Page 18 of Agent vs. Assassin
“Death is too gentle a punishment,” I assure him and start walking.
He drops back and then hurries to fall into step with me. “That was extreme.”
“I am extreme. If you don’t know that by now, there’s no helping you.”
“The pie and groceries are being delivered,” he says, clearly knowing me well enough to know that food is a safe haven. He’s going to love it when I tell him we have to go to the diner anyway. I might have talked myself into believing that card for the diner Murphy left for me was just a card to a great place with strawberry pie, if not for the missing employee.
“Unlock the SUV,” I order, already rounding the hood and heading toward the passenger door. By the time I’m there, it’s open, and I climb inside.
Jay settles into the driver’s side. “Don’t you have to work the crime scene?”
“I’m not interested in what’s inside that house. I’m interested in what’s not.” I dial Lucas on speakerphone, and it goes straight to voicemail. Again. Next, I dial Tic Tac, and he answers on the first ring.
“Let me guess. You need stuff.”
“Lots of stuff, but let’s start with where the hell is Lucas?”
“Ditto. His phone tracks to his house. I’m one person with about one hundred time-sensitive items I should be researching.”
And he’s smart enough to know he can’t use agency resources when there are government targets, not when we don’t know who’s involved. “Any leads on Elsa?”
“All I can tell you is she had twenty recorded sniper kills in the military. That’s a lot. And her mother had a stroke and died about six months before her father’s suicide.”
“She’s bitter and skilled.”
“Which is why I need help to make traction and get you answers.”
“I get it,” I say. “I’m going to find Lucas.”
Like a good little soldier, Jay cranks the SUV and sets us in motion.
“You need to focus all energy on finding Elsa,”
“Surely she’ll come to you. Her brother was murdered.”
I find myself flip-flopping like a dirty politician who doesn’t have his own mind over who killed Mark Walker—Ghost or his sister. It’s utterly frustrating. I don’t flip-flop. I hate flip-flopping. Maybe because my father is so good at it.
Nevertheless, I do a mental replay of the possibilities again. Elsa could have been at odds with Mark over the revenge killings, and when he threatened to turn her in, she killed him. But as the Ken doll ME pointed out, Mark’s body was posed. Elsa would not pose the body. Ghost would, as a taunt.
I’m back to Ghost did it for about the fourth time.
I’m done with that question.
That decided, I think back to my chat with Ghost, to what he said about finding Elsa.She thinks she’s hiding, he’d said.
He’s smart. She’s killing for revenge, and revenge is an emotion. He’s studied her. He believes he knows what that emotion will drive in her, what she will do next. Maybe hedoesn’t think he knows. He knows. Maybe he taunted her. Maybe he’s waiting for her right here.
“Lilah?”
Tic Tac draws me back to the present, and I don’t resist. I’m doing nothing but speculating, and that amounts to chasing my own tail like a puppy Ghost has on a leash. Only he’s chasing me, and I can use that to my advantage.
“Lilah?”
Apparently, I’m still ignoring Tic Tac. I need to be in Purgatory, but I can’t afford the time right now. “Where’s Ellis?” I ask. “He’s not answering his phone.”
“He pings in Maryland, and,” he grunts and says, “Jack, what are you doing? No. Give me that phone.”
The next thing I know, Jack is on the line. “I still say going to Maryland feels like a lame move on Ellis’ part. Elsa’s too smart to take her phone with her to kill a government official, and how can the Director of Homeland Security not think of that?”