“Um. Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.” He reached out with a hand to motion for me to step by him. “Is this your floor?”
“What floor is it?” I sounded like a dumbass. A complete dumbass.
“Fifth.” His mouth twitched.
“Ah, yes. It is.” He didn’t say anything, just watched me. “My floor, I mean. It’s my floor.”
“Here, let me get out of your way.” He stepped aside and I realized that he was being polite while I had been staring again.
“Thank you.” Taking a breath, I stepped out of the elevator and was going to head to the flat, but found myself turning around to ask if he lived in the building.
“I hope you enjoyed your drink at the café.” He held the door open with his hand while his eyes traveled over me in a lazy perusal. I fought the urge to look down and check what I was wearing. I was pretty sure it wasn’t anything that should garner that much attention.
“I-I did.” I cleared my throat and smiled at him. “Thank you.”
“Ah, there it is.” He stepped back, letting go of the door, and pressed a button. “You have a lovely smile.”
“Thank you.” I felt my lips curve upward even more just as the doors closed. I walked back to the flat, a little pep to my step. Even if I never saw him again, the compliment was a nice one.
I LEANED AGAINST the wall of the elevator and fiddled with the lock picks in my pocket. Running into the girl with the bright eyes and killer smile had been a nice surprise. I’d barely been able to take my eyes off her when she came into the little café. Her chipper American accent and friendliness with the staff had been charming. When leaving, I’d decided to send her a drink—a small way to thank her for brightening up a dreary day. In a city this large, I hadn’t expected to see her again. Certainly not in the building where my target lived.
Turning back to business, I ran over what I had found. Song’s apartment had been spotless, but I’d expected as much. The man had been in the trade for entirely too long to not make sure his hands were clean. The tell-tale sign was that he was too clean. There wasn’t a porno or single inappropriate email on his hard drive, but there had been a key tracker I’d had to disable. I had enough in the portfolio I’d received to be convinced of his involvement, but I kept hanging back.
The elevator dinged to signal I’d reached the ground floor and I stepped out. Something about this hit felt off and I was uneasy. I’d learned over the last few years to trust my gut even if my brain couldn’t figure out why.
Pushing through the doors, I nodded to the doorman and made my way around the corner to my hotel. I’d decided to stay close so that I could do a little more snooping before completing the assignment. It wasn’t a fancy place, but more than met my needs. Hell of a lot better than the last place I stayed. Bangkok had been a dirty nightmare.
I pulled at my tie as I shut my door and opened my laptop. Using the passwords one of my contacts had sent me, I downloaded videos from the local traffic cameras.
Song left every morning and took one of three routes to a small office in Canary Wharf. He wasn’t varied in which path he took each day. The man had fallen into a pattern that would be his ultimate downfall if I couldn’t get to him in his apartment. Flipping through the images, I paused on the car he drove. Other than a bullet, a bomb would be the simplest way to get rid of the pig. Even if it was much messier—which would probably make my client happy.
I snorted and got up to pour myself a drink. Any pimp that had been in the trade for as long as he had didn’t have an easy death coming to him. Considering the harsh life my mother had lived, I never turned down the chance to kill a pimp. I looked down at the amber liquid in my cup and frowned. He certainly didn’t deserve an easy death. Then again, most of the people I came in contact with didn’t; myself included.
I glanced back at the images of the dead prostitutes. High class women that brought in large amounts of money. These weren’t the women you would find on the corner or in a dark alley. No, you’d find them on the arm of a parliament member or a rich businessman. He had used them and then got rid of them for some reason. And in ways that had been particularly painful for the victims. The last one stared up at me with glossed over blue eyes. They would have been pretty before she died, would have shined with seduction and the promise of long nights, and behind that would have been the bored gaze of a person doing their job. I’d seen the type before.
My thoughts drifted back to the blue eyed girl in the elevator and I tried to push her out of my mind. Her eyes were so open, so unguarded. I’d seen the surprise in her face when I ran into her at the apartment, her self-consciousness when I’d looked her over, her embarrassment at being caught staring at me. It had all been there like an open book, beautifully written in the delicate lines of her face.
Monsters didn’t belong with the innocent. I was looking at pictures of dead call girls. I murdered people for a living. And I was fucking good at it, I reminded myself. It takes all kinds of people to make the world go around, and I was like the vultures that cleaned up the carrion on the side of the road. I got rid of the diseased pests that made the world a darker place. I was far from an avenging angel; I liked what I did. The satisfaction of taking out the garbage. But I knew better than to think I deserved a happily ever after. There would be no picket fence in my future.
Shoving the bright smile from my mind, I went through the rest of the information I had on Song, his contacts, and the people that worked in his office, before deciding what type of bomb to use on his car. I had several options, but I wanted one that would make a statement. Opening a small case I’d brought with me, I pulled out some of the pieces I needed and set to work. Tiny wires, a burner cell phone, and explosives. It didn’t have to be complicated, just effective.