Chapter 8: The Mathematics of Murder
Cassian slowly tore his dark eyes away from Emma’s triumphant face. He glanced down at the steaming, pitch-black liquid sitting in the ceramic mug directly between them.
“The coffee,” Cassian murmured, his deep voice dangerously calm. “What exactly is in it, Emma? Ricin? Aconite?”
Emma leaned back against the red vinyl booth, crossing one leg over the other under the table.
“It’s a highly refined, synthetic paralytic,” she replied with the clinical, detached precision of a medical examiner. “Completely tasteless. Entirely odorless. And incredibly fast-acting.”
“How fast?” Cassian asked, genuinely curious about the mechanics of his own planned execution.
“You would have felt a very mild shortness of breath after the first two sips,” Emma explained, her green eyes shining with dark pride. “That would be rapidly followed by complete, irreversible cardiac arrest within exactly four minutes.”
Cassian let out a low, dark chuckle. “A heart attack. How incredibly convenient.”
“The county medical examiner would have easily ruled it a massive, natural coronary event,” Emma nodded, a cold smile touching her lips. “Clean. Quiet. No bullets. No messy crime scene for the federal agents to investigate.”
“A perfect murder,” Cassian conceded, lightly tapping his large fingers against the laminated table. “But what was your backup plan? What if I was rude today and simply didn’t drink it?”
Emma’s smile widened into something genuinely terrifying. She reached up and tapped a perfectly manicured fingernail against the cold glass of the diner window.
“If you didn’t drink it, Cassian, then Donovan takes the shot.”
Cassian raised a single, dark eyebrow. “Donovan?”
“The man who is currently freezing his fingers off on the icy roof of the dry cleaners directly across the street,” Emma stated coldly. “He has a .308 caliber armor-piercing round chambered. He’s been tracking the heat signature of your head for the last twenty minutes.”
She leaned forward again, her face inches from the steaming, poisoned mug.
“If you make a sudden move, he puts that round straight through your right temple,” she whispered. “I win, Cassian. It’s completely over. Keep your hands flat where I can see them.”
