The Hitwoman and the Neurotic Witness

by J. B. Lynn

  “But—”

  “You did good. You saved the day. Let that be enough for now,” Zeke urged. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

  “But—“

  He hung up on me.

  I sat there, shocked.

  “It’s good advice,” God said quietly.

  “What’s good advice?”

  “To go home and get some sleep. Even for you, this has been a trying few days.”

  Tiredly, I took the advice and drove back to the B&B. Not wanting to deal with anyone, I snuck into the basement through the storm door and conked out on the couch.

  Where I slept soundly until I was kissed awake.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was dreaming about eating the world’s juiciest, most delicious, cheeseburger when his lips touched mine.

  “Mmmm,” I moaned.

  “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” he whispered.

  Grudgingly, I opened my eyes. Patrick grinned down at me, a combination of desire and amusement twinkling in his green gaze. Freshly shaven, he looked and smelled good enough to eat.

  “I brought coffee.” He held up a cardboard cup as proof. “And breakfast.”

  “Eat!” DeeDee woofed excitedly.

  Blinking sleepily, I slowly sat up, rubbing my neck, which was tight from sleeping at a strange angle on the couch. I threw off the handmade afghan one of Aunt Loretta’s ex-mother-in-laws had given her as a gift, a half dozen marriages earlier.

  “Eat,” DeeDee panted.

  I gave her my best why-are-you-daring-to-talk-to-me-when-I’ve-just-woken-up look. She wasn’t the least bit cowed.

  Feeling like I probably looked as though I’d been run over by a truck and then rolled in a pigpen, I stumbled into the bathroom to freshen up. Splashing water on my face, I winced at my reflection. My hair was a tangled mess and a giant wrinkle creased my cheek, where my face had been pressed against a pillow. After finger-combing my hair and rinsing away my morning-breath with mouthwash, I tried to rub some circulation in my cheeks so I wouldn’t look quite so dead.

  “I walked her,” Patrick supplied helpfully as I stepped back out of the bathroom.

  I squinted at him. “How did you get in here?”

  “Storm door.”

  “So no one knows you’re here?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m not sure if Leslie noticed me sneaking in. She was out in the yard doing sun salutation.”

  “Sun what?”

  “Sun salutation. It’s a sequence of yoga poses.” He held out a cup of coffee to me.

  “And you know this how?” I asked, grumpily snatching the coffee from his hand.

  “Yoga is good for the mind and body. You should try it.”

  “I think I’m missing that gene in my DNA,” I said nastily, reminding him of his insult the previous night.

  Instead of apologizing or even responding, he turned away and tossed the dog a piece of an egg sandwich.

  I glared at his back while I blew on the rich, bracing brew.

  He threw more food to DeeDee before turning back to face me. “Rumor has it you got yourself into quite the situation last night.”

  “Rumor?”

  He shrugged. “According to the girls rescued from that warehouse, you disarmed the bomb and saved their lives.”

  I shook my head. “Not me.”

  “Not you?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Armani. She predicted which wire needed to be pulled.”

  “Armani predicted which wire needed to be pulled,” he repeated slowly. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. Did you bring breakfast for me or just the dog?”

  “Are you always this pleasant first thing in the morning?” he asked mildly, pulling another foil-wrapped sandwich out of a greasy paper bag.

  “You’d know if you ever spent the night,” I snapped, knowing he never could since he had a wife at home.

  Tensing, he dropped the sandwich into the bag. Pinning me where I stood with his gaze, he covered the space between us. “Is that an invitation?” he whispered, standing over me.

  He stood there, filling my personal space with his maleness. My entire body flushed with heat. The tingling in my stomach made the rest of me weak, including my memory. I completely forgot about his wife.

  Forced to tilt my head back to look him in the eye, I was suddenly wide awake. He bent closer, his breath teasing my ear, sending tendrils of delight snaking through my body, as he whispered, “Because if that’s what you want, all you have to do is say so.”

  His hand, warm and strong, cupped the back of my neck as he slowly lowered his lips toward mine. He stopped, less than an inch away.

  My breath, which I’d been holding in anticipation, hitched in my throat.

  “I think you should put the coffee down before it gets spilled.”

  I barely heard him over the thundering of my heart.

  He swiveled to the side, so that I could reach out and put the coffee on the oak bar.

  My hand trembled as I put the cup down and some of the hot brew sloshed over the top, splashing onto my fingers. Before I could react, Patrick snatched up my hand and lapped at the liquid with slow, deliberate enjoyment as he propelled me backward, so that my back was pressed against the wall.

  My entire body shivered with pleasure.

  Raising his head, he held my gaze. “You have no idea how much sleep I’ve lost thinking about what your hands could do to me,” he confessed, his voice thick with desire.

  Gently, but firmly, he placed my hand beneath his shirt.

  My fingers, splayed against the bottom of his ribcage, basked in the silky, softness of his skin. Lightly scraping my nails against his flesh, I reveled in the shudder of delight that shook him.

  “Me too,” I admitted, my voice husky with arousal.

  “And you have no idea of how often I’ve dreamed about what my fingers could do to you.” Slipping both his hands beneath my shirt, he cupped the undersides of my breasts, sending darts of pleasure exploding through me. “Have you thought about that, Mags? Have you dreamt about it?”

  I nodded helplessly, not wanting the sensations to stop. Not having the strength to tell him that what he was doing felt better than anything I’d dreamed of. Moaning, I melted into him.

  Abandoning my breasts, his hands captured mine as I tried to pull off his shirt, eager to feel his skin against mine. “Easy, baby,” he said breathlessly, “now’s not the time.”

  He covered my mouth with his, stifling my protest. His lips and tongue worked their magic against mine, stoking the fire burning between us. Suddenly he released my hands. Without breaking our kiss, he scooped me off my feet, forcing me to loop my hands around his neck for balance. He carried me to the couch and sat down with me cradled in his lap, his erection jutting into my butt, evidence that he was as turned on as I was.

  His hand skimmed down my body, scorching a path. My hips rose to meet his touch, as he brushed over the waistband of my jeans and settled over the one spot I needed to be touched most.

  Grinding his palm against the sensitive spot, he chuckled as he swallowed my moan of pleasure.

  Ripping my mouth away from his, I panted. “Stop, I can’t—”

  I lost track of what I was saying as his clever fingers unzipped my jeans and slipped over my panties, not inside, just tantalizing me with their closeness.

  “Can’t what, Mags?” He traced lazy circles over the spot.

  “I can’t…last,” I gasped, as he increased the pressure. Every cell in my body was screaming for release.

  “Look at me,” he ordered, stopping his movements, but keeping the unbearable pressure on the spot.

  I struggled to focus on his face, distracted by my need to hold off my quickly-building orgasm.

  “Do this for me,” he ordered, his voice raspy with need.

  “Do what?” I panted, as he eased up slightly with his touch. Without thinking I raised my hips, aching for his touch.

  “Jus
t feel something good for once,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Something just for you.”

  With that, he swirled his fingers across the spot I most needed to be touched.

  It felt like I was shattering into a million pieces as I exploded. It was a good thing he was kissing me, or the whole house would have heard me sobbing his name.

  He waited until my body had stopped reverberating with ecstasy before he pulled away a bit to whisper in my ear, “So much better than my dreams.”

  “Mine too,” I admitted with a shaky hitch in my voice.

  “Coming someone,” DeeDee suddenly panted with great agitation. Her head popping up beside us.

  At first I thought she was talking about me, but then I heard the sharp rap on the basement door and then the unmistakable squeak of the hinges moving.

  “Slow her down,” I begged DeeDee.

  Obligingly, she hurried toward the stairs, panting, “Morning good. Morning good.”

  Thankfully, Patrick’s body was working faster than mine. In one swift movement, he dumped me off his lap and onto the couch in an undignified heap. He rushed toward the bathroom, while I scrambled to cover myself with the afghan.

  Once Susan had navigated her way past the living obstacle course DeeDee put in her path, she said, “Oh good. Someone’s here.”

  I waved weakly at her.

  “This place is like a ghost town,” my aunt complained, distractedly scratching the dog between her ears. “Have you seen Marlene?”

  I shook my head.

  “She didn’t come home last night. Her room is exactly the same mess it was and there aren’t any fresh dirty dishes lying around anywhere. I’m worried about her,” Susan finally confessed.

  I nodded, unsure of how to safely respond.

  “The Griswald brothers are gone too. They just up and left in the middle of the night. Left a note saying they had to leave because they had work to do.”

  “Did they pay their bill?” I asked.

  “The check they left covered their stays and two extra nights.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I was just getting back into the flow of having a full house again,” Susan lamented pitifully. “And now Zeke and that Gypsy girl are leaving.”

  “They’re here?” I asked sharply.

  “Packing up their things. They want to say goodbye to you before they go.”

  “Okay,” I said, shooing her to leave. “Give me a minute to get cleaned up and I’ll be right there.”

  “Are you wearing what you wore last night?” Susan said, narrowing her gaze suspiciously.

  “Just go.” I tossed off the afghan and got to my feet. “Don’t let them leave until I’ve spoken to them.” I had a lot of questions for the pair.

  Grumbling to herself, Susan headed upstairs. As soon as the door closed behind her, Patrick emerged from the bathroom.

  “We have terrible timing,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Besides bringing you breakfast, I had an ulterior motive for stopping by.”

  “Sex?” I asked, with forced lightness.

  “No,” he chuckled. “That was just a bonus. I wanted to ask if you’d seen the bomber last night.”

  I nodded.

  His gaze hardened. “Did you give anyone her description?”

  “Her?”

  “It wasn’t a her?” he asked, dumbfounded.

  I shook my head. “No. It was a guy in his fifties, with a buzz cut. You thought the bomber was a woman?”

  He nodded slowly. “So do the Delveccios.”

  “But why?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Tell me the Cliff Notes version.”

  Sighing heavily, he picked up the paper bag with food in it and tossed another piece of sandwich to DeeDee. “A couple of years ago they ordered a hit on a woman who’d blown up the car of one of their…delivery men.”

  “But you didn’t finish the job?” I prompted when he fell silent.

  “The guy she’d killed was a bad guy. He’d taken something from her. He got what he deserved. So I let her leave town.”

  “Do they know? The Delveccios?”

  “I told them she got away from me. I’m not sure they ever believed my story, but when these new bombings started happening, she was the first person they thought of.”

  “It wasn’t her,” I told him.

  “Then who the hell was it?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t have time to figure it out now. I’ve got to get upstairs.”

  Nodding, he tenderly brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. “We’ve got to work on our timing.”

  “Among other things,” I murmured.

  He winked at me and hurried out the cellar door.

  Once he was gone, I quickly changed into clean clothes. “Where’s God?” I asked DeeDee when it occurred to me that the little guy had been uncharacteristically silent.

  “Piss with left,” she told me sadly.

  “They left?” I asked, alarmed.

  “Yes.”

  “Like for good?” My sentences were becoming as jumbled as the dog’s speech.

  “Hungry God go.”

  I frowned, “But they’re coming back, right?”

  “So hope.”

  “How did they get out?”

  “Sneaky Piss.” DeeDee, feeling abandoned by her pals, lay down and sighed sadly.

  I tossed her what was left of the sandwich and then ran up the two flights of stairs to the rooms Zeke and Gypsy were staying in.

  Zeke was lugging suitcases down the hall. “There you are,” he said with a smile. “I don’t know how to thank you for what you did last night. Gypsy is waiting to talk to you.”

  “You’re both leaving?” I asked, disappointed. I liked having him around.

  “Afraid so. Duty calls.”

  “The kind of duty that leaves you babysitting a traumatized medium?” I asked.

  “It’s complicated,” he said with a rueful smile. “And I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

  “You’ll come back, right?” I asked.

  “Someday,” he agreed.

  “If you’re in trouble…” I trailed off.

  “I got myself into this thing. I’ll get myself out,” he assured me.

  “But if you ever need help,” I offered. “I’m here.”

  “He’s a lucky guy,” he murmured.

  “Who?”

  “That redheaded detective you’re totally ga-ga over.”

  “I’m not,” I protested weakly.

  “You are the world’s worst liar, Maggie Lee,” Zeke teased. “It’s one of the things I love about you.” Pressing a kiss to my cheek, he whispered, “See you around.” He carried the suitcases down the stairs, disappearing from my life again.

  I continued down the hall and found Gypsy, sitting on the edge of her bed. Her eyes were closed, like she was meditating, or maybe communing with the spirits, so I waited in the doorway until she realized I was there.

  When she opened her eyes, she smiled warmly. “Thank you. I can’t believe you went along with me last night.”

  “You’re welcome.” I walked into the room. “I strive to constantly surprise people.”

  She chuckled, then grew serious. “There’s something she wants me to tell you.”

  “She?”

  “Theresa.”

  “Is she here?” I asked, looking around the room for some sign of my dearly departed sister.

  “No. She told me last night, while we were in the car.”

  “She thinks I’m doing a lousy job with Katie?” I asked, giving voice to my greatest fear.

  Gypsy shook her head. “She thinks you’re great with her. It’s something else.” She patted a spot on the bed beside her. “I think you should sit down.”

  A frisson of apprehension skittered up my spine, but I did as she asked, holding my breath.

  Gypsy took my hand in hers before saying. “Your sister
is still alive.”

  I let out a puff of air with a nervous guffaw. “I know that. Marlene and I found each other again.”

  Gypsy squeezed my hand. “Not Marlene, Darlene.”

  My throat closed. My heart stopped. My world spun. Darlene, Marlene’s twin, had died years earlier after being kidnapped from a carnival. I’d blamed my mother for her disappearance, since I had been watching her more carefully than I’d been watching the twins. I’d blamed myself for my sister’s death.

  I shook my head, wordlessly denying the revelation.

  “She was very clear. Darlene like Dad, not Marlene like Mom.”

  An unrelenting pressure squeezed my chest as I struggled to breathe. That was exactly what Theresa used to say. Marlene’s just like Mom and Darlene’s just like Dad.

  “I don’t understand,” I gasped. “They said…they told us she was dead. Did she say where she was?”

  Gypsy shook her head sadly.

  “Did she say how to find her?”

  “No.”

  “You have to come with me,” I said, jumping to my feet. “We’ll go to the hospital and you can ask her.”

  “I can’t,” Gypsy said.

  “You have to,” I insisted.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie. I really am. But I have to disappear.”

  I frowned at her. “You can’t drop a bombshell like that on me and disappear.”

  “It’s not my call.” She slowly stood. “It’s a decision from The Powers That Be.”

  “Are these Powers living or dead?”

  She smiled benevolently at me. “You’ll figure it out.”

  I reached out a hand to stop her as she left the room, but then I let it drop to my side. “Good luck, Gypsy,” I called after her.

  Her voice drifted back to me. “Good luck to you, Maggie.”

  I would need it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Even though I was physically exhausted and emotionally overwhelmed by the news Gypsy had shared, I still had to go to my crappy job at Insuring the Future. Grabbing a couple of Susan’s leftover cookies to have as my breakfast of champions, I rushed out to the car, almost stampeding over Piss and God in the process.

  “Where you goin’ in such a rush, Sugar?” the one-eyed cat drawled.

  “Work,” I muttered. “Are you two going to be around when I get home or are you going to disappear on me again?”