CHAPTER 1
HARLOW
"That's the last of it."
Archer turned off the tap and wound the hose over on the hook on the wall. Wry expression on his face, he tucked the wooden box which contained the last of Granger Fairfield's remains under his arm. As if he did this daily—maybe he did—he carried it over to an industrial oven in the corner of the converted bathroom. He pulled the handle down to open the door, letting out a blast of heat.
"Good riddance," I said softly, the words more than Fairfield deserved. Silently I added,Fuck off and burn in Hades.
"Yeah." Easing the door wider, Archer placed the contents inside, box and all.
The door shut with a clang and a rush of cooler air that made me shiver.
"I have to admire this set-up of yours," Boner said, peering through the door into the oven as the heat incinerated the last of the evidence. "I'm impressed, Hardaway.” The Englishman turned and nodded at Archer.
Archer glanced at Boner with narrowed eyes, like he wanted to toss him into the oven along with Fairfield.
"Hardwick. I researched the best ways to dispose of bodies before I got any of this."
Of course he did. The guy practically had a PhD in Internet research. In this case, though, he'd done a good job. Thorough. By the time he disposed of the ashes, no one would ever know someone was dismembered and killed here.
No one but the five of us.
"Anything else?" I walked over to where Cassius Titmus was squinting at Fairfield's phone.
His brow was creased, hair falling over half of his face.
"He's meticulously deleted every message and call that went through this phone." Cass looked frustrated. "Unless he didn't receive any. Or send anything."
"How likely is that?" I asked, the question redundant. Probably.
"This phone might have been a decoy," I added. If there was anything assholes like Fairfield were good at, it was covering their tracks. He could have had twenty different phones for twenty different uses for all we knew.
Honestly, I believed that as much as Cass did. Which, judging by the skepticism on his face, was not at all.
He shoved hair back off his face and shook his head slowly, the hair immediately falling back over the lens of his glasses.
"It looks well-used. The crack on the edge here doesn't look new." He pointed to it. "The case looks like he's handled it a lot." He turned it around to show me.
The case was generic, black leather or a material that resembled it. The sides and across the middle were worn from being held by a wide hand. It was too late to measure Fairfield's for an exact fit, but it would be close enough if I had to guess.
"I guess he won't be getting a new one when they release," I said facetiously. Not that I wasn't still using a three-year-old phone myself.
Cass chuckled and glanced in the direction of the oven, his throat bobbing in a deep swallow.
He'd adopted the same mission as the rest of us: ridding the world of people who hurt the innocent. Unlike Boner, Archer and me, he was still squeamish. Tentatively revolted by our methods. Taking part only here and there.
Right now, there was something else in his expression. Satisfaction.
He wouldn't regret the death of the man who raped his younger brother.
We had that in common. I wouldn't regret the death of the man who raped and murdered my younger sister, Lottie.
Fairfield and six others. Four of them were dead. The other three? My mission in life was to find them and make sure they ended the same way as Fairfield.
Painfully dead.
"I don't suppose there's any information on the identities of Hypnos, Eros or Zeus?" I asked, already knowing the answer. If he'd found that, he would have told me already.
