The Hit Read Online Free PDF Page B

was the career of Jessica Elyse Reel. Robie already knew some of it. By tomorrow he would know all of it, except for the parts yet to be filled in.
    The rain was falling more steadily. D.C. in the rain was a curious spectacle. There were of course the monuments, the popular target of busloads of tourists, many of whom probably despised much about the federal city. But they came to gawk at the pretty structures, figuring their tax dollars had paid for them.
    In the gloom the mighty Jefferson and Lincoln and Washington memorials and monument, respectively, seemed diminished to a grainy outline one would see on an aged, tattered postcard. The Capitol dome loomed large, towering over all other nearby structures. It was the place where Congress did—or increasingly did not do—its work. But even the enormity of the colossal dome seemed lessened in the rain.
    Robie steered his Audi toward Dupont Circle. He had lived in an apartment near Rock Creek Park for years. Less than a month ago he had moved out. That had everything to do with one of his previous assignments. He simply couldn’t stay there anymore.
    Dupont was in the middle of town, full of nightlife, dozens of hip restaurants offering cuisines from around the world, esoteric retailers, highbrow booksellers, and retail shops that one could find nowhere else. It was exciting and energizing and a real asset to the city.
    But Robie didn’t crave the nightlife. When he ate out, he atealone. He didn’t shop in the hip shops. He didn’t browse through the highbrow bookstores. When he walked the streets, which he often did, particularly later at night, he didn’t seek out contact with others. He didn’t welcome companionship at any level. There would have been little point to it, especially now.
    He parked in the underground garage of his apartment building and took the elevator up to his floor. He inserted two keys into the twin locks—both deadbolts—on his apartment door. The alarm system beeped its warning. The beeps stopped when he disarmed it.
    He took off his coat but didn’t remove the USB stick. He walked to the window and stared down at the wet streets. Rain cleansed, or at least that was the theory. There were parts of this town that could never be clean, he thought. And not just the high-crime areas. He operated in the world of government power, and it was as dirty as the grimiest alley in the city.
    He’d had a brush with normalcy recently. But it was just a brush. It hadn’t stuck to him, and had eventually fallen away.
    But it had left remnants.
    He pulled out his wallet and removed the photo.
    The girl in the picture was fourteen going on forty. Julie Getty. Small, skinny, straggly hair. Robie didn’t care about her appearance. He admired her for her courage, her intelligence, and her spunk.
    She had given him this photo of her when they had parted ways. He should never have kept it. It was too dangerous. It could lead back to her, yet Robie had still kept it. He simply didn’t seem able to part with it.
    Robie had never had children, and never would. If he had, Julie Getty would have been a daughter of whom he would have been proud. However, she wasn’t his daughter. And she had a new life to lead. A life that he could not really be part of. That’s just the way it was. It was not his choice.
    He put the photo back in his wallet at the same time his cell phone buzzed.
    At first he smiled when he saw who was calling, and then thesmile turned to a frown. He debated whether to answer, but decided if he didn’t she would just keep calling.
    It was simply how she was wired.
    “Hello?”
    “Robie. Long time.”
    Nicole Vance was an FBI special agent. A super agent according to Julie Getty. Julie had also thought that Vance had a thing for Robie. In fact, she’d been sure of it.
    Robie had never found that out for certain and wasn’t sure he wanted to. Something in the recent past had turned him off to anything remotely resembling a relationship with a