Clearing his throat, he muttered, “I'm going out.”
I stopped on the bottom stair. “Out?”
“Alan called. He needs—”
“You're gonna go kill the sculptor without me?” I hissed.
“He didn't mention Marcel. He just said he needed my...help.”
“Help?”
“Skills.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I gave him my best death glare. But it didn't last. Frank kinda earned this one, and anyway, even if I did go with him, Frank would lose it and turn the guy into confetti before I could harm a single hair on his head. “Great. Now Alan's gonna get to see your thumb-tearing killy face.”
“You're going to get to see my 'killy' face if you keep calling it that,” he threatened.
“How cruel of you to be romantic right before you leave.” I stood on my toes to give him a kiss. “Maybe I'll be Miko's favorite assassin.”
Grabbing hold of me to keep me raised up a little longer, Frank rested his face against mine and closed his eyes. “I love you, Vincent,” he said. Then he let me go.
“Are you okay?” I asked even though I knew he wasn't and I knew that whatever was on his mind wouldn't be disclosed until it had been on his mind for far longer.
“Everything will be fine.” Frank brought me into the library where Miko was defiling a sheet of paper with a pen. “Hans is dead,” Frank said from the doorway, although how he could read Miko's excuse for handwriting was beyond me.
“Hans is dead? How?” Miko asked.
“Simon sent him after us to get the book,” I said. “Just like he sent you after Bella.” Hans had been on his way to murder Joe at Alan's gallery so Simon could steal Silva's book of hits, but we were up even earlier than I was today, and had already staked out the perch. I expertly shot him in the face from a most difficult angle on the rooftop floor. Right through Frank's side. He was not pleased.
“You kill him?” Miko asked. The question was directed to Frank but all Frank had done to Hans was stand in the way of my bullet.
“I did,” I said proudly.
“Friend of yours?” Frank asked, and I realized he was subtly trying to stop me from gloating over killing other people on Miko's favorite assassin list.
Miko sighed and set down the pen. “No, he was not my friend.” After a minute he picked the pen back up and crossed off Hans' name. “You are my friend. I will think for more.”
“Danke,” Frank said. “I have to go out. Vincent will look after you.” Then he said something in German which made Miko go all giddy, and he kissed the back of my neck before leaving.
“What did he say?” I asked, showing Miko my killy face.
“He said you will tell me story. How you kill Malkolm.”
Now I was the one going all giddy. I sat on the coffee table across from him. If he thought I was a blond maniac before, just wait until he heard how I'd saved everyone's lives. “Let's begin with Hans, shall we?” I started, and proceeded to tell him the death-defying tale of how I saved Joe's life, and Frank's, even though I shot him, which I did downplay a bit, and we thwarted Simon's attempt at stealing our book. I left out the part where Joe made a deal and gave him some hits anyway. Then I told him all about my brutal bout of fisticuffs with Karl, where I single-handedly rescued everyone just in the nick of time from Malkolm, and I even mentioned murdering big ol' Boris since there wasn't anyone around to fact check me anyway.
When it was all done, Miko's eyes aglow like a child on Christmas morning, he said simply, “Tell it again.”
“Oooh, I like you.” No one ever wanted to hear my stories! I patted him on the head which he seemed to enjoy as much as the story, and I told it all over again. And again. And again. When the request came out of his mouth for the fourth time, even I was sick of hearing it. “What, all of it? You're really weird, you know?”
Miko nodded enthusiastically but I heard the front door and immediately excused myself just to take a break from all that ego-boosting storytelling. In the excitement of the previous day, which still wasn't quite as exciting as me saving everyone, Frank and Casey had forgotten to excuse Sophie from her babysitting duties.
“Vincent!” Sophie proclaimed, kissing me on both cheeks. “I thought you were in England.” She made England sound like a dirty word, and not in the profanity way Frank did.
“I was. We had a little...incident. You don't need to stay.”
“Incident?” she asked, hardly able to contain herself. Her father, Bertrand, was in the car outside, a small Peugeot that he filled to capacity. He waved uncomfortably at me. Like Maggie, Bertrand was somehow afraid of me and no one else.
“Sorry, Soph, it's not a good time.” I was about to go upstairs and steal Casey's wallet to pay her for her troubles when I realized something: she was here to babysit. Which meant I didn't have to. Psycho fanboy, meet psycho fangirl. “Actually, you can stay. I want to introduce you to someone.”
“Is he dead?”
I sighed and shook my head. Was I that bad when I was her age? I waved Bertrand on his way and brought her into the living room. “Sophie, this is Miko. He just got shot. Miko, Sophie. She's the au pair. We were just telling assassin stories.”
Sophie practically skipped over to the couch and sat right beside him in a spot I was pretty sure was still damp with blood. “I was held hostage!”
“You were?” Miko turned to her expectantly, waiting for her to continue.
“I left that part out,” I said, since it went without saying that I was completely lovable and would therefore have many crazy stalkers. “That's how Malkolm found us. They kidnapped her.”
Sophie blushed but Miko quickly comforted her by letting her how he fucked shit up too. “I was shot in my hand by Malkolm's friend. He killed my sister and I killed him.”
“You did?” she asked. “And now you're an assassin?”
“I am nickname the Mako Shark,” he said, and started telling her the whole story which was nowhere near as interesting as mine, even after the hundredth time. But Sophie was completely captivated, and I was being completely ignored even though the boredom I'd had with my tale of adventure was already beginning to wane.
“Okay kids, have fun,” I said, and went to find someone else who'd appreciate me. Casey's bedroom door was still shut, and had been since they got home last night. There were no sounds of screaming children, and I figured it was best to keep it that way. “Joe it is,” I said aloud just to hear the sound of my own voice after such a discouraging dismissal from the assassin fanclub in our library, and I let myself into his room and jumped on his bed. “Morning!”
“I'm going to pay Frank to kill you,” he grumbled, which he would only dare say when Frank wasn't there to hear it. Frank took threats against me a little too literally these days.
“Miko wrote a list of names for us.”
“Why are you awake?”
“Frank went out. To visit Alan.”
Joe sat up and reached for his glasses, since I was annoying him and that's really the only time he needed them. “Are you feeling abandoned?”
“Yes,” I said. Obviously. I had been abandoned. “He's gonna kill that sculptor. Without me.”
Putting his glasses on, Joe conceded that I wasn't going anywhere and switched on the lamp. “Frank has been killing people, regardless of their profession, longer than you've been alive.”
“Yeah, but he was...off.”
“He's been off for awhile too,” Joe said, but I could tell from his expression that he was starting to understand my concern. “Miko wrote a list?”
“He was working on one. Sophie's here. They're bonding.”
Joe made a face like I'd just punched him in the throat. “Please tell me I'm not awake yet and you didn't actually introduce the two of them.”
I smiled devilishly, something I'd considered to be somewhat naughty now wondrously confirmed. “They're gonna be besties.”
“Oh, Vincent.” He put his head in his hands. “What
they're gonna be is insufferable.” Scooting me aside, he creaked his way out of bed to put on some pants. I knew he was a boxers guy! He glanced back at me on the bed, shamelessly checking him out since I really couldn't help myself, and said, “You need to fix your hair.” Then he headed out of the bedroom without me while I sat there gaping after him. “Miranda's bringing pastries,” he called back to me, placing a small bandage over the gaping hole he'd left in my heart.
“I hate you,” I said as I pushed past him in the hall. “And my hair is perfect.”
The fanatic duo was still at it in the library, but Miranda came with food shortly thereafter so the real brainstorming could begin. Most of the people Miko knew he hadn't actually met, only heard their names and their stories, but he'd seen some of them so it was a start. And with Casey finally emerging from the bedroom to show his traumatized face, maybe Miko was up for a bit of Pictionary.
Sylvia was clinging to Casey's leg, peering out from behind him in the doorway. “She wanted to make sure you were okay,” Casey said casually to Miko like they were old buddies. Then again, Miko had taken a bullet for him too so they should totally be bros by now.
Miko smiled at her. “You are very sweet to worry but I am fine.”
“Come here, Sylvia,” Sophie said, holding both her arms out for Sylvia until she came closer. “This is Miko. He's our friend.”
It was such a Hallmark moment that someone in the room ought to be weeping tears of joy, but tears of terror would have to do when Bella came in to join the festivities. Since Hugo was too far away, Miko started to shrink behind Sophie instead. But the saccharine continued when Bella was almost nice enough for him to put her back into second place behind me as his favorite assassin.
Then Hugo barked Frank's arrival home and Miko sat at attention. Maybe I wasn't quite his favorite assassin after all. Looks like it was time for another story.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alan opened the door to the large country house he'd spoken about on the phone, perfectly composed as he led Frank into the sitting room. Frank had never been to Alan's home in the country, but he was fairly certain this was not it. The décor was far too gaudy for his tastes. Antoinette Bergeton was on the sofa, slumped over, clearly dead. It wasn't the corpse he was looking for. “You found her like this?”
“I made her like this,” Alan said with a slight smirk. “No one messes with my favorite artist and gets away with it.”
Frank put his gun away and rubbed his face. “Alan, you can't just...kill people.” Alan raised his eyebrows. “It takes planning, it takes—”
“Darling, I've thought about killing Antoinette for years.” Alan patted him on the shoulder. “I did call the professionals for the hard part.”
Frank glared at him. When Alan had said he needed Frank's “particular set of skills,” he didn't have body disposal in mind. “Now you want me to clean up after you?”
“Oh, I so love when you glare. But don't you worry, I got plenty of information out of her.”
“You decide to wait until now to mention that?” Frank grabbed her by her ankles and lugged her off the sofa. It went without saying that Alan had no intention of lifting a finger to help him with the rotund woman, but he kept up just fine as Frank dragged her through the house towards the bathroom. “What did she say?”
“After she drank down her poisoned tea I told her she had about twenty minutes to live so she'd better get talking or else I'd ensure that she was buried in something abhorrent that made her look fat.”
“That's not bad, actually,” Frank conceded.
“I know. At any rate, she said that she met an English gentleman last year around the time I was selling my gallery.”
“Simon,” he spat. He shoved her into the thankfully also oversized bathtub. “He was using her.”
“It turns out that they got to be pretty close friends,” Alan said, proudly handing him a hacksaw that he'd already procured and brought to the bathroom ahead of time. The floor was covered in plastic trash bags that smelled like lavender. There was a clear PVC raincoat waiting for him, obviously belonging to the deceased owner of the house, trimmed in pink and decorated with flowers. Alan had also brought an umbrella. Frank shook his head and got started. “She told him all sorts of things about me, and about Marcel's failure as an artist. A failure he blamed on Casey. Simon had Antoinette's husband killed for her last year. She thought with all the extra money she inherited that she could keep Marcel happy, but Simon convinced her Marcel could have fame and glory if only there were a scandal.”
“A scandal like witnessing the murder of a more successful artist.”
“Yes. She must've told Simon when I was meeting Casey. I suppose Marcel didn't trust her to get it done properly. Or else he had his own idea of finding fame.”
Frank sawed her leg off and tossed it aside. Merely having a conversation about Marcel, and Simon for that matter, had propelled him with enough anger to carve through her appendages with a dexterous ease. What he'd do to Marcel himself would require far more cleaning up. “Did she say where we might find Marcel?”
“I imagine he's halfway back to whatever rock he crawled out from under by—” Alan stopped as the doorbell rang. “Should I answer it?”
Resting the saw against her ample bosom, Frank stood. “See who it is.”
Alan primly turned on his heels and left the room. Frank stood beside the door to listen, leaving it only slightly ajar. He switched off the lights. The bell rang several more times as Alan moved through the house. There was knocking, ringing again. Voices.
“Oh my poor darling,” Alan cooed. “Don't you worry about a thing!”
The other voice was frantic, asking about Antoinette. Watching a chunk of the woman slip down the bathroom wall, Frank felt something inside him slipping as well. The voices were getting closer. Frank picked up the saw.
“She's right through here,” Alan said, then shoved Marcel inside.
The sculptor slipped on one of the bags and Alan turned on the lights, and the next thing Frank knew, he was knee deep in what remained of a one hundred and sixty pound man that looked like he'd stepped on a grenade. Alan was standing under the umbrella, though it had done little to keep him dry. He had a look of astonished horror on his face that matched Frank's sentiments precisely. Frank was panting, his hands still gripping flesh. There was blood on the ceiling, and everywhere else.
Alan closed the umbrella. “Well, I can't say it was uncalled for. Shall I get a bucket and mop?”
Nodding, Frank sat back on his heels. He didn't remember a moment of it. His hands ached and he let the torn tissue fall between his fingers as he spread them open. He must've used the saw at some point, but now it sat discarded at his side. Bones were snapped, not sawed clean. What little remained intact of Marcel's frame appeared to have been savaged by a wild animal.
Setting the bucket next to what might've been an arm, Alan handed Frank a clean towel to wipe his face. “The technique is a bit raw, and there's an overabundance of the color red, but there's so much emotion in it. It's lovely, really.”
The full shift back to sanity was almost physical, like a clock beginning to tick. “Did you just critique my work?”
“You're a better sculptor than he ever was.”
Frank didn't know what to say, whether to pretend like it never happened or discuss his lapse of reason. Instead he just looked upon the grisly sculpture and said, “Thank you, Alan.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Frank drove home in a haze. He was exhausted from sawing and scrubbing, even though Alan had helped tremendously despite his aristocratic upbringing and delicate stature. They'd had to go back to Alan's house to change clothing, and now Frank was wearing a dark purple silk pajama top with rhinestone buttons that was the roomiest shirt Alan owned and still tight across the chest and short on the arms. Frank would've had a clean shirt in his trunk but he'd given it to Miko. At least he had clean pants.
Alan hadn't questioned Frank'
s artistic method. They'd only discussed the situation in terms of culpability. Alibis wouldn't be an issue, and since Alan had planned on killing Antoinette the entire time, he hadn't mentioned her connection to Marcel. If the police interviewed Marcel's friends, they weren't likely to know about her either. It wasn't a love affair that warranted bragging. And if it did come to it, who was to say that they hadn't run off together?
But Frank had a great many questions about his method, and he'd been too disconcerted by his lack of control to admit the truth and ask the only witness exactly what occurred. It was lost time, ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Or longer. He wasn't certain. He didn't know how long he'd been relieving Antoinette of her extremities before Marcel arrived. That must've taken more time than Marcel's complete demolition.
He stopped the car on the gravel drive, waiting to hear a bark. If the kids were still asleep the dogs would be silent. Hugo started, then the others. Frank pulled down the visor and looked in the mirror. Finding his reflection not to his liking but also not covered in blood or twisted in madness, he got out of the car.
Everyone but the infant was in the library. He'd forgotten to tell Sophie not to come, a failure on his part that he could add to the growing, gory pile of failures.
Tilting his head back towards the hall, he stepped out and waited for Vincent to follow. Vincent immediately snuggled against him, beginning to undress him to show how starved he was for attention but he stopped when he got Frank's coat open and saw what was underneath. He gave his shirt a dirty look. “What are you wearing?”
“Things get a little messy?” Joe asked.
“More than a little. The sculptor is dead. And Antoinette.”
“That horrid Frenchwoman?” Bella asked, joining them in the hall. It was apparent that she was still miffed with him but killing Marcel would help ease the tension.
Frank held onto Vincent and rested his chin on the top of V's blond hair. He gave them as short a version as possible, omitting the part about blood rain and temporarily losing his mind. Bella seemed satisfied enough with Marcel's expiration, and she went back to library after cordially saying, “Change your fucking shirt, Frank.”
Old Wounds (Chance Assassin Book 4) Page 11