“But if you did research on me, it must have been connected with Papa’s death.” And I turn pale at the thought; a chill flush makes me clench all over. “It wasn’
t...you, was it? You didn’t kill Papa. Tell me it wasn’t you.”
“It wasn’t me. I don’t just take any contract they offer. Think of me as more of a fighter against wrongdoings, an anonymous means to settle a score that deserves to be settled. Like what happened to your father. That was a cold-blooded business decision. Valdez couldn’t stand being out-maneuvered in the market-place, so he made that choice to eliminate his rival. The preening shit was on holiday at the time, a watertight alibi, and of course there was no way to tie him to the killing. People like that are always six degrees removed from the act itself. Not a shred of evidence that would hold up in court.”
“Roger Stimson put it that exact same way,” I tell him. “He tried to talk me out of coming here, offered to hire someone for me. God, I wish I’d listened to him now. Roger was right all along. This is another world—a shadow world.”
“Who is he?”
“He's a really close friend of Papa’s. He came to see me shortly after the funeral, sat me down, put his arm round me—Roger’s always seemed like an old uncle—and he told me he’d found out beyond any doubt Valdez was responsible.”
“How did he find that out?”
“Don’t know. But I trust him completely. He’s gotten Papa out of so many scrapes over the years; he might as well be the family consigliore. But I told him I didn’t want anyone else doing this for me. Papa would have made sure he moved heaven and earth to avenge me personally, if I’d been killed; so I had to do the same. No, I wanted to do it. It’s the old Greek way, and it’s the
right way. Someone murders a loved one like that, you should absolutely get even. Like a vendetta. You should ram that murder down his fucking throat and cheer when he chokes.”
It hits me again, the fact that I didn’t kill Valdez. That in the final moments, I was thwarted, and the hate driving me ever since Roger Stimson’s visit hasn’t been sated... It’s still there, gnawing at my idea of what’s right and what’s wrong.
“That’s where I come in,” says Carlisle with a sigh, as though I’ve forced him to reassess his part in all this. “They hire me so they don’t have to pull that trigger.”
“So you are an assassin for hire—a billionaire assassin for hire. That...makes no sense.”
“Maybe it’s not, but the world makes no sense. This is how I at least try to make sense of it.”
“You mean killing people?”
“I mean by getting even for those who can’t.”
“So you’re a vigilante.”
“It’s a fine line between the two, I find. A vigilante takes the law into his own hands. A hit man kills for personal gain. Where those two intersect, you’ll find the shadow of Barrett Carlisle.”
“I think I get it now. Someone offered you a contract to kill Valdez, and before you decided to accept or not, you looked into him, to see if he fit your killing code. And that’s when you found me—the daughter of Andreas Katsaros, Valdez’s business rival, who’d recently been murdered. So you pieced it together from there, using your...shadow world connections. But you really didn’t expect me to show up tonight.”
He strokes my hair, whispers, “I had no idea.”
“That I could go through with it...?”
“That you could surprise me... Not many have.”
His warm breath tickles the back of my neck, and my stomach flutters. “Surprise you in what way?”
“In every way... The pictures I saw of you, the impression I had in mind: before tonight, you were just another helpless victim who relied on the law to dole out justice. But the moment I recognized you at the party tonight, I knew I’d underestimated everything about you.”
I lace his fingers in mine and feel the warm tingle spread. “Barrett?”
“Hmmm...?”
“Thank you for saving my life.”
*****
Chapter 3
We just lie here, listening to tidal swells press up against the wooden bottom of the boathouse, and the echo-pops of dripping water in between. Hours pass. I sleep fitfully, dream in sharp, menacing sketches that end just before something bad happens. Sometimes he’s there when I wake up, sometimes he isn’t.
The orange glow of sunrise steals in through gaps between planks and rotten knots in the wood. It feels like we’re both a long way from home. Primal forces have brought us here, but we don’t belong here. Barrett Carlisle could do anything he wanted, go anywhere, be with anyone; but he’s opted for these serial blind dates with death. He’s a killer with a conscience. It’s only a matter of time before he’s surprised again—but by the sound of a bullet.