The Housewife Assassin Gets Lucky

by Deborah Coonts

  Gun drawn, Gerald rushes out the back door. With lightning speed, he descends the metal staircase. In no time, he runs to the gate.

  As he opens it, I leap up, gun drawn. Dammit, the gate opens out instead of in and slams into me, tossing me against the cans and knocking my gun out of my hand.

  Gerald turns around. Seeing me, he aims in my direction.

  Finding my footing, I grab a lid off one off the cans. With both hands, I swing it broadside, at his head.

  Stunned by the blow, he falls against the wall.

  But when he staggers to his feet, he’s still holding onto his gun.

  His face is etched in anger. He wastes no time putting me back in his sights—

  I also move quickly. This time the lid hits his gun—

  Just as the shot goes off.

  The bullet pierces the lid and misses my head by mere inches.

  From behind me, I hear Jack shout, “Donna—down!”

  So that I’m not in the line of Jack’s fire I hit the ground with the lid still shielding me from Gerald, just in case he wants to get off one last shot before turning the corner.

  He doesn’t. Instead, he makes a beeline for the street at the end of the alley.

  Jack runs past me, but by the time he turns the corner, Gerald has disappeared.

  “Arnie, which way did Gerald go?” Jack shouts.

  “He ducked into Kingsbridge Mall,” Arnie informs us. “I’ll see if I can pull up footage there before he disappears into a store, or catches an Underground train from there. But it’ll take a while.”

  In other words, we’ve lost him—for now, anyway.

  The shrill singsong trill of an ambulance comes closer and closer before stopping abruptly on the opposite side of the house.

  Jack trots back to me just as I get back on my feet. “What happened in there?” I ask.

  “Gerald shot Roxanna before he ran. By the time we shot off the lock, she was unconscious and bleeding out. Abu will ride to the hospital with her.”

  “I thought Gerald and Roxanna were in cahoots! Why did he want to kill her?”

  Jack shrugs. “Another loose end? I don’t know. And we won’t know those answers until Roxanna pulls through—or not. If she does, he’ll call us so that we can question her. Dominic is driving us back to the club for now.”

  I’m on Jack’s heels as he heads back down the alley and toward the car.

  We’re driving back when Emma calls. “Okay, I’ve got bad news and good news.”

  “Save the best for last,” Jack and I say in unison.

  Emma chuckles. “Works for me. Okay so, Aziza’s texts with Adam are pretty much run-of-the-mill: weather, club gossip, employee griping, blue-skying on their hopes for their future, some flirting. Which leaves me to think they must have worked out a few code words in advance. But because there’s no evidence here of a monoalphabetic substitution cipher, more than likely the words were changed on a daily basis. Heck, even the emojis they used might have been part of the code.”

  “Ouch,” I murmur.

  “As for Adam’s movements within the club on the day in question, other than going from his employee locker to the casino or employee break room, he did nothing out of the ordinary if in fact employees are allowed to borrow books from the club’s library.”

  “I know that staff is encouraged to do so, as long as they read and return,” Dominic explains.

  “Even so, why would he put one on the library’s shelves in such a strange manner?”

  “How so?” I ask.

  “He pulled out several books first and then mixed them around before putting them back on the shelf—along with his, I assume,” Emma explains.

  “Why do you say ‘assume?’” Jack asks.

  “Because he made sure that the security camera couldn’t see the name or spine of the book in his hand when he walked in.”

  “He must have known the camera would catch his shuffle game,” Jack deduces.

  Strange.

  Suddenly, it hits me. “He did it because he knew Aziza would watch for it.”

  “If so, we have to get back and tell Lucky,” Dominic exclaims fervently. “She’ll be intimately familiar with the library’s collection.” He lingers on the word, intimately.

  Jack catches my eye and shakes his head: his way of signaling me to take the lead on the book retrieval task.

  I hope he doesn’t have to taze Dominic to keep him from joining me.

  21

  Lucky

  Desperate to wash off the previous day, especially the horrible night, and sitting on go waiting to hear from Donna and Jack, I repaired to my room. As I stepped out of my shoes and tugged off my earrings, I called for some lunch. My order of something edible and hot with a full pot of American coffee, left the room service guy a bit perplexed. I didn’t care.

  Peeling off clothes as I headed toward the bathroom, I’d dropped the last of them by the time I reached and opened the tap. Scalding would do the trick on yesterday’s grime.

  While the steam billowed, and the tub filled, I checked my phone. Jean-Charles had given up. I hadn’t received a text from him since the last one I ignored. Was it yesterday or the day before? At some point I’d have to throw the man a bone…or he’d have to offer me one.

  I wondered how we’d be at make-up sex.

  Should I text him? Call him? What would I say? We had so much to hash out that it stifled even the simplest connection.

  I dipped a toe in the water, then slowly lowered myself to chin level. I felt time slipping away. Why didn’t Donna call?

  I’d just stepped out of the bath and donned a thick Turkish terry cloth robe, winding the sash around my waist twice, when a knock at the door announced the arrival of my food. Copious amounts of caffeine would do my body good, and maybe get my brain in gear. The food wouldn’t hurt either.

  The room service guy left the door ajar as he set the tray on a table by the window. He nodded then vanished, leaving a large silver pot in a quilted cover, a delicate porcelain cup with matching creamer, no sugar, and a small plate holding a perfect omelet and two perfect croissants I’d forgotten to order. An oversight my well-trained staff would never tolerate. Now if they could just save me from myself in every other aspect of my life…

  My phone pierced the blissful quiet, interrupting my first delicious sip of the steaming brew. My cup clattered on the tray as I ran to find the offending device. I shook out my clothes that pooled on the floor where I had discarded them. Nothing. Then I dashed into the bathroom. Still nothing. Four rings so far. The call would cycle to voicemail soon. Then I unfolded the crumpled towel. Bingo! I squinted at the caller ID as I swiped to answer.

  Of course, it would be Mother.

  “Isn’t it late there,” I asked before she could launch in. The weather outside was half-gloom, London’s everyday version of our full brightness at home. Early yet, but the traffic hummed and honked below. The day was well under way. Friday. My French fish-or-cut-bait day.

  “When you have babies, day and night are irrelevant. Time is separated into asleep and awake.” She sounded tired and more than a little bit frazzled. “Right now, they are asleep, I am awake. I’m working on it.”

  “I assume we have more names?” I regained my cup and stared out the window into another gray day. As much as I found the constant sunshine in Vegas monotonous, places like London made me realize I couldn’t live without feeling the warmth on my skin. Was Seasonal Affect Disorder environmental or inherited? Who knew? Either way, sunshine mattered. That whole Vitamin D thing probably played into it. If we didn’t need sunshine, then why did the Powers That Be make a critical vitamin sunshine-dependent? And why did my thoughts roll off down that hill today?

  Probably because I didn’t want to think about anything else.

  Aziza. Nigel. CIA operatives in my club. Employees running a sex-tape extortion scheme. A demanding fiancé. Hell, my mother looked like a minor distraction.

  Mona sighed, her wearines
s feeding mine. “Naming someone is more responsibility than I remember.”

  Or want, I thought, but kept my mouth shut. Poking her was bad form and no fun.

  “Nobody ever likes their names, so I wouldn’t give it more thought than it’s due. What are you thinking?”

  “Blackjack and Roulette. We’d call them Jackie and Rou.”

  I could picture my mother, disheveled, exhausted, desperate to do the right thing but totally unsure how, as she white-knuckled the phone. “Closer. Much closer. I do like Jackie and Rou. The whole Vegas tie-in works. But having their given names, the ones the teachers will be calling out in front of the class at the beginning of the school year, being Blackjack and Roulette, that might be a little hard.”

  “But if I just name them Jackie and Rou then I lose the impact.”

  “I get it. Could you maybe give it one more shot? You’re really close.”

  “You think?”

  “I know so, Mother.” I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder so I could pour more coffee. Somehow, I knew today would require full caffeination. “How’s Father?” Even though I wanted to shoot him, I loved him. His recovery had been slower than everyone had hoped.

  “He’s not himself. I don’t know what to do.”

  My heart sank. “Has he been back to the doctor’s?”

  “You know your father.”

  That meant no. One more problem without a ready solution. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Lucky, go to Paris then come home,” she whispered then the line went dead.

  Problems were my specialty, yet I stood there transfixed, as if concrete encased my feet, while I pressed the phone to my ear even though my mother had severed the connection.

  Desperate for a problem I could solve, I hit a familiar speed dial.

  Detective Romeo answered on the first ring. “Yo.”

  “You sound rather perky.” He also sounded awake. I was glad I hadn’t awakened him. Well, sort of. The kid got far too little sleep as it was.

  “The mischief turns serious here after dark.”

  “I know. Do you have anything pressing at the moment?”

  “No. Whatcha need?”

  “I need you to go get my father and take him to the hospital. Use your gun if you have to.”

  “Oh, that’ll be fun.” His tone told me the exact opposite.

  “Please.”

  “What, no threat? No ‘I’ll owe you big time.’”

  “No. This is serious.”

  “You got it.”

  “Thanks. Just add it to my tab.”

  “Ah, there you are.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “Heard your trip went to shit. Anything I can do?”

  “Just take care of my father. Please.”

  I pocketed my phone and stared once again, lost in the gray. Friends. So important. That intrinsic trust. I wondered about Donna, Jack, and the Acme group.

  Could I trust them? Or would they leave me dangling?

  Worse, would I regret giving them Adam?

  A text buzzed through as I was putting the finishing touches on what was determined to be a bad hair day. My heart leapt.

  Jean-Charles.

  No, Donna. Meet me in the library when you’re decent.

  As I stared at my reflection, I wondered what her definition of decent was. My standards were pretty low. I’d tamed the hair, slapped on some war paint—nothing I could do about the dark circles hanging like hammocks under my eyes. They did offset the blue rather well, though. Small consolation for looking like a member of the zombie apocalypse. I brushed down the brown cashmere sweater and adjusted the collar of the matching silk shirt underneath. My slacks were khaki and the Ferragamos with kitten heels were two-toned to pick up both the dark and the light brown. Mona always told me, no matter what, I should dress and put on my face. That way the day would never be a total loss. As I checked my teeth then turned off the light, I wasn’t buying it.

  The library was tucked in beside the room used for breakfast, which fronted the building. They were clearing away the buffet or I’d have been tempted—the omelet and croissants, while brilliant, did little to fill the hole in my belly.

  As I passed the larger room we used for state dinners and that sort of fanciness, I noticed two of the three rugs had been returned. The third one was still missing. I detoured to the front desk to inquire. Julie was still manning her post—and probably would for a bit since we were now understaffed due to the hasty departures of Prunella and Lavinia.

  “Miss O’Toole.” A wariness replaced her normal warmth. The change in her demeanor had appeared this morning after Dominic and his friends had walked me out of the club, drugged to the max, the night before. I wanted to ask Julie what I’d done, but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

  “Good morning. The third rug?” I hooked my thumb toward the room.

  “It’ll be back today. In time for the party tonight.”

  “Thanks.” The party tonight. If I wanted to have some choice in my future, I had a party I needed to get to. Eight-thirty sharp, Jean-Charles had said. Avenue Kleber near the Hotel Raphael. I glanced at my watch. Make-it-or-break-it time. Six hours max and I’d better be racing for the airport.

  Donna fell into step as I strode into the library. “Good to see you’ve pulled yourself together.”

  “Outsides can be deceiving.” I stopped in the middle of the room and did a three-sixty. Something about libraries with their walls of floor-to-ceiling books soothed my soul. This one was octagonal and two-storied with a brass ladder on rollers attached to a railing that could be positioned exactly where one wanted it. As a little girl I lusted after Professor Higgins’s library in My Fair Lady. Now I had one—if I was willing to travel to London to partake. A bit of a commute but worth the experience. “It’s something, isn’t it?”

  Even Donna seemed affected as she drank it in.

  “Why are we here?” I asked after we each had taken a moment. Thankfully, we had the room to ourselves.

  “A couple of reasons. First, we tracked Gerald. He’d given the club a false address, but we were able to track his movements from his last day here. In fact, he has a deeply buried original name and background. Once upon a time he was known as Edgar Black. He served in the U.K.’s Special Reconnaissance Regiment in Afghanistan and Yemen. Dishonorable discharge.”

  I winced. So not good. “We vet our people very well.”

  “Whatever he had his fingers in, he knew enough folks to scrub his identity. We had to dig deep, and our resources are far beyond those you have access to.”

  I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “We’ve got feelers out to MI6 to find out exactly how and why.” Donna touched my arm. “And here’s another piece of the puzzle: Edgar aka Gerald had a visitor: Aziza’s roommate from Oxford—Roxanna Marmaduke.”

  “Interesting.”

  “We thought so too.” Donna shrugged. “So, we crashed their little party, and just in time to save her life. She’s comatose but the doctors say she should make it. If she comes out of it, Abu is there to grill her.” Donna glanced into the lobby. “However, Gerald got away.”

  “A shame.” And a shit storm. “I guess we have our murderer. I’d just like to know why. Why did he kill Aziza?”

  “I’ve seen all kinds of reasons.” Donna returned her attention to the books surrounding us. “On another note, after you told us about Adam Kalb, we did some digging. I put our team on your security tapes. The day Aziza died Adam came in here with a book—one he put back in the collection.”

  “You’ve been up in Security?” I felt a bit of a huff coming on. “Why wasn’t I consulted?”

  “No. We tapped in.” She seemed rather nonchalant.

  “You hacked our system? Do I really need to know this?”

  Donna shrugged. “I’m being honest. Thought you’d want to know. And I invited you here. I could just as easily have bypassed you altogether.”

  N
ot much I could argue with there. “Was he here for a shift?”

  “Yes, he was working the baccarat table. The detour came during his only break.”

  “Okay, a book you say?” I looked around at the thousands of volumes. “Needle in a haystack or do you have something to go on?”

  “He was rather clever, as if he knew he was being watched.” Donna wandered over to stand before a section of books on the far wall.

  “He worked here. He knew where the cameras were.” I stepped in next to her. “But the fact he came here at all meant he was spooked or out of time.”

  “He moved several of the books, then replaced them all, including the one he walked in with. We didn’t get a good look at that one—he kept it hidden until he shuffled it with the other books. I wish I knew exactly what we were looking for, but, whatever it is, it’ll be right in here.” Donna indicated a small section on the two middle shelves.

  “Something that doesn’t fit would be my bet.” I scanned the spines. Old musty leather splitting and cracked by time and attention. English history. Some of the great English writers. I made a note to redo the collection to reflect the diversity of our members who hailed from the far corners. I let my gaze drift and wander, engaging my subconscious to identify what looked out of place. I’d been down the rows twice before I saw it. A thin white spine. Letters to a Young Muslim. “Here.” I pulled it out. I was familiar with the book. Letters from a UAE Ambassador to Russia written to his son, the collection was billed as a take on what it means to be a Muslim in the modern world. My guess was Aziza struggled with that as well.

  As I held up the book, Adam Kalb rounded the corner and burst into the room. His eyes widened when he saw what I held.

  Bingo.

  His attention flicked to Donna then back to me.

  “We know, Adam.” Total bullshit. We knew nothing, but overplaying was my strong suit.

  His expression hardened. His voice went flat. “What do you know?”

  “I know Aziza is dead.”

  The news sucker-punched him. He crumpled into himself, then straightened, his eyes bright with tears. “She didn’t come home. I couldn’t find her. I feared the worst. She never told me, but I could see she was scared.”