Page 8 of The Ghost Assassin

“I’m both,” she dares, obviously getting more confident. “Any details you can give me?”

“How far out are you?”

“Five. I just happened to be close.”

“Then you’ll know in five.”

“Okay. Thank you for believing in me.”

“You won’t be thanking me later, but that’s what you get for being a model trying to make it as an ME.”

I can almost see her crinkle her perfect brow. “What does that mean?”

I disconnect and eye the skinny Homeland Security dude walking down the hallway with Jay by his side. “Agent,” the Homeland Security agent greets me. “Your other man says he needs a minute. I cleared him to come up. I’m Agent Taylor, by the way.”

“Did you tell Director Ellis I told him to fuck off?”

“Actually, you told him to fuck himself,” he corrects, “and I do like to get the facts straight. Therefore, I told him to fuck himself.” Unlike pretty much everyone else around me every day of my life, he’s matter of fact about that explanation, no emotion or judgment to be detected.

“I might actually like you, Taylor.”

“Do you want to know what he said?”

“I don’t care what he said.” I reach into my bag and pull out a pair of gloves that I smack into Jay’s gut. With a grunt, he grabs them and curses in Spanish.

“This is not what I signed up for.”

“You wanted me to trust you. This is me trusting you.”

He grumbles under his breath and then asks, “How bloody is it?”

“It’s not, and that’s why any normal human would be scared. But the good news is that I’m not normal.”

Chapter Five

Jay stands over Murphy and stares down at him.

“He didn’t fight,” he says, and glances at me. “I’ve seen men fight. Their limbs were all over the place when they landed, not neatly aligned like this guy’s. Either he didn’t fight, or the killer positioned his limbs just right the way the Umbrella Man did.”

“Fighting was wasted effort and he knew it. He was unarmed and standing face-to-face with a professional killer,” I add and change the subject. “Anything that would be obvious and damaging to whoever hired the killer will almost one hundred percent be gone. Look for things that Murphy might have tucked away—under a mattress, in a pill bottle. Be creative. And do it quickly.”

“You actually want me to help you investigate? You trust me?”

To get himself killed on my behalf, yes, I think, but what I say is, “To fuck this crime scene up trying to protect me, no. You’re too scared of everything to risk messing up. I trust you.”

I’m already in the kitchen opening drawers by the time he steps into the room and begins helping. “I took a bullet for you. I’m not scared.”

“Chicken shit is different than scared,” I reply, finding the drawers empty, which isn’t all that surprising. He doesn’t live here. He decided to come and hang out for my father’s election day, which never felt right.

“I’m not a chicken shit or scared,” Jay replies and says, “These drawers are empty.”

“Because they’re too obvious.” I motion to the kitchen table to his right. “Under the legs. Look at the feet.”

“The feet are too small to have anything attached.”

“Tell that to Jessica Moore, who taped her ex-husband’s photo drive to the bottom of a kitchen chair. It was everything we needed to convict him of killing her. That was actually one of my first homicides.”

“Fine,” he grumbles. “I’ll look at the feet.” He flips a chair over as I open the freezer, which is empty.

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