Linwood Barclay - Trust Your Eyes

But maybe there was one in the car.

She could have reached down and grabbed Blondie’s gun, but she knew, almost instinctively, that it was not her weapon of choice.

She bolted after him, caught up just as he had the door to the car open and was half inside. She threw all her weight against the door, slamming it against him, smashing his head up against the pillar.

He was seeing stars when she ran the knife into his side. She opened the door, allowing him to slide to the cement.

She dropped on top of him, plunged the knife into him a second time to let him know she was serious.

“Who do you work for?” she asked.

“Jesus,” he said. “I’m fucking dying.”

“Tell me who you work for and I’ll get you an ambulance.”

“Higgins,” he gasped.

Then she slit his throat.

They found the Scarface boys’ Escalade in the middle of the desert. They’d all been shot in the head, the SUV set ablaze.

Their boss, a man named Victor Trent, offered Nicole a job. He was impressed, and grateful, not only that she had killed the two men who’d murdered his employees, but that she’d had the presence of mind to get the name “Higgins” out of them before finishing them off.

If he’d known her a little longer, and she’d had a bit more experience, he’d have had her take care of Higgins herself. But he had one of his longtime employees do that. Higgins met his maker in the desert, too, but no one ever found him. Nor did anyone ever find the two men Nicole had killed in the warehouse.

Victor took Nicole into his inner circle. She had, he quickly determined, abilities that far exceeded other girls-and most boys-her age. She had control. She had discipline. She had a willingness to learn.

And he was happy to teach her.

Before long, Nicole was Victor’s go-to girl when he had a problem that needed to be taken care of. Among Victor’s circle of associates, her reputation grew. There was always work for a woman like Nicole.

She never told him who she used to be, and he never asked. One time, in 2004, he brought her into his office to give her an assignment, and the Athens summer Games were playing on the television. Victor told her how much he loved the Olympics, how he watched as much of them as he could, while Nicole stood there, watching Carly Patterson on the uneven bars. He had no idea, and that was for the best.

She spent five years working for him and was paid well. At one point, Victor introduced her to a former NYPD officer by the name of Lewis Blocker. Victor had hired Lewis do some surveillance work for him, and in addition wanted him to teach Nicole the craft. She learned a great deal from him.

Finally, Nicole reached a point where she did not want to work solely for Victor Trent anymore. She was indebted to him in many ways, but she believed that theirs had grown into a mutually beneficial relationship. She had eliminated many problems for him, and now she wanted the freedom to eliminate them for others, as well.

Nicole invited him for dinner at Picasso in the Bellagio. Told him what a wonderful mentor he had been to her, how much she’d valued his friendship and guidance these last few years. Worked up to it as gently as she could, finally telling him that she wanted to go it alone. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t still work for him, but she would be a free agent from now on.

“I need this,” she said. “For myself. This is what I have to do. And I’d never be in a position to do this without your support and guidance.”

“You fucking ungrateful bitch,” he said, and left without finishing his Maine lobster salad with apple-champagne vinaigrette.

When you got down to it, men, they were really all the same.

And she’d done pretty well on her own, until now.

Nicole didn’t know anyone in her line of work have something go this wrong. Not that hired killers got together that often and compared notes. But you heard things. There was a grapevine. There were people out there whose work you knew. Some were good at it, some not so much. Sometimes, they made mistakes. It happened in any line of work.

But Nicole’s mistake, even she had to admit it was up there.

It was bad enough she’d killed the wrong person. That alone would have pissed off any client. But to have the intended target then show up, see what had happened, and get away?

Not the sort of thing you put on your resume.

Sure, there were other killers out there who’d screwed things up. Sadistic sex killers who convicted themselves by recording their crimes on video. Husbands who were so dumb they turned to the Yellow Pages to find hit men to take care of their wives. Wives with the same thing in mind for their husbands, who didn’t know the contract killers they were conspiring with were actually undercover cops. Desperate businessmen who torched their operations, taking a few lives in the process, and put their gas-soaked sneakers back in their bedroom closet.

These people got caught, and went to jail. Why? Because they were amateurs. Ending lives was not their day job. They were accountants or stockbrokers or car salesmen or dentists.

They might be professionals in their own world, but they were not professional killers.

Nicole was supposed to be a professional. This was her day job. She took it seriously. She had no particular ax to grind with her targets. She didn’t know them. It wasn’t personal. She wasn’t ruled by jealousy or greed or sexual obsession. Those were the qualities that tripped you up, that blinded you to your mistakes. Nicole wasn’t in this line of work because she took pleasure in ending someone’s life, although there was the satisfaction of a job done well. If she could be said to actually enjoy any of her assignments, it was when the subjects were male. She always imagined them to be her coach. Or her father. Or Victor.

Having screwed up a job, she had an obligation to make it right. All anybody had in this life was their reputation, and she wanted to do what she could to restore hers. Besides, they were expecting it of her.

Too bad it was taking so much longer than anticipated.

Nicole had been monitoring Allison Fitch’s mother’s residence for months now. She’d gotten into it within days of Allison’s disappearance, while Doris Fitch was out meeting with Dayton police to discuss what progress was being made in New York to find her daughter. Nicole had used that time to plant a listening device on Doris Fitch’s phone, and another within the apartment itself, and to install a program on the women’s computer that would allow Nicole to monitor it from her own laptop. She’d spoken to Lewis when she ran into a couple of technical hitches and he guided her through it. Nicole was able to read Doris Fitch’s e-mails, anything she wrote on her Word program, even look at all the entries she made on her computer banking program, should Doris make some large, out-of-the-ordinary cash withdrawals. Nicole figured it was only a matter of time before the daughter got in touch.

Not that this system was foolproof. Allison could conceivably approach a third party to relay a message to her mother. But, if and when such a message was delivered, there’d likely be a change in Doris’s routine. She’d book an airline ticket, for example.

Nicole remained hopeful Allison would, at some point, make contact. The former bar employee was probably afraid to do so, with good reason. She’d figure they’d be watching her mother. But Allison might also be hoping these same people would let down their guard after all this time, maybe even think she was dead.

Which was why Nicole had to wait her out. She just hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer. She hadn’t made a dime in months. She was dipping into her reserves.

Maybe it was time for a career change. Get out of this line of work before her luck ran out, if it hadn’t already. She had a bad feeling about Lewis-that maybe, when this was over, he was going to settle up with her for her mistake.