The Hitwoman Plays Games (Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman Book 24) Read online

  “I'm going to go away,” she said quietly.

  I reached out and grabbed her elbow, wanting to keep her near. Out of nowhere, Darlene had re-entered the family’s life and left just as unexpectedly. I knew it had been hard on Marlene, but I couldn’t lose her, too.

  As though she understood the panic that I was feeling, Marlene chuckled. “Not permanently or anything,” she said. “Doc and I want to go away for a couple of days.”

  I let out a shaky sigh of relief. “You're not abandoning us?” Like Darlene, Marlene had left the family for years, running away and becoming a prostitute. Her reintegration into the family fold had filled a hole for a lot of us after the loss of Katie’s mom, Theresa.

  “You can't get rid of me that easily,” she said with an easy smile. “But Doc needs a break from the family once in a while.”

  “Don't we all,” I said.

  Marlene threw her arms around me and gave me an impulsive hug. “I wouldn't do that to you, Maggie. I wouldn't leave without telling you.”

  “I’d rather you said you wouldn't leave,” I said, hugging her back.

  A car pulled down the driveway, and we drew apart.

  “Must be the teacher,” Marlene said. “It's great that Katie's so excited about this.”

  “It is,” I agreed. The whole family had made a concerted effort to convince the child that she was going to have fun learning and it seemed to have paid off.

  I don't know what I was expecting of this teacher, Miss Lassalan, that Susan had hired, but I certainly wasn't expecting who got out of the car.

  The woman, close to sixty, with wild gray hair, wearing what looked like a tie-dyed muumuu, emerged from her car. She looked like the antithesis of the kind of person Susan would approve of.

  Marlene and I exchanged a surprised look.

  “PMS at work,” Armani said from behind me. I looked over my shoulder at my friend. She was holding a laptop computer in her good hand and wore a self-satisfied smile.

  In addition to her interior decorating skills and being a partner in The Corset, Armani runs PMS… the Psychic Matchmaking Service.

  I think she's less successful at helping others find true love than she is at her psychic predictions, but she has had some success stories, namely Brian Griswald, nephew of Susan’s husband.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  She winked at me and limped into the classroom. “Must make sure the teacher has an Apple.”

  “Oh what a beautiful morning!” the tie-dye-swathed teacher boomed.

  “Oh good,” God muttered from my shoulder. “Do you think she only speaks in song lyrics?”

  Marlene looked from the squeaking lizard on my shoulder, to the hippie coming toward us, and began to chuckle. “This should be fun.”

  “Hide,” I ordered the lizard. I didn't need the teacher’s first impression of me to be of someone who walks around with a reptile on her shoulder.

  “I’m Miss Lassalan,” the teacher yelled, extending her hand.

  I wondered if that was the only volume that she could communicate in. If so, I pitied Katie.

  “I'm Maggie.” I smiled, stepping toward her and shaking her hand.

  “Of course,” Lassalan lowered her volume with a knowing grin. “The wee one’s guardian.”

  I nodded. “And this is my sister, Katie's Aunt Marlene,” I said.

  They, too, shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.

  “Well,” the woman said. “I guess it's time to start.”

  “This should be an adventure,” God muttered from my bra.

  2

  No sooner had I gotten Katie set up for school with Miss Lassalan than there was another demand on my time.

  “Maggie!” a voice called as I emerged from the barn after promising to bring Irma an apple the next time I saw her.

  I turned and saw Lawrence Griswald, soon to be a retired U.S. Marshal, hurrying toward me.

  I smiled and waved. I like Griswald. I think he's good for Aunt Susan. The only sticking point I have in our relationship is that he's in law enforcement and I sometimes kill people for money. Not that he knows that.

  “We have a job,” Griswald announced with an excited glint in his eye.

  My stomach lurched nervously. I wasn't sure that working with him on this private detective work was a good idea. I also wasn't sure I'd be any good at it.

  “Walk with me,” he invited. “The sisters are in the midst of some sort of argument and I can’t hear myself think in the house.”

  We fell into step beside each other and began to walk up the driveway toward the road.

  “Katie’s started her schooling?” Griswald asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. I gave him a sidelong look, wondering if Aunt Susan had described the teacher that she had hired to care for her great-niece. “The teacher seems nice, just…she wasn't what I was expecting.”

  “How so?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Please.”

  “She doesn't look like the kind of person Susan would hire.”

  Griswald chuckled. “Just please don't tell me she looks like the kind of person Loretta would hire.”

  It was my turn to laugh at the idea of one of the scantily clad men as a teacher.

  “It's my understanding that Armani found her,” Griswald confided. “Susan checked into her credentials, but it was Armani who brought her to Susan’s attention.”

  I nodded, slowly absorbing the information. PMS. Was Armani trying to match up Miss Lassalan with my grandfather?

  Before I could ponder any further, Griswald revealed as we turned onto the road, “Our case involves a child.”

  I stumbled and he reached out a hand to steady me, grabbing my elbow.

  I have a soft spot for kids. It's how I became a part-time assassin.

  “I'm not sure I'm qualified,” I began as a rising tide of panic welled up within me. “I mean, I have no experience. I have no idea what I'm doing in general. In life.” Hysteria made my voice crack.

  “Maggie,” Griswald interrupted as I spun myself into a vortex of incompetence. “If I didn't think you could do this, I wouldn't have asked you.”

  We paused, staring at each other.

  “Why?” I found myself asking. “I can’t even take care of Katie on my own. I've been a screw up all my life.” Tears welled in my eyes as I made the admission out loud.

  He shook his head. “You're too hard on yourself, Maggie. You have no idea the things you've accomplished.”

  I looked away, thinking he had no idea the things I've done.

  “Just give it a try,” he urged. “A child's life hangs in the balance.”

  I looked back at him, wondering if he'd used that particular phrase to guilt me into agreeing to help.

  Deciding that I wouldn't be able to comfortably turn down the request, I nodded. “What do you need from me?”

  “I need you to apply for a job.”

  I blinked, surprised. “A real job? I’m not really qualified.”

  “You did have a real job at the insurance company,” he reminded me gently.

  “Oh yeah, that.” I’d met Armani at Insuring the Future. That was before she’d won the lottery and I’d started killing people. It felt like it had happened in a different lifetime.

  “We believe that the child is regularly taken to the game center downtown. Do you know it?”

  I nodded. “I’ve taken Katie there.” Personally, I found the gaudy, noisy, sugar-fueled place to be its own circle of hell. I kept that observation to myself.

  Griswald began to walk toward the road again and I kept pace beside him. “I need you to get a job there.”

  I was pretty sure I heard God snicker.

  “One, who's we?” I asked.

  “Myself and our…benefactor,” Griswald said.

  I still wanted to know who the money person was behind this whole endeavor. Griswald had assured me that whoever it was would be picking up all the expenses, including whatev
er we were paid, but he'd been unwilling to reveal the person's identity.

  “Two,” I continued, “if the kid is being entertained, it doesn’t really sound like a life hangs in the balance.”

  Griswald glanced over at me and nodded his approval. “A fair point.”

  We walked along in silence for a few more moments.

  “You're not going to address my fair point?” I asked with more than a hint of irritation in my tone.

  “It's a complicated custody dispute,” Griswald admitted.

  I scowled. “Why are we starting this off with you deliberately misleading me? You made it sound like the kid is in danger.”

  “Would you be as inclined to help with a custody dispute?”

  I shrugged, not wanting to voice that I probably wouldn’t be. “I thought we were getting into this to right wrongs. So why this case? Is there some kind of abuse?”

  “You do ask the right questions, Maggie,” he mused aloud. “I believe you'll be better at this than you think.”

  I waited for him to answer the actual question I had asked, deciding that he was somehow testing me. A domestic squabble didn't seem like the kind of thing that Griswald would consider getting involved in.

  “The child is a result of rape,” Griswald said. He kicked a rock down the road. “The mother has a right to her child and she's being prevented from having any relationship with her.” He looked over at me. “I know this isn’t an easy situation, Maggie. If you decide you don't want to do it, I'll understand.”

  “Can I think about it?” I asked.

  “For a few hours,” Griswald agreed. “But if you're not going to help me, I'm going to have to come up with another plan.”

  I nodded my understanding. It's not that I didn't want to help the woman, and I certainly wanted to help a child, but I had so many other complications in my life, I wasn't sure if I could afford to take on one more.

  “I have an errand to run,” I told him.

  “I'm going to walk for some more. I could use a couple of minutes of peace and quiet. Let me know what you decide.”

  He kept walking down the road, and I turned back toward the driveway.

  “What's the hesitation?” God asked from his hiding spot in my bra. “This sounds like something that would be right up your alley.”

  “Did you believe him?” Something in Griswald’s story niggled at my gut, but I couldn’t figure out specifically what it was that bothered me.

  “You’re being paranoid. Not everyone’s a liar.”

  “Maybe that’s just a lie we tell ourselves. It’s kind of depressing to think of everyone as untrustworthy.”

  “Griswald has always been trustworthy.”

  “Nobody’s perfect,” I countered. Not liking the idea that Griswald, of all people, might fit that saying, I frowned and turned into the driveway.

  “Maybe you’re worried you’re not perfect,” God suggested.

  I stopped at the spot where RV had parked her bright pink camper van. “Every time I try to help a kid, my life becomes more complicated. I've tried to help Katie, Dominic, and Boyd, and look what’s happened. All of those times, things have gone crazy. I ended up working for Delveccio and pissed off the Concord family. I'm not sure I can afford to help another kid.”

  I expected God to argue with me, to tell me it was my duty or something like that to save this child, but he remained silent.

  “No opinion?” I asked.

  “This is your decision to make, Maggie. Not mine.”

  A bundle of white fur charged toward me, barking, “Maggie! Maggie!” with unbridled enthusiasm.

  I grinned and bent down to greet Zippy, Herschel's dog. We'd gone through a rough patch when he'd been possessed by my grandmother's evil spirit, but now he was back to his joyous self. “Good morning, Zippy.”

  I looked around to see if any of the other animals had joined him on his morning jaunt, and found that Matilda, the pig, was slowly bringing up the rear.

  “Susan doesn't like me,” the pig pouted pitifully.

  “It takes her longer to warm up than most people,” I admitted. The mention of my aunt made me realize that we had never heard what problem it was that she wanted to discuss. Loretta had hijacked that conversation with her fender bender dancers. It occurred to me that I should probably go ask what was bothering her.

  Even as I had the thought, a car pulled down the driveway behind me, offering a welcome distraction from a task I didn't want to do in the first place. I turned to face the oncoming vehicle, wondering who would be inside.

  “Morning, Maggie,” Jack Stern said, rolling down the window to greet me. There was a guardedness in his tone. We'd clashed over RV staying on the property. Jack had been convinced that she was a murderer. I wasn't so sure.

  “Morning, Jack,” I said in my most neutral tone. “Taking Armani somewhere?”

  He put the car in park and got out. “Actually, I was coming to see you.”

  I tried to appear relaxed, but inside I tensed up. Like Griswald, I actually like Jack Stern, but he's a crime reporter and the goody two shoes posed a threat to me, despite the fact that he's dating my friend. “What can I do for you?” I asked with a fake smile.

  “I'm looking for Archie Lee.”

  I relaxed a little. At least he wasn't asking me about my criminal activities, he was concerned about those of my father.

  “He's not here,” I replied.

  “Didn't think he would be,” Jack said. He tilted his head and gave me a hard searching look. “But do you know where I can find him?”

  “I don't even know where I could find him,” I answered. It was an honest response. My dad, a career criminal even though he's a relatively good guy, was hard to pin down when he wasn't in the protective custody of the U.S. Marshal Service. “Did you ask Griswald?”

  Jack nodded. “I asked him first. He's out there walking down the road, muttering to himself.”

  “He's got a lot on his mind,” I said, feeling the need to defend my uncle by marriage.

  “Anyway,” Jack said. “He wasn't any help.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry, but I won't be, either.”

  “Because you don't want to tell me?” Jack frowned. “You know me, Maggie, I’m not a threat to anybody.”

  I made a choking noise.

  “I protect my sources,” Jack said with a bit of righteous indignation. “I'm not looking to trip him up. I just need some information.”

  “I really don't know where he is, Jack,” I told him earnestly. “He pops in and out of our lives, with no rhyme or reason, and doesn't usually leave a forwarding number.”

  Jack nodded slowly. “Could you tell him I want to talk to him the next time you see him?”

  “No guarantees on when that will be.” The last time I'd run into my dad, it had been totally unexpected. I'd gone to visit my mother in the looney bin, and he'd been there visiting her. It had actually been one of the best times I'd ever spent with both my parents. I smiled slightly at the memory.

  “Are you following the Concord case?” Jack asked, changing the subject.

  “I don't read the paper,” I replied.

  “You’re missing some of my best work,” he said. “Might be prize winning-level stuff. ”

  I squinted at him. “You're doing investigative reporting on the Concord family?” Something tickled in my gut, a fear that his work was going to put him in danger.

  He nodded and said with obvious pride, “I'm on to something.”

  The gleam in his eyes worried me. “What?” I asked. I’d had my own dealings with the Concord family, a number of times, and I was afraid that he might discover my connections to them. Specifically, my latest few; the one where Patrick Mulligan killed their employee not twenty yards from where we were standing in the driveway, and the fact that I had helped Boyd's mother escape the clutches of other Concord henchmen.

  Jack shook his head. “It's bad luck to tell a story before it's ready.”

  I squinted at
him suspiciously. “Did you just make that up?”

  “I’m a writer,” he said with a wink. “The point is, you're supposed to never know what's real and what I've made up.”

  “Be careful, Jack,” I warned. “It could be dangerous.”

  He looked at me curiously. “Careful about what?”

  “From what I understand, the Concords are a powerful family.”

  He nodded tightly. “You have no idea what their reach is.”

  I thought I did and that’s what scared me.

  3

  The errand that I had told Griswald I had to run was actually a meeting with Gino. I didn’t know if he was going to give me a new assignment from our mutual bosses, the Delveccios, or if this would be considered the date that I owed him.

  I wasn't sure how I felt about going on a date with him. Dating for me is pretty complicated, what with being Katie’s guardian (and practically the guardian of my entire family) and the fact that I'm a paid assassin. But Gino seemed to have a pretty good understanding of my familial obligations, and he knew the kind of work I did for his boss. He seemed to accept me anyway.

  But I hadn't had much luck picking men lately. The closest thing I've had to a good relationship, in the recent past anyway, was with Angel Delveccio, the mobsters’ nephew and Katie’s former manny. He's a good guy, kind and sexy, even though he's made some strange and poor choices lately, including being part of a team of human organ thieves. But the way things have gone, it feels like we're not meant to connect. For a while, before Angel, I’d been involved with Patrick Mulligan, my murder mentor, who’d thrown me over for an old girlfriend, who then subsequently tried to kill both of us. And before that I dated Paul, a cop, who also tried to kill me. So the idea of going out with the bodyguard made me leery.

  That's why I brought chaperones.

  I piled DeeDee, Piss, Matilda, and even Benny, the little mouse, into the car before I set off for my mysterious meeting.

  “We where going are?” DeeDee asked as I drove.

  “To go see Gino,” I answered.

  “Marvelous,” God drawled. He'd spread himself out on the dashboard to soak up the sun. “Like your life isn't complicated enough, you're getting involved with him.”