Silent Assassin(41)

“Looks like I picked the right guy for the job, didn’t I?”

“Not to blow my own horn . . .”

“But doing it just the same. You talk too much, Lee. Has anyone ever told you that?”

There was a moment of silence when Lee just stared at the man, and the man stared back. What was he saying? “What-what do you mean?”

“It’s a weakness. This need to fill the silences. This fear of empty spaces. It means you don’t have a quiet mind. You’re not listening when you have to, not even to your own thoughts, let alone paying attention to where you are and what you’re doing.”

“You should write a self-help book,” Lee told him. “I know a lot of people who just eat that stuff up—you know, that silence talk, the empty spaces and all.” He knew he was making a fool of himself and wearing his anxiety on his sleeves, but he couldn’t stop babbling. “Real deep stuff, yeah.”

The man just looked at him stolidly, with his brown eyes looking dead and emotionless.

Lee chuckled nervously. Best to play this off. “You know, for a minute there, I thought you were insinuating that I had talked, you know. Blabbed. About this.”

“Oh, of course not. Because flapping your mouth is for lesser men. Biting off more than you can chew and stupid mistakes are not worthy of an inspired criminal mind. That’s amateur stuff. And I guess you’re too smart for that, aren’t you, Moriarty?”

Lee’s eyes went wide, but before he could react, he felt something cut into the skin of his neck, squeezing his windpipe. The bodyguard was using a garrote, he realized, pulling back and cutting off his air. Without thinking, Lee slipped his hand into his pocket and out came the pen knife. Quick as lightning, he plunged it as hard as he could into the bodyguard’s thigh.

The man let out a roar of pain. Taking the opportunity, Lee lunged for the door, pulled the lock, and pushed it open. Cold air rushed into the limo. The car was moving at about twenty-five miles an hour, with traffic all around them. With no time to hesitate, he leapt out the door, rolling as he hit the pavement. He hit it hard. Even though his jacket broke some of the impact, he still felt pain in too many places to count. Just as he came to a standstill, on his hands and knees on the cold road, he heard the screech of brakes as a dark blue Chevy sedan stopped inches from his face.

With no time to even take stock of the damage, he got up, shoes scraping the pavement. He dashed onto the sidewalk, dodging confused onlookers, and ran without looking back.





CHAPTER 20


Andover, January 21





Morgan drove up along the dirt road and spotted Alex’s car parked ahead. On either side of him was forest, the evergreen foliage, covered with light snow, too dense for him to have any kind of visibility, even though they were so close to the highway he could hear cars passing by. Intermittent gunshots rang out in the white and green wilderness, three all together as he approached. He parked behind her, still looking at the map on his smartphone that showed the red dot where she was, a few dozen feet away.

Morgan had feared the worst when he had noticed, some twenty minutes before as he brought his breakfast into his study, that one of his guns, his silenced M&P Series Smith and Wesson, had gone missing. He had figured that Alex had taken it, but he had no idea what for. Given the strange way she’d been acting lately, he didn’t know what to think.

Snow crunching under his feet, he walked toward a clearing in the forest where the GPS indicated she would be and found her aiming at a collection of cans and bottles, placed a few feet apart from each other. It appeared that she hadn’t hit any yet.

“You should keep your legs farther apart,” he said. Alex wheeled around in surprise, holding the gun out. She pointed it up when she saw that it was her father.

“Jesus, Dad,” she said, exhaling. Her face was red from the cold, which stood out against her white winter hat. “You scared me half to death.”

“Sorry about that,” he said, smiling. “I’ll be sure to make more noise next time I sneak up behind you.”

“How did you find me?” she asked, lowering the gun and holding her arms slack at her sides.

“Phone,” he said, holding up his to show her the map.

“Damn,” she said, running her left hand over the side pocket of her peacoat where he guessed her phone was. “I knew I should’ve left it back home. I guess you’re going to want some kind of explanation.”

“I was hoping you might give me one,” he said.

“Can we get out of the cold first?” she asked, shivering.

He turned back toward his car and motioned her into the passenger seat. First, she handed him the gun, which he put into the glove compartment. Then she took off her gloves—full-fingered bicycle gloves so her finger would fit in the trigger—and blew on her hands to heat them up.