Page 14 of Agent vs. Assassin

A new ME I don’t know is already examining the body, and I really don’t care at this point. Nothing worth knowing is going to be discovered. The only juicy bit I’ve seen on this crime scene thus far is Ghost and the phone he left behind for me to locate. I wonder if he was testing me to see if I’d find it before the team got here. I wonder if he thinks I’m stupid enough to carry it around with me and allow him to track me.

I walk past the ME without a word and find Enrique waiting for me beside the door he’s opened. There’s a smug look on his face as I pass the door and stare at an empty room. No one locks an empty room unless the room has a secret.

Chapter Nine

At this point, the forensics team is on scene, and I ensure the room is on their radar, but I’m in no rush. Whoever scrubbed the space was over-the-top thorough. We won’t find anything, and knowing a cleanup job took place doesn’t tell us the story we need told, but I do wonder if Mark put up a fight and Ghost called in some sort of cleanup team.

With this in mind, I leave Enrique lingering by the front door and walk toward my brother. He’s chatting with the ME, who’s a tall, gym rat of a dude who looks like a Ken doll. And Ken playing with dead bodies makes him a creepster to me. He’s a secret serial killer; he has to be.

“Lilah, this is Oliver,” my brother says as I join the two of them. “Oliver, this is my sister, Agent Lilah Love.”

“Mendez,” I say, just to irritate my brother. “The name is Mendez. I married my gangster boyfriend, remember?”

Oliver laughs. “Gotta love the sibling dynamic. I have one myself. She irritates the fuck out of me, and yet I still love her.”

“I hate him,” I say, but I don’t hate Oliver quite as much as I expected, not so far. My ability to hate runs far and wide.

“Oh, I hate her as much as I love her,” he says, and it’s as if he’s right there in my head, plucking words out for his own use. Fuck. Hate. “That bitch,” he continues, “just invited my mother over for a weekend at my place without asking me first, which would be fine if my mother wasn’t the meanest person I’ve ever known.”

“You just met me,” I say. “Don’t write me off yet.” I don’t allow Andrew a chance to agree, moving on with, “How long has he been dead?”

“Three hours max.”

Which accounts for my travel time and Ghost’s boredom while waiting on my arrival. “Was the body moved?” I ask, and if he doesn’t have a fast answer, he’s a dumbass, and his endearing foul language won’t matter. He’ll be dead to me.

“Of course,” he preens. “Logically, no one gets shot and lands on a piano that fucking high. He was moved fast, though, before rigor set in.”

I eye my brother. “We have a locked room that was wiped clean, not a stitch of furniture. Even the electric plugs were taken out.”

“What about the floor?” Andrew asks. “Is it carpet?”

“Hardwood,” I say, eyeing Andrew, who says, “Of course, we’ll rip it up. But I’m not optimistic we’ll find anything when it’s been cleaned as precisely as you describe.”

“On that note,” Oliver interjects, his brows knitting together, “why was cleanup even needed in another room?”

“You said the body was moved,” Andrew argues. “I assume that meant he got shot in that room.”

“This was a precise hit, a bullet between the eyes. The blood spatter is right next to the piano. The victim was lifted but not moved across the room. Furthermore, the blood spatter wasn’t cleaned up.”

“Then whatever happened in that room was unrelated to today’s kill.”

“I can’t say it was unrelated,” Oliver amends, “but it wasn’t where this man was murdered.” His attention lands on me. “Were the other victims posed? That’s an act of a serial killer mentality, not that of a paid-for-hire assassin.”

“They were not,” I state.

“That’s quite odd,” he replies. “Why pose this one?”

“Because this isn’t the same guy,” I say easily, now certain that Ghost told me the truth. He didn’t kill the first two victims. He killed Mark to make him the number two assassin. “And he has nothing to do with whatever happened in that room. For all we know, it’s the start of a remodel.”

I motion for Andrew to step away from Oliver with me. Oliver takes a hint. “I’ll get back to work.” He offers us space we don’t have to claim.

“Who else lived in the house?”

“No one since his wife left him about six months ago,” he says, “but of course, there’s a housekeeper who just so happens to be in Europe.”

Of course, she is. “Get her on the phone and find out what used to be in the locked room to the right of the front door. And I need an address on the ex.”

“That would be Maine.”

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