He felt a kind of internal slump. Since he’d climbed into Will’s SUV, he’d been trying to convince himself Will was jumping at shadows, that people didn’t change that much…
“Will.”
Will turned, followed Taylor’s gaze, and turned his flashlight beam in the direction of Taylor’s. They looked at each other. Taylor glanced up at the boarded face of the lighthouse tower.
Will grunted, aimed his flashlight at the bottom step, at the water splash of darkness. He let out a soft sigh.
“Cover me,” Taylor said, and Will stepped to the side, resting both hands on the railing, aiming his SIG Sauer P229 at the doorway.
They already knew this precaution was unnecessary.
Taylor sprinted up the stairs, crossed the balcony in two steps, pushed open the cracked door. His flashlight beam picked out a motionless form facedown on the floor. He had a quick impression of shaggy silver hair, bulky shoulders, and a black-leather clad back with a wet and glistening hole in the center.
Funny how without ever meeting Zamarion, he had managed to form a picture of him. The truth was older—much older—heavier, and carrying a lot more wear and tear.
Taylor stepped back from the doorway and called down to Will. “He’s dead. Phone the sheriffs.”
* * * * *
The rain had stopped when they finally pulled up in the courtyard of 3000 Foothill Road. Every light in the house appeared to be blazing, though it was after midnight.
Taylor and Will had spent a long time talking to the sheriffs—and a long time not talking to the sheriffs. Will was not happy with the not-talking part, but he had acquiesced to Taylor.
“I want to speak to him first, that’s all,” Taylor said.
“You can’t get him out of this. You understand that, right?” The concern in Will’s gaze was all for Taylor. He hadn’t wanted Ashe as a client to start with.
“If he did this, I don’t want to get him out of it.”
“If he did it?” Will questioned. “Do you have an alternate theory?”
No. He did not have an alternate theory. And he was the guy known for coming up with alternate theories.
Will did not approve of keeping things from law enforcement, but he followed Taylor’s lead and kept his answers brief and largely uninformative, and for that Taylor was grateful.
He was less grateful that Will had hired Stuart Schwierskott to investigate Ashe, but he had listened in silence as Will had told him everything Schwierskott had learned about their former client. And hey, kudos to Schwierskott who, while not great at fieldwork, turned out to know his way around an intelligence report.
The most disturbing piece of information Schwierskott had uncovered was that Ashe’s boyfriend, Josip Marić—a low-level drug dealer—had died falling off the balcony of their Zagreb penthouse, a suspected mob hit.
Gee, no wonder he’d had trouble getting that travel visa. Being dead would cramp anyone’s travel plans.
If Taylor had been a guy prone to freaking out, that news would have freaked him out. But it also explained why Ashe was so terrified.
“I don’t think you should go in there on your own,” Will said as they studied the brightly lit windows.
“He has nothing to gain by harming me now.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know that. Maybe he still thinks his main worry is Bashnakov. He never struck me as the most rational guy.”
“He’s not stupid.”
Will made an if-you-say-so sound. He said, “He’s got a thing about you. That worries me. There’s a reason he was tapped by Bashnakov.”
“He was tapped because he owes the Russians millions.”
“You know what I mean.”
Yes, he knew. And yes, Ashe did seem to bear him a considerable grudge. Although likely his main motivation had been self-preservation.
“I think there’s less chance of it all going sideways if I talk to him on my own. If I can make him see the advantage of being first through the door—”
Will was shaking his head. “He’s not going to roll over on Bashnakov. Anyway, he won’t have had personal dealings with The Technician. You know how it works.”
“I know.” Taylor reached for the door handle, stopping when Will grabbed his arm.
“Be careful in there,” Will growled. “I mean it. Don’t give him the benefit of the doubt—” Taylor cut him off with a kiss, and got out of the SUV.
Ashe did not answer Taylor’s knock or the doorbell.
With a sinking feeling, Taylor tried the door, and it swung open on well-oiled hinges.
“Ashe?”
No answer.
The unlocked door could mean a lot of things, including the fact that Ashe had asked him to stop by for drinks and a little bit of Auld Lang Syne earlier that evening. It did not have to mean what he feared: that finding himself cornered, Ashe chose the easy way out.
Not that it would be easy for Ashe. He had a strong sense of self-preservation. As indicated by recent events.
Taylor glanced back at Will’s Toyota Land Cruiser. The clouds had parted, and the full moon shone, bathing the courtyard in eerie silver light. He couldn’t see Will inside the vehicle, but he raised his hand in reassurance, and stepped inside the tiled hall.
Once inside, he pulled his weapon and proceeded down the corridor.
Despite its grand facade and 3.5 million price tag, the house proper was not even four thousand square feet. It took him less than three minutes to conduct a rudimentary search for Ashe.
There was plenty of indication he was around somewhere. An empty tequila bottle sitting on the kitchen counter, the washing machine sudsing through its cold-clean cycle, the television in the family room blasting out a local newscast.
“The body of a gunshot victim was discovered this evening by two private investigators, in a lifeguard station on Carpinteria State Beach. The victim, whose identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin…”
The back door to the outdoor covered veranda
