Subtle Target: Six Assassins Book 2

by Heskett, Jim

  Rather than probe further, Ember took off toward the rear exit. Dodging left and right past the kitchen workers, who seemed terrified and confused. Ember didn’t bother to slow down and explain things to them. Every second mattered now.

  She slammed a shoulder into the door, stumbling out into the October chill of a cloudy day in northeast Boulder. No one was standing nearby. But, a cigarette on the ground did still have a thin line of smoke wafting up, from the patio under her feet. The ash on it had grown to a half-inch, meaning it had sat there for a few minutes, at least.

  An apron had been folded and placed on a green, wrought-iron patio table.

  She took a few careful steps out to view around the building, but no one was here. No churned-up dust settling in the parking lot. Judging by the cigarette that was still smoldering and the stillness of the parking lot, the poisoner had left no more than ten minutes ago but no less than one full minute ago. If anyone inside even knew what car he drove, he still had too much of a head start. There was nothing else Ember could do but go back inside and help the injured.

  Shane had disappeared.

  Chapter Three

  EMBER

  The assassin checked the slip of paper in her hand as she turned into the neighborhood in Louisville, the next town over from Boulder. She turned on Linden to reach Madison Court and drove past the little house shrouded in the trees. No car parked out front. The curtains were drawn, no sign of activity.

  She’d driven here as soon as she could, wanting to get a jump on finding the poisoner, but also recognizing that she needed a bit of time to simply calm down. To cool off.

  Ember had known too many assassins who'd been killed because of their own excitement. A bit of adrenaline and dopamine were invaluable assets in the middle of a fight, but left unchecked, they often led to an untimely death in other situations.

  She wanted to kill whomever it was who had poisoned her Branch, but she needed to be smart about it. She needed to move slowly, to calculate her options and take as few risks as possible.

  Her phone buzzed on the passenger seat, and she slowed as she glanced over to check it. She could see it was from Zach, but she didn't reach over for it. "Not right now, lover-boy. I'll get to you later."

  She parked two houses down, then retrieved her Nighthawk Enforcers from under the seat. For a few beats, she considered checking the text from Zach but decided against it. For as much as she wanted to pretend she wasn't romantically interested in him, one thing was for sure: she felt a little rush in her stomach anytime he messaged her. And Ember knew enough about herself to know what that rush meant.

  But, no time to think about him right now. She slipped both guns into the back of the waistband of her jeans and pulled her shirt down to cover them. She had her armpit sling with the dual holsters on the passenger seat but lacked a coat. In the flurry of activity at the Post Office, she had left it behind.

  Ember left the car and made a slow walk toward the house. Eyes flashing left and right, checking for anything suspicious in any of the nearby homes. She didn't see any curtains pushed aside, no eyes hiding secrets. There were a few people out and about, but no one paid any attention to her.

  She thought about last week, when she had been out looking for and gathering intel on the assassin who had been chasing her. She’d encountered a random guy walking his dog, and Ember had been one odd look away from pulling her pistol on some innocent man. She needed to be cool now. She needed to keep her perspective to avoid something like that from becoming a reality.

  Also, she didn’t like thinking about last week, because then she’d have to think about Charlie. Almost her mentor once, Charlie had died trying to help her in the parking garage in Boulder. Ember didn’t want to see his face or think of his name. Too painful right now.

  She stopped on the front porch, with one hand on a pistol. She raised her free hand and knocked, then took a step to the side. Eyes closed, listening for activity. She had to anticipate a bullet coming through the peephole on the front door.

  When it didn’t happen, she knocked again, then an idea struck.

  The back door.

  She launched herself toward the fence in the side yard. She had noticed no doors on the side of the house, so Shane the cook would most likely bolt out the back.

  Ember hopped the fence and kept her eyes on the sliding glass door out into the back yard. When her feet landed, she pulled out both pistols. So far, the door remained shut.

  She hopped across the yard, dodging a large amount of lawn detritus. This guy apparently had a big love for backyard games, as there were horseshoes and bean bags everywhere, and two pairs of those wooden bean bag-toss targets she'd seen people using at barbeques. Either this guy had friends over often, or he was skilled at creating the ruse.

  She tried the door. It slid open with no trouble. People hardly ever locked their back doors. The suburbs north of Denver were low-crime areas, but people around here were lackadaisical about security. Most civilians used wishful thinking to protect their homes.

  Inside, Ember slipped off her sunglasses and blinked to adjust to the light. Right away, she understood why no one had come to the front door. Apparently, she was the only person alive in the house.

  A man in a white cook’s uniform was hanging by the exposed rafters in his living room. A noose around his neck. He was still swinging, which meant he hadn’t been up there long. Given his girth, she was surprised the rope hadn’t snapped.

  Ember approached with caution, keeping her pistols out. The man's eyes had rolled back in his head, and his tongue had jutted out. Dead.

  Based on his clothes, he looked like a cook. Plus, she could smell the stale nicotine on his clothes from five feet away.

  “You must be Shane.”

  No sense in being foolish. Ember raised her pistols and made a slow progression down the main house hall, toward the bedrooms. Shane couldn’t have been up there for more than five minutes. Good chance his killer was still inside the house.

  “If you’re here,” she said in a loud and clear voice, easing foot over foot down a hall, “you should come out now. I’m not going to promise I won’t kill you, but I will promise I’ll let you take proper bathroom breaks while I’m interrogating you. That has to be worth something, right? Nobody likes to pee in a bucket.”

  No response came back. No surprise there.

  Ember checked the guest bedroom, office, and main bedroom. All of them empty, all with windows closed. Most had drapes shielding them from the outside light.

  She returned to the living room. Sitting on a desk nearby was a typed letter, addressed to “Mom.” Ember scanned through it.

  Dear Mom-

  One of my favorite memories came to me the other day. I was five years old. It was a Sunday night. Bath day. You let me have all my bath toys that night, not just some like you did sometimes. Then, we went to my bed for storytime. We always read two stories in my bed, with the lamp on, snuggled on my little twin bed. It didn't seem little at the time. I had Racky the Raccoon next to me, between me and you. That night, we read three stories. I don't know why you were extra nice to me that night, but you were. And I don't know why I was thinking about it the other day, but I did. I'm sorry, mom.

  When Jenny left, my whole life went to shit. Nothing makes sense anymore. Maybe I was thinking about extra stories and Racky because life made sense then. I don’t know how to make life make sense anymore.

  -Shane

  Ember wasn’t buying it. Maybe Shane did have a wife or girlfriend named Jenny, but the rest of it was bullshit. She’d learned long ago to trust her gut.

  In this case, it meant Shane had not killed himself. This whole thing reeked of foul play.

  “Who put you up there?” she asked the swinging corpse. He looked like he had a lump on his forehead. Probably knocked out first, then hoisted up. This was a hack-and-slash job, not meant to fool anyone for long. If she had to guess, she figured whoever had done this was short on time. Perhaps they
’d even return later to fix it up a bit more.

  With a sigh, Ember holstered her guns and took out her phone. For the moment, she ignored the last message from Zach and dialed Fagan’s number.

  “Hello?” Her mentor sounded frantic, out of breath. Lots of background noise, wherever she was.

  “Our friend, the cook, is no longer with us.”

  Fagan grunted. “You could have asked him a few questions first. We don’t have any answers here.”

  “It wasn’t me. Someone else did it to him. How is Gabe? Is he okay?”

  “He’s in a bad way. We’re all in a big caravan to the hospital right now.”

  “Anyone…” Ember stopped herself, unsure of exactly how to ask what she wanted to ask. Then she took a breath and pushed on. “Anyone dead yet?”

  “No,” Fagan said. “At least not that I know of. But you should join us. You might not get a chance to say goodbye if you wait too long.”

  Chapter Four

  WELLNER

  David Wellner, the President of the Denver Assassins Club, set the takeout coffee down on his desk and groaned when the lid came off and steaming hot liquid blurped over the top. A self-defense mechanism kicked in, and he whipped his hand back. Brown spots flew through the air, coating his desk.

  “Damn it,” he said as he crossed the office to retrieve a paper towel from a roll on the file cabinet. He kept the paper towels there because coffee spillage was only one of the liquid hazards he faced in his daily grind. Tea, soda, and other beverages also yearned to fly free. That was probably why his secretary Naomi had purchased a glass top for his desk a couple of weeks ago.

  He noticed his vision had become blurry, so he took his glasses off and rubbed a coffee spot clean. He set his glasses atop his head, nestled right along his bald spot. Wellner hadn’t always been so… middle-aged. It had happened quickly, sometime during the past five years. He was never a Schwarzenegger supermodel, but he had once been in shape. Fit, even. He’d stopped the workouts and dieting sometime around the beginning of his divorce, opting to hit the gym only after one of the recurring admonishments from his doctor.

  After wiping down the desk, he took a seat. He scooted close, but only as close as his ever-expanding belly would allow. Funny how he could go for days sometimes without even remembering how he’d let himself go, and then he could receive a half-dozen reminders in the span of a few seconds. It only took a trigger, a single instant of recognition — a mirror he walked by, perhaps, or a well-kept man his own age — and he fell back into his gut-sucking and shoulder-straightening ways.

  A frown darkened his face when he noted a file folder sitting on his desk. It was brown, with space for a title, but nothing written there. This wasn’t one of the folders he kept in his office. Those were green, with the little metal hooks on each side for easy filing. This folder was the simpler kind, one of the cheaper ones.

  Wellner tapped the intercom button on his desk phone.

  “Sir?” Naomi asked.

  “Did anyone come into my office this morning?”

  “No, sir. Ms. Dunard did leave a folder for you last night though, after you’d already left.”

  Interesting. “Jules was here? Hmm. Okay, thank you.”

  She made a curt hmm sound. “Did you spill your coffee?”

  Wellner sighed. “Oh. Yes, I did. But only a little this time.” He tried to put on a confident smile, the kind he imagined a politician would wear when caught in a white lie. Instead, he knew it looked more like a sheepish teenager’s goofy grin.

  “I’ll get you a fresh cup when you’re ready.”

  “Thank you, Naomi.”

  He thumbed the button to turn off the intercom and stared at the folder. Jules Dunard, the Vice President. Wellner felt an urge to scold his new secretary for letting Jules come anywhere close to his office when he wasn’t here, but he didn’t feel up to it at the moment. Plus, she was too damned attractive to scold. Wellner couldn’t recall what he’d told Naomi about his second-in-command.

  But, he still didn’t like having his private space invaded. Especially not by Jules. Not after her behavior lately, like the little whispers to the Club Historian at her dinner the other night. Not after her snide glances and murmurs that she had plans. Not her general attitude and demeanor around him.

  Not with his own election coming up in nine months.

  He needed to play the role of incumbent politician well between now and then. He needed to treat her with dignity and grace, even though Jules deserved neither. He would rather run her over with his car, but he would will himself to hold his head high around her, weather her slights and passive-aggressive comments, and generally ignore her overall shittiness.

  It would take every ounce of self-control he could muster, but after years of playing the game, he could muster quite a bit.

  He tapped the button again. “Can you come in here?”

  Naomi didn’t respond. He watched her through the frosted glass as she stood and hustled to his office. She opened the door and stood there, leaning inside. “What can I do for you, President Wellner?”

  He smiled at her. So young, so pretty, barely into her twenties. He wasn’t entirely sure where she’d come from, what college and sorority — she had to be a sorority girl, though. He didn’t know much about her, really, even though he could learn the whole kit and kaboodle out with one call to the IT people.

  Wellner wondered if Naomi had any real career aspirations other than being a secretary. At the same moment, he wondered if she had truly any idea how difficult it would be for her to quit this job when and if she decided to move on. Most people who saw the inside of the DAC never worked anywhere else, and it usually wasn’t because they loved the job with all their hearts.

  Careers at the DAC usually started and ended here DAC.

  “Did you actually see Jules swing by last night?”

  She nodded. "I did. I was staying late to file paperwork on the grievance form the Five Points Branch sent in the other day. Jules came by, asked if you were in, and I told her you weren't. She gave me the folder, and I put it on your desk before I left. Did I do something wrong?"

  He relaxed a bit. So she wasn’t actually in my office. While he still didn’t enjoy the thought of anyone — including his secretary — poking around in his office when he wasn’t around, it was far less troubling that it wasn’t Jules Dunard.

  “No, Naomi, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “How did Jules seem?

  Naomi sucked in a breath, making her shoulders lift and her breasts push against her tight satin shirt. Wellner tried not to look, but couldn’t help himself. He did force himself to only steal a quick glance, however.

  She shrugged. “She seemed like usual, I guess. All business, pressed for time, commanding, but with a smile on her face. You know how she is.”

  “I do. If you see Jules poking around again, will you let me know immediately? You can text me if I’m not at my desk.”

  “Absolutely. Is there anything else?”

  “No, thank you.”

  She gave him a respectful dip of the head and then turned to leave. He watched her go, enjoying the way her hips switched from side to side with each step. When the door was closed, the room felt colder. And too quiet.

  What did Jules want? Nothing came to mind immediately, and he didn’t want to spend the mental energy thinking on it. He didn’t have the time to worry about Jules today.

  Wellner rolled his head around his neck to loosen it; then he opened the folder. A dossier on Xavier Montrose. This was the assassin Ember Clarke had killed two days ago, six days into the first seven-day contract on her life.

  Wellner and the rest of the Review Board had issued Ember a black spot—the most severe form of trial by combat—for killing a registered club member. Six weeks, six assassins, one week each. Ember had neutralized the first one who had been sent after her, and she was now on day one of her second week.

  Wellner licked his finger and turned the first
page. Not only a dossier on Xavier, it was also a written report on the contract. Normally, the six Branches of the DAC handled contracts within their individual Branches. There was a central internet message board for contract requests submitted by civilians who managed to figure out how to do it, then those civilians were vetted to make sure they weren’t law enforcement or government employees, or anything else suspicious. Most Club contracts came from referrals, a much more trustworthy source than the general public.

  Once received, the switchboard funneled those requests to the appropriate Branch message board. The contracts were lodged with the DAC central database to prevent conflicts, but the manner and operations of each contract were handled by the Branches.

  But, as trial by combat was not only a disciplinary measure but also a series of six contracts, there had to be paperwork. Lots of paperwork.

  He smiled to himself as he recalled the few members of some of the Branches who had banded together to push toward a ‘paperless office.’ They wanted everything — all records, all contracts, all histories — online and archived. He appreciated the sentiment, but having cloud-based access to a real assassin’s database, complete with real names and location, seemed a bit dangerous.

  But the real reason he'd pushed back was far more straightforward: they used files and cabinets and reams of paper because that’s the way it had always been done.

  He sighed and jumped in. Wellner noted in the twelve-page document four places where he had to sign and four more where he had to initial. Xavier Montrose had entered into a contract with the DAC itself to kill Ember Clarke. Ember had killed her killer, so the contract had, therefore, become null and void. Wellner had to sign to make it official.

  Ember Clarke was cunning and ruthless, and he had to admit she was drop-dead gorgeous as well. One of the best he had ever seen. Well-trained, experienced, and a complete package: she knew how to use her looks to get what she wanted in the field. Other assassins tried those tactics and failed miserably, either because they didn’t have the swagger or confidence, or because they simply weren’t charismatic enough to pull it off.