The Assassin

by Rachel Butler

  The wind quickened as she reached the protective cover of the garage, bringing with it the unpleasant odors from the refinery across the river. How William must hate having his precious air tainted. How it must annoy him that even he wasn’t powerful enough to go up against and defeat the oil company.

  She crept to the front of the garage, then darted into the shadows of a row of crepe myrtles, mercilessly pruned to form a hedge. The first raindrops fell as lightning split the sky directly overhead. The air sizzled with the electric charge, while the brilliance momentarily robbed her of her night vision. She rubbed her eyes, drew a breath, then dashed across the open lawn surrounding the pool. As another bolt of lightning flashed, she leaped the low hedge of azaleas that edged the patio, then ducked against the side of the house, out of sight of all windows.

  There were four pairs of French doors across the back of the house, with twice that many floor-to-ceiling windows. A second-floor balcony shaded part of the patio, with its overhanging roof providing cover for the same number of windows and doors. On the third floor there were only windows.

  Drawing a small collapsible grappling hook from her backpack, she moved to the south end of the house. It took two swings, standing in the rain, to anchor the hook over the solid concrete balustrade, where it caught with a clunk that was satisfyingly solid. No one else could have possibly heard it over the downpour, but she tensed anyway, listening for some hint that she’d been discovered.

  When no sign came, she pulled on a pair of gloves, then started up the knotted rope. The climbing wasn’t particularly difficult, though the rain stung her face and the wind made the rope sway. She was almost within reach of the balcony when an explosion sounded nearby, sending bright light and showers of sparks into the night sky. A line transformer had blown, she realized, as the lights in the house flickered, then went off.

  She shimmied up the last few feet of rope, hauled herself over the railing, then pressed her face to the glass of the first door. The booming thunder vibrated the glass against her skin, and the subsequent lightning allowed her to see into a bedroom done in pastel shades, lovely and feminine, the perfect place for a visiting niece who was like a daughter. The room appeared unoccupied, awaiting a guest who would never come. William was a sociable man, but had too many secrets to be that sociable.

  Gathering up the grappling hook and rope, she tucked them against the building between glass doors, kicked off her shoes, removed a towel from the backpack, and dried herself as best she could. Wet rubber soles tended to squeak loudly on wood and tile floors, and she didn’t intend to leave so much as one drop of rainwater to indicate that she’d been there.

  That done, she took out the lock picks from the backpack, knelt on the stone, and went to work. She was far more accomplished at picking pockets than locks, but even for her, this lock wasn’t much of a challenge. William’s arrogance at work again. He thought no one would get past his twelve-foot fence, electronic gate, armed security guards, and burglar alarm. He was probably right about the alarm. That was why she’d tucked a pistol into the holster clipped to the back of her pants. She didn’t particularly want to threaten an elderly couple who had the misfortune to work for the wrong man, but she would do what she had to. That was a lesson life—and William—had taught her quite well.

  When the lock clicked open, she put away the tools, drew the .40 caliber pistol, took a deep breath, then turned the doorknob.

  The house was quiet. There were no flashing lights, no sirens, no electronic voice warning, “Intrusion! Intrusion!” Of course, William wouldn’t tolerate such a display. He would opt for a silent alarm, one that increased the odds of catching anyone foolish enough to break in.

  Guided by instinct, caution, and flashes of lightning, she stole across the room. Easing the bedroom door open, she saw no sign of movement, heard no thundering rush of security. Five closed doorways greeted her, three in back and two in front, with the massive main staircase in the front middle and the smaller servants’ stairs at the rear. A dim yellow glow came from that way, along with a murmur of voices. She took the stairs one cautious step at a time until she was halfway to the kitchen and the voices became clearer. One belonged to a woman—presumably Sonja—and was clear, while the other sounded tinny and was full of static.

  “I told you, it’s the storm,” Sonja yelled, as if shouting could compensate for the fact that the intercom, probably wired into the same battery backup as the alarm, was affected by the weather. “This stupid system goes haywire when the weather’s bad. I’ve been complaining about it for weeks now.”

  There was a garbled transmission, followed by Sonja’s “I can’t hear you,” then another burst of static. The housekeeper yelled impatiently, “Just stay where you are! I won’t have you tracking rain into my house! I’m turning the darn thing off until the storm passes!” Footsteps sounded as she turned away. “Lord have mercy, those men are dumber than dirt, and the boss lets ’em carry guns. It’s a wonder they don’t shoot each . . .”

  The words faded away as the footsteps did. Another gift from the gods, Selena thought, tucking the pistol into her waistband as she double-timed it back upstairs. A quick shine of the penlight she’d brought showed five of the six second-floor rooms were bedrooms, the front one belonging to William. The sixth room was a study, luxuriously furnished and smelling of fine cigars, old wood, and power. She stood for a moment on the marble tile and shone the light around the room. Serpentine marble fireplace. Rich dark paneling with elaborately carved moldings. An antique desk. A Monet print hanging above the fire—

  Hardly aware she was moving, she walked closer, stretching onto her toes to study the piece. Good God, it wasn’t a print, but was either the real thing or the most accomplished forgery she’d ever seen. He owned a Monet. He belittled and dismissed her own artistic interests, while he was greeted by a Monet every time he came into this room. And he’d never even offered to let her see it.

  That made her feel more cheated than any of the other dozens of slights he’d given her. Of course he knew how dearly she would love a private showing of a Monet, which was precisely why he hadn’t offered. Just as he’d known since they’d met that an invitation to visit him in his home would have meant the world to her. Just as he’d known how high her expectations were when he had invited her to Tulsa two years ago, and then he’d forbidden her access to the house and refused to spend time with her. He derived a sense of power from denying her things that were important to her. Even when she wasn’t aware of the extent of his manipulation—who knew what other treasures were in the house?—he still found a perverse pleasure in it.

  Pushing away the bitterness, she returned to her survey of the room. There was a display case filled with jade figurines. Bookshelves loaded with old, leather-bound volumes. A Remington bronze. A collection of Native American bead-work. The Monet aside, the value of the art in this one room reached easily into seven figures—and this was but one room in a house of at least ten. She’d known selling drugs could be a very profitable enterprise, but she’d had no idea just how profitable. No wonder William was willing to blackmail, threaten, and murder to maintain his foothold in the business.

  Not even for ten times what he made would she get into it. She would go back to being hungry, sleeping on the floor, and picking pockets in Jamaica first.

  A search of the desk revealed nothing—no locked drawers, nothing to suggest other names William used, nothing of a personal nature at all. There were no file cabinets to rifle through, no drawers elsewhere in the room, but closer inspection revealed a door in the far wall. It had been designed to look like nothing more than another section of paneling; only the small keypad mounted in the chair rail and out of sight behind a carved mahogany table gave it away.

  She crouched in front of the pad, where a light glowed red, indicating the lock had a battery backup of its own. If she’d known in advance that she would come up against such a lock, she could have come prepared with equipment to electronical
ly decipher the code and open the door in seconds. She could come back in a few days, armed to make the most of her exploration. But what were the odds of another storm, another transformer blowing, William going out again, to allow her undetected access to the house?

  Hoping it wasn’t the type of lock that allowed only a few tries before locking her out, she raised one steady finger to the pad and put in the month, date, and the last two digits of what she knew as William’s birth date. Nothing happened. She tried the month and date, the month and year, with the same result. She was about to give up when one final combination came to mind.

  She’d never known her exact birth date. It had never been a cause for celebration in Rodrigo’s house. She thought she was nine when Rodrigo had sold her, which would make her twenty-eight now, but that could be a year or two off in either direction.

  But she’d needed a birth date for the false papers William acquired to bring her to the U.S., so he’d chosen one for her—the date they’d met. It was only logical, he’d said, since it had, indeed, been the day her life began. She typed in the numbers—eleven twenty-seven. Nothing happened. She added the year. Still nothing.

  She hadn’t realized that she was hoping, however faintly, until the disappointment settled in her stomach. She was a fool to think she might be important enough to him to merit an association with his secret code.

  At a loss, she left the study, passed the main stairs, and slipped into William’s bedroom. Like the study, it was beautifully furnished, with another Monet above the fireplace and another Remington on a small marble-topped table. She gave the Tiffany glassware little more than a glance, didn’t waste even a moment coveting the series of framed sketches, but searched the room quickly, efficiently, futilely.

  She was finishing up in the closet, easily the size of two bedrooms in her Princeton Court house, taking in William’s familiar scent with every breath, when her gaze fell on an object tucked on the shelf above his dress shirts. Everything else in the closet was precisely placed—shirts grouped by color and fabric, ties by color and pattern, suits by color and weight. But the flat black-and-silver object was crooked, as if it had been placed there hastily, as if it didn’t belong.

  She wrapped her fingers around it and found that the black was fabric, rather coarse and glued to stiff cardboard. It was a hinged picture frame, she realized as she took it down, opening it to reveal two eight-by-ten photographs framed in silver.

  The picture on the left was of a young woman, leaning against a massive white pillar with a house—this house— behind her. She was pretty, blonde, wearing an indulgent smile and an outfit that dated some twenty-five or thirty years ago.

  The opposite photo showed two men, both wearing Tulsa Police Department uniforms. The man on the left, smiling urbanely and looking every bit as handsome as he was today, was William, and the man on the right—

  She blinked, and her stomach clenched. It was Tony, but not—younger than he was now, though the photo must have been at least thirty years old. Not quite as handsome, the smile not quite as charming . . .

  Because it wasn’t Tony. It was his father.

  William and Joe Ceola. Looking for all the world like best buddies.

  13

  ObliviouS to the storm crashing around him, William crouched on a rooftop a few blocks from the correctional center on Denver, his gaze locked on the street below. The officers who had arrested Mr. Potter would transport him to the jail, where he would be booked, fingerprinted, and photographed, then interrogated regarding his interest in James Tranh’s family. William was ninety percent sure he could trust Damon and Selena to keep their mouths shut if they ever got caught, but he had no such faith in any of the underlings he employed. That was why he intended to deal with this problem before it became a bigger one.

  He had listened to the police scanner he kept for just such purposes and found out which unit was transporting the prisoner. Now all he had to do was wait, and not even for long, because at that moment the police car appeared around the corner a few blocks south, followed by two unmarked cars. He watched through the rifle scope, picking out a fresh-faced patrol officer behind the wheel, an undercover officer beside him, and the harmless-looking Mr. Potter in the backseat. He had a round face, wore glasses, and would be pegged for an accountant or insurance salesman long before hired gun ever came to mind.

  The traffic light half a block to the north turned red as the car approached. Through the rear window, William sighted on the spot where Mr. Potter’s hair was thinnest, then squeezed off a shot.

  One perfect shot. That was all it took, and Mr. Potter was a problem no more.

  He quickly broke down the rifle, returned it to its case, then headed across the rooftop. It was a five-foot drop to the next building’s roof, then a hustle down two flights of rusty stairs, another drop, and into the Mercedes. He slid out of his raincoat, jerked the waterproof hat from his head, and stuffed both in the back floorboard, dried his face and hands with a towel, and dropped that in back, too, then drove calmly out of the alley to the west.

  Sirens were wailing by the time he reached the street. If one of the officers on the scene was thinking straight—not likely to be the kid driving the marked unit—the first thing they would do was set up a perimeter, stopping all traffic leaving the area. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out where the shot had come from, and to begin a search there, but they wouldn’t find anything. The rain was already washing away every sign that he’d been there.

  He hadn’t gone more than two blocks when a police car pulled across the intersection ahead, lights flashing, and an officer got out. Wearing a yellow slicker over his uniform, he signaled the car ahead of William to stop, bent at the driver’s window, and talked for a moment or two before waving him on. His fingers tightening around the wheel, William eased the Mercedes forward, rolled down his window, and greeted the officer with a smile. “It’s a sorry evening to be out, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir,” the grave-faced man replied. “Can I see your license and registration?”

  William handed over his license, but didn’t bother to retrieve the registration. The officer looked at the license, bent down to look at him, then swallowed. “Sorry, sir. I . . .”

  “Don’t apologize, Officer,” William said genially as he returned the license to his wallet. “You’re just doing your job. Have a good evening.”

  Humming softly to himself, he drove away from the intersection. Away from suspicion.

  Tony felt like shit.

  The damn motorcycle had sounded like a couple of eighteen-wheelers coming through the warehouse door. He’d dived for the ground and landed hard, wrenching his knee and scraping his face on one hell of a rough brick, an instant before a Fugitive Apprehension guy in full body armor landed on top of him and knocked the last bit of air from his lungs. As if that hadn’t been enough, the vigilante had gotten away without leaving so much as a tire track behind, and the weather had turned ugly. At times the rain came down so hard that visibility was limited to a few yards, and the lightning was striking too close for comfort.

  The only good news was that the Tranhs were safe and the guy following Mrs. Tranh had been taken down.

  The bad news was someone had blown off the back of his head at a stoplight two blocks from the jail.

  Simmons leaned against the wall and gazed at the patrol unit’s shattered back window for a time before finally glancing at Tony. “You ever think about changing jobs?”

  “More every day.”

  “I ain’t ever gonna get dry. My shoes are ruined. It’s four hours past dinnertime. It’s my day off. There’s lightning hitting all around, and freakin’ tornadoes touching down everywhere. This is not a night to be out looking for a killer who’s already long gone.”

  Tony couldn’t think of anything to add to that list, so he didn’t.

  “When can we call it a night?”

  Most of the other officers on the scene already had. The M.E.’s investigator had
pronounced the man dead, then carted his body off for autopsy. A tow truck was hooking up the patrol car as they watched. The area had been thoroughly searched, but they’d turned up nothing of any value. The Tranhs had been interviewed and come up with nothing new. They might as well call it a night before a twister swept down out of the black sky and carried them away. It would be the perfect ending to a perfectly lousy night’s work.

  But even on that thought, he didn’t move away from the building or the awning that provided little shelter from the rain, and neither did Simmons.

  “You have any thoughts on the vigilante you wanna share?” Simmons asked.

  “He’s not a vigilante.”

  “You’ve always believed that. I’ve always believed you were wrong.”

  “A vigilante is trying to right a wrong that the justice system can’t or won’t fix. This guy threatened Tranh’s wife and kids. That doesn’t fit.”

  “You think vigilantes are all misguided good guys? That they have morals or ethics about which laws they’ll break and which ones they won’t?” Simmons made a disgusted sound. “The guy is killing people in cold blood, Chee.”

  “He’s killing drug dealers. That’s wrong, but understandable. But killing a woman, a four-year-old, and a baby? No way. Half the people in the city think he ought to get a medal for cleaning up the streets. How quickly would that change if he murdered a baby?”

  “So he didn’t intend to carry out the threat against the Tranhs. He was just using them as leverage.”

  “Then why have someone watching them?”

  “Shit, I don’t know.”

  The tow-truck driver finished up, climbed in, and drove away, his lights flashing yellow in the rain. Tony watched as he turned at the next corner, then asked, “Does it strike you as odd that the day Dwayne Samuels calls the station out of the blue is also the day someone kills him?”