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the wharf before he started vomiting.
Propped up on his hands and knees, he retched until the dry heaves
racked his body. Shivering, he stood up and wiped his mouth. He
couldn’t bring himself to face the water again. He snatched the
duffel bag and hurried back to his pickup. The echoes of his
footsteps followed him.
    The key was still in the ignition.
He put the duffel bag on the passenger seat and got inside. Locking
the doors, he rested his forehead against the steering wheel. He
was soaked. His clothes stuck to his skin. Breathing heavily, he
sorted through his emotions—fear, confusion, regret. This night
seemed surreal, a bad dream. For his own survival, he knew he had
to shove his feelings aside. Focus on the job at hand.
    You had no
choice, he tried to tell himself. No choice.
    He leaned back in the seat. Then he
looked at the red jacket on the dash, the tank top and thong on the
seat, the red purse on the floor. Back home, he would have to
destroy these items. Clean the seats and wipe down the dash and
door. No trace could exist of the hooker ever being in his vehicle.
For now, he piled the items into a heap on the floor.
    Snapping on the dome light, he
picked up the hooker’s purse. Inside were a hairbrush, red
lipstick, eye shadow, mascara, nail file, a small mirror, Clorets,
condoms, a pack of cigarettes, a cell phone and a canister of
pepper spray. The pepper spray he decided to keep. The cell phone,
he shut off and removed the battery pack.
    He dug out some loose change and
the one hundred twenty dollars he had given her earlier. From a
black wallet, he pulled out an additional two hundred dollars. He
crammed the money into his pants pocket.
    As he rifled through a compartment
inside the wallet, he found the hooker’s birth certificate and
driver’s license. Her name had been Trixy Lynn Ambré, twenty-six
years old. She lived in Halifax. From another compartment, he
pulled out a color photograph. The woman captured within it looked
much older than her age. She was gaunt and sickly. Her curly black
hair was cut short. Her eyes appeared bruised from lack of sleep.
She had a thumb held up for the camera.
    She sat on a sagging gray sofa with
worn arms. In the foreground, on a glass-top coffee table, was a
birthday cake. Several lit candles were stuck in it.
    He flipped the picture over. On the
back scrawled someone’s handwriting, Cathy, February 12, 2010. Age
23.
    A sudden movement caught his eye.
Turning, he saw a beam of flashlight crossing the sidewalk across
the street. Behind it, a faceless form. He could tell by the shape
that it was a man. He hoped it wasn’t a cop.
    Automatically, he shut off the dome
light, put the photograph back in the wallet and then the wallet
back in the purse.
    The shaft of light swept over the
truck, spilling through the windows. Nervous, he reached into the
duffel bag.
    As his fingers found the handle of
the knife, a tap came at his window.

8
    Halifax, May
9
    5:02 a.m.
     
    “Security,” a voice said from
outside his window.
    Security. Not the
police.
    For that he was grateful. Fumbling,
he wound down the glass separating them. With his other hand, he
slowly removed the knife from the bag, concealed it by his
side.
    Because of the light in his face,
he couldn’t get a good look at the guard, but he sounded young.
Maybe early to mid-twenties.
    “What are you doing down here at
this hour?” the guard asked.
    “Sorry man. I stopped down here to
catch a nap for a bit,” he replied. “I’m too tired to be on the
road.”
    “Have you been
drinking?”
    “No.”
    The light left his face and he
could now see the guard better. He’d been right—the guard looked to
be about twenty-five, with short brown hair and a neatly trimmed
moustache. He wore a black jacket, white shirt and navy blue
trousers. A two-way radio was clipped to his duty belt.
    The guard gave him a long, level
stare before finally saying, “How long have you been
here?”
    He winced at the