repeated the words inside her head, squelching the urge to sign them as well. Dad. I’ve been offered a wonderful chance to—
A bone-deep thud shook the floor beneath her feet and Claire halted in her tracks. She felt another vibration through the soles of her Manolo Blahniks and saw the water in the aquarium ripple against the side of the tank.
“What the…?”
Missouri hadn’t had a big earthquake since the late 1800s, and there wasn’t enough wind outside to make the steel-and-limestone building sway.
She glanced over her shoulder at the tunnel of darkness that filled the hallway behind her. Had a cleaning crew come in? Knocked over a bucket? Slammed a door? Was the security guard making his rounds early?
Had one of those unknown terrors just gone bump in the night?
Claire opened her mouth and turned to call out to her father. But she snapped it shut just as quickly and retreated into the shadows as a tall, black-haired stranger stepped into view beyond the open doorway to her father’s office. The man’s black suit and tie made him appear as little more than a silhouette against the cream-colored walls inside.
But there was no mistaking the gun he held in his black-gloved hands, or the methodic precision with which he unscrewed the long, tubular silencer from its steel tip and slipped both items into the holster beneath his jacket.
Oh, my God.
He’d shot someone!
Claire swung her gaze over to Valerie’s office and back to her father’s. The assistant hadn’t run out to check on the noises. But with a silencer, maybe Valerie hadn’t heard the shots.
Technically, Claire hadn’t heard anything, either. The vibrations she’d felt could have been the concussions of the gun. Or a body hitting the floor. Or the bashing in of someone’s head. Someone being shoved against the wall. A fight—
Stop it!
Tears pricked Claire’s eyes. The breath stopped in her chest. But she forced herself to think rationally, to be aware of the danger at hand. Clutching at the pearls around her neck, she fought to dispel the image of her father, dead in his chair.
Nonchalantly standing there in her father’s office, the man in black stared down at his handiwork with cold, dark eyes. “I’ll come back for the body.”
Claire could read the promise on his lips clear across the waiting room. Body? Someone was dead. The man in black had just killed…
“Daddy?” she whispered the unthinkable thought, squeezing her fist so tightly that her necklace snapped.
A sharp gasp was the only curse she allowed herself as the clasp broke and pearls fell into her hand. She twisted to keep her elbow close to her body to catch the falling strand in the crook of her arm. Tiny knots kept most of the beads together in one string, but she contorted herself to catch two, three…but a fourth hit the floor, bounced off the hard wood and rolled away into the darkness.
To Claire’s ears, there was no sound.
But in her mind, the bounce was deafening.
She whipped her head up to the lighted doorway. How loud was a single pearl? How good was the man in black’s hearing?
How dead would she be if she were caught?
Concern for her father dimmed, and fear for herself blazed through her veins in full force.
Claire dropped to her haunches and crawled toward the aquarium, her instincts warning her to duck behind its thick mahogany base. Or maybe it was the pounding of her racing heart that made her suddenly too light-headed to stand. Daddy! She cried the word inside her head, knowing he wasn’t there to help. She shoved the remains of the traitorous necklace inside her jacket pocket and tucked her legs beneath her, making herself as small as a child, hiding before the man turned and spotted her.
If it wasn’t already too late.
Claire blinked and the tears spilled over to run down her cheeks. But she held her breath and disappeared from view between the jungle-size plants and their low, sheltering branches. She counted the seconds off silently in her head until her lungs burned and forced her to inhale.
With fresh oxygen came a fresh thought. He hadn’t found her. He hadn’t snatched her up by the hair or arm, or put a bullet through her head. She hadn’t felt his footsteps through the floor or smelled him walking past, either.
Feeling safe for the moment, something new—something harder, tougher, angrier—slipped past her fear and grief, clearing her head.
With a bold sense of purpose, Claire scooted to the end of the aquarium and peeked through the camouflage of leaves. From this angle she could see the man with the gun. Above the partition that blocked his lower body from view, she memorized the shape of his face, the cut of his hair and every acne-pocked scar on his deeply tanned cheeks.
She swiped the tears from her cheeks and squinted harder, noting the movements of his long, thin lips. He was talking again. Having a conversation. Though the second person remained hidden from view behind a steel panel, she could interpret his pauses and nods.
At this distance, she couldn’t hear the words. But then, Claire didn’t need to.
“That’s number four on your list,” the man said.
Four dead bodies? He’d killed others? Why? Inching closer, she pressed her shoulder into the aquarium’s base and eavesdropped with her eyes. Who was he?
The man in black frowned. His eyes narrowed as he tilted his chin. “You don’t tell me when or where I do the job. When you hire me, all you have to know is that the job will get done.” He smiled. It was a cold, evil thinning of his lips that twisted Claire’s stomach into knots. “Think of it as insurance for both of us. You know that the people in your way have been disposed of. And I know you won’t turn me in if someone figures out that you’re the one behind all this.”
Another pause. Who was he talking to? Who would want her father dead? Where was Valerie? Claire read the argument on his lips.
“Relax. I’m too good at my job for anyone to find me, much less find out who hired me.” He buttoned his suit coat over his gun. “The last two will be eliminated once I feel the timing is right. In the meantime, I’ll expect another deposit into my account for this one. By ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Or you’ll find your name on my list. No charge.”
His partner must have said something that displeased the man in black. His thready smile became an ugly frown.
“I’m worth every penny you’re paying me. I never miss.” When he leaned toward his unseen partner in crime, Claire backed away, as if the cold-blooded threat in his eyes was intended for her. “If I say I’ll kill someone, they’ll be dead. And I won’t leave a trace.”
Claire’s breath rushed out in a gasp deep enough to stir the leaves of the ficus beside her. Quickly, she slapped her hand over her mouth. Had she made a noise? Had he heard her?
Though he didn’t react as if he suspected he was being watched, when he turned to exit her father’s office, Claire curled into a tiny ball and prayed to God that the aquarium,
