The Assassin

by Rachel Butler

  But she might never really live again.

  Detective Simmons started by reading her her rights. Oh, yeah, she was going to jail. He questioned her relentlessly about her relationship with Henry, with Damon, with Tony, and she told him . . . not everything. Not how much she’d loved Henry, how desperately she’d craved his affection and approval. Not how much she’d hated him, how desperately she’d wanted to stop him. Not how desperately she’d wanted to keep Tony alive. But she told him enough that she couldn’t be accused of withholding information, and it seemed to satisfy him, as much as anything about her could satisfy him. Putting the handcuffs on—that probably would. Hauling her off to jail—definitely. Seeing her locked away and out of Tony’s life forever—absolutely.

  At least he would get his wish on that last. No matter what else happened, she was out of Tony’s life.

  Finally he shut off his tape recorder and left her alone, with a fresh-faced young officer guarding the doorway. She waited, eyes closed, focusing on a safe place in her head, until footsteps on the stairs and raised voices shattered the calm she’d achieved.

  “For Christ’s sake, Tony, she shot two people, including you, and did some serious damage to two others!” Simmons said.

  Tony’s response was carefully enunciated, each word coldly empty of emotion. “Take her home.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Frankie! I’m having a really shitty day. Just take her home.”

  “You’re not thinking clearly. Maybe I should talk to the lieutenant or—”

  The sound of scuffling feet was followed by a crash. “You don’t fucking talk to anybody!” Tony said, the words ground out through clenched teeth. “This is my fucking case, and I’m fucking telling you to take her home now!”

  “Okay, okay. It’s okay.” Simmons’s tone was conciliatory. Apparently, he didn’t want to be added to the list of walking wounded. “All right, Chee. I’ll do it. Then I’ll come back and we’ll go to the hospital, okay? In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve got a goddamn hole in your shoulder.”

  “Believe me, I noticed.” Tony sounded exhausted. Emotionally, he probably was. He should already be at the hospital, cleaned up, medicated, and sleeping like a baby. “Don’t bother coming back. I’ll catch a ride with the last ambulance. Just don’t let anyone call my family yet, okay? I want to talk to them myself.”

  “Okay. I’ll, uh, take care of, uh, her. You take care of yourself.” Simmons stepped into the doorway and watched, apparently, until Tony was out of sight. After speaking quietly to the officer posted outside the room, he beckoned her. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Feeling as exhausted as Tony had sounded, Selena crossed the room, then walked alongside Simmons to the door. The young cop followed on their heels. Selena didn’t try to catch a glimpse of Tony. Nothing she could say could change the way he’d looked at her.

  It was over.

  16

  She didn’t even look to see if he was around.

  That thought kept repeating in Tony’s mind—while he finished up at the scene, once he’d finally accepted a ride to the hospital, after they’d fixed him up and stuck him in a room. He had a drain in his wound, a bandage, and an order for a painkiller, but he hadn’t asked for it yet. The pain in his shoulder felt kind of good. It helped him keep all the other pains out of his thoughts.

  His family had come and gone. So had Marla and his lieutenant and all three of the deputy chiefs. Simmons had stopped by on his way home, looking as beat as Tony felt. He’d delivered Selena safely home, he reported, defiantly adding that he’d left an officer watching her house.

  Tony hadn’t had any response to that. She and Henry and Damon Long were three of a kind—fake lives, fake people. The Selena he knew didn’t really exist, just as the Henry he’d known had disappeared somewhere along the line. He’d fooled everyone so completely—no doubt part of his fun. He’d thought he would never get caught.

  But he had.

  The door made no noise when it opened. There was just a subtle change in the air, a whisper through the room. Tony glanced that way, then returned to staring at the ceiling. So much for the cop watching her house.

  She came into the room, closing the door behind her, and he wondered for one wild moment if she’d come to finish the job she’d started weeks ago. The thought must have shown on his face, because she lifted both arms away from her body. “I’m unarmed.” Her smile was uneasy. “I haven’t gone out without a weapon in two years. I feel naked.”

  Damned if his body didn’t respond to that image. After all he’d been through, all he’d learned, sex should be the last thing on his mind, but he figured he would have to be impotent or dead to stop being turned on around her.

  She came a few steps closer, a blur of motion and colors. “I know I’m the last person you want to see, but I wanted to—to apologize and to—to explain.”

  Explain. It sounded so innocent. How did you explain that you’d started an affair with someone for the sole purpose of getting close enough to kill him? That every word coming out of your mouth was a lie, that you were a lie? That you’d used him and betrayed him and intended to destroy him?

  “Henry—or William Davis, as I knew him—once saved my life. I was fourteen and working the streets in Jamaica when I picked the wrong pocket and got caught. The man reclaimed his property, then beat me and tried to rape me. Henry stopped him. He—he killed him, and he kept me. He gave me a new name, called me his niece, and brought me to the States with him. He became my uncle, my father figure, my only family.”

  So the story about her parents dying in a car wreck was a lie. Surprise.

  “Two years ago he invited me to visit him here in Tulsa. While I was here, I went out with a man named Greg Marland. When he assaulted me in Henry’s guesthouse, I hit him with a statue. He was unconscious and there was blood everywhere, and Henry told me he was dead. I was hysterical. I wanted to call the police, but he said no, he would take care of everything. And he did. Two years later he blackmailed me into coming here, with the evidence of my crime and—and—”

  Killing him. Tony still couldn’t quite grasp it. His godfather had wanted him dead. And for what? To protect his business interests. What kind of crappy reason was that to die?

  About as crappy as dying so Selena could protect her freedom.

  “I didn’t find out until last night that I hadn’t killed anyone. Greg Marland, better known as Damon Long, is alive and well . . . at least, he was well until I stabbed him today. He’s worked for Henry for years; it was all a sick plan to force me to do what Henry wanted.”

  She paused—giving him a chance to speak?—but he remained silent. When she finally went on, her voice was softer, huskier. “I know saying I’m sorry isn’t enough. It’s just words, and it can’t begin to make up for what I’ve done, but . . . I am sorry.”

  So was he. Sorrier than he could say. Hell, he was the sorriest son of a bitch that ever lived.

  “Tony?”

  There were tears in her voice, but they didn’t touch him. Tears were the one thing that left him immune, especially when they were lies. Just like her. Just like Henry. He continued to stare upward, seeing nothing but a blur, hearing nothing but a fake sniffle and a bogus sigh.

  Without another word, she turned and left as quietly as she’d come. He remained in the same position for a long time, then finally uncurled his fingers from the fist they’d formed and pressed the nurse’s call button.

  “Can I help you?” a cheery voice asked.

  “Yeah. I’ll take that shot now.”

  Two days later Tony’s shoulder still hurt like hell. He was supposed to be home in bed, taking the pills the doctor had given him and recuperating. But as soon as Julie had delivered him to the house, fussed over him a bit, then left, he’d gotten in his car and driven downtown. Now he leaned against the wall next to a two-way mirror that looked into the interrogation room next door.

  Simmons sat in one chair, Garry
in another. Tompkins, a detective from Narcotics, sat in the third chair, and the fourth . . . the fourth was the hot seat, and was occupied by Selena, or whomever the hell she really was. She was bruised and battered, and looked about like he felt—done in. In need of twenty-four hours of drug-induced oblivion.

  They had been questioning her for hours, starting long before he’d arrived. Simmons had taken a break to fill him in on what they’d learned, which was exactly nothing. “How many freakin’ times can she say, ‘I don’t know’?” he’d groused before returning to the interview.

  Too many. To hear her tell it, William Davis was as much a mystery to her as he was to Tony, and he’d heard the name for the first time less than forty-eight hours ago.

  After a few hundred more I don’t knows, Simmons opened a file folder and removed a computer printout. “Since you insist you don’t know nothin’ about Uncle Bill, let’s try a subject you do know. What’s your name?”

  She gazed at him a long time. Realizing he was holding his breath, Tony exhaled forcefully. Apparently, it was too much to hope that she’d been honest about such a basic thing.

  “The name I use now is Selena McCaffrey,” she said at last. “The name Henry gave me when he took me in was Gabriela Sanchez. My second set of foster parents called me Rosa Jimenez, and my mother called me Amalia, though her husband preferred bastard.” Her shrug was elegantly casual. “Take your pick.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Puerto Rico.”

  “Where in Puerto Rico?”

  “I don’t remember. I was very young.”

  Simmons scowled at both the answer and her thin smile. “When were you born?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on. How can you not know your own birth date?”

  Easy enough when you’d been raised by a stepfather whose favorite pastime was beating the shit out of you— and Tony was convinced that, at least, was true. No doubt, her birthdays hadn’t been cause for celebration in Rodrigo’s household.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Tony started. He hadn’t heard the door open, and he damn sure hadn’t heard Assistant District Attorney Matheny come in.

  “I heard you got shot. Why aren’t you in the hospital?”

  He gestured to the sling that held his left arm immobilized against his chest. “I was. They discharged me.”

  “Then why the hell aren’t you home in bed?”

  He turned back to the mirror. “I’ve got too much to do.” And too much to think about when he lay in bed.

  Matheny reached past Tony to shut off the speaker. “Not on this case. Not anymore. The FBI’s stepping in.”

  Even as he spoke, the door into the interrogation room opened. Lieutenant Nicholson stepped inside, followed by three agents from the Tulsa FBI office. At a nod from the lieutenant, the detectives filed out, with Nicholson bringing up the rear.

  “What do they want?” Tony asked.

  Matheny shrugged. “Daniels’s drug operation is interstate, probably international. It’s their jurisdiction.”

  “But she doesn’t know anything about that.”

  “So she says. They’ll make it worth her while to remember.”

  A chill passed through Tony. Though he wouldn’t wish anything bad on her, he didn’t care what happened to her. He didn’t. Still . . . “In what way?”

  “She has a bogus driver’s license, Social Security number, and passport. As far as anyone can tell, she entered the country illegally. She’s in possession of two unregistered firearms, one of which has been illegally modified. She shot one of her accomplices, and she stabbed another. She was part of a conspiracy to murder a police officer, and she attempted to carry out that murder by shooting that police officer. I imagine with a little fancy footwork they’ll even be able to tie her to those ten homicides you’ve been investigating. They’ve got enough to lock her up until she’s old and gray, provided she doesn’t get the death penalty instead. They’ll make her an offer she can’t refuse.”

  Lock her up. In a cell. She would make a deal with the devil himself to avoid that.

  She had made a deal with the devil.

  “She didn’t try to kill me.”

  There was that damn shrug again. “Let her tell it to a jury.”

  Tony was finding it hard to breathe, and not because of the gunshot wound. All those hours he’d lain in the hospital with nothing to do but think and nothing to think about but her, he’d never imagined her in prison. Back in Florida, yes, painting her pictures, running her gallery, and even regretting everything that had happened. But arrested, convicted, incarcerated? She’d saved his life. Okay, so she’d done it by shooting him, but if she hadn’t, one of Henry’s goons—or Henry himself—would have done it, and they wouldn’t have been nearly so careful about placing the shot.

  He turned to face Matheny. “What do they want from her?”

  “You know the drill better than me, Ceola. They probably want to turn her—make her a C.I. Get her to inform on all of Daniels’s associates and partners in crime.”

  Put her in danger. Make her a target. Tony swallowed hard. She couldn’t do it. She needed to go home to Key West. He needed her to go home. If he couldn’t have her here with him—and there were no two ways about it: he couldn’t. Even if she was willing to stay, he wasn’t willing to let her. He couldn’t look at her without remembering, couldn’t trust her, couldn’t forgive her. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  Grimly he shifted his attention back to the interview. Selena’s spine was straight, her chin raised, but her gaze was fixed on the tabletop. She looked as cool and serene as ever, but he could see her hands in her lap, her fingers clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her responses were short, never more than a half-dozen words, and they drew no response from the agents.

  He reached for the speaker switch, but Matheny stopped him. “This is between the feds and her, Chee.”

  Tony gazed down at the ADA’s hand, blocking the switch, before looking him in the eye. “Don’t fuck with me, Matheny.”

  Slowly the hand drew back and Tony turned on the speaker.

  “—want to reconsider that decision, Ms. McCaffrey,” the agent seated in the middle was saying. “Prison’s a tough place. Stuck in a cell less than half the size of this room. Bars on every window—if you’re lucky enough to see a window. I understand your stepfather used to lock you in a closet and leave you there for hours. But if you go to prison, that’s all you’re going to have, Selena. Small, dark, cramped spaces. Every miserable day for the rest of your life.”

  So it was true, Tony acknowledged. But who had told the feds? Obviously not Henry—he hadn’t yet regained consciousness and the doctors weren’t hopeful that he ever would. Probably Damon Long. He seemed the type to use any advantage he could.

  When she spoke, her voice sounded tiny and frightened, but with a hint of strength. “I—I can’t.”

  “At the very least, Selena, you face deportation.”

  “I can live with that.”

  The agent’s voice sharpened. “At the very most, you’ll get the death penalty. You can’t live with that.”

  She didn’t pale, her eyes didn’t widen, she didn’t catch her breath—no visible signs that the agent’s shock tactics had worked. Because she’d heard that threat before? From Henry? Two years later he blackmailed me into coming here, with the evidence of my crime . . . For fourteen years, he had used her. What kind of damage did that do to a woman who desperately needed to believe someone could love her?

  Tony could have loved her. If she’d trusted him, if she’d told him the truth . . . But honesty forced him to admit that if she’d told him the truth, he never would have believed her. He’d known Henry, had loved and trusted him too much to ever believe such stories.

  If she’d told him the truth, he would have let her down—just like her mother. Rodrigo. Her foster parents. Just like Henry.

  And that was a hard truth to acc
ept.

  Henry remained in a coma with little hope for survival and none for recovery. Damon Long was recuperating from a concussion and a broken nose, as well as nerve and muscle damage in his thigh, and the man Selena had shot was recovering, as well. Tony’s sling was gone and, a week after the incident, he was back at work.

  And outside of a handful of people, no one in the city of Tulsa knew what had really happened that day at the Daniels estate. The authorities had fed the media the version of events that best suited their needs—that Henry had walked in on a burglary in progress, and that only through a fortuitous visit by his godson had the chief ’s life been spared. People were mourning the terrible tragedy and hailing Tony as a hero, and the FBI planned to keep spouting that version as God’s truth until they’d managed to bring down Henry’s entire empire.

  And they fully intended to do it with Selena’s help. They thought she had only two choices—become a confidential informant, or face trial or deportation for her own crimes. They didn’t realize she had a third option, one that had always been in the back of her mind while dealing with Henry: disappearing. A new name, a new place, a new life . . . that choice was looking better every day.

  She’d gone so far as to reclaim the documentation for the new name—driver’s license, birth certificate, Social Security card, and passport—from its hiding place. She’d crated up her canvasses for shipment to the gallery in care of Asha, with a note requesting that she store the unfinished self-portrait in the hopes that someday Selena could reclaim it. She’d packed a few outfits and squirreled away her emergency stash of cash. Once UPS picked up the crate, she would be ready to go. She was torn between hoping the familiar brown van would appear in her driveway at that very instant and wishing it would never come.

  She’d started over before. It had always been easy, so why should this time be different? Why should she feel as if leaving Princeton Court and Tulsa could be the biggest mistake she might ever make? She had no choice. She couldn’t accept the FBI’s offer of immunity, and she couldn’t calmly wait for them to lock her away. The idea of spending the rest of her life in prison terrified her . . . but not as much as letting Henry win disgusted her. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t take over his business for any reason. Couldn’t let him continue to control her. She’d fought him when he was alive and well, and she couldn’t do any less now that he hovered on the brink of death.