The Hitwoman's Juggling Act

by J. B. Lynn

  The bum stopped moving forward. Hesitating, he examined me, like one would a statue in a museum.

  “Get away,” I repeated, waving the glass weapon at him.

  He laughed at me.

  He literally laughed at me.

  It started as a low chuckle, something I could barely hear, but it grew quickly and loudly, echoing off the walls of the alleyway.

  I didn’t know if that meant he was just crazy, or really, really dangerous. I backed away slowly, not wanting to show fear, but needing to put as much distance as possible between us.

  “It’s a dead end,” God warned.

  “It can’t be a dead end,” I argued. “Patrick drove right out of here.”

  For some reason, that made the drunken bum laugh even harder.

  “Listen, Mister,” I told him defiantly. “You don’t want to mess with me. I am more dangerous than I look.”

  He nodded slowly. “I’m well aware of that.”

  I blinked. The voice was familiar.

  The bum lifted a hand and removed his oversized baseball cap.

  I was so shocked that I dropped my bottle. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  “Hi, Maggie,” he said.

  “Zeke?” I asked incredulously.

  “That’s Zeke?” God asked.

  “I’m not looking my best,” my childhood friend told me. “But yeah, it’s me.”

  “You’re not smelling your best, either,” I told him.

  He chuckled again. “What the hell are you doing here, Maggie?”

  I gave him a hard look. I liked Zeke. I pretty much trusted him, but I was not about to tell him that I had just participated in a kidnapping. I shrugged. “Would you believe that I got lost?”

  He shook his head.

  We faced off across the alley, our friendship strained by my lack of communication. I felt badly, but it wasn’t just myself if I confessed why I was there. I couldn’t put Patrick Mulligan in danger, either.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him, finally.

  Zeke put his hat back on. “Maybe I’ve fallen on hard times.”

  I shook my head. “Can’t believe that. You know you can always come to me for help.”

  “I’ve seen the news,” Zeke told me quietly. “I know what happened to the B&B.”

  “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have time for you,” I assured him.

  He tilted his head to the side and squinted at me. “Could you possibly stretch yourself any thinner, Maggie?”

  I shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

  “Well, take me off your people to worry about list,” Zeke said. “I’m here on assignment.”

  “For Whitehat?” I asked, naming the head of the secret organization that sometimes blackmails me into doing work for them.

  Zeke nodded. “You sure you don’t want to tell me why you’re here?”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you have a place to stay?” Zeke asked.

  It was my turn to chuckle, considering he was the one rocking the homeless drunk look. “Yeah, Zeke. I have a place to stay.”

  “Then maybe we’ll run into each other again,” he said before turning and starting to shuffle off.

  “Zeke!”

  He turned slowly back to face me. “If you need help…” I offered.

  “Don’t be surprised if you hear from Whitehat,” he warned. “When this is done, maybe we can grab dinner, catch up.”

  I nodded. “I’d like that.”

  He gave me a thumbs up, turned, and strolled away.

  “This has been a heck of a day,” God said, skittering up my leg.

  “It certainly has,” I agreed.

  And it wasn’t done yet.

  23

  I watched Zeke disappear into the night and leaned back against the alley wall.

  “Now what?” God asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to wait for Patrick to come back and get me or if I’m supposed to head home…”

  “Where’s home?” the lizard asked.

  “Shut up,” I muttered. It was a question I didn’t really want to consider. Where was home? It certainly wasn’t the hotel where I was staying with Armani, and there was no way I’d ever consider Darlene’s place home, so where did that leave me?

  “Well, you can’t stay here all night,” God said. “It’s not safe.”

  I sighed heavily. “I don’t understand why Patrick didn’t give me better instructions.”

  “Probably because it was a last-minute plan,” God said. “Did you notice that he seemed more jumpy than usual?”

  “I did.” I balled my hands into fists, trying to control the rising tide of worry that was gnawing in my gut. “It’s not like him.”

  “No. Something else is going on,” God opined.

  My cell phone vibrated. Hopeful it was Patrick, I yanked it out of my pocket. It was Griswald.

  “Everything okay?” I asked, worried Susan had taken a turn for the worse.

  “Just checking on you,” he replied.

  “I’m good,” I told him, despite the fact I was stranded in a disgusting alley.

  “Stay safe.” He ended the call.

  “Griswald is worried about you, and Patrick’s deserted you,” God mused. “Your world really is topsy turvy.”

  “He didn’t desert me,” I countered.

  “He left you here, and he’s obviously got something going on.”

  Pushing myself off the wall, I slowly began to walk toward the street. I couldn’t take on whatever Patrick’s problem of the moment was. I had too many of my own. As if on cue, my cell phone buzzed again. I glanced down at the display. It was an unknown number.

  “Think I should answer it?” I asked my companion.

  “I guess so. One would assume it’s not a sales call in the middle of the night.”

  “You never know. Those robocalI things are relentless.” I answered, but made no sound.

  Silence stretched between the two phones. “Mags?” a voice finally asked.

  “Patrick,” I sighed with relief. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “Are you still in the alley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hang tight. I’ll be right there.” He disconnected the call without saying goodbye.

  “I guess we have to wait here just a little bit longer,” I told the lizard.

  “Couldn’t he have found a space that didn’t have such a malodorous stench, or at least one that allowed some moonlight?” God asked, clearly irritated by our location and our lighting.

  I shrugged. “It will only be a few more minutes.”

  True to his word, Patrick arrived within moments. He’d dumped the black SUV and pulled up in a silver sedan. He had the overhead light on so I could see that it was him as he approached down the alley.

  I climbed into the passenger seat. “Next time you dump me somewhere, at least give me a heads up as to whether or not I should expect you to return.”

  Ignoring my frustration, Patrick said, all business, “I’ll bring you to your hotel.”

  Patrick put the car into gear and began driving. I noticed that he had a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

  “I think it went well,” I said. “Considering it was last minute and everything.”

  He didn’t reply.

  We drove along in silence for a few more minutes.

  “Are you ever going to tell me what’s bothering you?” I asked, my frustration getting the better of me.

  He gave me a sidelong look then shook his head.

  “You can trust me.”

  “I know I can trust you, Mags,” he said quietly. “It’s just that it’s…”

  I waited for him to finish the sentence, but he never did.

  “Is there something that I did wrong?” I asked worriedly.

  He shook his head. “Not your problem, Mags.”

  I frowned, not sure of how to get through to him. Sure, we’d had our issues
in the past, but we’d always worked as a team. I felt he was shutting me out, and I did not like being excluded.

  Still, he seemed determined not to share. Clenching his jaw, he focused on the road.

  I waited, hoping that either he or God would say something, but they both remained silent.

  Soon, he pulled into the parking lot of the hotel. “Your car is under the light.” He jerked his head in the direction of my vehicle. “I’ll see you around.”

  I scowled at him, not liking how it felt to be dismissed. “So that’s it?”

  He threw the car into park and turned toward me. “What else do you want to do?”

  Instinctively, I leaned back. I wasn’t sure whether he was flirting with me, or really, really angry.

  As though he realized that he’d alarmed me, he offered a weak smile. “I’m sorry. It’s just been a hell of a week.”

  “Tell me about it,” I muttered. I was the one who was now homeless.

  “If your father hadn’t carried you out of that B&B…” Patrick said, rubbing a hand up and down the length of his face as though trying to erase the memory. “You would have died in that explosion.”

  “Would have served me right for not just disarming the bomb, or at least carrying it out of the building,” I retorted sharply.

  He reached out quickly and grabbed my hand before I even knew what he was doing. “Don’t think like that. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yeah, it kind of was,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “Not everything that goes wrong in this world is your fault, Maggie Lee.”

  “Amen,” muttered God.

  I left Patrick in his car and stalked across the parking lot toward the hotel. I had to figure out a way to convince Armani to go with me to Darlene’s house. I couldn’t have Griswald’s people or Delveccio’s men spread out more than they needed to be, trying to protect all of us.

  I walked down the hallway toward our room. “I forgot the key,” I muttered.

  “That’s what knocking is for,” God told me.

  I was ready to knock on the door of our room, when I suddenly heard, “Privacy! Privacy! Privacy!”

  I looked down to see the squeaking white mouse huddled in the doorway.

  I bent down and offered my palm to Benny. He scrambled up. Standing, I whispered, “What’s going on?”

  “Jack. Jack. Jack.”

  As if on cue, I heard a disturbance in the room, followed by a moan of pleasure.

  “I guess she doesn’t need any protection,” God quipped.

  Not wanting to eavesdrop on the carnal activities of my friend, I hurried away down the hall. “There’s no way I’m going to convince her to come with me now,” I complained.

  “Nope, not with you.” God scrambled out of my bra and perched on my shoulder. “She’ll be fine. Stern will watch after her.”

  Not knowing what else to do, I went back out to the parking lot, climbed into my car and started toward Darlene’s house.

  “We’re still missing half the menagerie,” God reminded me in a tone that was just a little too nonchalant.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Missing them?”

  “Of course not,” he declared huffily.

  I bit back a grin, knowing that he was lying.

  “If you show up without DeeDee and Piss, everyone will guess something is wrong,” he reasoned. “Do you really want to invite more questions?”

  I shook my head tiredly.

  I’d almost cleared the hotel parking lot when a vehicle charged toward me, honking its horn. I shielded my eyes against the headlights, trying to get a better look at it.

  “We’re going to die!” God screamed.

  “Die! Die! Die!” Benny repeated.

  Realizing it was Ian’s car, I threw mine into park and jumped out. I raced toward it, trying to indicate to any of Delveccio’s men who might be watching that the person driving the other vehicle was not an enemy.

  Ian smiled at me. “Glad I caught you.”

  “You almost got yourself killed,” I told him as a dark sedan rolled slowly passed us, the passenger side window being raised.

  He frowned. “How?”

  I shook my head. “Never mind.”

  “Maggie, hi,” DeeDee panted.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Ian.

  “They wanted to see you,” he said, jerking his thumb back to indicate DeeDee and Piss, who were both watching me expectantly.

  “Where’s Zippy?” I asked.

  Ian shrugged. “I left him at my place. The dog’s a thief.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “A thief?”

  “I’ll second that,” Piss drawled. “Dog steals stuff and then hides it.”

  “It buries,” DeeDee added, as though that clarified things.

  “I take it he’s going to recover?” I asked Ian.

  My half-brother nodded. “You, on the other hand, look like you’re worse.”

  I shrugged. It had been a hell of a day.

  24

  Deciding that Darlene’s place would be the best place to stay, I loaded up the car with the menagerie and headed over.

  As we pulled into the neighborhood, it seemed there were a lot more cars parked on the street than normal. I wasn’t sure if that was me being paranoid or if there really were representatives of Delveccio, Griswald, and whoever the mystery threat was on the street. I glanced around nervously as I hustled the animals into Darlene’s place.

  “It’s good that we’re here,” God assured me.

  “Relax, sugar,” Piss purred. “All will be well.”

  I frowned. It didn’t feel like everything was going to be okay. It felt like things were just spinning more and more out of control.

  I locked the front door and then stuck a chair under the handle to make sure we didn’t get any unexpected guests through that entrance. Then, I walked through to the kitchen and did the same with the door there.

  It was late, so the house was quiet. Everyone was asleep. While in the kitchen, I grabbed the heaviest frying pan I could find, and then rummaged under the sink until I found a spray can of disinfectant.

  Armed, I retreated to the living room, thankful the TV had been turned off and there were no blaring cartoons.

  “Where do you expect me to sleep?” God asked imperiously.

  I didn’t even answer him. I just walked over to the coffee table, shook a box that had contained magic markers in it to make sure it was empty, and held it up to him.

  He sighed. “That’s not exactly the Ritz.”

  “You don’t normally sleep at the Ritz,” Piss reminded him. “You sleep in a glass box, kind of like a fish.”

  The lizard stuck his tongue out at her. She hissed back.

  I sighed heavily. “Guys. I know everyone’s tired. If we can all just get a little rest…”

  “Sleep,” DeeDee barked softly, jumping up onto the couch and curling herself into a ball.

  The dog had the right idea.

  “Good girl, DeeDee.”

  “What about you, Benny?” I asked the little mouse.

  “Under. Under. Under.”

  I carefully put him down on the floor, and he scooted under the couch, directly beneath DeeDee.

  “Just be careful no one sees you,” I begged. There was no telling how anybody in this house would react if they saw a rodent scurrying around. I put down my frying pan and my can of disinfectant and stretched out on the couch, using DeeDee as a pillow.

  Piss jumped up on top of me and lay on my chest, purring.

  I didn’t think I was going to be able to sleep, but I must have closed my eyes because the next thing I knew, the pillow was yanked out from beneath my head, causing the back of my skull to bounce off the couch.

  “Gotta! Gotta! Gotta!” DeeDee did a little dance of desperation beside me.

  Piss groaned and leaped off my chest, impaling me with her claws as she did so.

  Stiff and tired, I rolled awkwardly off the couch. The sun was just risin
g. We’d made it through the night.

  “Gotta! Gotta!” DeeDee repeated.

  I didn’t even bother to put my shoes on, I just stumbled toward the kitchen, barely seeing as I latched her leash onto her collar.

  We exited through the door, and I blinked against the morning light as it blinded me. I took two steps, tripped, and fell to my knees. I didn’t land on the ground, though. I landed on something that was sort of soft.

  More specifically, I landed on someone that was sort of soft.

  Glancing down, I realized that I was on top of a body.

  In horror, I scrambled up to my feet, letting go of the leash. DeeDee raced away.

  “What the—” Then I recognized the man’s face. Brian Griswald. Detective Brian Griswald. Nephew of Special Agent Lawrence Griswald, Susan’s husband.

  Horror filled me. I glanced around. Unable to breathe. Unable to focus. Someone had killed Detective Brian Griswald right on my doorstep.

  25

  I looked around, trying to see if there was any danger nearby. I didn’t see anybody. I didn’t hear anything out of place. Well, except for the pounding of my heart. It was beating so hard, so loud, that I thought maybe I wasn’t able to hear anything because of it.

  I looked down at Brian Griswald. I saw no injury on him. No marks, no bloody spots. Maybe somebody had walked up and smashed him over the head, but I wasn’t about to turn him over to see.

  For a brief moment, I considered hiding his body. I don’t mean that to sound as cruel as it probably does, but all I could think was that if the social worker found out that a dead body had been found at Darlene’s house, she might very well take Katie away.

  “What the hell did you do?”

  Startled, I let out a yelp and whirled to find Darlene standing behind me. Her hands were on her hips and a scowl was on her lips.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said defensively.

  She looked down at the man at my feet.

  “Is he dead?”

  I nodded.

  “Um, sugar?” Piss meowed softly. “Hate to break it to you, but your dead guy’s breathing.”

  I looked down and saw that the cat had stuck her face very close to Brian Griswald’s nose.