Free Shadow Woman by Thomas Perry Page A

Transportation had tried placing cameras on the
overpasses so when there was a traffic jam they could see what had
caused it. And lately thieves had put machines on the bridges to
capture cellular phone numbers and codes they could program into
clones. He opened his coat, took out a thick manila envelope, and
handed it over the seat to Linda. “In there is all the
information I have about a target I want found and taken out.”
    Earl glanced at the unopened
envelope. “What is all that?”
    “Photographs, a
surveillance videotape, two audiotapes – one on the phone, one
live – his employment history. I thought I could save you some
time.”
    Earl smiled. “He must be
important.”
    Seaver felt a distaste for the
tactics of bluff and baiter. “The price is going to be three
hundred thousand for him. We’ll cover legitimate expenses.”
    “Hear that, Earl?”
said Linda. “No illegitimate expenses this time.”
    “I mean,” said
Seaver, “that I’m not the client. I just picked you for
the job. If it’s too outrageous, the client is capable of
getting rid of me and hiring somebody else to deal with you.”
    “I hear you,” said
Earl. “Why is this guy worth that much? Does he have something
I have to bring back, or what?”
    “No,” said Seaver.
“He’s got information in his head. He can’t hand it
off or sell it, because nobody else can testify to what he saw. He’ll
have to be alive to do it.”
    Linda smiled at Seaver and he
thought about what a strange creature she was. She had what used to
be called cupid’s bow lips, big, liquid green eyes. The smile
would have been merely beautiful if it had been prompted by something
else, but death seemed to excite her, and when her pulse went up the
eyes got more green and there was a delicate flush in the pure white
complexion. Her face was hypnotic, and the need to keep looking at it
was like an itch. “Smell something, Earl? A Green Beret, right?
No, I know. C.I.A. Forced retirement.” She turned the eyes
away, toward Earl, and the blond hair hid them like a curtain.
    When she took the light of that
face away from him, the frustration made Seaver involuntarily suck in
a breath through his teeth. He quickly dispelled any hint that he had
been thinking about anything but business by blowing the breath out
through his lips in a contemptuous huff.
    “The price is high because
the client doesn’t ever want to think about him again. I hire
you, and you handle it. The end,” said Seaver. “I don’t
think he’ll put up any resistance. But I have no idea where he
is. When he disappeared, he had professional help, so he’s
probably got reasonably good cover in place.”
    “How long ago?”
asked Earl.
    “Day before yesterday,
about midnight, he drove out of Las Vegas. We don’t know
anything about the car.”
    “So the trail’s
cold. What about the professional help?”
    “We don’t have much
on that, either. It was a woman, mid-twenties to thirty, tall, dark
hair, probably brown eyes, but there are two versions. Very fit.”
    Linda laughed aloud, her voice
somewhere between a taunt and a seduction. “‘Very fit.’”
She imitated a man’s voice the way a child would have: “Have
I ever told you you’re very fit? I want to look deep into your
probably-brown eyes.”
    “She beat the shit out of
one of my security men,” said Seaver. “But even he said
she was pretty. He didn’t volunteer it, because it wasn’t
what he remembered most about her, but he didn’t deny it.”
    “She sounds interesting,”
said Earl.
    “Oh, now I’m getting
jealous,” said Linda. The lips came together like a kiss in a
studied pout that Seaver knew should have been repellent but made him
wish that Earl were dead. She brightened again. “Got her on
tape, or any fingerprints? She might be the way to find him.”
    “Sorry.”
    “She would have been the
one to leave the car for him,” said Linda. Her voice was
wheedling now. “She was there before he left