Captive Target: Six Assassins Book 4

by Heskett, Jim

  “Suit yourself. Be right back.” She disappeared into her kitchen and came back a moment later with a steaming mug, then she leaned against the wall. “Would you like a tour?”

  “Uhh, sure.”

  Fagan craned her head all around to various points of this living room. "This is it. There's also a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom."

  “Gotcha.”

  She pointed him to a chair opposite a dark wood coffee table. “What can I do for you?”

  “Have you seen Ember?” Gabe asked as he sat. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he folded them and set them in his lap.

  Fagan sipped, tendrils of steam wafting over her face as she eased a chair across the table. “I have not.”

  "She was supposed to meet me at a park last night to talk about some things, and she never showed. I've been calling and texting, and I can't get through. It's almost twenty-four hours now."

  “Hmm,” Fagan said, her eyes searching the floor as she held the mug under her chin. “I’ve also been wondering where she is. That isn’t like her.”

  “Yeah, I know. Is there a chance she could have skipped town? Maybe to take a contract somewhere?”

  Fagan gave a slow shake of the head. “She’s not taking on any contracts while she’s under the thumb of this black spot. It would be too much.”

  “I didn’t think she would.”

  Fagan slurped her tea. “This is a problem.”

  “Do you know which Branch has her this week?”

  “I do not.”

  “Do you think she’s dead already?”

  Fagan paused, pursing her lips. “Doubtful. I think if someone had killed her, then the Review Board would know and would have put out a memo immediately, to stop the remaining two Branches after this one from preparing to take on her contract.”

  “So she’s just… missing.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “I don’t mean any disrespect, Fagan, but you don’t seem all that concerned.”

  The older woman's head snapped up, with a sharp look in her eyes. "Don't mistake concentration for lack of concern."

  “Oh, okay. I’m sorry. I apologize.”

  Fagan pointed up at the dead half of her face, with a hint of a crooked smile on her lips. "I get it. Difficult to read sometimes."

  Gabe felt a wave of relief. He'd never heard Fagan refer to her facial scars before. At the moment, it turned her from an authority figure into someone a lot more human. He caught a glimpse of why Ember spoke so highly of her as a person, not just as a set of skills and wisdom. Still, he wasn't about to invite her miniature golfing or hiking anytime soon.

  Gabe cleared his throat. “Maybe this sounds selfish, but I don’t know any other way to say it…”

  “You can say whatever you want here. No judgment.”

  “If something does happen to Ember, what does that mean for me?”

  “As it relates to your training?”

  He nodded.

  “Well,” Fagan said, “there are procedures in the Club bylaws for such an occurrence, and I’d have to read up on them to be sure. But I assume you would take on a different mentor. There are plenty of candidates in the Branch who don’t have any at the moment.”

  "I see." Gabe considered how he would feel, reporting to someone else—learning a different way of handling contracts. Bringing bagels to a different mentor, having to put Ember behind him. Would he still want to be a member of the Club? He didn't know how to answer that question.

  Fagan dipped her face to meet Gabe’s eyes. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about how much I don’t want Ember to die. I know that’s been a strong possibility for over three weeks now, but she’s missing.”

  “This is the life we lead. Any of us could die or be caught by law enforcement at any time.”

  “This seems different, somehow.”

  “I agree.” Fagan leaned forward and set her tea on the table. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Your membership test mission? Put it on hold. He can wait for a few days. Your top priority is finding out where Ember is. If she’s still alive, bringing her back. If she’s not… finding out how and reporting that information straight to me.”

  “But shouldn’t we… isn’t this like an all hands on deck sort of situation? Can’t we get everyone from Boulder who’s currently in town to start looking for her?”

  Fagan sighed and shook her head. "No, I think it's better if we keep it small. Word travels like lightning in the DAC. If two dozen assassins are poking around, think about how that looks. Imagine if Ember is being kept hostage in a warehouse somewhere, and her captor gets word that an entire Branch is on a manhunt. That eradicates any chance the captor would keep her alive. Besides, this is the end of day two of this week's contract. Her assassin has five more days to kill her."

  An emptiness chipped away at Gabe’s heart. The idea of Ember dying… given how capable his mentor was, Gabe thought she could pull it off. Now, he wasn’t so sure. And the possibility that he could be the one to find her and return her safely? It was a lot to process.

  “I understand,” he said.

  Fagan stood and reached across the coffee table to snatch him by the wrist, clutching his flesh in her powerful grip. “Go find our girl and bring her back home.”

  Chapter Twelve

  WELLNER

  DAY THREE

  David Wellner opened the door to his office anteroom to find a strange situation. Instead of Naomi working at her desk as he was accustomed to seeing every morning, her chair sat empty. It had been pushed under her desk, computer off. Seemed like she had tidied up and left, not merely gone out to grab a coffee and take a bathroom break. Naomi always checked in with him if she planned to be away from her desk for any time at all.

  Brow scrunched, he crossed the room and surveyed her desk and surrounding area for any clue about the absence. He found it when he glanced at his door where she’d taped a note there. Small, yellow, hanging in space for him.

  D-

  So sorry, I have to run out to handle a family emergency this morning. Everything is fine, just something I have to deal with. Left messages for you on your desk.

  -N

  He let out a slow murmur as he read over the note again. Normally, in a circumstance like this one, he would report it to the Intelligence division for a full investigation. A sudden unexcused departure from work had to be treated as suspicious, given the extreme security measures the Club undertook to maintain secrecy. With Naomi’s heroics last week in saving his life, though, David was tempted to let it slide. She had already proven her loyalty to both him and the Club.

  “No,” he said, drawing out the word. “Can’t do that.”

  As much as he valued her, if he treated her any differently, then he would be a hypocrite. It didn’t matter if anyone found out about it.

  Ten minutes before the attempt on his life, Wellner had given her permission to take a long lunch. That had been a test. He hadn’t been able to find out if she would’ve indeed taken advantage of it, because both of their lunch plans had been derailed. Wellner had a feeling she still would have made it back within her lunch hour, though. Naomi was rock-solid like that.

  He crumpled the Post-It and entered his office to find half a dozen pink notes sitting on top of his keyboard. Two from Boulder Branch members, one from Highlands, one from Golden, two from Parker. All from assassins whose names he barely knew, expressing displeasure with the way he’d handled the Review Board discipline of the Boulder member who had tried to kill him last week.

  A bullet to the head as a sentence, carried out by Wellner himself. Something he had not done in a long time. Not only killing someone but pulling the trigger. Wellner used to make time for the shooting range to keep his skills honed. But he hadn't done that in at least a year.

  He had become soft. He had become slow. That's why he'd required his buxom young secretary to step in and save his life since he was incapable of doing it h
imself.

  No more. No more of this weakness that had allowed so many things to go wrong in the Denver Assassins Club.

  Relations between the Branches had been strained, no doubt about it. Rumor had it that four members of Parker quit a few days ago to form their own collective. That hadn’t been confirmed yet, and Wellner had a feeling it never would be. Not officially, at least. Part of any Branch membership test included a pledge to never leave with the purpose of forming an organization to compete with the DAC. Several had tried it. All had been executed for violating their oaths.

  Any member no longer active with the Club was still bound by the bylaws. A permanent arrangement, only severed by the death of the assassin.

  A knock came on the frame of the open door behind him, and Wellner spun to see Vice president Jules Dunard standing there, one hip thrust to the side, arms crossed over her chest. In a blueberry pantsuit with her shortish gray and auburn hair coiffed around her face. She was seething. Her little pug nose looked like it would shoot out smoke if it could.

  He faced her, this traitor, and tried to hide the disdain he felt. He even managed a smile.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” Jules said.

  “I haven’t.”

  “David, we need to have a serious conversation about what happened last week.”

  “We don’t. The 1994 Summit gives me full authority to do what I did in that meeting. It’s in the bylaws.”

  Jules lowered her hands and balled her fists. “There’s also a law on the books in Denver that says it’s illegal to chew gum in public, but you don’t see cops handing out tickets to everyone with a pack of Juicy Fruit, do you?”

  He felt his temperature rise, a weird mixture of anger and impatience and anxiety. He couldn’t predict which emotion would win out, but none of them felt pleasant. “I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.”

  “You can’t simply act unilaterally, the way you did with Conner.”

  Wellner slid over a step so he could sit atop his desk and give his knees a rest. “I can, actually. That’s what I’m saying. Besides the fact that the bylaws condone it, it was completely justified. The man made an attempt on my life. In some other profession, sure, we’ll get the police involved and lock them up for their lifetime. But we’re assassins, Jules, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  She gave a slow shake of the head. “You’ve been around the DAC for as long as I have. You know the dangers of taking a hard line when it comes to matters that can affect the whole Club. Ruling with an iron fist is not in your wheelhouse, and you know it. I don’t know why you’re pretending it is. It doesn’t look good on you, either.”

  Wellner felt his cheeks flush. “Because I also know the dangers of sitting by while corruptive influences dissolve us from the inside out. If you tolerate intolerance, all the tolerance gets eaten.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Wellner flexed his jaw. He felt a dribble of sweat run down between his pectorals, settling atop his belly. “I’m saying that weakness will allow bad elements in and pretty soon, we’ll look around and won’t have a Club left to worry about. It will be nothing but a group of fractured assassins who’ll end up killing each other over nothing. Weakness. That’s what I’m fighting here. That’s why we need a firm hand to keep things in line.”

  The disappointment in her eyes made him furious. The subtle shake of the head, the brow scrunched together. At this moment, Jules reminded him of a high school hall monitor, busting him for coming back late from off-campus lunch.

  “What happened to you?” she said.

  He gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to spit out, you tried to have me killed, you heinous bitch. That’s what happened. Instead, he took a breath and said, “I’m trying to maintain control. Never in the Club’s history has there been an assassination attempt on a government official inside a government building. These are tense times, Vice President Dunard. I hear about new Branch squabbles every time I turn around. Our Review Board discipline docket gets longer every day. Someone has to straighten this out before the whole damn thing eats itself.”

  “Your investigation into Branch corruption has gone too far. You’re pulling assassins off contracts to have them questioned. This is costing us money. It’s costing us reputation. All we have is our reputation, David.”

  “Our reputation is exactly what I’m trying to save with this investigation.”

  “And what do you have to show for it?”

  “It’s only a few days in,” he said. “Give it time.”

  “I don’t think we should.”

  “Hmm,” he said, furrowing his brow in mock confusion, “you seem quite concerned about stopping my investigation. Care to explain your reasoning for that?”

  “You’ve gone off the deep end, David.”

  Wellner scrunched the messages in his hand into a single tight ball, then shot it across the room. He missed the wastebasket, and the ball rolled to a stop in front of Jules.

  “You can go now, Ms. Dunard.”

  She glowered at him for a second before turning and stomping out of his office. Wellner adjusted his glasses and ran a hand through his thinning hair. Had he been too obvious? It didn’t matter. He would fix Jules, no matter what she knew.

  Chapter Thirteen

  VERONICA

  Veronica Acevedo pulled out the spice drawer and scanned the names across the tops of the bottles. Her eggs needed a little cayenne. Maybe a touch more salt.

  She loved cooking; it gave her a distraction from the uncomfortable slog that was her daily life. It was cathartic, relaxing almost. Taking a slab of chicken and applying some concoction of spices and fun flavorings transformed a dish, and when done well, brought it to a completely different level.

  The problem was, since moving into this house, the kitchen arrangement was still unfamiliar to her. Even though she was the one who had designed it all, it was still like being in someone else’s kitchen. She opened the left drawer on the island, expecting to find the silverware. But the silverware was actually to the right of the oven. She’d made this same mistake for weeks now.

  Veronica had to check all three levels of spices before she found the cayenne. Ditto for the dill, which she planned to use on the pork chops she was defrosting for tonight.

  This house was nice, but she missed her old one, on the south side of Golden. Not just because of the kitchen layout. The current residence was closer to Boulder, which she liked, but it didn’t have the stellar views the previous one had. The old house had a creek at the edge of the property, rushing in the spring and lazy in the fall. But it always gave her a sense of calm to walk her morning coffee out to the water and listen to it hustling along.

  That house, though, lacked a basement. In order to catch Ember Clarke and make her pay for what she'd done, Veronica needed a home with a subterranean space. A blank slate where she could install her magnetized shackle system. With as much money as it had cost her, it was worth it to dedicate a space for it.

  Veronica added spice to both plates of eggs, careful not to let the powder touch the bacon sitting aside the fluffy scrambled pile of yellow. Did she have to make Ember fresh eggs with cream in a cast-iron skillet? No, not at all. But the sweetness and diplomacy now would be such a stark contrast to the pain and suffering she would experience later. It made the irony doubly satisfying.

  And besides, she had to admit that cooking for her while thinking about Ember’s inevitable downfall by her hand was downright sublime.

  Ember had claimed to have no idea what she’d done to anger Veronica. Maybe that was the truth. Ember took a lot of contracts, so perhaps she didn’t recall how badly she had mangled one in Memphis last year. Or, maybe she was lying. Either way, Veronica’s year of grief would end sometime in the next few days.

  Or, would she actually feel different when it was done? Would she close the door on her past when Ember no longer drew breath? Maybe, maybe not. She had to finish this either way, and she would
n't know how it would feel until it was over.

  Veronica moved her plate to the marble countertop and set it by her coffee and orange juice. As she leaned on the barstool next to the island, her phone skittered across the surface. Her eyes jumped wide when she saw the name on her lock screen.

  “Curtis?” she said as she held the phone against her ear. Excitement rumbled up from her toes at the thought of hearing his voice.

  “Hey, big sis.”

  His grungy baritone on the other end comforted her, as it always did. Ever since she could remember, his voice could make glasses on tables quiver. And yet, he was so soft-spoken, the contrast always intrigued her. Bright and dark, heavy and light.

  “Thank you for returning my call. I got her.”

  “Excuse me?” Curtis asked.

  “I got the woman who did it. It took a long time and a lot of work, but it’s all about to come to an end.”

  “I’m not following.”

  Veronica sighed. She hated to say their little sister’s name out loud, but it seemed like she had to spell it out for him. “Zoe. I found the woman who murdered her. She’s in my basement right now, waiting for me to bring her breakfast.”

  She listened to Curtis breathe on the other end of the line. He stammered a little before finally spitting out, “Are you sure it’s Zoe’s killer?”

  “I’m positive. It’s her. When can you be here?”

  “I can’t say. I’ve got work in Nashville for a couple more days. Maybe by the end of the week?”

  Veronica studied the wall calendar, next to the mirror in the golden frame. If he wasn’t here until the end of the week, that would put Veronica dangerously close to the end of her seven-day contract window. If the contract was nullified due to time running out, killing Ember would land Veronica before the Review Board. They would treat it no different than killing another Club member in cold blood. Hell, they might even sentence Veronica to a trial by combat of her own.