by Audrey Faye
Lesbian Assassins 3
Audrey Faye
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Thank you
Copyright © 2015 Audrey Faye
www.audreyfayewrites.com
To the guy walking with me
through the messy middle.
Thanks.
1
I wasn’t sure who was having a worse time—Carly, with sweet, sleeping Benji in her arms, or me, trying to find a place to hide in the koi pond greenery.
Benji was an adorable baby, and on another day, Carly would have happily held him while he slept. Today, it was preventing her from stabbing all the cute, eligible guys who thought she might be looking for daddy material.
Weddings do that to people.
I took one more look around and gave up on the koi pond. Too many couples with goopy eyes who’d come to stare into its algae-ridden depths.
Maybe I shouldn’t have made my partner leave her knives in the van.
Carly and I don’t go to a lot of weddings. We’re assassins, and while we might pave the way for some of the bright, shiny moments in people’s lives, we generally don’t get invited to them. Nobody wants our kind of shadows cast on their happiness.
Or so I’d tried to tell Benji’s mama when she’d sent us the pretty, lacy card with all the wedding details and her smiling, bruise-free face on the front. Stacey’d laughed for ten minutes and then put Benji’s big sister on Skype to argue with us.
There’s just no way to win a fight with a three-year-old, especially one who’s had her head filled with nonsense about how you saved her brother’s life and made her mom happy.
I snuck a look at Talia, sitting quietly under a table with three other undersized people. I was pretty sure they’d made the rounds and snagged all the zombie M&M wedding favors they could find, or talk out of amused guests.
“They totally snoggled mine,” said a wry voice over my shoulder. “They’ll have sore bellies if they eat all of those.”
I turned to find an older woman who I was pretty sure was related to Talia somehow. “She seems to have recruited herself a pirate crew.”
“She’s good at recruiting, that one.” The woman was watching the under-table dwellers with fond eyes. “I live down the block, and she marched herself to my front door about six months back and told me that she needed a grandma and thought I would do a pretty good job. Never gave me the chance to get a word in edgewise.”
I laughed—that sounded familiar. “That’s pretty much how she got me to this wedding.”
“She’s an adorable dictator, that one.” The woman stuck out her hand. “I’m Clarice, but everyone just calls me Clo.”
Grandma Clo—it totally suited her. “Your granddaughter did a beautiful job today.” Talia, glowing like the summer sun, had done her flower-girl job of distributing rose petals with aplomb and overflowing cuteness, including a big smooshy kiss on the cheek of the man her mother was marrying. It was the kind of moment that made even assassins believe happily ever after might be possible—not the fairytale kind, but the kind where two people who love and respect one another manage to steer their lives in the same direction and find contentment, laughter, and a good place to land. The kind where kids can thrive and grow up knowing they are loved, even if the world burps crap now and then.
Adopted grandmothers could help a lot with that too.
The woman in question patted my shoulder. “You helped set her free, my Talia and all her family. None of them will forget.”
I stared—I was here as incognito as a woman squirming in her too-tight shoes could get.
“Oh, I know who you are,” said Clo calmly. “Talia told me. You’re the one who scared her daddy so he went away and stopped hitting her mom. You and your friend over there holding Benji.”
I looked in her eyes and saw nothing but a hint of approval. “We’re usually pretty quiet about that stuff.”
The approval notched up several levels. “Not everyone would be.”
Assassins who bragged about their jobs ended up dead or in a cave on some remote island somewhere.
Which didn’t sound too bad, come to think of it. I sighed, feeling like a curmudgeon, and tried to improve my attitude at least a little. “I don’t get to many weddings these days, but I’m really glad to see all of them so happy.”
“I think they’ll stay that way.” Talia’s adopted granny smiled in the direction of her girl under the table. “Roger is a good man, but Talia told him she’d kick him in the knees if he was ever mean to her or Benji or their mom.”
Three-year-olds have some pretty good assassin tendencies. “She’s fierce.”
“She is. And do you know, that man sat right down and set her on his lap and told her that he’d never, ever do that, but if she ever felt like she needed to kick some knees, his were available.”
That did strange things to the nether regions of my heart. I swallowed hard—today was reaching diabetic-coma levels of sweet. “I’m glad Stacey found one of the good guys.”
Clo looked at me wisely over the top of her glasses. “Not used to that in your line of work, I bet.”
I shrugged. “We mostly deal with guys on the asshole end of the spectrum.” Which wasn’t exactly cheery small talk for a wedding. “Sorry. I think I need to go outside for a minute and stash my pessimism in the van.”
“You’re here.” Clo smiled. “You can’t be all that much of a pessimist.”
Today she might be right. I tried not to wish for too many things these days, but I would hold a few quiet hopes for Talia and her rosy-cheeked mom and the baby still drooling in my partner’s arms. And ignore the song that wanted to write itself. I glared at a random potted plant and cursed the five minutes that my muse had spent out of her dungeon frolicking with an old Italian guitar player. It had given her way too damn many ideas.
A chorus of small-girl giggles floated through the air. Talia stuck her head out from under the table, face covered in chocolate and glee. “Grandma Clo—come see!”
I waved my companion off, a lot overwhelmed by all the sweetness and light. This day kept hitting me in the back of the knees, and I needed to find somewhere to hide for a while.
I took a glass of something pink and bubbly for cover and started traversing the edge of the party. Watching. Witnessing. The best a hermit could offer to this day.
I’d managed to slink my way along the outskirts of the reception, almost over to the corner where several tables groaned under the weight of presents piled nearly to the rafters. Stacey and Roger hadn’t asked for gifts for themselves—they’d asked for donations to the local women’s shelter. Judging from the precarious mountains of stuff I was currently sliding past, the guests at the wedding had taken that request very seriously.
How could you not love a couple who asked for a hundred toothbrushes and handknit blankets?
I sighed. It had taken me three steady weeks of road time to finish my blanket, and Carly hadn’t stopped staring at me for at least a week of that. Apparently not everyone in New York City can knit. In Vermont, it’s a basic life skill, right up there with dodging golf-ball-sized hail and picking a Halloween costume that fits over a snowsuit.
She’d boug
ht out three states’ worth of drugstore toothbrushes instead.
“You sound tired.” The man coming around the end of a groaning table seemed surprised that he had spoken. “Sorry, that didn’t come out right.”
One introvert knows when to take pity on another. “I am tired. It’s been a good day, but I don’t hang out in crowds like this very often.”
He looked relieved—followed by a quick glance over his shoulder and back at me. “Sorry to crash your hiding spot.”
I had to smile at his sincerity. “Fellow hermits are welcome.”
He smiled back. “Thanks. That’s a really pretty dress.” His cheeks turned as red as the napkin in his hand. “Sorry—my sister runs a little shop, and she’s always looking for stuff like that.”
It was pretty, and I was still fairly horrified I had let that happen. I blamed Rosie, even though she’d been a thousand miles away when the actual purchase had taken place. “My friend told me I couldn’t wear flannel to a wedding.” I took pity on his red cheeks. “I probably could have used an introduction to your sister.”
His discomfort eased a little. “It looks like you did fine to me, but she tells me I have the taste of a swamp lizard, so…”
I laughed, tucking the insult away for future reference.
He looked over his shoulder again as the music shifted gears. “Would you like to dance? I love to dance, but the women out there are scary. My wife has a patient in labor at the hospital, and she won’t make it for a few hours yet.” He offered up a self-deprecating grin. “Fair warning—I dance like a swamp lizard, too.”
I grinned and let insanity and the utter sweetness of the day take over. One dance probably wouldn’t kill me.
-o0o-
I leaned against a pillar in the shadowiest corner I could find, my feet, my ears, and my soul all pleading for mercy.
I’d established some kind of world record, for me, at least. I’d danced with five different men, at least two of them taller than four feet, taken a turn with a very sleepy, cuddly Benji so Carly could pee and fend off the masses, and held Talia’s hand as she tried valiantly to catch her mom’s tossed flower bouquet. I was pretty sure there had been a not-so-hidden agenda in the pint-sized dictator’s efforts, but I was smart enough to keep my hands far away from all things catchable at weddings.
For a committed hermit, it had been a wild ride of a day. It was time for either a quiet forest clearing or a padded room.
I cursed as the phone in my tiny over-the-shoulder handbag rang. It was totally going to blow my hiding spot. There is apparently a rule at weddings—once you’ve danced once, you never get to sit down again. Permanent conscription into the army of the willing. Kind of like getting up to sing just one song.
I’d at least managed to avoid doing that.
I finally outmaneuvered the clasp on the dumb little purse and yanked out my phone. Lelo. Crap. With the kind of furtive glances usually reserved for cat burglars and sleeping babies, I snuck out the nearest door and answered the video call from the sixteen-year-old life-form who had designated herself as our assistant. “Don’t worry—I washed all the socks, and we know how to get to our next stop from here.”
She stuck out her tongue and made raspberry sounds. “Whatever. Can you guys come for a visit? Soon? I have something that will be better to show you in person.”
That sounded dire. I raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t been hunting new assignments for us, right?” Carly would kill her dead, and she’d have to get in line after me.
“Not exactly.”
I stared hard at the face on my phone, suddenly suspicious of multiple people in my life. “Is Carly paying you to bust us loose from this wedding?”
Lelo’s eyes gleamed. “You’re at a wedding? Really? Whose?”
Apparently not, although I’d have paid half of whatever extraction fee my partner had promised. “Never mind. How urgent is this emergency of yours?”
“I’m not a kid. I wouldn’t interrupt you for something stupid.”
I tried to find some of the patience that I’d dumped headfirst into the koi pond. “I know that. Do you need us back there in an hour, a day, or a week?”
She blinked. “You’re only an hour away from here?”
Maybe by fighter jet.
Something resembling a samba parade turned a tight circle around me and started heading back the other way. I was pretty sure the face on the phone was laughing, but I couldn’t hear a damn thing. I gritted my teeth and cut through the dancers. Several pairs of hands tried to recruit me into the madness, but I did my best imitation of a greased pig and headed for the one guaranteed sanctuary in this place.
Nobody was drunk enough yet to be having sex in the coat-check room.
Once I got there, safely tucked behind a mountain of outerwear, I shot a hard look at the still-snickering face on my phone. “Lelo. Focus.”
“Sorry.” She hiccupped to a stop. “Where are you guys, Las Vegas?”
“We’re close enough to wring your neck if you don’t tell me how fast you need us on your doorstep.”
She considered. “A couple of days.”
That was doable, even with a lazy morning to sleep off our wedding trauma. And it was probably time for a Rosie-and-Lelo fix, much as it still made me squirm that I wanted one in the first place. “Okay, we’ll be there.”
“Your bet still running?”
It took me a moment to catch up. “The driving one?” I scowled into the screen—Carly was six days away from winning, and the consequences were dire if she did. I desperately needed the woman to find her lead foot again. “Yeah.”
Lelo grinned. “Then tell Carly I need you here tomorrow, and I’m making Baumkuchen.”
I couldn’t even pronounce whatever she’d just said. “What the heck is that?”
She laughed. “Never mind—I’ll text her.”
If kuchen-whatever could help inspire my partner to break the speed limit long enough for me to dig out of the dumbest bet I’d ever made, I’d learn how to bake it myself. “Thanks.”
“No prob.” She winked at me and waved her fingers at the screen. “Go back to your wedding, and don’t let the drunk guys dance on your toes.”
She was way too late with that one. “I just hide behind Carly.”
Lelo rolled her eyes. “Chicken. No Baumkuchen for you.”
“Brat.” One who made me smile. I tapped the red phone icon on my screen and hung up, and then looked around the coat-check room. She’d actually landed me in something decently close to a padded room to hang out in for a while.
Time to for one hermit assassin to hide.
2
“My feet hurt, my arms hurt, and all those little muscles on my face that make me smile?” Carly grimaced and rubbed her fingers along the sides of her cheekbones. “They’re freaking killing me.”
I had no sympathy. It had taken me until 3am to drag her away from the samba line and Benji’s adorable grins. “It’s your fault for letting Talia sweet-talk us into coming.”
My partner rolled her eyes. “I don’t use knives on three-year-olds.”
Which is probably what it would have taken. “She’s going to be really upset when she wakes up this morning and discovers you’re gone.” There would be a bunch of grown men and at least one woman in the same condition, all pining after the hot chick wearing the dress covered in Benji drool.
Carly hooked her feet up on the dash and adjusted a ratty travel pillow behind her head. “So tell me why we’re running out of Dodge at the crack of dawn and missing the pancake breakfast?”
“I think it was going to be crepes.” Talia had regaled me with tales of whipped-cream mountains and strawberries she’d picked herself.
My partner groaned. “Sure, rub it in.”
The things we did for our job. Or for our friends—I wasn’t sure which one this was, just yet. “Lelo called last night. She’s got something to tell us.”
Carly cracked one eyelid open. “Has she been st
alking cases again?”
“Nope. I’d have interrupted your samba line for that.”
“Conga line.”
“Whatever.” I’d given up keeping any of it straight. It had been a very long night of dancing, my resistance thoroughly trampled beneath the persistence of a couple of small boys in tuxedo suits and bare feet who had found me in the coat-check room.
“Don’t make me wake up and look at my texts.” Carly had gone back to eyes closed. “What’s she want?”
“No idea.” I angled left and merged onto the interstate. Two more turns and about eight hours and we’d be in Lennotsville.
“Wait—are you serious? We’re missing pancakes and staring at road lines for ten hours and you don’t even know why? Just because the kid crooked her finger?”
We stared at road lines for lesser reasons than that. “She said she’s baking Baumkuchen.”
Carly stared at me. “For real? The one she does with the chocolate cream filling?”
“Absolutely.” I had no idea, but I was happy to throw Lelo’s body under a bus—she was eight hours away and in no position to complain.
Carly looked appropriately satisfied, but her bare foot had started beating a staccato rhythm against the front windshield.
I listened to the rhythm and waited patiently. My partner often gets restless, but her body is a highly disciplined creature. If it was wiggly, she had some serious thoughts squirming around in there, waiting for her to give them enough oxygen and an escape valve.
Ten miles down the road, she looked over at me, her foot suddenly quiet. “Do you think we’re getting soft?”
It wasn’t any of the questions I’d expected. I poked the squishy roll of my stomach that hung over the waistband of my pants. “Nope. Abs of steel.”
It got half a laugh. “Abs of wedding cake, maybe.”
Wedding cake, onion rings, greasy burgers—the food-pyramid people would lock me up and throw away the key. And I was totally dodging my partner’s question. I didn’t know what kind of soft she was worried about, but none of them were good. Carly lives to be strong in all the places most people are squishy.