That she’s somehow above them.
I wonder if she’s crying, if she’s grieving for the man she admitted she hadn’t really known. When Sara first told me she and her husband were separated, I didn’t believe her, but some of the things she said under the drug’s influence made me rethink that conclusion. Something had gone very wrong in her supposedly perfect marriage, something that left an indelible trace on her.
She’s known pain; she’s lived with it. I could see it in her eyes, in the soft, trembling curve of her mouth. It intrigued me, that glimpse into her mind, made me want to delve deeper into her secrets, and when she closed her lips around my fingers and started sucking on them, the hunger I’d been trying to suppress returned, my cock hardening uncontrollably.
I could’ve taken her then, and she would’ve let me. Fuck, she would’ve welcomed me with open arms. The drug had lowered her inhibitions, stripped away all her defenses. She’d been open and vulnerable, needy in a way that called to the deepest parts of me.
Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave.
Even now, I can hear her pleas, so much like Pasha’s the last time I saw him. She didn’t know what she was asking, didn’t know who I was or what I was about to do, but her words shook me to the core, making me long for something utterly impossible. It had taken all my willpower to walk away and leave her tied in that chair for the FBI to find.
It had taken everything I had to leave and continue with my mission.
My attention returns to the present when Cobakis’s colleague stops speaking, and Sara approaches the podium. Her slim, dark-clothed figure moves with unconscious grace, and anticipation coils in my gut as she turns and faces the crowd.
A black scarf is wrapped around her neck, shielding her from the chilly October wind and hiding the bandage that must be there. Above the scarf, her heart-shaped face is ghost pale, but her eyes are dry—at least as far as I can tell from this distance. I’d love to stand closer, but that’s too risky. I’m already taking a chance by being here. There are at least two FBI agents among the attendees, and a couple more are sitting unobtrusively in government-issue cars on the street. They’re not expecting me to be here—security would be much tighter if they were—but that doesn’t mean I can let my guard down. As it is, Anton and the others think I’m crazy for showing up here.
We normally leave town within hours of a successful hit.
“As you all know, George and I met in college,” Sara says into the microphone, and my spine tingles at the sound of her soft, melodious voice. I’ve been watching her long enough to know that she can sing. She often sings along to popular music when she’s alone in her car or while doing chores around the house.
Most of the time, she sounds better than the actual singer.
“We met in a chemistry lab,” she continues, “because believe it or not, George was thinking about going to med school at the time.” I hear a few chuckles in the crowd, and Sara’s lips curve in a faint smile as she says, “Yes, George, who couldn’t stand the sight of blood, actually considered becoming a doctor. Fortunately, he quickly discovered his true passion—journalism—and the rest is history.”
She goes on to talk about her husband’s various habits and quirks, including his love for cheese sandwiches drizzled with honey, then moves on to his achievements and good deeds, detailing his unwavering support for the veterans and the homeless. As she speaks, I notice that everything she says has to do with him, rather than the two of them. Other than the initial mention of how they first met, Sara’s speech could’ve been made by a roommate or a friend—anyone who knew Cobakis, really. Even her voice is steady and calm, with no hint of the pain I glimpsed in her eyes that night.
It’s only when she gets to the accident that I see some real emotion on her face. “George was many wonderful things,” she says, gazing out over the crowd. “But all those things ended eighteen months ago, when his car hit that guardrail and went over. Everything he was died that day. What remained was not George. It was a shell of him, a body without a mind. When death came for him early Saturday morning, it didn’t get my husband. It got only that shell. George himself was long gone by then, and nothing could make him suffer.”
Her chin lifts as she says this last part, and I stare at her intently. She doesn’t know I’m here—the FBI would be all over me if she did—but I feel like she’s speaking directly to me, telling me that I failed. Does she sense me on some level? Feel me watching her?
Does she know that when I stood over her husband’s bedside two nights ago, for a brief moment I considered not pulling the trigger?
She finishes her speech with the traditional words about how much George will be missed, and then she steps off the podium, letting the priest have his final say. I watch her walk back to the elderly couple, and when the crowd starts to disperse, I quietly follow the other mourners out of the cemetery.
The funeral is over, and my fascination with Sara must be too.
There are more people on my list, and fortunately for her, Sara is not one of them.
Part II
6
Sara
“Darling, are you not eating again?” Mom asks with a worried frown. Though she was
