Surviving Ice (Burying Water, #4)(13)

I feel unease sliding down my back. I’ve been taking assignments from Bentley for almost five years, and all of them have been for middle-aged male targets and guaranteed threats. This will be the first female target, and we don’t even know if she truly is dangerous. I don’t like uncertainty when it comes to my job.

Setting the newspaper to the side, I flip open the tan folder. A petite, exotic girl with a full sleeve of tattoos and blue streaks in her black hair looks out at me, her piercing glare making me wonder if she might have seen the candid photo of her being snapped. She’s obviously part Asian, but her features are softer and fuller, suggesting a mix with something else.

I slide the end of the cigar into my mouth, reveling in the fresh grassy taste of the paper against my tongue, as I study her face. “What do we know about her?”

He tosses the cutters to me. “She never stays in one place for too long, she makes a lot of cash deposits and has several thousand in savings—a lot for someone her age and in her profession. She associates with dubious people. Bikers, street thugs. Even some dissident Irish Republicans when she was living in Dublin. She’s no innocent schoolgirl.”

Give Bentley twenty-four hours and he’ll have a dossier on anyone.

“We have to assume that she was in on it until we know otherwise, that her uncle involved her at some point, and gave her the videotape to hide.”

“And she needs to be eliminated?”

“I need to know all potential risks are eliminated.”

“That sounds like a collateral damage kill, Bentley, and you know I won’t do that.” My job is all about precision, and if I’m doing it right, there is no collateral damage. “Maybe she has it and doesn’t know it.”

Bentley pauses to stick his cigar into his mouth and light it. “You’re thinking Beijing, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” Two years ago, I was hunting down an American-born terrorist who stole a highly communicable virus from the CDC with intentions of selling it to extremists in North Korea. It took some blood and sweat, but he finally admitted to smuggling the tiny vial through American airport customs on his five-year-old daughter and then hiding it inside one of her dolls for the flight to Beijing, where he would await buyer contact.

News of the missing virus never made it beyond the walls of the CDC, buried to avoid pandemonium and public scrutiny; and whichever high-ranking CIA member tapped Bentley’s shoulder for help ensured that there would never be a paper trail to the U.S. government when the thief’s battered body washed up along the shore.

“Well, if that’s the case, she’s going to find out soon. She called a real estate agent about putting the place on the market within the next couple of weeks. She’ll have to clean it out to sell it, and if she finds a hidden videotape in there, she’ll sure as hell play it.”

Will it mean anything to her? Will she care?

Bentley draws several long pulls off the cigar to get it going, all the while watching me with a knowing gaze.

The copy of her driver’s license says she just turned twenty-five a few weeks ago. “Well, it’s definitely not hiding in one of her dolls,” I mutter quietly.

Bentley barks with laughter. “She looks like the type of girl who used to light dolls on fire instead.”

There’s definitely an edge to her, her heavy boots zagged with fluorescent pink laces, balancing out the plaid schoolgirl skirt that barely covers her ass. A skull stretches across her shirt, drawn in pink jewels, the California sun reflecting off them.

I wonder if it’s just a look, if her tongue and mind are as sharp.

“I need this handled right, Sebastian, and you’re the only one I trust,” he says between puffs, the rich, aromatic smoke fighting for my attention.

It’s the second time he’s said that.

“I’ll eliminate a known threat without question. You know that.” I settle my gaze on Bentley, who watches me intently. “But I won’t end an innocent life.”

He pauses and smiles, and there’s a hint of sympathy there. “I’m not asking you to. If she doesn’t know about the tape, then keep it that way. Find it and bring it to me, and she and the world can go on believing that those other two were random, unfortunate deaths.”

“That means I can’t question her openly,” I warn him. A few hours of questioning always gets me the answers I need. “This will take longer.”

He sighs. “Yes, I realize that. But if she has any knowledge of this . . .” He tips his head back and releases a ring of smoke. It holds its shape for a few seconds before dispersing into the air above our heads. “We need to ensure that she doesn’t have a chance to talk about it to anyone. Ever. Make it clean and quick and low-key. Coincidental.”

Low-key. Coincidental.

A car careening off a road. A body found underwater, tangled in the weeds. A used needle laced with heroin. Something that is tragic but doesn’t raise suspicions, especially given that her beloved uncle was murdered so recently.

The way Bentley’s talking about it, it’s like he’s already decided that she is a liability and needs to be gone. But I also know that he’s not sure, and that puts doubt in my mind. I never pull the trigger when there is doubt.

I study her severe scowl again. Even with it, there is a unique beauty in her face. She’s not on the run, which makes me think Bentley is wrong and she doesn’t know anything about what her uncle was up to. That, or her uncle’s murder didn’t scare her enough. But what if her uncle dragged her into something against her will? What if she knows something she can’t simply unknow? Does she still deserve that kind of “low-key, coincidental” end?