Mirage (Oregon Files 9)

“Are you expecting anyone?”

“Not really. But my birthday is this week, and I’ve been getting gifts from old students and colleagues,” Tennyson said as he ambled from the kitchen. Juan brushed passed him and looked out the front window. A delivery van was parked next to his Porsche on the street, its side emblazoned with a bouquet of flowers. His pulse slowed.

“Looks like someone sent you flowers.”

“Probably my old secretary. She sends peonies every year.”

Cabrillo shifted his angle to see the driver standing on the stoop. He could only see a sliver of the man and just a hint of the color of the flowers he carried. And then he took a second glance at the truck. The name under the painted bouquet: EMPIRE FLORISTS.

The connections came as fast as the synapses in his brain could fire. Vermont was the Green Mountain State. It was its neighbor, New York, that carried the Empire nickname. No way would a florist deliver this far out of state. They would have called a local business to drop off a bouquet of whatever the customer requested. Someone coming all the way from New York wasn’t here to deliver flowers. Pytor Kenin’s name popped into his head, and he knew that if Kenin used local talent to kill the world’s foremost expert on Nikola Tesla, they would be based out of Brighton Beach, New York, aka Little Odessa.

“Wes!” Cabrillo shouted, turning to see that Tennyson was already reaching for the front door. “No!”

Tennyson started to pull on the heavy brass handle when the door burst against his face as the florist kicked it in from the outside. The professor fell backward onto the floor only seconds before the muted buzz of a machine pistol on full automatic filled the parlor followed by two muted blasts from Cabrillo’s silenced FN pistol that sent the phony florist reeling into a bed of rosebushes.

Tennyson’s fall had saved him. He had dropped to the floor below the volley that sprayed the air above him. Cabrillo cursed himself for being two seconds too late to stop the attack on the professor, yet he was thankful that Tennyson did not appear to have stopped a bullet. He barely had time to tell him to play dead.

In the eerie silence that followed, Cabrillo heard two men speaking in Russian as they rushed across the backyard and into the kitchen. When they reached the parlor, it was empty but for Tennyson’s body and a small yellow carpet of scattered daffodils. Only the shattered front door showed any sign of splattered crimson. Unknown to the men, Cabrillo was hiding behind coats in the hall closet as he stared through a crack in the door.

“That him?” one of the killers asked.

His accomplice nodded. “Right here. Vermont driver’s license issued to Wesley Tennyson.”

In the closet, Cabrillo held his breath, hoping that Tennyson was savvy en

ough to play a good corpse. The only hitch was, there was no blood on him.

As if suddenly thinking of something, one of the killers stood and looked out the doorway. “Where’s Vladimir?”

“He probably went to the van to get the gas cans to burn the house.”

“I can see through the van’s windshield. He’s not in it.”

“I’ll check the front,” the man standing in the doorway muttered. “You go upstairs and search the bedrooms. I’ll take the downstairs after I find Vladimir.”

“Don’t forget to turn on the gas on the stove.”

The man stepped out in front of the house while his co-conspirator climbed the stairs.

He only took five steps past the front door when he spied Vladimir’s remains lying in a bed of roses, his dead eyes staring into the sun. He whirled around and ran back into the house, shouting his colleague’s name. As soon as he burst into the entryway, he saw a man sitting on a nearby divan. Surprise cost him the three microseconds Cabrillo needed to put a bullet in his forehead precisely between the eyes.

Too late, the man on the stairs realized something was wrong. Cabrillo fired a second time, and a red hole appeared in the Russian’s neck.

Cabrillo looked down on the body that had fallen across Tennyson’s feet. Then he hoisted the corpse and dropped it on top of the other. Only then did he kneel beside Tennyson.

“Are you all right, Professor?”

Tennyson raised his head and stared into Cabrillo’s eyes. “No, I’m not all right. I lead a quiet, dignified life, and within five minutes I have three dead men in my flower bed and entryway. What am I going to tell the police?”

“Not to worry. Have you got a wheelbarrow?”

“I have one in the tool shed.”

“May I borrow it?”

Tennyson looked at him. “What for?”

“I’m going to haul the bodies out to the van and hide them. Do you have any ideas for a nice secluded area?”