Dirty Little Lies (27 page)

Marisela didn’t like that answer any better. “Nice. What did Brynn tell her about me?”

“Do you honestly care?”

She took a second to think about it. There was nothing a Titan dossier could tell her that she didn’t already know about her own life. “Not particularly.”

“The bottom line is that Yizenia seemed very interested in you, asking all sorts of questions, which according to Brynn struck her as idle conversation between friends. Her opinion has since changed. It seems clear that Yizenia set up this meeting tonight to draw you out. Talk to you.”

“What does she want with me?”

Ian grinned, opened the glove compartment on the sports car and extracted a long, thin leather case. “That’s what you’re about to find out.”

* * *

Yizenia dialed the number one more time. When the recording came on yet again, she slammed the phone down on the cradle. Disconnected? How dare he! In all her years, a client had never treated her with such disregard. The remainder of her fee had shown up this morning in her Swiss account, yet how could he possibly believe the job was completed?

One man remained. The man who had been key to the whole sordid tale.

Bradley Hightower.

Yizenia dragged her fingers through her hair, disconnected the clips that held the blond hairpiece in place and threw it across the table. She massaged her scalp, trying to ward off the suspicions surging through her bloodstream. Why would her client back off now? That they hadn’t found Bradley Hightower yet was simply a setback. A delay. He’d clearly hidden himself well, likely because he understood the true magnitude of what he’d done as a young man—first, lying to girls too naive and too starstruck by his family’s money and power to grasp the full breadth of his betrayal, and then killing one when she became inconvenient, thus dooming the other to a downward spiral of loss and despondency.

Her client had provided a detailed account of Tracy Manning’s life. Locked in a cycle of self-destruction, the young woman had clearly never recovered from the tragedy of her sister’s murder. Yizenia knew the girl’s hopelessness. Her loneliness. Her rage. Didn’t she deserve justice?

How could a man who claimed to have been Tracy’s lover lose his stomach now for the violence of real retribution?

While Yizenia had hoped to have a message from her client awaiting her return, tonight hadn’t been a total loss. She kicked off her shoes and reveled in the opportunity she’d had to watch Marisela work, up close. She could be crude, but effective. Under Yizenia’s guidance, she could learn style. She could excel.

But how to lure her? What would a woman like Marisela Morales need in order to tempt her into the vocation of revenge for hire?

Yizenia was twisting her arms around her back to release her zipper when she heard the click. Instantly, the atmosphere in the room shifted. Someone had come into her apartment. Yizenia continued to undo her dress. No need to alert her intruder.

She moved casually toward her bedroom.

“You can stop right there.”

When she heard the voice, Yizenia couldn’t help but smile. She turned around, slowly, with her hands visible, since she assumed Marisela Morales had a gun.

She was right.

“You won’t need that,” Yizenia told Marisela, who held the weapon straight and steady.

“I’ll be the judge of that, thanks.” Marisela spared the apartment a quick glance. “You’ve moved up.”

Yizenia grinned. Since abandoning her last apartment, she’d indulged in the nicest restored and furnished space she could find. This job in Boston had taken more time than she’d anticipated and she’d grown tired of living in squalor. The luxury of original polished hardwood floors, hand-carved masonry cornices, and luxurious hand-tooled leather furniture reminded her of home. The genuine Art Deco light fixture threw golden beams of light across the geometric patterns on the carpet and glinted like fire off the silver barrel of Marisela’s LadySmith .357 five-shot revolver.

“I prefer to live in a certain style,
sí
. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Okay, then let’s try a little humility regarding your line of work.”

Slowly, Yizenia lowered her hands. Marisela moved her gun only an inch, but her meaning was clear.

“I’m unarmed,” Yizenia assured her. “I detest handguns. They lack elegance.”

“They do the job.”

Therein lay the difference between them. Yizenia admired the girl’s raw courage, but she mourned her lack of sophistication. Still, standing in her presence electrified Yizenia with possibilities—and sapped her energy at the same time. Around Marisela, she felt both invigorated and old. The dichotomy fascinated her and repelled her, yet she couldn’t curb her need to discover if Marisela was truly the one.

“Why did you follow me?” Yizenia asked. “The only way to stop me is to kill me. And if that were your aim, you would have done so by now.”

“Not necessarily,” Marisela said, her tone even. “First, I want to know why you sought me out.”

“Are you so certain I did?”

Marisela rolled her eyes. “Why else did you lure Parker Manning to that restaurant when you had no intention of ever exchanging a word with him? You don’t care about him. He’s not your client.”

Yizenia nodded. What did it matter if she shared this truth with Marisela? She had no intention of revealing her client’s identity. She had a reputation to protect, standards to uphold. Protecting the identity of the client—even when the client had acted in ways that bordered on insulting—was as important to Yizenia as completing the job itself.

“How do you know you were my ultimate target tonight?” Yizenia asked. “Yes, I knew Titan was watching Parker Manning, and yes, I did initiate the meeting as a way to draw my opponents into the light. But perhaps I was simply looking for Ian again. I’ve been in this city longer than I planned. A woman cannot always fight her most intimate urges.”

Marisela’s mouth quirked. “Okay, yuck.”

Yizenia laughed from deep in her belly. “You mean to say you do not desire this man? What’s not to want? He’s handsome, rich, powerful. No woman can resist that combination.”

“You have no idea what I can and cannot resist. So if you’re trying to make me jealous, you’re wasting your time.”

Yizenia laughed again. “
Mija
, I make it a rule never to waste anything.”

“Then let’s not waste any more words. Why did you want to talk with me? What about me interests you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Yizenia raised her wrist, tugging back her sleeve so that her tattoo was bright and visible, even in the dim light.

“We are both so very much alike,” Yizenia said.

Marisela’s eyes narrowed. “So you have a tattoo. So do I. Big deal.”

“It’s not the marking itself,
mi hermana
. It’s the symbolism.
El espíritu
. Your tattoo comes from your gang,
sí
? From the women who taught you the power of violence.”

“And the consequences of it.”

Yizenia sniffed. “You try to convince me now that you are peaceful?”

Marisela snickered. “Not likely. But I’m not reckless.”

“And I am? Child, if that’s what you think, you have not been paying proper attention.”

“Oh, I’m paying very close attention. I want to know why you’re in my business. What do I have to do with you?”

Yizenia glanced at her watch. She supposed the time had come to answer a few questions, to begin the dialogue she’d been toying with instigating for days now, perhaps months. She’d been intrigued by Marisela Morales since the first time she’d heard her name. The invitation to work in Boston had been a twist of fate—a dictate of destiny. Best to take advantage of the situation now rather than later. Because later, she will have slipped away.

“I will tell you what you need to know,” Yizenia promised. “After you lower your weapon. You may hold it, of course, if it makes you feel…safer around me.”

The dig sparked a snort. “Yeah, well, I think I will hang onto this, thanks. You being the big, bad, and all. See, not reckless.”

American sarcasm. The lack of wit amazed her.

Yizenia gestured to a long couch in the parlor area. Marisela took the seat nearest the door, forcing Yizenia to sit with her back to the window. Yizenia admired the woman’s keen strategic move and for a moment considered that her escape would be difficult. Yizenia had no doubt that Marisela had not come here alone. Her colleagues from Titan were likely monitoring their every move, listening to every word they exchanged. This annoyed Yizenia rather than worried her. She’d always planned this conversation to be private, but she’d reveal nothing of consequence except to Marisela.

“Brynn is aware that I’m here?” Yizenia asked.

Marisela cradled the gun in her lap casually, but with the barrel still pointing directly at Yizenia and her hand still firm on the grip. “She helped us find you.”

Yizenia smiled. “She’s a smart woman. I had no illusions that she’d retain any loyalty to me once I betrayed her trust by seeking you out.”

“Then there’s that little matter of you trying to kill our client.”

“Business is business. Next time we meet, I’ll bring her a bottle of her favorite cognac. It’s a very rare vintage and very expensive.”

“Money doesn’t impress me.”

Yizenia leaned forward, looking deep into Marisela’s onyx eyes. “What does impress you?”

“Why do you care?”

Single-minded. Another useful quality.

“You interest me.”

“I’m not flattered.”

“You should be. I’m a very discriminating woman.”

“You’re a killer. You take money and you gun people down in cold blood. How, exactly, does that make you believe you’re so damned superior?”

“The people I kill have nothing but cold blood.”

Marisela’s mouth twisted derisively. “Right. You’re this great avenger. Just out of curiosity, who died and made you judge, jury, and executioner?”

Yizenia bristled. “If you must know, my mother, my father and my two sisters. They were gunned down at the family dinner table by the agents of the Spanish government because my father dared to speak out against them.”

Marisela’s eyes didn’t falter. “Why didn’t they kill you, too?”

“Who says they didn’t?”

Yizenia had answered too quickly. She hadn’t guarded her words or her tone. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and regained her composure. Yizenia was no young upstart, overconfident and brash. She knew her limits, her weaknesses. Emotion was something she could not easily dismiss, but she had to hold her feelings close, keep them in control, or else she’d act in anger, haste, and ultimately, in error.

Marisela’s expression was neither cold nor expressive, but somewhere in between. She too understood the advantage of restraint, though she wasn’t as practiced in the art as Yizenia.

“It was luck, perhaps, that saved my life,” Yizenia continued. “I prefer to think of it as fate. I was not mortally wounded. And when it was discovered that I had lived, the government decided to draft me into their service. My father was already dead—my death would have served nothing. So they spared my life. I learned my skills within the shadows of Franco’s army, but once I was old enough and smart enough, I realized I should focus on pursuing my own interests. A change in regime made my defection possible.”

“And you took up as a killer for hire?”

“I offered my services to others, yes, but only after I picked off, one by one, the
degradados
who killed my family.”

Yizenia stopped trying to hide her disdain, her abject hatred, the emotion that had driven her here. Perhaps Marisela Morales was not the right woman to take her place. She hadn’t tasted the bitter flavor of despair, of an anger so driving, her soul would surrender without a fight.

“You should be glad that I possess such talent or that man you sleep with, the one with the dark skin and intriguing hazel eyes, would be dead right now with a bullet in his back.”

The look of triumph in Marisela’s eyes was unmistakable. “So it was you.”

Yizenia waved her hand dismissively. “Who else?”

Marisela arched a brow. “We were trying to track you down and you came to our rescue. Why?”

“You did not deserve death at the hands of
un criminal cualquiera
. He attacked first. You only defended yourselves.”

“So it’s true you never take on an assignment unless the targets deserve their fate,” Marisela said.

“Sí,”
she confirmed with a nod.

“Then why kill Evan Cole? He wasn’t on the island the night Rebecca Manning died.”

“Mentirosa,”
Yizenia accused. “You know as well as I do that he was there.”

Marisela arched a brow. “Actually, yes, I do. But here’s the thing.
How
did you know? His presence was not common knowledge.”

“I do not proceed without proof, Marisela. I’m not quick to believe the tales of angry men.”

“But you’re not imperfect.”

Yizenia waved her hand dismissively. She supposed she was fallible, but she’d yet to be proven so.

“I’m human,” she said.

“Some would argue with you on that,” Marisela muttered. “Okay, then let’s move on to Raymond Hightower, the younger brother? He was the first one you killed. What part did he play in Rebecca Manning’s death?”

Yizenia considered the likelihood that she was being recorded. Luckily, she knew enough about American laws to know that any recording would be inadmissible in the court system here. If the police needed proof of her involvement in the murders, they’d need to look no further than the bedroom, where she’d stashed her rifle.

“Raymond Hightower drove Rebecca Manning to her death. He coaxed her to the island on his brother’s orders so they could kill her and dump her body in the swamp. Why are you asking me all this? You know the truth. You’ve interviewed Tracy Manning yourself.”

Marisela turned her body and sat back against the armrest. “Yes, I have. But obviously, you haven’t. The truth you think you know has been twisted, Yizenia. You’re killing without cause.”

Yizenia scoffed, but the sparkle in Marisela’s eyes—so confident, so suddenly clear, as if the pieces of the puzzle had finally fallen into place caused a shiver up her spine.