Spotless by Camilla Monk Read Free Book Online Page A

did I realize how ugly, how cowardly that decision had been.
    Of course, Mr. Clean didn’t care about my feelings; he cared about the facts. “What was the notary’s name?”
    “Mr. Étienne. He was calling from Paris. Don’t waste your time with the yellow pages. I checked once, years ago. My dad was right: found no trace of him.”
    March appraised me for a few seconds, his face blank, and it dawned on me that now that he was done squeezing out what little intel I could provide, he was probably going to kill me. When he finally opened his mouth to talk, I was busy addressing a silent prayer to Raptor Jesus for the sake of my poor wretched soul.
    “Well, that’s settled then. First we’re going to question this Mr. Étienne.”
    “
We?
You mean . . . in Paris?”
    He gave me a candid look—the first since I had met him. “Where else? Your mother was no rookie. I doubt she left the Ghost Cullinan in the hands of her notary, but if she did leave a will, it might containindications as to where the diamond is. I’m sorry, but we’re not done. I still need you.”
    I gauged him suspiciously. One could hardly trust a professional killer, but then again,
he
was the one carrying the rifle, so my options were limited—and by limited I mean: “March or Creepy-hat, pick your favorite Saturday night date.” That being said, the guy seemed in no hurry to get rid of me, despite his claim that it was his specialty. There’d been several occasions for him to maim or kill me in the past twenty-four hours, and he hadn’t acted on any of them. No, March was a consummate sociopath, but I had a feeling he wasn’t actual psycho-killer material.
    And at the moment, he was the only door to my mother’s past. A past that was quickly catching up with me and might swallow me whole if I didn’t find a way to either escape, or help March find the Ghost Cullinan and give it back to its (il)legitimate owner.
    I gave him a decided nod. “I get it. I’ll go with you.”
    He cocked an eyebrow.
    “I don’t want to go back with that guy,” I muttered, in guise of an explanation.
    Lowering his weapon, he stepped forward, closing the distance between us, and raised my chin with a gloved index finger. His eyes plunged into mine in a way that made me pray I had been right about him not being psycho-killer material. His low, dangerous voice sent an unpleasant chill all the way down to my knees. “Let’s be clear. I’m a little old-fashioned. I usually try not to hurt women too much. But if you hide anything from me, Island, I’ll make an exception . . . and all the crying in the world won’t help.”
    I nodded hastily, and when he let go of me, breathed a shivering sigh of relief. Placing a firm hand on my back, March steered me toward the woods and away from that sinister glade. As he did so, I turned my head to look at the two bodies still resting on the humid ground. Whenmy nose caught the scent of fresh blood mingling with wet leaves, I fought a wave of nausea. “March, what about—”
    He checked a black chronograph on his wrist without looking back. “Rislow doesn’t leave loose ends. A cleaning team should be here for them soon . . . which is why we need to leave now.”
    So that was Creepy-hat’s name: Rislow. I thought of asking March if he might be waiting for us already with a rifle of his own, somewhere in the vicinity, but I figured it was unlikely, since March didn’t look particularly worried. He led us through the desolate woods, and I tried my best to keep up with his pace without falling face-first on the ground, steadied by his hand on my shoulder.
    “Are you scared of the cleaning team?” I murmured as we reached his own car, a black Lexus that lay hidden a quarter mile down the small road I had arrived on.
    “No.”
    “Oh. Have you ever . . . cleaned a cleaning team before?” I insisted.
    “Yes,” he sighed as he helped me into the passenger seat.
    I didn’t ask him for the specifics, but I do