Page 74 of Deathtoll

The sniff on the other end broke his damn heart. She never cried. She was one of the toughest people he’d ever met.

The closer Murph got to his destination, the more he convinced himself he was on the right track. Broslin hadn’t seen snow since the previous winter. None of the plow operators had been called up yet. The place would be empty.Out there, nothing too close by, isolated.The location had been chosen over a century before, because the fire wagon tanks could be filled up from the creek.

Murph brought up the old building and its surroundings in his mind. Creek on one side, woods in the back. He was going to stay away from the long driveway. He wasn’t going to play this like a cop. He was going to play it like a soldier.

Bing was a fine captain, but he’d spent his career chasing small-town criminals. Asael was ten levels above all of them, in a category of his own. The combined forces of the FBI and Interpol hadn’t been able to catch the assassin yet.

Murph would. He’d promised Kate, and that was that.

He slowed as he drove by the turnoff, fumbling with his phone in case anyone was watching. But as he pretended to read a text, he stole a look down the driveway. The parking lot up front stood deserted.

He kept on driving, over the little wooden bridge that spanned the water, and took the next crossroad, a bumpy gravel path that led to a rarely used fishing spot on the other side of the creek. He and his brother, Doug, had fished there a million times when they were kids.

Murph didn’t stop until he was behind tree cover, where nobody from the old firehouse could see him. The disadvantage was, he couldn’t see the firehouse either. Not even when he slid out of his pickup with his gun in hand.

He maintained a firm grip on his weapon. If Asael was in the building, this was where it would end. There would be no call to the captain.

There it was. The truth. Whatever that said about Murph.

Asael had Emma. Asael was a threat to Kate. Asael needed to die.

No police custody, no hearings, no prison, no hundreds of ways to escape and come back again.

Somebody needed to take care of the Asael problem permanently. And Murph was going to be that man. If he ended up spending the rest of his life in prison for it, as long as Kate was safe, he could live with that bargain.

* * *

Asael

“Like I said, I prefer you alive, but I can work with dead,” Asael told Emma Bridges, who was turning out to be a pain.

Whoever had invented the kickass-heroine genre should be shot in the head. Those books and movies gave women too many ideas these days.

“Fuck you,” she spat at him.

He’d removed the duct tape because he didn’t want her to suffocate. She’d cried a little when he’d dragged her from the delivery van, down the stairs, into the basement. Her nose had gotten plugged up, her face turning blue from lack of air.

He lifted a piece of paper towel to her nose. “Blow.”

She tried to bite him. Clearly, she had recovered.

“I’m going to tape your mouth shut again in a minute. If you can’t breathe through your nose…” He smiled.

She got it. Blew. Then blew again.

Damned disgusting. He tossed the wadded-up paper towel aside. Then he grabbed the roll of duct tape from the floor.

“Don’t!” She turned her head.

He slapped her. Just enough so she knew he meant it. He might yet have to rough her up later. He would enjoy that, but he didn’t want to start too early. Didn’t want to chance that he might get carried away. It’d happened in the past.

When she stilled, he taped her mouth shut again.

“No crying,” he told her as he stood and walked away.

“Mfmmd.”

Was she trying to swear?