“All of them.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your help. I want you to wait until I have left this room, and then you will suddenly cease to be able to breathe. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Daratrazanoff.”
Barnes walked him to the door and held out his hand. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
Lucian took the hand offered to him and stared directly into Barnes’s eyes, ensuring his instructions would be carried out swiftly. “I cannot say the same for you, but, then, you are a deceiver and a murderer, are you not?”
Barnes frowned and rubbed his temples.
Lucian’s white teeth flashed. “Good-bye, Mr. Barnes.”
Bruce was waiting just outside the door. “Please follow me, Mr. Daratrazanoff. I’ll show you out. I trust everything went well.”
Lucian put a friendly hand on the man’s shoulder. “Please show me to the pool room. That would make me very happy.”
Bruce blinked rapidly several times. “Of course, sir. This way.”
As they descended the long stairs, they heard a faint noise from the upstairs sitting room. A strangling, a gasping, and then a thud, as if someone had fallen to the floor. Bruce turned quickly. Lucian merely smiled. “You will not go to his aid, because I do not wish it. Take me to the pool room.”
Bruce nodded and led the way down the hall to a set of double doors.
Lucian waved a hand, and the doors opened wide. The two men looked up from their game, both putting their hands on the weapons in their shoulder holsters. They relaxed visibly when they saw Bruce.
Lucian walked directly up to the first man. “I want you to get into your car and drive very carefully, obeying all traffic rules, until you come to the entrance to the cliff road. You will go up that road and drive straight off it. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will do so immediately.”
Without replying, the man picked up his jacket and car keys and left the room.
Lucian turned to the second man. “You have killed many times.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You feel bad about that, do you not? It is a very difficult thing to live with, the taking of innocent lives. I have never done so in all the long centuries of my existence. Those I have condemned to death have always been murderers such as yourself. You are evil. You know that you are, and you no longer wish to continue your pitiful existence. Go to your residence, and end the misery you bring to others. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” The second man picked up his jacket and left the room without a backward glance.
Lucian studied Bruce. “You have not killed.”
“No, sir.”
“Why would you work for such a man as Barnes?”
“When I was fifteen I got involved in a car-theft ring. I served time, and once I was out, no one but Mr. Barnes would give me a job.”
“You do not like Barnes or the things he does.”
Bruce couldn’t look away from those mesmerizing eyes. In any case, the sound of that voice demanded the truth. “He disgusts me. He’d murder his own mother for money. I have a wife to support. We’re expecting twins any day now. I have to make enough money for them to live, and no one is going to hire a felon.”
“You will go home and stay there for a few days thinking about your future. You will get rid of the gun, tell your wife you are getting a legitimate job, and you will call this number. The man there will interview you and give you honest work. Do you understand me? You will remember nothing of my presence in this house, and you will not remember that Miss Montgomery and her partner were ever on a hit list.”
Bruce took the small piece of paper, folded it carefully, and slipped it into his jacket pocket. When he looked up, he was alone in the pool room, and he couldn’t remember why he had gone there. He was sick of his job, sick of Barnes. Mary was due any day now. She hated his working for Barnes and begged him all the time to quit. Maybe now was the time. Maybe he should just quit and think things over while they waited for the babies to be born. There had to be something better out there for him. Something legitimate. Bruce went upstairs to tell Barnes he was finished. He found him on the floor, his features gray, tinged with blue. Immediately he called 911 and started CPR. All the time he worked, he knew it was too late for Barnes, and he couldn’t find it in his heart to be all that sorry.