Page 79 of Hidden Ascent

“How should I know? If I was him, I’d kill her since she’s supposed to be dead already, but he may have a better idea. His ideas are usually much grander than most. Either way, I’m sure he’ll be appreciative. Or he’ll kill you. I can’t say for certain.” Simmo laughed. “I’m kidding.”

“You say that, but I know enough about Sharpe’s reputation to know there’s a bit of truth in that.”

They pulled into a parking garage and didn’t stop until they were on the roof.

“Wait here,” Simmo said after he’d parked.

He walked across the lot to a limo parked on the far side. The back window lowered, and Simmo bent down, blocking any view of the inside.

A minute later, he returned. “All right. Let’s go.” He led Jay to the limo and opened the door. “Get in.”

Jay took one more look at Simmo, trying to read him, but he just looked bored, and Jay had little choice but to get in the car where he found himself sitting across from a fifty-something man with salt-and-pepper hair.

Chapter18

“Mr. Sharpe.Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice,” Jay said as he took in the interior of the limo.

“Jayden Parker, I presume?” Sharpe offered him a glass with an amber liquid inside.

Jay put up a hand to decline. “Please, call me Jay.”

“Jay. I’m surprised we haven’t run across each other before today considering our lines of work. Simmo tells me you’ve recently had an incident you need cleared up?”

“You mean with Shoemaker?”

“Are you asking me?”

“Just checking to see if we’re on the same page. But yes, I’m not Shoemaker’s favorite person at the moment.”

“I hope you understand, Jay, I don’t clean up messes. That’s your job.”

“That’s not why I wanted to meet with you. Not the main reason, anyway. I expect my situation with Shoemaker will become obsolete after you hear what I have to say.”

Sharpe crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap, taking his time to respond. “You may be interested to know that I’ve considered contacting you on several occasions recently because of your reputation, but something always stopped me.”

“Actually, a little while back, you asked me to do a job for you.”

“Did I? I don’t recall working with you.”

“I didn’t take the job.”

“Yet you expect me to hire you now?”

“I didn’t want to turn you down, but I knew I couldn’t do the job as effectively as you wanted. It wasn’t in my scope.”

“I can’t even recall, so I suppose it was nothing too important. But what I can say is that my instinct never steers me wrong.”

“What’s your instinct telling you now?”

“You’re not dead, so that’s a good start. But I’d like to know why it was necessary to kill Shoemaker’s nephew.”

“I was hired to do a job, and Spider interfered.”

“Enough that you saw a need to end his life and threaten the relationship you’d built with his uncle?”

“Yes. It wasn’t my first choice, but he was about to kill me. I did what I had to do.” Jay leaned forward. “Sharpe, I know you’re the type of man who wants to hear it straight, and the truth is, Spider was a liability. He was rash and stupid. Shoemaker might not see it now, but I did him a favor. Spider was tarnishing his reputation, and it would be his downfall in the end.”

“That’s a possibility, but some things need to be discovered by experience. I don’t expect Shoemaker will ever see the good side of your actions.”

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