Benjamin hung up the phone and turned to Charlene. Her eyes were sharp, focused on Benjamin. He didn’t like the scrutiny. He didn’t like Geneva Sanders, who had drilled him just now on the phone, and he didn’t like that Charlene had watched and now felt pity for him.
“Do you want me to kill her?” she asked. “I think I should.”
“I can do that myself.” And he would enjoy doing it too, if it wouldn’t fuck up his life as he knew it. Sanders was a bitch. No matter what was going down, nothing ever went right for her. It was hell, working for a boss like that.
Charlene had thought leaving the girl’s body out on the lake was the thing to do. It saved time. King’s round table was due to end at eleven and she’d needed to be back inside the house, tucked into her borrowed bed before Benjamin went looking for her. She’d needed to be present to say good-bye to their host. Benjamin wondered what exactly had happened when she chased the girl out of the house. Charlene had told him she had shown the gun to Beatrice Esparza, and she had promised to count to three before she fired.
Charlene liked a challenge, but she hadn’t expected the girl to move so fast, to run a winding path that eluded her bullets.
That had been a mistake.
A bullet was clean. It was fast. It was aim, fire, and return to business as usual. Maybe Benjamin could trace all of his current problems back to Charlene’s decision to go rogue.
Including Sanders current request—bring Esparza in alive and be ready to roll. It would be a quick drop-off. Sanders would have a car ready. They were getting out of Blue Mesa in minutes, not the hours Benjamin needed.
He didn’t like being rushed. But Sanders was his open door. She was a damn skyway to the top.
It had taken Benjamin years to get in on the medical trade. He’d started peddling cocaine to med students and then to their mentors. From there, he’d taken the position of middleman, directing the supply and demand of Vicodin and oxycodone from doctors who’d learned to tap into their reservoir of prescription drugs undetected and delivering to some unlikely customers worldwide. Benjamin had gone global, and he’d become a millionaire doing it. He’d polished his look along the way. He’d cultured his voice. Now he looked the part. Benjamin had found his niche. The clientele were people he liked keeping company with. The money was hand-over-fist better than any other he’d ever made. He liked the cut of his suits, his Louis Vuitton shoes, the conversations that waned from vacation hot spots to chemical compounds.
He had no intention of losing any of it.
“You fucked up with the girl,” he said.
“I chased her,” Charlene said.
“And lost her, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right. You’re always right.”
Too little, too late.
A woman like Charlene was hard to find. She needed the strength of a man and a little boy to spoil. When the target wasn’t moving, she was an excellent marksman. When the task called for it, she didn’t mind getting her hands dirty. It wasn’t like he could run an ad for her replacement, and he already anticipated some long hours when he would crave her company.
He stopped in front of her, used his knee to spread her legs, and stood inside that sweet space.
“You were perfect, you know that, honey?”
“Perfect?” Her voice was thin, wobbled only slightly. “That’s good, right? Not many people can stake that claim.”
He reached between them and withdrew the pistol she kept strapped to her thigh. It had surprised him the first time he held it, that it was so light. He’d doubted a bullet from this toy gun could do any damage, but Charlene had proved him wrong. Up close, the bullet penetrated the skull without hesitation. Inside it bounced around, tearing through gray matter. And when he held the blunt nose to her temple, he remembered that so small a caliber meant there would be very little spray.
Her eyes became fluid; her smile trembled. She whispered the word “Perfect,” and then he pulled the trigger. Her head flopped into the palm of his hand. Blood and tissue and bone fragments hit the sheet behind her. Breath flared in her nostrils and skittered across his skin. Once. Twice. A third, final, stuttered breath, and then he wrapped her head in the bedsheet and eased her to the floor, where blood seeped into carpet the color of midnight.