Maggie Lee (Book 21): The Hitwoman and the Fallen Angel

by Lynn, JB

  “It’s nice of you to join me, Miss Lee.” She tapped a large manila envelope against the table before putting it down, taking care to center it on the table perfectly.

  I managed to refrain from telling her I really hadn’t had much of a choice about the matter. If it were up to me, I’d never have to deal with her again.

  “This…issue,” she began slowly. “The boy.”

  “Is he okay?” I asked worriedly. I’d asked her to care for Boy, the neighborhood child who had shot the crow, Mike. I was afraid that without assistance from someone, the poor kid would have starved. After all, I was the reason he didn’t have a guardian anymore—not that Frank Griffith was that much of a caretaker anyway.

  Whitehat nodded. “He’s received medical care. Food. A safe place to stay.”

  “You kind of make it sound like he’s staying in prison,” I told her. “Does he have access to anything fun? Television? Toys?”

  Whitehat narrowed her eyes, and she gave me a hard look. “What kind of people do you think we are? Of course, we’re providing the best for him.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. I wasn’t in any condition to be taking care of the child right now and I appreciated that someone was.

  Whitehat nodded her acknowledgment. “It seems that there’s no one to take care of him,” she said slowly.

  I nodded. That’s why I had called her.

  “His mother is in prison,” the woman across from me said. “And his stepfather seems to have… disappeared.”

  I nodded. I was one of the people who helped to disappear him. I hadn’t killed him, and I hadn’t disposed of his body, but I had participated in the kidnapping that had removed him from Boy’s home. “He’s better off without the stepfather,” I said with conviction, remembering the bruises that had covered the young kid’s body.

  Whitehead nodded. “I’m inclined to agree with you. Frank Griffith was not a nice man.”

  I mentally noted that she used “was” but didn’t comment on it. Maybe she had an idea of where his body had ended up.

  “Still,” she continued. “It would be nice if there was someone to care for the child.”

  I frowned, wondering if she was implying I should be the one. I’d already tried that route with my sister’s daughter, Katie, and while I love that little girl more than anything, I hadn’t been that great. In fact, the reason I’d fallen into the killer-for-hire gig that I was currently caught up in was because I’d been trying to raise money for Katie’s care.

  “I want you to try to get the mother out of prison,” Whitehat announced.

  I blinked. That announcement caught me totally off guard. “How?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t always approve of your methods,” the older woman told me, “but I do have to admit they are very effective.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to start,” I told her, my mind racing. “I don’t even know what she’s in prison for.”

  Whitehat pushed the manila envelope across the table at me. “This will give you the basics, perhaps it will give you a starting point to go from.”

  “I’m not really into breaking people out of prison,” I told her. “I don’t have the kind of resources for that. That would take a lot of bribery money, and probably some kind of explosive. TNT or something like that.”

  Whitehat’s eyes grew wide at my musings.

  “And a getaway driver,” I decided, warming to the task. “We’ll definitely need a getaway driver.”

  “I think breaking her out of prison would be our last resort,” Whitehat said dryly. “I was thinking you could look into her case.”

  I nodded, feeling dumb. “Of course.”

  “You did the right thing having us look after the boy,” Whitehat said, slowly getting to her feet, smoothing her ivory linen pantsuit. “Now all you have to do is do the right thing by the mother.”

  She walked out of the room, and I listened to the sound of her footsteps striding away, taking her out of the empty house.

  Unwilling to reach for the envelope, I just stood there for a long moment. I had so many other things going on. But then I remembered Boy’s face. He’d been so full of innocence and hope. I knew I had to do what I could to help him.

  I sighed heavily. “What am I getting myself into?” I asked, reaching for the envelope.

  “Trouble,” God opined from my bra. “You’re always getting yourself into trouble.”

  4

  Zeke didn’t say a word when I climbed back in the car. He just threw it into reverse and started driving back in the direction of the farm.

  “If you need a place to stay,” I began. I trailed off for a second, realizing that Herschel had made it clear he was panicked about the idea of anyone else moving in. But this was Zeke we were talking about. He was practically family. “There’s plenty of room at the compound.”

  “Compound?” Zeke chuckled. “It sounds like your family is opening its own cult.”

  “Don’t even joke about such a thing,” I said tiredly. “I really can’t handle one more problem now.”

  Zeke turned his head and gave me a quick look over. “Are you okay, Maggie?”

  I shrugged. “Am I ever okay?”

  “I understand that what happened to the B&B was very traumatic for you,” Zeke said, reaching across the car and patting my knee reassuringly. “But you’re strong. You’ll make it through. You’ll see, your family will end up even more united than ever.”

  “Trauma unites,” I muttered, remembering something that Angel Delveccio had said to me recently.

  “Or life shreds you apart, scattering you to the far corners of the universe,” Zeke muttered back.

  I squinted at him, trying to figure out what that mysterious remark meant. For as long as I’d known him, a few decades now, Zeke had not really had many connections to a lot of people. I wonder who he was feeling separated from. “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

  “Nothing’s bothering me,” he said quickly. Again, he pointed to the car’s stereo system.

  I nodded in acknowledgment of what he was signaling and looked out the window. “I guess you don’t know how long you’re going to be in town,” I said eventually.

  “No idea,” he agreed.

  “We should go out and do something fun,” I decided. “We both could use it.”

  “I’d like that,” Zeke said. “What did you have in mind? Bowling?”

  I glared at him. “Bowling with you is not fun.”

  He chuckled. “I thought you might have forgotten about that.”

  “How could I forget that you were president of the high school bowling league?”

  “Captain of the high school bowling team,” he corrected.

  “Whatever.” I shook my head. “You know I’m not a sports person.”

  “Apparently, you’re not someone who knows to use correct terminology, either,” God interjected from my bra.

  Wincing, I frowned out the window.

  Zeke had the good sense not to continue the argument. “Okay, so bowling is out. The movies?”

  I frowned. “I don’t want to go sit in a dark quiet place with you,” I told him indignantly. “I want us to hang out. Have fun.”

  “What kind of movies do you go to that are quiet?” Zeke asked.

  I scowled, knowing he was being deliberately obtuse. We were getting closer to the farm compound and I wanted to get our plans set before we separated again. “Miniature golf,” I declared.

  He smiled. “Okay, we’re pretty evenly matched in that.”

  “What makes you think I haven’t spent the last couple of years perfecting my game?” I asked him, with a teasing challenge. “Maybe I’ve mastered my double-bank, through the windmill, shot.”

  He laughed. “Well, if you did, I deserve to lose.”

  He pulled down the driveway that led to Herschel’s.

  “You won’t leave town without saying goodbye, will you?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why it felt so
important to get him to promise me this, but I said the words with an intensity I couldn’t quite explain.

  He must have sensed my emotion because he replied, “I wouldn’t do that to you, Maggie.”

  “You say that like you’re the world’s best communicator,” I told him as we rolled to a stop. “You dip in and out of my life even more randomly than my father does.”

  “How is Archie?” Zeke asked curiously.

  “He saved my life,” I told him quietly. “I would have died when the B&B blew up if he hadn’t carried me outside.”

  Zeke absorbed the information silently. Finally, he said, “I’ve got to go.”

  Nodding, I climbed out of the car. “Don’t forget you promised.”

  I watched Zeke pull away and noticed there was a sedan sitting at the end of the road, idling.

  Sighing heavily, I grudgingly walked toward it. “I bet I know who this is.”

  “Who are you talking to?” God asked crossly from my bra.

  “Myself,” I told him dryly. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t trying to engage you in conversation.”

  He scrambled up out of my bra to see what I was headed toward. “Who do you think that is?”

  I didn’t answer him. Not because I didn’t have a pretty good guess, but because if I was wrong, he’d never let me live it down. He’s awfully superior that way. Doesn’t acknowledge his own mistakes but doesn’t let me forget mine. As I walked toward it, the sedan started to roll slowly in my direction. If I was a gunfighter back in the old west, I would have been ready to draw. But I’m not, I’m just a mild-mannered hired killer who doesn’t own a gun. So I forced myself to smile and nod at the car.

  It drew alongside me, and I peered at the tinted window, unable to make out the driver.

  At that last second, God dove back into his hiding spot between my breasts. The window of the car began to lower, and I felt a surge of satisfaction. I’d been right about who it was.

  Now the question was, what was he doing here, and what kind of trouble was I about to get into with him?

  5

  Gino, Delveccio’s bodyguard, peered out the window at me. “Boss wants to see you.” He didn’t bother to smile back at me even though I was grinning at him like some kind of intoxicated loon.

  I felt a twinge of guilt, realizing he was probably still upset with me. He’d been very insulted when I thought he’d been sent to kill both myself and Patrick Mulligan, my murder mentor. But really, when you go around taking people out for a living, it’s kind of understandable that you’re paranoid about the same happening to you. Isn’t it?

  “Now?” I asked Gino.

  He nodded.

  I glanced in the direction of the farm to see if anybody had noticed my arrival in Zeke’s car. It would actually be a good time to make my escape again, before I had to start answering questions about stripper poles or grow houses. “Okay.” I hopped in the car.

  Gino raised his eyebrows, probably a little confused that I hadn’t resisted the request. Usually, when he came to transport me to see his bosses, I wasn’t overly accommodating, but whatever the mobsters wanted had to be better than what my family had in store for me.

  He drove away from the farm in silence.

  I shifted in my seat uncomfortably, wanting to fix things between us.

  “You know, I really am sorry,” I began.

  He held up a hand to silence me. “Don’t,” he said sharply.

  It wasn’t the kind of thing you could just apologize for.

  “It was an honest mistake,” I told him. “I was under a lot of pressure. I’d just been fighting for my life.”

  “With a pillow,” he reminded me dryly.

  “It was an effective weapon,” I told him defensively.

  He shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “I’m the one who came out alive,” I reminded him.

  “Barely,” he muttered. “And if you’d been right about me being there to kill you, you wouldn’t be.”

  Deciding that arguing about my having thought the worst of him wasn’t the best tactic, I changed the direction of the conversation. “Do you know what they want?”

  He shrugged ever so slightly. “They’re both pretty upset.”

  An icy ball of fear took up residence in my gut. “Are they upset with me?”

  Gino let out a sharp laugh. “Of course not.”

  “With Patrick?” I asked worriedly.

  Gino shook his head. “Pretty sure the cop’s in the clear.”

  I sank back in my seat, relieved. My relationship with Patrick was complicated, but I didn’t want any harm to come to him. “I know the last job didn’t go so well,” I began slowly.

  Gino tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “You think?”

  Remembering that he’d had to dispose of Patrick’s girlfriend’s body to keep my part in her death a secret from the cops, I couldn’t blame him for being a little annoyed.

  He exhaled a controlled sigh. “Look, part of my job is pretending not to know what’s going on, even when I do. All I can tell you, and I’m not supposed to even know this…at least officially, is that you’re not in trouble. So relax a little.”

  I let out a shaky sigh of relief.

  “But this time,” Gino lectured, “if you run into trouble, call me. If you have a question about anything, call me. If you’re going to do something that’s just going to cause me more headaches down the road, call me.” His voice rose with each sentence until he was practically shouting by the end.

  “Okay, okay,” I agreed. “I know I screwed up last time.”

  Gino shook his head. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

  We spent the rest of the drive in complete silence. I don’t know what he was thinking about, but I was spending most of my time trying to figure out how it was that my closest human allies in life were a cop who moonlights as a hitman, a mobster’s bodyguard, and a guy who grudgingly works for a mysterious organization.

  And Armani, Armani was definitely one of my allies, but sometimes her psychic predictions cause more problems than help.

  I tensed up as the bodyguard pulled into a cemetery and made a beeline for a mausoleum at the rear of the property. I was surprised we weren’t at one of the Delveccios’ usual haunts, the house, or the strange warehouse downtown where they had their arcade set up.

  I’m not a big fan of graveyards. Every time somebody brings me to one, I’m pretty sure it’s to kill me. But I knew better than to say that to Gino when he was already mad at me for thinking the exact same thing about him.

  Gino pulled to a stop outside the building. “You get out here.”

  I glanced at him, trying to figure out if he was being serious.

  “Really,” he said. “I just follow instructions, and the instructions said to bring you here.”

  “For what?” I asked, confused.

  “I’m assuming you’ll know it when you see it,” he replied.

  I started to get out and then glanced back at him. “I really am sorry that I…”

  “I know,” he said with a small shake of his head. “But it still sucks that you thought so badly of me in the first place.”

  I looked around nervously, making no move to finish exiting the car.

  Gino, as though he could read my mind, rolled his eyes. “What, you think we’re going to save time by offing you here and dumping you underneath another body?”

  “It had occurred to me,” I admitted.

  I guess I didn’t know better.

  6

  “You really don’t understand how safe you are, do you?” the mobster’s bodyguard asked in disbelief.

  “Safe?” I thought about how my lifelong home had been blown up by a criminal and another criminal had done her very best to kill me. All within a few days of each other. I didn’t feel safe.

  “The boss would never let anything happen to you,” Gino explained.

  “It may not be up to him when my time is up,” I told him.
/>   The bodyguard shook his head. “What made you so cynical?”

  I let out a bitter laugh. “I grew up with a small-time thief as a father and a mother who spends most of her time in the loony bin,” I told him.

  “Mental. Health. Facility,” God lectured from my bra.

  “Yeah, Archie Lee is kind of amateur,” Gino admitted. “And I’m sorry about your mom.”

  I shrugged. “She is what she is.”

  Gino jerked his chin toward the mausoleum. “The boss is waiting in there.”

  I nodded but made no move to get out of the car.

  “It’ll be okay,” Gino assured me.

  I wanted to believe him, but there was doubt niggling at my gut. Something was wrong. I could sense it. But I couldn’t hide out in Gino’s car forever, so I slowly got out.

  “I’ll be waiting right here,” Gino reassured me.

  Slowly, I shuffled toward the entrance to the mausoleum. I really didn’t want to go inside. Windowless buildings reminded me of the prison visiting room when I used to go see my dad when he was locked up. It wasn’t the kind of place that engendered pleasant memories. Still, I had a job to do.

  Or, more specifically, I was going to have a job to do. I stood a little taller, lifted my chin, and tried to stride in with purpose so that Delveccio wouldn’t see my doubts.

  He was sitting on a bench at the opposite end of the building, staring at an oil painting.

  He was so caught up in whatever he was thinking, I wasn’t sure he heard me as I walked closer and closer to him. He not only looked worried, he looked…depressed. It was an expression I’d never seen before on his face. It startled me, to see the strong mob boss looking so vulnerable.

  I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Was I supposed to greet him? Should I sit on the bench beside him? Finally, he blinked and seemed to recognize that I’d joined him. He lifted his chin in the direction of the oil painting he’d been studying. “You know who that is?”