The Housewife Assassin Gets Lucky

by Deborah Coonts

  “Maybe. More than likely a mugging gone bad. The police haven’t said.” I wanted to spill it all: Gerald, Nigel, Aziza, but I’d only forestall our ability to catch the killer. “How well do you know Gerald?”

  “Not well. Why do you ask?” He tilted his head as if measuring me, my questions, and my responses.

  “You request Gerald each time you stay here.” I felt uncomfortable standing in the middle of the room. He hadn’t offered me a chair or a drink, so I grew roots, crossing my arms against what, I didn’t know, but it made me feel better.

  “Gerald keeps his nose out of other people’s business.” The implication was clear. His words carried a veiled threat.

  Surely, he knew a threat was a red cape to this bull? “What had he done that made you so angry with him when I saw you two at the bar?”

  A moment of hesitation. “The flowers.”

  “Not your normal yellow.”

  “Red is not a good omen.” He flicked a glance over my shoulder to the foyer and the spray of red dahlias.

  I followed it. The dahlias had begun to wilt—death was everywhere in this suite. “I’ll have them changed immediately. Anything else?”

  “No.” He took a sip of his coffee, holding the liquid in his mouth before swallowing it.

  I stalled for a bit then dove into indelicate waters. “I do have something I need your help with.” There was no delicate way to broach the sex subject, so I dove in. “It has come to my attention that two of our female employees are shaking down some of the members. I have reason to believe you might be one of their potential victims.”

  “Did they tell you that?”

  “Has anyone tried to blackmail you for behavior that would be…an embarrassment…should it get out?” The girls had named him, but I needed to be sure.

  He turned to look out the window. “No.”

  The anger in his posture told me otherwise.

  I sat at Nigel’s computer and typed in my credentials. With too many questions and not enough answers, I needed to do some digging.

  As I waited for authentication, I thought through what I knew already. Aziza apparently had some intel on money machinations—for whom and for what purpose, I didn’t know. She’d hit the CIA’s radar enough to have a handler: Nigel Ahern. I still couldn’t get my brain around that one. The intel transfer went south. Someone was onto her and eventually killed her. As a clever young woman, she’d not trusted even the good guys, encrypting what she’d given them. Now the CIA needed the cipher to break her code. Meanwhile, I had a couple of rogue idiots trying to shake down club members, including Aziza’s uncle. Gerald, the uncle’s butler, killed Ahern, the handler. What was the connection, CIA intel or hush money? Did Sheik Ben have something to do with his niece’s intel? Did Nigel Ahern have anything to do with Prunella and Lavinia’s plot?

  And where was the cipher?

  Someone had to know.

  The computer dinged its approval—the only approval I’d gotten since I had landed.

  One of the security precautions we’d taken was to assign employees discrete identifiers, so they could report incidents, complain, and point out problems without fear of retribution. Only a few people had access to the file, which we kept on this, the manager’s computer, that was not ever connected to the internet. As one of the great Technologically Challenged, I needed a few more minutes to work through several security walls, but then I was in.

  First to email Gerald’s address to Donna. Piece of cake. Done.

  Now for Aziza.

  She wasn’t particularly communicative with her fellow employees via email. Several were between she and Nigel, which made sense. I pulled the emails and collected them in a document for the Acme team. A cursory glance told me Nigel and Aziza employed some special sort of code words that, on the surface, didn’t make sense.

  Best left to the pros.

  I continued searching. Who knew our employees were so chatty? Thirty minutes of scrolling and searching, I found a thread—there was someone else Aziza communicated with.

  I cross-checked the identifier.

  Adam Kalb—the dealer tossing cards to Dominic Fleming at the baccarat table.

  20

  Donna

  “This isn’t a room! It’s a broom closet with a peephole.” Jack stares out the narrow window over the tiny bed stand positioned between two twin beds. The view looks out onto an alley. The buildings around us are just as tall, so very little light filters down to the very bottom floor. What does come through halos the snow flurries drifting down.

  I look down at what I’m wearing: yesterday’s barely-there party-hearty dress. “I’m going to take a shower. Thanks to Dominic’s guest room sheets, I reek of lemon verbena.”

  There is a small shower stall and no bathtub. I flip the water handles. After ten seconds, I hold my hand under the water raining down from the showerhead, but then I leap away because it’s so frigid.

  Four minutes later, even with just the hot spigot on full blast, the water is still chilly.

  I walk back into the bedroom. “The water is as cold as a witch’s tit! I’m just going to let it run.”

  Jack nods. Shifting his gaze to the twin beds, he scowls.

  “You know, this is Lucky’s payback,” I reply.

  “What I know is that this is bullshit,” he grumbles, “But I also know how to make it infinitely more pleasurable.”

  To make his point, Jack grabs hold of the bed stand to push it out.

  It doesn’t move.

  Incredulous, he stares at me. “The damn thing is bolted down!”

  I flop down on one of the beds. “Since we spoon anyway, it’s a minor inconvenience.” My invitation to join me is a pat on the mattress.

  He drops beside me. Pulling me into his arms, he mutters, “It isn’t the ‘spooning’ part that concerns me. It’s how we handle the pre-spooning activity.”

  I laugh. “Necessity is the mother of invention. I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

  Have I thrown down the gauntlet? Jack must think so by the way in which he leans me onto the bed with one hand while the other inches up my thigh.

  It doesn’t stop there. A finger hooks my panty and slowly tugs it downward. To help it along to its final destination—anywhere but on my body—Jack lifts me gently at the waist before sliding it down my legs and off my feet. Smiling, he lifts it over his head before tossing it onto the floor.

  He then pulls me up again and into his lap.

  I feel the zipper of my dress inching down my back. When its bodice drops to my waist, he pushes me forward onto my hands and knees. With me in that position, he has no problem inching it off my hips. I have no issues with what he does next: gently following the half-moon curve of each ass cheek with a hand.

  He sighs happily.

  “Having fun?” I taunt.

  “Immensely,” he murmurs.

  When his thumb and finger enter me, I gasp at the pleasure.

  “I suspect you are too?” he asks.

  “Immensely,” I whisper.

  Jack’s next move—to drive me insane with his mouth on my face, my neck, my breasts, my abdomen—is barely hindered by my determination to strip off his tux jacket and shirt, buttons be damned.

  With a quick zip his pants are ready to come off. My hint to him that I’m to do the honors is to push him flat on his back. By straddling him, I’m able to tug off his pants and boxer briefs, inch by inch, all the while allowing him the view he so admires. Still, it’s not easy because he is already erect.

  The second I’ve thrown his pants on the floor he pulls me back toward him—

  And onto him.

  Our mutual pleasure grows with each thrust, at first slow and steady. But as I rise and fall, our rapture builds. Each time I clench, Jack seems to grow larger within me. Soon, I am aching—not from pain but ecstasy.

  When finally Jack explodes, my own bliss catapults me beyond this sad little room and even the whole of London. I am somewhere
between heaven and earth…but where?

  Jack cradles me to his chest.

  Feeling his heartbeat, I know I’m home.

  My cell phone buzzes.

  With a sad sigh, Jack lets go of me so that I can look at the screen.

  Caller ID shows that I’ve been pinged with emails from Lucky. The first one reads:

  * * *

  Butler Gerald Morten is not here today. Address: 23A Edwardes Square, Kensington, London W8 6HE, UK

  * * *

  “As you requested, Lucky sent us the butler’s address,” I say to Jack.

  “Pull it up on GPS,” he replies.

  After doing so, I frown. “This can’t be right.” I show him what I see: a single-story pub adjacent to a residential green.”

  “Not surprising,” Jack says. “The butler gave a false address to the club. Well, we know he was in the club yesterday. Call Arnie. I know just how he can track our missing butler.”

  I tap in our tech op’s number and put the phone’s microphone on speaker.

  “Hey, guy, do us a favor. Pull up the personnel file of the Babylon London butler, Gerald Morten. He may be going under an assumed. Scan his photo through Interpol’s facial recognition program. We’ll also need you to hack the city’s CCTV video feed in front of the club, starting at eleven-thirty yesterday. We want Gerald’s final destination,” Jack says.

  “How long do I have?” Arnie asks.

  “We need it, like, yesterday.” Jack explains.

  Arnie chuckles weakly. “I’ll give it to you in, say, fifteen.” He rings off.

  “What’s in Lucky’s second message?” Jack asks me.

  “Attachments of the employee correspondences sent between Nigel and Aziza…Oh, and here’s something else of interest! Aziza was chummy with another club employee: a baccarat dealer named Adam Kalb. Lucky attached those emails as well.”

  “Go ahead and forward all of Aziza’s correspondence to Emma so that the ComInt can assess them for hidden codes. She should also pull up the club’s personnel photo of Adam, run it through Interpol and facial recognition, then track Adam’s movements these past forty-eight hours within the club via its security archive.”

  “Sir, yes sir!” I say with a mock salute.

  Jack grins supremely. “I could get used to that.”

  “Don’t bother,” I mutter as I forward Aziza’s emails to Emma. “Done! And we have just enough time to clean up before Arnie gets back to us.”

  As I get up and stroll toward the bathroom door, Jack gives an appreciative whistle.

  By now the running water is tepid. That will have to do. I stick my head through the bedroom door. “Care to join me?”

  I don’t have to ask twice.

  By the time Arnie has called back on my phone, we’ve showered, dressed, and are anxious to leave our scullery closet. “As you suspected, Gerald is an alias. His real name is Edgar Black. He served in the U.K.’s Special Reconnaissance Regiment.”

  “The regiment that handles counter-terrorism for the United Kingdom,” Jack declares.

  “Yep,” Arnie says. “His tours of duty included Afghanistan, but most recently—just a few years ago—an attachment to MI6 in Yemen, where he trained Yemini forces against Al-Qaeda. Interesting note: his file indicated a dishonorable discharge.”

  “Does it say why?” I ask.

  “No,” Arnie replies.

  “We’ll have to ask our friends at MI6,” Jack says. To start the process, he taps out a text to Ryan.

  “Gerald—or Edgar, if we’re to start calling him that—was last seen leaving the club yesterday before noon,” Arnie says. “He took a circuitous route but ended up at the Green Park Underground Station when Nigel was killed.”

  “And he knew where the cameras were placed so that Nigel’s extermination wouldn’t be caught on the security cams. He’s certainly our man,” I reply. “Still, he would have walked out a side entrance between twelve-ten and twelve twenty. That should have been grabbed by a camera.”

  “On it,” Arnie replies.

  We wait a few minutes. Finally, he says, “Got him. From there, he walked west on Piccadilly…. and turned right on White Horse Street…. until it ends on Curzon Street, where he took a jog to the left, for a quick right onto Queen Street…and into a building of flats. The street number is three-twelve.”

  “Fast-forward until you see him leaving again,” Jack requests.

  We wait for what seems like an eternity. Finally, Arnie says. “I’m up to about fifteen minutes ago, and he’s stayed put all this time…” Suddenly Arnie whistles low and slow. “Hey, guess who just walked into his building?”

  “Don’t leave us in suspense,” I retort.

  “Aziza’s roommate—what was her name again? Roxanna?”

  “Her? Well, that’s got to be more than a coincidence,” Jack says. “Arnie, tell Abu and Dominic to meet us with the car in the alley next to the club. Tell them to wear eyes and ears, and to be armed. And please keep up surveillance. If Gerald and Roxanna leave, we want to know where they go.”

  “On it,” Arnie assures us.

  This time of day, traffic is slow through Mayfair’s narrow streets.

  The short trip is made even more interminable with Dominic’s inconsolable moaning over Lucky.

  “Just look at me!” Although Dominic is sitting in the front passenger seat, he’s able to make eye contact with Jack and me through the mirror on his sun visor. “I’ve got the profile of a Greek god! What is wrong with that confounding woman?”

  “Maybe you opened your mouth.” Jack mutters.

  Dominic takes his aside as a knock against his teeth. He smiles wide into the mirror to assure himself that they are as Chiclets-even and spotlight-white as ever. Satisfied, he winks at his reflection.

  Jack feigns gagging by sticking a finger in his mouth.

  “Lucky strikes me as the type of woman who is more impressed with brains than beauty,” I suggest.

  “Don’t try to make that scintillating siren over in your own dull, dour bluestocking image, Ducky,” Dominic scoffs. “I won’t have it!”

  Jack’s guffaw turns into a choke when I poke him into silence. I don’t know why I give a hoot that Dominic’s heart is breaking. I guess it’s because I’m shocked to discover he had one in the first place. Frankly, the fact that Lucky is completely immune to Dominic’s innate sensuality is admirable.

  Still, he’s my teammate. And right now, we need him on his A-Game—at least, until this mission is over and Lucky is out of range. “My guess is that she just needs a little warming up,” I say brightly. “Perhaps less of your always flattering hard-court press and more of your indomitable silent-but-noble presence will be more to her liking.”

  “Ah! I see.” Dominic leans back thoughtfully.

  Jack stares at me as if my hair is on fire.

  Abu pulls to the curb. “I hate to interrupt this truly insightful Mars-Venus moment but we’re here.” He points to a four-story townhouse a block up and across the street.

  Through our earbuds Arnie adds, “I’ve turned on everyone’s video lens feeds. There has been no movement from either of the targets, via the front door or back. The building holds four tenants: a young couple on the top floor—Betsy and Ronald McInnis—who have been there for two years. An eighty-year-old widow—Brenda Coyle—rents out the first floor. She’s been a tenant for over two decades. Right now, she’s on holiday in Spain. A single woman in the basement studio—Liz McNamara. She and the couple should still be at their day jobs. My guess is that our target is the recent rental on the second floor: someone under the name of ‘James Jones.’”

  “You’re right, that’s got to be him,” Jack reasons. “If Roxanna is there under her own free will, we may get resistance from both of them. Since we need to question them, any shots taken should be non-lethal. That way, we can exfiltrate them to Harrington Hall and do the questioning there. As for your positions: Abu, keep the engine running. Dominic and I will take the front
entrance and go up to the second-story flat.” He turns to Dominic. “We’ll walk quietly. When we get to the door, you do the talking. Pretend you’re the leasing agent and that there’s an emergency that needs your immediate attention.” Jack now looks at me. “Donna, you hang out back in case one or both of them exit from that direction. Arnie, if by some chance they escape us, keep monitoring the real-time CCTV feed.”

  And we’re off.

  A back alley runs the full length of the block before opening onto a side street that intersects Queen Street. There’s a tall wrought iron gate in the high brick wall behind the townhome. I position beside it, next to a row of aluminum trashcans. From here, I’m still able to see the backstairs on the exterior of the building.

  “In position,” I murmur into my microphone.

  “Roger,” Jack mutters back. Through his lenses to mine, I see what he sees: the second-story flat’s front door.

  Dominic knocks politely on it. “Hello? I say! I say there, Mr. Jones! ’Tis the estate agent, O’Dooley. Please open up! I have an emergency of the utmost importance and must get into your flat! We’ve found a leak in the gas line upstairs and we think it’s seeping into all the units.”

  Silence.

  Dominic again: “Mr. Jones! It is imperative that you open the door!”

  Finally, a man shouts gruffly, “Busy, now! Come back, say, in an hour!”

  “As I said, Sir, it is imperative that I get in now!”

  “We have a visual,” Abu reports to us. “A man has pushed aside the shade in the front window to look out at the street.”

  “I see it through your lenses,” Arnie replies. “That’s Gerald alright. Spitting image of his employee photo.”

  A woman’s screams: “Help me! He’s—”

  She’s interrupted by the faintest bang, immediately followed by a thud.

  I hear more shots and a bang: from Jack and Dominic, who have shot through the lock on Gerald’s front door—