Chapter Text
As his current mission dictates, Clarence Wiedman watches Logan Echolls from a distance. The young man is the sun, pulling people to him, bestowing his favor upon those determined enough to earn his warmth, singeing those who don’t. Everything else is just shadows.
But that’s where Wiedman operates best, from the cool, dark cracks, too hidden for the sun to reach.
And so he watches, as he’s watched for the past week, waiting for his opportunity.
Today they’re teaching their African American friend how to surf. Their Mexican bulldog is standing guard, but Wiedman doesn’t necessarily need to get close to accomplish his goal.
When three of the four are in the water, when the shades slip over Navarro’s eyes, he makes his move.
He’s a ghost, invisible in the California sun. No one spots the man in the suit casually leaning on the car door. Who can see him past the yellow monstrosity anyway? No one notices his studied attention to the vehicle’s contents. And no one sees his eyes light on the phone shoved into the center cup holder.
Teenage boys. So careless with their things.
Ranging from excruciatingly detailed kill instructions to a simple name and location, Wiedman’s ease with cold, detached orders is a necessity for a trained sniper.
And still, something about the layers of ice enc asing the rounded vowels of wealth in her tone sends a shiver down his spine.
“Make sure the children are occupied. Call me when it’s done.”
Following his commands with practiced stoicism, Wiedman opens the cellphone he cloned from Dick Casablancas. Calling up his best California surfer, he sends five text messages.
Pool party at casa de echolls. Bring suits I got the snacks.
He’s already added a box of chips, dips, and even beer to the Casablancas SUV. No one will question its origins. The advantages of group mentality.
To Cassidy he adds: pack my suit bro
That should keep them occupied and alibied.
He texts his boss: today .
In a dark corner of the infamous Echolls pool house, Wiedman watches through the window, and waits. If in the light he’s a ghost, than in the dark he’s smoke— imperceptible and deadly.
It’s creeping up on 4pm, which means it’s time for Aaron to take his daily swim while Kendall Casablancas spreads her legs for the new tennis pro at the club.
As his target dives gracefully into the deep end, Wiedman moves with nimble care to the pool’s edge. As he walks, he thinks of icing down the lifeless body of Lilly Kane. He thinks of the mischievous glint in her eyes, extinguished for eternity. He thinks of his own son, innocent and carefree.
And he pulls the trigger.
He calls her on his way out. “It’s done.”
Celeste Kane clicks off the phone without a word.
She takes a drag off her weekly cigarette, and revels in the blaze of the smoke as it caresses her throat and settles in her sternum.
She chases it with a sip of whiskey, lets the liquid soothe the burn. Tries to grasp the illusion of warmth that blooms in its wake, but it’s fleeting.
Lilly was a lot of things. Sometimes sweet, often an embarrassment, but she was hers.
And with every press tour, every movie appearance, every “no comment,” her daughter becomes less hers, more entwined with her killer. And so, he had to die. For Lilly.
A clean kill. No witnesses. No suspects.
No more god forsaken trials, no more pornographic tapes of her only daughter passing hands, no more turning on the television to find her last name smeared all over the nightly news.
It’s done.