Free Playing Dead by Allison Brennan Page A

with over one hundred thousand residents, halfway between Sacramento and the quaint Gold Country town of Auburn.
    Before walking up to pound the final nail in Ben Holman’s proverbial coffin, she dialed Mitch’s cell phone number. Though she didn’t have time to talk, she hoped he’d answer. She loved his voice. No matter what mood she was in, talking to Mitch always made her feel good.
    Voice mail picked up.
    “This is Mitch Bianchi. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”
    He sounded far more formal on tape than in person. She said, “Hi, Mitch. It’s Claire. Slight change of plans. I need to make a stop tonight and it’ll take me awhile. I’ll meet you at the Fox & Goose about nine. Sorry. Call me if there’s a problem or . . .” if you just want to talk. That would sound stupid. “Or whatever,” she finished lamely. “ ’Bye.”
    She pulled together her file and clipboard, checked her weapon, and walked up to interview Holman.

 
    SEVEN
    The assassin was anxious and excited. He’d be seeing Claire tonight. In the flesh.
    When he came off duty he rushed home to shower and change. He didn’t want to be too early, so he tried to calm himself. He poured a glass of wine and sat on the edge of his bed, a towel around his waist. He turned on the television via remote.
    The TV in his bedroom wasn’t connected to cable or an antenna; instead, it was hooked up only to his DVD player where he had one special disk. A compilation of the secret tapes he’d made of Claire. A “Best of Claire” movie.
    He savored every moment. Every movement Claire made was burned into his mind; her every sigh, every word vibrated between his ears. It didn’t matter what she was doing as she lay in her bed. As long as he could see her, he was happy.
    He’d had to be careful, play it cool, make sure that if the camera was found, it couldn’t be traced back to him.
    When she’d been living in the apartment downtown, it had been much easier to tape her. It had been an old apartment with high, ornate ceilings. He’d planted the camera in the attic, a small hole drilled through an edge in the molding. It was perfect: virtually undetectable. The camera equipment had been expensive, but well worth it—and he had the money, considering he killed annually for the blackmailers.
    But he’d been taping her since long before she moved out on her own.
    The disk’s first scene was of Claire undressing. She’d been sixteen at the time. Perfect in every way.
    She came out of her private bathroom wrapped in a white towel, black hair wet, slicked back. Her hair had been long then, very long and lustrous.
    She sat on the edge of her bed, brush in hand, combing through her thick hair. She was looking off into a corner, and he’d always wondered what she was thinking about just at that moment. She’d looked so wistful.
    When her hair was tangle free, she braided it down her back, as she often did before she went to bed.
    “I really should cut my hair,” she said to her reflection in the mirror.
    “No,” he said out loud, thirteen years after the tape had been made. She ended up cutting her hair short when she was twenty, never letting it grow past her shoulders.
    She dropped the towel and stood naked in the middle of her room.
    Perfect.
    Her skin was white, with very faint tan lines from the bikini she had worn the summer past. Her brown nipples tilted up slightly, her breasts round and heavy. He loved those breasts, how he longed to touch them. She was slim and curved, a faint hourglass figure on her petite frame. She was a hair over five foot three, though she’d put five foot four on her new driver’s license.
    Then she turned and he saw her magnificent backside, her beautiful shoulders, shapely hips. She bent over to pull underwear from a basket in the corner. One foot in, the other, sliding lacy panties over her hips. She grabbed a shirt out of the same pile, pulling it over her head, her body twitching, unknowingly seductive