The Reed Montgomery Series Box Set

by Logan Ryles

  That was the moment. Iraq is when everything changed.

  Reed looked up, his eyes burning in the light of the rising sun. His body ached, and his brain throbbed. Every thought, every movement was a special sort of micro-agony. And yet . . .

  And yet, I would do it again. I would gun them down without a second thought. Because it was the right thing to do, even if it was murder.

  Reed rubbed his eyes and set down the cup, then patted Baxter on the ribcage. “You all packed, boy? As soon as I get finished in Atlanta, we’re gonna hit the road. I figure we can make Kansas City in a day, and then it’s all wide-open road to California. I’ve got enough cash set back for us to live on for years. We’ll open up that garage and tinker with cars. Maybe find you a bitch.”

  Baxter snorted and lifted one eyebrow.

  “Oh, come on,” Reed said. “You know what I mean. A female dog.”

  The bulldog snorted again and waddled back into the house, leaving Reed alone on the porch. He lifted the phone back to his ear and heard it ring three times before the voicemail kicked in.

  “Brent, it’s Reed. Hurry up with the kill file. Thanks.”

  Back in the cabin, Reed picked up the bottle of Jack and settled onto the low stool in front of his laptop on the kitchen table. With a few clicks on his keyboard, he navigated to Facebook. He never used it for personal applications, but maintaining a couple fake profiles allowing him to access and research online identities—usually of his next target.

  Clicking over the search field, he typed “Banks Morchely” and hit the return key. The results were slim and mostly consisted of business pages for various community banks around the country. No personal profiles matched the beautiful blonde from the night before.

  Reed took another sip of Jack and stared at the screen. He snapped his fingers and returned to the search bar. Of course. If her last name was Italian, the ch sound would probably be spelled with double C’s—like Gucci.

  Reed typed “Banks Morccelli” into the search field again and drummed his fingers on the table. The internet connection this far off the beaten path was shoddy at best.

  A short listing of personal profiles joined the lineup of community banks. Reed scanned them, then allowed his mind to drift back through the haze of whiskey to the night before. The way her cheeks turned rosy when she smiled. The flash of her eyes in the shine of the streetlight. Every gentle curve of her body. The intoxicating way her shoulders moved when she danced.

  None of the pictures on his screen matched the memory.

  He shut the laptop and stumbled to the kitchen, where he heated a skillet over the stove and opened a can of sloppy dog food.

  Baxter snorted and leered at a pile of goopy dog food that had spilled on the kitchen floor. Reed held an empty dog chow can in one hand, and the can opener in the other. Baxter’s bowl, still spotlessly clean, sat against the wall two feet away.

  “Sorry, boy. Kinda hungover this morning.”

  After Baxter shoved his face deep into a new bowl of food, Reed returned to the skillet and cracked a couple eggs over the iron. As they began to bubble, he stared, thinking about the way her hair fell over her shoulders. Her goofy, half-sly wink. Her damn Volkswagen.

  Reed reached for his phone, then stopped himself. No. This was silly. He didn’t have time for this. He had a job to do. The last job. There was no room for emotion right now.

  Reed flipped the eggs onto a plate and dropped three strips of bacon into the pan. Baxter appeared out of nowhere, sniffing and snorting. Reed smirked at him and tossed him a piece of raw bacon. The dog slurped it down like spaghetti, then collapsed on the kitchen rug and began to snore again.

  Reed stared down at his pet.

  “She would like you,” he mused. He wondered what she would say to the dog. Imagined how she would scratch him behind the ears and plop down on the floor beside him. Pull out the ukulele. Maybe sing a song about fat, grouchy dogs.

  Reed wondered where she lived. If she had a boyfriend. If she was really from Mississippi, or if she was just passing through. Maybe she would head to Nashville or New York, keep singing, and become famous. Maybe he’d never see her again.

  Reed dialed his phone, and a flat, toneless voice answered on the other end.

  “Winter.”

  Reed didn’t know if it was a man or a woman on the other end of the line. He never could tell. He wasn’t sure what Winter’s ethnicity was, or where Winter called home. In fact, he didn’t know anything about the “analyst” who so often conducted his background checks, research projects, and scavenger hunts as he executed his diverse contracts. Winter was a ghost who knew all, yet couldn’t be known. The ultimate eye in the sky. The omnipotent librarian.

  If something was going down anywhere in the world, Winter knew about it. If somebody was missing or hiding, Winter could find them. If a billion dollar piece of weaponry was stolen and buried in the jungles of Africa, Winter could pinpoint it. If a whispered conversation took place in a bunker a mile underground, Winter could find out what was said.

  Winter wasn’t a person. Winter was a force of nature. Hence the name, maybe.

  “I need you to pull a file for me. A person.”

  “Whose account do I charge?” Winter’s voice was as toneless and neutral as ever.

  “Mine. This isn’t a contract. It’s personal.”

  “Very well. What’s the name?”

  “Banks Morccelli. Female. American. Currently residing in Decatur, Georgia. I think.”

  Reed heard Winter scratching on a notepad.

  “What do you want to know?” The voice sounded more than a little cryptic.

  “I’m not sure. Just . . . if she’s a real person. Or an alias. Whatever you can find.”

  “Very well. I’ll be in touch.”

  The phone clicked. Reed chewed his bottom lip as he stared out the glass door again. He wondered if it was right, or if it was an invasion of privacy. An intrusion. Maybe even stalking. It didn’t matter. He had to know.

  Six

  Brent called back fifteen minutes later to inform Reed the kill file was available on his secure email drive. The broker’s typical charisma sounded muted, as though he were sick, or maybe just tired.

  The email drive Reed used for work was triple-encrypted and housed on an international server. It wasn’t impregnable, but isolated enough to minimize casual governmental surveillance.

  He opened the file and scanned the contract. $300,000 for the successful assassination of Mitchell Holiday, without any link to the contracting party. An additional $27,000 paid as a rush fee to complete the job in the next seventy-two hours, and a $100,000 bonus for a “conspicuous prosecution of contract, rendering the target maliciously slain by intentional methods.”

  In layman’s terms, they wanted it to be messy.

  The bloody footnote bothered Reed the most. It wasn’t unusual to receive a special request regarding the method of assassination, and there was usually some form of qualifier or requirement tacked onto the contract. The last agreement requested that he mask the scene from any indicators of a professional hit, which was why he burned the boat and left the gun in his victim’s hand. If any evidence remained after the boat sank, none of it would point back to a third party’s involvement.

  The request for a conspicuous and rushed death was both atypical and concerning, however. It indicated an emotional decision to kill made by somebody who was either rash or desperate. Rash and desperate people were dangerous. They made poor choices, defaulted on payment, and were an absolute liability if they became cornered by the police. The payment wouldn’t be a problem—Brent always collected in advance. But something about the hit felt wrong. It was too . . . forced.

  Reed scrolled past the outline and stopped at the target profile—Mitchell Thomas Holiday. State senator for Georgia’s third district, covering the Atlantic Coast south of Savannah. He held an MBA from Vanderbilt University, and owned a thriving logistics company based out of his hometown of B
runswick. Holiday was single, with no ex-wives or children. He was handsome, in his late forties, and had thick, salt-and-pepper hair, a good build, and the kind of smile that won elections—eight of them, ranging in significance from Brunswick town council, to the mayor of Brunswick, and then state senator. This was to be his last term. He had already announced his intention to retire and focus on “other pursuits,” although a few pundit blogs named him as a potential candidate for governor.

  Reed leaned back and ran his hands through his long hair as he stared at the picture.

  “What did you do, Mitch? Why do they want you dead?”

  Why do you care, Reed? Cap the SOB, and you’re done. It doesn’t matter why they want him dead. This man is the last thing standing between you and freedom.

  Still, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of something in the pit of his stomach. Was it curiosity or foreboding? It was difficult to tell the difference.

  The third page listed specific information about Holiday’s habits and residence. Not surprisingly, Holiday owned both a mansion in Brunswick and a condominium in downtown Atlanta, which he used while the general assembly was in session. The Senate was in session for another few weeks, which meant Holiday should be in town.

  After memorizing the downtown address, Reed shut the computer and twisted his neck until it popped. He’d take a trip downtown to do some scouting and formulate a plan.

  He had seventy-two hours.

  The Camaro purred like a jungle cat as Reed directed it around the gentle curves of Highway 9 out of Dawsonville. Dawson County was beautiful in late October, with amber leaves drifting down off the foothills and blowing across the asphalt. In spite of the shedding trees, it was warm, and Reed drove with the windows down, enjoying the rumble of the motor and the touch of October on his face.

  The foothills faded into city streets, and the Atlanta skyline loomed on the horizon. Small subdivisions and urban townhomes passed on either side, festooned with plastic skeletons, tree-hung ghosts, and Styrofoam tombstones. Halloween was the following day, and the city was fully engaged in the haunted trappings of the creepy holiday. Reed found the celebratory application of death and doom to be relentlessly ironic. Every year, as Halloween swept across the country, he marveled at the millions of Americans who embraced a cartoonish version of death with all the zeal and commercialization they invested into Christmas. He didn’t judge them for it. How could they know how churlish the production looked through the eyes of a professional killer? Maybe he envied them and their simple joys and guarded innocence. What would it be like to laugh about fake blood on the floor and to dress up as a grim reaper? Would they laugh as much if they knew how close death might be?

  His parked the car at MARTA’s North Springs Station and rode the train into the city, feeling a strange twinge in the pit of his stomach as he passed Lindbergh Center. It wasn’t the first time he kicked himself for letting her walk away. He should have stopped her. Asked for her number. Seduced her into returning home with him.

  No. Something told him Banks wouldn’t have fallen for that. Was she too smart, or just not interested? He couldn’t be sure. And now, unless Winter could pull her out of thin air, he might never find out.

  Maybe that was best. A gut instinct nagged at the edge of his consciousness, reminding him that attachment was the fast lane to getting himself killed or imprisoned. Again. How would this random infatuation serve him after his last contract? Banks couldn’t come with him, and he wasn’t sticking around Atlanta. There would be a girl in Idaho or Utah or wherever he finally landed; a girl who would meet the new Reed, a racing mechanic with a boring background and no greater ambitions than a house in the mountains and football on the weekends; a subdued Reed who laid his demons in a mile-deep grave before shoveling concrete over their faces.

  What would it be like to have somebody? She could never know him. Not really. But to have somebody in his life—somebody who loved him, woke up beside him, and shared life with him…what would that feel like?

  Reed rested his head against the vibrating window of the train and pictured himself in a house by the mountains. Maybe there was a big garage with four or five cars to tinker with. Baxter was there, of course. And . . . somebody. When he pictured the house in the hills with snowcapped mountains in the backdrop, it was easy to slip Banks into the rocking chair next to his. Was that because her face was so fresh in his memory? She wasn’t the first woman he’d felt sparks with. There had been one other . . . years before. She was a professional car thief, and they met by sheer chance in the midst of a hit. The whirlwind romance that followed over the next six weeks was overwhelming, but from the outset, Reed knew it wasn’t the sort of thing forever and always was made of. Kelly was spontaneous, reckless, and exciting, and certainly not a disappointment between the sheets, either. But she wasn’t the type of woman he could picture in the rocking chair. He couldn’t imagine her scratching Baxter’s ears or strumming a guitar as the sun set. Not like Banks. With Kelly in the picture, nothing quite fit. With Banks, everything felt…balanced. Complete.

  Shit. This girl is stuck in my head.

  Reed shook away the thoughts of Banks and departed the train at the Arts Center Station. He didn’t have time for these daydreams any more than he had time for a second date with Banks. What was that old chestnut his mother used to preach at him? Something about carts and horses—doing things in the order they should be done. First, Holiday. Finish his contract and claim his freedom, then leave Georgia behind. Build a new identify and a new life thousands of miles away. Then there would be time for all the other big gaps in his life.

  He took a cab from the train station to The Foundry Park due north of town. Mitchell Holiday owned a condominium on the fourteenth floor of a high-rise situated at 270 17th Street. Interstate 85 was less than a mile to the east, and directly across the street was a small outlet mall sandwiched between the park and the freeway. The Millennium Gate Museum stood down the street next to a small duck pond, making the entire neighborhood appear deceptively serene.

  Reed paid the cab driver in cash and pulled a Carolina Panthers hat low over his ears before walking toward the shopping mall. He tossed occasional glances toward the high-rise, acclimating himself to the curvature of the exterior glass and the exposed framework of the post-modern building. It was beautiful, really. Exactly the kind of place a person with a healthy salary would select in North Atlanta. Not quite Buckhead, but not quite Midtown, either. A happy medium for a man who was only home a few short hours each night.

  For the next hour, while settled on a metal park bench near the duck pond, Reed observed each person who passed. Locals walked dogs along the path. A crew of landscapers worked on a fall flower bed next to the museum. A mother duck and her ducklings waddled next to the waterline, quacking, and butting into each other.

  What do you call a mother duck? A hen? That doesn’t sound right.

  Reed looked up at the high-rise. Through the glare on the tinted glass, he could just make out the silhouettes of residents bustling back and forth on the inside. Holiday’s unit number indicated that it was on the fourteenth floor, but Reed didn’t know which side of the building it was on. It would be a trick to figure that out without entering the building, and he wanted to avoid that if possible. There would be cameras, concierges, and old women with oversized handbags—too many people who might remember him later.

  Reed dug a cigarette out of his coat pocket and chewed on the end, pondering his options. The most obvious place to isolate Holiday would be at his home. At the Capitol, there was a plethora of security personnel, cameras, metal detectors, and witnesses. Also, the Capitol was situated just south of downtown in a busy district with lots of red lights and one-way streets. It would be incredibly difficult to make a getaway without being trapped amid the traffic. Certainly, it would be conspicuous to kill Holiday on the Capitol steps, but given the right method of execution and the proper dramatic flair, any death would be conspicuous once CNN had their wa
y with it.

  The second option would be to hit Holiday someplace open and exposed between home and work. A sports bar or a train station. Someplace where the hit could be lightning quick with a clean getaway and minimal security. Such an arrangement was ideal, and it was how Reed conducted most of his hits: learn his target’s patterns and habits, identify an opportunity, and then strike out of the shadows.

  The problem with option two was the timing. With less than seventy-two hours to monitor Holiday’s daily habits and become accustomed to the places he visited, it would be difficult—almost impossible—to identify an opportunity to make a safe and effective hit. It would require a stroke of dumb luck to hit Holiday without exposing himself. There just wasn’t enough time to study the patterns.

  That left option three, which was to hit Holiday at home. The high-rise offered minimal security compared to the Capitol, and Holiday’s whereabouts would be easy to predict and exploit. Given only a few hours of research, Reed could locate Holiday’s unit, identify an ideal method of execution, and begin planning his escape. Holiday would be home at night, providing the cover of darkness and lighter traffic for easier extraction. The cherry on top would be the horrific nature of a senator being executed in his own home. If that wasn’t conspicuous, Reed didn’t know what was.

  Reed shuffled down the sidewalk, still glancing at the building and zeroing in on the fourteenth floor. Every unit had windows, so one side of the building had to offer an exposed view into Holiday’s condo. Reed circled the building twice, examining every angle of the fourteenth floor before he realized he was making this way harder than it had to be.