Risk the Night Read Free

microphone.
    Enough.

 
 
    CHAPTER TWO

 
    Madison Mary Banks felt the micro-recorder slip out of her sweat-damp
hands and land on the floor.   It
was tough enough to withstand the punishment, having survived war zones and her
sister’s energetic toddler, but she made no effort to retrieve it.   She felt strange, disoriented, she
smell of tobacco on the air, the sound of his distorted voice in her ear.   She wrapped her arms around her waist,
hugging herself.   She had just
spent the better part of an hour in a darkened room with someone who could only
be called a monster – it was no wonder she felt ill.
    His stories lingered in her brain, and she wished there was some way
to wipe it clean.   He’d answered
everything in detail, but not in specifics.   No names, but how long it took a man to bleed out, depending
on which artery was severed.   Which
poisons worked the best.   Sniper
training, but not where he’d received it.   She now had a sickeningly clear view of what it was like to be a … a
termination specialist in the modern world.   She just wished she didn’t.
    The door opened, and light flooded the room, momentarily blinding
her.   She felt an instant’s panic,
but it was simply Renard , the friend of a friend of
Drake, her boyfriend, the man who’d facilitated this meeting.
    Drake was going to laugh at her, say “I told you so” when he saw
her.   But maybe she’d have managed
to pull herself together by then.  
    “You okay, mademoiselle?”   Reynard’s voice was cool and obsequious.   Just the kind of man whose ancestors stormed the Bastille
and knitted while the aristocrats were beheaded.   She knew how she presented to most people, no matter what
kind of thrift store clothes she dressed in, and he was probably wishing they
still had tumbrels.
    “Fine,”   she said, her
voice hollow.   “Has he gone?”
    Renard raised an eyebrow.   “Yes, mademoiselle.   He left a good ten minutes ago.   I was waiting for you to open the
door.”
    “I was … was assembling my notes,”   she said weakly, reaching down and picking up the
recorder.   “It’s good to have your
thoughts in order while they’re still fresh.”
    “Indeed, mademoiselle.   You will tell our friend I fulfilled my part of the bargain?”
    Which friend, she wondered.   Drake, or a friend of a friend of Drake’s?   She rather hated the idea that she was sleeping with a man
too closely connected to the creature she’d just interviewed.
    “I’ll tell him,”   she
said, rising, the recorder clutched in one hand.

 
    Constantine heard the door to the apartment close behind their
departing guest, and he sank to the floor with another cup of coffee, his legs
crossed beneath him as he watched Taggert dismantle
his safe house.  
    “Did you have to do that?”   Taggert demanded irritably.
    “Do what?”
    “Try to seduce her.   She’s
harmless, but she has connections.   If you wanted to fuck her that badly I could have cancelled this and you
could have picked her up at a café.    At this point if you shagged her you’d probably screw her up for
life.   You gave her quite a convincing
picture of our lives, though a bit more colorful and imaginative than the
truth.   But why the hell did you
let her tape you?” 

    Constantine frowned.   “I
did, didn’t I?   In fact, I didn’t
intend to be that helpful.   She was
just so damned gullible that I kept pushing.”
    “You forget how long I’ve known you.   You were just so horny that you kept pushing.   You need to keep away from her, my
friend.   I don’t think the tape is
important, though I might see if I can send someone to get rid of it.”
    “I know the kind of men you hire – they’re clumsy.   It would … annoy me if they ended up
accidentally killing her.”   His
voice was light, almost airy.   “It
would annoy me a great deal.”
    Taggert snorted, unimpressed.   “Get it yourself.   You’ll be seeing her