Endings by Linda Richards (portable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

I was sure that the first shot missed by a substantial amount, as did the next and then the one after that. But the fourth shot hit home. Even from a distance, I was certain of it.

Up close, I could see I was right: a thin trail of sap ran thickly down from the place where the bullet had hit its target. Satisfaction mixed with a regret so sharp I could taste it on my tongue. It tasted metallic. It tasted like loss. As I scurried around, collecting my spent cartridges, I felt some panic: If I experienced regret causing a tree to bleed, how would I ever be able to end a human’s life?”

I got over it. That’s what we do, right? We suck it up and move on. I had committed to something. And I was raised that way: commit to something, you see it through.

Julian’s dealer lived in a loft near the edge of town. There was a gallery downstairs, an apartment above the gallery. Julian and Clara had told me that before I went there. They told me everything they could. Everything I’d need—that was the hope.

I watched the gallery for a couple of days before making a move. During the day, employees were there—a couple of willowy young women who helped sell art, a young man who handled framing and the loading and unloading of trucks—so I figured that during the day was less than ideal. At night, though, it seemed as though the man barricaded himself into the building. Later, I’d tell myself it was because he knew he wasn’t safe. How could anyone be safe who’d treated people as he had?

On my third night watching, there was an exhibition in the gallery. People came—lots of people—caterers, people I took to be artists, still others who I thought were probably moneyed patrons of the arts.

Late in the evening, I let myself in, fusing myself to a group of young women entering the gallery in a gaggle. I knew I didn’t quite fit with their group; angular flesh poured into designer evening wear, their giggles and squeals as much of a covering as the wraps thrown over their shoulders. But it was a gallery and I was all in black. I didn’t think anyone would take special note of my arrival. I was right.

Before long a glass of champagne was placed in my hand. There were crackers and cheese. Canapés and petits fours and tiny chocolate tarts etched with lavender fleur-de-lise. I wasn’t hungry, but I ate some of what was on offer, crackers under cheese turning to sawdust in my mouth. Meanwhile, I moved carefully around the concrete floors of the gallery, looking at the art while keeping an eye out for my target. Max.

“Do you see anything you like?” He’d come upon me so quietly, and from a side entrance. I hadn’t even felt his approach.

“Oh, so much,” I said, only slightly surprised that it was true. I found myself looking at him. He was tall and slender with a cleft to his chin and a glint in his eye. This close, I could see he was an attractive man.

I could have taken him there. Perhaps I should have. But I hadn’t done it before and, in that moment, the thought of taking someone’s life clawed at my heart. He must have seen something in my eyes—some sort of glitter, maybe. A feral light, like a fever—and mistaken it for something else. It was by then the end of the evening, and almost everyone had gone. I could—so easily—have taken him right there.

“Will you join me upstairs?” he said. “For a drink?”

I understood his intention. I saw what he saw, as well. I think I was stalling. Waiting for the “perfect moment.” All this time later, I understand that they almost never come.

I walked with him to his apartment over the gallery. We sat in a small but elegant living area and chatted for a while. His conversation seemed to fill a spot in my intellect that had been neglected for a long time. He was brilliant. Funny. And he desired me. That was plain on his face. Plain, I think, in the scent he gave out. I hadn’t encountered that scent for a long time.

He brought wine and a small plate of canapés I recognized as being leftover from the event and placed them on the coffee table in front of the sofa we sat on. He poured two glasses; handed me one. Conversation was not difficult. We nibbled and drank for a while. It was pleasant—or would have been—had not my mission been demanding so much of my attention.

We talked late into the night. It’s a phrase one hears. At one point, he moved towards me as though he had an intention to deepen what we were sharing. I put him off. Conversation, that was all. Maybe the promise of something more.

Eventually though, I let him lead me to his bedroom. We lay fully clothed in each other’s arms on a bed as vast as a garden. A dark green duvet enhanced the feeling of being outdoors. That and the modernist landscapes on his bedroom walls. One of them was signed by Julian. That brought me back.

After about an hour, we drifted off to sleep, still in each other’s arms. When I woke, I listened to the night sounds for a while. The squeak of wet tires on asphalt. The occasional bleat of a horn or a siren’s scream.

I extricated myself and moved to the bathroom, picking up my purse on the way, wincing slightly at the weight of the gun nestled in the soft leather.

In the bathroom, I splashed water on my face, examining it in the mirror as I did. Was there something different there? Something I couldn’t erase? But, no, there was not. Not yet, at any rate. I thought that later I might see something, but I didn’t then.

I screwed on the suppressor. I didn’t