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III
    Shoveling Dirt
    Li Yuchun was a gorgeous young woman. Born of Chinese-American descent, she had long raven-black hair and the sort of figure that combined the best of both races. She was petite and youthful-looking but possessed of the sorts of curves that were generally associated with Western girls. In her late twenties, she retained a youthfulness that helped snag appreciative glances from every man she passed.
    It wasn’t just her appearance that made her a useful agent in Gravedigger’s army of operatives, however. She was possessed of two dangerous traits: insatiable curiosity and fearlessness. This had saved her life on numerous occasions but had just as frequently led her to death’s door.
    Today, she was sitting alone in the sort of bar that good girls simply didn’t enter. To be fair, she’d never been the sort of woman for whom that description would have been an apt one. In fact, she’d been in this same tavern too many times to count and there were many men present who considered her a natural part of the scenery. Since joining forces with Gravedigger, she’d cleaned up her act but there were still times when she needed to slum it up to gain much needed information.
    While the city was buzzing over the rash of suicides, Gravedigger had been concerned with a series of bloody murders that were going unreported by the press. The reason? The victims were all women with tawdry reputations and the men in power didn’t consider their deaths to be worthy of investigation. Who cared if a whore or a down-on-her-luck floozy got her throat cut in an alley? In the judgmental eyes of many, the girls had it coming to them.
    Li couldn’t stand that sort of thinking. Everybody had to do something to survive and for a woman, the options were even more limited. In a world dominated by men, sometimes all you had to barter with was your sex and while that may seem coarse to some, it was the cold, bitter truth.
    “Anything?”
    Li sipped her drink and reached up to adjust the jewelry that dangled from her left earlobe. The earring was far more than it appeared, since it contained a miniaturized radio transmitter. Mitchell, the hulking British member of the group, had put it together. It was an amazing piece of work but not quite as advanced as Li would have liked. She was able to hear Gravedigger’s voice as quickly as if the woman were sitting right next to her, for instance, but the only way she had to reply was by squeezing the earring with her fingers. By doing so in the right order of long and short squeezes, she was able to communicate with her employer via Morse code.
    Li was pretty sure that Assistance Unlimited didn’t have Samantha Grace squeezing her earlobe for minutes at a time! Still, the group was pretty lucky to have as much technology as they did and Li realized this.
    She had just transmitted the word “No” when a masculine presence slid into the seat next to her. She smelled his cologne before anything else—a bit too strong but not entirely unpleasant. He was in his early forties with short-cropped black hair and deep-set eyes. He wore a rumpled suit and in his left hand was the sort of bag that a doctor might carry. He set it on the floor and smiled at Li. It was a predator’s smile but whether that meant he was a killer or just on the prowl for easy sex, she wasn’t sure yet.
    “Hello, beautiful,” the stranger said. His voice was rough and his accent didn’t seem to fit with the doctor’s bag that he carried. Gravedigger had suspected that the killer might be a butcher or some sort of amateur surgeon, given the rough knowledge of anatomy that he’d displayed in his killings.
    Instantly, Li gave her earring transmitter the signal for “Yes” and leaned in to allow the man a better view of her cleavage. “Good evening. Looking for a little companionship?”
    “I am. Are you willing to spend a little quality time with me… in exchange for me making it worth your while?”
    Li pursed