“Let’s skip this one,” Elektra said a little too quickly. “I need a breather.” His eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he said nothing. His silence was unnerving and made her feel compelled to continue. “I’m… tired.”
McCabe regarded her carefully, his green eyes bright and penetrating. Sometimes he could make her feel like an interesting insect beneath the lens of a microscope. “You getting any sleep?” She shrugged, not saying either way, but he wasn’t finished with his interrogation. “You try those Chinese herbs I gave you?”
He couldn’t see it, but Elektra only rolled her eyes as she grabbed two more of the filled garbage bags and dragged them toward the door.
He correctly took her silence to mean no. “You’re going to crash, baby,” he told her pointedly. “You know that.”
What could she say? She didn’t sleep; she seldomate; she worked out obsessively. This was her life, and what she had made of it. For some reason it seemed impossible to change. Maybe if she took some time off—
“You ever get laid?” he demanded suddenly.
That stopped her, and she turned and gave him a murderous it’s-none-of-your-business glare. He threw up his hands in mock surrender, then finally started helping her with the garbage bags. After a few moments, he murmured, “It’s a lot of money—the new offer.”
Elektra pressed her lips together in irritation. She hated being pushed. “Look, McCabe—”
“All right,” he said, cutting her off. “Take some time off, then. Call me when you want to work.”
She blinked as he dropped the last of the bags with the others, then grabbed up the Vachetta duffle and headed for the door. She could use some time off, she knew that, but…
What would she do if she got it?
Suddenly she thought of days, weeks, maybe even a month or two stretching out in front of her, all that time with nothing to do and no one with whom she could fill the emptiness, nothing on which to focus all of her… energy. It would be just like now…no, worse than now.
“How much?” she asked suddenly. For some reason, she just had to know, even though at the same time it made her angry at herself for asking. “Just tell me that.”
One side of McCabe’s mouth lifted in a satisfied smile and he let the duffle bag drop to the floor so he could hold up two fingers. She stared at him, torn between the unheard-of amount of assassination money and the need to just get away from the dirty work that had become her existence.
“I could give it to someone else,” he said, but she could see the faint smirk still pulling up one side of his mouth.
“They wouldn’t pay that to someone else,” she said in a tired voice. It was a not-so-gentle statement about a dark fact that McCabe surely already knew. After all, hadn’t she been the one talking about spreading the legend and getting her price to go up?
McCabe’s mouth stretched into a knowing smile. “They did ask specifically for you.”
She bowed her head, already surrendering. McCabe knew it, too—before she could change her mind, he grabbed the duffle again and headed for the door. “The location’s in there,” he said, jerking his head toward the Prada bag. “I’ll call you when I get the target.”
There was no one in the basement this late at night, although she was always taking a chance when she went through her closing routine. Sometimes Fridays brought the oddest people into the laundry room, everything from battered housewives to semihigh Goths doing once-a-month laundry before hitting the superlate-night clubs. The door to the incinerator room was only a few feet past the last storage locker, with the laundry room in the middle of the row; when she fed the flames, they always flared up, and experience had taught her the fire could draw inquisitive neighbors like hungry cockroaches—they seemed to come right out of the walls.
Not tonight, though. Elektra had the room all to herself, just her and the flames and all the things, large and small, that had made up her life. If possessions were worth anything as disposal objects, she’d burned so much she thought she ought to never have to take another job.
When the last bag had disappeared into the cleansing fire, Elektra checked again to make sure no one was around, then slipped out of the clothes she was wearing. The basement air was chilly against her bare skin but it felt good, very free. Her old clothes went into the fire with the previous bags, then she dressed in the brand-new travel clothes that McCabe had packed into the expensive Prada bag. Everything fit beautifully, but then she had expected no less. Also inside the bag was a wallet containing a set of newly forged ID cards and plenty of cash. These items she pocketed, then she held up the designer bag and inspected. The thing had probably cost six hundred dollars—what a shame. Elektra tossed it into the incinerator and thought McCabe would have been more frugal had he just gone to Wal-Mart. Finally she pulled out her key ring and, after pulling a lone gold key from it, threw it in after the bag.
It took another fifteen minutes of monitoring the flames to be absolutely sure, and she did so without complaint or emotion crossing her face. Inside the conflagration was everything she was and had made herself out to be these past several months. She had stretched out this job, playing with DeMarco in three or four different locations, letting the murderous man think about the fact that she was coming for him and his days were numbered before he met his maker and answered for his crimes. Now DeMarco was dead and all traces of herself and her previous existence had to be obliterated, burned away to nothing but ashes and a quickly fading memory.
Once again, Elektra was nothing but a ghost.
5
HARBOR ISLAND, PACIFIC COAST
THE MORNING BREEZE WHIPPED AROUND ELEKTRA, dragging her hair up and making it seem to float around her head. The air was salty and laden with moisture, on the ragged edge of being cold. She stood at the railing of the ferry and waited while the other passengers loaded up, biding her time and searching for that spot inside herself that had once learned patience. Growing up… and dying…in New York had a way of stripping that out of a person, and she’d been surprised and secretly pleased when she’d read the location of her next job. It might be the off-season and cold on Harbor Island, but Elektra was looking forward to it. Fewer people, no traffic at all, and the sea, surrounding the small barrier island—with her on it—like a mother enfolding a wayward child and bringing her back to safety. There was, of course, a job to do… but she would think about that later. Right now, she could just enjoy the sea and the smell and the briny air saturating her body and her soul.
The island itself wasn’t much, a mini-slice of paradise situated on what had once been nothing more than a sand bar off the Pacific coast. Now it was a remote vacation destination with no cars and no strip malls—just sand, surf, and beach homes that ran from the original hundred-grand weatherbeaten almost-shacks to multimillion-dollar summer mansions. There were only a handful of passengers besides herself, testament to what most tourists would consider damned lousy winter weather. That meant she was standing here with mostly year-rounders, fishermen and the occasional groundskeeper come to check on an employer’s property, the truly random tourist family determined to bargain hunt, and the rare shopkeeper who kept his tiny business open throughout the year and refused to live elsewhere even when he had no more than one or two customers a day. Elektra loved it.
Fishing boats lolled in the harbor as the ferry’s horn bellowed and the boat finally pushed off. Standing at the bow with her hair and a brightly colored scarf streaming behind her, Elektra could almost fantasize that she wasn’t Elektra at all, but one of those ancient wooden female figureheads, the kind that was fastened to the front of the old sailing ships and led the crew’s way through the most dangerous of seas.
Almost.
One of the boats angled into her view, blowing away her fantasy and pulling Elektra back to the here and now. It was a small rig, and on deck was a lone fisherman, a good-looking guy wearing all-weather gear who looked perfectly at home on his boat. Without meaning to, Elektra’s eyes met his, and for a moment
she found herself trapped by his dark gaze; in another instant, she turned away. She wasn’t interested in flirting with anyone, and certainly not in an actual relationship. Ghosts didn’t get involved with other people, and they didn’t fall in love. They stayed away and uninvolved. They stayed free.
It was another two hours by the time the ferry made its run to the island proper, its passengers disembarked, and Elektra was done with the traveling part of her trip to Harbor Island. Calling a cab on a tiny offshore island wasn’t nearly as easy as it was on the mainland, so that added more time until she could get to the beach house, kick off her shoes and unpack her few new belongings. She’d barely gotten the last new shirt put away when her cell phone rang, and she couldn’t help looking at it in irritation before she went on and answered the thing.
“Yeah.”
“How’s the view?”
Elektra’s lip turned up slightly in annoyance. Was she that predictable that McCabe would know she would already be walking out onto the deck with the phone in her hand? She paced along the deck’s length like a tiger in a cage with unseen bars, ignoring the sight of the water and its crashing waves and watching her reflection in the walkway’s mirrored panels. The same measured number of steps in one direction, the same in the other, then back again. She didn’t even realize what she was doing.
“Lovely,” she said shortly. Some distant part of her brain grumbled at this, wanting to share the truth—the house, with its gray-blue modern architecture and natural, wood-trimmed windows, was lovely. Pine trees framed it and thick potted plants lined the lower deck, while a glassed-in walkway let her see everything from the upper level. “You have details?”
“Relax,” McCabe said. From twenty-eight hundred miles away, his voice was so clear he could have been inside the beach house with her. She could almost see his careless shrug as he said the next words. “You wanted time off,” he continued. “Take some time.”
Elektra shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. No—the waiting was worse. She couldn’t relax when there was something hanging over her head, a job waiting to be completed. “I just want to get this over with.”
“So you can do what?” McCabe demanded. She opened her mouth to reply, but couldn’t. She had no idea. There was that taking a vacation thing she’d contemplated before, but would she really? Ever? “I’ll call when I get the name.” The cell phone clicked as McCabe broke the connection, but not before Elektra caught the undisguised annoyance in his voice. She closed the phone and went back inside, then decided it was time to familiarize herself with her new living space. She didn’t know how long she’d be here— maybe a day, a week, maybe two or three months (which would drive her absolutely insane)—so it might as well be livable… which was not necessarily the same as comfortable. It was kind of eerie the way the inside of this place mirrored her last one, and the one before that, and the one before that. Not the exact layout, of course, but close. The furniture was similar, too—simple and elegant lines, easy-care—as were the colors from top to bottom, the few low-maintenance but home design plants scattered here and there.
It didn’t take long to figure out where everything was and unpack the half dozen boxes of newly purchased household items that McCabe had sent. Flatware and dishes in the kitchen, a few cooking utensils she would rarely use; sheets and towels she found in a small linen closet outside the master bedroom, so she made up the bed, vaguely registering the freshly laundered scent as she smoothed out the last of the folds in the sheets. She tucked her old leather case into the master bedroom closet next to a tall box that was already there, then turned in the middle of the bedroom to give it a final inspection. All finished, everything in order.
When she stopped her visual examination, she found herself looking out the window at the ocean. It was nearing noon now, and the sun was glinting off the water’s surface and making it look like simmering, liquid gold. Yeah, Elektra thought. A swim would be just the thing to take her mind off the upcoming job and kill a little time.
One of the things she’d unpacked earlier was a bikini, and she dug it out now and looked at it critically before changing into it. Red, of course, a sleek little thing made of faux red leather with a laced seam between the breasts that she had found amusing because it so closely resembled her assassin’s costume. She didn’t bother bringing a robe, towel, or shoes as she headed to the water—all those things would just be excess baggage, items she’d have to keep track of and worry that the wind, which was quite brisk out here, would fling away.
Not far from the back of the house was a pier leading out into the water, and it was this she chose to use so she could dive into the frigid water rather than walk in from the shore and have to endure the coldness creeping up her ankles. That was way too much like death; as with a lot of things, she’d rather just get it over with.
Elektra took the last ten feet of the pier at a dead run, then leapt off the end of it, pushing her body up and into an arc before curving down and neatly splitting into the waves. It was cold but she didn’t care; down here was like another world, dark green and filled with echoing, distorted sounds. Then, for some reason, the light around her changed suddenly as she started to surface, brightening to something much more familiar, much more blue—
She broke the surface and blinked away the sunlight, splashing in surprise at the chlorine-scented water of the indoor swimming pool. Frightened, she dragged air into her lungs and dove under again, searching for the deeper green of the Pacific Ocean, the natural saltwater scent and the sting of the cold—
A memory, Elektra thought almost wildly. That’s all. She rotated her body and stared upward, seeing the sun sparkling through the blue-green water overhead. Feeling better, she spread her arms and felt the ocean water’s resistance against the surface of her skin as she propelled herself along horizontally, staying underwater until her lungs demanded oxygen. More confident now, Elektra scissored her legs and angled upward, pushing up and into the cold air—
She was eight years old, and already training in the martial arts. Strong for her size, determined and stubborn, but even she sometimes ran out of energy, even she sometimes just couldn’t take anymore. The pool water was cool around her, but she was hot inside, overheated by the effort of treading water for so long with her thumbs held above the water’s surface, keeping herself upright by the power of her child’s legs alone. Her father, Nicholas, stood at the edge of the pool and watched her with an eagle’s eye, making sure she didn’t slip, that she didn’t rest. Her mother, leaning back in a lounge chair, watched from a few feet away.
“Keep pedaling,” her father ordered. “Five more minutes.”
But she was so tired, so small. She wanted so much to please him, but even so, she could feel her hands sinking, over and over. Each time she would bring them back up and try to keep them there, but they never stayed that way; each time they fell back below the surface of the pool.
“No!” her father yelled at her. “No hands, Elektra! Don’t be lazy—only use your feet!”
She pushed upward again, felt her hands drop.
“Don’t be a girlie! Come on—let’s go!” He was ranting now, driving her on and on and on. “Push, push, PUSH!”
She could feel her body giving out, her leg muscles burning until the limbs were too heavy to move. Even so, even as she sank and swallowed water, then came back up, sputtered and sank again, those same exhausted eight-year-old’s legs tried to do what her father wanted, trying to propel her upward again and again and again….
She surfaced again and thankfully found herself out of the old memory. To drive the last of it away, Elektra swam hard for the shore, pushing herself to her limit, cutting through the water like a shark. The outside air tingled against her already cold skin but it felt invigorating rather than freezing, one more thing she could use to ground herself in the here and now and leave the past behind. She shook the water out of her hair as she climbed the stairs to the beach house, sending salt-laden droplets in
every direction. She was reaching for the doorknob when she froze.
Someone was inside.
Elektra’s acute hearing easily picked up the footsteps and listened as someone lightweight moved quickly down the length of the living room. Without making a sound, her hand twisted the knob and pulled open the door only enough for her to slip inside the house, then she shut it silently behind her. The living room was draped in muted shadows, lit only by the heavily filtered light striping through blinds closed to keep out the intense midday sun. A quick glance to the right and Elektra picked out a box cutter lying next to a wad of tape she had yet to throw out. She moved toward it on the balls of her feet, shifting her weight and feeling the floor like a predatory cat stalking the bird that would soon become its next meal. In another two seconds Elektra had the box cutter in hand, up and aimed, and before the figure even knew there was someone else in the room, she whipped it through the air.
Thunk!
Elektra heard a gasp of surprise right before she reached over and snapped on the lamp on one of the end tables.
“Jesus!”
Elektra folded her arms and regarded the girl who was staring at where the sleeve of her jacket was firmly pinned against the wall by the blade of the box cutter. She was in her early teens, maybe thirteen or fourteen, with a roundish face and shoulder-length dark blonde hair. The teenager scowled and tried to pull her arm free, but the weapon didn’t budge. “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “You could’ve killed me!”
Elektra ignored the complaint and glared at her uninvited visitor. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing,” the girl said petulantly. Then, as if she knew that wasn’t going to fly, she added, “I’m friends with the Wheelwrights.” She looked at her sleeve again, then reached over with her other hand and yanked out the box cutter. “Damn—you cut my friggin’ jacket!”
She tossed her head and turned like she was going to walk out in a huff, but she hadn’t completed her first step before Elektra’s hand shot out and wrapped around her wrist. “How did you get in?” Elektra asked. She was careful to keep her voice calm, to hide—for now—the fact that she was absolutely furious.
Elektra Page 5
