Hit List

Olaf raised Karen Velasquez’s hand up and laid a kiss on it, but stared at me while he did it. She didn’t seem to notice, just smiled, and was almost flustered in how pleased it made her.

“You are quite lovely, and I am eager to see you later.”

She nodded, grinning. “Call me.”

He smiled. “I will contact you.”

Bernardo said, “Now, let’s all go to the cars. Bad guys to catch.” He made a shooing gesture at all of us, and we began to go for the parking lot. The nurse called after Olaf, “Call me.”

He waved at her, but his face was already emptying of that good humor and flirting. By the time we got to the cars his face was its usual self except for the new beard.

I took a breath, but Bernardo beat me to it. “You know the deal, Olaf. If you do your hobby on American soil you lose everything. Your badge, both your jobs, everything, and Edward will kill you, so really everything.”

“He will try to kill me,” Olaf said.

I ignored the last comment, because Olaf had to make it, just like I’d have had to make it. We couldn’t let anyone, not even Edward, think he was automatically better. But the details of Olaf’s deal were new to me. “So, more people than just you, me, and Edward know what he is?”

“A few,” Bernardo said, “but it all hinges on him not doing his serial killer thing here.”

I looked at Olaf. “You must be really good at something for them to look the other way about the rest.”

“I am very good at many things.” He delivered the words almost flat; if it had been another man I think he’d have made it flirty, but Olaf didn’t waste flirting on anyone but his victims, apparently. If he liked you for real, you got the real deal. Normally I preferred that in my men, but since the real deal was a sexually sadistic serial killer it was sort of a mixed blessing. Flattering, since I was pretty sure it was the most he’d ever shown himself to any woman, and scary as hell all at the same time. Flattering and frightening; that was Olaf all over.

“I believe that,” I said, and meant it.

“Do you?” He looked at me, and he seemed to truly be studying me, or trying to.

“Yes,” I said.

“It bothered you to see me with the woman.”

“You let me see in your face what you wanted to do to her, Olaf; of course that would bother me.”

“That bothered all of us,” Bernardo said.

Olaf looked up and I thought he was looking at Bernardo until he said, “It didn’t bother you, did it, Nick?”

“No,” Nicky said.

I turned and looked at Nicky, standing right beside me, face peaceful as it usually was. “Do the two of you know each other?”

“Sort of,” Nicky said.

“Yes,” Olaf said.

I looked from one to the other of them. “All right, talk to me. How do you know each other?”

Olaf said, “I think we might wish to have the other men step away.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Plausible deniability,” Nicky said.

“What?” I asked.

Bernardo patted Lisandro on the shoulder. “Let’s give them some privacy.”

Lisandro looked from one to the other of us, and finally looked just at me. “You tell me to give you some room and I’ll do it, but only because Nicky is here. I won’t leave you alone with Marshal Jefferies.”

Olaf gave Lisandro a long look. “You will do what Anita tells you to do. I’ve seen it.”

Lisandro shook his head. “I’ve seen you, too. I won’t leave Anita alone with you, even if she orders me to.”

I started to say something, and Lisandro just turned to me and shook his head. “We’ve all agreed, Anita, you don’t get left with him.”

“And I have no say in it,” I said.

“No,” he said.

“He does not respect you,” Olaf said.

“I respect Anita, but you”—he pointed at the bigger man—“you are not allowed to be alone with our boss.”

“If Anita truly leads, then it is up to her who is alone with her.”

“No, not on this,” Lisandro said.

Olaf looked at me. “Will you let him rule you?”

The question was a trap. If I said any man “ruled” me, it could turn me from serial killer girlfriend to serial killer victim for Olaf. As uncomfortable as it was for him to think of me as a girlfriend, it was a lot better than just being meat for him. I did not want to change categories in Olaf’s twisted little fantasies.

“Lisandro doesn’t rule me, no one does, but if you hadn’t noticed, Edward doesn’t leave us alone either.”

Olaf frowned. “But if you wanted to be alone with me, he would allow it.”

“Oh, I got this one,” Bernardo said. He did that odd almost stepping between us again. We both looked at him. He said, “No, Edward won’t. He’s given me orders that if I let the two of you go off alone and something bad happens, he’ll kill me.” He smiled while he said it, but it never reached his eyes. He was so not happy about it.

“You aren’t responsible for me, Bernardo,” I said.

“I know that, but it doesn’t matter, Edward meant it.”

“I’ll talk to him,” I said.

He shrugged. “You can try, but if the big guy here actually kills you, once Edward kills him, then we’re all dead. Me, because he said he’d do it, and the rest of the men because they were your bodyguards and they failed. He’ll kill us all, Anita, so do us a favor, stay alive; okay?”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

“Yep, you can,” Bernardo said, “but Edward’s grief if you die will be a terrible thing. It will hurt him, a lot, and men like him make sure they never grieve alone. He will spread his grief all over us, not because we failed, but because it’ll give him something to focus on so he doesn’t have to feel the pain.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If he blames all the men you brought with you and has to kill them all, plus me, it’ll take time to kill us all, and there’s always a chance we’ll kill him before he gets us all. I’m good at staying alive and killing things, and the men with you are pretty damn good, too; it’s a tall order even for Edward with us knowing he’s coming.”

Nicky said, “So, killing us all will give him a goal, things to do, so he doesn’t have to feel.”

“Yeah,” Bernardo said.

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” I said.

“When someone like Edward tells you that he’ll kill you, you give it a lot of thought.”

I couldn’t really argue with that.

“It’s also a way to risk suicide without the suicide,” Nicky said.

“I think so,” Bernardo said.

“I don’t think I’m important enough to Edward for all that. He wouldn’t risk leaving Donna and the kids.”

“He’ll do exactly what I just said, Anita. In the front of his head, no, that’s not what he’s thinking, but trust me, Anita, if you get dead, especially if he blames himself in any way, he will be a force of destruction looking for a place to be aimed. And he’s blamed himself for introducing you to Olaf here from the get-go. If Olaf did to you what he’s done to some of his other victims, Edward would drown the world in blood to try to erase those images.”

I didn’t know what to say, but I wanted to protest. I wanted to say he was wrong, but a part of me asked, What would I do if it were Edward tortured to death and I thought it was my fault? I wouldn’t kill tons of people, but anyone I thought was responsible for it—they’d be dead. I had more rules than Edward did, so if I felt that way about him, how much more would he do if it were me dead? Especially at Olaf’s not-so-tender mercies? I didn’t want Nicky and the boys dead, and I’d talk to Edward about that, and Bernardo. They didn’t deserve that, but Olaf dead at Edward’s hands, oh, hell yes. The thought that Edward would probably kill him slowly was like a warm, happy thought.

“I’ll talk to him about you, all of you. I wouldn’t want anyone else hurt just because I wasn’t here.”

“You can talk to him,” Bernardo said, “but it won’t help. I’ve known Edward for years. I’ve seen him do things