Six Months Earlier

 

They didn’t even know who I was.

This secretary was looking at me like she wanted to eat me. I wondered what she would think if she knew I had modeled for an agency in New York for nearly two years.

This operative sitting two desks over from me was staring daggers into my back. I’d gotten the preferable case last week—a stalker harassing a local cop—while he got a routine cheating husband. I wondered what he would think if he knew I’d been trained to kill him in five different ways without even leaving my chair.

I used to look at people like them and think it was amusing that they had no idea who I was. Now…I wished there was someone I could tell.

I’d been in America for more than ten years now, but I hadn’t made any close connections in all that time. At first, it was because I believed it was too dangerous. As time passed, it became clear that the danger was more in my own mind than anywhere else. But, by then, it had become a habit. Now I simply didn’t know how to connect to people.

If only they knew.

“Patrick?”

I turned to find Brent Stone making his way through the maze of desks. He smiled when he spotted me, almost as if he was relieved to find the purpose of his visit. He nodded to a couple of people who sat up a little straighter when the founder’s brother came into the room, but he was laser focused on me.

Good. That always meant a new case.

I’d just finished up the stalker thing and was ready to get my teeth into something new.

Brent leaned against the edge of my desk, a file folder in his hands.

“You finished that cop thing, right?”

“Yes, sir. I was just working on the final report.”

“That can wait.” Brent glanced around briefly. “Jack’s in Arizona. He’s got into his head that he wants to start a satellite office there, but he’s run into trouble. He needs a little support, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“He asked for you specifically. Would you be interested in going? I can’t guarantee you’ll be coming back anytime soon.”

I shrugged. It wasn’t like I had roots here.

“No problem.”

Brent nodded. “We’ll provide you with a vehicle and travel money. He needs you ASAP.”

“I can leave in the morning.”

That seemed to satisfy Brent. He stood and left the file he’d been holding on my desk. I watched him go, aware that I was once again under something of a microscope by my coworkers. The secretary was always watching me, but now some of the other operatives were deeply interested in what I was up to. Some had heard, and there was jealousy on their faces. Like they could pick up their lives and move to another state on a moment’s notice. I could, but I couldn’t imagine anyone else in this room could.

I’d worked for Stone Security for nearly three years now. I’d traveled the country, doing this job, taking that job. But I didn’t really enjoy any of it. It wasn’t until I found Stone that I found a job that kept me interested while allowing me my privacy. As long as I showed up and had my colleagues’ backs, I was good. I even worked directly with Jack Stone a few times, running cases that required two or more people on it for one reason or another. We did an investigative case together once, looking for this fool who thought he could blackmail a city councilman. I saved Jack’s ass when the guy unexpectedly showed up while we were checking out his house. The guy attacked Jack, but I knocked him out, giving Jack the chance to concoct a story that kept us both out of jail.

Maybe that was why Jack asked for me on this new thing he had going.

I finished up my report and grabbed my keys, slinging my jacket over a shoulder as I headed out. It didn’t matter if I came back to this place or not. I was only leaving behind a couple of paperclips and some workout clothes in the gym downstairs. Not a trace.

I’d learned early not to leave pieces of myself behind.

My car was a lease, my apartment a month-to-month deal with the old lady who owned the garage it sat above. No girlfriend, though there was a pretty lady who warmed my bed from time to time. She was married to an older, impotent businessman who was richer than God. She might miss me for a day or two until she found another boy toy to fill her evenings.

I walked into the apartment and grabbed a duffel out of the closet, filling it with my small wardrobe. That was my one hang-up. I liked my clothes. I liked to dress nice. I didn’t have much in the way of clothing, but what I had was expensive. I learned quickly and well when I was modeling what looked good. I liked to look good.

Suits by Armani and Brioni. Shirts and jackets by Gucci and Stella McCartney. Jeans by Damir Doma and Alexander McQueen.

If it didn’t cost at least four hundred dollars, I wasn’t interested.

Even the duffel was leather and cost me nearly seven hundred bucks.

Once the duffel was full, I looked around the room, trying to decide if there was anything else I wanted to take. The sad truth was, there was nothing.

I travel light. It’s always been my way. Baggage had a way of anchoring a person, holding them in one place, allowing his enemies to find him. I knew I had enemies from my past life. The first past life.

I had lived many lives over the past twenty years. The first was the most dangerous. The second was New York and my modeling career. I lived under a different name then. It was a good life, but my reputation grew too big for safety’s sake. I took another name, then there was a brief music career in Chicago and a pedestrian factory job in St. Louis. That name lasted until I got involved with the wrong married woman in Denver. Another name change, and I found Stone Security. I almost hoped they would find me out when they did their background check, but my credentials were—and would always be—impeachable. The people who provided them to me were the best.

No one would ever know the truth about me unless I chose to tell them. It was both a reassuring fact and a frustrating one.

It wasn’t that I wanted to be caught. I just…I was bored with the lies.

They called me Patrick Shaughnessy now. If only they knew how ironic it was.

There was one last thing I needed. I went to the desk pushed into a corner of the room, a desk that served as both a workspace and a vanity, should the occupant of this place be a woman in need of a place to do her makeup other than the narrow sink in the teeny bathroom. I caught sight of my reflection as I reached into a deep drawer for the satellite phone I kept hidden there.

Dark Irish. That’s what the modeling agent had called me. She couldn’t have been further from the truth.

I was dark. My hair was jet black, cut military style, my eyes, slightly hidden under heavy brows, a smoldering brown that could be black in the right light. I was slender, tall, athletically built with a well-defined six pack, but not overly muscular. My nose had been broken a few times so it was fuller along the bridge than it once had been, but it was set off by my narrow jaw. I wondered sometimes how people could look at me and take my new name, my bullshit backstory, seriously. I could see my true heritage in my face, in the basic nature of my mannerisms. I didn’t understand how they couldn’t.

I reached up and ran a hand over my short hair, touching the gauge that hung from my earlobe. Maybe I was just that good of an actor. Or maybe I had just overestimated the intelligence of American society. Not that I thought badly of Americans or their country. I loved it here. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

I would keep playing this game as long as it was necessary. But I looked forward to the day when I could finally tell someone the truth and not have to worry about the repercussions.