Diamonds Are Truly Forever: An Agent Ex Novel 2 (13 page)

Must be senior citizens’ day at the market.

On her way in, Staci had noticed a van from the senior citizen center down the street.

Expertly avoiding an old man on a scooter, Staci filled her cart with sugar and spice and everything nice. And dark, 60 percent cacao baking chocolate. A woman could do a lot of damage with dark chocolate.

Next up, the produce aisle for fresh onions, cucumbers, salad greens, and garlic. A gorgeous display of oranges caught her eye. They’d be delicious squeezed for breakfast.

She pulled her cart to a stop in front of them. As she stopped to smell the oranges, the old man she’d dodged by the sugar, shriveled and small, all baggy skin and blue veins, stopped next to her. How can you tell if an orange is ripe? If it has wrinkled skin. Which meant, she was looking for an orange exactly like him—really wrinkled.

He flashed her a toothless grin, reminding her of a kid on a go-cart.

The old man slumped over his scooter, the complete opposite of anything vaguely resembling virile. Yet lechery oozed off him like bad cologne. He stared at her legs and wedged into her personal space so close the hem of her skirt fluttered in his face.

As jumpy as she was, the last thing she needed was for him to reach out and touch her. She could see the headlines now:
WOMAN STABS HELPLESS OLD MAN WITH KUBOTAN IN GROCERY STORE. MAN HAS HEART ATTACK AND DIES.

She moved on to the bananas. So did the old man, homing in so close to her that he bumped her with the basket of his scooter.

“Sorry.” He flashed her another toothy, and yet somehow lecherous, grin.

She ignored him, reached for a bunch of bananas, and froze. Five frightening inches of hairy, scary brown Brazilian wandering spider flew through the air, landed in the bananas, and scrambled toward her. Brazilian wandering spiders are aggressive and fast. One of the fastest on the planet. Staci was not particularly speedy, unless scared. Not so much as she’d like even then.

She jumped back and screamed. Hey, it had stopped the house spider in its eight-legged tracks.

The Brazilian wandering spider, however, was no coward like the common house spider. It had the passionate nature Brazilians are famous for and ran at her with a vengeance, bloodlust gleaming in its mass of eight eyes.

Retreat! Staci screamed louder, flung the bananas across the aisle, and grabbed her cart, ready to make a run for the exit. As she did, she caught a glimpse of the old man.

“Don’t like spiders, girlie?” His eyes sparkled with evil delight. He was positively, maniacally pleased with himself. And holding an empty plastic container poked with holes.

“You! You’re working for the Bevil!” she screamed and pushed off toward the exit, which was at the opposite side of the store.

“The devil, you say?” The old man fired up his scooter and took off after her.

Surely she could outrun a pokey scooter. Those things usually went like five steps per hour, max. Only the old guy’s wasn’t your regular store-variety old scooter. Someone had clearly souped it up.

When the old man kicked it into overdrive, it roared after her with the speed of an Indy racer.

Staci shoved over the display of oranges in front of him and took off. The oranges bounced and rolled every which direction. But the old guy paid no attention to them. Staci wondered if his eyesight was bad. He ran over the citrus without hesitating.

Floor orange juice—made by oranges, squashed by a lunatic old man the Bevil hired to kill her!

She remembered Drew’s instruction—when being followed, take evasive action! She just didn’t think she’d have to use the advice in the grocery store being chased by an old man on a scooter.

She pushed her cart into the old guy’s and let go. Keys jingling in her hand, she rounded the corner into the baking aisle. No way the old man could make such a tight corner in a grocery scooter.

She was wrong.

Damn him, the old man must have taken some trick driving classes. He rammed her cart aside as if it were nothing, and took the corner tightly on two wheels.

Around them, the store was mostly deserted. No one to turn to for help.

“Cleanup in produce. Can we have a mop in produce?” boomed over the loudspeakers as the souped-up scooter from hell and the demon that drove it closed in on her.

He was like Freddy Krueger—impossible to stop. Oranges and corners hadn’t even slowed him down. In the movies, a nice oil slick always stops the bad guys.

Keys jangling in her fingers, she grabbed a bottle of vegetable oil—or maybe it was canola, that was more healthy—but she didn’t take time to look. She unscrewed the lid and dumped it in the aisle behind her.

Old guy hit the oil slick and did a 180.

Staci punched the air in victory. Yes! Escape was at hand.

Just then two old ladies on scooters came around the corner.

“Stop her,” old guy yelled. “She took my wallet! And threw my bananas on the floor.”

At that moment, there were a lot more painful things Staci wanted to do with his bananas. But the old women charged toward her on their thankfully normal, slow scooters.

Old women to the left of her. Old man and an oil slick on the right. What was a girl to do?

As the old ladies maneuvered their scooters to block off her escape, Staci decided playing stuntman and vaulting over them was preferable to being run over by the old man with murder on his mind coming at her from the other side at warp speed.

Staci took off toward the old ladies, hurdling over them in a single bound. She banged her knee leaping over. And stumbled on the other side. But she caught her balance just in time and took off.

Hah-hah! Take that,
she thought as she raced down the beverage aisle. She hadn’t hurdled since high school.

But just as she reached the end of the aisle, the old man swung around the corner right in front of her, blocking her escape. He was dusted with flour, which only made him look paler and more ghostly. And disturbingly like a pan ready for cake batter.

“How?” Staci said.

He cackled. “Flour soaks up oil pretty good. Use the whole wheat, though. Less messy.”

She didn’t want to have to stab him. So she grabbed the nearest weapon available, a two-liter bottle of soda pop, and shook it up good. “Come near me and I’ll douse you with diet cola. All shaken up, this thing has the pressure of a fire hose.” She was exaggerating, probably. But it must have had some spray power.

He looked skeptical and shook his head. “Diet cola! Don’t use that. I like the grape,” the old guy said, pointing. “Store variety. It’s cheap and on sale. If you were on a fixed income like me, you’d be more discerning and not waste money.”

“Oh, shut up and leave me alone.” She shook the bottle again.

He ignored her and surged forward, bumping into her before she could move. His dry, leathery hand skimmed up her leg, scratching like the shaft of a feather as he lifted the hem of her skirt and jabbed her thigh with what she thought was his bony finger.

“Hey!” She swatted his hand.

He cursed beneath his breath and bounded out of the scooter to a standing position surprisingly spryly. Before she could register her surprise, he grabbed her right arm, twisted it behind her back so hard she let out a grunt, and thrust a knife against her neck from behind. Standing, he was taller than she expected, over six feet. And surprisingly strong and steady for someone so thin who seemed to need a scooter to get around.

She swallowed the nausea rising in her throat. Drew had warned her to go straight home. Why hadn’t she listened? “What do you want?”

The aged assassin wedged the blade tighter against her neck. “Not what I’m going to get. If I were twenty years younger…”

“What you want would kill you, old man,” she said.

“Oh, but what a way to go.” He cackled and pulled her tightly against him. “Sadly, I’m going to have to kill you. With a knife. I’d hoped to make it cleaner. I thought the spider would do the trick and make your death look like an accident. It’s the deadliest one on earth, you know. And angry as all get-out after I shook it in its box.”

“Ingenious.”

“Thanks. I like to be creative in my work.” He made what sounded like an attempt at an evil, macho growl but came out more of a gurgle followed by a hacking cough.

“Smoker’s hack?” she whispered, trying to buy time as she got a good grip on her Kubotan, which she still held in her left hand on her key ring. It was the kind of brave, lighthearted thing Drew would have said. He’d always said a good quip boasts confidence.

“Pack a day, but I gave it up five years ago.” He wrenched her arm tighter.

She winced and tried to look around without moving. Where in the world were all the other shoppers? The shelf stockers? The deliverymen?

Just then a scream pierced the air, coming from the direction of the produce aisle.

“Guess they found my spider.” He laughed. “That’ll keep everyone busy and out of our hair long enough for me to get my job done.” He breathed heavily in her ear. “Didn’t think an old man like me was a threat, did you? That’s what makes me such an effective assassin.” He smelled of Bengay and bad breath as he breathed down her neck and stared down her bodice.

Drew had told her in a panic situation to just jab the Kubotan where she could do the most damage. Jab it anywhere with as much force as she could. Get free. Get loose and get away.

Anywhere was likely to puncture the old man’s paper-thin skin. She tried not to think about it.

“Like the view?” she said to distract him.

The old man cackled and coughed. “Love it. You have nice legs, too. Pity I have to slit your throat. Messy business. Damn trembling hands. I’m not the shot I used to be or I’d have gotten you from the parking lot.”

She felt his arm tense as he prepared to rip the knife across her throat.

“You’ll never get away with this!” She lunged her weapon back into the old man’s left thigh.

He groaned, dropped her right arm, and grabbed his leg. The pressure on the knife against her throat lessened. She cocked her hand for another blow.

Her focus had narrowed to her fight for life, to just the two of them. The rest of the store—everything else—ceased to exist.

His age showed. His reactions were slow. She stabbed him again.

He grunted. His hand fell away. The knife clattered to the floor. He clutched his chest and gasped for breath.

She stared at him.

His face went ashen, definitely grayer than the old-man pallor it had been before.

A heart attack? Now?
She stared at him, amazed at her good fortune.

The sound of a familiar voice and the firm clasp of a friendly hand on her shoulder snapped her out of her daze.

“Pity. It appears the old man is having a heart attack.”

Staci looked into the smiling eyes of NCS chief Emmett Nelson. She caught the slight movement of him stuffing a syringe up his sleeve. He’d always had the deft fingers of a magician. Some said he’d been trained in sleight of hand by one of the world’s greatest illusionists.

“Put the Kubotan away, Staci,” he said as he picked up the knife and stuffed it in his jacket. “I’m just about to call for help. We don’t want any questions or anyone wondering why you jabbed an old man with a Kubotan and gave him a heart attack.”

Her mouth fell open. “Em!” She threw herself into him and hugged him. “What are you doing here?”

He looked a little sheepish. “Keeping an eye on you. I got a text from Drew that you’d veered off plan.”

Next to them, the old man fell to the ground.

Emmett gave him a pitiless look. “Don’t worry, he won’t make it.” He dropped into a squat next to the old guy. “You’ve made your last kill, Grimley. Tell me who you’re working for. Who hired you to kill Staci?”

Grimley gurgled and clutched his chest, but didn’t speak.

Em shook him. “Who? Tell me! There’s no need to protect your employer now.” He shook him again. “Come on, old man.”

Grimley’s eyes glassed over.

Em shook his head, let go of Grimley, slapped his knee, and swore beneath his breath. “He’s too far gone. He’s not going to tell us anything.”

Staci wondered for just a second if whatever Em had administered was laced with truth serum and whether Em had miscalculated its effect on feeble, old Grimley.

Em looked up at Staci. “Staci, keys. Put them away.”

Staci stuffed the key ring into her purse.

Em shot Grimley a cold look full of hatred. “Time to get this performance over with.” He turned to Staci. “Ready to play your part?”

He appraised her as she nodded. She evidently passed the test.

“Good. Dial nine-one-one, slowly,” he said and turned back to Grimley. He took a deep breath. “Help!” Emmett yelled, sounding convincingly worried, upset, and urgent. “He’s having a heart attack. We need help!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The two old women came around the corner just as Staci hung up with 911.