Training Four Murder Read online

  Training Four Murder

  An F6 Novel

  Diana X. Dunn

  Contents

  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

  Also by Diana X. Dunn

  Books written as Diana Xarissa

  About the Author

  Text Copyright © 2019 DX Dunn, LLC

  Cover Copyright © 2019 Tell-Tale Book Covers

  All Rights Reserved

  Created with Vellum

  For Tammy at Rabid Reader Reviews.

  Chapter 1

  October 2120

  The apartment was dark, especially compared with the bright lights in the corridor. She quickly stepped inside and shut the door behind her. As she took a few cautious steps forward, unwilling to turn on any lights, a sound from the hallway made her stop and listen. The footsteps had a slight shuffling sound to them, and she wasn’t surprised when they continued past the apartment she was in, moving further down the corridor.

  In many ways it would have made things easier if it had been him, but she was grateful for the extra time, as she didn’t feel quite ready yet. Her eyes slowly became somewhat accustomed to the dimly lit space. He’d left a single light burning in the hallway and it provided just enough light to allow her to avoid running into furniture as she walked through the space. She wandered around the living room and kitchen, wondering why she had never been there before.

  The bedroom door was shut and she hesitated before opening it. She didn’t need to pry into the man’s personal life. Old habits are hard to break, however, and after a moment she opened the door. The hallway light gave her just enough illumination to see the neatly made bed. She blew out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. It had been a remote possibility that someone was snuggled up in the bed waiting for his return. For a long moment she considered climbing into the bed and surprising him but eventually she shook her head.

  “Not fair to either of you,” she told herself sternly. She pulled the bedroom door shut and returned to the spacious living room. After pacing for several minutes, she finally sat in a chair that proved to be more comfortable than it looked. The chair swiveled, so she turned it to face the door and then forced herself to focus and empty her mind. Being there was a bad idea, but hopefully only a small one.

  The sound of the lock opening woke her from a light sleep. She hadn’t been sleeping well for the last month, so it was hardly surprising that she’d nodded off. Years of training had her wide awake and on her feet by the time the door opened and the light came on. When their eyes met, she felt the full force of her attraction to him. He looked shocked for just a moment and then recognition dawned. Then she could see anger in his eyes.

  “This is a surprise.” His voice was carefully controlled.

  “I wanted to come and explain,” she told him, studying his face and trying to work out what he was feeling.

  “Explain?” he laughed, but the sound was harsh and hollow. “What could you possibly need to explain?”

  She blew out a breath and tried to find the right words. “I couldn’t contact you,” she told him. “Rex had me chasing him across the country and it was too dangerous to contact anyone.”

  Alex Knight stared at her for a long time without speaking. “The chase took a whole month?” he questioned, eventually.

  She felt her face flushing under his intense stare. “No,” she admitted softly. “The chase didn’t take that long. But when it was over, things changed. I had to go deep undercover. I’m still deep undercover.”

  It wasn’t really a lie. She trusted Alex and she cared for him, but there was no way she was going to admit to him that Michael, her boss and mentor, had fired her from the agency she had worked for her entire life.

  “Deep undercover?” Alex’s laugh sounded genuine this time. “You don’t look all that different from the woman I talked to in London last month,” he challenged. “Surely you should have changed your appearance completely if you’re so deep undercover.”

  She frowned. “It’s complicated,” she muttered. She’d made a few simple changes coming from London back to New York before she’d realized what Rex was up to, but the sort of extensive physical changes that she really should have now, if she were going to hide from Rex, were both time consuming and costly. The agency had offered her some assistance, but if she were cutting ties, she wanted to cut them all. She was going forward on her own terms and with her own agenda.

  “So what’s your name today?” Alex questioned.

  “I’m sort of between identities,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “What does that mean? You don’t actually exist?”

  A look of pain flashed over her face before she answered. “I guess I sort of don’t,” she told him with as much faked nonchalance as she could muster. “I’m taking my time establishing a new identity, for many reasons. I guess I’m still F6.” She shrugged. She felt no emotional connection to that identity, even though it was her only real one.

  Abandoned by her parents at some point during her ex-utero development, she had been adopted even before she’d been born, by the agency that had trained her and employed her up until a few weeks ago. As infants were taken into the program, they were simply assigned numerical designations. She was the sixth female child they had acquired, so her birth certificate read “F6” in place of proper names. The people running the program felt that such an approach was the best way to ensure that their future agents would be able to change identities with ease.

  Alex shook his head. “So why are you here?” he demanded.

  “I came to say good-bye,” she told him softly. “I guess I’m being selfish in a way, but I wanted to see you one more time. I didn’t want you to think that I’d just disappeared without a second thought. I thought about you a lot while I was chasing Rex, and I expect that I’ll be thinking of you a lot in the future as well.”

  The frown on Alex’s face softened slightly. “Does it have to be goodbye?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid it does,” she told him. “There’s so much that I can’t tell you. I have to disappear now and I don’t know for how long.”

  “Because of Rex?”

  She nodded. “He knows too much, and he’s getting increasingly powerful. He seems to have some weird obsession with me, and I’m hoping that I can use that against him.”

  “That sounds very dangerous,” Alex protested. “What does Michael think?”

  “There isn’t any other way,” she told him, ignoring the question. “I just wanted to tell you myself, rather than have you wondering forever.”

  “Will you call me when it’s all over?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head. “I’m not going to make any promises,” she told him. “You need to get on with your life and forget all about me. There are just too many unknowns at this point. I hope you have a wonderful life.”

  Her years of training kept her voice much calmer than her emotions. She and Alex had made a real connection and she was very sorry that they weren’t going to be able to explore it further.

  After what felt like a very long time, Alex took a few steps toward her. “I’m angry,” he told her. “Angry that you haven’t been in touch and angry that you’re just ending things, but mostly I’m angry that Rex has so much power over you.”

  He stopped when he reached her. She reached out a tentative hand and strok
ed his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t want it to end this way either.”

  He muttered something as he pulled her close. The kiss was explosive and passionate at first, but after a few moments it began to feel sadly final.

  “I always hated your job,” he whispered against her lips as the kiss ended.

  “And it was always going to come between us,” she told him, holding him close, prolonging the moment.

  “Does it have to?” Alex asked. “Quit the job. Forget about Rex. I have plenty of money. We can travel and see the world or just stay home and enjoy each other’s company. Why not give us a chance?”

  She sighed deeply but didn’t pull away, not yet. “I can’t leave Rex out there. Not only is he dangerous in many ways, but his obsession with me makes him dangerous to everyone who’s important to me. He’s too good at tracing me. After the chase, he found my first new identity within days.”

  She shuddered, remembering the sinking feeling she’d felt when she’d walked back into the disgusting hotel room that had been her temporary home. She’d hated the room, but it had been her safe haven. She had expected it to take Rex weeks to find her.

  And then, on the yellowed and stained pillowcase that covered the thin but lumpy excuse for a pillow, she’d spotted the letter. She knew the stationary and recognized the handwriting. The note had been short and to the point.

  You’re going to have to try harder.

  “I don’t think I’m safe anywhere until Rex is eliminated,” she told Alex now.

  “You mean arrested?”

  “Arrested would be a good start,” she told him, “but dead would better.”

  Alex dropped his arms and took a step away from her. “You can’t mean that,” he told her in a stunned voice.

  “I’m not going to bore you with terms like psychopath and sociopath,” she told him, keeping her tone steady. “But believe me when I say that he is evil and ruthless and won’t stop until he has what he wants.”

  “What does he want?”

  “I have no idea,” she said, frustration evident in her voice.

  “Surely, if he’s caught, he can be treated?” Alex asked.

  She shrugged. “In theory, certainly. But I’m not sure I would feel safe knowing that a few tablets a day are all that’s keeping him under control.” She sighed. “He’s shown himself more than willing to put innocent people in danger for his own ends. He very nearly poisoned the water supply to multiple states just because he could. He’s building up his own crime syndicate, using everything from career criminals to perfectly ordinary and law abiding people who can be bought or threatened into helping. If he wasn’t strangely fixated with me I would probably still be working to stop him. He’s become dangerous enough that multiple law enforcement agencies are looking for him.”

  “So we go underground until he’s found and then live happily ever after,” Alex suggested.

  “Sorry, but Rex has chosen the wrong woman to play with. I’m going after him, I’m going to find him and I’m going to eliminate him, one way or another.”

  Her voice was so cold that Alex could only stare at her for a long moment when she finished speaking.

  “And you’re prepared to sacrifice our relationship to accomplish that,” he said finally. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.

  “I’m sacrificing a lot more than that,” she told him, letting her eyes show him just a little bit of the pain she felt.

  He didn’t question the comment. He simply stared into her eyes for a long time.

  “I guess I’d better go,” she said, eventually breaking the silence.

  “It was always interesting,” Alex told her, with a hint of a smile.

  “It was indeed.” She forced herself to grin back at him. “I’m sorry it has to end like this, but I’m not sorry we met. Knowing you was a bright spot in my mess of a life.”

  “I’m glad we met as well,” Alex told her as she walked toward the door. “If we do bump into each other in the future, please say hi.”

  Her grin was more real now as she turned to face him at the door. “I promise, if we ever cross paths in the future, I’ll make sure you know who I am.”

  Alex smiled at her and then kissed her gently on the top of the head. “I guess I can’t ask for more from a secret agent.”

  His words ran through her mind as she walked back down the corridor in his apartment building. All things considered, the meeting had gone better than she’d feared. Alex didn’t know that she was a secret agent without an agency to report to. Now that she had severed the last of the ties from her old life, it was time to address that problem.

  Chapter 2

  December 2120

  Sara Weber sat back in the uncomfortable chair and sighed deeply, yet silently. Her thirtieth birthday was only six weeks away. She had never given much thought to birthdays or done much of anything to celebrate them, but there was no denying that she was not where she’d expected to be when she hit this particular milestone. Sara shifted in her seat and crossed her legs, forcing herself to relax by slowly counting backwards from ten to one. Thinking too much about her current situation wasn’t going to solve anything and it could drive her crazy.

  She grimaced as the waistband of her skirt cut into her stomach. Unwilling to spend her dwindling resources on changing her appearance, she’d used a simple but effective technique to alter her looks. It had been a huge struggle, but she’d gained almost twenty pounds. The change wasn’t as dramatic as she might have hoped, but her once strikingly defined cheekbones were now softened and her super fit physique had been replaced by gentle curves. A new haircut and color, along with makeup deliberately designed to make her look at least ten years older, meant that anyone who’d known her in a previous identity would struggle to recognize her.

  “Ms. Weber?” The perky receptionist grinned at her from behind her oversized desk. “Mr. Ross will see you now.”

  Sara stood and picked up her bag. It was carefully coordinated to match her shoes and complement her tailored business suit. Job interviews always required that sort of pointless effort. She walked down the short hallway behind the reception desk and tapped softly on the open door at the end.

  “Mr. Ross?” she asked politely as she walked through the door. “I’m Sara Weber. It’s very nice to meet you.” That was lie number one, and Sara decided to entertain herself by keeping track of how many lies she told over the course of the interview. She had to do something to keep herself from telling Mr. Ross what she really thought of him and the job with his company.

  The man behind the desk studied her for a moment before rising to his feet. He held out a hand and she gave him a firm handshake. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties and in excellent physical shape under his expensive and perfectly fitted suit. His hair was dark brown and his eyes were a near perfect match. He smiled at her, a practiced expression that didn’t come close to reaching his eyes.

  “Please, have a seat,” he suggested, waving a hand toward a pair of wooden chairs in front of his large desk. Once she was seated, he dropped back into his own stuffed leather chair. He studied her for several moments more before he spoke again.

  “I’m impressed by your resume,” he told her, shuffling through a pile of paperwork on his desk.

  “Thank you,” she said with a fake smile of her own. The resume was primarily accurate and, therefore, it had to be one of the most impressive he’d ever seen.

  “I guess my first question for you, then, is why, given your remarkable background, you are interested in working for Ross Security?”

  Sara didn’t bother to hide the smile that formed on her lips. It was a good question. If anyone would have told her a few months ago that soon she would be seriously applying for a job at a second-rate security company, she would have laughed at them. Life doesn’t always go to plan.

  “Life doesn’t always go to plan,” she shrugged as she spoke. “I need a job and I heard you were hiring. It really is th
at simple.”

  The man’s frown was as artificial as his smile had been. “Until September you were working for an agency that’s so top secret you haven’t formally identified them. What exactly happened to end that relationship?”

  Sara’s smile looked real enough to fool anyone as she mentally cursed him in her head. She hated every bit of this, but she’d been out of work for too long and it was starting to seem as if no one would hire her.

  “My immediate supervisor and I had a difference of opinion about how I’d handled a case,” she told him, keeping her tone even. “We mutually decided that it was best for both of us if I sought employment elsewhere.”

  “You’d worked for your former agency for a great many years. Tell me more about the difference of opinion between you and your supervisor?”

  “I won’t lie to you,” she lied. “We’d had our difficulties in the past. You’ve worked in the field. Sometimes situations arise that require a change to carefully made plans. I always tried to make the best possible choices during operations, but this one time it wasn’t the choice that my supervisor wanted me to make.”

  “I’d like the hear more.”

  “There isn’t any more to tell. Everything that happened is classified. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  Sara smiled at him, waiting for him to continue. He watched her closely, as if trying to read her thoughts, but she was far too well trained to ever let that happen. After several minutes, he chuckled lightly.

  “You win,” he told her. “I never can keep my mouth shut. That’s why I didn’t make a good cop. You have to know when to be quiet in an interrogation and I never could manage it.” He waved a hand in the air. “There are rumors in the wind that an agent from the ex-utero adoption program is looking for work.”