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“And do it slowly. I have you and your brother in my sights and can drop you both if you respond to any foolish impulses.”
Beth turned and peered through the dismal afternoon light at the new office block on the other side of the street.
“First floor. See the open window?”
Beth saw the tiny square of darkness within the smoked glass opposite, vertical blinds bunched beside it.
“Now, alert Jody to the situation. If he tries to stand or dive to the floor, I’ll put a hole through his brain. Turn and do it.”
Beth felt the muscles in her neck tremble as she swivelled on her feet to face him. “Jody.”
He looked distractedly up from the TV and then reacted to her expression.
“Stay seated and listen. There’s a gun on us, the window – other side of the street. We have to do exactly as we’re told...”
“Good.” She heard the gunman swallow in her ear.
Jody cracked his mouth to speak but, knowing of his sister’s recent ordeal, thought better of it. The cushion resting against the back of the sofa beside him exploded, the white stuffing bursting as two more shots sliced through it.
“Stop!” Jody’s hands were in the air, his rigid features anticipating another bullet an inch nearer. “Fuck, stop!” He spat at the fibres of stuffing drifting over his face.
“Precision hardware this time, I’m hunkered down and I have all night. I can see the remote on the arm of the chair. Tell Jody to switch off the TV so I can hear you properly.”
Beth relayed the instruction to Jody and he quickly obeyed. She turned back to the window, gripping the receiver tight. “Don’t hurt him; he isn’t a part of this.”
“He’s as much a part of this as you. Granted, he hasn’t caused as much inconvenience. He’s a loose end, though. Especially given the little package he assembled that you just sent to Agent Morales.”
Beth felt her leg shudder and waited for the spark in the black space she could see through the holes in the cracked glass.
“I’ve been hacking you from the moment you offered to buy the clip that Trip Stillman recorded. You brought yourself into play. You weren’t even part of my contract until then. I extracted the details of Jody’s LA condo from his computer. It was how I made your decision to take a trip to the States so easy. I broke in and waited for you there. You stood me up, first. Things would have been so much easier if you’d shown up. The outcome was always going to be the same, so you could have saved both of us a trip back here.”
Beth remembered how neatly the hole had been silently drilled in the forehead of the receptionist in the LA hotel.
“I’m a completionist, like to serve my indentures. But before I finish the job, I wanted to give you something.”
Beth waited, her heart kicking at her chest.
“When I can, I prefer to offer my guiltless targets the benefit of knowing why they’re about to die. To at least inform them their termination isn’t arbitrary...”
Beth swallowed hard, peeling her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
*
“I know you’re probably hoping I can clear up the whole Allegro business, but honestly, I can’t. I found the message from Rae Salomon on your cell when I hacked into it and then your searches for it online. I assumed it was something you needed to figure out. I used it as a way to lure you to LA via the Facebook page.”
Beth darted her eyes around the room, looking for a place they might take cover.
“Keep ’em on the window, mh?”
She realised how clearly she was in his sights.
“I’m sorry there won’t be that closure for you, but there is one pertinent piece of information I can offer, seeing as I was one of the few people who saw everything the day your car went off the road.”
