Page 5 of Brought to Light
The seconds dragged by, then minutes. Finally the lights went out in the coffee shop and John emerged and locked the door behind him. If he went home—and it wasn’t like this town had any night life, so he didn’t have much choice—he’d turn right and pass me on the other side of the street.
For a moment he simply stood there, pale face turned up to the sky, eyes closed. How did his skin glow like that without any moonlight or anything? No one looked like that under a fluorescent streetlight.
Turned out he did have a choice, because he opened his eyes, shook his head, and turned left, walking briskly the way I’d gone when I went down to the beach.
Oh, fuck no. If I hadn’t been in stalking mode, I’d have kicked something. He’d be easy prey there. No one around, the sound of the waves to cover anything—I couldn’t be sure the other guy wasn’t watching too, no matter how carefully I’d checked. He could’ve circled back after I did, for one thing. John had a head start. If I ran after him my footsteps would give me away. If I’d simply waited on the beach myself—fuck.
So I did the only thing I could do. I spun and jogged down the alley away from the main street. I’d run parallel, catch up with them on the dunes, and pray the killer didn’t get the job done and disappear to report in that Ihadn’tgotten the job done before I could take him out too.
Someone had to die tonight, but it wasn’t fucking going to be me.
Chapter Three
Callum
At the end of the block, a noise made me pause. Fuck, the sound of pounding feet. Two sets, and getting closer. The other guy might’ve been ahead of me, but he’d flushed our quarry out and sent him right back into my waiting arms. I flattened myself against the side of the brick building on the corner and had my Beretta in hand within a millisecond. Closer, and the sound of panting breaths—and then John, his hair flying wildly and his face pink and shiny, barreled around the corner.
I shot my arm out and caught him around the waist, neatly clotheslining him and sending him sprawling on the ground.
John let out a cry of surprise and pain and rolled onto his back, just in time for the other set of pounding feet to close in.
An instant later, Asshole Two came around the corner and launched himself at John, snarling something in a guttural language I couldn’t understand, his—Jesus Christ, sharpened—teeth gleaming.
Sometimes, when I was in a situation like this, time slowed down. Became elastic. Every detail struck me at once, but I processed them individually: John’s wide, panicked blue eyes, sheened with tears, maybe; the flash of something in the other guy’s hand, a knife with a wickedly curved blade; the damp of mist or possibly the start of rain cooling my cheeks and settling in my hair; the weight of my gun in my hand.
John was my mark, a dead man the second Jesse told me we had to take the job. That was how it worked. There simply couldn’t be room for anything else.
I flipped the gun in my hand, grasping it neatly by the barrel, and time sped up again. John cried out, raising his bruised and gritty palms to fend off his attacker, and the grip of my pistol thwacked into the asshole’s temple with a meaty crunch. He collapsed like I’d cut his strings, his face smacking into the pavement and his limp arm falling across John’s legs. The knife gleamed against the dull concrete, reflecting the pearl-gray of the sky like a mirror. It looked—the knife was a single bone, sharpened to a point at the end. The fuck. No matter how useful a spare knife might be, I wouldn’t be touching that fucking thing.
Something else fell out of his other hand and rolled onto the sidewalk: a plastic flashlight, it looked like. Without thinking too hard, I snatched that up and stuffed it in my pocket. I didn’t have one, and I might need it later. Digging graves went easier if you could see what you were doing.
John stared up at me, his pink lips parted, giving me a glimpse of his teeth. His tongue flicked out to wet his lower lip. “Is he dead?”
I shrugged. “Probably. Or will be, if no one gets him to a hospital.” I hadn’t flipped the gun around out of any desire to spare his life. I just hadn’t wanted the noise of a gunshot to attract attention.
John suddenly scrambled out from under the dead weight of the guy I’d maybe just killed, rolling to his knees and panting heavily, his head hanging between his shoulders like he was trying not to throw up.
Fucking civilians. I caught him around the upper arm and hauled him to his feet. He was as light as he looked. Dandelion fluff. His hair brushed my chin as he lurched upward, and a shiver went down my neck.
My fingers went all the way around his arm. I gave him a squeeze, and not a gentle one. He shuddered.
“Who the fuck is this, and what did he want?”
Of course, I already knew the answer. But I needed to know if he did. I still had no idea why the spooks wanted this kid dead…but John might know. And what he knew might save my life, or Jesse’s, if this went even further fucking south.
“I have no idea what his name is,” John said, his voice wavering. “I was on my way to work. He—tried to kill me.”
All my bullshit alarms started to clang. I’d fully expected an answer like that, and I’d even been prepared to possibly believe it.
But Johndidknow, or he had some idea, anyway. John knew he was a target. And that made the total innocuous emptiness of his file sound like a part of the setup—even though Jesse’s research hadn’t turned up anything more. The quaver in his voice, the way he couldn’t quite look me in the eye, the fidget of his hand—it all told me he was lying. And not that well.
I tightened my grip, hard, drawing out a yelp of pain, and yanked him around to face me. We were chest to chest, and I glared him right in the eye. He was just that tiniest little bit shorter than me. It was enough. I knew how to loom.
“You know who the fuck he is,” I growled at him. “And you’re going to tell me.”
His eyes widened impossibly more, turning into big blue innocent pools that were perfect for an idiot like me to fall and drown in.
“I—I swear,” he stammered. “I don’t know his name.”
