Deathtoll (Broslin Creek Book 8) Read online

  “Because we had to. How do I know what we felt was real and not some codependent bullshit due to forced proximity? Or Stockholm Syndrome.”

  “You do not have Stockholm Syndrome. Murph wasn’t keeping you captive.”

  “Circumstances were.”

  Resentment hardened Emma’s eyes all over again. “You have no idea how weird it is that you had this whole life I know almost nothing about, while we were all thinking you were dead in the cemetery. We freaking visited your grave. Brought flowers. I talked to you in heaven!”

  “I explained why it had to happen that way. I was an eyewitness to murder. The only person who could identify the hitman. He tracked me down and fricking shot at me. I crashed my car.”

  “And you decided to let everyone think you died.” Emma’s tone held a chill that put the weather outside to shame.

  “The FBI decided. Just until they caught Asael.”

  “You agreed.”

  “What if, next time, you were in the car with me? What if, next time, it was a firebomb at the house, with Mom and Dad inside?”

  Emma said nothing, just stared at the road ahead.

  Kate sighed. “Being on the run, hiding, was no fun. By the time I came to Broslin, I’d lived under half a dozen false identities, in all different places. Then the hitman’s partner tracked me down anyway.”

  “That Mordocai guy? What I still don’t get is, why didn’t he tell Asael he found you?”

  “The FBI said Mordocai wanted to make me a surprise gift.” The thought sent a chill down Kate’s spine, as if a ghost was tracing her vertebrae with an icicle.

  “You should have told us you were alive. At least after Murph took out Mordocai.”

  “Asael was still out there. I had to keep on the run.”

  “Murph left everything to go with you, to protect you. You realize he would have spent the rest of his life in hiding with you, keeping you safe?”

  “But can’t you see how unfair that would have been to him?”

  “So now that Asael is finally gone, explosion, bam, pink mist, you just dump Murph because you don’t need him anymore?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “I really thought you two were in love.”

  “Me too, but …” Kate turned to look out the side window for a moment, at the houses that whooshed by. “I can’t tell if what we have is a healthy relationship or some weird codependent mess. When we left Ohio, I didn’t even consider going back to LA.” Ah, dammit. She shouldn’t have said that. She pressed on. “I came with Murph to his home, to Broslin. We started Hope Hill. At least in Ohio, I had a separate job. Here, we’ve been living together and working together, in each other’s pockets twenty-four-seven. I need some distance. I need to at least have my own place. If we get married, it’s forever. So, I want to make sure we’re both really choosing it.”

  “You have some serious attachment issues, you know that, right? You doubt your feelings too much.”

  “That’s what being bounced around in foster care does to kids. I’m working through it, all right?”

  Emma drove in silence for several seconds. “I’m sorry you got such a bum deal. I feel like I skated off scot-free.” She glanced at Kate before returning her attention to the road. “I wish I could remember more.”

  “Nothing there worth remembering.” Just endless hunger and endless beatings. Kate pointed at the large silver-and-turquoise turtle on Emma’s finger and asked, “Is that a new ring?” to change the subject.

  “I went up to the Yurok Reservation a couple of weeks ago.”

  Kate’s heart clenched as she waited for more.

  “I didn’t expect to find him,” Emma said. “I guess I was looking for a part of myself.” She flexed her finger, and the silver caught the morning sun. “Turtles represent protection because they have a shell. They represent a lot of things: Mother Earth, a long life, patience.” She glanced at Kate for a second. “It was interesting to drive through that land, think about what it meant to have ancestors.”

  “Did you feel a connection?”

  Emma shook her head. “Maybe because he would be my connection, so that link is missing in the chain.”

  When Emma had turned eighteen, she’d asked to see her adoption papers, curious about her biological father. The paperwork offered little help. Identity: Unknown. Race: Native American (Yurok)/African American, the only bit of information the woman who’d given them birth had provided to Social Services.

  Kate had even less information in her paperwork, all the fields under Father left blank, but she remembered the woman referring to him a time or two as That Irish Bastard who wouldn’t give her money for an abortion. Kate never cared, never wanted to find her father, but Emma did, so Kate felt bad for Emma that it wasn’t likely to ever happen.

  “It had to be difficult to go up there,” she told her sister. Facing the past was never easy. Neither was facing oneself. “If you ever want to talk—”

  “I’m not the one currently messing up the best thing in my life.” Emma was back to flashing heat as she pulled into Hope Hill’s parking lot. She stopped in front of the main entrance. “Okay, off you go to make other people feel better while you’re an emotional wreck.”

  “I don’t want to spend your visit fighting.”

  “This is the first chance I’ve had to tell you how I feel, all right? The first year you were back, I was just happy you were back. And Mom and Dad would have killed me if I looked at you sideways. The second year, I was working at the London office. I have a lot of pent-up emotions about this.” Then her expression softened. “I still think you should have told me you weren’t dead. But you came back. And here we are together. And I’m glad for that.”

  The words peeled a layer or two of tension off Kate. “You know I love you. You’re the best sister ever. I’ve missed you so freaking much.”

  “Me too.” Emma offered a semi-smile at last. “Wait until I tell Mom and Dad that Murph proposed.”

  “Please don’t. Not yet.” Kate wasn’t ready to bring even more people, and more opinions, into her mess.

  Emma’s lips snapped back into a tight line. “You’re going to keep it a secret.”

  “Let’s fight about this later?” Kate unfastened her seat belt and wiggled out of the car with her bag on her lap. “Thanks for the ride. Try not to get into too much trouble and terrorize the townsfolk with your LA, big-city ways.”

  Her sister accepted the attempt at ceasefire with “Does that mean I can’t get a nipple piercing in the shop window of the tattoo parlor on Main Street?”

  “There are no tattoo parlors on Main Street.”

  “Freaking small-town morals.” Emma rolled her eyes as she drove away.

  Kate smiled. The lighter mood was good. They would work through their issues. They loved each other too much to let anything stand between them.

  The janitor was sweeping dead leaves off the steps. Behind him, potted evergreens bracketed the covered entry, topiary hemlocks flanking the double doors. WELCOME, the sign said in golden letters on the glass. While the doormat proclaimed, WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE HERE.

  This was the dream that had brought Kate back to Broslin, the dream that she and Murph had planned endlessly in Ohio. Hope Hill was a state-of-the-art rehab facility for disabled vets, with the most comprehensive range of alternative therapies in the country.

  Once, the building had been a sketch on a piece of paper towel, the design hatched over breakfast. Now the facility and its services were real, financed partially from the hundred grand Murph had received as reward for leading the police to a bank robbery gang right before he and Kate left Broslin. In addition to that, Kate had run a million fundraisers. Then they’d applied for government grants for the rest. They’d created something out of nothing, a place of healing that actually helped people.

  She might have had doubts about Murph on the personal-relationship front, but she couldn’t deny that professionally, they made a great team.

&nbs
p; “Hey, Joe. How is Gracie?”

  “All better.” The fifty-something janitor paused his work. “Cast is coming off tomorrow. She says to thank you for the delicious lasagna. We appreciate it.”

  “Anytime.”

  Then Maria sailed through the front door, the new therapist.

  “Forgot my phone in the car,” she told Kate. “My brain is mush in the morning. This is why I schedule paperwork for the first hour instead of an appointment. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Therapeutic massage is not the same as talk therapy. Even if my brain is asleep, my fingers know what they’re supposed to be doing.” Kate’s gaze dropped to the woman’s enviable red pumps. “Hot date after work?”

  And, ooh, the dress was nice too, now that she was paying closer attention. Deceptively simple, a subtly shimmering charcoal gray—but the cut hinted at a designer boutique.

  Maria wiggled her eyebrows. “Keep your fingers crossed.”

  “Done.” Kate entwined her fingers and held them up. “Do I know him?”

  “Probably not. Clinical psychologist from Philly. We met at that conference last week.”

  “He didn’t waste any time asking you out.”

  Maria’s grin widened. “Second date.”

  Kate tried a wolf whistle. Failed. Maria started down the stairs, laughing.

  “I want to hear all the details tomorrow!” Kate called after her.

  Her own love life was a disaster, but she could still be happy for her friends. She would just focus on other people and not think of Murph.

  Easier said than done.

  She wasn’t behind her desk five minutes when he popped into her office.

  Chapter Two

  Asael

  Figure out what you like doing, then find someone willing to pay for it, was the best advice Bobbie Brenton had ever received.

  At age seventeen, he hadn’t fully grasped the concept, paying scant attention to his guidance counselor, but as he’d gone on with his life, he thought of the words now and then. Eventually, he accepted the truth in them. Action followed epiphany, and by the time he was twenty-seven, he was a fully self-supporting assassin.

  He’d found what he liked: killing. And he’d become a pro, meaning he earned his full income from assignments. They weren’t a side gig or a hobby.

  Bobbie Brenton died, for the first time, in a Pittsburgh house fire. Rauch Asael was born from the ashes, and, in a few more years, became one of the highest-rated killers for hire on the dark web.

  Rauch meant smoke in German.

  Asael was one of the names used for the devil.

  He’d perished a few more times, as needed. He discarded any compromised aliases with the same ease as he discarded his targets. He enjoyed the freedom of starting a new life.

  He dodged morning traffic in his Nissan Altima—one of the most common cars in America—and drove to the outskirts of Broslin. The ancient silo that stood at the edge of the cemetery was the quietest place he’d found so far in town. He parked on the wilting fall grass and cut across the graves. Drew in a deep breath. He liked the scent of decay.

  He was halfway to his destination when a chubby black cat jumped from a gravestone to follow him. “Hello there.”

  He stalked straight to the silo that was covered in ivy, then ducked under the rusty chain that held a rusty sign announcing private property, while claiming danger and telling him to go away, for his own safety.

  “Morons.” He climbed.

  Even as a kid, he’d liked high places. He used to climb out his bedroom window and lie on the roof at night for a smoke and some drink—both stolen from his father. Later, he’d spent time on the stage, enjoyed being up there and looking down at the audience. He’d always had a flair for the dramatic. Theater had taught him makeup and costuming, how to turn himself into someone else. And for a while, prop knives and fake blood had been enough. Until they weren’t.

  Asael owned no property, could afford no permanent ties, but when he was in between assignments, he always stayed in the tallest high-rise of whatever city he was in, in the penthouse apartment. He liked feeling on top of the world.

  As he stood on the rust-dotted silo and looked out over the stupid little town before him, he wished he was in Dubai instead, at the Gevora, the tallest hotel in the world.

  Autumn frost had kissed the trees overnight, the leaves brown or already fallen. He turned up his collar. This time of year, he preferred taking jobs in the tropics.

  “I could be standing on a private beach right now,” he told the cat that’d managed to climb up after him, “with an icy drink.”

  Instead, he’d been in small-town purgatory for the past three days, and he still couldn’t puzzle out why he had allowed a vague sense of unease to draw him to Broslin. A premonition prickled at the back of his neck, a sense of something unfinished, a miniscule piece of thread hanging. And he listened to it, because an assassin lived or died by his instincts.

  He imagined ordinary people felt something similar when they left the house and suddenly thought Did I shut off the stove? And then, even if they were a mile or two down the road, they had to turn around. Because…

  “You have to check,” he told the cat.

  He knew one thing: He had not come to avenge Mordocai.

  A Broslin cop had shot the fellow assassin and ex-lover five years before, but revenge for revenge’s sake had never been Asael’s modus operandi. Hotheaded retaliation was a good way to get caught. He’d survived this long because he limited his exposure. He would not hazard everything he’d gained over the years on a sentimental gesture. When he acted, he expected compensation in proportion to the risk he was taking.

  “And yet here I am.” He said that to the town, as a warning.

  Here he was, for certain. But why?

  He wasn’t following a trail. He was following a vague pull that stubbornly curled around him, like a gossamer wisp of smoke, like the black cat weaving between his legs.

  If he’d come on assignment, he would have a packet of information from his client. He would know exactly what his next steps were.

  “Wasting my time.” He looked past the cemetery, watched the morning light glinting off windows of houses people thought would keep them safe. He didn’t know any of them.

  “Never even heard of Broslin until Mordocai’s death,” he told the cat, which was clean and had a collar, not a stray. Hanging around the cemetery for fun. Asael almost liked the damn thing. “I don’t suppose you knew Mordocai or what he was doing here?”

  Mordocai had moved to the self-proclaimed Mushroom Capital of the US under the alias of Fred Kazincky, retired mechanic. On an assignment he never completed. According to an online article, Fred Kazincky had kidnapped a woman, but was caught.

  “Last time he called me, he said he found a gift.”

  Had to be something he’d seen here that reminded him of their time together. Something he thought would get him back into Asael’s good graces. But what? The shop windows on Main Street brimmed with mushroom-shaped mugs and mushroom-print shirts. What on earth had given Mordocai the idea that Asael would be interested in anything fungi related?

  Didn’t matter. Mordocai had never bought that gift. Never sent it.

  “He was killed,” Asael told the cat, then added the bit that nagged in the back of his mind. “The cop who killed him, Murph Dolan, disappeared immediately after, witness-protection style. Except, he wasn’t a witness to anything.”

  The cat looked at him with slanted yellow eyes and an expression of beats me.

  Beat Asael too, and he loathed not knowing, loathed that all he’d learned since he’d arrived in town could be summarized in two sentences. “Dolan’s girlfriend, Katherine Concord, disappeared with him. Then, three years later, as if nothing happened, they returned.”

  Right after Asael had sacrificed another one of his identities and convinced the authorities that he’d died for real, at last.

  Was he too paranoid to think there
could be a connection?

  The cat rubbed its head against his shin and purred.

  “Has to be a coincidence, because the only other option is impossible: that those two left because they felt in danger here. Mordocai was dead and buried. They wouldn’t have run from him.”

  “Did they expect revenge? Who did they think would be coming?” His fingers tightened on the railing, rust flakes digging into his skin. “Did they run from me?”

  Except the theory presupposed that Mordocai had talked about him, betrayed him—an unthinkable breach.

  “If he did…” Asael told the cat. “I’m going to burn this town to the ground just so I can dance in the ashes.”

  Then he added, “But first, Murph Dolan and his damn girlfriend.”

  He knew just where to find them.

  Chapter Three

  Kate

  Kate would have liked a little longer grace period before she had to face Murph again, but she wasn’t going to get it, so she pasted on a smile while Murph dropped a distinctive pink bag from Sweet Beginnings on her desk.

  “Assorted bonbons. Gluten free. In case you’re running low on chocolate.”

  Her stomach turned. So weird and stupid. Chocolate used to be her favorite word. She pushed the bag a little farther away from her nose. “Thanks.”

  Swear to Saint Bean of Cocoa, if she was coming down with a chocolate allergy, she was going to sue the universe.

  He watched her with that expression he often wore lately, as if he was at the end of his rope regarding what to do with her.

  He took up a lot of room in her office. A LOT. In the small space, it was impossible to look away from him.

  “I ran into an old friend the other day,” he said. “Tommy used to work in construction, hurt his back a while ago, so he took a desk job, managing a granite shop in Wilmington. He could probably hook you up with some heavily discounted countertops. Let me know if you need his number.”

  “Kitchen’s all done.” Kate paused to adjust her tone. She sounded put out with him, which she wasn’t. “Are you going to Finnegan’s with the guys tonight?”