Dead Shot Read online

  If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2007 by Wylann Solomon

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the priorwritten permission of the publisher.

  Warner Forever is a trademark of Time Warner Inc. oran affiliated company. Used under license by HachetteBook Group, which is not affiliated with Time Warner Inc.

  Warner Forever is an imprint of Warner Books Inc.

  Cover design by Diane Luger

  Book design by Stratford Publishing Services, Inc.

  Warner Forever

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: March 2007

  ISBN: 978-0-446-55371-1

  The “Warner Books” name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  About the Author

  THE DISH

  Acclaim for Annie Solomon’s Previous Novels

  BLACKOUT

  “FOUR STARS! Fantastic story! . . . Tough, suspenseful, and we have a heroine who is even tougher than the special-agent hero. Whew! Never a dull moment. Solomon has outdone herself this time, and that’s not easy to do.”

  —RomanceReviewsMag.com

  “Twisty and diverting, with well-written action sequences.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Blackout

  “Talk about edge-of-the seat! I have never read a book with such relentless suspense . . . . A superb example of showing over mere telling of a story. I highly recommend Blackout.”

  —Romantic Reviews Today

  BLIND CURVE

  “FOUR STARS! Riveting and emotionally intense.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine

  “Aperfect ten . . . nail-biting, intense drama that will leave you breathless with anticipation.”

  —MyShelf.com

  more . . .

  “Annie Solomon does such an outstanding job creating taut suspense. From the very first page . . . to the riveting climax, you can’t help but be glued to the story.”

  —RoundTableReviews.com

  “An action-packed novel . . . a feast for suspense fans, and the added mixture of romance . . . . another winner for an author who clearly has a gift and is on the rise.”

  —TheRomanceReadersConnection.com

  TELL ME NO LIES

  “Infused with raw emotion and a thirst for vengeance. Excitement and tension galore!”

  —Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine

  “Full of simmering emotions that lovers of romantic suspense will devour.”

  —Rendezvous

  “Another success! Miss Solomon’s latest novel is a testament to her gift for crafting intelligent, sexy novels.”

  —RomanceReadersConnection.com

  DEAD RINGER

  “Just the ticket for those looking for excitement and romance.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine

  “An entertaining . . . exceptional . . . emotionally taut tale . . . offers twists and turns that kept me enthralled to the last page.”

  —Old Book Barn Gazette

  “Thrilling and edgy . . . Dead Ringer delivers excitement, suspense, and sexual tension . . . Highly recommended.”

  —RomRevToday.com

  LIKE A KNIFE

  “A nail-biter through and through. Absolutely riveting.”

  —Iris Johansen

  “Fast-paced . . . exciting romantic suspense that . . . the audience will relish.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “A powerful character study . . . [Ms. Solomon] blends the elements of romance and suspense . . . with the skill of a veteran.”

  —The WordonRomance.com

  ALSO BY ANNIE SOLOMON

  Like a Knife

  Dead Ringer

  Tell Me No Lies

  Blind Curve

  Blackout

  To Larry, who helped me pull another one out of the hat.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank Katie Wellborn of the Frist Center and Nathalie Lavine who both gave me their time and their insight into the world of art museums.

  Thanks also to photographer John Guider, who explained the mysteries of the 8 x 10 camera, and shared his beautiful photographs of his river trip to the Mississippi.

  And once again, I’m indebted to Detective Patricia Hamblin of the Wilson County Sheriff’s Department.

  1

  From the edge of the angry crowd, he watched the fat black limousine crawl to the entrance of the Gray Visual Arts Center. The place blazed, lights piercing the night like knife points. Flags celebrating the art museum’s first anniversary flapped against poles in the night breeze, snapping like skins.

  Someone bellowed a chant. “De-cen-cy! De-cen-cy!” The crowd joined in, fisted arms raised in time to the beat. “De-cen-cy!”

  A protester broke from the police lines and rushed the car, attacking the windshield with a homemade placard on a stick. The man couldn’t read what it said, but he could guess from the others around him: GO HOME, SICKO, NO TO DEATH ART, JESUS IS THE TRUE SACRIFICE. A phalanx of uniformed cops pried the scraggly man off the car and dragged him away.

  Amid the swirl—the multitude of TV trucks with their satellite antennas, the angry crowd, the police trying to maintain a barricade—the man stood still, hands buried deep in his jacket pockets. The eye of the hurricane.

  He inhaled deeply, absorbed the chaos through his skin. It leached into his veins and up his bloodstream, pumped hard and fast through his heart. The noise, the excitement, the energy of the night juiced him with a seething envy he co
uld hardly contain.

  For her. All for her.

  The crowd pushed against the police line as the limousine stopped at the foot of the museum steps. He stood in the back, and from that distance, the four passengers appeared like tiny dolls climbing the stairs. But he imagined them. Wrapped in silk and glitter, six-thousand- dollar tuxedos, three-thousand-dollar shoes.

  And her pale, white body, such fragile beauty, soft and perfumed.

  A swarm of reporters descended from all sides of the steps and overwhelmed the four passengers. The shape of the swarm bulged and contracted as people shoved each other for position.

  Jealousy churned into white-hot resentment. It should be him up there. Him in the newspapers, him on television. It should be his name the crowd chanted.

  She was a liar, and a cheat.

  He was the real thing.

  She only imitated death.

  He created it.

  2

  Be careful what you wish for. As the limousine crept through the enraged protesters, that little piece of irony reverberated in Gillian Gray’s head.

  Outside the car, the protesters formed pockets, dispersed, and re-formed again, like a giant snake undulating in fury. Gillian narrowed her eyes so the group’s edges blurred. She imagined a dragon. A monster. As if she’d summoned Godzilla from the depths.

  Maddie leaned over and murmured, “Regrets?”

  Gillian could smell the perfume on her. Something strong and spicy. Venom or Vengeance. She smiled. “Are you kidding?”

  Maddie smiled back. “You are not a nice person.”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  It was Maddie who had convinced Gillian to come in the first place. Maddie, with her long, scary face and Morticia Addams hair, who, as Gillian’s assistant, had taken the message and passed it on to her. “It’s the museum’s first anniversary,” she’d said. “They want to bring in a local.”

  Oh, Gillian was a local all right. Not born, and because of boarding school, not even bred. But branded just the same. The way the building they were creeping to was branded. Gray. Gillian Gray. Daughter of a murdered daughter. Photographer. Aristocrat. Demon. Artiste.

  But not Maddie, lucky girl. She was from some other godforsaken place. Some other nightmare. One where food itself was scarce. Not rich, not famous. Just glad to go to school with them, be friends with them. How long had she known Maddie? Longer than she wanted to count.

  Gillian watched her friend out of the corner of her eye. She was pouring a small snooker of liquid courage for les grandperes.

  Helpful Maddie. Lean and spare and strong as a tree limb weathered by winds.

  Of course, Gillian had initially refused the invitation. She’d shrugged and climbed the ten-foot ladder to the platform in her Brooklyn studio where a bulky eight-byten camera sat on a tripod overlooking a set of a kitchen. An ordinary, commonplace suburban kitchen. But nothing in this life was ordinary, a kitchen least of all.

  “The museum has your name on it,” Maddie had said.

  “My grandfather’s name,” Gillian had corrected.

  “It would be a great tie-in. Good publicity.”

  “I don’t need publicity.”

  Too true. Her name and face had been famous since she was a child and, as an adult, her work had always been controversial. So, she couldn’t avoid publicity even if she wanted to. And she didn’t want to. Not really. How could he find her if he didn’t know where she was?

  Maddie had held the pink message slip between two fingers. Waved it like the devil offering temptation to a sinner. “Yeah, but think how much you could rock their world.”

  Gillian stared at her friend. Maddie’s lips had twitched, not a smile exactly, but the smug suggestion of one.

  Gillian had snatched the message out of Maddie’s hand.

  Rock their world.

  It sure to hell was rocking now.

  And this was only the VIP party; the show hadn’t even opened yet. What would happen on Friday?

  A thud. Someone with a sign flung himself at the slow-moving vehicle. On the seat opposite, her grandmother, Genevra, gasped and clutched at her fur-encased throat. It was early April, but she still wore the silver mink, more out of status than a need for warmth, although she did always complain about the cold. Not enough fat on those patrician bones. Above the stole’s rim, Genevra’s throat rose tall and tapered, the cords stretched tight in her too-thin neck. She stared in horror at the half word “obsceni,” which hung on the window, then slipped out of sight as a cop dragged whoever it was away.

  “It’s all right,” Gillian’s grandfather said grimly. He squeezed his wife’s other hand, curled tightly in her lap. His own was beefy, his fingers squat and well manicured.

  “Of course it is,” Genevra said through tight lips, pretending, as she always did.

  Of course it was.

  They made a handsome couple. The college quarterback and his homecoming queen. Growing up it seemed no surprise to Gillian that their only child had become an icon of beauty. At least to everyone with a subscription to Vogue. Not much of an icon to her own parents, however, but that was an old story.

  Gillian turned, pressed her forehead against the glass like she was seven again.

  “Get away from the window,” Genevra snapped.

  Gillian ignored her. She peered into the face of the furies. Was he out there? Watching her? Would he come for her, too?

  “Gillian!” Genevra’s voice grated into the hum of silence inside the car.

  “Is your glass empty, Genevra? Let me take that from you.” Maddie’s voice behind her. Smooth interference. “Wouldn’t want to ruin that beautiful mink with spilled gin.”

  “Thank you,” Genevra said, the words a sniff of stoicism, a warble of concealment, a disguise.

  “Vintage?” Maddie asked, and like that she distracted Genevra into a discussion of fur and color and shape.

  And Gillian could stare out the window at the faces. Would she see his face? The face of the man who’d killed her beautiful and famous mother? Was he out there, watching?

  Be careful what you wish for.

  3

  Ray Pearce stared hard at the enormous photograph mounted on the museum wall. At the strange light coming in from a window, making the ordinary kitchen with its pink-and-green floral curtains and Winnie the Pooh cookie jar look ominous, even without the body on the floor.

  But there was a body. A dead girl lay on her back. School uniform mussed, book bag lying beside her as though she’d been surprised and dropped it. An algebra text and a notebook with a mottled black-and-white cover spilled out of it. The girl, eyes wide and glazed in a bloodless face, stared unseeing at something beyond him. Her attacker? The viewer? He’d seen plenty of crime-scene photographs, but this one made him shift his feet and step back.

  Not that moving away lessened the impact. Wider than Ray was tall, the huge picture pulled you in, making it impossible to ignore the girl’s plaid skirt, which lay crumpled above her knees. Or her thighs, which were parted and blood-streaked. A shirt embroidered with a school crest was untucked and unbuttoned. Three red splotches marred the once-crisp white cotton. The blood had soaked through as she bled out, fuzzing the edges of the wound marks. A suspicion of lace beneath hinted at her virginal white bra.

  Close to her outstretched arm lay a bloodied knife. The fingers of her hand curled outward toward it as though beckoning: Come closer, they seemed to be saying. See me. That hand, that tender, fragile hand made him feel like the voyeur he was.

  “What do you think?”

  The voice of Carlson, his boss, and head of Carleco Security, broke the photograph’s eerie hold. “One sick puppy,” Ray said, and reminded himself to keep as far away as possible from her.

  Carlson shrugged. “Well, let’s make sure she stays that way.”

  Carlson nodded toward the exhibit entrance and beyond, where men in black tie and women in little black dresses sipped champagne. “They’re here.”

&nb
sp; Ray followed Carlson out of the exhibit and into the reception area. Amid the black-coated waiters who mingled with trays of wineglasses and hors d’oeuvres, stood a tall, gangly man with black-rimmed glasses that matched his shock of black hair: Wilson Davenport, director of the museum.

  Ray nodded, shook hands, filed his face away under “friendly.” At least, for now.

  They left the reception and moved out into the hallway that led to the entrance. Once away from the crowd, the museum’s marble floors echoed with their footsteps. It was cold in the empty hallway. Cold the way a room is when all the people have gone.

  Ray hunched inward, the collar of the tuxedo shirt tight around his neck. He never liked wearing the things, but babysitting the rich and famous meant blending in. And after three years of it, he had the money to buy all the trappings.

  They turned a corner, passed the glass wall that skirted the closed and lifeless gift shop, past the unmanned information desk, and bore down on the metal detector at the other end of the long passageway. The museum had balked at installing it, but Carlson had insisted. Given the tumult outside, Ray guessed Davenport and his crew were glad they’d acquiesced.