Joyce Sullivan - Urgent Vows

This station reported no names were being released, too. Mercy threw the remote against the wall. If he was lucky he’d get positive confirmation on the evening news, then he could blow off this town filled with politicians and civil servants squabbling over pay increases and tax cuts to medical and social programs. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He’d followed the bastard home from the office, and the mail piled in a basket on a table in the living room had been addressed to Q. D. McClure. The confirmation was just a technicality. Necessary paperwork.

He was on his way into the bathroom when his digital cellular phone rang. “Yeah?”

He recognized the dry, raspy voice. “Has the job been completed?”

“Last night. Just waiting for positive ID. His old lady woke up so I ended up poppin’ her, too.”

“Don’t expect extra. Just fax me a copy of the newspaper report and I’ll have the money wired directly to your account. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.” The line went dead.

Mercy grunted and shook his head, remembering how the woman had stirred, her blond head lifting from the pillow…and how he’d popped her before the scream could rise from her throat.

His body tightened. Yeah, the pleasure was all his.

2:35 p.m. Friday

“It should have been me. Not them,” Quinn Mc-Clure told the solemn-faced lawyer who’d agreed to this cloak-and-dagger meeting in a fast-food restaurant. But then, never in a million years could Quinn have imagined himself, with two young children in tow, on the run from a hit man.

Of medium height and average build, wearing a conservative gray suit topped with a black overcoat, Tom Parrish glanced up from the pages of the last will and testament of Quinn’s brother, Quentin Mc-Clure. Parrish was sharp, with a glint of ingrained caution evident in his hazel eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

Quinn nodded. He’d never felt so numb. His thoughts seemed disconnected from his body, neither fully registering the actions of the other. Or maybe it was that the part of him which had always been linked to his identical twin brother, Quentin, was irretrievably severed. And yet, Quinn had to think. Had to resist sinking into the black whirlpool of grief that had opened in the pit of his stomach. He had to do what was best for the children before he hunted down the bastard who’d gunned down Quentin and Carrie in their sleep.

A Mountie always gets his man. Even ex-Mounties.

Parrish set Quentin’s will aside on the table and picked up Carrie’s. Quinn’s fingers trembled as he tried unsuccessfully to blot the horror of identifying his brother and sister-in-law’s bodies from his mind. Tried not to remember the last joking conversation he’d had with Quentin when his brother had dropped by Quinn’s office Wednesday evening to pick up the ticket Quinn had bought him for a Senators’ hockey game.

Parrish’s narrow brow furrowed. “Both wills appoint a Charles Duncan as the children’s alternative guardian.”

“That’s Carrie’s dad,” Quinn explained, struggling to keep his teeming emotions from his tone. “He had a debilitating stroke just after Christmas. He’s in a nursing home in Nova Scotia. I guess Quentin and Carrie never got around to selecting someone else—”

Quinn swallowed hard, unable to continue. Heat seared the backs of his eyelids. He hadn’t called the nursing home yet. He couldn’t bear to think of Charlie being told such news by a stranger. Couldn’t bear to think of Charlie’s grief at learning his only child and her husband were dead. That his grandchildren were orphaned.

Twenty-six hours had passed since Quinn had received the horrible call early yesterday afternoon informing him that Quentin’s and Carrie’s bodies had been found in their home. He told himself that he’d made it through the first horrific day and could make it through another. He’d been an RCMP officer too long not to immediately suspect the grisly truth when he’d arrived on the scene. It looked like a professional hit. Forced entry in a neighborhood that hadn’t seen a break-and-enter in over three years. Victims shot at close range with a .22 semiautomatic. None of the neighbors had heard a sound, and there was no sign of the spent casings, which indicated the hit man had used a silencer. Not a damn thing was taken. A quick in-and-out job. Quentin’s wallet and Carrie’s purse weren’t even touched.

Damn. It was his fault.

Every day of his life he’d live with the torturous knowledge that the hit man had followed Quentin home by mistake. Quentin hadn’t had an enemy in the world. But Quinn had a long list of enemies—all of them criminals, and not one of whom appreciated his efforts to toss their sorry asses in prisons all over the globe for counterfeiting anything from currency, credit cards, checks and travel documents to high-end designer clothes, salon products and stuffed toys.

A forensic examiner specializing in counterfeit detection and prevention, Quinn had left the RCMP at the invitation of Oliver Wells, a forgery specialist who was ready to retire from the RCMP and wanted to open up a private consulting firm. Their clients were many and varied: government agencies, financial institutions, insurance companies, law-enforcement agencies, private-investigation and security agencies, and private companies all over the world sought out their technological expertise to deter fraud and their investigative skills to combat it.

Once Quinn had realized his twin’s death was a professional hit, it hadn’t taken him long to provide the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Police with a short list of crime syndicates and individuals who possessed the motivation and the resources to order a hit on him. Not that he thought a list would do much good when the hit had likely been ordered by someone outside the country.

Quinn had a more straightforward means of finding out who’d hired the hit man. He planned to extract the information from the bastard when he came back to rectify his mistake. Oh yes, Quinn knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the cold-blooded killer would return to finish the job he’d been hired to do. And when he did, Quinn planned to be ready and waiting. But first, he had to make sure that Quentin and Carrie’s children would be well taken care of in the event something happened to him.

Quinn cast a watchful eye toward the play area of the restaurant where his friend, Gordon Swenson, who’d arranged this meeting with the lawyer, was supervising nineteen-month-old Kyle and three-year-old Melanie’s antics in the ball room. Then he panned the room, checking for anyone or anything that seemed unusual or out of place. The police hadn’t released the names of the victims to the press yet, but that didn’t mean the hit man hadn’t already been alerted to his error.

Tom Parrish carefully placed Carrie’s will on top of Quentin’s and aligned the corners. “Given what Gord has told me over the phone about your circumstances, Quinn,” he ventured in a low tone, “the best way to ensure that your niece and nephew don’t end up wards of the Crown—in the unfortunate event of your death—would be for you to marry and appoint your wife as their guardian in your will. As their aunt, your wife would be considered a relative of the children and it’s unlikely the court would choose not to uphold your request, particularly since there would be no opposing claim. Have you been seeing anyone lately you might consider marrying?”

Quinn shook his head. He’d only ever considered marriage once in his life—very briefly—and that was a decade ago. “The ladies I occasionally date aren’t the nurturing types. Besides, Kyle and Mel deserve a mother who’ll love them as much as Carrie did and be willing to raise them on her own if she has to. From a security perspective, the children would be safer with a stranger. We don’t know the resources behind whoever ordered the hit. Once they realize I’ve gone into hiding with the children, they’ll start digging into my background looking for people who might be in a position to help me out. That’s why I came to you instead of my own lawyer. It minimizes the risk of discovery because there are no links to trace.”