Free Risk the Night by Anne Stuart Page A

this isn’t as
innocent as it appears.    The
windows are completely blacked out – there won’t be a shred of light
getting in.”
    Con’s smile was cool and brief.   “Don’t think I won’t kill you if this blows up in our faces.   I’m not that sentimental.”
    “Neither am I,”   Taggart
said, opening the door into an inky dark room.   “I assume Mirador was your work?”
    “Why assume that?   I’m on
vacation.”
    “Sure you are.”
    At least Taggart had seen to the basics.   Coffee, wine, fresh bread and cheese and fruit.   He wasn’t particularly hungry –
he didn’t eat much the days that he worked.   Taggart would know that as well, but Con wasn’t interested
in playing games.   He made himself
a cup of coffee and leaned back in the darkness, waiting.
    He heard the shuffling noise a few minutes later, another sound, as if
someone bumped into a piece of furniture, and then the scraping sound of wood
on the marble floor.   He leaned
forward toward the microphone that would distort his voice.   “Do you have a blindfold on?”   He spoke in French.   He suspected the reporter was American
– they usually were.
    He was right about that.   He just hadn’t expected it to be a woman.   “Yes, and it’s a pain in the ass,”   she said in a low voice, her schoolgirl French
adequate.   She’d had an expensive
education, an anomaly which normally would have interested him.   Right now he had too many other things
on his mind.   “ Renard said I could take if off once you told me I could.”
    “Not yet.”   He lit a cigarette,
the flare of light blinding in the inky darkness.   Stygian darkness.   He wondered if this was what hell looked like.   He expected to find out sooner rather than later.   “All right,”   he said.   The
faint glow of the cigarette wouldn’t give anything away, and it would throw her
off.   He didn’t smoke.
    He heard the rustle of cloth, the clearing of her throat, and he knew
she wanted to ask him not to smoke.   She didn’t dare.   Smart
woman.
    “What did you want to know?”
    She cleared her throat again.   “My name is Elizabeth Shannon and I’m writing an article …”
    “I don’t care who you are or what you’re doing,”   he said, bored.   If that was her real name then he was
christened Constantine.   “ Renard made the arrangements.   If I didn’t trust him I wouldn’t be here.”   Trust Taggart to have taken a name like Renard .   Sly old fox.   “Ask your
questions.   I have things to do.”
    “I’m taping this.   Do you
mind?”
    “Why should I?”   He took
another drag of his cigarette and waited, patient, bored.   Slightly distracted by the husky note
in her voice.   Unlike others he
never found sex appealing on the days that we worked.   But there was something about her voice …
    “You kill for a living?”   She asked the question in English.   Mid-Atlantic seaboard upper class American English.   He was right.  
    “I do.”   He answered her
in the same language, with a guttural German accent.   German accents were tricky – you could easily start
sounding like a Prussian nobleman or a Nazi commandant.   He always used a light touch, even when
he used a working class voice.
    “Who hires you?”
    “Whoever can meet my price.   Governments.   Private
contractors.   Individuals.   I’m not fussy.”
    “What is your price?”
    “It depends on the job, the complexity, the fame of the
individual.   I’d say probably more
than you can afford.   Were you
looking to hire me?”
    “No.”   He was spooking
her, deliberately, and she was trying not to show it.   Good for her.   He could terrify combat veterans if he tried.   He considered toning it down, but didn’t.  
    “How many people have you killed?”
    “I’ve lost count.”   He was
lying to her, of course.   Another
of his curses – a photographic memory.   He knew each face, each name, each job, and always