Brought to Light

Parking didn’t pose a challenge in this sleepy little northern California beach town, but I pulled into a spot a block down from my destination anyway. Better to keep a low profile.

My mark’s place of employment, the Chipper Bean, was the only business on the block with a light on. (Stupid fucking name, and if I’d been going after whoever came up with it, I’d have been a lot happier.) The sign offended me as much as the name, featuring a grinning coffee bean with very large, very white teeth and a pair of aviator sunglasses. The bean clutched a steaming mug, presumably full of coffee.

Had Cannibal Bean already been taken when they named the place? Either way, the logo looked goddamn happy to be swilling the juices of its fellows. I scowled at it and pulled the door open, setting off a cheery jingle.

One customer hunched over a table by the front window, wearing headphones and staring at his laptop. Another stood at the register ordering, next to a counter with a glass-fronted section holding some sad-looking pastries and another counter with cream and sugar. A few other scattered tables sat empty.

And working away at the espresso machine, wreathed in a cloud of steam, was the guy I’d been sent here to kill.

Not even a guy, really. A kid. He’d looked goddamn young in the photo, but in person he could’ve been a high-school student. He stood maybe less than an inch shorter than my own six-feet-even, so not small in that sense, but a stiff breeze could’ve sent him floating away like dandelion fluff.

His hair, which drifted around his face in a cloud of white-blond waves, didn’t really help; it made him look even more like a dandelion, and even more fragile.

I got in line behind the guy at the counter. “Be right with you,” my target said brightly, his voice as light and sweet as his looks.

Well, this was just fucking great. My mood took a final plummet, ending up somewhere underneath the artfully scuffed floorboards. The kid—John, according to the file I’d memorized, and I’d never seen anyone who looked less like someone named plain John—had a wide fucking smile. Rosy lips. White, slightly crooked teeth.

And as far as I knew, he’d only made my hit list because he existed and someone out there didn’t like it. They hadn’t even offered the justification of making bad coffee.

The barely veiled threats had been very much present and accounted for, though. They knew who I was. They knew who my handler was. They knew everyone we’d ever been in contact with. And they’d made it clear that if we didn’t do what they wanted, they’d decide they didn’t like us existing, either.

Fuck. This.

John gave the customer his drink along with another megawatt grin and turned his attention to me. I felt like his brilliant blue gaze should’ve been an X-ray, showing every flaw down to my murderous bones. But he kept smiling.

“What can I get you? I make a great hot chocolate. It’s a little late for coffee, although—maybe you like to stay up all night?”

His smile dimmed just the tiniest bit as I scowled at him, and he blinked. Was he fucking hitting on me? Not that I didn’t swing that way sometimes, but Jesus. This kid didn’t have one single ounce of self-preservation hidden anywhere on that willowy body. I’d picked my bulky leather jacket on purpose to hide my weapons and also conceal the lines of my own body. I was well-built. Years in the army and a few more years of doing what I did after the army had made me that way. But I tried to play it down, blend in a little. I didn’t look hot like this, not even from the neck down. I looked stocky, and big, and unshaven, and probably only about a tenth as dangerous as I really was—already ten times more dangerous than anyone like John should’ve been getting anywhere near.

“Hot chocolate sounds good.” I wasn’t going to drink it, anyway, so what did it matter?

He winked at me. Actually winked. “It’s a good thing you chose wisely, because I’m going to make sure you try it and tell me if you like it!”

I nodded at him, dumbfounded, and watched as he spun gracefully on his heel and started steaming a pitcher of milk. I wasn’t really the kind of guy to go with the flow. Usually I was the one who stopped whatever the flow was, often permanently.

But apparently I’d be drinking hot chocolate.

And then, after that, I’d find a place to lurk, follow this kid home, and figure out the best place and time to kill him and make it look like some kind of freak accident. In a town this size, a mugging wasn’t all that likely. And my blackmailers—sorry, clients, whoever they were—had been deathly fucking serious about not attracting attention or causing a big police investigation, a real challenge when you left a dead body behind.

Maybe I’d make the body disappear; make him disappear. Fake some kind of note to his friends or roommates about running off to Thailand to find himself. His file said he didn’t have any family. Maybe no one would ever bother to look for him. I’d be the only one to know for certain what happened to that pretty smile and those bright blue eyes, to know where that slender body lay rotting away. The keeper of his final secrets.

A paper cup with a mound of whipped cream materialized in front of me. I looked up sharply, realizing how long I’d been staring down at the counter and completely ignoring my target and my surroundings.

John wore another sweet smile, this time with a bright, mischievous look in those sparkling eyes. “You seem like you’re secretly a whipped cream kind of guy,” he said quietly, as if we were co-conspirators.

I hadn’t thrown up in years, but it took every bit of willpower I had not to lose what was left of my late lunch.

“Yeah, sure,” I said hoarsely, but I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the cup. “What do I owe you?”

“Three-fifty!” He poked the cash register and stood there expectantly. Was his hair actually floating around his head, or was that an optical illusion? If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought a gentle spring breeze had drifted by, making his soft waves flutter.

God, I was fucking losing it. I pulled out my wallet and gave him a five. “Put the change in the jar.”

And then I had to get out of there. I picked up the cup, even though I wished I could run away and leave it.

“Try it?” he asked, his tone barely shy of pleading. “Just a taste. Let me know what you think. I’m sort of new at this. I need feedback.”

According to the file he’d been working here for months. If he didn’t know how to make a fucking hot chocolate by now, he had to be hopeless. And hadn’t he said he was great at it?

Still. I put the cup to my mouth, and then hesitated. Jesus. It held cocoa, for fuck’s sake. Not rat poison.

Probably. But I knew what rat poison tasted like. I’d be able to tell.

I took a sip, having to slurp the whipped cream to get to the liquid under it.

My eyes widened. It was…the best thing I’d ever put in my mouth. Without question, without any doubt, it tasted better than the first beer after basic training, or the lips of the first girl I’d ever kissed in tenth grade. It was fucking ambrosia.

John’s eyes were fixed on me, oddly intent. “You like it?”

“It’s amazing,” tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it. “It’s good. Really, really good.”

Until his whole body relaxed, I hadn’t noticed John’s tension. He carried himself so lightly that it hadn’t been obvious. But he seemed to settle, his whole posture looser. Jesus. Was he afraid of losing his job if someone told his manager he made shitty hot chocolate? Was his manager the same person who’d chosen the sign out front? If so, maybe I’d make another stop on my rounds.

“Good,” he said. “That’s—good. Thanks for coming into the Chipper Bean!”

I managed a growl that could have been words, turned, and hightailed it the fuck out of there. Maybe I’d go back after an hour and follow John home; maybe I wouldn’t. It could wait another night. Fuck.