Death of an Assassin (Saint Roch City Book 1) (5 page)

here’s something about success in my line of work. A thrill, sure. A rise in the heartbeat beneath my breast, a fluttering, enjoyable thing.

Whatever it is, whatever you can attribute it to, it makes me strut. My own victory dance of sorts. And even with my twenty-dollar tennis shoes and poorly fitting polo shirt, I make my runway walk up the cobblestone path back toward the ballroom and my second quarry of the night. At nineteen years young, same as me, Thomas Donahue is my prey. Once I reach the car in the parking lot where I’ve concealed my second persona of the night, I’ll be able to collect on the contract in full.

With only the scuff of my tennis shoes and the crystalline clinks of snowflakes crashing to the walkway before me like so many fallen stars, I try to keep my self-indulgence as brief but enjoyable as possible.

Now it’s just down to one. It’s no longer complicated.

They’re my kind of numbers. I should realize by the tingle on the back of my neck that something’s not right. I choose to ignore the feeling and start changing as I walk.

Freckles becoming less obvious. Hair straightening to gleam its fiery crimson in the moonlight piercing through the snow storm’s clouds. Eyes green. Greener. Emerald.

Eyes that aren’t focusing. But the noise reaches my ears, which haven’t changed at all tonight apart from the freckle or two I left along the very edge. Footfalls that are not my own. Certainly not the rough gait of tennis shoes.

“Hey!” A voice carries over the shuddering collection of snow falling across the grass of the country club. The clopping of his all-too-fancy shoes brings to mind a Clydesdale cantering along in a parade.

I keep walking, but freeze all else. My hand drops without being told to, fingers stroking with the comfort of a lover along the handle of the knife tucked into my waistband.

Arrivals are a complication. Complications are not good.

The words are not my own, but rather the advice of my mother from years past.

“Excuse me?” The voice calls again, the hooves beating to a gallop as I move closer to the bright lights and raucous laughter of the ballroom, determined to slip between the main building and the nearby rec hall. If I can duck into the shadows between the buildings, I can make it to the parking lot and completely change my appearance.

My body jerks to a halt, a hand wrapped around my upper arm. While my own fingers wrap around the hilt of the blade tucked firmly in the waistline of my pants, I whirl around out of pure momentum. Squeaking soles of my shoes and a slight yelp in my voice, I face my attacker, prepared to squirm, scream, or even stab to get away.

Someone saw you. They’re going to ask where Andrew is…

A mouth quirks into a sheepish grin before me, the pair of deep brown eyes above it bright. Brown hair, vaguely tamed. A jawline cut only with the stubble of a recent, hasty shave. And a suit that looks as comfortable as a pair of handcuffs.

“I’m sorry,” he says, chuckling and pulling his hand away like he’s been caught stealing from the cookie jar. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I saw your uniform and thought you might work here?”

I can’t stop staring at him. My hand flexes on the knife. Thomas Donahue. My next mark. And here he is. Alone.

I nod at him. I don’t even recall what question he asked, but when in doubt, the affirmative is the way to go.

Thomas smiles. “Great. I’m looking for my brother? Someone said they saw him come out here…?” His voice trails off, either because of my complete lack of response or because he’s sick of pretending to care. His shoulders slump before his words even have a chance to fade away on the chilled air.

“I…” My voice has been found.

“You know what,” Thomas says, putting his hands up. “Don’t tell me. You saw him run out here with some random woman, right? They’re off in the rec hall on one of the pool tables? Chalking the stick, right?” He’s grown a different smile now. No, not a smile. A grimace. Even in the dying moonlight, I can see his face has grown red. And the cold is not responsible. “Figures.”

“No, no. I mean. I haven’t… seen anyone?” That’s the ticket, Layla. Make sure he knows you’re not used to interacting with people.

Thomas sighs and glances around, as though his brother might leap out from a bush and yell, “Surprise!”

“Well, I was sent out to fetch His Highness. They want him to make a speech. You know, the speech I had to write for him because he was too busy snorting blow this week to attach a few sentences together on a note card. So he wouldn’t completely embarrass our family. Again.” His lips purse and he shakes his head, answering the question he never spoke aloud.

Lure him to the parking lot. You can drive away with him. Or to the
shoreline. Whatever is still munching on Andrew might want dessert…

My grip loosens on the knife and I walk toward Thomas. “Well… maybe he went down to the water? The boathouse? To collect himself or something?” I try to throw in some pauses to seem like the idea only just occurred to me. I just need him to be within a few feet of the surface. Then I can jog down the shore. Come back for my rental car in the morning. It’s a perfect plan, really. I should have thought of it earlier.

Thomas groans and stares down at the placid water only just lapping the shores of the Swift. “I don’t feel like spending the entire night looking for my idiot brother, you know?” He turns to me, and I stop trying to fix my polo shirt. He smiles faintly, and what was really me trying to hide the boot knife tucked in my pants must have looked to him like some form of hasty flirting.

And only then does it occur to me that I’m not the disgusting girl I crafted down at the boathouse. I’ve started catering to new needs already. I may not be in the slinky dress I have in the trunk of my borrowed Cadillac, but I’m still more than enough to lure prey about. The kill may, for the first time ever, be at my own hands, though.

“I’m sorry. I’m sure you don’t need to hear about my crappy night. Sucks that they have you working out here. You must be freezing. I’ll let you get back inside.” He turns away from me and starts walking toward the boathouse. A boathouse that probably still has frothing red water from his brother’s plunge. I reach out and grab his wrist, bringing him to the same stumbling stop that he did for me moments before.

“I’ll help you look.” I step closer to him, letting my hand slide up his arm. If he reads it as being seductive, it doesn’t show. No, I’m just the compassionate girl he happened upon.

“Thanks. I suppose you know all the places he might find himself anyway, right? Working here?” He waves his free hand a bit in case I wasn’t clear about which “here” he meant. Sure, I work at the Manchester.

I nod and tug his wrist to lead him down the path. The music from the ballroom rises again as one of the more infamous party dances starts up. I think it’s the one where everyone pretends to be a chicken. Needless to say, I’ve never been to a party long enough to get to that dance.

Thomas follows me, a little less like the bounding puppy I want him to be. When he pulls his hand free of mine, I bite my lip, hoping I’ll still be able to move him somewhere that will make it easy for him to fall in the water. Maybe even slip my blade between his ribs in the hopes of luring in some predator. He trudges beside me, his shiny shoes squeaking in the layer of snow building on the path. His breath comes out in opaque clouds before him, the vapor drifting over scruffy cheeks.

I wrap my arms around myself, pretending that the cold is bothering me. No need for him to get suspicious.

“So what do they have you doing out here?” he asks me. The walkway seems a lot longer when you don’t have some half-drunk, horny guy dragging you down it.

Counting the snowflakes? Washing the pool toys?

“Oh… you know, whatever they ask me to do. I was just… coming back from taking the trash out.”

Thomas nods at my plausible job description. “Sounds glamorous.” When I don’t respond, he becomes flustered. “Not that… I mean, a job is a job, right? And I’ve got nothing but respect―”

“It’s okay, Thomas.” I find myself chuckling at his behavior, and it’s not an act.

“Oh, you know who I am?” he asks.

My own slipup escaped my notice until he brought it up.

“Well… you said it was your brother’s party?” I say.

“You’ve got me at a disadvantage then. I don’t know your name.” He slows his walk.

“Uh, I’m Layla.” It’s out before I can grab it and shove it down deep.

Yes. Good call. Give the mark your real name. Before you’ve even figured out how to have him die. Nothing bad can possibly come from that.

He extends his hand. “Well, thank you for helping me out, Layla.”

I shake his hand and he bristles. “Jesus, you’re freezing! Here.” He shimmies out of his suit jacket, and before I can protest he’s draped it over me.

“I… umm, thanks?”

He waves it off.

One more thing I’ll have to dispose of after tonight.

We reach the boathouse door, brightly lit by its piercing old-style hanging lamp. Just inside is where Tommy Boy will meet his end, and I’ll be done with the damn job.

As his hand reaches down to grip the brass knob, Thomas freezes and glances back at me. I can see gears turning behind his eyes, and my hand slips under my borrowed jacket to pull my knife free. I’ve been made.

“Do you hear that?” Thomas asks.

My blade halfway out of its sheath, I pause, completely off guard.

“No?”

Thomas holds up his hand, and over the rustle of snowfall, light breeze, and the clanging of buoys offshore, the sound gets louder. Splashing. Sloshing.

A groan.

Oh, you’ve
got
to be kidding
.

Thomas gallops down the walkway and vaults over the picket fence separating grass from sandy beach. I try to keep up, not wanting to lose sight of him. He’s got my name. Where I was. A vague description of me. Enough for the club to realize someone was at this party who wasn’t meant to be.

No witnesses.

Kicking up beach and snow, Thomas jogs to the water’s edge as I’m hastily trying to straddle and jump the picket fence in my khaki pants. I drop Thomas’s jacket on a wooden slat and chase him down the beach. By the time I reach him, he’s kneeling down over a clump of something.

“What is it?” I ask, my breath heaving from the legitimate chase. I’m not used to running down my prey.

“Shit, shit, shit…” Thomas mutters. A groan comes from the clump. A clump named Andrew Donahue.

Shit, indeed.

Andrew looks up at his brother, glazed eyes peering out of blood and muck. Through a break in the clouds, the beach lights up.

His face is covered in rusty mud, suit mangled and torn with two rows of neat gashes across his torso. With each breath he takes, blood gurgles from his wounds, soaking through the white button-down shirt. His legs are another matter entirely. Or, more accurately, leg.

Because one is completely gone―as though he never had one. Not even a stump remains, a paper doll that someone has cleanly freed of an appendage. The other leg is comically normal, though soaked.

The marks on the torso tell me exactly who my accomplice in the crime was, though. I stare out at the serenely flat water and put a hand on Thomas.

Push him in. Push him and run. Before it gets you, too.

Andrew sucks in a breath and Thomas looks up at me.

“Help me move him? Please.” His voice is pleading, and the disgust of his brother I heard only minutes before is gone. My hand clenches his shoulder.

Do it. NOW.

With one fluid motion, my free hand clenches another shoulder―Andrew’s.

Thomas gets the hint and grabs his brother’s other arm, and we slowly haul the bleeding mess up the beach toward the fence. As we move, I catch the ripple of water on the shore. My partner being robbed of its late-night snack. I know he can move on land, but how fast?

“Help!” Thomas calls out. “Someone!” He looks down at his brother, who is shuddering violently in the sand, slipping into shock. Andrew’s eyes look up and see me.

Me, who looks plenty different now, but there’s recognition in his stare. He knows who I am.