My upper lip curls like a wolf’s.
“No—not like that,” James says quickly, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. His tone is low and urgent. “We don’t work together. I don’t work with anyone. But as I told you before, there are only a few people who do what I do at my level. It’s a small, elite group, and everyone knows who everyone else is. And if someone fucks up, everyone knows that, too.”
He pauses to assess my expression.
“Go on.”
“The bullet that hit your daughter was intended for your ex.”
So the phone told the truth.“Why would someone want to kill Chris?”
“A deal he was brokering went south. Chemical weapons were set to be transferred from one group to another—”
“What groups?”
James pauses for a beat. “Does it matter if I say the US to Israel? Or Russia to China? Or rebel factions to freedom fighters in any country? All over the world, every day, people are trying to kill each other because of differing ideologies. Religious, political, or otherwise. The names change, the methods of mass destruction change, but the goal remains the same: death.”
Swirling the whiskey in my glass, I say absently, “No, the goal is power. Death is just a means to an end.”
After a moment, he replies. “And those means are what your ex-husband specializes in.”
“As do you. Apparently, I have a type.”
Hearing my dry tone, he frowns. “There’s a million miles between what I do and mass murder.”
Settling back against the comfortable sofa cushions, I kick my feet up on the coffee table and swallow another swig of whiskey, my strange feeling of calm intensifying. “It’s only a matter of degree, James. You can tart it up however you like, but you’re a killer, just like him.”
“Not like him,” he counters, his voice hard. “I’ll never be like him. He doesn’t care who he hurts. Men, women, children, the elderly, animals, anything. He sells weapons that destroy everything they touch, and he does it without a second thought to the consequences.”
“And what is it you think you’re doing? Culling the herd? Separating the wheat from the chaff? A service to society?”
A faint smile plays over his full lips. “In a word…yes.”
“Nice to see a man take pride in his job. Let’s get back to why Chris was targeted.”
After another pause to examine my expression, he turns all business. “To put it simply, he got greedy. The shipment was delayed, the people who were expecting it got antsy, and Chris decided it was an opportunity to make more money. He told his clients the deal was off unless they ponied up more cash—for bribes to customs officials to get the gears moving more quickly, or so he said—but they found out what he was doing and didn’t appreciate being blackmailed.
“They ordered a hit to make an example of him. Only the hitter they hired got sloppy.”
“Sloppy,” I repeat, needing more.
James restlessly adjusts his weight in his chair, uncrossing his legs and sighing.
“Shooting accurately from a moving vehicle is extremely difficult under the best of circumstances, but attempting it while the mark is surrounded by a crowd is just dumb. Professional protocol dictates the hitter should’ve set up in a building across the street and taken aim from an elevated, hidden spot with an easy exit. But for some unknown reason, he decided to go cowboy and make a mess.
“It was total amateur hour. A complete fucking disaster. It’s a miracle the license plate of the car wasn’t caught on camera. The only reason that idiot isn’t in federal prison right now is sheer luck.”
Luck. That’s not a word I’d use to describe anything about the situation.
Suddenly, I’m back in that moment, in the dizzying panic of the screaming, fleeing crowd, kneeling in shock on the cold ground over the still, silent form of my baby girl, pressing my palms over the small hole between the second and third button of her favorite pink velvet coat while a dark red stain bloomed around my hands like a flower.
Emmie’s eyes were wide open when she died. They were hazel, like her father’s. A gorgeous, deep green-brown flecked with gold.
I close my eyes and rest my head against the back of the sofa, awash in terrible memories but somehow more peaceful than I’ve felt in years. Perhaps it’s the sedative effect of the lavender fields, calming my mind and easing my nerves with their famously mesmerizing scent.
Or perhaps I no longer have a grip on my sanity.
James murmurs, “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you to hear.”
“I want to hear it,” I say, keeping my eyes closed. “I need to hear everything. It’s better this way. At least I’m no longer living in the dark.”
After a moment wherein the only sound I hear is the faraway, gentle tinkling of the bells around the necks of the goats grazing in the spelt fields on the other side of the valley, a few things realign themselves in my head.
“I’ve always loved you. You’re the only weakness I have. I’m willing to make you hate me if it means you’ll be safe.”
It makes an awful kind of sense. When you love someone, you’ll sacrifice anything to protect them. Anything…including your relationship.
I open my eyes and gaze at James. “Chris thought divorcing me would keep me safe from the people who wanted him dead.”
He nods slowly, his gaze never leaving mine. “And he was right.”
“Those men at the hotel…who were they?”