An aggressive bougainvillea bush bursting out of a neighbor’s yard gave her partial cover as she zoomed in on the building through her lens. A small sign near the door read, “Flint Corvel, PhD Psychologist, Private Practice.” A blonde woman who looked to be in her fifties came out the door and hopped into a waiting Fleet, which accelerated off down the road.
A honeybee buzzed by Lilly’s ear and she waved it away. Standing here under the bougainvillea, smelling the fresh-cut grass of an irrigated Greenie lawn, her thoughts began to settle into a semblance of rationality. She wasn’t a hard-boiled detective or private eye out of some noir graphic novel. She was a photographer. A wedding photographer. Sara had just been brutally murdered. Lilly shouldn’t be shadowing a suspect. She should let someone know. Someone who would know what to do in situations like this. Start with the police, go from there.
The office building door opened again, and the man emerged. She had a perfect angle on his face. Raising the camera, she snapped a shot. She clicked the shutter button again, but it didn’t open. Shit. It was out of film. There was no time to replace it with a new roll. She snatched her phone from her pocket and used her fingers to adjust the digital camera to maximum zoom. Then she tapped the screen repeatedly to take a series of shots as the man walked up the path from the building to the sidewalk.
“Error: photos could not be saved.” The message popped up in the middle of her screen. She dismissed the notification and took another rapid-fire series of shots.
“Error: photos could not be saved.” What the hell? Her battery was fine, and the phone displayed a strong Bandwidth connection. Again, she tried to snap a few more.
“Error: photos could not be saved.”
Fuck. He was crossing the street and approaching her corner. She heard the soft growl of an engine, and a Fleet pulled up to the curb next to her. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She lowered her phone and pretended to text, pulling down a bougainvillea flower to her nose as a weak last-minute cover for her presence.
“Hi.”
She looked up, and the man was standing right there in front of her. He smiled. Brown eyes stared down from a face that could have be anywhere between thirty-five and fifty years old. She thought she might have a heart attack.
She nodded back, not trusting herself to speak.
“I apologize if this is a little forward,” he said. “But I think you’ve got a killer sense of style.”
So this was what it felt like to be hit on by a hit man.
21
ANYTHING THAT CAN GO WRONG WILL GO WRONG.
Murphy’s Law was a bitch, especially because it was impossible to know whether or not you were anticipating all the things that could go wrong. As a matter of fact, you were pretty much guaranteed to be missing something.
Like yesterday, for example. Huian’s head of corporate development had fumbled a critical deal and proved himself to be a blithering idiot, forcing her to fire him. Said deal had stubbornly remained off the table thanks to Martín’s headstrong bid for independence. And a nuisance suit had skyrocketed from minor irritant to major liability threat. One could argue that all of that was par for the course, given that she was CEO of Cumulus. Thankfully, she had Graham to rely on. More and more, it felt like he was the only one she could depend on to actually get the job done. Her other lieutenants just hadn’t been producing results. Trust was the rarest of commodities.
But Vera asking for a divorce? That had blindsided her, even if Vera said it shouldn’t have. Sure, they had been seeing Dr. Corvel for a while now. But he wrapped everything in so many psychobabble buzzwords that Huian had stopped taking him seriously ages ago. Him and his damn bald spot. Whenever they were in his office, she couldn’t keep her eyes off it.
It told you a lot about your day when discovering someone trespassing
A honeybee buzzed by Lilly’s ear and she waved it away. Standing here under the bougainvillea, smelling the fresh-cut grass of an irrigated Greenie lawn, her thoughts began to settle into a semblance of rationality. She wasn’t a hard-boiled detective or private eye out of some noir graphic novel. She was a photographer. A wedding photographer. Sara had just been brutally murdered. Lilly shouldn’t be shadowing a suspect. She should let someone know. Someone who would know what to do in situations like this. Start with the police, go from there.
The office building door opened again, and the man emerged. She had a perfect angle on his face. Raising the camera, she snapped a shot. She clicked the shutter button again, but it didn’t open. Shit. It was out of film. There was no time to replace it with a new roll. She snatched her phone from her pocket and used her fingers to adjust the digital camera to maximum zoom. Then she tapped the screen repeatedly to take a series of shots as the man walked up the path from the building to the sidewalk.
“Error: photos could not be saved.” The message popped up in the middle of her screen. She dismissed the notification and took another rapid-fire series of shots.
“Error: photos could not be saved.” What the hell? Her battery was fine, and the phone displayed a strong Bandwidth connection. Again, she tried to snap a few more.
“Error: photos could not be saved.”
Fuck. He was crossing the street and approaching her corner. She heard the soft growl of an engine, and a Fleet pulled up to the curb next to her. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She lowered her phone and pretended to text, pulling down a bougainvillea flower to her nose as a weak last-minute cover for her presence.
“Hi.”
She looked up, and the man was standing right there in front of her. He smiled. Brown eyes stared down from a face that could have be anywhere between thirty-five and fifty years old. She thought she might have a heart attack.
She nodded back, not trusting herself to speak.
“I apologize if this is a little forward,” he said. “But I think you’ve got a killer sense of style.”
So this was what it felt like to be hit on by a hit man.
21
ANYTHING THAT CAN GO WRONG WILL GO WRONG.
Murphy’s Law was a bitch, especially because it was impossible to know whether or not you were anticipating all the things that could go wrong. As a matter of fact, you were pretty much guaranteed to be missing something.
Like yesterday, for example. Huian’s head of corporate development had fumbled a critical deal and proved himself to be a blithering idiot, forcing her to fire him. Said deal had stubbornly remained off the table thanks to Martín’s headstrong bid for independence. And a nuisance suit had skyrocketed from minor irritant to major liability threat. One could argue that all of that was par for the course, given that she was CEO of Cumulus. Thankfully, she had Graham to rely on. More and more, it felt like he was the only one she could depend on to actually get the job done. Her other lieutenants just hadn’t been producing results. Trust was the rarest of commodities.
But Vera asking for a divorce? That had blindsided her, even if Vera said it shouldn’t have. Sure, they had been seeing Dr. Corvel for a while now. But he wrapped everything in so many psychobabble buzzwords that Huian had stopped taking him seriously ages ago. Him and his damn bald spot. Whenever they were in his office, she couldn’t keep her eyes off it.
It told you a lot about your day when discovering someone trespassing
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