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Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Incident One
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Incident Two
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Incident Three
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Incident Four
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-one
  28. Chapter Twenty-two
  29. Chapter Twenty-three
  30. Chapter Twenty-four
  31. Chapter Twenty-five
  32. Chapter Twenty-six
  33. Chapter Twenty-seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-nine
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-one
  38. Chapter Thirty-two
  39. Chapter Thirty-three
  40. Incident Five
  41. Chapter Thirty-four
  42. Chapter Thirty-five
  43. Chapter Thirty-six
  44. Chapter Thirty-seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-nine
  47. Chapter Forty
  48. Chapter Forty-one
  49. Chapter Forty-two
  50. Chapter Forty-three
  51. Chapter Forty-four
  52. Acknowledgments
  53. Special Thanks
  54. About the Author

“D-Double-cross?” The stammer betrayed more than she wanted him to know. She saw lazy killing pleasure in his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m talking about the hooker,” he said, and leaned over confidentially. “You fucking her?”

She jerked as if he’d stabbed her. He sat slowly back upright, watching her face.

“Good,” he said. “I wouldn’t like to think you were that kind of pervert, know what I mean? So, she’s, what, blackmailing you? Giving you the soft-soap? What?”

She spread her hands, helpless. He smiled and nursed a mouthful of wine. A drop spilled on the lapel of his off-white suit like a bloody flower.

“Not that it matters,” he continued. “Couple of object lessons, we don’t have this problem anymore. The hooker, she got hers. Time for yours, Robby.”

She didn’t have time to move at all before his hand was under his jacket, before the gun was out. The muzzle was a huge black eye, staring. Her brain continued a helpless litany, stupid, this is stupid, how can he do this, it’s all a mistake—

Sol put the muzzle to her forehead, the circle a cold tattoo. She pressed herself back against the chair and just had time to cry out before she felt the pistol press harder against her head.

Click.

She opened her eyes and watched Sol holster the gun through a sudden blurring curtain of tears.

“No bullets,” he said. “Not this time. Next time we come up short, cara mia, you get one in the knee. If it happens twice, you get one in the brain. Got it?”

She nodded convulsively, unable to speak past the rage. He finished his glass of wine and stood up.

“Get my coat.”

She didn’t mean to obey, but then her hands were full of heavy wool, and he was taking it from her and shrugging it on.

On his way out, he kissed her hand.

She locked the door behind him, all the locks, all the alarms, picked up the wine bottle and glasses, and carried them to the kitchen.

“Robby?” Velvet, behind her, voice trembling. “Are you okay?”

Robby opened the bottom drawer and took out a hammer, and without any feeling at all, smashed the wine bottle and glasses into tiny glittering fragments.

“We have to kill him,” she said.

Chapter Twenty-one

Martin

Martin Grady deplaned with the rest of the cattle, shuffling down a long narrow hall with strange angles and sloping floors. At the end of the hall the crowd dispersed like aerosol spray, all on their separate urgent missions, their strange little lives. He shifted his suitcase from his right to his left hand and looked around, wishing he could have slept on the plane, wishing he’d been able to sleep the night before. Exhaustion had made him odd.