The Prince of Risk A Novel(40)

Astor put down the journal, uninterested. He returned his gaze to the dead woman. “Is it her?”

Sullivan picked up a framed photograph on the dresser and compared the radiantly smiling woman to the corpse. “Yes.”

“When?”

Sullivan took hold of Penelope Evans’s body, feeling her arms and neck. “She’s still warm. Less than an hour.”

“We could’ve gotten here.”

“And it could have been us lying there beside her. Whoever did this was good. He got into the house, came upstairs, and killed her without her even knowing he was here. You heard those floorboards. They squeak if an ant walks over them. This guy is a phantom. He floated in here.” Sullivan headed to the door. “We should go.”

Astor grabbed him by the arm. “I think you mean we should call the police.”

“It’s too late to do her any good. I’ll make a call from the city.”



“We can’t just walk away. She deserves better.”

“She’s dead. She doesn’t deserve anything except us trying to find who did this.”

Astor released his grip. “I’m sure we can explain things…”

“You don’t have time for that. Mr. Shank needs you back in the office. Call the Greenwich PD and you’ll be lucky to be home by midnight. There’s a bounty on rich assholes like you these days.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“You think anyone would holler if you spent a few days in the cooler?” Sullivan leaned closer, and when he spoke, it was with the tempered voice of experience. “I spent my whole life as a cop. I know what cops can do. You take this to the police, you’re going to be the lead story on the national evening news. Tomorrow morning your picture’s going to be on the front page of the Post with some kind of headline making it look like you’re the prime suspect. It’ll make you nostalgic for that last gem they ran in the Post about you and your girlfriends at the beach. You want press like that? You want it now?”

Astor gave Sullivan a hard look. He was pretty smart for a dumb cop. “I’m not naive. If I explain that we’re looking into my father’s death…”

“Look at her. Look!” Sullivan forced Astor to step closer and gaze at the body. “She’s hardly wearing a scrap of clothing. One of those cops you have so much faith in is going to pocket a couple of C-notes and allow a photographer to get a shot of her. This stuff sells papers.”

“Even so, we need to stay.”

Sullivan looked at his watch. “From what you’ve told me, I think we can assume that whoever killed your father had a hand in killing this woman. You want to help both of them, start looking around for clues. You can’t do anyone any good from inside a police station, can you?”

Astor considered this. “No, I don’t suppose I can.”

“You got ten minutes.”





26




Concealed in a grove of birch trees on a hilltop across the road, the monk watched the house.

He’d known that Astor and Sullivan were coming. He had been listening as they drove from the city. He was listening now. He could hear them speaking, though their voices were muffled and at times indistinct. This was to be expected, as Astor carried his phone in his pocket.

Wind rustled the branches and made the sound of a flowing river. For a moment he knew serenity. The feeling took him back to his years at the temple. He was there again, a shaven-headed boy running barefoot across the cold stone floors, bowing before his masters, waiting for his commands.

He had arrived at age six, a thin, weak boy. The master had asked him one question: “Are you prepared to eat bitter?”

“Yes,” he responded. And so the training had begun.

For twelve years he rose at dawn and went to bed at midnight. He studied and meditated. He did as he was told. But mostly he trained. Three hours of calisthenics and physical exercise every morning. Four hours of wushu, or martial arts, in the afternoon. His discipline was Baji kung fu, the most rigorous of the schools. He trained until his fists bled and his legs would not carry him. He suffered. He did not complain. He ate bitter.

And in the end, he was awarded the monk’s orange robe.

But that was not to last.

For he had desires that life in a temple could not satisfy. Desires not appropriate for a man or a monk. Not even a warrior monk.

“Ten minutes,” he heard someone inside the house say. It was the older man, with white hair and red face.

He considered his instructions. It would be so easy to return to the home and finish the business. He knew the value of cleaning one’s trail. He saw himself moving up the stairs, his bare feet caressing the warped wooden floorboards, moving effortlessly, silently. Floating. He loved the feel of the knife in his hand, its weight, its promise of death quickly delivered.