Page 2 of Hidden While In Sight

“What?” he said into the phone.

Ramiro Rodriguez, the person he could blame for this boring assignment, chuckled in his ear. “That bad?”

Diego grunted in reply, staring at the little boy, who clutched his fork and lifted a single pea to his mouth. He wasn’t much older than his toddler sister and looked nervous as hell. Diego frowned at the screen.

“Uncover anything useful yet?” Ramiro asked.

“Something doesn’t add up,” Diego admitted as he continued to study the family.

“Well, yeah.” Ramiro laughed again. “We’re not sent to dig up dirt on those who are squeaky clean. This guy has to be some kind of scum.”

Diego didn’t bother agreeing as he studied Colin Ashford. The lawyer had streaks of gray in his hair, though his face was smooth and sharp. He still wore his suit jacket at the table with a tie, looking ridiculously formal for a family dinner. Even Ashford wasn’t talking; he scrolled through his phone as he ate. He barely glanced at the rest of the family, though he’d been home every evening so far to have dinner with them. Dinner was apparently a standing ritual.

The dining room table had enough empty chairs between him and his family to seat five more people. What was the goddamn point of even being in the same room?

Ramiro’s voice filtered in. “What’s bugging you?”

“Not sure,” Diego admitted. He hooked the rolling desk chair with his foot and sank into it to continue watching.

Ramiro sighed. “You hate when things aren’t clear. Lucky for you, it doesn’t happen often.”

Diego made a noise in his throat as he clicked open the folder of information they’d gathered. Ramiro’s contacts were thorough. They’d included not only the family members’ names and ages had been included but also details like where their groceries were from (some fancy place he’d never heard of before), the amount of debt they’d accumulated on credit cards (much less than he’d expected), and even where Ashford had taken his wife on their honeymoon (Paris, how original). It also listed next of kin, all dead, including her parents, who had been in the photo buried in her drawer.

In the few days Diego had been watching the family, he hadn’t seen her smile like she had in that picture with her parents even once. She hadn’t smiled at all, not even that vague lift of the corners of her lips like in the wedding photo. Her face barely changed expressions as she moved from one meaningless task to another. Hannah Ashford’s face was carved out of marble, except for that dip in her lips.

Most of her time was spent in their home gym; endless laps on an elliptical machine sometimes switched to an exercise bike or a treadmill. He’d been relieved to see that she could sweat and wasn’t a machine herself.

Often she sat in the den and stared at nothing, though she also read the Bible every damn day and a couple of nonfiction books. She was rarely with her children, leaving all but their bedtime to the nanny.

And every day, an hour before her husband returned home, she sat in front of her vanity and carefully made up her face. It was as if she painted on some perfect mask to greet him at the door. Not that she had a ton of blemishes, even close up. Her skin had a couple of dark spots here and there, and there were shadows under her eyes that disappeared with her skilled hand. She couldn’t quite fix the side of her mouth that sagged, but she tried her best. It left just a slight distortion to her perfectly made-up image.

Diego had gotten to know her face really well as she sat in front of the camera each day, staring straight into it. Her eyes held color after all. They were mostly brown, with little flecks of green he could only make out in that one close-up camera.

Hannah Ashford still wasn’t beautiful, especially with her dimples hidden. Diego decided boredom was what drew his gaze to her each day as he tried to figure out her routine.

“The client seems anxious about this one,” Ramiro said in his ear. “I trust your gut. It’s saved us more than once.”

Diego had known Ramiro since the older boy pulled him off the streets and into the clutches of Nino Zeta. Zeta looked for boys like him, with no past and no future until he gave them one with blood. Not all the boys made it.

Diego had. He would have thanked Ramiro for what he’d done if he didn’t want to kill him for it. Sure, Diego’s belly had been full for the first time in his life, but his hands were stained.

Becoming healthy enough to no longer be skin and bones let his mind work better. He’d gotten Ramiro and Zeta’s other sicarios out of trouble over the years, though his preference was to work alone.

When it turned out Diego had a knack for gadgets and devices, Ramiro offered him a place in his part of the business. It was sold as security, but that wasn’t what was being provided at all.

There were no good people in the world, so Diego didn’t mind what he did.

It was much better than the life he’d left behind. He’d excelled at killing, but it had lost any challenge. Most of his marks never had the chance to fight back.

Not that they were able to fight what he did now. They never knew how their dark secrets were discovered.

“Are you still there?” Ramiro asked.

Diego clicked away from the intel files and settled back in his chair. “Yeah.”

“I said, we can always pull the plug if something doesn’t seem right.”

Diego’s gaze moved to the screen, watching the boy eat another single pea. “No need,” he murmured. Then he hung up on his friend and leaned forward.

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