Читать книгу DARK WORK - Barbara Rush - Страница 4

She shook more than she thought she would’ve. This was her first job since coming back, first attempt, first kill. It satisfied her in almost every way, just as she’d envisioned, except adrenaline still shot thorough her fingertips as she replayed it in her head. The single malt scotch slid around her tongue like smooth fire.

“Let me guess …Eastern Europe?” The balding man droned on, his plump head haloed in the distant TV light. ESPN was on, as it always was at any hour in any bar around the world.

She shook her head ‘no.’ Her eyes bore into his, while flattening him into the scene behind. It was a look that some men mistook for simmering capitulation, but in truth, it was a form of self-hypnosis that could make even the most unbearable situations tolerable.

He’d bought her her third drink, and she’d enjoyed toying with him.

“Hmmm …” He studied her in perfect x’s. Left eye, right chin. Right eye, left chin, finger slowly coming toward her nose, “Russian!”

She was tiring now. “No.” She allowed the last of the scotch to linger in her mouth long enough for him to imagine. “South America-actually.” She slid from the stool and slipped her coat on.

“Oh now …wait! I thought that maybe we-”

She did not hear the rest of what he said. She could do that, turn off her ears. She’d been doing that since she was a child. She did not look back at him as she walked towards the glass door. She owed him nothing, and she was suddenly yearning for a soundless hotel room.

His mouth continued to move behind her. She took no notice. She was done.

Another man on the way in held the door for her. She didn’t acknowledge the act. She didn’t need to. This is the reward for being classically beautiful and wretchedly dead. You use. You walk. You sleep—soundly.