Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(30)

The man’s fingerprints were on the smooth flange at one end of the hose, on the utility knife used to cut the hose to length, and on the button that controlled the window. Shepard knew this because he had put the man’s fingerprints there.

It wasn’t difficult when the man was unconscious. There were several readily available short-term sedatives which, when taken in quantity, would achieve the desired effect without triggering the attention of a pathologist. Autopsies were rare due to their expense, but Shepard was meticulous in both planning and execution.

“I had Smitty’s team take point on something while you were gone.” The salesman talked quickly, as he almost always did. He appeared to think it conveyed a sense of urgency. “Our client was in a hurry, and it went south. I need you to clean it up.”

“Details?”

“Smitty’s out of contact, which has never happened before. Bert’s team is on the way. I want you to work alongside.”

Shepard did not like working with a team. Or cleaning up mistakes, for that matter.

“We’ve had this conversation,” he said. “I work alone.”

“This is different. This could be the big one. Would you please, for once, just do what I tell you?”

“I’m not your employee,” Shepard pointed out. “I’m your partner.”

“Technically, you’re a part-time consultant with a profit-sharing agreement. And you can’t see the whole board. Let me do my job. You do yours.”

In the Mercedes, the man’s head moved slightly to one side. His eyelids fluttered.

“I need to go,” said Shepard. “I’ll check the drop and call you later.”

“What time?”

“Later,” said Shepard. “I’m consulting.” He turned off the phone and tucked it back in his pocket under the Tyvek suit. When the glove was back on his hand, he compressed the hose to free it from the window, then opened the door of the big black sedan. The smell of exhaust was powerful. The man’s eyes were mostly open now and he looked at Shepard stupidly, his lips trying to form words.

The car interior had been restored quite extravagantly. Polished chrome and creamy leather. It had cost a great deal of money, Shepard was sure, but he didn’t see the point of luxury at such cost. It was an inefficient use of resources, and appeared to be largely an attempt to convince others of one’s worth in the world. If you knew your worth, the expense was unnecessary.

As a place to die, however, there were worse locations. Shepard had seen many.

His plan for this particular death had been for the sedative to fade as the carbon monoxide took over. Clearly the man’s metabolism was more active than Shepard had anticipated. He did not like people with vigorous fitness regimes. They complicated his planning. And it never mattered in the end, when it counted.

He climbed into the spacious front seat and straddled the man’s lap, blocking the arms with his knees. He felt again the electric thrill of being in physical contact with another person. The intimacy of it. It struck him, as it always did, how odd it was for his most intimate relationship to be with the person whose life he was taking.

But it was an intimate thing, wasn’t it? To end a life?

The man struggled weakly beneath him. Shepard maneuvered the end of the vacuum hose past the man’s teeth with one gloved hand, and gently clamped off the nostrils with the other. There might be some slight bruising, but it couldn’t be helped.

The man didn’t fight very hard.

They rarely did.

Soon enough he stopped breathing entirely.

Shepard returned the hose to the window gap, smoothed the wrinkles from the man’s clothes, closed the car door, did a quick check for anything out of place, then let himself out the back.

The dead man had complex ties to a certain informal organization that took information security quite seriously. Members of this organization were displeased to discover that the man in the Mercedes had been subverting their resources for his own ends, and were understandably anxious to sever the relationship. There would likely be more work to follow, but Shepard had not yet received those instructions.

He wondered what the man had thought as he sat dying in his unnecessary car. Had the man used diverted funds to restore the Mercedes in which he had died?

Had he thought it was strange? Or funny? Or sad?

Shepard would never know.

On the bluestone patio by the pool, Shepard removed his Tyvek suit, gloves, booties, and surgical cap. He rolled them into a ball and placed them into his tool bag. The back garden was quite lovely, with many flowers in bloom. The smell of plant growth was intoxicating.

He tilted his face to the sun, savoring the heat on his skin, the fresh air in his lungs, the blood flowing through his veins.

Completing an assignment, even one this simple, always made him feel acutely alive.

None of them were difficult, not for Shepard. He liked putting together the puzzle, making events unfold in a certain way. Nor did he mind the actual work, ending the lives of others. Killing people. He was certainly good at it. Years ago, he’d once overheard his instructors saying that Shepard was a natural, the best they’d ever seen. He took pride in this knowledge.

Still, it was important to keep himself focused and fit and prepared. A simple job could become difficult at any moment. And he was approaching a significant milestone.

In years past, the anniversary of his birth had always been simply one more day, the same as any other. So it came as a surprise, this idea that turning forty might be important somehow.