The house was immaculate and smelled of furniture polish and oil soap. Someone, probably Mrs. Petane, had a taste for reproduction Queen Anne furniture and oriental-style rugs. The furnishings were good, but sparse, as if the person who chose them was careful that no piece should clutter the lines of the room or detract from any other. She couldn’t avoid a slight twinge of disdain as she crossed the hardwood floors, though. They would have been a really good choice, but they were too well maintained. They didn’t squeak at all. What was the point?
Upstairs there was a small study with a desk and chair, a couch, and a screen with a cube caddy and an assortment of music and video cubes underneath. A handful of memory cubes and a couple of file folders with printed real-estate brochures spilling out of them were scattered across the desk.
There were also two guest bedrooms, one furnished for a child, that were coated with a thick layer of dust as if they hadn’t been used in quite some time. She found the master bedroom and master bath at the back of the house. The stash would go in the bathroom. The trick was placing it so that the target’s wife definitely would not find it while ensuring the investigators definitely would.
She lifted her T-shirt and pulled the flat, duct-taped package away from her stomach. The small hand mirror would look harmless and ordinary to a real estate agent. She slid it into a drawer under a couple of bottles of depilatory foam and men’s cologne. Okay, where’s the best place for the junk kit? Under the sink work?
She froze at the sound of an engine turning in the vicinity of the driveway. “Shit.”
She slapped the cabinet door shut and clutched the plant-me package tightly. The office was out. No telling which room they were heading for. She bit her lip as she sprinted to the door of the first guest room and almost dashed in, stopping herself on the doorstep and staring in horror at the dust on the hardwood floor that would betray her every step. She could hear the faint beeps of the lock on the back door below and hurried quietly back to the master bedroom. Not the closet — a death trap. Never a bathroom. Footsteps on the stairs. She cursed the wife’s minimalist tastes that left nothing to hide behind and hauled herself under the bed, reaching under her shirt and pressing the duct taped package back against her belly.
Oh, way to go, Cally. Fucking perfect. “Highly-trained super assassin found under target’s bed.” Sister Thomasina would have a cow. No, she’d have the whole fucking ranch. She looked at the dust bunnies inches from her face and suppressed the wrinkling and twitching of her nose as the click of high heels and muttered female swearing rounded the top of the stairs and entered the room. Well, she’s not the perfect housekeeper after all, is she? Idiot. What I should have done was had cameras trained on the street from both sides and had buckley watching for any of the household cars, and a hiding place picked out in advance. Sloppy as all fuck. I’m never sloppy. What the hell is my problem today? Under the goddam motherfucking bed. I’m glad as hell I am solo on this because I would never live this down. If I get my ass out of this alive I am admitting it to no one.
She continued to berate herself while attempting not to sneeze. Unfortunately, the target’s wife must have applied some perfume in the car. A cloud of the stuff wafted in with her and Cally felt her eyes start to water as she fought to control the prickling in the back of her throat. The heel clicks were over by the closet. The doors opened. A small hanger clatter and something soft hit the bed. The wife click-clacked her way into the bathroom and there was a sound of running water as the sink was clearly turned on full blast. It sounded like she was filling the sink. Cally risked a very soft clearing of her throat. The water stopped. The clicks returned and stopped next to the bed. She concentrated on keeping her breathing slow, even, and silent. There was always the temptation to hold your breath, but it was a bad idea. Eventually you’d gasp, and a gasp would be louder than careful, steady, slow, even breath.
The woman started moving again, and Cally listened to the bedroom door close and suppressed a sigh of relief as the clatter of her heels faded down the hall and down the stairs. She breathed a bit easier as soon as the back door closed, but she didn’t move until she heard the car start out in the driveway. She slid out from under the bed, but before she even got up she slid her PDA out of her pocket and hit the buttons to activate the AI simulator and voice access.
“It’s all going to shit, isn’t it?” The buckley said morosely.
“Buckley, watch the cameras on the streets in the neighborhood for either of the two cars that belong with this house.” She got up from the floor and headed for the door to find a real place to hide in the unlikely event that the ditz came back again before she was through.
“I see one.”
She had the door slammed and had dived halfway under the bed before going absolutely still. “Buckley, was it coming towards us or going away?”
“Was what?”
“The car you just saw.”
“Which car?”
Her knuckles whitened around the PDA case. “The car that belongs with this house that you said you saw.”
“Oh, that. It’s gone now.” He sounded almost cheerful.
She stood, slowly and deliberately, as if half afraid of what she might do if her self-control wavered even for an instant, and walked to the door, down the hall, down the stairs, looked into the formal living room. There. The high-backed chair next to the piano formed an area of cover outside of the main traffic areas of the house. Probably dusty, but if she had to use it, she could just wipe the whole area behind the chair clean and it would never be noticed. Fine. She thought carefully for a moment before speaking.
“Buckley, if anyone but you and me enters this house while we’re in it, you will make no sound whatsoever from the time he, she, it, or they enter until at least one full minute after he, she, it or they leaves. Got it?”
“Does that include the cube reader in the study?”
She rolled her eyes. “No.”
“What about the lock and the microwave?”
“No!”
“What about the AID on the end table over there?”
She whirled around, looking frantically, cursing.
“Just kidding.”
“Buckley! Shut up. Unless you see a car again that belongs with this house, just shut the hell up.” She gritted her teeth as she restrained herself from stomping up the stairs. In the master bath, there was a woman’s silk blouse in the sink with a clear coffee stain fading underneath the suds.
She glanced at the mirror and disdainfully picked a dust bunny out of her hair, flushing it down the toilet.
It was really only the work of a few moments to take out the junk package with the small bag of white powder, spoon, a little bottle of ether, and a needle, spill a tiny amount of coke on the cabinet floor, and use fresh tape to affix the package to the back underside of the sink. She blew gently on the infinitesimal amount of spilled powder to disperse it. It was invisible now, but the dog would smell it. And after the toxicology tests on the corpse came back, there would be a dog.
As she was getting ready to open the back door and leave she stopped short. “Buckley, turn off voice access.”
“But then I can’t even yell for help when it all comes apart!”
“Buckley, turn off voice access.”
“It figures.” The PDA emitted an exaggeratedly long-suffering sigh and went silent.
She tapped the command line and reset the AI emulation. Buckleys didn’t function at their best if you left the emulation up too high. They tended to think of too many reasons to panic.
She took off the gloves and stuffed them into the underside of her black sports bra, concealed by the baggy T-shirt, and took a deep breath. I belong here, I’m just going out for a jog. She stepped through the door.