Maggie Lee | Book 28 | The Hitwoman Pays A Debt

by Lynn, JB

  Gathering up my things, I powered everything down and prepared to leave.

  “Thank goodness,” God groaned. “Those may have been the worst two hours of my life.”

  I’d been through worse, but I had to admit that they were pretty high up on the list of things I had endured also. I almost ran into Lynette, once again, as she came barreling down the hallway making her mad dash toward the exit.

  “Sorry,” she muttered but didn’t slow down, her blinding headscarf bouncing along with every step.

  Pressing myself against the wall so that I wouldn’t get flattened, I said, “No problem.”

  I followed her path and made for the front door. Missy, I could see, was already almost at her car. Marge and Dr. Dello were coming up quickly behind me. Not wanting to be the last person there before they locked up, because that might look suspicious, I turned and smiled and said, “Have a great night.”

  Marge grunted something unintelligible.

  Dr. Dello grinned and matched my fake cheerfulness. “You too. See you in the morning.”

  “This may be your worst job ever,” God complained as I hurried over to my car. I drove out of the parking lot before I took the earpiece out of my ear.

  “That was hellish,” I muttered. I didn’t know if I was talking to God, or to whoever was listening in to whatever was being broadcast from my car. “Pure hell.”

  Remembering my promise to the lizard to get him crickets, I started to drive toward the pet store. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, when stopped at a traffic light, I glanced over and realized that Patrick was in the car beside me. He made a motion indicating that I should follow him. “You were right about not making it home without being stopped,” I told God as I followed the redhead.

  “So much for my feast,” he muttered grouchily. Usually, when I’m driving, he prefers to be on the dashboard, but apparently the ordeal of the day had been too much for him. He scrambled down so that he could curl up in the cup holder instead, as though he needed the protection of the plastic around him. Patrick and I stopped in the empty parking lot of a breakfast place. He hopped out of his car and strode over to me.

  “I liked the black dress,” he said as he climbed into the car. “But the scrubs are giving me an urge to play doctor,” he said with a sexy grin.

  I frowned at him. It had been a long day and I really wasn’t in the mood to be flirted with by a man who’d already proven once that he’d throw me over for another.

  He raised his hands defensively and leaned back in his seat. “Sorry,” he said. “I was only joking.”

  “I’m not in the mood for jokes,” I told him. “What do you want?”

  “Can you keep an eye on Brody tomorrow night for me?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure I can commit that far in advance. My life is chaos.”

  “Please, Mags,” he said. “I really need you to keep an eye on him tomorrow night.”

  I nodded grudgingly. “I’ll do the best I can.”

  “Great,” Patrick said. “I’ll call you and let you know where he’s going to be and you can watch him from there.”

  “I can’t wait,” I said sarcastically.

  “Legitimate work doesn’t agree with you,” he said with a chuckle. “I remember how miserable you were the first time we met, when you were at that insurance place.”

  I nodded slowly, replaying the memory of our first meeting. I’d thought he was attractive then. I wish I didn’t find him so attractive now.

  “If there’s nothing else,” I told him. “It’s been a long day. I want to go home, play with Katie, and get some rest.”

  He nodded. “Thank you for your help, Mags.”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t done anything yet.

  He got out of the car and God muttered, “At some point, you’re going to have to learn to say no.”

  I didn’t disagree with him, but today was not that day. I glanced at the clock in my car. “Good news,” I told him. “That didn’t take too long. We can make it to the pet store.”

  “I don’t even want anything anymore,” God said tiredly. “I just want to go home.”

  I glanced down worriedly at the little guy curled up in the cup holder. “Are you sick?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m tired.”

  I nodded, knowing that feeling. I headed toward home.

  Though, why either one of us thought that would be a place that we could actually rest and recover, I don’t know. We should have known better. The second I put the car into park in front of the house, Zeke, who’d been sitting on the front porch, came hurrying toward me.

  “Maggie!” he called excitedly, putting on a show for Aunt Leslie and Miss Lassalan, who were also sitting on the porch.

  I forced myself to smile and hugged him back when he pulled me into an embrace.

  “I have to talk to you,” he whispered in my ear.

  “We’ve invited him for dinner,” Leslie called. “Convince him to stay.”

  I offered her a tight excuse for a smile. Then, said to Zeke through gritted teeth, “Stay.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  “Aunt Maggie!”

  Katie came running around the corner, Alicia following closely behind. I bent down so that both little girls could run into my arms.

  “We missed you,” Katie said.

  “I missed you, too,” I said, pressing a kiss to the top of the head of each of them.

  “Well, don’t just stand outside there, Margaret,” Aunt Susan said impatiently from the door of the house. “Get them inside. Dinner’s ready.”

  I took each little girl by the hand and led them up the stairs. Zeke trailed behind us. I glanced at him over my shoulder, wondering what was so important that he’d had to show up at the house, but not important enough that it could wait to be discussed after dinner. He flashed what I thought was supposed to be a reassuring smile. I felt anything but.

  23

  “How was your first day?” Aunt Susan asked as soon as we were all seated for dinner.

  “It was okay,” I told them. Realizing from the look that she gave me that that wasn’t enough information, I elaborated a bit. “The one girl is really nice, but I work in a room with no windows.”

  “Oh no!” Aunt Loretta gasped in horror. “I could never work anywhere without natural light. I need it to grow. To shine.” She gave Templeton, seated beside me, a dirty look as she said the last bit of shine thing.

  “Grow what?” he shot back. “Your eyelashes?”

  I let out a loud laugh. Aunt Loretta’s fake eyelashes, which usually reminded me of rabid spiders, were not my favorite, either.

  “Margaret,” Aunt Susan berated me.

  “Sorry,” I murmured, looking down at my plate. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that my sister Marlene was shaking uncontrollably. Glancing over at her, I saw that she had both her hands over her mouth in an effort to keep from laughing. Then, I spared a quick look in Templeton’s direction and saw that he was wearing a smug smile.

  Beside him

  “But Maggie was telling me she gets a really long time for lunch,” Zeke said, trying to change the subject.

  I frowned at him, knowing I’d told him no such thing. He only knew it because of his eavesdropping.

  “Longer than thirty minutes?” Armani asked. She and I had worked at Insuring the Future together, and that was what our lunch break had been there.

  “Ninety minutes,” I told her. “But it’s weird because you’re not allowed to stay there. They kick everybody out of the building.”

  “What did you do?” Aunt Leslie asked, as though the idea of filling ninety minutes of time was the most intriguing thing she’d ever heard.

  “I took the lunch that Aunt Susan had made me and went and sat with Teresa,” I told her. As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I could feel Katie suddenly staring at me.

  “You saw Mommy?”

  I shook my head and apologized. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I jus
t went and sat at her grave and ate my lunch there.”

  She sank back in her seat, looking dejected.

  “Did Susan make you a worm sandwich for lunch?” Templeton asked quickly in an attempt to get everybody’s mind off of my dead sister, Katie’s mother.

  Alicia chuckled at the idea.

  “No,” I told Templeton with mock seriousness. “She made me a monster guts sandwich.”

  This time, I saw the corners of Katie’s mouth lift a little.

  “Do you put salt on that?” Griswald asked, playing along.

  “No,” Miss Lassalan, the girls’ teacher, who’d become a regular fixture at our dinner table, told him. “You definitely need to put pancake syrup on that.”

  “And sawdust,” Zeke added. “You definitely need sawdust.”

  The whole table groaned in disgust, the mood suddenly light and fun.

  “Well, I hope none of you are expecting that at Lawrence’s retirement party,” Susan told the table.

  “Have you decided on the menu?” Zeke asked her politely.

  Aunt Susan rewarded Zeke with a beaming smile, and I had the distinct urge to just kick him under the table. He made sure to ignore my pointed stare and gave all his attention to Susan.

  “Finger sandwiches,” Aunt Susan announced. “We’ll be having finger sandwiches.”

  “Fingers!” Armani said, snapping hers and giving me a significant look. I nodded my understanding. Maybe that’s what the Scrabble letters were spelling out. It fit. Could it be that simple? Usually, her predictions had a lot to do with violence.

  Alicia raised her hand tentatively.

  “You don’t have to raise your hand at the dinner table,” Marlene assured her daughter.

  “Real fingers in sandwiches?” the little girl asked worriedly.

  “No, dear,” Susan assured her. “Finger sandwiches are tiny little sandwiches with no crusts.”

  “I hate crusts,” Katie muttered.

  “Well, then you’ll have a lovely time at the party,” Susan told her calmly. “Our sandwiches will have devilled egg salad and cucumber and diced ham and cheese with chutney,” she said enthusiastically.

  “And peanut butter and jelly?” Katie asked hopefully.

  “Maybe we’ll make a kids’ table with peanut butter and jelly,” Susan told her with a wink.

  “Can Dominic come?”

  The mention of Delveccio’s grandson cast the table into silence.

  “I don’t think so,” I said softly.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not a party for you,” I told her calmly. “This is a party for…”

  “Uncle Larry,” Alicia supplied helpfully.

  I nodded. “If it was a party for you, you could invite Dominic.”

  Katie frowned. “Okay. When can I have a party?”

  “One celebration at a time,” I told her.

  Templeton, again playing the part of the dinner savior, turned the conversation toward peanut better and jelly sandwiches, asking first if it was preferred that it would be chunky or smooth peanut butter and then what kind of jelly everyone wanted. The rest of the meal went smoothly.

  As we got up to clear, I told Zeke under my breath, “I have to talk to Griswald before I can talk to you.”

  “You certainly do,” he murmured back. “I’ll help Susan with the dishes. Find me when you’re done.”

  I caught Griswald’s eye and jerked my head in the direction of the hallway, indicating that I wanted to speak to him. He took the hint and followed me out there.

  “Let’s go to the barn,” I told him.

  He followed me outside. “Is something wrong, Maggie?”

  I shook my head. “I identified the other man who was at the funeral.”

  “How?”

  “I saw him again when I was having lunch,” I explained. All of a sudden, I found myself grateful that Susan had wanted more details about my first day at work. “His name is Alan Chilton.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  “Because I pretended that I’d lost my keys and struck up a conversation with him,” I told him.

  “That name is familiar,” he murmured. “I’ll do some research.”

  “You probably also want to look up his mother,” I told him. When I told him her name, Griswald’s eyes grew wide.

  “What?” I asked worriedly.

  “That’s the secretary that died in the bomb blast.”

  Hiding in my bra, God let out a low whistle. “It looks like we might be actually getting somewhere.”

  24

  After leaving Griswald to excitedly track down the clue of Alan Chilton, I went to find Zeke. He and Susan were in the kitchen, sharing a cup of coffee.

  “Zeke had a wonderful idea,” Susan gushed as I walked in.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I was going to do a big cake for dessert,” Susan said. “But Zeke suggested I continue with the theme and do bite-sized desserts, instead. That way, there will be a whole variety for people to choose from.”

  “Great idea,” I murmured. “That sounds fantastic.” I really didn’t care about the menu, but I thought Loretta might have had a point when she’d suggested Susan had been deprived at her chance for a wedding and was making up for it with this party.

  Zeke got to his feet, pressed a kiss to Susan’s cheek, and said, “Thank you for a delicious dinner. I’m going to steal Maggie away for a while now.”

  She nodded her approval. “Don’t be out too late. You’ve got to get to work tomorrow.”

  “Don’t remind me,” I groaned.

  “Margaret,” she admonished.

  I shrugged. “Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I’ll go. I’m just not going to be happy about it.”

  Before I could get into an argument with my aunt about it, Zeke grabbed my elbow and propelled me out of the kitchen. “We’ll take my car,” he said as he led me out through the living room, past Aunt Leslie, Miss Lassalan, and Templeton, who were turning on the TV to watch a game show.

  “Eyelashes!” Templeton yelled as we walked out the door, causing me to dissolve into a fit of giggles.

  “You’re terrible,” Aunt Leslie told Templeton, defending her sister, but it was easy to hear the amusement in her voice.

  “Never a dull moment at your dinner table, Maggie,” Zeke said with fondness.

  “Was it always that bad, or is it getting worse?” I asked.

  He gave me a funny smile. “It was always like that. I wouldn’t say that it was always that ‘bad’.”

  We climbed into his car, and I made a zipping motion across my mouth before he could even caution me not to say anything that could be overheard by whoever was listening in.

  He nodded and began to drive. “I like Alicia.”

  “You don’t like Katie?”

  He chuckled. “I like them both,” he said, reassuring me. “It’s just that I haven’t gotten to know Alicia as well.”

  “She’s a good kid,” I said. “She seems to be adjusting well, considering everything.”

  “And Katie’s got a real soft spot for the mobster’s grandson,” he remarked.

  I shrugged. “Two kids that were both in comas and had quite the ordeal to recover from,” I said. “It makes sense that they’ve got a bond.”

  He nodded. “Why did you choose to go to the cemetery for lunch?”

  I turned and looked out the passenger window. “It was close. It was quiet. And I miss her,” I admitted with a heavy sigh. “I miss Teresa so much some days.” I swallowed the lump of tears that rose in my throat. Life had been so crazy since her death that I wasn’t sure that I had ever had the chance to fully grieve.

  “What about Darlene?” he asked curiously.

  I swung my head over to look at him. Nobody really mentioned Marlene’s twin sister, since she’d come back to the family and then abandoned us again. It was a sore spot for most of us. Then again, Zeke had a unique relationship with her, since he had known that she was working for
Ms. Whitehat, too.

  “I grieved for Darlene when I thought she was dead when we were kids,” I said quietly. “I feel sorry for Marlene sometimes, because I know she misses her. The whole twin thing.”

  Zeke nodded, concentrating on the road ahead.

  “But it was difficult when she returned,” I admitted. “She was back, but she didn’t want to reintegrate into the family.”

  “Can you blame her?” Zeke joked.

  I chuckled. “Not really. But it made things hard. Especially with Katie.”

  He nodded and pulled into a parking space at the park. We got out of the car and walked away from it. When he had determined that we’d put enough distance between it and ourselves, he said, “The job’s changing a little bit.”

  I scowled at him. “And there’s a reason you couldn’t tell me that in the car.”

  He nodded.

  I waited. He didn’t say anything else.

  “Are you going to tell me why you couldn’t tell me in the car?” I asked impatiently.

  He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “Tell me how the job has changed, then.”

  “In addition to getting into the safe,” he started slowly, “we need you to do something else.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and began to tap my foot.

  “We’re going to need you to call the police,” he said.

  I blinked. “And do what?” I asked, my voice cracking with disbelief. “Report the fact that I just broke in to Dr. Dello’s safe?”

  “We want you to report the break-in,” he agreed.

  “And send myself to jail?”

  He shook his head. “We need the police to find what’s in that safe.”

  I narrowed my gaze. “And what’s in the safe?”

  He shrugged. “That’s above my pay grade.”

  “But not above mine?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t make up these stupid rules, Maggie. I’m just telling you what Ms. Whitehat wants done.”

  “I don’t like it,” I told him. “I don’t like it at all.” I had a lot of things that I didn’t want the police to find out about, and it didn’t make any sense to invite them into my life under the guise of a burglary that I had just performed.