At that moment, the front door opened on Reynolds’ home and the man himself stepped outside. Kyle Reynolds moved down the stairs and along his front walk to gather the contents of his mailbox. The woman jogging along slowed and walked up to Reynolds while breathing from an open mouth after the exertion of her run. When she reached Reynolds, who was twice her age, they came together and kissed.
The couple smiled and exchanged words, but they were too far away for Cody and Henry to make out. The woman gave Reynolds another kiss, then bounded up the walk and into the house ahead of him.
The fat guy across the street who’d been trimming his hedges had stopped to watch the woman. He called over to Reynolds.
“You’re one lucky bastard, Kyle. I wish my wife looked like yours.”
Reynolds grinned, waved, and went back inside the house.
“He’s married,” Henry said.
“It looks that way,” Cody said. “And it doesn’t change anything. If he’s Mac Strawbridge, then he has to die.”
“I know. It just surprised me that a guy on the run from the law would be married. And look at his wife, she attracts attention. She sure got mine.”
“That might help him. If everyone is looking at her, no one will pay much attention to him.”
“Good point.”
Inside the house, Reynolds’ wife, Candide, was in the bathroom preparing to step into the shower. After stripping off the clothes she’d worn while jogging, she paused and sent a text off to her lover on a burner phone she carried with her.
* * *
Kyle and I will be leaving for the country club soon. I need to talk to you in person later.
A reply came back in seconds.
I can’t wait to see you.
Have you thought about what I said?
Yes. I’ll do it. For you. I’d do anything for you.
Candide smiled and turned off the phone.
Henry wasn’t the only one with plans to kill Kyle Reynolds. Candide wanted him dead too. The only reason she had married him was to become a rich widow someday. And she had found a fool to do the deed for her.
Candide moved her superb body under the warm spray of the shower. She was an absolute angel on the outside, but a devil lived behind her large blue eyes.
In Cancún, Soulless and Gwen were eating lunch inside a crowded restaurant reputed to have great food. It was located away from the hotels, which made it less of a tourist trap. The owner had been a professional golfer, and the décor of the restaurant reflected it. There were photos on the walls of the man that were taken when he played at different golf courses. Even Soulless recognized some of the sports celebrities in the photos, and he didn’t pay attention to such things.
Their meal had been consumed, the bill paid for in cash, and they were sipping the last of their wine before leaving to head back to the beach.
Soulless wore sunglasses, had maintained his beard, and kept a cap on his head pulled down low. He wasn’t a fan of crowds and didn’t want to take a chance of anyone getting a good look at him while they ate. When they’d been on the beach at their hotel, Soulless didn’t worry about such things, but he’d always covered up when entering the hotel, and being in view of its many cameras.
His assassination of A.J. Pirrello had made him a marked man, seeing as how he had also slaughtered well over a hundred other people.
The name Soulless was on the lips and minds of those in numerous law enforcement agencies around the world, and a reward was being offered for his capture. What the authorities didn’t have was a description of the man. Other than Tanner, only Gwen could offer that, and each time Soulless recalled that fact, it reminded him he needed to kill her.
He didn’t want to kill her. He liked having her around. He didn’t love her. He wasn’t capable of that. But he had admitted to himself that Gwen fulfilled needs in him that were other than sexual. He wouldn’t have classified himself as being lonely prior to them getting together, but he had been.
As an assassin, loneliness was an occupational hazard, because it was difficult to find someone to confide in. If you tried to keep your profession a secret, that would only lead to questions. An assassin often traveled, kept guns ready at all times, and didn’t hold down a regular job. Most women would find that a curious lifestyle.
With Gwen, Soulless didn’t have to pretend to be anyone else, or make up lies to tell her. When he had to kill her, and yes, he would kill her someday, he would miss her. The only person he had ever missed before was his mentor, an ex-KGB agent named Yuri. When Yuri died, Soulless felt the loss keenly.
A man entered the restaurant with a dog at his side. The hound was a Labrador retriever wearing a harness and a leash. The restaurant owner greeted the younger man with a wave and a smile. The two resembled each other, and Soulless assumed they were brothers.
The owner was behind the bar. He called to his brother to meet him inside the office at the back of the restaurant. The man replied that he would once he gave the dog some water.
As the man and his dog were walking along an aisle and passed their table, the dog stopped suddenly, sniffed at Gwen’s shoes, and laid down on the floor. The man stared at the dog, then at Gwen. The look on his face was an expression of concern. That look worried Soulless, because he didn’t know what had caused it.
Gwen was smiling at the dog and talking to it as if it were a baby, telling it how beautiful it was. As she was about to reach down and pet the dog, its handler pulled on the leash and urged the hound to rise up, while passing it a dog treat. The dog stood and the man started walking away at a brisk pace.
Before leaving them, the man stared at Gwen. Gwen was attractive and worth looking at, but Soulless got the impression the man was staring at her like a cop trying to catalog a perp’s face. When that thought occurred to him, he believed he understood what had just happened. If he was right, they were in trouble.
The man and the dog walked down a corridor at the rear of the restaurant and disappeared through a set of swinging doors that led to the kitchen. The man appeared again a few seconds later without the dog, glanced their way, then entered the door at the end of the hall, where the office was located.
Soulless took a cloth napkin and began wiping down his side of the table. When he was done, he tossed it to Gwen and told her to do the same.
“Make sure you wipe down anything you touched, your glass, the table, the seat, then get up and walk out. And be sure to push the door open with your elbow, so you don’t leave a fingerprint on it. Take the car and I’ll meet up with you at that bar we were at the other night.”
Gwen’s eyes were wide with concern. “What’s going on?”
“I think that dog is a police dog, a bomb sniffing dog; he must have detected the scent of explosives on you. By laying down the way he did, he was telling his handler that he had alerted on a scent. I have to go and deal with the man who brought him in here. He must be a cop.”
Gwen opened her mouth to say something else, but Soulless was already on the move.
Soulless walked past the rest rooms as a server left the kitchen with her hands full of trays loaded with food. He could see inside the kitchen as the swinging doors were parted, and he spotted the dog. Someone had fed it, and the dog was gobbling up some sort of meat from a plate on the floor. Soulless kept going, his destination, the office. He had a gun on him but didn’t want to use it. The noise would bring people running to see what had happened.
He took the weapon out anyway. It was always better to have a gun in your hand when going into a confrontation. He reached out to grab the knob on the office door then stopped himself before he touched it with his bare hand. Pulling his sleeve down, he used it as a glove and entered the office.
The restaurant owner, the older of the two men, was there, and he appeared to be pleading with his brother, the cop. The cop was on the phone with someone, but his brother kept talking to him anyway. Soulless heard the restaurant owner say, “But what if she has a bomb and it go
es off in here?”
The two stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at him, then at the gun he was holding. Just inside the door, to the left, there were a set of golf clubs, Soulless grabbed one with his free hand and advanced on the men. At the same time, he kicked the door shut with his foot.
Soulless struck the cop on the arm as he was reaching for his own weapon. The man yelped in pain, and Soulless hit him again, this time striking him on the side of the head. He then took a swing at the brother; the older man was frozen in place but had raised his hands as if to ward off a blow. It didn’t help him. Soulless swung through the hands and the golf club struck the man in the forehead. He collapsed to the floor beside his brother, knocked senseless.
Soulless stared down at them. He wanted to kill them, especially the cop. It was the cop who had gotten a good look at Gwen. If he was dead, there would be less of a chance of her getting picked up and questioned.
Soulless wiped the golf club clean of fingerprints, dropped it, and left the room. A dead cop would only bring more trouble, and he had to move fast anyway. The man had been on the phone when he attacked him. That meant he might have had enough time to call his cop buddies and request backup before dealing with Gwen. There could be cops headed to the scene that very second.
Soulless tucked the gun away and walked straight to the front and out of the restaurant. Gwen had left, and when he stepped outside, he saw she had taken the car as he had instructed.
The bar he’d told her to wait at was three blocks away. Soulless resisted the urge to run there and walked at a fast pace instead. He only made it half a block when a police car came around a corner with its lights on but without a siren. As he assumed it would, it stopped in front of the restaurant. Two more police cars sped by him, again with lights, but no siren.
As he passed a clothing store, Soulless ducked inside and looked around. He grabbed a guayabera shirt for himself that was a pastel blue, along with a white panama hat. For Gwen, he’d chosen a colorful print dress he’d seen many native women wearing. He also bought a floppy hat for Gwen. After paying for the items with cash, Soulless slipped the shirt on over what he was already wearing and switched his baseball cap for the Panama.
If he and Gwen dressed more like natives, they might be less noticeable to the cops. He glanced down the street as he left the shop and saw that still more cops had arrived at the restaurant, including a black panel truck. He wondered if the truck belonged to the bomb unit.
He reached the bar and found Gwen seated on a stool near the entrance. She was having a drink and trying to fend off the attention of a young Mexican guy in a suit who was hitting on her. When the man saw Soulless, he took a step back.
“Oh, you really were waiting for someone.”
“That’s right, boyo,” Gwen said.
The man looked her over, sighed, and moved away.
“Where did you get those clothes?” Gwen asked, as Soulless was handing her the bag containing the dress.
“You need to change too, and be quick about it. The police are looking for you.”
“Shit. Was it that dog?”
“Yeah. Hurry up and change in the bathroom. I’ll be outside in the car.”
Gwen emerged from the bar minutes later wearing the dress and the hat. She climbed into the passenger seat and Soulless pulled away from the curb and merged into traffic. Three vehicles back were two police cars. Soulless kept calm and drove normally. One of the cars separating him from the patrol cars parked, while the other two turned right down a side street, leaving the police cars directly behind Soulless. As they neared the next intersection, the patrol cars’ lights came on.
“Oh no,” Gwen said.
Soulless eased his gun out, ready to kill. The traffic signal was green and Soulless went through the intersection, but not the police cars. They had slowed, then stopped at the edge of the intersection. One cop turned his vehicle left, and the other turned right, then backed up so that their bumpers were nearly touching, and they were blocking the intersection.
“They’re forming a roadblock,” Soulless said. “It looks like we just made it out of the area in time.”
Gwen was sweating and one of her hands was shaking. “I thought that was it and we were going to jail.”
“They’ll be looking for you, and me,” Soulless said. “We need to get out of Mexico.”
“And go where?”
“North to America. Where we won’t stand out as much.”
“Should we go back to our hotel?”
“Yes, and we’ll pack up and wipe down the room in case the police trace us there somehow. I think flying is out though, they’ll also be watching the airports.”
“All this because of that damn dog,” Gwen said.
“It will be all right,” Soulless said, as it occurred to him that he’d be less likely to be caught if he was traveling alone. He’d have to think about that and decide if Gwen’s time to die had arrived.
12
Trust But Verify
Henry and Cody followed Kyle Reynolds and his young wife to a country club. It was members only, but Henry needed to get inside. The odds were good Kyle Reynolds would have a drink. If Henry could take the glass he used, he’d have the man’s fingerprints and could compare them to those of Mac Strawbridge.
Henry pulled into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant that was across the road from the country club. Thanks to a pair of binoculars, he was able to see where Reynolds parked his car and watched him exit the vehicle with his wife.
Reynolds’ wife, Candide, was wearing a pink and white tennis outfit. It was a normal outfit with a skirt and short-sleeved top. A hundred other women could wear it and receive little attention, but not Candide. Thanks to her incredible body, everything she wore looked X-rated, and she caught the eye of each man she passed.
As the two neared the entrance to the country club’s main building, Henry lost sight of them. He turned and looked at his mentor.
“I need to get in there.”
“I agree.”
“Are you coming with me?”
“Do you think you need me?”
“I can handle it,” Henry said. “I’ve had excellent training.”
“Then I’ll wait here for you.”
Henry began opening his door then stopped and closed it, to look down at himself. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
“I think I need to change my look,” he said. He went online and found the website for the country club. Looking through photos on the site, he was able to determine that the waiters wore black slacks with a black vest, white dress shirt, and a tie. “We’re going shopping,” he told Cody.
There was a men’s clothing store about a mile away. Cody followed Henry inside and watched as he gathered the clothes he would need to look like one of the waiters. Henry also grabbed a pair of jogging shorts and sneakers.
When they left the store, Henry was wearing his waiter’s outfit. Cody drove, and dropped Henry off on a residential street that bordered the rear of the country club’s property.
“I’ll make this as quick as I can,” Henry said. He left the car and headed for the brick wall that separated the street from the country club. After looking around and seeing no one, Henry leapt up and grabbed the top of the eight-foot-high wall, to pull himself up and over.
Henry dropped to the ground and brushed himself off. He was on the edge of a golf course that was lined on his side by trees. He stayed to the trees as long as he could then headed toward the buildings. The club had several buildings. They were all covered in rose-colored stucco with the windows having white frames.
The club was popular and there were people everywhere. Henry spotted Reynolds’ wife playing tennis with another woman and learned her name was Candide when someone called to her. Henry searched the spectators and didn’t see Reynolds, so he kept looking.
He found the man inside a bar, where he was talking to an older gentlemen at a table. It looked like a casual conver
sation, although the older man was talking loudly, perhaps because he had trouble hearing. Henry eyed the glass Reynolds was holding. It was almost empty, and it had his fingerprints on it.
Henry walked behind the bar as if he belonged there and smiled at the bartender. “Do you have a towel I can use to wipe up a spill? One of the guests was clumsy out on the patio.”
The man pointed beneath the bar, where there was a stack of bar towels in a gold color with the country club’s name sewn in blue script. He then asked a question.
“Are you new here, bud?”
“Yeah. I started today.”
“Welcome aboard, I’m Henry.”
“Henry?”
“That’s right. But everyone calls me Hank. What’s your name?”
“I’m Bob,” Henry said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The bartender, Henry Hank, spotted a customer at the other end of the bar and went to see to him. Henry looked back over at Reynolds’ table and saw that he and the old man were rising from their seats. Henry passed by Reynolds as he and the man with him were headed out of the bar. Up close, he thought Reynolds resembled the photo he’d seen of Mac Strawbridge. If he was Strawbridge, his fingerprints would give him away.
Henry used the bar towel to pick up the glass at its rim and gently wrapped it up inside the towel. As he was leaving, bartender Hank sent him a wave.
Henry decided to walk through the building as far as he could before leaving to cut across the golf course. As he was heading toward a door to leave, a man in a suit called to him. He had graying hair and a slim build. His voice was commanding, as if he were used to giving orders and being obeyed.
“You! Yes you, come here.”
Henry walked over to the man. “Yes?”
“Who are you? I don’t know you.”
“I’m Bob. I just started today.”
Soulless (A Tanner Novel Book 43) Page 11
