650 West Chicago Avenue,
Chicago, Illinois
When Pavel’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket, he was sitting on the bank of the river outside the building where they printed theChicago Tribune. He’d wiled away the hours watching tourists lean over the rails of their tour boats. Their noses all sunburned. Their faces all sweaty. But they always smiled as they snapped pictures of the skyscrapers growing in the near distance like limbless metal trees.
When was the last time he himself had taken a vacation? He couldn’t remember. And the last assignment he’d had in Aruba, taking out the former Japanese prime minister, certainly didn’t count. He’d been on and off the little island in less than twenty-four hours.
His phone buzzed again, but he didn’t immediately answer it. Instead, he listened to the end of this most recent tour guide’s tale of how the gangster, Al Capone, had once held the city in his thrall with bootleg booze, tommy guns, and men in three-piece suits riding around in bulletproof Cadillacs.
He felt a certain kinship to Mr. Capone. Like Pavel, Al had lived hard. Lived fast. And answered to no one.
There was honor in that. Greatness even.
When the guide finished his spiel, Pavel thumbed on his phone. “Da? Yes?”
“Took you long enough,” was Bishop’s opening salvo.
Impatient, as always.
Refusing to rise to the bait, he asked, “Have you found Agent Beacham?”
“I was able to pull CCTV footage showing she exited the city on the back of the same motorcycle that rode to her rescue earlier. A traffic camera caught her traveling through Gary, Indiana. And then security footage from a gas station had them heading north in Michigan on Highway 140.”
Pavel pushed up from the embankment and rubbed the loose grass from the seat of his jeans. Play time was over. He had to get back to work.
Lighting a cigarette, he headed toward the public parking garage where he’d stowed his rented car.
“Do you know their final destination?” he asked.
“Not yet. But I do knowwhoshe was riding behind. Man’s name is Hunter Jackson. Before he became part of the president’sgoon squad, as you so accurately called them, he was a decorated Green Beret. I won’t bore you with the details of all his medals and commendations, but he’s not your everyday, average army grunt. Keep that in mind when you confront him.”
“Nyet.There will be no confrontation,” Pavel shook his head even though Bishop couldn’t see him. “There will only be death. Do you still want me to make it look like she committed suicide?”
“That’d be best. But at this point, I think she just needs to die. If her death leads to more inquiries into what she was investigating, I’ll deal with them as they arise.”
“Very good.” Pavel nodded, his options for terminating the lady agent expanding exponentially. “I’ll see that it’s done once you get me her location.”
“Working on it,” Bishop assured him. “Now that I know who she’s with, I can start sifting through the man’s life until I find out where he’s most likely to take her. Initial inquiries haven’t revealed any properties he owns in the state, but he does have one cousin there. I’m lifting every rock to see what comes crawling out from under it. In the meantime, get out of Chicago. Get to Michigan. And start heading north. I’ll call you when I know more.”
“Very good,” Pavel repeated and then shoved the phone in his pocket when Bishop abruptly ended the call.
There was a lightness to his step as he crossed the street, ignoring the blaring horn of a disgruntled taxi driver who took exception to his jaywalking. When he started whistling his favorite tune, the notes sounded sweeter. Truer. Brighter.
It had been years since one of his targets had made him work for it. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed the chase. And how much sweeter it made the eventual catch and kill.
17
3 Majestic Ridge Road
Hunter decided the level of enjoyment he got from watching Grace eat bordered on a kink.
Every morsel she shoved between her sweet, upside-down lips had saliva gathering in his mouth. Each time she used the tip of her tongue to swipe at a crumb, his stomach tightened into a painful fist. And when she sucked mayonnaise from her fingers?
Fuck a duck.His dick actually jumped behind his fly.
She’d emerged from the bedroomnotin the painted-on jeans, but in a pair of his boxer briefs and one of his T-shirts. The jeans had been sexy as hell, but nothing had prepared him for how he’d feel seeing her inhisclothes. To know a shirthe’dworn a hundred times was draped across her breasts. Underwearhe’dlounged around in cupped her sweet, heart-shaped ass.
Her blond hair was damp and falling around her shoulders. Her pretty face was scrubbed free of the dust from the road. And her long legs were bent so her bare feet perched on the lowest rung of the barstool as she sat at the kitchen island.
