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“Mal,” I said quietly, eyes trained on the evidence that was now being bagged after being photographed from every angle. “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”
“What the fuck did you get yourself into,” the other man asked, voice full of concern.
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By the time we made our way down the ladder and back onto the second floor balcony, the K-9 unit had already arrived and quite a few types of canines were bustling around in search of different items. From bomb sniffing dogs to those trained in cadaver searches, the 2 acre property was hectic with activity.
I was still trying to catch my breath from the nightmare on the roof when excited barking followed by distant hollering had both Echolls and I jogging toward the noise. The handler was off to the side with the black lab in a congratulatory game of tug and nodded to the agent standing near the edge of the trees that made up the property line.
The junior agent from before was the one who greeted us as we saw the tech team was already taking photographs of a recently disturbed area of earth. “Cadaver dog alerted on a pretty obvious spot.”
“Damn, couldn’t have been more obvious if he’d stuck a damn headstone in, how’d this get missed?” Echolls barked at the other man.
“Because they weren’t looking for graves; they were looking for a living threat in and around the house.” Obviously these two had worked together a while, with the younger man not bothered in the slightest at Echolls’ tone.
Once the photographs had been taken, the team got to work excavating the recently turned soil and it wasn’t more than three feet down that the smell hit us all. The acrid scent of decomposition curled around us even as the agents and I stood a good thirty feet back. Shovels were switched for smaller digging tools as the dirt was carefully carted away to be gone through pebble by pebble back at a lab.
All three of us got closer as two bodies were unearthed slowly. One male and one female by the looks of their clothes, fashion telling me it was indeed the couple who’d come to celebrate their 46th wedding anniversary and spend the summer in their beach home. My job now came with a body count attached, and I couldn’t stop the rage and sadness twisting in my gut for these people. My outward expression remained calm and collected, but inside I felt like I was going to explode.
With a set jaw, I refused to back away as the other agents had to make calls and round up more forensic help, instead staying close to watch over the elderly couple as they were carefully dug from the makeshift grave.
Between the dead bodies and the signature on the roof, I was having a hard time connecting the dots to the former senator or his daughter. The cartridge on the roof was a calling card. A message of death to come. The bullet meant for whoever it was left for, in this case, Lake Harrington. Shit, I’d almost wished it were a terrorist organization instead of this little clue. I’d handled terrorists before; there were moves I could expect. The ghost who’d been here was a beast I never wanted to face.
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The world around me had grown dark and cool with the breeze coming in from the Atlantic, and by the time the coroner’s office had removed both sets of remains from the property, I just felt drained. I had way more questions than answers and had no idea where to even begin. The calling card on the roof was a clear message from one man. A ghost from the darkest fringes of crime. Someone I was only familiar with by reputation alone. I watched the crime scene techs move around the mansion and knew they’d find nothing. Judging by their grim faces as they worked, they knew they’d find nothing as well.
The Wraith was the only name given to the man who could come and go without a trace. Only leaving one clue before coming in for the kill. The bullet meant for his target. I wondered if it was a way to scare his victims or to get security beefed up, so he’d have more of a challenge. The Wraith always got his kill, which meant before this was over, I would be losing good men and possibly my own life, but in no way would I let Lake die. That was a thought so dangerously whispered in the back of my mind that I had to stop and look around to make sure no one noticed the fierce conviction that I would be doing everything in my power to kill this hired gun.
When I was fairly sure I was being ignored by all around, I sought out Echolls in random groupings of agencies still on site. When the older man caught my eye, we exchanged subtle head nods and I made my way down the driveway and onto the road, walking back toward the estate under my protection. To the casual observer, I was strolling along, but in reality my leisurely pace gave me the time to scan the trees that walled off the wealthy from the road. We might have missed our hitman coming in, but how had he escaped from this place with one road in and out. If he’d gone out by sea, we would have caught him fairly easily, standing out atop the water.
By the time I’d made it to the front porch of the Harrington estate, I was already trying to decide where we would go next. There were other places we could stash Lake, but I wanted her away from the familiar and trackable. Cabot and Fitz were both on the porch waiting for me as I took the steps leading to the front door. “Why aren’t one of you in there with her?”
“She is sitting in command with at least four armed men and away from any windows. She was having some trouble distracting herself from the news that her neighbors might be in trouble and judging by the smell clinging to you, she was right to worry.” Fitz said, his body a show of relaxation as he leaned against the banister, ankles and arms crossed. His pose may have said he was relaxed, but the concern flashing in his eyes only grew when I met it. “Tell us,” was his only response to the look I wore.
“The neighbors are dead, buried in a shallow grave just behind the estate; decomp has them dead pretty much since they arrived, and no trace of the ‘son’ on the grounds, in the house, or on the roof.” I had no idea how I was supposed to tell them that we had a very slim chance of making it out of this cluster fuck with our sanity or lives intact.
“Tell us,” Fitz said again, knowing there was something more.
“The Wraith,” I said quietly, not wanting even the slightest breeze to carry my voice. Fitz sucked in air sharply and Cabot let out a whispered curse as he pinched the bridge of his nose as if the thought of this hitman was enough to trigger a migraine.
“I’ll get a file pulled together on everything I can find on him.” Kasey’s voice was low and subdued as it came from the speaker of the camera closest to us at the front door. Even the clown in him was cowering. We all knew the seriousness of this issue and what it meant for Lake. She wasn’t just being targeted by some fringe terrorist group. She had a contract out on her and the world’s most elusive assassin had her number.
“Are you sure?” Fitz asked, looking like he would be ill.
“Positive. That spot that exposed that section of roof had a 308 sitting there.” I couldn’t help but close my eyes and feel the same sensation of the floor falling out from under me. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to look back on that moment without the terror reigniting. However long I had to look back on it that was.
“You have to tell her something,” Cabot said after a long bout of silence between our group. “We need her to be compliant; ready to go where we need and do what we need without question. I may not know her as well as Turner or Kasey, but what I do know tells me she won’t stay in a corner just because you say so. She’ll do what we need if we tell her who, what and why.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t see her after the first text. She was damn near catatonic and wasn’t even breathing.” I tried to imagine the reality of a real life assassin on her tail, hitting her full force. She’d completely shatter. I’d seen her strength and believed in it, but the idea of coming face to face with The Wraith had even me wishing I could hide.
“I saw her after both texts.” It was Fitz who answered instead this time, pulling our attention. “I’ll agree that she didn’t cope well with the first text. I wondered at that point if we’d need to get a professional in for her. But,” he continued when he noticed me giving Cabot an ‘I told you so’ face. “I also watched her after the second text, one that took this person from a vague idea to someone close and getting closer. She could have had a mental break, hell, that’s why I was standing by! But she ran for you and calmed immediately. She trusts you, Decker.” He frowned at my disbelieving grunt. “Lake will be shocked and rattled, but in the end, she trusts you enough to go to you when she's in danger. The least you could do is explain that danger to her.”
After a moment I gave them both a resigned nod. I’d tell her, if only to make sure there was no pushback if and when we needed to leave in a hurry.
“You might want to catch a few showers before you talk to her. It’ll be hard to take news of a death if you still smell like the remains, Deck.” Fitz gave my shoulder a pat before pointedly looking at his palm and rubbing it down the arm of Cabot’s suit.
“Asshole,” Cabot grumbled, pushing past us both and into the house. No doubt he’d want to change now just from the proximity to dead bodies. He wasn’t moved by much, but the smell of death and decay had made him gray in the face.
