"You dumb fuck, Tyrell." The professional was cool, showing no hint of the anger boiling up inside.
Feebly, Tyrell muttered something in the way of ignorance.
The
professional chopped him off short. "Don't play the innocent. You know why I'm calling. You sent a second man in to finish my work. Didn't you?"
Silence filled the telephone line except for a roaring hiss that made Tyrell sound like he was in a wind tunnel.
"Yes, I did," Tyrell admitted.
"I'm glad you admitted it. It shows strength of character when a man can admit his mistakes. Don't you think?"
The television report went back to the studio and the program moved on to other news. Disinterested in the mute talking head, the professional switched the TV off.
"How is he?"
"Funny you should ask. I've just been watching the evening news. Your man is one of the top stories tonight."
"Is
he dead?"
"Yes, he is. Don't worry, it'll be some time before they can make a positive ID."
The professional grinned. He thought he heard an audible wince through the phone line.
"It was lucky I was there or he would have robbed me of my fee."
"What do you mean?"
"He was about to kill Josh Michaels, but luckily, I interceded."
"You stopped him?"
"Of course, Mr. Tyrell. It was my assignment. Mine to carry out. Mine to finish."
"But Michaels will go to the police," Tyrell said, his voice rising in pitch.
"No, I shouldn't think so. It wouldn't be in his best interests."
Tyrell paused before answering. "What's your plan?"
"My plan? I'll do as I was assigned. Within the next forty-eight hours, your request will be fulfilled. I'll confirm my plans tomorrow. And then ... we should discuss terms. A new arrangement after your breach of trust."
"Of course."
"I think we should meet face-to-face." The professional made the simple request sound ominous.
"Let... let me know when you .. . you're ready,"
Tyrell stammered.
"Good night, Mr. Tyrell." The professional hung up.
The professional switched the television back on and flicked through the stations for something to watch other than news.
He knew Tyrell would be panicking over whether the man he hired would kill him after the assignment was complete. He could almost smell the businessman's fear. He stopped the channel surfing when he came to PBS. A cheetah had just brought down a gazelle and was reveling in its new kill.
Gently, Dexter Tyrell put the cell phone on the passenger seat next to him. His focus drifted from the other cars and the road ahead to the phone call he'd received from the professional. In the years he'd dealt with the killer, he'd never believed their relationship would take a turn for the worse. But it had now. He found it difficult to think straight. For the first time, he hoped it would take some time before Josh Michaels and Margaret Macey were dead. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
Involuntarily, his foot eased down on the gas pedal.
In hindsight, which was always twenty-twenty, he'd made a mistake bringing in another contractor. Hiring Smith seemed like a good idea at the time and he'd come highly recommended, but never for one minute did Tyrell think he'd be killed two days after meeting him. He shot out of the righthand lane and blew by a Greyhound bus at eighty-five.
Tyrell's Mercedes continued to increase in speed. He considered the situation. If the professional could take out a man like Smith, how difficult would it be for the hit man to take care of him? The answer: it wouldn't be hard. Different thoughts, scenarios and questions flashed inside his head like icons on a slot machine.
Maybe he was jumping to conclusions assuming the professional would want to kill him. He was a businessman as well. It didn't make good business sense to bite the hand that fed him or to tear it off in spite.
Tyrell was deluding himself and he knew it. He just wished he knew what the professional was thinking. In the financial world, people were as easy to read as a book, but the professional was written in a different language. He pressed the accelerator pedal into the carpet.
The siren wail made Tyrell jump, waking him from his living nightmare. The police cruiser's blue and red lights flashed excitedly in his rearview mirror. He looked down at the speedometer. It read 105.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Kate's threat was a kick in the guts. Josh had never thought for one moment that Kate would consider leaving him. But there it was--if he went to see Margaret Macey, Kate would leave him. So he did as he was told and stayed home, threw his clothes in the hamper, had a bath and put the eventful day behind him.
But that was yesterday. Today was a whole new day.
Kate was at work, Abby was at school, and he was at home, alone. Kate would never know if he slipped out of the house and visited the old woman. Something twisted the blade of guilt between his ribs. He'd been deceitful to Kate before and the deceit had come back to take its revenge. But he had to find out what Margaret Macey knew about this conspiracy and do it without being caught. He knew the price and consequences of failure. If he screwed up, he lost Kate and Abby--he lost everything. He was gambling with higher and higher stakes. He raised the bet one more time.
Josh guided his car down the street and brought it to a halt outside Margaret Macey's house. He remembered the address Bob had told him, though he knew his friend wouldn't approve of what he was doing. From the appearance of the street, he couldn't imagine this woman was worth murdering. He crossed over to the other side of the street and went up to the front door.
He rang the doorbell. It didn't work. Josh wasn't surprised.
He knocked on the door. No one answered.
"Shit," he murmured. He hoped she was in. He didn't want to hang around all day waiting. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement, a blur darting back from the window. He knocked again.
"Hello," he said.
No one responded.
"Mrs. Macey? Margaret Macey? I know you're in there. I saw you moving." Josh had his head close to the door and spoke loudly.
Realizing how sinister he must sound, Josh glanced behind him into the street. He hoped the neighbors hadn't heard, put two and two together and come up with five. The last thing he wanted was to give the cops another nail for his coffin. He saw no one.
Whoever was in the house didn't move or make a sound.
"Margaret--can I call you Margaret? I'm here as a friend. I need to speak to you. It's about the insurance company, Pinnacle Investments."
"Go away," she shrieked.
Shocked by the sudden outburst, Josh's head snapped back from the door and he took one step back.
He peered through the grubby window to the right of the door and only made out shapes in the gloom.
"Mrs. Macey, I'm here to help." A tinge of resignation clouded his resolve. This isn't going to be easy, he thought.
Ever since the pizza boy incident, Margaret Macey had made herself a recluse. The evil man on the phone had called twice since then. Now, she feared the phone, the outside and people. She'd never seen her tormentor and he could be anyone. He could be the man standing next to her at the bus stop, the man who packed her groceries at Albertson's or the man at the front door right now.
The police had told her they'd spoken to a suspect.
By going to the cops had she aggravated the wound, only making the situation worse for herself? Maybe if she told the cops to drop the investigation he would leave her alone. She would do anything for peace. The man at the door interrupted her train of thought.
"Margaret, can't we talk? I think the same man who is trying to hurt you is trying to hurt me," he said, his words muffled by the windowpane.
He sounded convincing to Margaret, but he'd sounded convincing when he called the first time. He'd sounded just like a salesman, all bright persona and fake interest in her welfare, but he'd turned
into a monster. He could be doing the same now, offering her something sweet before the bad medicine came.
"Please, leave me alone. I know you're him. You're the one on the phone calling at all hours," she said.
He started talking to her again, but she didn't hear him. Sweat broke out across her body. For a moment, objects became shapes, losing their integrity as solid forms. As Margaret's heart beat faster and faster, a tingle crept along her arm, numbing it. She needed her medication.
"Please, let me in, Margaret," he pleaded. "I know I can help you and you can help me."
"Please, don't kill me," Margaret said.
"I'm not trying to. Please, don't think that."
Margaret picked herself up from behind the armchair.
She'd ducked behind it after she glanced at the visitor at the door. Getting up was easier said than done. The strength needed to do so was an effort at the best of times; currently, it was a near impossibility. Using supreme effort and her one good arm she pushed herself to her feet and tottered like a babe for a moment before gaining her balance.
"Margaret, I can see you. Please let me in. I only need a few minutes of your time." He sounded excited by the sighting and charged with new vigor.
She ignored him in favor of her medication. The stuff was here somewhere. The bathroom cabinet was full of nothing, filled with medication for coughs and colds, Band-Aids and toothpaste, although it was hard to see anything as her vision faded to primary colors, then back to Technicolor. She grappled with the cabinet's contents, which went tumbling into the sink below.
The pills weren't there. She couldn't remember where she'd last seen her drugs. Why can't I think straight?
In her bedroom, the nightstand proved as fruitful as the bathroom. She stumbled back to the lounge with the ever-present visitor still whining at the window. He was telling her something, but she didn't care what he had to say.
Margaret moaned the feeble utterance of a creature without a tongue. She didn't feel good. Something bad was happening. It felt as if her heart had been folded into a shape it was never meant to be in. The pain in her chest was excruciating and the tingle in her arm was ablaze; millions of hot needles pressed into her flesh at once. She fought to take a breath, but the air stopped in her mouth. Breathing, something she'd done all her life, was now an alien concept.
Standing became too much. Her legs buckled and she crashed to the floor. She struck the telephone table, sending it and the phone smashing to the floor in sympathy.
She hardly registered the impact on her body. It no longer fed the information back to her brain.
Margaret lay on her back. The visitor rattled the door and tried to force it. A recorded female voice from the telephone told her to hang up and try again or dial the operator. Margaret wasn't compliant to the request.
"I'm coming round the back," he called.
She could hear it--the rustling of his movements, the creak of the screen door, the attempts on the door before the tinkle of shattering glass cascading onto the vinyl flooring. She saw the figure come for her, the Michelin man, crudely shaped without definition.
Even now, she still couldn't identify the man coming to kill her.
Margaret Macey was in bad shape. Josh dropped to his knees at her side. He propped her up on his lap. Her eyes looked at him, but didn't focus.
"Is there anything I can do? What can I do? Tell me, Margaret."
"You got what you wanted. I'm dying," she said.
"No. That's not what I wanted. I wanted to talk to you about the man who's been calling you. He's been pursuing me as well."
The old woman stared back blankly. She wasn't going to tell him anything now. She was the color of the dead and breathing erratically. She needed a hospital.
But that was a problem. Suspected of frightening this woman, he'd now broken into her home and given her a heart attack. It wouldn't look good for him with the cops. He cursed.
"Margaret, do you take any medicine for your condition?"
The woman didn't seem to hear him. "Do you have any pills or shots? Is there anyone I can contact?"
The woman in Josh's arms stiffened. Her face contorted in pain. Tightly, her boney hands balled up.
White knots at every joint threatened to break through the paper-thin skin. He cradled the old woman like she was a bomb with the seconds disappearing off the clock. Flecks of spittle sprayed over her chin.
Josh didn't know what to do for her.
Her last word came out as an accusation. "Killer,"
she said.
She gurgled like a blocked drain before her body relaxed and became still. Josh knew he was holding a dead woman.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"Oh, Christ. Oh, no. Please, don't be dead." He clutched the frail old woman to his chest and rocked back and forth. He thought fast. What could he do?
What should he do? Gently, he placed her body on the floor and started CPR. He had his CPR certificate, but he couldn't remember a damn thing now. He hoped to God he was doing it right. He tilted the woman's neck back, pinched her nose and breathed into her mouth.
Disgusted, Josh dismissed the unpleasantness of her spittle on his mouth. After several attempts, he stopped.
She was dead and Josh gave up.
He wiped a shaking hand across his mouth and tried to swallow, but his throat was dry and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He couldn't bear to look at the blank, staring eyes of the dead woman and brushed a hand over the lids, closing them. On hands and knees, he moved away from the corpse and slumped against the threadbare couch.
Josh noticed the monotonous tone of the recorded voice coming from the discarded telephone. He went over to the handset to call 911. With his hand about to touch the receiver, he hesitated and retracted it. He realized what he'd done.
Guilty. Josh was guilty of the crime the police had accused him of, whether it was intentional or not. He'd scared Margaret Macey into a heart attack and she was dead. The cops didn't need a smoking gun to convict on this one. Josh had given them all they needed. He should have done what Kate had told him and not gone.
Here was another mistake to add to the growing pile.
Josh stared blankly at the dead woman in front of him. He'd come to help this woman and himself, but instead of helping her, he'd killed her. How long would she be on his conscience? As long as Mark Keegan would? Another innocent person had died because of him.
After several minutes, Josh got up and retraced his steps, making sure to wipe clean anything that he may have touched. He knew it was wrong to leave Margaret Macey's body without calling an ambulance, but he didn't want to be the one they found with the body.
Someone would notice the broken door before long.
Josh crept along the side of the house and checked the street for witnesses before returning to his car. The street was clear. Josh ran to his car, got in and accelerated away.
The professional recognized the figure getting into the car as he pulled away. What is Michaels doing at Margaret's? His targets had no reason to be talking to each other; had someone made a connection? Michaels probably had, but it was too late for them.
As he watched Josh's car disappear onto another street, the professional dialed the old woman's number.
He got the busy signal.
Curiouser and curiouser, he thought. What were his little people up to? No good to be sure, he decided. The professional hung up and pocketed the cellular. He approached Margaret Macey's house and knocked gently on the door, but received no answer. His visit to the rear of the house gave rise to further curiosity. The back door was broken. Glass was scattered over the kitchen floor. Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, the professional entered the house, ensuring he didn't leave any prints behind.
Moments after entering the house, he spotted feet sticking out from behind the armchair in the sitting room, one shoe hanging off the left foot. The professional closed in on the unmoving body. He knew who he'd find. His target lay on her
back--still, quiet, and very obviously dead. He knelt down by her side and placed two fingers over the vein in her neck. He felt no pulse.
The professional laughed out loud. He just got the joke. One of his targets had accidentally taken out the other. Days like these were very rare in his profession.
He wished he could share this moment with someone.
"Josh, I would split the money with you if I didn't have to kill you," he said to the room.
The killer wandered into the bathroom and shook his head at the mess of items scattered over the sink and floor. He removed a baggie from his shirt pocket with a bottle of pills inside; without touching the contents, he dropped the bottle into the sink with the rest of the junk.
"You can have those back, Margaret. I bet you've been looking for them," he said.
He left the way he came. And like Josh Michaels, he swiftly drove off, unseen by the neighbors.
The professional stopped at a strip mall with a pay phone and called 911.
"What is the nature of your emergency?" the female dispatcher asked.
"I want to report a breakin, possibly violent," the professional said, sounding suitably distressed.
"What can you tell me, sir?" The dispatcher's level tone had a mannish quality to it.
"I heard breaking glass and shouting, then I saw a man leave and get into a blue sedan. And I know an old lady lives alone in that house." An Oscar winning performance in a telephone role, he thought.
"Do you have an address, sir?"
The professional reeled off Margaret Macey's address.
"Can I have your name, sir?"
The professional dropped two fingers on the hook and broke the connection. Smiling, he got into the Taurus.
He had final preparations to make for Josh Michaels's demise.
Bob Deuce's desk, as messy as ever, was awash with paper, but the paperwork wasn't related to his clients.
The debris was his research on Pinnacle Investments.
Since returning to the office after the funeral the day before, he'd immersed himself in the company's history.
After calling friends in the industry, reading reports and financial data, he felt he had it all. What he'd discovered was amazing; no, not amazing, fantastic. It may have seemed wild, but what he believed to be the truth wasn't impossible. If it hadn't been for the tragic events that occurred in the last few weeks, he wouldn't have believed it.
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