Playing Dead by Allison Brennan

be dead Wednesday by one in the afternoon.
    Lydia O’Brien was a nurse and she worked the night shift, twelve hours, from six p.m. until six a.m. four days a week. Her husband was a cop and left at seven thirty. The assassin didn’t know about a daughter until he broke into the house while the adulteress slept. That was the curse of rushing the job. He’d have known about the daughter if he’d had more time. He swallowed his nerves. It was as if he’d never killed before. But he’d never killed for reasons that weren’t . . . more personal.
    He had his own gun, but he also knew cops. They always kept a gun in their bedroom. He wished he had more time—one day to steal the gun, the next to kill the prosecutor and his whore. But the blackmailers wanted no delays, which meant no more planning time.
    If he had to use his own gun, he’d have to leave it, otherwise the frame wouldn’t work. They’d try to trace the gun, but it was old, long ago stolen, and had no murders attached to it. He hoped to get his hands on the cop’s gun.
    There was nothing that connected the assassin to the two people he planned to kill. The blackmailers wouldn’t talk, because they had as much—or more—to lose. And he knew enough about why they wanted Taverton dead to keep them uncomfortable. He’d recorded his conversation with Harper and Drake just to be on the safe side. He didn’t want them to think he was expendable.
    He was too smart for that.
    He didn’t even live in Sacramento, he had no reason to be here, and he was staying under an assumed name in a hotel down in a seedy Stockton neighborhood forty minutes south of the capital city. He could disappear and the police would look for people who wanted Taverton dead. That’s why killing him with the whore made so much sense. The police would look at the obvious: her idiot husband. When the assassin told Harper about his plan to take out both Taverton and his lover, within twelve hours Harper learned that O’Brien worked solo. He was normally a training officer, but had no rookie currently assigned to him.
    A lot of things could go wrong. O’Brien could be on a call. Taverton could cancel his rendevous. But the assassin took comfort in the fact that he wasn’t connected to anyone and could slip away. If it all went south and the blackmailers exposed him, he’d have to disappear and assume another identity. Self-preservation was key.
    He refused to think about his own death.
    He waited until the working neighborhood was quiet. The old woman next door might be a problem, but the assassin came in through the garage door on the opposite side of the house, which was also the easiest lock to pick.
    Slowly, he walked through the house. Silence. The whore was sleeping. But if today was the same as the last two days, she’d be in the shower by noon. It gave him only a few minutes to find the gun and hide before Taverton arrived at 12:30.
    The house was homey and quaint. Nothing like the huge mansion where he’d grown up. Pictures on the walls of the family that lived there. Pictures . . .
    His heart pounded as he stared at a photograph of the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Her long black hair, her big, round blue eyes, her smile . . . it was as if a huge spotlight was illuminating her framed picture. It was the sign he’d been searching for.
    He’d made three major moves in his life. The first was when he dropped out of college after killing— accidentally killing—Jessica. Each time he made a move, he had heeded a sign. But nothing had been nearly as powerful as this. There was nothing like this girl.
    She was his fate.
    Now he felt good about killing Taverton and the whore. What was that slut doing sleeping around? She had a daughter, someone who looked to her for moral guidance, someone who needed her. And what about her husband? He was either a stupid fool or he didn’t care. Either way, he deserved to go to prison for his ignorance.
    That would leave the daughter.