“Stop her!” Roland said. “Don’t shoot—grab her.”
My attacker ran at me. I skidded onto my stomach, arms outstretched over my head like I was sliding into home base. If I really had been trying to escape over the edge, I’d have fallen three stories, headfirst. I wasn’t suicidal. I had something in my other hand—the radio. I dropped it and then leaped up with a very uncharacteristic roar of rage to cover the sound of it hitting the pavement below.
My opponent hit me. He took me down and wrested the gun from my hand. I put up a token struggle, but not enough to get the shit kicked out of me. I dropped the radio because I knew I wasn’t winning this fight. I had two rounds left, and two gun-wielding attackers, and not enough ego to think I could pull that off. From Roland’s orders, he didn’t want me dead. Not until he figured out what was going on.
So I let my opponent win while putting up a very noisy fight. Quinn and Jack were both down there. Inside cars. And we’d been shooting with silencers. So I made all the noise I could, until my attacker jammed a beefy hand over my mouth. That’s when I got my first really good look at him. In the dark, I’d thought he could be Quinn’s size. He wasn’t. He had a good two inches and fifty pounds on Quinn. A big bruiser of a thug, with a badly set nose and hair chopped crew-cut short.
Bodyguard. That’s why Roland had been getting into the passenger side. It’s also why he’d been glancing over his shoulder on his way to the bar. He was old and he was overweight, and he’d had a helluva scare eighteen years ago. Now he had a guy he could call when he went to meet a new client, a bodyguard who’d keep his distance so he didn’t call attention to Roland.
Shit.
Which was exactly what Roland said once his thug had my hands bound and he flipped me onto my back.
“Shit. That’s . . .”
He shone a penlight on my face and leaned over, his broad face dripping sweat from his three-story climb. He took his phone from his pocket and checked something on it. I knew what he was looking at. Photos. One of the woman his client wanted dead. One of Nadia Stafford.
“Who is it?” the bodyguard asked.
“An explanation,” Roland said. “For my missing employee.”
The bodyguard’s face screwed up. Roland didn’t enlighten him. He just turned to peer over the edge of the roof.
“Any sign she wasn’t alone?” he asked.
The bodyguard shook his head. “It’s just her. She saw you coming out of the bar and went on ahead. She knew where you’d parked. Looks like she was going to take you out from up here.”
Take him out? From over a hundred meters with a handgun? Someone didn’t know his weapons well enough. Two people, it seemed, as Roland nodded.
“Search her,” he said. “Check for any sign she has friends.”
That’s why I’d tossed the radio. My special Felix phone had another nifty feature—it didn’t retain any record of calls or texts. Also, it looks like any other plain-Jane cell. The bodyguard checked it and said, “Burner phone. Seems like she hasn’t even used it yet.”
“Toss it.”
I winced as the bodyguard literally tossed it, sending it thumping across the roof.
“She was definitely watching you,” the bodyguard said, pulling out my binoculars. “You think she was the woman who called about the job?”
Roland shook his head, as if he wasn’t dignifying such a stupid question with a response. Obviously Mark Lewiston had given me Roland’s contact information, and I came here to . . . well, apparently to shoot him, according to their theory, though I’m not sure how that would have helped. Revenge maybe? Or figuring if Roland was dead, his client couldn’t send anyone else after me?
Roland leaned over me again and said, “Who are you?”
“You already know.”
“I don’t think that”—he pointed at my gun—“is the sort of weapon a nature lodge owner uses for vermin.”
“Depends on the vermin.”
No sneer. No smile, either. His expression remained neutral, brow furrowed as he studied me, far more interested in this mystery than in the fate of his hitman.
“You didn’t do your research before you sent Mark Lewiston after me,” I said. “You might know what I do for a living these days, but you didn’t dig further. You would have if I was a man.”
A flicker of disconcertion, followed by a headshake. “In my experience, it’s rarely worth the effort to conduct a full background search. That’s for the movies, my dear.”
“Oh, this wouldn’t have required more than ten seconds on the Internet. A cop who shoots an unarmed perp point-blank makes the news.”
He winced. The world was changing fast, and old-timers like Roland didn’t often keep up.
“She was a mark, right?” the bodyguard said. “She killed whoever you sent after her and then came after you?”
Again, Roland deemed this perfectly obvious and only walked to the edge, scanning the surrounding landscape again.
“Okay, so yes,” the bodyguard said. “Which means we should finish her off. Collect the payment.”
Shit, not a complete idiot. I’d foreseen this, though, as soon as Roland made me. I’d just hoped the cavalry would have shown up by now. Since I wasn’t answering my radio, they’d be looking. I only hoped they didn’t call my cell. And, while hoping that, it would be even more helpful if I could figure out how to avoid being killed.
“What’s a hitman’s cut?” the bodyguard asked.
“Less than I’d pay you. Pulling a hit is about more than pulling a trigger, and she’s done most of the work for you by showing up . . .”
Yes, let’s bicker about money. Perfect. As they hashed it out, I flexed my foot. The bodyguard hadn’t found the knife strapped to my calf. I sent up a silent thank-you to Jack for insisting I bring it, but even as I did, I wasn’t sure how much good it would do when my hands were bound. I measured the distance to the edge. I could make it. With my hands tied, it could be a nasty landing, but—
They agreed the bodyguard would get 10 percent of the hit price for shooting me. I flexed my hands behind my back, ready to push up, hoping the move would startle him enough—
“You can’t do it here,” Roland said.
“Why not? No one to see us.”
“It’s a condition of the contract. She has to disappear.”
I’d forgotten that. The client stipulated that it had to look like suicide or I had to disappear. Roland skipped the suicide option for good reason—if I was found hundreds of miles from home, dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on a rooftop, that was as suspicious as murder. Of course, they could leave my body here and just hope I wouldn’t be found for a long time, but Roland didn’t strike me as a gambler. And I sure as hell wasn’t suggesting the option.
CHAPTER 25
The bodyguard gagged me with rope. Then he untied my hands to let me climb down the fire escape before he refastened my bonds. They led me to the car and popped the trunk. If I was a civilian, I’d never have gone along with this. Rule one of abduction: don’t let them take you to a second location. Do whatever you can to escape or call attention to yourself, even at the risk of death, because once you get to that second—secluded—location, your chance of survival plummets. I still did put up a token resistance so they wouldn’t suspect I was playing too nicely.
They dumped me into the trunk and slammed it shut. And I went straight for my knife. A few minutes ago, Roland commented that this wasn’t the movies. That was a shame, because in them, I’d have gotten that knife out and had my bonds severed in seconds. Of course, in a movie, the bad guys would have found the knife because viewers wouldn’t believe they would actually miss it. If criminals really were as smart as movie audiences expect, my job would be a whole lot tougher. Truth is, I’ve met very few criminals who strap a weapon to their leg. One reason? It’s a bugger to get it off when you need it. Especially if your hands are tied.