The Hitwoman and the Poisoned Apple (Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman Book 8)

by JB Lynn

  “Going somewhere?” he asked.

  “Geez!” I gasped, holding my chest. “You scared the heck out of me. I didn’t know anyone was back here.”

  I shot a meaningful look at DeeDee who’d been sent ahead into the backyard to scout out our escape route.

  “Susan kicked me out of the kitchen,” Griswald said, eyeing the lizard on my shoulder and the cat in my arms.

  “No one’s allowed in the there when she’s putting together the sundae fixings.”

  “Ice cream?” DeeDee barked hopefully.

  “None for you,” I told her sternly.

  She hung her head as though she knew failed lookouts don’t deserve baked goods.

  Griswald watched the exchange with amusement. “Where are you sneaking off to?”

  We were on our way to Patrick’s house to implement what God was calling Operation Poisoned Apple, but I couldn’t tell that to a US Marshal. “They could all use some air, and I certainly didn’t want to disturb Aunt Susan’s creation. As you’ve witnessed firsthand, she’s a little high-strung about it. I didn’t want her to accuse me of ruining her masterpiece with dog hair or cat hair or lizard skin, so I thought it safest for all concerned if I disappeared for a bit.” I brought out my best fake smile to drive home the excuse.

  Griswald eyed me skeptically.

  “Too many words,” Piss hissed.

  “The simplest lie is the most believable,” God agreed.

  Griswald looked sharply at the squeaking reptile who balanced on my collarbone like it was his own personal surfboard. “You’ll be back in time for dessert?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” I assured him, nodding like a deranged bobble-head. “Could you tell Susan that Armani and her new boyfriend will be joining us?”

  “Excellent. She was so upset that Marlene and her young man and Loretta and Templeton had refused her invitation. The extra faces at the table will make her very pleased, very pleased indeed.”

  “Great. Well I’d better go so I can get back.”

  “Of course.” He stepped out of my way. “Enjoy your fresh air, gang.”

  “It’s Operation Poisoned Apple,” God called as I hurried to my car.

  “More like Operation Dumb Idea,” Piss grumbled as I gently placed her on the front passenger seat, taking care not to crush her injured paws.

  I was inclined to agree with the cat, but since I didn’t have any better ideas about how to find who’d poisoned the redhead, I was grudgingly giving this a shot.

  “Patrick help,” DeeDee reminded us all as I opened the back door so she could hop inside.

  “I should have gotten some spy equipment,” God said as I climbed behind the steering wheel.

  “Get on with your bad self, James Bond,” Piss mocked.

  “Nobody likes a catty cat,” the lizard retorted.

  “Guys…” I sighed tiredly. “It’s already been a long day.”

  The lizard ran down my arm and up onto the top of the steering wheel. “Not as bad as the day I had listening to her moan.”

  Fighting the urge to flick him off, I asked, “You don’t really expect me to drive with you standing there, do you?’

  He made a daring leap toward the dashboard, but barely made it and had to scramble to pull himself up when he almost slid off.

  The cat, who’d watched the move through her one good eye, hissed, “Nice, genius.”

  “Okay you?” DeeDee asked with concern.

  “Fine,” the lizard assured her. “Just fine.”

  Thankfully, everyone stayed silent for the rest of the ride to Patrick’s neighborhood, where every house was a neat, but old, Cape Cod and a flag of some sort fluttered from every doorway.

  “Very Stepford-ish,” God murmured from his vantage point on the dash.

  “If I lived here, I’d be tempted to live a double-life too,” Piss said.

  “Why?” DeeDee asked, trying to get a better look.

  “Anything this ordered on the outside must be seething with imperfection behind closed doors,” the lizard explained.

  “Huh?” She craned her head outside the window trying to see what God saw.

  “Head inside,” I ordered the dog as we slowly coasted past the house that was our target.

  Two cars in the driveway indicated our entry wouldn’t be easy.

  A couple emerged from one of the cars. I recognized the woman as Mrs. Mulligan’s lover.

  “Awesome,” I muttered. This was a complication we hadn’t considered.

  I didn’t know who the man was, but considering the casual way he tossed her the keys without warning, and how she caught them effortlessly, it was clear they knew each other well.

  The lizard rubbed his front feet together with glee. “The plot thickens.”

  “I’m not sure about this.” I watched the couple enter the house, unsure whether they were there to plot murder or become victims themselves. Whatever was happening, I didn’t want the lizard to get caught up in the crossfire. “I’m calling it off.”

  “Balderdash! Fortune favors the bold!” God declared.

  “Save me from inspirational quotes,” Piss muttered.

  I parked the car around the corner. “You’re sure about this?”

  The lizard gave me a thumbless, thumbs-up. “It’s our best plan.”

  “It’s our only plan,” I reminded him.

  “Either we do this or we go home,” Piss groused. “I’m due another dose of pain meds in an hour.”

  “Your call,” I said to the lizard.

  “Let’s roll!”

  “Roll!” DeeDee barked in agreement.

  Against my better judgment, I let the cat out of the car and carefully put the lizard on top of her.

  He grabbed her scruff, kicked her like he was trying to spur a racehorse, and yelled, “Charge!”

  It was anticlimactic since she slowly limped off toward Patrick’s house

  DeeDee and I waited for her return in silence.

  “Hungry,” the dog complained after not too long.

  Reaching into the glove compartment, I pulled out a plastic bag filled with dog treats that I kept stored there for emergencies. A dog whining that she’s starving to death is definitely an emergency in my book.

  I threw one of the treats to her. She crashed into the back of my seat as she turned herself around to retrieve it.

  “Don’t rip the seat cover,” I warned.

  “Won’t I.”

  A moment later, I heard chomping, so I knew she’d gotten her snack.

  “More?” she whined pitifully.

  I twisted in my seat to hand it to her, so I wouldn’t be subjected to her searching for a thrown morsel. When I turned back around, I saw them.

  Patrick and his son walked slowly up the other side of the street, deep in conversation. The young man appeared agitated. Patrick looked tired, weak even.

  A painful lump rose in my throat.

  “Patrick!” DeeDee barked excitedly.

  “Quiet!” I whisper-roared, sinking down in my seat until my forehead was level with the top of steering wheel.

  Patrick gave no indication whether he noticed me, or recognized my car.

  I held my breath as they passed, hoping he wouldn’t ask me later what I’d been doing there. It wasn’t like I could explain the lizard was conducting Operation Poisoned Apple.

  Almost thirty minutes later, Piss limped back to the car. “You owe me big time, sugar.”

  “What happened?” I lifted her back into the car.

  “I didn’t kill the pompous idiot.”

  “Well that’s good,” I replied cautiously, starting the car.

  “I didn’t even maim him.”

  “Good,” DeeDee encouraged.

  “Did he make it inside the house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Home how get he will?” DeeDee asked worriedly.

  The cat and I exchanged a worried look. We hadn�
�t worked that out.

  “So much for the genius plan,” Piss muttered, but I was fairly certain I detected a note of concern in her voice. “Even if he solves this great mystery, he has no way of telling anyone.”

  I rested my head on the steering wheel and exhaled slowly, trying to control the panic welling up inside me. How did we not have an exit plan for him?

  “Uh-oh,” DeeDee whined.

  “We’ll come back later to extract him,” I decided.

  “Now you’re starting to sound like him.” Piss glared at me from her one good eye. “And have you thought about how you’ll signal him you’re even there?’

  “DeeDee can bark.”

  “Great. The cat flicked her tail. “No way a dog barking in the middle of the night will attract attention.”

  “I’m open to other suggestions,” I told her, as I put the car into gear and began driving back to the B&B.

  I’d promised to be there for ice cream sundaes.

  Armani and her new man hadn’t arrived yet when I showed up in the dining room having put the cat and dog back in the basement.

  The only ones in the dining room were Leslie and Susan, and if their body language was any indication, they weren’t enjoying each other’s company.

  “Where’s Griswald?” I asked.

  “You do know the man has a first name, don’t you?” Susan snapped.

  “What is it?”

  “It starts with an ‘L,’” Leslie prompted.

  In no mood to play games, I gave her a dirty look.

  “Lawrence,” Susan supplied. “His name is Lawrence.”

  “Nice name,” I said pleasantly.

  “I had a dealer named Larry,” Leslie interjected.

  “Save your stories for your N.A. meetings,” Susan said. “No one here wants to hear them.”

  Insulted, Leslie left the room muttering, “Larry. His name is Larry.”

  Susan and I stood there in the awkward silence for a long moment. She gave me a look, challenging me to leave too.

  Instead, I sat on the nearest chair. “How’d the ice cream turn out?”

  I watched Susan’s internal struggle. She wanted to stay in her bad mood, but her pride in her work was too great not to express.

  “I’m quite pleased with it,” she admitted grudgingly.

  Deciding it was a good chance to stroke her ego, I said sincerely. “Yours is the best.”

  She ducked her head, accepting the praise with humility. “That’s nice of you to say.”

  “Purely selfish on my part. If I tell you how great it is, maybe you’ll make it more often.”

  She smiled a little and got a faraway look in her eye. “Remember the time Darlene became obsessed with chocolate chip pancakes and launched a campaign to have them daily?”

  I shook my head.

  “You were all little then. She’d draw pictures of pancakes and leave them everywhere. On the table, in the kitchen, under my pillow, in the freezer.” Susan’s eyes grew misty with the memory.

  “I don’t remember that at all,” I admitted.

  “You were young. Plus,” she said with a heavy sigh, “it was during one of your mother’s episodes.”

  “Episodes” was the term my aunts use when referring to those times when my mother went off the deep end, but stayed at home. “Visits” was what they used to describe the times she’d ended up at the psych ward.

  “I’m going to visit her tomorrow,” I told my aunt.

  She blinked her surprise. Teresa was always the good daughter who had dutifully visited mom in the mental hospital (and dad in prison). I’d always been resistant to visits. Not only did the place and its residents freak me out, I’d had a lot of residual anger at Mom, having blamed her for Darlene’s death.

  Things had improved a bit after she’d been lucid when attending my friend Alice’s wedding, but I still didn’t like to go to see her.

  “I see,” Susan said slowly.

  Of course she didn’t. Couldn’t. After all she couldn’t know that I was visiting my mother in order to do Delveccio a favor by delivering a mysterious package to another of the residents.

  “Don’t have your hopes too high,” Susan warned. “She hasn’t been making much sense lately.”

  Before I could ask why she said that, Marshal Lawrence/Larry Griswald walked in with Armani and her serial killer boyfriend trailing closely behind.

  I knew he was a serial killer the instant I saw him. Maybe it was the stringy hair, or the MOM tattoo circling his throat like a macabre necklace, or maybe it was the cold, dead space just behind his eyes that his trendy eyeglasses didn’t quite disguise. But I knew.

  The Scrabble tiles had definitely been a warning.

  Armani though was oblivious to it all. “Maggie,” she trilled happily. “Meet Ike.”

  I jumped up, more because I felt like sitting put me at a physical disadvantage than any sense of manners or propriety. I almost knocked over the chair in the process, but Griswald, moving quicker than I’d have given him credit for, caught it.

  At the same time, he caught my eye and I knew he had the same misgivings as I about our new guest.

  “Nice to meet you, Maggie.” Ike stepped forward, offering to shake my hand.

  Trapped, I could do nothing except comply, trying to hide my revulsion as his flesh touched mine.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Ike said, a smile slithering across his face like a snake. “She talks about you all the time.”

  “Does she?” I snatched my hand back and gave Armani a questioning look.

  “We talked all night under the stars the first time we met.” She sighed. “So romantic, isn’t it?”

  Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded. It didn’t sound romantic to me. It sounded creepy. Everything about the situation had my skeev radar bouncing off the charts.

  “Is the ice cream ready?” Griswald interjected, offering me a reprieve.

  “Coffee should be too,” Susan confirmed.

  “I’ll get it,” I offered quickly, eager to get out of the room.

  “I’ll help,” Griswald murmured.

  Together we went into the kitchen, leaving Armani introducing Ike to Aunt Susan.

  Once in the kitchen, I leaned on the counter, and took in a deep fortifying breath, trying to quell my urge to vomit.

  Griswald wisely remained silent as he puttered around, putting the coffee in the insulated carafe and pouring cream into the pitcher Susan had left out.

  Finally he cleared his throat. “You okay?”

  I was worried he thought I’d lost it, but I didn’t want to lie to him, so I just hung my head.

  “You’re not wrong,” he whispered.

  I looked up. “Wrong?”

  “You’re right not to trust him. The vibe he gives off.” The Marshal shuddered. “I’ve met some bad guys in my time, but he’s right up there. You should tell your friend to steer clear of him. Change her phone number. Change her locks.”

  I wasn’t sure whether I was comforted by the fact his assessment of Ike matched up with mine or if it freaked me out more.

  “We’ve got to go back in there.” He handed me the tray with loaded with the cups and coffee. “Don’t let him see your fear. He’ll use it against you.”

  “Thank you,” I said sincerely.

  “For what?”

  “Being one of the few sane people I know.”

  Chapter 15

  I was a jumpy, paranoid fool by the time I was ready to put DeeDee back in the car to return to Patrick’s house for God’s extraction. I imagined Ike lurking in every shadow as I crept across the backyard of the B&B.

  “Hey, Mags.”

  I sucked in a breath to utter a blood-curdling scream and found a hand slapped over my mouth. Even as I struggled to free myself, I registered the scent of wintergreen and a familiar light, clean, and fresh cologne.

  “Shhh,” he warned. “It’s just me.”

  “Patrick,” DeeDee woofed softly. I wasn’t sure
if she was greeting him or telling me who it was that held me captive.

  Either way, I realized she was right and relaxed.

  My mouth was released. “Sorry about that,” Patrick murmured, leaving a steadying hand on my arm. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Then why are you sneaking up on me in the dark?” I whisper-screamed.

  “I was on my way to see you, when I saw you creeping around like a thief in the night. What are you doing?”

  “I…” I trailed off. It wasn’t like I could tell him that God was conducting Operation Poisoned Apple in his home while we spoke.

  “And what the hell were you doing in my neighborhood earlier?” There was no missing the anger in his voice. “Did you forget Rule Number One? Are you trying to get us caught?”

  I backed up a step, instinctively putting distance between us while he attacked. Then remembering how pissed I was that he’d relegated me to second fiddle status, I went on the offensive. “Don’t you remember asking me to figure out who poisoned you and is framing your wife?”

  “Sorry,” he muttered, spiking a hand through his hair. “It’s just been a lot to deal with.”

  My adrenaline from having the crap scared out of me was still running high and I wasn’t appeased by his lame apology or explanation. “Do you think I’ve got access to NSA satellites or something and can do it in my pajamas in the comfort of my basement?”

  “You don’t wear pajamas,” he reminded me in a low, seductive voice that made my body burn and my knees weak.

  “Don’t,” I warned, holding up a hand to stop him. “Just don’t.”

  A car pulled into the B&B’s parking lot, its headlights sweeping through the darkness.

  Patrick dropped down to a crouch and I followed suit until I realized there was no reason to be hiding in my own backyard. While I stood back up, I saw DeeDee, belly pressed to the ground, doing her best soldier’s crawl to Patrick’s side.

  Listening carefully, I made out two voices and realized the nighttime visitors were actually residents, Aunt Loretta and Templeton. Knowing that they’d snuck out in the middle of the night, or at least after dark, gave me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.