Dean was the truly dangerous one.
And now he isn’t a problem anymore, not for me, not for anyone. All thanks to Alexei.
I smile at the thought, relief warming my heart as I look at him. I feel so safe with him, and it’s exhilarating. Like the two of us are invincible together, especially now that I know how to fire a gun if I have to.
I feel empowered.
Alexei and I walk back to the farmhouse afterward, hand in hand, crunching through the picturesque woods in comfortable silence. When we get back inside, he asks me if I would like to go home or stay longer.
“I want to stay as long as you’ll let me,” I tell him honestly. “But I do need to retrieve my truck from the Sugar Creek Tavern. I can’t keep letting it sit there in the way.”
Alexei smiles. “I’ll take you there. We can pick up something for dinner while we’re out. Perhaps a change of clothes for you, too.”
“Oh, yes,” I laugh. “That would be nice.”
The two of us pile into Alexei’s truck and take off toward the outskirts of town, listening to the classic rock station on the radio.
I feel free. Happy. Completely at ease for once in my life, despite everything that has happened. I reach across the console to take Alexei’s hand, and he gives it a gentle squeeze. It feels like all is right in the world.
We pull into the parking lot behind the Tavern, and to my relief, my old truck is still sitting exactly where I left it a few nights ago. But when we pull up to the other side of it, my heart skips a beat and my blood runs cold.
“Alexei… do you see that?” I breathe, raising a shaky hand to point at a word spray-painted in blood-red on the driver’s side door. I turn back to look at him and see a grave, solemn scowl on his handsome face.
“Shit,” he grunts.
Alexei
“Sinner?” Daisy says, reading out the word written on her truck in big, sloppy red letters that run in trails of paint. She looks up to me with large, hurt eyes. “Who in the hell would…?”
My jaw is clenched, and my eyes are locked on the truck in front of me. My mind is racing with the implications of what I’m looking at, and none of them are good.
“What does it mean?” she asks. “I don’t know anyone who would do something like this. Unless…”
“Unless someone knows what happened to Dean,” I rumble in a low tone, and her head snaps back over to me with eyes wider than I’ve ever seen them.
“Oh my god, what? How could they? Oh my god oh my god, what if-”
“The body is hidden,” I say, “but there’s always a chance it could be discovered. And if not, one of his friends or family might have seen us leave together that night at the bar. If that happened, there’s every chance one of them suspects us.”
Her face goes pale, and I put a hand on her shoulder and look at her seriously. “These are all just possibilities—we don’t know yet.”
Daisy takes a deep breath in and nods.
“If someone saw us leave together, maybe it’s just someone... mad at me for going home with a man. Or even drinking late at night in a bar,” she muses, clearly more to calm her own nerves. I regret even offering up my alternative.
“What we do know is that regardless, we need to act fast.”
“What do you mean?”
“We need to leave,” I say in a low, ominous tone.
“We can’t just leave the truck here!” Daisy says, looking alarmed.
“Would you prefer driving that thing around town in the condition it’s in?” I ask, gesturing to the thing. “It’ll draw attention that we can’t afford to have right now.”
“If we leave it here, people are guaranteed to start asking questions,” she fires back. “This isn’t New York, remember? This is a small town in the country. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone knows damn well that’s my truck. If we just leave it for everyone to see, then people are going to start asking questions and go looking for me to ask about all this. And that’s going to lead someone to us, especially if...” She swallows hard, shaking her head. “If someone suspects me as being part of a murder.”
I clench my jaw and look at the truck again, but I know she’s right. My mind is still reeling with different possibilities for what might have triggered this.
“Fine,” I say. “Get in the truck and drive it close behind me. Don’t stop for anything.”
“Where are we going to go?” she asks, heading toward the truck, a slight spring in her step. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the excitement was starting to get to her in a good way. Am I worried I’d corrupt her, taking her virginity. But not like this.
“I have to check on something,” I say. “And while we’re at it, we have to get that truck hidden.”
“Hidden? Where?” she asks, suddenly defensive.
“Nowhere that it will come to harm,” I assure her. “Just trust me, Daisy. We have to move quickly here. Wait!” I shout, and she freezes in her tracks with the door of her car open.
I hurry over to the front and crouch down, getting on my back and sliding my way under the front of the car. I check over the machinery with a furrowed brow, making sure everything is normal before pushing my way back out.
“What the hell was that about?” she asks.
My mind races to find a way not to tell her that I was checking for a car bomb.
“Just making sure that whoever vandalized the car didn’t mess with any of the interior, either,” I give as a half-truth, but the look on Daisy’s face after I say it tells me she’s smart enough to guess at the implications of my words. She doesn’t press me for more, so at least she trusts my judgment.
I look up at the darkening sky, the last glimmers of sunlight disappearing over the horizon. “Darkness will serve us well for what we’re about to do,” I say.
“You know there’s a way to say that that doesn’t make you sound like a vampire, right?”
In the middle of a tense situation, Daisy brings a laughing smile to my lips.
“Just stay close,” I say, and she rolls her eyes and gets into her truck.
A moment later, we pull off into the darkness, and our headlights are the only things around for a long ways, the only spots of light in the inky blackness of the country roads.
My hands are tight on the wheel, and I keep checking my rear-view mirror to make sure that Daisy is still behind me.
I don’t even have time to think. Right now, all I need to do is move, and quickly. I have to get Daisy out of harm’s way first and foremost. Just being in a separate vehicle makes me nervous in that regard. I find myself glancing in the mirrors to look even further back from her truck, almost waiting for someone to show up to give us trouble.
I hope Daisy is right. I hope it’s nothing more than some hoodlums trying to slutshame her.
But one thing remains the same, though. I have killed, and while I don’t want to do so again, I will, if it means keeping Daisy safe.
Before long, we pull up to one of the many dirt roads leading into the woods, and I lead Daisy about half a mile down the trails, finally coming to some low brush that I’ve noted the past few times I’ve driven by the area. I come to a slow stop, and I get out of the truck expecting to have to take over for Daisy, but she catches my lead and carefully drives her truck into the brush.
I help her out and get some more coverage on the truck. Neither of us say a word as we work, as if our voices would attract any more attention than the drive out here took.
When it’s done, I get back into my truck, and Daisy gets in the passenger’s side, giving one last look at her vandalized truck before I pull away.
“Is he far from here?” Daisy asks quietly.
“What?”
“Dean,” she says, looking over at me as I turn us around and start heading in the opposite direction. “I’m guessing you didn’t just leave him wherever you did it. If we have to lie about what happened, we should have our story straight, right? Isn’t that how this works?”
> I take a deep breath and grip the wheel tightly as I drive. She isn’t entirely wrong, but I can sense the meaning behind her words. I need to smooth her feelings over before I can have her total cooperation. And frankly, she’s entitled to that—Daisy has played along with more over the past few days than most people would even think of.
Part of me thinks she’s just attracted to the danger, to the risk and excitement she thinks my life has. I don’t want to hope for anything better than that. Not now.
“I staged it perfectly,” I say at last. “There should be no way that this can come back to us, but I don’t have eyes everywhere. I met him in his kitchen, and I shot him while he was diving for his shotgun. I took him and the gun to the woods after cleaning the house. I thought there would be a witness when someone stopped outside the house, but it was only the mailman—I watched him from the window in the shadows. He made his delivery and left, never suspected a thing.”
“Did you take the body near here?” she asks, suddenly panicked.
“Of course not,” I say. “I wouldn’t lead you to stash your truck near the body, that would be foolish.”
“Right, right,” she says. “Sorry, I just…”
“No, you’re right to ask those questions,” I say. “Never assume your partner is competent. That’s the whole reason I work alone so often.”
I give her a moment of silence to reply, but when she doesn’t, I go on.
“I took him to the woods behind his house, down a trail he seems to have used himself often. I set up the body and shot him in the head with his own weapon where my bullet entered. It did enough damage that it covered the wound I gave him. I’ll spare you the details, but I removed my bullet as well. It’s as close to perfect as it can get to looking like a hunting accident—as if he dropped his shotgun and hit him in the head. There are some forensic scientists who might be able to find the difference in the bullet wounds in his head during an autopsy, but those scientists are not anywhere near Broken Pine, Nebraska.”
I glance over to see how Daisy is taking the explanation. She looks shaken, but she keeps her eyes forward. I move a hand over to her knee and give her leg a gentle squeeze. She puts her hand over mine instead of pulling away, and I feel its warmth spreading through my arm. It soothes my own pounding heart.
“You’re doing well,” I tell her quietly.
“I wish I didn’t have to,” she says.
“Me too,” I say. “Just remember—”
“He deserved it,” she says, and there’s resolution in her voice. The surprise and shock has faded, and she’s seeing the truth in my actions. Maybe it isn’t just an attraction to excitement, then. “I’m with you there, I think. I’m just worried about what it means for us.”
“It means,” I say, “that I’m going to take measures to keep you safe.”
She looks at me with a furrowed brow. “And what does that mean, exactly?”
“It isn’t safe for you to go home, for starters,” I say. “You will be safer with me than you would be alone. I suggest you call in sick as soon as possible. You’re going to stay with me for a while until I can get some eyes on the outside and figure out what’s really going on.”
“With you?” she says, sounding concerned. “Alexei, I want to be with you, don’t get me wrong, but...are you safe?”
“I’ll worry about me,” I say. “I dealt with one hick, I can deal with more if I need to. But not until they come to me. If we’re apart, then it will just be easier for them to come after you and keep me distracted at the same time, if that truly is what’s going on here.”
“If?” she asks, sounding even more concerned. “I thought we were both on the same page here?”
I frown. “Yes. But I like to keep all possibilities open so that I can never be surprised by the truth.”
“And what possibility are you thinking about, exactly?”
My frown stays in place as I come out of the woods and start blazing down toward my house. “Nothing I want you to worry about unless you have to. You have enough on your mind as it is.”
Soon, we arrive at my home and pull into the driveway. I get out first, checking around the yard before getting Daisy from the car and leading her by the hand to the door. Once we’re inside, I lock it behind us.
I turn around and see Daisy standing there before I have a chance to turn the light on, and I realize she looks terrified. My looming form in the shadows has just dragged her across the town to help cover up a murder she might be suspected of being involved with, and I’ve just locked her in with me.
There isn’t much distinguishing her from a hostage.
I take a deep breath and set my hands on her shoulders, squeezing them, and she steps forward to accept a large, tight hug.
“I’m scared, Alexei,” she says. “I just need to get that out for a second.”
“That’s okay,” I say, rubbing her back and feeling the warmth of her small frame pressed against me. “You’re allowed to be afraid. I have you.”
“I’m glad,” she says, and I feel my heart warm a bit. I’m more afraid for her than I am for myself. For so long, I’ve worked alone, doing what I needed to in order to survive. I never had to worry about anyone but myself. It was easier that way.
But much lonelier.
I put one of my hands on her head and kiss the top of it before rubbing her gently.
“It’s okay to be afraid—what we can’t afford is to let the fear cripple us. Let it drive you, let it make you do things you never thought you could do, take risks that were beyond your imagination, but you must not let it paralyze you.”
“As long as you’re here, that won’t happen,” Daisy says.
I look down at her and meet her gaze. “I need to show you something now,” I say. “Follow me.”
I make my way down the hallway, toward the fake closet at the far end of it.
“This place isn’t just my home,” I say. “I have it well stocked for emergencies, in case anything happens.”
“Were you expecting something like this to happen?” she asks.
“Not specifically,” I say, “but in my line of work, you never stop being cautious unless you are prepared to meet a violent death.”
I open the panel that reveals the secret chamber I have hidden behind the back of the fake closet, and as the door slides open, I hear Daisy gasp behind me, putting her hands to her mouth.
“Alexei…”
I step into my chamber, then turn to look at her, surrounded by racks upon racks of guns and supplies.
“His friends might be cocky, but I’d like to see them take on this.”
She steps inside, looking around like she’s in a museum of the most delicate artifacts in the world, which is about the level of caution I would hope from the first stranger I’ve ever let into this sanctuary.
“How long have you had this?” she breathes.
“I had contractors who didn’t ask questions,” I say simply, “and I made some modifications after the fact. The original was a little less conspicuous.”
“Christ,” she murmurs, looking at one of the sniper rifles I have mounted on the wall. “Are you planning to assault the damn town?”
“That’s not the part we’re here for,” I say, and I make my way to a large set of drawers at the far end of the room. I open the middle shelf, and with the sounds of rattling plastic and paper, its contents slide around roughly. Daisy appears at my side, and she looks down at the contents with an open mouth.
Inside are passports, false identification papers from a dozen different countries bearing my face, travel and work visas, two laptops, and a dozen burner phones.
“Is this…?”
“All forgeries, all highly incriminating,” I say curtly. “If we want to be prepared, then we have to be ready at the drop of a hat to run. Are you prepared to do that?”
“Wait, what?” she says, suddenly looking panicked. “Run? Alexei, I... my whole life is here. This whole town practically raised me.
I can’t just drop all that and leave.”
“I’ve been in homes I haven’t wanted to leave either. But circumstances might not give you a choice. If Dean’s friends and family decide that you’re trouble, do you really want to stick around and find out what they plan on doing?”
She frowns, but she seems to see the logic in what I’m saying.
While she thinks on that, a flashing light catches my eye. I turn and look at one of the burner phones, and my eyes lock onto the dull blue flash of a text alert.
At that moment, it hits me—I usually keep an eye on these phones, in case I get a word from some of my trusted contacts back east. I’ve simply been... distracted from my diligent watch lately.
I pick up the phone and check the message on it.
What I read makes my face go pale as a ghost.
They found you. Run.
The date on the message...is three days ago.
I feel like the world around me has frozen in time and is starting to fall apart. Never, never have I been so careless as to let something like this go unchecked for this long.
I’m a fool for thinking I could ever live a normal life with a beautiful woman and a half dozen kids running around our feet. That’s the life for different men.
I took every precaution, measured every single step to ensure that nothing would go wrong at any point. I had my methods down to an art. But I took one wrong move. I fell for Daisy, and it made me careless.
“Fuck!” I say, suddenly and loudly, and I pace back and forth in the room, staring at the message before I break the phone in two in my hands.
“What? What is it?!” Daisy shouts back, looking panicked.
“I never should have let this happen,” I growl, storming back over to her.
“Alexei-”
“I never should have let you happen,” I say.
My old life has found me.
They want blood.
And now, it’s too late to run.
Daisy
“Alexei, slow down!” I yell at him as he paces back and forth. “What is going on? You have to fill me in.”
I Hired a Hitman Page 13
