Moonrise by Anne Stuart

seemed to think you were merely human. I know better.”
    “You going to kill me, Mary Margaret?” he inquired casually.
    “Certainly. I’ll regret it, of course, but I won’t even hesitate. I’m following orders. Nothing personal, James. We’ve had some good times together, but I take my work seriously. Trust me, I won’t enjoy killing you.”
    “That’s a shame,” he murmured. “You usually get off on it.”
    Her pleasant smile faltered for a moment. “Don’t worry about me, James. After I take care of you, I get the little girl in the shower. I’ll enjoy doing her, trust me on that one.”
    “You know who she is?”
    “You think I’m sentimental about Win? I’m no more sentimental than you are, James. I do what needs to be done. With more pleasure than you’ve ever shown in your craft. Though in your case I might even call it sheer artistry.”
    “Do you have any regrets, Mary Margaret?” he asked gently.
    Her smile was wide, innocent, bone-chilling. “None, darling. You’re fiendishly inventive in bed, you’re a brilliant tactician, but you’vealways been a little too moral for your own good. If you’d known the scope of the operation, you would have been tiresomely difficult. It was just as well most of us didn’t even know each other and what we were assigned to do. But I can’t regret knowing you, James.” She smiled sweetly. “And your death will clean up a number of loose ends.”
    “Always glad to be of service, Mary Margaret. Just tell me one thing. Did you do Billy Arnett?”
    “That sweet little yokel? He didn’t belong in the company, James. He particularly had no business being groomed for our branch. Certainly he could shoot well enough to make even you look bad, but he was a child. A golly-gee-whiz patriot, for heaven’s sake.”
    “Did you kill him?”
    “Oh, that’s right. He was your little protégé, wasn’t he? You even set up some money for his wife. She was better off without him, you know. He slept with me, and he was lousy in bed. No staying power. Unlike you.”
    “Did you kill him?”
    “Of course I did,” she said irritably. “What has that to do with anything?”
    Her cold blue eyes widened in sudden surprise. A second later the bullet hole appeared, in the middle of her forehead, and she crumpled onto the ground like a broken puppet. Hestared down at her for a moment before lowering the gun. “Everything,” he said in a soft voice. And then he stepped over her body and headed back to the house.
    Battered, Annie thought as she stood under the shower, lathering her hair. It shouldn’t bother her, but it did. It had nothing to do with James McKinley, she told herself, letting the lukewarm water sluice over her face. She didn’t particularly want anyone thinking she looked the worse for wear. Win had instilled in her all sorts of priorities, and always facing the world well groomed and in control was part of it.
    Funny, but right now good grooming seemed the least of her worries. In the months since Win’s death she’d gradually stopped wearing the well-cut, pastel suits that took up most of her closet space. She’d given up her weekly manicure appointment, her hair was months past its usual careful shaping, and yesterday was the first time she’d worn heels in what seemed like centuries.
    She had certainly picked the worst possible time to wear them. She was half tempted to throw them in the trash before she ever tortured her feet again.
    She heard the sound when she stepped from the shower. A muffled explosion, and forsome odd reason she thought she’d heard the same sound earlier, drowned out by the heavy water beating down on her head. She paused, listening, but there was nothing at all. Just silence.
    She dressed swiftly, scarcely bothering to towel herself dry. Battered, he’d said. She deliberately refused to look in the mirror. She had no reason to pretty herself up for James McKinley. No need to drape herself in the bland, pretty clothes