Page 11 of The Assassin
Chapter Five
Entering an empty house is easy. A house that’s occupied? Not so easy, but doable. My options—and time—were limited, so having Roslyn’s daughter on the third floor had been an acceptable risk.
Abigail Roslyn was [twenty-one. Daddy’s little hostess for all social events, the exception being her Thursday nights free. An only child whose mother died when she was a toddler. Shedidn’t take after either parent with her dark red hair and curvy figure. Pictures of Roslyn’s events always showed her in the background, never at his side, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t aiding and abetting her father in whatever he did.
I entered the third floor from the back staircase just as I had the second. The back half of the floor contained guest rooms, and I holed up in one while Abigailfinished eating. Shadows kept me hidden as she descended the front stairs with her tray a few minutes later. In a loose-fitting tee and yoga pants, her hair up in a messy ponytail, she looked about fifteen. Too young to rule the staff with an iron fist; that was definitely Roslyn’s doing.
Maybe he rules Abigail as well. Does she resent that, resent him? Or does her father’s wealth and positionmake up for the lack of freedom?
I’d find out soon enough.
She returned minutes later, glancing in my direction as she topped the stairs. Her steps hitched, a flash of something crossing her face as she stared into the shadows, as if she could sense something not right. Some marks could. That didn’t mean they could find me.
Abigail didn’t either—she shook off whatever had caught her attentionand moved into her living area, already pulling the ponytail from her hair.
That hair. I watched it fall down her back as she passed through into her bedroom, the sight tightening something low in my gut. Long and curly, a vibrant splash of color. It would make her stand out anywhere, that hair. It certainly drew attention. My attention.
Abigail Roslyn was interesting, if secondary to my target.The question was, was she worth my time? Or maybe, more appropriately, how could I make her worth my time?
I waited five minutes more before easing from my position to enter the living area. From the crack of the bedroom door, the sound of water rushing into a tub reached me. I crouched nearby a few more minutes, alert, ready, until the water turned off and the splash of Abigail getting in camethrough. Only then did I do a quick, thorough search of the living room and add my bugs. Other than a day planner open on the desk, some textbooks and papers, there was nothing out in the open, nothing that would help me understand Roslyn except a single framed image: a beautiful blonde woman holding the hand of a redheaded toddler. The baby stared solemnly into the camera; the woman scowled frombeside a Porsche convertible.
The dead mother. Neither of them looked happy to me.
So why does she have this picture in her room, where she has to see it every day?
I slipped into Abigail’s bedroom.
The bathroom door was barely cracked, just as the bedroom door had been. Only someone who fully trusted that they were alone left doors open and unlocked. I knew from the blueprints that the gardentub she sat in right now was to the left, out of the line of sight to look into the bedroom. I searched carefully but quietly, ignoring the faint sounds of water trickling and sloshing as Abigail moved. Or telling myself I ignored it despite the fact that images of that red hair piled on top of her head, baring creamy shoulders above the water line, flicked through my head.
Get this done andgo find yourself a fuck, asshole. You’ve got a job to do.
Cream dominated this room—walls, bedding, curtains—as it had most of the house except the bleached-white kitchen. Despite the stark coloring, this room felt lived-in. A soft purple throw across the end of the bed. A collection of old perfume bottles adding color to the dresser. A neat stack of paperbacks on the bedside table. I pickedone up. Not an author I recognized, but then the half-naked man on the front said it wasn’t a genre I’d normally gravitate to.
It tells you what she’d gravitate to, doesn’t it?
I set the book back precisely in its place and continued my search.
The closet was bigger than some of the places we’d squatted in as kids. Evening gowns and formal clothes dominated, though one corner contained jeansand T-shirts and soft pants like she’d been wearing earlier. Expensive underwear and shoes.Only the best for Daddy’s little girl.
I doubted Roslyn viewed it that way. There had been no pictures of him with his daughter in her living space, no personal pictures at all in his quarters downstairs, only images of him with other prominent businessmen and politicians, celebrities. She was a necessity,not a loved family member.
But necessities were vital for a reason. I could use that.
Filing the intel away, I went through the wallet sitting on her dresser: fifty dollars in cash, a credit card in her father’s name, a student ID and meal card, as well as a frequent buyer card for the campus coffee shop with half the squares punched. Nothing else in her wallet. That confirmed what I’d learnedonline: she didn’t have a driver’s license, and her only pursuit outside of the hospitality she provided her father’s guests was a degree at one of the local universities. Humanities, though she’d recently attended a nursing course.
There was nothing here that changed my perception of her as a pawn in Roslyn’s political games. If she was useful to him, she would be useful to me. A man like Roslynwas all about reputation; his daughter would be above reproach, useful for the social aspects necessary for his job, then put on a shelf when he didn’t need her.
Maybe reputation was where I needed to hit him first.
The sound of water moving, lapping against the tub came from the bathroom as I exited the closet—Abigail washing her body. Taking a moment to add a bug to the backside of the headboard,I turned my attention to her phone, currently plugged into the charger on her bedside table. When the switch on the side was turned so the ringer wouldn’t sound, I unplugged the phone, turned it off, and removed the SIM card. Slid it into the SIM reader waiting in my pocket. I’d transfer the data to a new phone later, allowing me to clone Abigail’s phone and read any texts she sent or received.
There was nothing else I needed to do in this room, but when my feet moved, it wasn’t toward the living area; it was toward the bathroom door. Oh so carefully, I pushed—one inch, two. Just enough that the crack between the doorjamb and the edge of the door opened, barely allowing me a peek at the tub behind it.
A jolt hit my gut. Or maybe my cock—the blow was hard enough, I couldn’t distinguishbetween the two, because only a few feet away, Abigail Roslyn wasn’t simply bathing in her beautiful tub. She was arched back, her vibrant hair spilling across the lip of the bath, her eyes closed, [clenched in what I would believe was agony if it weren’t for the fingers pinching her upthrust nipples. The sound that escaped her, half moan, half sigh, wrapped around my cock like a silken fist, drawingmy balls up tight. It was the sound of sex, of hunger.
Of frustration. I knew it even before her eyes opened to stare at the ceiling. Her fingers twisted and plucked at the strawberry-pink tips, her body moved restlessly, but the look on her face wasn’t satisfaction. Torture, maybe. Painful need, but not satisfaction.
Her naked skin gleamed in the low lights of four candles lit at each cornerof the tub. I caught the faint scent of vanilla and some kind of flowers in the air, but it was the sight that kept my attention. She didn’t look fifteen anymore; she was every inch a woman, striving for her pleasure, needing something she wasn’t getting.
