It strikes the edge of the teak desk with a sharp crack.
Shards of crystal dig into my palm, slicing deep into the meat of my hand. Amber liquid splashes over my fingers, soaking intothe cuff of my shirt, dripping onto the leather desk blotter. Blood wells up instantly, dark and fast, mixing with the alcohol.
I don’t feel the pain.
I drop the license. It clatters onto the desk, landing face up. Iris Hale stares up at me with that polite, forced smile.
Hale.
Judge William Hale.
The man who owns me.
The Judge.
The man who sent me the “Bluebird” code.
The man who ordered the hit.
The strength goes out of my knees, and I stumble back, bracing myself against the edge of the desk to keep from falling.
“No,” I whisper. The word is a rasp, a plea to a universe that doesn’t listen to men like me. “No. Not him. Anyone but him.”
I close my eyes, but the darkness doesn’t help. The logic assembles itself in my mind like a firing squad lining up against a wall.
The Judge sent me to the museum to kill Elias. He told me Elias was a terrorist. He gave me the code to the secure dossier. He knew where Elias would be. He knew exactly when he would be there.
And yet his daughter was there.
His daughter was in the building in the middle of the night. Using his security code.
The pieces snap into place.
I couldn’t figure out how a florist had access to the museum in the middle of the night without tripping the alarms. I thought she was a spy. I thought she picked the lock.
But Judge Hale is the Chairman of the Museum Board.
She didn’t need to swipe a keycard or bribe a guard. She wasn’t stealing the code; she was using her father’s.
Why?
Why was she there?
If she is a florist... if she really was fixing the lilies... then she was collateral damage.
Was she a plant? A witness sent to ensure I did the job?
No.
The order was “No Witnesses.”
If I’d followed protocol, I’d have put a bullet in her head before she ever opened her mouth. The Judge wouldn’t send a spy to a slaughter. He didn’t send her.
That means the Judge sent me to kill a man in the same building where his daughter was working. Did he know?
He had to know. The Judge knows everything. He’s a man of details. He controls the board. He controls the schedule.
If he knew she was there... and he sent me anyway...
