“Almost entertaining,” I told him.
“Want a hint?”
“No,” I answered. “There’s nothing in there?”
“Empty,” he confirmed.
“So if I miss on the third attempt, you’ll reset it?”
“This afternoon,” he answered, and then ran his hand along his neck. “You’ll kill a little work, but it will be a good test.” I stared at him, stared at his neck, and the password came to me. I typed it in. MurderForHire. Too easy. We’d need something cryptic, but I’m sure he realized that. This was only a test.
The password field sprung open to show me a new window with populated with a set of subfolders. One folder was labeled with his name, the other with mine. And there were more folders. One labeled Designs and Bank and Business, and even a folder labeled Trash. The box wasn’t just for my designs—it held everything we were doing.
“Got it!” I shouted.
“Shit,” he said with a bitter smile. “Maybe we should consider a no-password solution? Use biometrics instead.”
“You just know me too well,” I told him, letting him off the hook. “But I like the sound of biometrics.” I raised my hand, splaying my fingers and then making a fist, presenting my thumb.
“Biometrics it is!” he exclaimed. “Fuck passwords.”
“Fuck passwords,” I repeated, relishing the idea of a secret folder accessible only by my fingerprint. I grabbed my camera and sought a spot on the other side of my desk, backing up to try and fit the entire wall onto my screen.
“Use the loft,” he suggested. “Take the picture from up here. Perfect view.”
“Any thoughts on the design?” I asked, surprising myself. I’d never done that before—never showed anyone my designs. I shifted nervously, feeling self-conscious about asking his option. As Nerd studied the wall, I walked through the approach, following his lead while he scanned from left to right.
“Going with an accident?” Nerd asked, looking for clarification. He leaned forward, studying the details. The pit of my stomach felt empty, roiled as I waited. “Detail is crazy good.”
“Maps,” I said, motioning to my computer. “The challenge we’ll have is that bike messengers work in the daylight, so the city will be a solid crowd. That’s why I’m thinking an accident. Traffic accidents happen all the time, but making it a fatal accident? That’s going to be a challenge.”
“What if you create an accident and then act like you’re a good Samaritan, trying to help? Only you get close enough to him to finish the job. Use Needle. A lethal dose.”
“Without being noticed,” I added, liking the idea.
“The ring was designed to be inconspicuous,” he said. “Like you said, pulling off a fatal traffic accident could be tough. The rest of the details are on you.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said sharply. I twisted Needle around my finger, engaging the syringe, and teased the point with the tip of my finger. “We’ll need something fast acting and a small dose,” I said.
“I’ll get on it,” he quickly answered. “Got the idea from seeing something posted the other day. Small amount and painless. And very fast.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Tell me more about the accident.”
I turned back to face the wall, encouraged by his interest and because I wanted to show off. Presenting one of my designs was another first. I went on to explain the plans, running back and forth like an excited professor at the front of a classroom auditorium. Nerd raised questions where he should have and left the majority of the details alone. He even caught a few things I’d overlooked. I would have caught them eventually, but it was good to have him there, to have him check my work. And as for the finer details, he was right—those were for me. They were part of my obsession, and one of the reasons we were in the business of doing what we do. When I was done explaining, I placed the blue plastic cap onto my dry-erase marker, closed it with a snap, and put it down. My design was ready, but I wanted to see all of it the way Nerd saw it.
The dusty loft had already started to take on Nerd’s personality—that is, there was a lot of technical stuff up there, most of which looked alien, but all of it meticulously organized.
Like books on the shelves of the library, I told myself. He had a place for everything and everything looked oddly at home above our office. I stepped around the makeshift cardboard tables and shelves, heading back toward the banister to see my work. From there, I simply stared. The awe of pride came in small waves.
Nerd had finally given up on his long day, leaving me alone in the office. It was quiet, almost eerie, but I wanted to stay. I checked the time and saw that I had another two hours to myself. Half of that would be taken up by a trip downstairs, handing Carlos a check for this month’s rent and chitchatting. The other half was mine. A quick shower would clean the rainbow mess of dry-erase marker from my hands. And maybe I’d spend five minutes with the showerhead’s full-body massage mode on.
I deserve a gift.
The idea of a quick shower came with a soft flutter, but as I made my way from the loft, my toe found the edge of a box. I tumbled, hitting the wood floor with a harsh thump. I cursed at Nerd for leaving the old newspaper boxes there, then laughed at my own clumsiness.
I waited before getting back to my feet and struggled with the pain in my foot. Eventually, I was on my knees and facing the box that had tripped me. Unlike the others, this box hadn’t made it into Nerd’s cardboard pyramid along the wall. The box was open, and I glimpsed the topmost newspaper headline. Nerd had been searching for treasure, not realizing he was uncovering my past. “Should have just told him to throw them away.”
I dug into the box, thumbed the days and months of headlines like a historian traveling back in time. I descended into a small pocket of history where I saw fires and political corruption. I saw racial stirrings and robberies.
And I saw murder.
I gritted my teeth when I came across a page with these tall, blocky words: Grisly Murders—Fifth Body Found! I read the date: June 30, 1982. I was seven years old. But it wasn’t the headline or the date that first caught my attention, it was the picture of the man on the front page.
I remembered him.
I remembered the black widow’s peak and the sideburns covering his cheeks. He looked like Elvis Presley and I remembered that he had even sung “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
That was when my mother had given me the cue, telling me it was time while she picked up the next verse, joining him in song. I put the leather noose around his neck and pulled. He choked and bucked while my mother continued to sing, her voice filling the car with the lyrics. “Take my whole life too . . . For I can’t help falling in love with you.”
SIXTEEN
I RARELY GO INTO the city, let alone downtown. It’s not that I don’t like people, I just don’t like so many all at once. Drizzly and cold, my teeth began to chatter, and I rushed to close my thin jacket. Raw wind crawled out of the north, snapping at the skyscrapers, telling me I’d dressed completely wrong for this trip. The calendar had been tricked into thinking it was winter again. I made a mental note, telling myself to prepare better for the weather on the day of the hit.
A sudden rumble shook my feet, and a gust of air warmed me. I stopped at the mouth of a subway entrance and waited for another humid breath. The fleeting heat came to me like a moist kiss, but my abrupt stop caused a heavy woman behind me to topple with a grunt and screech. I reached out to take hold of her hand and help her up. She slipped from my clutch, her thick fingers catching the edge of the entrance wall, her fingernails scraping the concrete until she regained her balance. She quickly threw me an obscene gesture and shouted some profanity before disappearing down into the subway. Ready to apologize, I held my tongue and eased into the crowd at the edge of the cozy opening. At least I’d stay warm for a minute more before continuing, I reasoned.
Our latest mark, our “case,” lived and worked downtown as a sometimes-employed bike messeng
er. Lucky for us, he’d held his current position a few months now, firming up a routine and a set of delivery routes we could count on him taking. Today would confirm his schedule, and we could set up the hit for the end of the week.
“The world won’t miss you,” I muttered, pinching my lips together to stop my chin from trembling.
I really had considered Nerd’s warning about this case, how he hadn’t been able to develop a profile for the Deep Web contact. I just decided to ignore what he said and to take the case anyway. Messenger’s crime was a particularly heinous one, catching my attention, telling me who he really was. He was a killer but he hadn’t killed unintentionally or because of circumstance. He’d killed because he was a hunter.
I shook my head, recalling the court records. He had been working as a janitor at an elementary school when he killed a second-grade teacher. He’d killed for the joy of it, for the control and power of taking a life. He’d killed for the wrong reasons. I wondered if there had been others. I suspected there were. And if the school teacher was his first victim, then surely there’d be more. He’d kill again—because he had to.
I peered down at the victim’s picture I kept on my phone, finding motivation in her bright eyes. She was just starting, I thought. She was new. Janice Evans was only twenty-two when she met Messenger. She’d moved to the city from a small town, taking her first job, a teaching job where a chance smile from a young man might have been the welcome sight she needed. I imagined how she might have believed the school’s janitor was a sweet man, a safe man, a man who’d maybe even brought her coffee. But her first evening with him was her last. I just hoped she went quickly. I hoped death found her first, found her before the pain did and before Messenger got started. I’m not the squeamish type, but the things he did—the biting and the missing teeth—turned my stomach. I think someone was smart enough to post the hit on Messenger because they recognized she wouldn’t be his last victim.
I reached my stop and climbed back to the street. A bus rattled along and belched a black cloud. I coughed and waved off the noxious fumes before crossing a busy intersection. I watched my step on the wet sidewalk, stopped looking at Janice’s photo. Nerd’s warning was more difficult for me to discount than he would have believed, his concerned voice playing in my head and leaving me feeling overly anxious about the case. Nerves and excitement were a deadly mix, like chasing a shot of whiskey with vodka. But I didn’t have time to be nervous, so I shook out the concerns and mentally committed to the case for the hundredth time. After all, we weren’t coming into this completely blind. Nerd investigated what he could, researching Janice’s family, researching bank records and wire transfers, connecting the posted contract to a Bitcoin wallet. The Dark Net stayed true to its name, leaving us without any idea of who we were working for. Nerd was good—our flashlight in the dark, revealing the truth behind the Deep Web posts—but he hasn’t been able to turn up anything this time. And strangely enough, I found some comfort in not knowing who was paying us to kill Theodore Holst. If we couldn’t see them, I hoped they couldn’t see us.
The clacking sound of bicycle chains rushed past me, buzzing like flies. Two messengers raced around a turn, yelling for me to watch where I was going. I had tensed at the sight of them, darted out of the way. But as they passed, a prowling sense of the hunt came upon me, and I quickly put Nerd and his warnings in the back of my mind.
My day was planned for reconnaissance—I think that’s what it’s called—I needed to understand Messenger’s habits, his moves, his favorite places. And tonight, I would go back and add what I learned to my design, finish the details of how I was going to kill him. I twisted Needle around my finger, spurring inspiration. The hunt was on.
A man paying too much attention to his phone, bounced off me, his shoulder abruptly hitting mine. He let out a grunt, jabbed a short stare at what knocked him before moving forward. The jarring hit threw me out of rhythm and out of place, forcing me to stop and refocus. My respite was cut short by an arriving bus, heckling with its hissing brakes as it came to a stop. The doors opened and poured a sea of empty faces in my direction. A low drone of chatting voices and the sounds of shuffling feet surrounded me, leaving me stranded with nowhere to move. The scene was like honey bees in a hive, an orchestration of chaos that had a beginning, middle and end. Only I was the queen, trapped by a million workers. The air became hot and toxic, but I knew what bothered me was more in my head than reality. I shrunk inside the crowd and waited for the congestion in my mind to pass with the people. In my quiet bubble, I told myself to relax, to try and reconnect with my creative muse so I could spark the imagination I needed to complete the task at hand.
The traffic signal flashed to indicate I could cross the street, giving me an exit. I stepped off the broken curb hastily—and rolled my ankle. I cursed at the sharp twinge, walking it off while bodies rushed by me and hurried to the other side. The glowing white numbers counted down, telling me I had three seconds to get to the curb before the traffic barreled through. I winced. I felt a sudden hand on my hip, helping me regain my footing. I turned to say thank you, but the person disappeared, leaving me to wonder if he or she had ever been there at all. I made it to the other side amid a blare of car horns. I chose to ignore them and searched in the direction I knew Messenger should be approaching from—Nerd had set up a package delivery with Messenger’s Quickey Courier Service, using a deli’s address across the street.
Bike messengers were easy to spot, and I only needed to catch one going in and coming out. I had my phone in my hand, ready to take a picture or two, to help me be diligent in memorizing everything about him. I didn’t think I’d really need my phone; I didn’t need his picture. Once I had him in my mind, there’d be no forgetting my mark.
“Five years,” I stated, thinking of Messenger’s time served. “Just five years. Is that what Janice’s life was worth?” My voice was drowned out by a woman’s phone conversation next to me. She cupped the electronic bug nestled in her ear and gave me a look before continuing. I raised my brow as if I’d asked a question, and she quickly turned to face the other direction. And then I saw Messenger. I sucked in a breath and straightened from my slouch, stretching up on my toes to get a better look. He entered the deli, twisted around once to check on his bike, showing me his face. It was him. I was sure of it. The only pictures Nerd had been able to find were dated, more than six years old, from Messenger’s arrest files. Even if they had been ten years old, there was no mistaking the tattoos that covered his neck and his flat nose. Very distinctive, both of them. His nose was squished and easy to remember, but the huge tattoo on the left side of his neck was the giveaway. From where I was, it was difficult to make out the picture on his inky skin. I narrowed my eyes, made out the vague shape of a skull. That gave me enough to confirm it was Theodore Holst.
I had him.
I had him memorized, and didn’t need anything else.
Within a moment, Messenger was back at the door, his body rigid, his hand cradling the deli’s doorjamb. He swung a fist in the air, yelling at someone inside. I tried to listen to the altercation, but the woman with the bug in her ear was speaking too loud. I moved closer. Had something gone wrong with the delivery?
“A tip!” I thought I hear heard him say.
He was shouting something about a tip. We needed the delivery to work and couldn’t chance him making a change. I’d studied the path Messenger used in delivering to the deli. I studied the line of traffic, the mix of yellow and green cabs lining up, bumper to bumper. By now I’d grown deaf to the never-ending car horns, hearing them only when they were meant for me. Messenger moved back to his bike, his delivery finished. He scanned the street, surveying the caterpillar run of cabs and trucks, searching for an open spot to jump into traffic. Before I knew it, he was gone, chasing his shadow to another delivery.
I had what I needed.
SEVENTEEN
A LONG DRIVE. I knew where we were by the quiet wail of the car’s tires
and the rhythmic thump-thump coming from the seams in the road. We were going to one of the holes, to one of the places where the bodies got swallowed by the ground—soft earth, gravelly sand, burping air, arms and legs and head disappearing. At least, it seemed like they just went in on their own. But sometimes there was a shovel and it took us until the morning light arrived before we were done.
Five hundred and eighty-four. It’s always five hundred and eighty-four thumps after the bridge. I’d counted each time, letting the feel of the road tell me when we’d arrive. And every time it was late like tonight, my mother telling me to go to sleep. The glow of streetlights careened by my window like falling stars, and the smell of the ocean seeped into the car. We were even closer than I thought. We’d pass the tall trucks soon—big, rising above us, towering like giant buildings. But they were motionless: asleep like I should be.
“Sit with me, baby girl,” my momma said, patting the seat next to her. I pretended not to hear. I hated when she wanted me to sit in the front, between her and the dead man. By now all of him would be stiff, and with every turn, every nudge against his body, his bones and joints would pop. I shuddered at the idea of touching him. When a man dies, his skin changes. I can’t explain how exactly, but the touch is like paper or a chalkboard. At least in the backseat, I was safe.
“I’m gonna lay down,” I answered.
The dead man moaned.
I was awake now, my eyes wide, my heart pounding. “Mom?”
“Just the air, baby girl. Just the air is all,” she said, hesitating between her words. I leaned back, ducking behind the man in case she was wrong. “Get some sleep.”
Affair with Murder The Complete Box Set Page 34