Item: Peter had been attacked in order to lure his father into a vulnerable position where he could be shot. Conclusion: The assassin knew of the bond between the two. He also knew the difficulties involved in trying to take out Caine with a frontal assault. He was clever. Darn.
Item: The men arrested from the attack claimed they didn't know who had hired them, only that they had been offered a great deal of money to rough up a cop--but not kill him. Conclusion: The outcome was no accident. Someone had gone to a considerable amount of trouble to set this up and was willing to pay handsomely for a job well done. Who wanted to kill Caine so badly?
Item: The assassin had tricked Peter with a convincing story about an unpublicized case. Conclusion: He had inside information. But from which side did his information come? The police...or whoever had committed the original crime?
She dug up all the information available on the Marion case and read through it twice. One fact jumped out at her right away, but she combed through everything to be sure she wasn't missing an important clue. She ran her finger over the two words once again. Professional hit. The black ink stood out from the page like the dark bruise on Peter's cheek.
She closed her eyes. She could see the assassin's gun before her, held in a firm grip, a glint of light from the dim fluorescents reflecting from the cold metal as it prepared to spit out violent death. She could see the hand that aimed it, clad in a black glove, the creases in the material shifting as one finger slowly squeezed the trigger...
She opened her eyes with a start and had to blink several times until they became accustomed to the brightness of the squad room. Professional hit, indeed. Who would know the details of the Marion murder better than the man who had carried it out?
Richards remained unimpressed. "You hired me because I can get the job done. Sir. The plan was perfect. Executed with precision. That's my business."
Gregor pushed himself to his feet. "Then what happened? What went wrong? Explain it to me, because all I see right now is incompetence."
"We had the setup exactly as we wanted it, but the backup showed earlier than expected. She must have been near enough for Caine to contact her." He shrugged. "It was a fluke."
"A fluke." Gregor stepped out from behind his desk and took seven measured paces to confront his visitor. "A fluke?" He grabbed the other man's wrist, ignoring the bracelet that cut into the flesh of his palm, and demanded, "How do you propose to compensate for this 'fluke'?"
Richards met his stare with one equally as cold. Then, with his free hand, he pulled a computer disk out of his pocket. "I suggest, strongly, that you not attempt anything untoward. Sir. My organization keeps very accurate records. Of all our transactions."
Gregor eyed the disk. He had contracted with them previously, upon several occasions, for purposes better left undisclosed. The information they kept might easily put an end to his career--if not his life--in the wrong hands. He really had no other choice.
He released his visitor's arm, but he did not back down. He knew what future lay in store for him if he did not accomplish Mr. C's bidding. Not after he had given his word. "You have a reputation to uphold," he reminded Richards.
"Yes, and I certainly intend to finish what I started, in a timely fashion, I assure you." He smiled, briefly. "Now, if you will excuse me...I have a priest to kill."
It all seemed so peaceful.
She didn't expect to find anything that the original investigation of the Marion shooting hadn't turned up. She had come here to get a sense of the place and to think. Perhaps it didn't all begin in this lonesome Chinatown alley, but for her purposes it was close enough.
She flipped through the file, which she had brought with her, not really reading it, just stirring her memory. A dead man, an unsolved crime, hidden motives, they all connected somehow. She had enough information in her possession to make headway into the case, she could feel it; she just had to figure out how to fit it all in place. She had to. Before the assassin struck again.
For if he succeeded...
She shoved the thought from her mind, along with the old Dr. Pepper can she kicked from her path as she strolled toward the far end of the alley. Caine could take care of himself. He hadn't defeated demons and spirits and Sing Wah masters only to succumb to a sniper's bullet. He had a different destiny in store for him.
Didn't he?
She tucked the folder under her arm and put her hands in her jacket pockets. Caine's path was his own business. Sure, hers had intersected with his quite a bit lately, and that certainly gave her the right to be concerned about him, for his safety, but not to make any predictions about what his destiny ought to be. At least, not if things remained as they were.
She stopped, staring down at the ground beneath her feet without seeing it. Now, what was that supposed to mean? She shook her head and forced her thoughts to return to the case. She had asked for it; she should devote her attention to it and not to her private ramblings. Her personal life would have to wait until she was off duty.
Someone had paid to have Marion killed. Why? She didn't know, and probably never would. Why did anyone need to kill another human being in cold blood?
The assassin had put one bullet in Marion's head. A clean shot, no other marks on the body. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the bullet leaving the gun, speeding faster than sound toward its target, rending flesh and bone and driving the spark of life from a man in his prime, who may have had much more to give and now would never get the chance. There may have been people who cared for him, who still grieved for his loss.
Her shoes crunched on a piece of broken glass, bringing her out of her reverie. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea, asking Simms for this case. She couldn't seem to separate her emotions from her work. Even now, the darkness of her memory called back the image of the assassin's gun, its sleek metal, the smooth glove, the sparkle of gold...
Gold?
She replayed the scene in her head again, hardly able to avoid it. The weapon peeked above the shelf of videocassettes, aiming death at the unsuspecting Shaolin, the gunman's finger tightening on the trigger. But this time her mind's eye followed the hand to the wrist, where beneath the edge of the glove twinkled a gold bracelet of unusual design.
She smiled grimly. "Gotcha."