Free Scarlet Angel by C. A. Wilke Page A

so I
have nothing but respect for him.”
    The conversation was like something out of a dream,
for Scarlett. This man talked about becoming a hired killer as if
it was the weather. The entire situation was surreal for her.
    Then the second part of what he said sank in.
“Wait... lost your license?”
    He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Are
you so surprised?”
    “ Well, no... I...”
    “ To be honest, and not to toot my
own horn, so to speak, I’m still one of the best in the state. I
doubt you’d be able to get a licensed doctor here anyway. Just for
coming here they could lose their license. Losing my license
was, let’s say, a matter of political differences between myself
and the medical board.”
    Scarlett didn’t know what to think. She’d just let
an unlicensed doctor perform life-saving surgery on the man who was
her only chance of survival. The more she thought about it the more
bizarre her life had become.
    Their talk was comfortable and natural. Yet,
something nagged at her. Then the question popped into her mind.
“Why are you telling me this? Aren’t you assassin-guys supposed to
be stoic and keep your past secret?”
    Doctor Smith laughed. “Sometimes. Some of us more
than others. I’ve never been the stoic type. Aaaand I’ve never
really kept my past a secret. Mostly because I don’t leave a
calling card or any trace at all, for that matter.”
    He paused a moment then, as an afterthought, he
continued. “Not that I broadcast who I am or what I do. It’s
just... If Cash trusts you, so do I.”
    Scarlett thought about the man’s history. Lost in
her own reflection, the doctor’s words brought her back to reality.
“What about you?”
    “ Huh?”
    “ What makes you choose this life?
Not many do, you know? Not really.”
    “ Well I guess I’m no different
then.” She stared down into her lap and picked at her fingernails.
“Let’s just say my life is really complicated and a lot of people
will get hurt if Neil can’t teach me to stay alive.”
    “ Hmm.”
    There was a long, heavy silence. Doctor Smith stared
and fiddled with his bottle. Scarlett just looked off into space.
Finally a question came to her. “Is it worth it?”
    The doctor thought about her question for a moment.
“Sometimes. My first year was a little tough. I didn’t have someone
like Neil to teach me. In fact, I almost couldn’t complete my first
contract.”
    “ What happened?”
    “ I had just had my license
revoked. I had a few debts, okay a lot of them... and suddenly had
no way to pay them. The man I owed approached me and offered to
wipe them clean if I did a job for him.”
    Scarlett looked up from her lap. “He wanted you to
kill someone...”
    “ Yes. But not just kill them. He
wanted it to look like natural causes. He wanted it to be so
foolproof that no insurance or police autopsy could ever know the
difference. That meant no chemical traces or injection points or
anything.”
    He laughed. “One of my best habits as a doctor was
how thoroughly I researched my patients’ histories. Turned out my
target had asthma as well as a minor heart condition. I knew it
just a matter of applying the right stressors and he would fall
over and really die of natural causes.”
    “ So how’d you do it?”
    This time the doctor stared off into space. “Fire
alarm. I shut down the elevators and set off the smoke detectors.
When he tried to go down twenty-two flights of stairs... He almost
made it. On the landing at the third floor he collapsed, holding
his chest.”
    “ Wow.”
    “ It took every ounce of willpower
I had not to bend down and help him.”
    Scarlett’s eyes widened. “You were there with
him?”
    He just nodded.
    “ I can only imagine how hard that
was. And that was the first time you killed anyone?”
    “ On purpose.”
    She thought about what kind of life the doctor must
have led, and how he came to be where he was. She wondered if she
actually had it easier. Maybe having a choice