Right to the Kill (Harmony Black Book 5)

by Craig Schaefer

  “Oh, that’s good,” she had to admit. “And what do you know?”

  “That it’s great to have an artifact vault that isn’t being robbed blind on a daily basis by our former bosses. I want to get that disk back to HQ and have the weirdos in Occult-Tactical take a crack at reverse-engineering it. I wouldn’t mind having a magical flashbang in our arsenal.”

  Harmony took another sip. She contemplated her drink, rolling the glass in her fingers.

  “When I think about how much we lost over the years,” she said. “All the field data they deliberately erased, the captured relics that went right back into demonic hands. We were treading water, never making an inch of progress—”

  “Hey,” Jessie said. “It’s a whole new ball game. So what’s your plan for when Neptune shows up?”

  Harmony thought about that. She spoke her answer to her glass.

  “Watch her hands, expect an ambush, and shoot first.”

  Jessie slumped back in her chair, staring at her.

  “Goddamn,” she said. “You’re hoping she’s coming to try and kill you.”

  “I wouldn’t say hoping.”

  “No. You are. You’d rather stare down a gun than a bouquet of roses.”

  “I doubt she’s bringing roses,” Harmony said.

  “Metaphor. I use metaphors sometimes. And you know exactly what I mean.”

  “FBI training doesn’t incorporate seduction as an authorized field technique,” Harmony said.

  Jessie rolled her eyes. “You know, all you have to do is flip her to our side; you don’t have to seal the deal if you don’t want to. But assuming she’s Judah’s pawn and not his partner, she might be the best source of inside intel we’ve got.”

  “I know.”

  “And if you do want to seal the deal—I’m not saying you do or you should, I’m saying if, then I’m the last person on God’s green earth who’s going to pass any judgment. You haven’t dated anybody since Cody.”

  “The last time I saw Cody,” Harmony said, “we were pointing guns at each other. Which nicely sums up my aptitude for romance.”

  “As long as you keep telling yourself that.”

  “It’s easy for you,” Harmony said. She shrugged, shifting in her seat. “You’re…you’re hot, and you’re funny, and you’re not…awkward around people.”

  Jessie laughed. “And I drink too much and drive too fast, and I have a penchant for incredibly sketchy hookups, where I indulge in weird and extremely rough sex. I am nobody’s role model.”

  “I’m just saying, you’re the kind of person that people want to be with.”

  “Yeah, well…I’m not necessarily looking for somebody like me.”

  “How do you mean?” Harmony asked.

  Jessie stretched, languid, rolling her shoulders.

  “I mean,” she said, “as much as I love living la vida loca, if I was looking for something serious—something that lasts, something real—I’d want somebody…stable. A woman with a good head on her shoulders and her feet on the ground.”

  “Somebody boring,” Harmony said.

  Jessie stared at her, silent for a moment, contemplative.

  “Nah,” she said. “Not boring.”

  The waiter came by. He set a fresh glass in front of Jessie, the new cocktail a deep, rich shade of chocolate brown.

  “What’s this?” Jessie asked.

  “The ‘Espresso Yourself,’” the waiter said. “Espresso, vanilla vodka, and Kahlua.”

  “Okay,” Jessie said. “Why is this?”

  “Compliments of the lady at the bar.”

  The lady at the bar sat alone, wrapped in a short purple dress that belonged on a Fashion Week runway. Or she did, at least. She had high cheekbones, deep olive skin, and big bright eyes, eyes that only got brighter as she raised her own identical cocktail in a salute and flashed a sly smile.

  “This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Harmony said.

  Jessie mirrored the woman’s smile, but it faltered on her lips as she looked back at Harmony.

  “I’ll send it back.”

  “Go,” Harmony said. “Seriously. It’s late, Neptune’s probably not coming, and I’d have to handle it on my own even if she did. Absolutely no reason one of us shouldn’t have some fun tonight.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. Go. Get weird. Name the baby after me.”

  Jessie started to rise, then paused.

  “Harmony, you…do know how babies are made, right? Do we need to talk about the birds and the bees?”

  Harmony shooed her with her hands and blurted out a laugh. “Go already. For crying out loud.”

  * * *

  Jessie carried her drink toward the bar, prowling, a panther on the hunt. A challenge gleamed in the stranger’s eyes.

  “An espresso cocktail?” Jessie asked. “Trying to keep me up all night?”

  “Sleep is for the weak and the dead.” Gold hoops dangled from her slender wrist as she held out her hand. “Coraline.”

  “Jessie.”

  Jessie gave her hand a gentle squeeze and slid onto the stool beside her. The plush crimson upholstery rustled.

  “You know,” Jessie said. “Kudos. It’s rare that somebody makes a play so ballsy that it even impresses me.”

  “What? The drink? I clocked you the second you walked in. Might as well have a rainbow following you around.”

  “Not that.” Jessie nodded back over her shoulder. “You’re not concerned you might have just tried to cut in on my girlfriend?”

  Coraline had a giddy, crystalline chuckle. “She’s not your girlfriend.”

  “And you know because?”

  “Well, you came over to sit down, not throw that drink in my face. There’s a clue. But I already knew. Lips lie, body language doesn’t. So what brings you to this muggy little paradise?”

  “Insurance company convention,” Jessie said.

  “There is no way you sell insurance for a living.” Coraline inclined her head toward Harmony, who was finishing her drink alone. “Her, I can see it.”

  “I’m in marketing.”

  “Me too! Cosmetics. In town to ink a contract, sort of thing I thought computers made obsolete. I landed at five this morning, the signing took twenty minutes, and my flight out isn’t until ten a.m. tomorrow. Total waste of time.”

  Jessie sipped her espresso. Strands of vanilla vodka feathered the warm coffee.

  “Might not be a total waste. We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

  “That we shall,” Coraline replied.

  “Nice choice of cocktails, by the way. This is tasty.”

  Coraline clinked her glass against Jessie’s.

  “Maybe I do want to keep you up all night,” she said.

  “Maybe I’ll let you,” Jessie replied.

  * * *

  “Lost your wingman, huh?”

  Harmony glanced up from her phone. She’d been finishing her drink one careful sip at a time, checking her email, occasionally glancing over at the bar to keep an eye on Jessie. She hadn’t noticed the new arrival. He hovered a few feet away, carefully outside of her personal space.

  He was in his thirties, slender and trim, wearing a houndstooth vest over his beige dress shirt. He fiddled with his glasses as she turned to face him.

  “Sorry. My friend keeps telling me I should actually try to talk to people, and I said I’m great at talking to people, just…saying all the dumbest things.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “And…he’s gone.”

  “I’ve been there,” Harmony said.

  “We’re in town for an insurance company convention. Which, now that I think about it, is probably the saddest way I could introduce myself. That’s maybe one step above ‘Hi, I do card tricks.’”

  “You might be surprised. I know a guy who does some pretty impressive card tricks. And if you’re talking about the American Associated Insurance Vendors’ convention, I’m here for the same reason.”

  “We lucked out,
huh?” He gave the lounge a wave, taking it in. “A lot nicer than the Holiday Inn.”

  He took a half step toward the table then paused, catching himself.

  “Do you mind if I, uh, sit down? I mean, if you’re busy, I’ll go away, it’s no big deal.”

  Harmony glanced to her dwindling drink, to the darkened window. Her instinct was to make an excuse and retreat, fading back to the privacy and security of her hotel room. Back to her comfort zone.

  Jessie’s words came back to her. A comfort zone is nothing but a cage with nice furniture.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “I’m Ethan,” he said, smiling anxiously as he slid into Jessie’s empty chair.

  “So are you in sales or…?”

  “Accounting. I’m not sure if that makes me more or less interesting than being an insurance salesman. I figure it’s about even.”

  She slid one of her business cards—the originals, with her Delaware Mutual identity emblazoned in black on cream—across the table. He scooped it up and his smile grew.

  “Helena West, Manager of Accounting,” he read aloud. He met her gaze and flipped the card around. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. West, and I’ll be hanging onto this. Just be warned: if I call you on Monday, it’s probably because I’m looking for a new job.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “Well, I’ve been butting heads with the VP of Finance over quarterly projections. He’s…nuts. His projection completely ignores our tax liability, he forgot to include distributions to the partners, it’s a mess. So I sent the CFO two versions, his and mine, so he could compare and decide which was more accurate.”

  “Sounds fair,” Harmony said.

  “Well, the CFO called me this morning from the home office, demanding to know why our numbers are so different. I told him first and foremost, the VP doesn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground, and the entire Finance department can’t figure out why he hasn’t been fired yet.”

  Ethan leaned back in his chair. His gaze drifted to the ceiling as his fingers tugged at his starched collar.

  “I didn’t realize it was a teleconference. And he was patched into the call.”

  Harmony cringed. “Oh God.”

  “Yup. We have a Meeting, with a capital M, first thing when I get back. So I’m determined to enjoy myself tonight, before I face the firing squad.”

  The waiter came by. He asked if they needed anything. Harmony glanced to her empty glass. This was her chance to ask for the check, pay her tab, and retreat into solitude. She looked at Ethan.

  “You know what?” she said. “I think we both deserve another drink.”

  17.

  “She’s a squeaker,” Coraline muttered into her glass. The bartender had just come over to bring another round of drinks. They’d switched to sangria. Coraline’s gaze lingered on the bartender’s back until she stepped out of earshot.

  “A what now?” Jessie said.

  “Oh, I play this little game sometimes. I look at somebody, I listen to her voice, the way she talks…and I try to guess what she sounds like when she comes.” Coraline nodded at the bartender. “Her? She lets out high-pitched squeaking noises. I guarantee it.”

  Jessie furrowed her brow. She thought about it as she lifted her glass.

  “I can hear it.”

  “Right? You always know a squeaker when you see one.”

  “Fun game,” Jessie said. “What about me?”

  Coraline studied her, fingers to her chin, eyes narrowed, appraising Jessie like a work of art.

  “I’m hearing…breathiness. Almost like you’re hyperventilating. Muscles taut, struggling to keep control. You won’t cry out, no matter how good it feels. That’s too much like surrender. See, you don’t want to have sex, you want to win at sex.”

  “I might have a tiny competitive streak,” Jessie said. “Can I play this game?”

  “Please. Do me.”

  “You’re expressive.” Jessie sipped her sangria. “Performatively expressive. You want to make absolutely sure your lovers know what you like, what feels good, so they keep doing it. You want to be pampered in bed. Adored. Worshiped.”

  “Oh, you make it sound one-sided,” Coraline said, serving up a playful pout. “I give as good as I get.”

  “So you say, but I don’t have any proof.”

  “Well,” Coraline said, “I do have an idea.”

  She leaned in. Her breath was a warm puff of air against Jessie’s earlobe.

  “How about we go up to my room, and I make you come so hard that you spontaneously scream out my name?”

  * * *

  “So she insisted, absolutely insisted,” Ethan was saying, “on trying to deduct her hairdresser, the gowns she wears on stage—”

  “What, on her Schedule A?” Harmony said. “That deduction specifically applies to mandatory work uniforms.”

  “Exactly. But wait for it. She got breast implants. Told me she wanted to deduct the operation under cost of goods.”

  Harmony blinked at him. “That…makes no sense.”

  “That’s what I said, albeit in a more diplomatic fashion. She stood up, just like this”—Ethan straightened his back, lifted his chin, and swept his hand across his chest—“and said, ‘Honey, these are the goods.’”

  Harmony nearly dropped her glass. Her laughter fed his, and his energy brushed warm against hers, a moment shared, winding between them like an invisible thread. This was all right. She still felt awkward, certain every other word out of her mouth was wrong, feeling her attempts at humor fall like a brick to the floor at her feet. He was awkward too, though, in all the same ways, and he still laughed at her jokes and it didn’t seem like he was pretending.

  This was all right.

  Jessie had left twenty minutes ago, around the last time she and Ethan ordered another round of drinks. Hand in hand with Coraline, shooting a sly glance in Harmony’s direction and giving her an approving thumbs-up behind Ethan’s back.

  Eventually they hit a lull in the conversation. The room was emptying out, the hour late. Ethan contemplated his empty glass.

  “I was going to say…God, this could be creepy. I don’t want to be creepy—”

  “Say it,” Harmony told him.

  He took a deep breath, steeling himself like he was about to ask a cheerleader to the prom.

  “Met one of my clients at the convention, and he gave me a bottle of wine, 2014 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon. I mean, this is an eighty-dollar bottle of wine.”

  “Nice.”

  “Yeah, well, I only brought a carry-on bag. I can’t check it, and I can’t take it with me on the plane, so either I drink it tonight or I leave it for housekeeping. And you know, the housekeepers here are good, but not eighty-dollar-wine good.”

  He eyed her, bashful.

  “Are you asking me up to your room?” Harmony said.

  “I am.” He held up his open hands. “I mean, just conversation and wine, that’s all. No strings attached. And if you’re not comfortable with that, you know, that’s totally understandable and cool—”

  “Yes,” Harmony said, the word racing to her lips. Her anxiety chased it, a looming threat in the distance, but her desire was too fast for rational thought.

  “Yes?” he said, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  His room was on the third floor, a twin to hers. Queen bed draped in ivory, pushed against a lime-green accent wall, marble-topped end tables and oval lamps that bore an odd resemblance to Life Savers candies. A low, round table tucked against the sheer drapes with a pair of low-backed chairs, and a long credenza with a mirror and a wide-screen TV. All the comforts of life on the road. Through the window Harmony could see the sleepy waters of the marina. Sailboat masts, their canvas furled, rocked listlessly from side to side.

  She stood by the window, gazing out to the bay, while Ethan wrestled with a folding corkscrew. He’d failed at wrangling wineglasses, so they were u
sing the tumblers that flanked the room’s ice bucket.

  “This is…not optimal glassware,” he said, “and some connoisseur somewhere is going to be very mad at us.”

  “We won’t tell,” Harmony replied.

  He was so nervous it almost put her at ease.

  “Is it too cold in here? I can adjust the thermostat. Or you can, I mean, it’s right there on the wall—”

  Harmony smiled. “It’s fine. Honest.”

  He had his back to her, finally getting the cork free with a hollow pop, pouring the wine. Something about the movement of his hands caught her eye. He’d been almost comical with the corkscrew, nearly falling over as he wrestled with it. Now his voice was still jittery, but his hands moved like a trained bartender, like this was something he’d practiced in the mirror a hundred times to get it right.

  She knew because she’d practiced it a hundred times too, getting ready for her last mission.

  That was how she knew to watch the reflection of the room in the mirror, where she could see the tumblers. That was how she knew to watch for the drop. For the thumb of his left hand, clenched against his palm, to subtly relax and let a tiny tablet fall into one of the glasses. It fizzed and dissolved in seconds.

  He’d roofied her drink.

  Her smile died on her lips. In a breath she rode out a flurry of emotions. Shock. Sadness. Then a cold anger that spread out from her heart, turning her veins to ice. She was an idiot. She’d believed his nice-guy routine, taken a chance, stepped out of her comfort zone, and this was what she got for it.

  He turned, beaming, holding up the two glasses with the tainted one slightly forward. Magician’s choice, pushing her to take the poisoned wine.

  “Shall we?” he asked.

  “One thing you should know,” she told him.

  He must have caught something in her tone. He tilted his head, uncertain.

  “What’s that?”

  “I lied. My name isn’t Helena West. My name is Special Agent Black, FBI. And you’re under arrest.”

  He set one of the tumblers down. His entire demeanor changed. His awkward smile sagged, his shoulders slumped. Something behind his eyes shifted as he abandoned his mask.