The Killing League - By Dani Amore Page 0,25

Their easy intimacy with each other. They were life partners, as corny as the term sounded. He’d had work partners, but never someone to share in his life.

He thought of Nicole Candela, then stood, put his empty coffee cup in the sink, changed into a swimming suit, and dove into the pool.

Mack cut through the water, his hands like knives slitting the belly of the pool’s surface, a gifted surgeon leaving no mark.

He drove forward, his legs thrumming with strength and power. He swam steadily for twenty-five minutes and felt re-born. The sick feeling was gone, and when his watch buzzed letting him know he’d hit the half-hour mark, he pulled himself from the pool and plopped into the hot tub where he’d torqued the heat up as high as it would go.

Mack’s body felt the shock of the temperature change and sweat broke out along his forehead. He closed his eyes and sank into the boiling water.

“Good morning,” a voice said.

Mack opened his eyes and Janice stood over him. She had on khaki shorts and a salmon colored polo shirt. In her hand was a card.

“Good morning, Janice. What do you have there?” he said.

He had lost a little bit of control last night, he realized. It didn’t happen often. And he wasn’t sure what triggered it. But he had imbibed more than he usually did, and felt guilty.

He didn’t want to beat himself up too badly. He was old enough, and had gone through enough nights to understand that something was bothering him. Something was getting to him. Mack didn’t really believe in any type of “sixth sense.” But he did understand scientists who said human beings use only 15% of their brain. That there are capabilities, most likely, no one understands. In his line of work, he had seen the extraordinary. The impossible. The inexplicable.

And right now, he was feeling something. In the wake of a bad hangover, something was trying to clarify itself.

Janice handed him the card.

On the front was a funny looking shield with the letters “KL” inside.

He opened the card and it was blank, save for the same symbol on the cover. “KL” inside a shield of some sort.

“Where did you find this?” Mack said. The mail hadn’t come yet, and it surely hadn’t been delivered via FedEx.

“The man gave it to me,” she said.

Mack looked up from the card. “What man?”

“The man who’s been watching me.” Janice turned and looked out at the river. She started humming.

Mack considered questioning his sister, but it was pointless. Whatever answers she gave him, he had no way of determining their validity.

He looked again at the logo.

It was probably a lawn care service, they dropped stuff off all the time at his house. The “KL” was probably something like “Kominski Lawns” or something. If he googled KL.com it would probably take him to the landscaper’s website.

He set it on the ledge of the hot tub.

Janice stood at the edge of the pool, swaying with the rhythm of the palmettos in the early morning breeze.

Mack felt a twinge again and he glanced over at the card.

Whatever this thing was that kept nagging at him, Mack understood on some very deep, impossibly vague level, that it was probably something very bad.

31.

The Commissioner

He dove from the second floor balcony of his Malibu beach house, swam straight down twenty feet to the enormous trap he had fashioned by hand. He unhooked the glove attached to the structure, reached inside and felt the powerful clamp of a lobster.

He, in turn, clamped onto it, and pulled it from the cage. He swam back to the surface, climbed onto the ladder attached to his dock, and heaved himself out of the ocean.

Back in his kitchen, he dropped the lobster into a pot of boiling water.

While his fresh catch cooked, he returned to his office which used to be the home’s great room but now featured a long table with a series of computers and a giant flat panel display.

He stood and looked at the giant screen. It was nearly four feet high and five feet wide.

He tapped the screen with his finger and a series of documents, images and charts came to life. Touch screen capability had been a significant innovation several years back and he had been a major stakeholder in the company that developed the required software.

The profit from selling his share of the company was more than most people made in a lifetime.

It had been a huge success for him, especially