"Not meant to be," he said. "I'll be at Richard's tomorrow early."
"Do you know where it is?"
"I could find it, but let's not play games. Give me directions."
I did. "I would tell you to stay indoors, but you've been dating Richard for months. A good hitter will be able to find you. I don't know if you're safer inside or on the move."
"I'll pack extra firepower and be more paranoid than usual."
"Good. See you tomorrow." He hung up, and I was left holding the buzzing phone.
Richard was staring at me. "Did I hear you say twenty-four hours for the hit?"
I hung up the phone. "I'm afraid so." I hit the message button on his machine out of habit. It whirred as it rewound.
"Why, for God's sake?" Richard asked.
"I wish I knew."
"You mentioned money twice. How much?"
I told him.
He sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, looking shocked. Couldn't blame him. "Anita, don't take this wrong. To me you're worth any amount of money, but why would somebody pay half a million dollars to kill you?"
For someone who knew nothing about assassins, he'd grasped the big question quite nicely. I walked over to him. I ran my fingertips through his hair. "Edward says I must already know what the big event is, that I wouldn't be worth this kind of money, with this kind of deadline, unless I was already intimate with the situation."
He looked up at me. "But you don't know, do you?"
"Not a clue."
He laid his hands on either side of my waist, pulling me against him, wrapping his arms completely around my waist.
The message machine clicked to life and made us both jump. We laughed nervously, not just from fear. There was a heat to his eyes as he stared up at me that made me want to blush or kiss him. I hadn't decided which.
Two hang-ups, his younger brother Daniel, sorry Richard had canceled their rock climbing tomorrow.
I leaned towards Richard. His lips were the softest I'd ever kissed. The taste of him was intoxicating. How could I be thinking of giving him up?
The last message began playing: "Richard, this is Stephen. Oh, God, pick up. Please pick up. Please be there."
We froze, listening.
"They're trying to get me to do one of those movies. Raina won't let me leave. Richard, where are you? They're coming. I've got to go. Oh, God, Richard." The phone clicked dead. A mechanical voice said, "End of messages."
Richard stood up, and I let him. "I thought Raina had stopped making p**n ographic movies," I said.
"She promised not to make snuff films, that was all." He replayed the message. The time on it was 12:03.
"That's less than an hour ago," I said.
"I can't leave you alone here tonight. What if another killer comes?" He paced in a tight circle. "But I can't abandon Stephen."
"I'll go with you," I said.
He shook his head, walking for the bedroom. "I can survive the games that the pack plays, Anita. You're human, they'll tear you up."
"They'll tear you up, too, Richard."