A headhunter was a broker who took contracts based on a price, with only the barest of details: number of marks, deadline, international versus domestic, political versus personal. Then, he offered it to his hitman contacts, who'd get the specifics directly.
The broker would argue that he's providing an invaluable service by tightening the security between client and pro. He's really just covering his butt. Any advantage to the hitman is more than wiped out by the liability of accepting a job based almost exclusively on price. That's the best a second tier has-been like Fenniger can get while still making enough to finance his drug habit.
So I didn't doubt he was doing other work for this "Honcho" guy. But to blame him for this job, one he'd created himself? Low. Risky, too, presuming Jack would follow up.
And yet… maybe Fenniger was more clever than I gave him credit for. If Honcho didn't know the details of the jobs he gave Fenniger, how would he know he hadn't given him one for killing teen moms?
"So Honcho sets up the meeting…" Jack prompted.
"Byrony Agency."
"What?"
"That's the name of the company. Or, at least, the name of the office the client works at. I don't know if it's legit or a cover, but after the meeting, I followed him back and that's where he went. Byrony Adoption Agency in Detroit. Moron walked away from the meeting and never even looked over his shoulder. Complete amateur. Got the bright idea to hire a hitman to help him steal babies, and had no fucking idea how to go about it. I had to hold his hand through the first two."
So this hadn't been a one-man project. It hadn't even been Fenniger's idea. The way he was now spitting details, I knew he wasn't dreaming up a story on the fly. He gave us a description of the client, a play-by-play of their meetings, and the address where he'd dropped off Destiny. With the first two babies, he'd taken them to the client in a park, but after the second hand-off caught the attention of a passerby, the client decided they'd do this more privately. With Destiny, he'd given Fenniger a suburban Detroit home address, met him there, and taken her.
The scheme had been orchestrated by this Byrony Agency. They found the parents and they sold the babies, while Fenniger juggled the roles of scout, killer, and delivery boy. Earlier, Jack had said it was a lot of work, considering his pace. This is what he'd meant. It was too much work for one man.
Why the hell hadn't I seen that?
Because I hadn't allowed myself to consider the possibility. I'd been completely focused on my goal, and that goal was one man. Like Drew Aldrich. Like Wayne Franco. Like Wilkes. One perpetrator. One target. That I understood. That I could stop.
An entire organization… How could I stop that?
Forget it for now. I had to concentrate on the immediate situation. The immediate resolution. The immediate vengeance.
By the time Jack finished, I'd found my focus again.
"Dee?" he called.
At that word, Fenniger's head jerked up. In that second, as he heard Jack say my name, he knew he wasn't walking away. He started to struggle, to protest, to promise, to threaten. The words passed by me, meaningless. All I heard was the rich undercurrent of fear.
I thought about Sammi, her fear and rage in those final moments, and I slowed my pace, dragging it out until I hoped his panic outweighed anything she'd suffered.
I stood in front of him, and let him see me, and he knew that meant he wasn't walking out of here alive. And I prayed that in that last second, maybe he thought of Sammi and the other girls, maybe he thought "so this is how they felt."
Then I lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Twenty-nine
My first body dump. Jack seemed shocked when I said so, but after a moment's thought, he realized that with my specialty, it wasn't surprising. Half the reason for calling a mob hit was to warn others. A corpse in a subway car said "Screw us over, and we'll get you, anytime, anywhere" far better than a former ally missing, presumed dead.
Even last fall, the two bodies I'd left behind had stayed pretty much where they'd fallen. Hauling a hitman out of a motel would have been more dangerous than leaving him there. The second guy I shot was the killer we'd been chasing and we needed the authorities – and the public – to know he was dead. My body disposal know-how was pure theory.
Jack was the one who found a place to hide Fenniger – the still functioning trunk of a wreck. The police might find him when they investigated the death of his mark in the office, but we weren't giving them any help.
I'd hauled Fenniger to his resting place, Jack carrying his legs as best he could. As I arranged the corpse in the trunk, Jack returned to the site to double-check for any traces we might have missed.
"Did you look over where I was standing?" I asked. "The ground's hard, and I'll be trashing my shoes, but I should check – "
Jack grabbed my arm as I passed. "Got it."
"What about the mark?"
"Dead. Checked."
Still holding my arm, he started toward the fence.
"But there's a chance it's someone connected to this Byrony Agency – "
"It's not."
"How do you know?"
"I do."
He led me to the part of the fence Fenniger had scaled.
"Shouldn't we use the section we cut?" I said. "I can see headlights – "
"Couple miles away. Get over."
I hooked my gloved fingers in the fence links, then heard a sound that made my head jolt up.
"Is that a siren?" I whispered.
"No."
His answer came quickly – too quickly. He'd already heard it, and that was why he was hurrying me over the fence.
I hefted myself up, toes finding purchase. The wail came again and I instinctively stopped, head swiveling to follow it. If there was one sound I knew, it was a police siren. And this wasn't it.
It came again, and my gut went cold. I dropped to the ground and broke into a sprint, heading for the building. Jack lunged, catching my arm and wrenching me back.
"It's not – " I began.
He grabbed my shoulders and swung me toward the fence. "Climb."
"It's not a siren, Jack. It's a baby."
"Yeah."
I heard the voice inside the office again. Raspy. I'd presumed it was a man, but it could have been a woman.
Fenniger had indeed been in Kingston to kill another girl and steal another baby – it just hadn't been the one we'd thought. He'd been scouting that girl earlier as a potential future target while waiting until it was late enough to come here and kill the one he'd already targeted on an earlier trip, as he'd done with Sammi.
I pushed back from the fence, struggling to duck out of his grasp.
"Nothing you can do," he said.
I managed to turn around and face him. "There is a baby in there, and I am not going to walk away and hope someone hears it. My God, how could you – "
His arm swung up. I instinctively yanked back, but he only lifted his hand. In it was a cell phone I didn't recognize.
"Fenniger's. We get away. Call 911. Toss it."
Fenniger's cell phone? Jack didn't just happen to grab it before we dumped him. He'd seen who was behind that door. That's why he'd gone back to check, and that's why he'd been dragging me away, before I heard the baby.
"You didn't accidentally make that noise earlier, did you?" I said. "You thought I saw who he killed. You were distracting Fenniger before I did something stupid – "
"Over the fence, Nadia. Now."
"I want to – "
"The longer we wait? The longer that baby cries."
I paused, then grabbed the fence links and hoisted myself up.
We made the trip back to my pickup in silence. When I didn't speak, Jack didn't push. Maybe he thought I was in shock. I guess I was.
I forced myself not to speak, not to move, not to think on that drive and later on the way to the lodge, after we dropped off my work car in Peterborough. When we got home, Jack accompanied me up the stairs, said good night, and waited while I went into my room.