Hired Killer (Cryptid Assassin Book 1) Read online

  That did sound like a plan. He grinned

  She hung up and entered the building again. Her flushed cheeks looked like she had a decided touch of the desert sun.

  "Okay, I had a chat with my office," she said, still oblivious to the fact that he had listened in. "Anyway, the owners are interested in selling, and their standing price for the whole property is around one-point-five million."

  "That's no good," Taylor said. "There's potential but I'll cover the insurance and repair costs on virtually everything out of pocket—unless they want to pay for that too? We're talking seriously basement prices here."

  "I'm sure I can get them down to one-point-two—" she started to say, and he shook his head again.

  "I know they want to get rid of the place as quickly as possible without trouble from the local zoning folks and before I can even have an inspection team in here," he said, moved closer, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  She uttered a small sigh as she removed her sunglasses and looked into his eyes.

  "What did you have in mind?" she asked, her tone breathy.

  "Tell the owners that if they’re willing to sign the papers today before the close of banking hours, I'll have a wire transfer of a solid million in their accounts before the day is out."

  "Huh… A million?" she asked and still looked a little distracted.

  "I'll bet you make about six percent on the commission of these sales, right?" Taylor asked, and she nodded. "That's sixty grand for you. Not bad for a day's work, especially since it looks like it's been a fucking long minute since they've been able to get any money out of this place. This is good for you, your clients, and me too."

  She nodded. "I'll get them on the phone and see what I can do."

  Exactly as he’d suspected, the owners were in a desperate hurry to offload the property.

  Judging by the call Heather made, they leapt at the opportunity to get it off of their hands, even for what could only be described as a garbage price.

  The two of them headed to the realtor office where paperwork already waited for signature, and it wasn't long before hands were shaken and keys exchanged hands.

  It was, he decided, a very good day.

  And it looked like it would be a good night as well. The business concluded, he and Heather moved on to enjoy a dinner at a higher-end steak joint.

  When the time came for the bill to be paid, she quickly collected the small leather holder containing his half of the bill.

  "It's a tax write-off," she explained and proffered what looked like a corporate credit card to pay for the meal, which had included a full bottle of red shared between them.

  "Are you sure?" he asked.

  "Absolutely," she replied. "Do you have a place to spend the night? Should I drop you back at your hotel?"

  "Well," Taylor said and grinned. “I wouldn't decline if a Good Samaritan were to offer me a place to lay my head for the night."

  Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.

  "Yeah, I was listening," he said with a small smirk. "So, will you offer me a place to lay my head?"

  She bit her bottom lip and toyed with her hair before she nodded slowly.

  "You'd better ask them to bring your car around then," he said, stood lazily, and offered her a hand to stand when the waiter returned with her card.

  "That sounds like a plan," she whispered breathlessly.

  Chapter Six

  Although a long night, it wasn’t altogether unproductive. Heather did have a nice apartment to match her luxury car, which confirmed exactly how effective she was at her job. He didn't want to make any assumptions.

  Besides, it wasn't like they spent much time examining the decor. It was a quick drive from the restaurant to her home.

  From there…well, there wasn't much talking either.

  With that said, it was a pleasant night for them both, but when morning came, Taylor woke before her. A quick glance assured him that she would sleep in for a while. He was both disappointed and smug at the idea that she needed time to recover.

  That aside, she would celebrate closing a rather large deal, whereas he still had business to attend to.

  She was still asleep when he finished his shower and there was no point in waiting for her to wake up. What would he say? That he wanted to see her again and they had a special connection?

  The choice really was an easy one. There was no alteration to the plan. If she wanted to have fun, he was all for that, but he wasn't there for a long-term commitment.

  And from the look of the ring he had seen on the floor when he woke up—he assumed it had fallen out of her pocket when they were undressing the night before—she already had a commitment, although he wasn't sure how long-term it was.

  No way would he have moved forward had he known of the ring.

  He was out before eight in the morning and used his phone to call an Uber. His truck was still in the garage of the hotel but he didn't want to drive around with all his most expensive belongings in the back. He might have to rent a car or maybe find a lease vehicle that gave better mileage in the city.

  On impulse, he chose not to head directly to the hotel. Instead, he made a quick trip to a nearby diner that had a special on waffles.

  "That sign looks permanent," the Uber driver said as they pulled up in the parking lot. "It seems like they've had a special on waffles for the past three or four months."

  "Then they're probably good at it. Thanks for the ride, man."

  "Hey, be sure to leave a good review," the young man said, and he nodded although he hadn’t known there was a way to leave reviews. He had been out of it for a while and there were quite a few things he wanted—and needed, apparently—to catch up on.

  "Uh…yeah, sure. Thanks again." He patted the kid on the shoulder before he exited the car.

  He would leave a good review for him. There weren't too many things he liked from the people who were in the driving business. One of them was keeping their mouth shut for the duration of the drive, and the kid had fulfilled that to a T. People needed to be rewarded for that shit.

  Taylor stepped into the diner and gave it a cursory inspection. It had a distinct eighties feel and even the waitress' uniform had the right look.

  "Hi there, darling. Are you looking for breakfast?" the woman asked in an accent that was distinctly from Georgia. He couldn't tell if it was faked or not.

  "Yeah, that's what I'm here for," he said. She sounded a little too perky this early in the morning. There was enough time for him to have coffee, and while he was energetic enough, he certainly wasn't a morning person. A little caffeine was definitely in order.

  "Well, we're having a special—"

  "A special on waffles I see," he said. "I'll go with that, plus bacon, eggs, and coffee."

  "Coming right up, sugar." She smiled, turned, and passed the order on to the kitchen behind her before she poured coffee and left it on the counter for him to add sugar or cream as he liked.

  He ignored the brew for the moment. It was the waitress who had his attention.

  "How long have you worked here?" he asked and leaned toward her.

  "Why do you ask, hon?" she responded and mirrored his movement.

  "You don't sound like you're from around here, is all," he said. "I have to say, I love the accent. Georgia, right?"

  "You have a good ear," she said and regarded him with a curious expression. "Savannah, actually. Where are you from?"

  "Wisconsin."

  "Damn, that's a good way away," she said and laughed. "How are you handling the heat around here?"

  "Well, I've spent time in deserts around the world, so I think that settled me well enough in the kind of heat you guys have." He chuckled.

  "Where have you been?" she asked. "Around the world, I'll bet."

  "Well…Kelly," he said as he read her name on the tag on her chest, “I'd be happy to tell you about it. Maybe over dinner when you have a little more time and aren't working?"

  "Oh, s
ugar, that would be great," she said. "There is one small problem, though. My husband works in the kitchen, see? And he would not take kindly to it if he knew you were hitting on me, a good-looking man like yourself."

  "Fair enough." Taylor pulled back with a nod.

  If the night before was any indication, the sanctity of marriage didn't appear to be a big issue around there, even though he didn't quite like the idea. With that said and since they were talking about the same man who would prepare his food, he decided not to risk it one way or another.

  He did not want “accidental” food incidents engineered by an overprotective husband.

  "Don't think you can't flirt with me, though," Kelly said with a laugh. "A woman in my position learns to enjoy the ego boost whenever she can."

  "Understood," he said with a smile. "This is some good coffee."

  "I made it myself," she said with a wink.

  The food was ready rather quickly, with the waffles still steaming and melting the butter next to the bacon and eggs. He couldn't afford to spend all day there, though, and as much as he wanted to spend time with Kelly and explore her unique take on being married to someone at work, he did have business to tend to.

  His time would be better devoted to working on getting his little operation off the ground.

  Taylor now owned the property, but he reminded himself that there was still a slew of paperwork he needed to address. The taxes needed to be looked at and there were more than enough inspections that had to be done before he could initiate the repairs. He would probably do most of those himself since he knew his way around prefab.

  When he’d finished his food and his coffee, he left the customary twenty percent tip. He didn’t want to seem like a stingy customer but also didn’t want to appear overly generous either. She likely made most of her money from the tips, which explained her willingness to indulge in the flirting.

  He didn’t judge her for using those tactics but at the same time, she would have to work a little harder than that if she wanted to hold his attention.

  "Come back soon, sugar," she called after him as he left. He raised a hand in farewell, his focus already on his phone to call an Uber. If he was lucky, he would get the one that had dropped him off.

  Some people liked working in the field. They said heading out into the world and talking to people was a good way to get ahead in life since it developed your people skills. When you could handle people, you could suck up to bosses better.

  Niki knew that ass-kissing was a legitimate way to get ahead in life, but it wasn't something she liked doing at all. It wasn't that she looked down on people who did it. Well, maybe she did, but it was more a matter of jealousy than anything else. Kowtowing wasn't in her blood so she didn't like it. It simply wasn't something she was capable of and, to herself at least, she could confess to being a little envious of those who could.

  Thankfully, she was a good enough worker to push ahead on her own. It had taken a while longer than it could have, but she now had her own task force and looked at a way up the ladder if she was interested. For now, though, she kept the citizens of America safe.

  Her biggest challenge was that she simply didn't like to interact too much with people.

  They had all seen way too many TV shows and had the wrong ideas of how law enforcement was supposed to work, especially at the federal level. She tried to be understanding of their misconceptions and had even attempted to use that on a number of occasions to help her push forward on cases in the past.

  It hadn't always gone well, but they hadn't backfired the way she had imagined they would. As it turned out, most people were more afraid of a federal agency than they needed to be and were happy to merely be left alone as much as possible. It truly was weird how the feeling was mutual sometimes.

  But in this case, she needed to be out in the open. Hunting military people was the worst since they were inevitably the best at covering their tracks. Finding McFadden had proven to be a pain in her ass and forced her to go back to basics, which meant interviewing the people who had interacted with him in the past.

  There was a long list—most of them in the military and who knew nothing of his whereabouts since his official discharge, as he’d moved off base.

  But the woman who had acted as his therapist before he was released from military service was as good a place to start as any. Niki didn't think McFadden would do much in the way of talking to professionals, but if the woman was as good as the length of her time working with the military indicated, she had to know something about where he might have disappeared to.

  Once again, she mentally cursed the various unavoidable complications that had prevented her from locating the man immediately after he’d been signed off. Desk had made her thoughts on that clear—mainly that she felt she was avoiding it deliberately, which might be accurate, at least to some degree.

  But all kinds of crap had hit the proverbial fan—crap she had to deal with and couldn’t delegate—and she didn’t trust anyone else to approach the man and make the kind of assessment she knew was imperative.

  He was…odd, and she needed to know it wasn’t the kind of odd that would blow her efforts, hard work, and all she’d accomplished into the garbage pile.

  That delay had led to another infernal delay while she tried to locate him. This visit to the doctor would put an end to wasted time. She had to think positive.

  It was a nice little property, she noted as she studied the doctor’s location. Hopefully, it would also short-cut her trail to the man she needed to find. The small building in the suburbs held a handful of businesses and offices. It seemed like the kind of venue where people set up a ballet studio for kids where parents could leave them for a few hours while they went to book club or the bar or whatever it was that suburban types liked to do.

  Niki needed to find out more about what people were like—normal people, that is. If she wanted to complain about them thinking she was a walking cliché based on the most recent procedural that they happened to come across, she needed to react to them like they weren't walking clichés from the sitcoms she watched.

  She sighed, rubbed her temples before she moved into the building, and removed her sunglasses as she stepped into the shrink's practice.

  "Good morning!" the secretary said in a voice that was seriously too cheerful for this early in the day. "I'm Jasmine. How can I heal you today?"

  "Hey, creepy greeting, Jasmine," she responded and waited for the confused look to slip from the woman's face before she continued. "I need to have a chat with Dr. Bedford."

  "Do you have an appointment?"

  "I do not," she replied, drew her badge out, and placed it on the desk. "I do need to speak to her, though, so if she has time to spare, I would really appreciate it. Tell her it's Special Agent Niki Banks."

  "Of course, one moment, please," Jasmine said and picked her phone up as Niki moved to one of the chairs in the waiting room. If the good doctor didn't want to talk to her, that was one hundred percent all right, but the agent wanted her to be compliant.

  And that would only happen if she wasn't overly pushy.

  Thankfully, the wait only lasted about five minutes before the door of the office opened and a woman in a grey pantsuit stepped outside. She was attractive, Niki decided, in a kind of severe librarian way.

  "Special Agent Banks. I’m sorry to keep you waiting," Bedford said, took her extended hand, and shook it. "I was finishing off an early lunch. A person in my position needs to take breaks whenever possible."

  "I appreciate that—and you taking the time out of your busy schedule to see me," she said although she meant little of it. "Could we speak in your office?"

  "Of course." The doctor guided her into the office she had exited. Niki took a seat and looked at her over the rather large desk.

  The entire room was stacked full of diplomas and plaques of recognition, she noted. There wasn’t much space for pictures of happy patients, she supposed, in the field of psychology. />
  "How can I help you, Special Agent?" Bedford asked.

  "I have questions regarding one of your former patients," she said and pretended that she needed to check her phone to refresh her memory. "A Taylor McFadden?"

  "Oh," the woman said. "I haven't been a part of his treatment for a while now. Almost two months, actually."

  "Yes, I can see that. However, I have it on good authority that you maintained a personal relationship with him after you signed off on his treatment."

  "I don't know who your sources are—"

  "Trust me, they are solid," she said and kept her voice steady and even. "Now I'm not too up to date on the regulations surrounding doctors in your position but I'll go ahead and guess that maintaining social ties with former patients is…what's the word—unethical?"

  The doctor leaned forward and her face suddenly revealed a change of emotion. "I…fine. What do you want to know?"

  Niki raised an eyebrow. "How do you know that's not what I want to talk about?"

  "Because the FBI doesn't investigate ethics concerns," Bedford replied. "How can I help you, Special Agent?"

  "I only need to know where McFadden went after he completed his treatment with you."

  "I don't know. I don't make it a habit to keep tabs on my patients after they're done with their therapy."

  "Again, I have it on good authority—"

  "Look, when I signed off on his therapy, he asked me out," the woman explained and kept her voice low. "We went on two or three dates but he didn't call me after that. Last I heard, he planned to move to Vegas."

  Her eyebrows rose. "You slept with that hot mess? I would think someone in your particular position would have better taste."

  "Better taste, absolutely," the doctor retorted. "Better options? Not a chance. How many guys do you know who want to fuck a therapist?"

  She nodded. The doctor had a good point.

  "Either way, we were both in it for a little connection-free fun and that was what we got," Bedford said. "Besides, I don't know if you've ever met him, but Taylor… Well, there are many redeeming qualities that go with the hot mess."