He wanted to say,How about a husband who loves you?But decided silence was better. His choices were limited. And it was his own fault. They weren’t kids anymore. Maybe it was time he faced reality. No child of his was going to grow up fatherless.
For once Paula might be right.
He couldn’t keep avoiding it.
“I’m not avoiding it,” he told Ashley, not exactly sure whom he was answering.
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to readjust to being back home. To giving up a good job. To pleasing a new employer. To—”
He caught himself. That last one—about helping his mother—he could not talk about.
“To making up for what happened with Paula?” she asked.
He said nothing.
“It can’t be done, you know.”
He wasn’t so sure. But he reminded himself that one of the reasons he’d returned was to give it a try. While in Atlanta he’d thought about Ashley. A lot. That he could not deny. No more obstacles existed between them. If it was going to work, this might be their last chance to try.
“So where are we going Saturday night?” she said.
He swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. “I didn’t know we were going anywhere.”
She gave him a mischievous smile. “Lori Anne’s going to be with her granddaddy. I have the night free.”
Why run anymore? He wanted her. She wanted him. Perhaps the debilitating effects of guilt passed with time?
“Then I guess we’ll be at your place.”
Another smile from her. “My thoughts exactly.”
2:15P.M.
VICTORJACKS GAZED AT THE CORPSE SLUMPED ON THE WOOL SOFA.His first assignment in his new job as an associate had brought him to rural southwest Georgia and a double-wide belonging to Michael Ottman.
Priority Number 8 from May’s list.
He’d read the file yesterday. Ottman, a seventy-one-year-old widower, had both a diseased heart and terminal cancer. After retiring from Southern Republic he’d moved two hundred miles away from Concord to be closer to his daughter, who lived down the dirt road in another double-wide. His retirement benefits were meager but, coupled with Social Security, were enough to allow a solitary life in relative comfort.
Number 8 drew the attention of the board because of an extraordinary number of medical expenses looming on the horizon. During orientation De Florio had explained that retiree health benefits were the most troublesome area for the board to manage. There was literally no way to predict them. Pay-as-you-go was the only course for handling them, and that amounted to financial Russian roulette. Terminal care was particularly expensive. An almost bottomless pit. And Number 8 hadn’t helped matters by telling his doctors that he intended to take advantage of every single benefit available.
De Florio had explained about the nearly constant battle that ensued to provide adequate benefits while at the same time ensuring the company’s insurance reserve fund remained solvent. There was only one way to succeed. Costs had to be controlled. And in the case of Michael Ottman, a Priority decision seemed the easiestway to avoid the massive out-of-pocket expenditures sure to come, while simultaneously generating savings that could be used on other, less costly, claimants.
Pretty clever, he thought.
He’d fit right into the Priority program. Killing was his profession and De Florio had offered more than enough money to make his devotion to a single employer profitable. Yet that wasn’t the only lure. Finally, no more worrying about the next job, concerned whether a client was legitimate or a setup. No more looking over his shoulder, protecting himself from retaliation or retribution.
Now he could simply kill.
But he remembered the lesson De Florio had graphically illustrated yesterday with that bullet to the head of Milo Richey. No mistakes. Everything had to be done precisely according to Rule.
His first assignment had been easy.
A knock on the door, then a squirt of gas for instant unconsciousness. He’d cushioned Ottman’s fall to avoid any bruising. A single injection and the heart failed. With Number 8’s history no one would think twice about the cause of death. The injection point, deep in the ear canal, would never be noticed by any medical examiner.
De Florio’s array of toxins was impressive. The one he’d just used an excellent example. Odorless and tasteless, producing a fatal heart fibrillation in nearly an instant, leaving nothing in plasma or tissue other than a whiff of fluoride that would be attributed to either the local water supply or the last time the decedent brushed his teeth. Nothing for any toxicology tests to discover. And that was assuming any tests would be run, which was unlikely.
