Page 75 of Nobody's Hero

The girl looked unharmed and unworried. Her left hand was wet with blood. Koenig could see a ring on her index finger. It had a hooked bevel tip that looked like a raptor’s beak. They were called single-point self-defence rings, and they were weapons designed to be worn as everyday jewellery. In the right hands, they were deadly. It seemed like the girl had the right hands. She’d torn out her would-be assailant’s throats like she was a werewolf.

‘Who are you?’ she said.

‘My name’s Ben,’ Koenig said. ‘I saw them drag you into the alley. I came to help.’

‘Thanks,’ the girl said.

‘You’re welcome.’

Koenig then took his SIG from his jacket pocket and shot her in the ankle. She screamed and collapsed on top of the gurgling man. Koenig hurried over. The girl reached for her bag. Koenig kicked it away, then stomped on her hands. He bent down and studied the birthmark on her face.

Itdidlook like Italy.

‘Hello, Harper,’ he said. ‘Where’s your dad?’

Chapter 80

Draper skidded around the corner as if she were in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. She took in the scene in a single glance.

‘Jesus, what happened to them?’ she asked, gesturing towards the men on the ground. The squabby man had stopped gurgling.

‘She did,’ Koenig replied.

‘And who’s . . . ?’ It took a beat for it to register. ‘That’s Nash.’

‘It is.’

‘Why’d she kill them?’

‘They were about to rape her.’

‘Boy, talk about picking on the wrong psychopath. You shot her?’

‘Broke her fingers too.’

Draper nodded in approval. ‘We’d better move her before the NYPD arrive. Her being unconscious is useful. We’ll pretend she’s passed-out drunk and we’re helping her back to her apartment.’

‘She’s not going to talk,’ Draper said to Koenig. ‘Look at her. She should be scared, but she’s not.’

Draper was right. Nashdidn’tlook scared. She was in pain, but other than that, it seemed like having a bullet in her ankle and a bunch of broken fingers was an inconvenience. Other than saying Stillwell Hobbs was still away on business, she hadn’t said a thing.

Nash was an odd-looking contract killer. With her ripped jeans, short spiky hair and colourful tattoos, she looked like she’d be more at home in a secondhand record shop. Flicking through the crates for rare Black Sabbath LPs. She certainly didn’t look like the kind of girl who could rip the throats out of three men in less than a minute. Until you looked into her eyes. They were deader than leather. And they missed nothing. Koenig could see how she was actively checking they hadn’t made mistakes with her restraints. How she ignored the pain she must have been feeling and was testing them by flexing the muscles in her forearms and legs.

‘Smerconish has people who’ll make her talk, though,’ Draper continued softly.

‘People like you?’

‘Worse than me, Koenig. Much, much worse.’

It looked like it had been a difficult thing for her to admit. Koenig wished he’d not said anything.

They were in the apartment Nash shared with her father. They’d carried her from the alley like she was a deadbeat drunk, through the front door and into the small lobby. They waited for the elderly elevator to clunk and bang its way to the first floor. They saw no one, which had been a relief as the blood from Nash’s ankle had puddled on the tiled floor. Koenig used the rest of his paper napkins to mop it up.

When Nash was secure, Koenig went back down to the alley and hid the three dead men in the dumpsters. Covered their corpses with garbage. Kicked dust over the blood. A rush job, but the best he could do. He then collected Carlyle and Margaret. By the time he returned, Draper had packed and patched Nash’s bullet wound and taped her broken fingers together. It was agricultural, but better than nothing. Professional medical attention would have to wait.

The loft apartment was modern and minimalist. Sterile. In direct contrast to Koenig’s old townhouse, which had been a riot of movie posters, albums, DVDs and books, it was fifty shades of black and white. Like you were inside a crossword puzzle. Just what a man with a phobia of the colour yellow needed, Koenig imagined. The most colourful thing in the loft was Nash’s blood. And even that was turning black. The loft had two bedrooms, a home office, some closets, a kitchen area and a sunken living room. Probably cost over a million bucks.

Carlyle was in the sunken living room, scrolling through a laptop she’d found. She was deep-diving into C-SPAN, Reuters and the BBC. She didn’t look happy. Margaret was resting in Hobbs’s bedroom. Koenig went to check on her. She was lying down but awake. Didn’t seem to be in too much pain.