Playing Dead by Allison Brennan Page A

She would need his guidance. A strong shoulder to cry on.
    He would stay in Sacramento for the black-haired beauty.
    He waited in the girl’s room while her mother slept. Carefully, with gloves, he went through her things. Discovered her name was Claire from the colorful animal letters on her door. Her room was cluttered but not messy. She’d made her bed before leaving for school. She was a good girl. There was no real theme or color scheme—her down comforter was red with several throw pillows in all colors. One of her walls was painted bright pink, the others sky blue. She had movie and teen heartthrob posters on the walls. In the corner was a basket with stuffed animals.
    In his search, he learned she was a freshman at St. Francis, an all-girl Catholic high school. There were dozens of snapshots of her with her friends on a large corkboard on one wall.
    A worn floppy bear on the bed with one eye missing.
    A white bathrobe hanging on the back of the door.
    A shelf lined with well-read books, thin romances as well as thick fantasies, like Tolkien’s trilogy.
    On her nightstand was a photo of Claire dressed up for Halloween as Princess Leia, with her father as Darth Vader. It was a few years old, judging by the newer pictures with her friends. Princess Claire didn’t have breasts yet.
    He knew he shouldn’t, but he took one of the pictures from her wall of friends. There were at least a hundred pinned up. After her mother was shot dead, would Claire notice that one was missing?
    He also took a pair of her panties. Bright pink, like her wall. Lacy. The underwear a teenage girl would wear to feel like a grown woman, but still in her favorite little-girl color.
    A loud, metal grinding sound vibrated the house, and he tensed. Then came the sound of running water through pipes in the wall that separated Claire’s bedroom from her parents’.
    Realizing the noise was simply an old plumbing system, he left Claire’s room and stood outside the master bedroom, looking through the open door. The adulteress was in the shower, evidenced by the sound of water hitting flesh. He quickly strode across the room, looked under pillows, under the bed, then in the nightstand drawers.
    He grinned. He was right: There was a gun.
    He returned to Claire’s room before her mother finished with her shower. He sat on her bed and waited. Waited for the perfect time to kill.
    He imagined a life with Claire.
     
    The assassin turned off the icy water. Fifteen years had passed and now he was an important part of Claire’s life. But if Tom O’Brien knew what Oliver Maddox knew, he, too, could put together the truth of that long-ago day. And if that happened, the assassin’s well-planned life would crumble around him.
    Then he’d be forced to kill Claire. He refused to leave town without her, and he knew she wouldn’t go with him voluntarily.

 
    EIGHT
    Nelia was napping, her back to him, while Tom sat at the table near the covered window reading over the letter he’d written to his daughter. Nelia had wanted to deliver it for him, but Tom wouldn’t allow it. The more she risked exposure, the greater her chance of being tried as an accessory.
    Wasn’t that what he was using Claire for? To have Claire become an accessory to help him find Oliver Maddox? To help him prove his innocence? Was it a double standard? He’d told Nelia that Claire’s training and resources made her the perfect person to dig for the truth. And on the one hand, that was true. But Tom also desperately wanted Claire to learn for herself that her father was innocent. She was a doubting Thomas, had to see it to believe. She’d always been like that, and he wanted her to figure out the truth so she’d believe him. He didn’t want to hurt Claire or get her in trouble. He hoped that if worse came to worst, the fact that he was her father and she was a distraught daughter would weigh in her favor if things got hairy.
    Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. If she could