Hannah and the Hitman

Chapter 47

47

JACK

“I got rid of the body downstairs and had Nitro wipe the security feed of the garage. I have him working on Reggiano, too. What’s this about Hannah being gone?” Dax called as he came out of the elevator.

After Hannah had… disappeared, I’d left the loft and, after circling the block a few times to make sure she wasn’t walking to Coal Springs, gone back to my apartment. Going to Big Mike’s place had been for Hannah, not wanting a traitor and a liar in my place, but there had been no reason for me to stay. She sure as shit didn’t need to be kept safe.

I could protect myself. If Hannah hadn’t jumped in and dealt with Eyebrows, I’d have shot the fucker. But she had and everything changed. Except… WHERE THE FUCK WAS SHE?

My mind was caught on that and dealing with Sal. Since he wanted me dead, I was better off being on my own turf.

I had my gun at my back, a K-Bar in my boot, and an arsenal lined up on my kitchen counter. What I needed was information. So I’d called Nitro and he told me Dax already had him working on it.

It meaning whatever the fuck was going on. Reggiano. Hannah, all of it.

“She’s gone,” I repeated when he came into the kitchen. I didn’t know any other way to word it without sounding mental or like Captain Kirk.

In his dark suit, he didn’t look like he just dealt with a dead guy he hit with his car. That was what made us good. We took care of things without wrinkles or dirt. Only the occasional blood spatter. “Gone where? How?”

I wasn’t going to tell him how, or where, because I didn’t know myself. “Not sure,” I said, which was a response for either of his questions.

He was waiting for me to elaborate, but I wasn’t going to do it. He wouldn’t believe me anyway.

“You don’t really think that woman is a hitman,” he said finally. Obviously, he didn’t.

“She was on the plane.” I raised one finger, then kept raising more as I continued. “She knew about Joey Brains’ gold tooth. She knew about Eyebrows coming after me and then threw him twenty feet. She has skills.”

He crossed his arms and stared at me.

“What?” I asked. “You don’t agree?”

“Occam’s Razor.”

“What about it?”

“The simplest explanation is most likely the right one. She randomly ended up seated in the same row as Eyebrows and Joey Brains because she was at a book signing. Did you see if there really was a signing?”

No. Because she’d–we’d–been reading a romance book on the plane that had a sticker for the library where she worked. Because she’d told me about the romance bookstore she wanted to open. Shit.

I grabbed my laptop from the kitchen’s built-in desk and set it on the island. I pulled up a search engine and typed in Vegas and romance book signings.

“LoveNLust Romance Con,” I said, reading from the web page. “Happened that weekend.”

“If I remember correctly, you’re the one who stalked her, showed up at her work twice. Not the other way around.”

I frowned. I had.

“You think that hellish dinner with the family you told me about was pretend? That they were actors backing up her librarian front after you gave her, what, an hour to organize?”

I grunted at that misery. No way that had been staged. They definitely hadn’t expected me.

“But wait, there’s more,” Dax continued. “You believe she works as a librarian as a cover? In that small town? Her annual salary’s got to be less than the cost of my suit.”

I knew how much he paid for the suit, and he was probably right.

He wasn’t done pushing the fact that he thought I was stupid. “That she takes hits in her spare time?”

I sighed, realizing he wasn’t asking me these questions because he agreed with me, but because he didn’t .

“Dude, this is all bullshit,” he said. “The woman you’re crazy about is a small town librarian with a crazy family.”

“Then explain how she knew about Eyebrows.”

“Because, like she said, Joey Brains told her right before he tried to kill her.”

“You know this officially?”

“You forgot that I showed up and hit Eyebrows with my car. And forgot to tell me you quit.”

I glared.

He continued.

“I was talking to Paul Reggiano about a job, and he pretty much said that his father wasn’t happy with you because you quit on him. I think the only way Sal lets people quit is being dead. I’m glad I got there when I did because I wasn’t expecting him to act that quickly siccing Eyebrows on you. While hitting him with my car was an added perk, you owe me for a new front bumper.”

That made me realize that Dax probably hadn’t seen Hannah fling Eyebrows across the lot, only driving into the garage after he was already down. He’d have probably led with that if he had.

“That explains why Eyebrows came after me, but how did you learn Joey Brains went after Hannah?”

He pulled out his phone, dialed, then set it on the counter. “I had Nitro look into her,” he said as it rang.

My first instinct was to pop him in the nose. I didn’t want Nitro and Dax to know every detail about her, because the kinds of searches that we got on people were so thorough we knew when someone lost their first tooth.

“Yo.” Nitro’s voice came through the speaker .

“Tell Jack what you found out for me about the woman.”

“There are cameras in the Coal Springs library,” Nitro began, and my mind instantly went to the first time I’d touched her, how I’d gotten her to come all over my fingers in the back stacks.

“Exterior front entry, lobby only,” he added.

Mentally, I sighed. I was all for a little exhibitionism, but not if it was recorded for city records. Or for Nitro to see. No one saw Hannah come but me.

“Joseph Cazamucci, aka Joey Brains, entered the library today at twelve thirty-seven. Confirmed it was him by facial recognition. He approached the circulation desk, stood there staring straight ahead for a few seconds, then went around the counter and disappeared from camera view.”

I glanced at Dax. Shit.

“SHIT!”

Joey Brains really had gone after Hannah. She’d been telling the truth.

“He comes back around the counter four minutes later, looking freaked out,” Nitro added, ignoring my outburst. “He’s spinning in circles and peeking under furniture like he’s lost a little kid, then runs out the front door.”

“Is Hannah in any of the footage?” I asked.

“She arrives at nine fifty that morning and is seen pushing a cart an hour later. Once or twice at the circulation desk helping someone. None are in the system, or I cleared them as locals. But no sign of her leaving and no sign of her on the footage after twelve-fifteen. Not for the rest of the day.”

Meaning Joey Brains stood at the circulation desk–like the first time I’d stopped in–saw Hannah in the workroom and joined her in there. To kill her. He hadn’t been successful, and she hadn’t escaped out of the workroom–which only had one door–since her escape would have been seen on the footage.

It sounded like Joey Brains acted like I had when she’d disappeared from me at Big Mike’s apartment. Meaning, she most likely went… poof with him, too.

Thank fuck or else she’d probably be dead.

SHIT!

“What else?” Dax asked Nitro.

I was too stunned, too angry, too fucking freaked out to speak.

“Hannah Highcliff was on the same flight as Jack. Her roundtrip basic economy ticket from Denver to Vegas was purchased with her credit card last December. She chose to take the airline assigned middle seat instead of paying extra to pick one herself. Plus…”

He was quiet but we could hear him clacking away at a keyboard.

“Her details. Hannah Highcliff. Middle child of Marcia and Robert Highcliff. Accountant and taxidermist.”

“Taxidermist?” Dax repeated.

“There was a fucking cow head in the dining room staring at me while I ate a well-done burger. I told them I was a mortician. Since it’s pretty much the same thing, we’re going for beers to talk shop.”

Not.

“Jesus,” Dax muttered, shaking his head.

Nitro continued. “Her older brother, Perry, appears to be running a religious cult in the Springs. Sister Briana has no job and… is this correct? Jumps on a trampoline? That can’t be right. Lemme keep–”

“That’s correct,” I said, remembering seeing her fly over the house. “She wants to be in the Olympics.”

Dax only continued to shake his head.

“Okaaaay,” Nitro replied. “She’s also in a relationship with a Kevin Cortez of Coal Springs.”

Kevin. Kevin. “Kevin, as in Hannah’s ex?”

Dax’s eyebrows shot up.

“The one and the same. I sent you his info already.” I’d asked him to look into the ex last week after the dinner from hell but hadn’t gotten to killing the guy yet. “Although the stuff with the sister was a new find. The used car lot he runs has security cameras. They show a lot. I’m charging you double for seeing even a few minutes of the two of them going at it in the backseat of one of the cars. Let me say that woman is flexible.”

I cringed.

Dax grimaced. “I assume you’re going to take care of him?”

Our eyes met. Dealing with scum all the time made us jaded, but this was one person I was looking forward to dealing with. “Oh yeah.”

“You want me to send the footage?” Nitro asked.

“Not a chance. What about the medical records I asked about?” I prodded. “Hannah had a brain tumor. Had a special radiation for it.”

“Medical records are sealed. I can get in, but it’ll take some time. I figured you only wanted validation that she was telling the truth instead of the specific details of her health, so I pulled up the security cameras of all facilities within an hour of Coal Springs that did the gamma knife radiosurgery you mentioned. I got a hit on facial recognition for her arriving at a cancer center in Boulder. Several visits actually, back in… May and a few more since.”

“Cancer? She said it wasn’t cancer!” I panicked at the thought, running a hand over my face. Fuck me.

“The irony here is ridiculous,” Dax muttered, although he wasn’t laughing. Her being sick, whatever the condition, was not funny.

“The place does all kinds of radiation treatments, including the procedure you said she had. You want me to look further into it?”

Dax eyed me across the kitchen island. He’d started the inquiry, but it was my call if I wanted Nitro to dig deeper.

Anyone who lied about having a fucking brain tumor was mental. She wouldn’t do that.

“No.”

“So you agree now that your girl is exactly the woman you fell for?” Dax asked.

Except for her ability to lift a fridge and teleport, yeah. She was completely, totally my girl.

And I fucked it up. Big time. Epically. I leaned against the counter, dropping my elbows on the granite and resting my head in my hand.

She’d come to Denver with the intention to warn me but ended up saving me. She’d kept the guy who killed people for a living alive.

Joey Brains was alive and Reggiano hadn’t gotten either of us dead. Which meant, this wasn’t over, and Hannah was out there somewhere, unprotected.

“If he wants me dead because I quit, then it’s pretty simple. The reason for a mafia hit isn’t usually very complicated. But see what you can dig up on Sal and Paul Reggiano anyway,” I told Nitro. “Father and son. And let me know if facial recognition gets a hit on Hannah anywhere. I need to find her.”

“To grovel,” Dax said, smirking.

“Give me some time on the Reggianos,” Nitro said. “But I can tell you right now where Hannah is.”

I jolted upright, as if zapped with a fucking cattle prod. “What? Where?”

“Your parking garage.”