The Assassin’s Heart

by Alexis Abbott

  I open my mouth with the intention of cooking up a lie, but I can’t. I’ve never been a good liar, and right now, all I can think about is being as obedient and timid as possible. I need to survive this encounter, and I know there’s no point in fighting. He can overtake me without even trying.

  “I-I’m just a maid,” I whisper. “I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” he agrees. “Unfortunately, you still managed to overhear some very sensitive conversation. And that makes you a bit of a problem for me, you see.”

  I whimper, already bracing for him to hurt me.

  “Please don’t kill me,” I breathe, tears burning in my eyes.

  He frowns. “I don’t kill women,” he says flatly.

  I take very little comfort in his statement. I doubt I can trust him to tell me the truth.

  “Ah, Charity,” he sighs, shaking his head. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Let me go? I-I won’t tell anyone what I heard. I s-swear,” I mumble.

  He gives me an almost pitying smile. “I wish that was good enough. But you’re a part of this now, whether you like it or not.” He pushes back and contemplates something for a moment, then stands up and shrugs off his leather jacket, tossing it at me. I let out a little yelp of fear, which turns into a full-on gasp when I see him pull a tiny gun out of his back pocket and point it at me. My heart skips a beat and I brace for the inevitable. His eyes are cold, but his words are soft when he speaks to me.

  “Put on the jacket,” he instructs. I hesitate, confused by the request. But when he lifts an eyebrow expectantly, I rush to obey. With shaking hands, I pull on the jacket, which is way too big for me.

  “Good. Now stand up,” he adds, still pointing the gun at me. I acquiesce, though my legs are so weak I can barely stand on my own. I whimper as he walks over to me and slowly, carefully slides the gun up the back of the jacket. I can feel the cold, round mouth of the gun pressed against my back, and I know somehow, instinctively, that he’s aiming for my heart from behind. The man gives me another deceptively kind smile and begins to lead me toward the door.

  “Where are you taking me?” I murmur.

  “You and I are going to take a little trip,” he answers cryptically, opening the door and nudging me out into the hallway. “And act natural. We’re just a happy couple walking around together. Smile, Charity, and remember that if you scream or disobey me in any way, I’ll put a bullet in your heart.”

  Jake

  I can feel her strained breathing under my jacket through the metal barrel of the gun I have pressed up against her back. Her heart is pounding a mile a minute even though she managed to keep her cool all the way down the hall. She isn’t bad at this, I have to admit. But I’m nowhere near foolish enough to mistake her skill for trust.

  This situation is still much more dangerous than I planned for, and we’re a long way from the finish line.

  She takes a deep breath as we watch the elevator doors close in front of us, giving us a look at our own blurred reflections in the shining metal. The elevator starts to take us down, and we stand in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds.

  “There’s a camera on us,” I murmur. “Act like what we look like—a young couple that just got finished having some fun in a private room.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she turns and looks up at me wearing a fake smile that could have fooled me, if I didn’t know better. She bumps her hip against me, and I smile back down at her, returning the gesture playfully.

  “The cameras saw us come in separately,” I say with a flirty smile on my face for the cameras. To the silent recording, it will look like I’m just talking dirty to her. “If anyone asks, we know each other from high school. I accidentally walked in on you while you were cleaning. We took a little time to catch up. I insisted on you wearing the coat, because you looked cold.”

  “What a gentleman,” she says. My smile grows ever so slightly more genuine, but I shift the gun against her back to remind her that I have her on a short leash for the time being.

  “You’re doing great,” I say.

  “Most of the cameras aren’t real anyways,” she admits, and there’s no lie in her tone. I raise my brow, but don’t say anything about her giving up that information willingly.

  “Sure you haven’t been held hostage before?”

  “Beginner’s luck,” she says tightly, regret in her sweet voice.

  “Play your cards right, and I’ll let me use you as a reference for next time,” I say as our elevator reaches the ground floor, and she stiffens up as she prepares to make her way through public with me again.

  “Wait, what time is it?” she asks suddenly as we slowly step out of the elevator.

  “Almost four,” I say in my normal tone. She bites her lip as we walk toward the hotel exit, and I flit my gaze down to her as much as I can without looking too conspicuous. “Why?”

  “I...I need to sign out from work,” she whispers. “It’s the end of my shift. It’ll look weird if I don’t sign out on time.”

  My heart pounds almost as hard as hers is. I can’t look at her well enough to tell if she’s lying, and if she is, it sounds like a damn good lie.

  Can I trust her?

  No, of course I can’t, but whether she’s telling the truth in this particular case could make or break this escape. We don’t have time to deliberate. I have to make a call on whether or not to trust her just long enough to sign out from work and come back to me. There are so many things wrong with it, so many risks I’d be opening myself to. But if she’s telling the truth, then walking out the door with her without telling anyone and without clocking out will look even more suspicious. I don’t even know if she has friends among her coworkers.

  I’m flying blind with nothing to rely on but my instincts.

  “Fine,” I say at last. “Lead the way.”

  I feel her heart flutter rapidly at my words. She must be as surprised to hear them as I was to speak them, but I can see the logic in her words, even if they’re misleading.

  She takes a turn to the right, and we start making our way toward the hotel offices, presumably where the employees go to get changed and handle signing in and out each shift. As we walk, I make a mental note of where we are in relation to the outside. I cased this place before entering, like I do to almost any building I set foot in for anything related to work. If I’m keeping track of our direction right, there isn’t a building exit from the offices. I saw maids coming and going from the front entrance on my way in, and the other entrances they use are ones open to other guests, not any that looked like they were employees-only on this side of the building.

  “You won’t be able to follow me in here,” she whispers.

  “Do you expect me to just let you go?” I growl lowly.

  “I swear I won’t run,” she says, and I can hear the edge of fear creeping through her voice. “I’ll just sign out, get my stuff, and come back to you. There’s no way out through here anyway.”

  “Do you know what’s going to happen if you start talking to people while you’re in there?” I say, the threat clear in each syllable of my voice. She swallows hard, and she nods her pretty head. “Two minutes,” I say. Before she can move, I reach up and grab the scruff of the coat’s collar, just in case she planned to lurch away from me and expose the gun. I slowly slide the jacket off her shoulders and let it drape over my forearm, which I bring to my abdomen as I fold my arms and lean back against the wall. I nod to her.

  She lingers just long enough for our eyes to meet, and for once, I see in her a person who’s almost completely unreadable. After that, she hurries through the door to the back room, and she leaves me alone.

  Fear is a powerful force, but I don’t know if it will be powerful enough to keep this young woman under my control for the next few minutes. As I wait, I find my gaze drifting around the lobby, and I start to wonder if I’m not already compromised.

  A receptionist glance
s my way now and then, and my heart races. Has she found a way to get word out? She might well have talked to somebody as soon as she was out of my sight. That would be foolish. A man with a gun like me is liable to do just about anything, and the time between now and when the police arrive could mean life or death for a lot of innocents, if I were a lesser man who didn’t have such a grip on his nerves.

  I realize I’m starting to feel paranoid. Even the other hotel guests are starting to look suspicious to me. Granted, I’m a man well over six feet with broad shoulders and a leather jacket draped over my arm. I can blend in, but I can’t help if I draw glances.

  I shift uncomfortably, feeling my skin crawling. This is a complication I did not need. I sensed that meeting with Gabe was going to give me trouble, but I didn’t think it was going to be this tense. How many seconds have passed? Have they turned to minutes yet? I gave her just two minutes explicitly to be unrealistic and scare her into hurrying, making her think I’m a potentially loose cannon. Am I being taken for a fool this very second?

  Just as these thoughts run through my head, a voice to my left gets my attention.

  “Excuse me, sir-”

  I jerk my attention to the voice, and my hand grips the pistol, ready for anything, expecting to see a police officer standing in front of me.

  Instead, the teenage bellhop before me flinches at my sudden movement, and he gives me a nervous smile as he clears his throat.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you!”

  “It’s fine,” I grunt.

  “I-I just wanted to ask if you were checking in, or if you had any bags I could help you with,” he says.

  “I was just leaving, actually,” I say. “Waiting on someone.”

  “Oh, I gotcha,” he says, straightening up and looking a little more confident that he recovered the situation. “Anything I can help carry out to your car, then?”

  “No.” My face has an expression on it that clearly says I don’t want to be bothered, but teenagers have never been known for being good at picking up on social cues.

  “Great,” he says. “I hope you found everything to your liking during your stay. Was everything up to your expectations?”

  This guy’s really fishing for a tip.

  “Yes.”

  “Wonderful!” he says. “Can I get you anything while you wait? Coffee? Tea?”

  I have half a mind to just shoot the kid and be done with it, but instead, I reach into my pocket and pull out a rolled-up $5 I got in change for gas on the way over here. I hand it to him with a half-smile, giving him a curt nod.

  “I’m good, kid. That older woman at the doors looks like she needs your help more than me.” He blinks and he looks surprised at the sight of a woman who couldn’t have been younger than seventy hauling two large suitcases through the hotel’s sliding doors.

  “Right,” he says, running a hand through his hair and hurrying away. “Thank you sir, and have a nice day!”

  I let out a deep breath as he trots off, but as soon as he’s gone, I sense another set of eyes on me. I turn to see the girl standing there in front of the door, staring at me with a surprised expression in her honey brown eyes.

  My eyes flit to a clock on the wall, and I smirk at her.

  “Good timing.”

  She gives me a tight smile, and I can almost hear her voice retorting “You didn’t give me a choice” in those expressive eyes of hers. I look her up and down. She has changed out of her maid uniform in stunning time. The new outfit is much more flattering, I have to admit, but also remarkably modest. She wears a plain white t-shirt under a green cardigan, and her khaki skirt falls safely below her knees. The locket around her neck is a nice touch to the conservative ensemble. She’s not the kind of girl I expected to be taking hostage, but I’m even more surprised that I like what I see.

  “Got everything?” I ask, quickly moving to her side again and making sure the gun is pressed against her back through my jacket, even though we look a little more conspicuous than I’d like.

  “Yep,” she says in a tone that’s a combination of sweet and nervous. With any luck, any eavesdroppers will think that she’s just my blushing date, and I’m the rugged boyfriend her parents don’t approve of leading her out from work. All of that hinges on whether or not she actually kept her mouth shut.

  “Then let’s go.” I prod her with the gun, and she sets off with me, heading toward the doors, past the bellhop and the old woman. I can feel the tension in her. It would be the easiest thing in the world for her to shout for help before we step out of these sliding glass doors, and everything would be over for both of us.

  Logic doesn’t always come into play in situations like this.

  Before we know it, we’re out in the parking lot.

  “Where are you parked?” she asks. I gesture in the direction of my motorcycle at the far end of the lot, and she swallows as I lead her that way.

  My bike is one of the few things in life I can truly call my own, and I love it. It’s simple, elegant, jet-black, and it’s in top condition, thanks to my hobby of getting my hands stained with oil working on it late into the night. It’s one of the few places I can find peace, and it feels good to build something every now and then, rather than destroy.

  After what feels like an eternity, we reach my bike and come to a stop. Charity looks down at the bike, then turns her head to look up to me with such a pristine expression of innocent fear that even my cold heart feels wrenched.

  “What happens now?” she asks in a thin voice.

  That’s a hell of a question.

  The girl has been remarkably compliant so far. The fact that I haven’t heard sirens coming my way or the sounds of boots on the ground rushing toward us tells me she hasn’t tried to alert the authorities...directly, at least.

  “Give me your phone,” I say firmly.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  She stares at me for a moment, then slowly reaches into her purse and pulls out her phone, handing it to me.

  “Unlock it.”

  She brushes a lock of soft, brown hair out of her eyes as she nods, and with a shaky hand, she swipes the unlock combination on the touchpad. I make a mental note of it, committing it to memory the first time it crosses my gaze. She hands the phone to me again, and I reach over and take her hand in mine so that I can keep a grip on her while I scroll through her call history.

  No calls anytime in the last few hours, and no texts, either.

  Either she was smart and quick enough to delete her call history before she left the back room at the hotel, or she truly didn’t try to get a call out while she had the chance. Charity doesn’t look like she has the guile for that, but I’ve been surprised in the past, and I won’t underestimate anyone anymore. Not even a terrified maid.

  I pocket the phone and quickly open the bike’s saddle, loading the briefcase into it and shutting it tight, but not before taking out a long, freshly washed rag I usually use for wiping my hands off after tending to the bike. I glance over my shoulder. Nobody is making their way out of the hotel at the moment, and the parking lot is relatively empty.

  “Put this over your eyes,” I say, handing her the cloth and letting go of her hand long enough to pick up the helmet off the handlebar.

  “What?” she asks, incredulous. “You mean…”

  I crack a gruff smile. “I’m taking you somewhere for a surprise, honey. We’re a young couple, remember? This is a surprise date, and you can’t see where we’re going,” I add meaningfully. Her jaw sets, and she seems rooted in place for a few moments.

  “You’re...you’re taking me?”

  “What did you think I meant by going for a ride?” I say.

  She opens her mouth to protest, but her eyes go down to my arm, still covered by a jacket and still holding a pistol that’s trained on her. She takes a breath and nods before blindfolding herself.

  Once I watch her tie the knot snugly, I quickly slip the helmet over her he
ad, concealing the fact that she’s blindfolded. Romantic cover story or no, it isn’t a good look to drive down the road on a motorcycle with a blindfolded girl in plain view.

  I climb onto the bike, and I help her get seated behind me.

  “I’ve never ridden a motorcycle before,” she says nervously. I pause, then take my jacket and slip it over her shoulders again, helping her get her arms into it.

  “Keep your arms wrapped around me,” I say. “I will drive carefully. Don’t get any funny ideas, because jumping might seem like a good idea, but we’ll be in traffic, and you won’t know what’s behind you.”

  She nods quickly, stiffening.

  Once she’s on the back of the bike, she puts her arms around me and hugs me tight. She’s nervous, and her hands are shaking, but we need to get moving fast.

  I turn the engine on, and it roars to life as I back out of the parking spot and start rolling down the asphalt, out the parking lot and onto the open road.

  We’re out.

  But it’s far from over.

  This girl is going to complicate things, there’s no doubt about that. So far, she has proven both obedient and clever enough not to blow my cover, which is more than I was hoping for. I’ve tried to keep the thoughts away, but as her arms hug me from behind, I can’t help but admit that she’s more beautiful a hostage than I could have hoped for, too. The way she carries herself makes me wish we’d met under different circumstances. Her large brown eyes are enchanting, and the freckles across her nose are begging to be kissed. But I’ve only ever seen that face in fear, and unless I want to see that face in a courtroom from the witness stand, that’s all I’m ever going to see of it.

  The only question now is what to do with her once I’m at my destination.

  Charity

  There are a whole lot of brand new sensations and experiences pinging off of me at the moment, and if the circumstances were just a tad bit less harrowing, I might even be enjoying myself.

  I have never known a person who owns a motorcycle before, much less ridden on the back of one. I have grown up in a neighborhood of minivans and sensible four-door sedans. Family vehicles, with stick-family decals and “baby on board” stickers on the rear windshields. Lots of fuzzy steering-wheel covers and brightly-colored kiddie car seats on the inside. And that’s just the way my parents like it.