned her blond wig earlier that morning, Melanie had considered how little she knew about him. His real name, where he’d grown up, if he had family. Whether he was poor or middle-class or rich. Whether his father had beat him or his mother had loved him. If he had brothers and sisters, if they all were thugs or killers.

  She supposed she hadn’t wanted to know. He had come into her life eight months ago, when she’d caught him about to shoot a would-be decorating client, a rich, scummy defense attorney she knew would never pay her on time. She could have stopped Kyle. She could have called the police, distracted him, done something, but even as she’d stood there in near shock, he’d known she wouldn’t do anything. She’d never killed anyone or witnessed someone being killed, but she’d been mesmerized as Kyle had smiled at her then fired. She’d never felt so alive. With her would-be client’s body still warm on the living-room floor, Kyle had swept her into an upstairs bedroom and made love to her. Every second of that night was burned into her soul.

  Never, ever would she have such an experience again.

  He’d made her help him clean up the scene. The body wasn’t discovered until four days later. The police still had no leads. The dead lawyer hadn’t noted anywhere that he’d had an appointment with an interior decorator about redoing his sunroom. Fingerprints and DNA weren’t an issue for Melanie. She was Ms. Perfect. She’d never had so much as a speeding ticket.

  As little as she knew about Kyle, here they were, she thought—partners, lovers. Their months together had been an adventure she would never forget, but whatever he did after she made her exit was his problem. She’d be planning the last details of her wedding and honeymoon.

  She didn’t like the smug look he gave her from across the small table. It reminded her of the night they’d met. She often wondered what he’d have done if she hadn’t reacted as she had, but that didn’t bear thinking about right now.

  She placed her cloth napkin on her lap. “Someone could see us,” she said, her throat still raw from puking.

  “If you’re expecting paparazzi, forget it.” Kyle lifted his own napkin, his nails, she noticed, neatly buffed and filed. He had the biggest hands she’d ever seen, but in his suit and cuff links, he managed to blend in with the Washington types. “No one in Washington cares you’re marrying Thomas Asher.”

  “A prominent ambassador was just killed a few blocks from here.”

  “Really? Did he have a heart attack?”

  “When the car hit him, maybe.”

  Melanie couldn’t hold back a smile. It seemed to erupt from deep inside her, along with a giddy excitement. She always felt this way after taking risks. There was nothing like it. The mix of power, relief, fear, guilt, energy—the tension that existed among such contradictory emotions.

  Indescribable, really.

  Kyle didn’t smile back. He was doing a job, and it was serious business for him. He didn’t have the imagination to understand the psychological addiction of killing, the emotional draw—the satisfaction that went beyond a paycheck. Melanie liked money. But money wasn’t why she’d become a paid assassin.

  “I’m not letting you screw up a good thing for me.” He sat back and gave her a grim look. “You should never have gotten involved with Thomas Asher. You should have at least told me when you did.”

  He’d found out two weeks ago when he’d come to Washington to discuss the Bruni hit. “I didn’t know we’d be given Alex Bruni as a target.” Melanie kept her voice low, but she was careful not to sound defensive. “We’re partners, Kyle, but you don’t own me. You and I are together maybe a week, at most two weeks, a month. You don’t live in Washington. I’m not even sure where you do live. I’m entitled to have a life.”

  “Not with someone you met in Black Falls, Vermont.”

  She ignored him. “Thomas could have seen me this morning,” she said.

  Kyle shook his head. “No, he couldn’t have, and it wouldn’t have mattered. Your disguise was good. Your timing was perfect. You did exactly what you were supposed to do.”

  “Your plan worked,” Melanie said, hoping flattery would distract him from how annoyed he was about her relationship with Thomas.

  “Yes, it did.”

  There was no pride, no sense of accomplishment, where there should have been. She never could have pulled off such a hit by herself—she wasn’t the planner Kyle was. Calculating the details of running a prominent ambassador over in broad daylight was where his limited imagination kicked into action and combined with his logical, lethal mind. He’d left nothing to chance. The hit-and-run death of Alex Bruni was pure choreography.

  But thanks to her relationship with Thomas, she’d known Bruni would be at the hotel that morning, thus making the final choice of the time and place to kill him that much simpler.

  “There was a messenger,” she said in a near whisper. “A young woman on a bicycle—I almost ran her over, too.”

  “She didn’t see anything that can identify either of us.”

  He was so calm. So certain, so reassuring. Melanie felt a twitch of desire and knew it would become more urgent—it always did after a successful mission. Very soon the twitch would become an ache that would take over her body, her mind, every fiber of her being. She wouldn’t be able to think about anything else until it was satisfied.

  “Kyle…”

  He was like a rock. “Meet me at my hotel in an hour. Room 257.”

  She glanced around the restaurant. “If we’re seen together—”

  “I’m one of your decorating clients. Nothing more.”

  Melanie hesitated. “Kyle…why did we kill Alex Bruni?”

  “He had enemies. One of them wanted him dead enough to pay to make it happen.”

  The equation was always so simple and direct for him. “I don’t like it that Bruni vacationed in Black Falls. He knew Drew Cameron. I don’t understand why we killed him, either. Who wanted Bruni dead? Who hired us? It wasn’t his wife—his ex-wife?” Or Thomas. It couldn’t have been Thomas.

  “You know as much as I do.”

  Melanie doubted that. Kyle dealt with their employers. Their transactions were conducted entirely over the Internet—no names, no faces. Just codes and passwords. He claimed even he didn’t know who paid them to kill people, who served as the middleman between them and the enemies of their targets. She executed her part of Kyle’s plan and asked no questions. She was paid well and accepted that nothing short of perfection was expected of her.

  But soon none of that would be of any concern to her. “I haven’t changed my mind,” she said. “I’m still retiring.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m willing to give up the thrills for what Thomas can offer me.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  His sarcasm—his certainty—bothered her. “You don’t know me. You think you do, but you don’t. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to marry a man like Thomas.”

  “One with a trust fund.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m talking about my destiny.”

  “Doesn’t matter right now, does it?”

  He leaned toward her, and his eyes narrowed into slits, making him look more like the coldhearted killer he was. Part of Melanie expected the handful of well-dressed Washington elites at some of the other tables to notice and quietly exit the restaurant. But no one paid any attention to her or to Kyle.

  “We still have work to do,” he said.

  Her stomach lurched. She’d hoped he’d just used the threat as leverage to get her to focus on the Bruni hit, but his mind didn’t work that way. From the moment they’d met in the middle of the murder of her client, Melanie had been drawn to his straightforward simplicity.

  She nodded, picked up her coffee, her hands steady now. She’d pushed back any irritation—any desire, even, at least for the moment. “Yes. I know.”

  Nora Asher.

  Melanie’s future stepdaughter was a spoiled, headstrong college dropout who was asking t
oo many questions—questions that cut too close to the truth for Kyle’s comfort. Or hers. Nora hadn’t put together what she’d gathered on Melanie into a coherent whole that posed a danger to her or to Kyle—or their employers—but it could happen. With Bruni’s death, Nora could become emboldened, frightened, perhaps more determined.

  And that was a problem.

  “Nora’s just jealous of me. Thomas unconsciously looked to her for reassurance after Carolyn left him for Alex. Nora got used to being needed. There’s no reason to think she’s discovered anything that would get us in trouble.”

  “She’s a time bomb.”

  Melanie said nothing.

  “Jo Harper is in Black Falls,” Kyle said.

  “She’s from there.”

  “Perfect cover. Send the hometown girl back to Vermont in damage-control mode and let her nose around.” He got to his feet. “One hour.” He eyed Melanie without a hint of a smile. “Enjoy your oatmeal.”

  The desire returned stronger than that first tingle. Melanie trembled, hot now. Her waiter set a bowl of steaming, steel-cut oatmeal and a smaller bowl of fat, perfect blueberries and raspberries in front of her.

  She smiled, thanked him, even as she thought she would melt.

  “Your friend’s not staying?” he asked.

  “No. Just leave the muffin, anyway.”

  He set the plate on the table and retreated.

  Melanie smelled the muffin’s sweetness, felt the steam from it.

  One hour.

  Using her fingers, she lifted a plump blueberry to her lips. She wouldn’t let anyone or anything spoil her life with Thomas. Not his daughter—and not Kyle Rigby.

  He walked past the restaurant window without making eye contact with her.

  “Don’t get in my way,” Melanie whispered.

  It was as if her partner in killing heard her through the window. He paused suddenly, took a half step back and smirked at her.

  She pretended not to see him and ate the blueberry.

  Five

  Jo unzipped her fleece jacket as she entered the breakfast-lunch café that her sister owned with two of her friends. They called it Three Sisters, in honor of their tight friendship. It was located across from the village green on the first floor of a graceful 1835 brick house owned by Sean Cameron, arguably the most charming of the Cameron siblings. Not, Jo thought, that it took that much to be more charming than A.J. or Elijah—or even Rose. And since Sean was a multimillionaire developer in southern California these days, Jo suspected he was as exacting in his own way as his siblings, just with smoother edges.