Thin Air Page 0,66

hair across my eyes, and I reached up to push it away. In the half second of partial vision, something flickered across my line of sight, and was gone.

"David?" I whispered. I felt nothing, and if it was David, he didn't show himself. I don't know why I wanted it to be him; he was trouble, and nothing but. Especially now.

And I still missed him, as stupid and shallow as that might be.

I stalked out the gate, dragging the designer luggage ruthlessly across gravel and sand, and popped the trunk of the black sedan. I heaved the suitcase up to dump it inside, and staggered backward, off balance, in shock. Because the trunk was already occupied.

Dead guy. Dead guy in the luggage area, and recently dead, too. There was very little blood, and just one neat hole in the center of his forehead and a thin trickle, but I didn't want to examine the exit wound, which was luckily facing away from me.

I didn't recognize him, naturally.

I was still staring at the body, frozen in shock, when Eamon reached over and slammed the trunk lid closed. "Full up. Suitcase in the backseat," he said. "There's a love."

I dropped the suitcase and backed away from him. He looked surprised. Well, not really surprised, but as if he wanted to look surprised. Eamon was a master at putting on emotions like outfits.

"Something wrong?" he asked. "You're not one to shy away from violence; I know that for a fact."

"You killed him," I said. "Who is he?"

"You don't know?" He studied my face, and I felt naked. Way too exposed. "I know you're not generally popular with your peers, but I'm surprised you don't at least know the ones who want you dead."

"This isn't about me. This is about the dead man in your trunk." I was clenching my teeth now, and wishing I had a weapon. A big one. Large-caliber. "What the hell is going on?"

"No idea," Eamon said. "He was waiting for you outside of the prison with a rather nice three-eighty, which would have put a large and bloody hole in your back, shredded your lungs, and blown your heart halfway to hell. I say your back because of where he'd stationed himself. Because of the angle."

I felt sick, and a little bit relieved. Okay, so it's a bad guy dead in the trunk. That's better, right? Of course it wasn't, and just because the psychopath went after other villains didn't make him any less of a psychopath, did it? Besides, I had no idea if Eamon was telling the truth. He seemed sincere, but he seemed a lot of things he wasn't-nothing if not facile.

"Oh, don't look so worried," Eamon said, and opened the back door of the car for Sarah. She moved as if she were missing some bones, folding like wet cardboard when she was finally in the seat. I opened the other side and put her suitcase inside. She promptly used it as a pillow, and went right to sleep. "I doubt he'll be missed. Contract killers rarely have what you might call an extensive social circle."

Eamon had brought out a cheap-looking velour blanket. He spread it over Sarah as he spoke. It was an odd gesture of kindness from a guy who thought nothing of loading up the trunk with corpses, and his contradictions were starting to make my head hurt.

"What are you going to do with him?" I asked.

"Let's just say he won't be accompanying us all the way to California," Eamon replied. "There's plenty of desert between here and there."

"Do you know who he is?" I asked.

"Not a fucking clue," he said, and reached in his pocket. He took out a slim black wallet, which he flipped over the car's roof to me. I caught it, startled. "Perhaps you'll see something that rings a bell, eh?"

I opened it and checked for ID. There was a driver's license for a guy named John T. Hunter. I wondered if that was a joke of some kind: John The Hunter. Like, assassin. But why would I have a professional assassin on my case? Then again, why wouldn't I? Given the gigantic mountain of nothing that I knew about my life, I supposed I couldn't rule it out.

Other than the license, his wallet was empty except for a fat stash of cash, which I felt sick about taking, but hey, I needed it.

"Well?" Eamon asked, staring at me over the top of the black car. "His chances