Page 7 of The Perfect Illusion (Jessie Hunt #39)

The corkboard would have been a dead giveaway if the authorities ever found it.

But that wasn’t going to happen. As they got up from their chair to study the board more closely, they couldn’t help but smile slightly. So far—other than a cut from the chunk of glass on the palm of the right hand that required a small bandage—almost everything had gone as planned.

Getting into the mansion had been easy. The old housekeeper was too oblivious to notice that the front door didn’t close completely when she left. And killing Hollinger had been much easier than expected.

This was the first attempt at it, and there were some concerns about whether they'd have the courage of their convictions when the moment came. But Hollinger had been so frozen in terror that she forgot to fight back. All she did was scream, which just made them angry.

That fury was what gave them the extra oomph needed to grip that chunk of glass tight and jam it in the beauty queen's neck.

Fortunately, the arterial spray shot out mostly to the side, so that only a smattering of blood landed on them.

The clothes they wore were currently burning in the fireplace, but that wasn't a problem.

They'd purchased multiple sets of black outfits for these occasions.

The next one would be soon. Staring at the corkboard, they looked over the newspaper clippings. The ones about beauty pageant winner and all around whore Patricia Hollinger could come down now. But the other clippings would remain.

They stared at the stories on the next target.

In addition to those were the surreptitious photos that had been taken.

They would help immeasurably when the next mission happened.

That wasn't until tonight but there was much work to do before then.

First and foremost was a shower. Some of Hollinger's blood had landed on their face.

For the last few hours, they'd left it there as a totem of their accomplishment.

But now it was time to get clean. That is, before getting dirty again.