Chapters (65)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty–one
- Twenty–two
- Twenty–three
- Twenty–four
- Twenty–five
- Twenty–six
- Twenty–seven
- Twenty–eight
- Twenty–nine
- Thirty
- Thirty–one
- Thirty–two
- Thirty–three
- Thirty–four
- Thirty–five
- Thirty–six
- Thirty–seven
- Thirty–eight
- Thirty–nine
- Forty
- Forty–one
- Forty–two
- Forty–three
- Forty–four
- Forty–five
- Forty–six
- Forty–seven
- Forty–eight
- Forty–nine
- Fifty
- Fifty–one
- Fifty–two
- Fifty–three
- Fifty–four
- Fifty–five
- Fifty–six
- Fifty–seven
- Author’s Note
- Acknowledgments
- Also by Becky Masterman
- About the Author
- Newsletter Sign-up
I often wonder whether if I had left with him, I’d be among the dead now, too.
Forty–one
The following afternoon, Beaufort was on the phone with Yanchak again, though this time not as confident.
Yanchak was saying, “So you know already?”
“News travels faster these days. It was broadcast within less than an hour. How did you do it?”
“Didn’t the news tell you?”
“All they know right now, at least according to the reports they gave CNN, is that shots were heard, no one else in sight at the time. All they showed on camera was blood on the window and the sidewalk.”
“Drive-by. We had to set it up in advance to make sure it was clean.”
“What do you mean set it up? Didn’t I tell you the best place and time to get him was at that bar?”
“Excuse me, but I didn’t want to take a chance. I had someone watching his movements. He was in his usual watering hole where we’d been scoping him out. It’s off the beaten path. No one saw. Not even the bartender. Or if he did, he knows better than to talk.”
“Are you sure he was dead when you left?”
“Oh yeah, got in a lucky head shot.”
“Not exactly subtle. You’re sure no one saw?” Beaufort asked.
“The only other patron in the place was some woman sitting at the bar. Maybe it was his wife. Maybe it was a stranger he was hitting on.”
That old acid pang stabbed Beaufort’s gut. “What did she look like?”
“Hard to tell. Small? You realize we’re talking drive-by shooting, right? White ponytail. Yeah, ponytail is certain.”
Beaufort took a deep breath and let it out with a yell. “You imbecile. That was the woman you were supposed to kill in Tucson. That job you botched. You were supposed to get Meadows before he talked to her. Now who knows what she knows?”
Would either of them have thought to discuss the Santangelo connection? Or not yet? Their conversation was clearly over, at least for now, if Meadows had been leaving the bar. If Quinn knew about the monastery, and went there, would the monks ID him? Probably not, they said there were pilgrims coming and going all the time, and he had never mentioned Santangelo specifically. But what if they said Santangelo had had a visitor besides Meadows? What if they described what Beaufort looked like? If they gave a good description of him she might make the connection with the man who befriended her husband. This was getting messy and had to be cleaned up before it got worse.
Beaufort said, “Listen, you need to finish this job, and finish it before she gets to the monastery.”
“This is sounding a lot like you’re ordering me around. I don’t like that sound.”