––––––––

It’s strangely cool tonight—unseasonably so—which I suppose is a blessing. For some reason, I’d pictured sweat rolling down my back and a clammy sensation overwhelming me as I contemplated what I was here to do. None of that has come to pass so far.

Instead, I’m calm and collected and counting down the minutes until the younger McManus generation loads their offspring into their fancy vehicles and depart down the long, winding drive. From my vantage point on the roof of their small garden shed, I can see the maid cleaning up the final vestiges of their five-course meal in the huge, galley kitchen. Judge McManus is sharing a scotch and a cigar with his only son on the back patio while Mrs. McManus and her three daughters are benignly chatting as they watch the children play with the gifts their grandparents gave them when they arrived.

Apparently, the invitation to family dinner doesn’t extend to the partners of their children—not one spouse is to be seen. I’d try harder to pick apart the threads that make up this family if I could muster more than the most cursory of curiosities.

I guess, the knowledge that none of it will matter in less than an hour stops me from caring. Whatever issues they have with their children’s chosen ones, it’s all going to cease to exist by the time the sun rises in the morning.

“Well, I better get the kids back to Martha,” the McManus’ son doesn’t sound all that upset at leaving. He’s been struggling to keep the conversation flowing with his father since they finished discussing the finer points of the cigars they’d smoked and the small nib of—I’m assuming—expensive scotch they’d consumed. “I’ll see you next month.”

Judge McManus claps his son of the shoulder as they head back inside.

“Same time, same place,” I hear him assure his eldest just before the French doors close behind them.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t bet on it,” I mutter to myself as I slide from the roof of the garden shed. With exaggerated movements that I probably picked up from a Jackie Chan movie when I was an impressionable teen, I roll across the lush, green lawn and promptly drop the backpack I forgot I had slung over my shoulders.

A ninja, I will not make.

Once I’ve reclaimed my bag and shoved it back into place, I crouch down behind the tall hedge. My position affords me the perfect view of the brightly lit living areas and a snippet of the front gate.

It’s a matter of minutes before the McManus children are headed down the driveway and back to their lives away from their parents. The ornate, cast iron gates automatically rattle to a close along their tracks behind them, heralding an end to family night.

I’d bet my left ball that the adults in the cars breathe a sigh of relief when their parent’s mansion is out of view. Honestly, I thought Amber’s parents were cold. Judge and Mrs. McManus make the St. George’s look positively warm in comparison. The tail lights from the departing vehicles are still lighting up the distance, yet Mrs. McManus is already climbing the curved staircase to the second floor with her bag of half-finished crochet pieces in her arms and the light to the judge’s office on the bottom floor has been switched on. Moments later, the side service door bangs shut and the maid whistles as she walks down the drive.

That’s my cue. My targets are alone.

Standing tall for the first time since I arrived here two hours ago, I make my way round to the French doors that the Judge and his son entered through barely fifteen minutes ago. It had been a gamble to trust that they’d leave their back door unlocked, like most older folk who live in good neighbourhoods, but it had paid off. My own parents would never consider going about their business with their house unsecured—day or night—however they don’t live in a community where the lowest priced houses still fetch over a million dollars.

Different strokes for different folks and all that.

I reach for the brass handle and catch sight of my exposed hand. Thankfully I pause before I touch anything. Grinding my teeth, I set my backpack down and ransack through the contents until I find the black gloves and knitted balaclava that I’d packed for tonight—all supplies courtesy of the false backed cupboard in the laundry of the beach house. B had graciously texted me about its existence after I’d spent an hour trying to work out how I was going to get my hands on an illegal weapon. Her glee at my distress could almost be seen coating the instructions that had blinked at me from my phone.

“Welcome to amateur hour, folks,” I grouse to myself as I wrestle the balaclava over my head. Once my gloves are in place, I reach for the handle once again. Lightly pressing it down, I hold my breath while I wait to see if it’s going to make a noise and alert the occupants to my presence.

“Thank the Lord for well-oiled hinges,” I say as I pull the door open.

Slipping inside, I close my eyes for a second once I’ve shut the door and conjure a mental image of the houses blueprint that I spent most of today trying to memorise. The judge’s office is the second door off the main downstairs living area.

Either the judge or his wife have kindly left one of the floor lamps in the living area on for me. It illuminates the short hall which leads to Judge McManus’ office so I use its light to navigate the living room as I head toward the Judge.

Now, you may be wondering why I’m offing him first. As a novice assassin, it would make sense to start with the weaker spouse, but I don’t have it in me. Technically, she’s innocent. Mrs. McManus hasn’t done a thing to me and her actual involvement in the whole Centrifuge debacle is only based on B’s word.

So, Judge McManus is first.

My first victim.

I’ll get rid of the guilty party before I move on to the less guilty.

That thought makes my brain backflip in my skull.

How the hell did I end up here? Making decisions about which person I’m going to kill first.

“I understand what you’re saying, Henry,” the Judge’s words become clearer as I near his office door. “Yes, Malcolm has already contacted me to assure me that he had nothing to do with what happened at the opening. I want to believe you, but I don’t understand how you expect me to accept that a dead woman and the man I put in jail for murdering her are behind all of this.”

Edging closer so I can hear better, I almost jump out of my skin when my elbow knocks a large vase that stands on a hallstand to my left. It clangs. I pivot and catch it at the last moment and set it back in place.

Crisis averted, I resume my original position.

If only my pumping heart and surging adrenaline was so easy to fix.

“My head is the one on the chopping block here,” Judge McManus growls down the phone. “I’ve invested everything I have in this drug. I’ve put my career on the line to help you lock up your fall guy, so I don’t appreciate seeing my name splashed across the front pages of the papers as part of some conspiracy to make money off the suffering of people who are losing their damn minds!”

The door is slightly ajar, and my curiosity is piqued enough that I’m willing to risk him discovering that I’m here by moving closer. B was right. Her plan to divide and conquer is working. They’re turning on each other.

“No,” he spits the word with hostility down the line. “I am not going to sit tight and wait for you to bring me answers. It will take me exactly one phone call and thirty-thousand dollars to find out what prison this Barrett character is currently held in, in order to have him eradicated, once and for all. I’m an idiot for letting myself believe that you had this under control.”

Pure rage churns within me at his words. The evil intent that he’s sent out into the universe eases my conscience. I am the injured party here—the innocent lamb who has been led to the slaughter by these power-hungry monsters. Right now, in this moment of clarity, I wish they were all in front of me because I would slaughter them without a second thought.

They deserve what’s coming.

The judge slams down the phone and throws his head back against the head rest of his big leather chair. Eyes closed, the judge lets out a long sigh that fills the office. I decide that it’s my sign. I pull the carving knife free from the side pocket of my backpack and push open the office door. 

“Let me save you that thirty grand,” I offer with menace lacing my tone. If I’d had any doubts before this, they’re gone after listening to him casually discuss how easy it would be for him to get rid of me. He wasn’t going to offer me an opportunity to escape so I’m not going to return the favour.

Judge McManus’ eyes fly open. He swings forward in his chair, but it’s too late. I’m there before he can scream for help. The gleaming blade of the knife slices through his wrinkled, old turkey neck with ease. His heavy-hooded eyes open wider still and fill with disbelief before he grabs his throat. Dark red blood runs like a raging torrent over his fingers, a sputtering sound as he struggles to breathe the only noise in the room.

I watch him bleed out over his desk with dispassionate detachment. When he slumps forward over his desk, the knot that formed in my stomach as I listened to him discuss how easy it would be for him to “eradicate” me unravels and a glacial calmness overcomes me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a quiet voice tells me that I should feel remorse for what I just did, but I can’t muster any real emotion at all. There is nothing, except a beautiful numbness.

All clouds of doubt have been lifted from my mind. B was right. I may be a saint, however I’m also a revenge-filled sinner, and it’s with this thought at the forefront of my mind, that I wipe the dirty blade of my knife across the back of the judge’s light-blue polo shirt to clean it. Once it’s gleaming again, I shove it into its original pocket in my backpack and let my feet take me in search of my next target.