Perfect Assassin

by Wendy Rosnau

  “Are you sure?”

  Pris forced a smile. “I’m sure. It’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “Who’s Otto?”

  “What?”

  “You called out the name last night when you were dreaming.”

  “Did I?”

  “Any idea?”

  “None.”

  She hated lying to him, but she had no choice.

  “What do you think about hypnosis?”

  “Hypnosis? You want me to be hypnotized?”

  “It can help sometimes.”

  Why was he suddenly pushing? Pris shook her head. “I don’t think it’ll work.”

  “We won’t know if we don’t try it.”

  “I said, no!” She had raised her voice, and now he was looking at her with a serious frown.

  “Are you running from something or someone? Maybe Otto?”

  “No.”

  “That was a pretty quick no. If you can’t remember—”

  “You think I’m lying?”

  “What I think is that you don’t seem too eager to find out who you are. As far as I can tell Alun Beltane doesn’t exist. Which means you boarded in Edmonton with a fake ID.”

  “So now I’m a lying criminal?”

  “I never said that. Come with me to Billy’s office.”

  “No.”

  “Have you considered that maybe Otto is your boyfriend or husband? That you’re on the run, and that’s why you had a fake ID?”

  “You think I’m married?”

  “You’re not a virgin, that was made clear last night, so maybe—”

  “I’m not married.”

  “You know that, and yet you don’t know your name, or who Otto is?”

  She looked away.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  She started back out of the kitchen, tired of his questions. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Not good enough.”

  She spun around. “It was good enough last night when you were getting what you wanted.” That said, she started to leave again.

  “What about breakfast?”

  “I’m not hungry. I’m going back to bed.”

  The minute Moon drove away, Pris pulled her bag from the closet. She had no idea what Billy had found on the mountain, but she wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

  She tossed the bag on the bed among the rumpled blankets and began to fill it with her lean wardrobe, all the while seeing the image of Moon lying on the bed with her. They were making love, and he was doing things to her that had never been done to her before.

  It had all been so wonderful. Afterward they had talked into the night as she had snuggled close to him. He’d stroked her hair, his touch gentle, so sensitive to her needs that she had wanted to cry. He had made love to her twice more throughout the night, and each time had been as magical as the first.

  She would have to leave it all behind her. After all, it was a fairy tale she’d known couldn’t last.

  Her leg and ankle were almost as strong as before the accident. There was no reason to stay. Billy’s call had just reminded her of that.

  As she carried her pack into the living room, Pris glanced around. She would miss this place. All the warm colors and cozy comfort. But most of all she would miss Moon.

  It was natural, she supposed, to fall in love with him. She had spent every day with him for five weeks. She’d learned what made him laugh and what fueled his temper. How he liked his eggs, and, as of last night, what turned him on.

  Prisca picked a green plaid flannel shirt off the back of the couch. It was the one he had been wearing in the kitchen while making breakfast. She brought it to her nose, sniffed. The shirt smelled of wood smoke, and Moon’s aftershave. She unzipped her bag and stuffed the shirt inside, then walked into the kitchen. She brushed her fingers over the spines of his cookbooks, glanced around at the baskets hanging from the ceiling on iron hooks, and the colorful Indian rug in front of the stove.

  With a heavy heart, she picked up the phone and dialed the Sun Dance Saloon inquiring as to where she might find Tate Youngblood. The waitress who answered seemed to know where she could find him. Pris relayed her message, and hoped Tate would respond quickly.

  She didn’t want to call Koko’s cabin. The older woman was as cunning as Matwau, and as wise as an owl. If she sensed something was wrong, she would be knocking at the door within the hour.

  Out of necessity she had spoken too many untruths. She wanted to avoid another lie to Moon’s grandmother. Koko had saved her life. She owed her a debt of gratitude that could never be repaid.

  Koko’s kindness reminded her of her mother, and a wave of guilt washed over her. How could she forget her mother’s fate so easily? How could she have been so self-serving these past weeks?

  Yes, it was past time to leave the cabin and renew the search for the men responsible for cutting her mother’s life short. No matter how much she wanted to stay here in Moon’s arms, he was not the reason she had come to Montana.

  She had come to find Jacy Madox and kill him.

  Pris had rehearsed what she planned to say to Tate when he arrived. As he came through the front door, she opened her mouth, then hesitated when she saw that he was more than a little hung over. He’d buttoned his coat wrong, and his fly was open.

  She asked, “The party went well?”

  “It’s still going on inside my gut. Does Moon have any tomato juice in the fridge?”

  “I can check. Come in and sit down.”

  Tate followed her in the kitchen. “Where’s he at? Noticed his pickup’s gone.”

  “He had an errand to run in Kalispell.”

  Tate pulled out a chair at the table and eased into it with a solid groan. “What’s this about you needing my help? With what?”

  Prisca returned to the table with a glass of tomato juice and set it in front of him. “I have a favor to ask you, Tate.”

  He frowned, his expression one of confusion. But then this morning it wouldn’t have taken much. His eyes were bloodshot, and, as he shrugged out of his coat, she saw that his sweater was on backward.

  “What kind of favor?”

  “I’ve come to care a lot about your brother.”

  “Moon cares for you, too. He almost kicked my ass last night for asking you to dance. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him that pissed.” Tate grinned. “So you really like him?”

  “I do.” Pris felt her cheeks grow warm.

  “And this favor, is it going to put my ass in double jeopardy?”

  It probably would, Pris thought. But Tate was an ex-Hell’s Angel. He looked more than capable of taking care of himself.

  “I think I need my own space. Just until I know who I am. It’s the only fair thing to do. That’s why I want you to help me leave here today.”

  Tate was taking another sip of juice. He set down the glass. “Leave?”

  “Yes.”

  “I could see where you might think that would be best, but trust me, Moon wouldn’t think so. Whatever happens down the road, he can handle it. What you’ve seen these past weeks is only the tip of what he’s about.”

  “Still, I need to do this.”

  He didn’t look like he was going to help her. He’d slumped over the table, and was making a noise that sounded very much like a dying animal. Pris used the words Moon had spoken earlier, hoping they would shock Tate into getting behind her.

  “What if I have a husband out there somewhere? Children?”

  The word husband jerked Tate upright, and he almost lost his balance and fell off the chair. “A husband? You got a husband and kids?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about who I am. I keep seeing a man’s face in my dreams. I need to make sure he’s no one important.” More lies, Pris thought, but she forced herself to go on. She had to be gone before Moon got back. “So you’ll help me, right? I just need to go somewhere and think this through. Not too far away.”

  He scratche
d his head. “When do you want to do this? Leave?”

  “As soon as you finish your juice. I’m already packed.”

  “We missed it because the snow covered up the fresh dig,” Billy said. “We would never have found it if I hadn’t sent a couple of the boys up there with a metal detector.”

  There was a camera bag on Billy’s desk, but it was the contents spread out around it that held Jacy’s interest—a disassembled Austrian Steyr AUG. It wasn’t the kind of gun you’d find down at Ronny’s Gun Shop in Browning. This was an assault weapon used by armies, agencies and…assassins.

  “You haven’t reported this yet, right?”

  “No. I called you first. Wanted to see what you made of it before I called in the authorities. I’ve never seen anything like it, have you?”

  Jacy had seen similar snipers. And he knew the history behind this one. The initials engraved in the night-vision scope confirmed that.

  “For now I’m going to have to confiscate this, Billy.”

  “You can’t do that, Moon. I got a report to write, and—”

  “Stall your report, and send your recovery team on vacation.”

  “What? You’re not making any sense.”

  “I’ll explain later, Billy.” Jacy dropped the dismantled rifle and the camera gear back into the bag, then swung it onto his shoulder. Anxious to get back to the cabin, he said, “Not a word to anyone, or you could end up on a slab at the morgue.”

  “You threatening me, Moon?”

  Jacy stopped in the doorway and looked back. “We’re friends, Billy, and a man doesn’t stab his friends in the back. And they don’t send them off a cliff without a safety net, either. Your safety net is not having this in your office. And bury that report for now.”

  “So this is serious. You gonna call that big-time boss of yours in Washington?”

  Bill was one of the few in the area who knew Jacy had worked for Onyxx.

  “That’s right. This is government business, and I’ll handle it. So sit tight and play dumb. You don’t know anything. Say it.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  Jacy drove back to East Glacier pushing the speed limit. The assassin they were looking for wasn’t a man, it was a woman. She’d been under his nose the entire time. He’d been sharing his home with her. He’d been living with his enemy.

  Worse, he’d slept with her. Been inside her…

  He’d made love to Holic’s replacement, and this morning when she’d entered the kitchen he’d been making plans for more of the same.

  Merrick’s warning the night Marty’s plane had gone down resurfaced, and Jacy went over the conversation in his mind. Merrick had reminded him that he was on the kill-file list—a target whether he was retired or not.

  What he didn’t understand was how, with her injuries, she’d managed to bury the bag at the crash. Or why he was still alive, for that matter.

  If she wanted him dead, she’d had plenty of opportunity. Unless she was telling the truth about her memory loss. That would explain why he was still breathing and why a second assassin had taken over the kill-file mission for Holic. There were now six dead, but only the first two had had Holic’s signature shot.

  It was hard to believe that a young woman could own such a keen eye and steady aim, but today he’d learned that nothing was impossible.

  He saw a pair of tire tracks in the driveway when he parked in front of the cabin. He got out and checked the tracks, recognized them immediately.

  What the hell had Tate come by for? Knowing his brother’s routine—Tate didn’t get out of bed before three in the afternoon—Jacy felt suddenly uneasy. He returned to his pickup and snagged the camera bag, then the handgun he kept in the glove compartment.

  He ignored the pain that shot through his knee and took the steps two at a time. When he opened the door with his gun drawn, he knew she was gone. There was no music playing, something that had been a constant since she’d found his CD collection. And Matwau was sprawled on the couch next to the blanket that she liked to curl up with in front of the fire.

  He wished he hadn’t told her that Billy had turned up something. The news had made her uncomfortable. He had noticed that right away.

  Had it made her run?

  If she was running then there was a good chance she’d lied about her memory loss.

  He went through the house in a rush, searching every room. But the house was empty.

  He entered his office and laid his gun and camera bag down on his desk. He flipped a number of switches on a computer, then sat down and punched in the code that would bring up the file he had on Holic Reznik. He scrolled down, and began to read, found the data on Holic’s wife.

  He scanned the material.

  Holic and Mady Reznik had had one child. She was nineteen years old. She had black hair, brown eyes, weighed one hundred and ten pounds and stood five feet seven inches.

  He pointed the blinking arrow to the first blank picture square and waited. When it came up, he saw Mady Reznik—a slight blond of average height. He moved on to the second picture, waited for it to materialize.

  She was standing outside in the snow, wearing black pants and a black sweater, a black stocking cap pulled low over her ears and forehead. Tall black leather boots hugged her slender legs. She held a German PSG-1 Sniper, and behind her in the foreground of the Austrian Alps was a firing range.

  “Bull’s-eye,” Jacy spoke, not particularly happy with his discovery, but resigned. “Prisca Reznik.”

  His houseguest finally had a name.

  Chapter 10

  “I’m going to pull in to Browning and pick up the mail. You mind?”

  Pris shook her head. She was just glad to be on the way. It had been harder to leave Moon’s house than she had imagined it would be. She’d said goodbye to the animals with tears in her eyes.

  “That’s fine, Tate. Feeling better?”

  “Not much, but you sure are pretty company for a sour belly.”

  She had explained to him that she wanted him to drive her farther north. A place where she could be alone to think. He’d suggested a place called Cut Bank.

  He turned into the post-office lot. “This will only take a few minutes. Whoever’s in town usually picks up the mail, and that’s usually me, if I’m thinking straight.”

  He grinned, then pointed across the street to a small bar. Pris smiled back, remembering what Moon had said last night about the difference between him and his brother. Tate enjoys life. I chose different.

  She wondered what he’d meant by that. It was true he was much more serious than his brother. In fact, he acted as though he was the older of the two.

  “Whatever you have to do,” she said, anxious to be on their way.

  He got out of the pickup and went inside the post office, leaving his cell phone on the seat. Pris picked it up and shut it off, then laid it back down. She didn’t want to take any chances. If Moon got back early he might try to call his brother before she was safely away.

  A few minutes later Tate was back, climbing into the cab, tossing the mail on the dash. He backed out quickly, and as he pulled into the nearby gas station, the mail slid off the dash and onto the floor next to her feet. As he left to gas up the truck, she picked up the mail. She hadn’t intended to snoop, but as she began to collect the mail she made a startling discovery. Two of the envelopes were addressed to J. M. Madox.

  She checked the rest of the mail. Scanned the addresses. Koko Blackkettle and Tate Youngblood had the same post-office box, but the other two pieces of mail had been addressed to a separate box number.

  Pris gripped her stomach as a sick wave of nausea washed over her. She tossed the mail back on the dash as if it had burned her, and sat there staring at it for a minute.

  No, she thought. It can’t be true. They couldn’t be the same person. Moon couldn’t be Jacy Madox. But if the letters J.M. weren’t damning enough, why would Tate have access to Jacy Madox’s post-office box?

  Ta
te had gone inside to pay for the gas. Pris opened the pickup door. She couldn’t breathe, and then she couldn’t swallow. She was afraid she was going to pass out.

  It had started to snow, and she climbed out into the weather on unsteady legs. Shaking, she doubled over and wretched.

  Jacy arrived at Koko’s cabin needing to speak to Tate. He’d called his brother’s phone a dozen times, and damn it, Tate had his phone shut off. He had hoped to find him home, but as he pulled into the driveway he saw his brother’s pickup was gone.

  “I didn’t expect to see you today,” Koko said as she greeted him at the door.

  “Where’s Tate?”

  “I don’t know. He got a call earlier and left before noon. I think it was that cute waitress at the Sun Dance.”

  “And you haven’t heard from him since?”

  “No. But that’s not unusual. What’s wrong? You look like you’ve had your feet kicked out from under you. How about a cup of coffee?”

  “I’ll pass on the coffee, but I would like to talk to you about the vision.”

  His grandmother frowned. “Which one?”

  “The plane crash. The night you left and went up on the mountain. Tell me what you saw. Everything.”

  “What is it, Moon? Have you learned something about sisttsi nan?”

  “Sit down.”

  “All right.” She sat at the table, and Moon pulled out the chair across from her. “Start at the beginning and don’t leave out anything. From the time you saw the vision until the time you reached the plane.”

  “I don’t see why this is important, but if—”

  “It’s important.”

  Koko got up and poured a cup of coffee, then tea for herself. “Here, you look like you could use this.” When she was back in the chair, her thin sweater wrapped around her frail shoulders, she said, “I saw the fire first. A ball of flames on the mountain. It called to me and I packed a bag and left. I wasn’t sure where to go, but I let the smell lead me.”

  “The smell?”

  “I could smell it burning, and I knew it wasn’t a wood fire. This was stronger, hotter. On the mountain I saw the flames.”