Maggie Lee (Book 10): The Hitwoman's Act of Contrition (3 page)

He meant Patrick, my would-be boyfriend and the man who’d taught me to kill. I wondered why he’d turned down the work.

“So I’m your second choice,” I teased lightly.

“You could say that.” The corner of the mob guy’s mouth lifted. “You gonna turn it down cuz it’s sloppy seconds?”

Internally, I winced, but externally, I shrugged.

“It meets your criteria. Bad guy. Deserves to die,” Delveccio wheedled, leaning forward.

“Says you,” I countered quietly.

Delveccio tapped his newspaper on the table. Twice.

Worried I’d overstepped my bounds; I struggled to keep my expression neutral.

Delveccio pushed the newspaper across the table at me. “Him.”

I glanced down and saw the intended target was Wayne Krout.

“You know who he is?” Delveccio asked.

I nodded. Everyone knew who Wayne Krout was. Born into a moneyed family, Wayne had spent his entire life in the tabloids, and when the charges were serious enough, he graced the pages of the legitimate newspapers.  He even had a nickname, “
I can explain Wayne.
”

Over the years, he’d probably been charged with more crimes than the man sitting across from me, but nothing ever stuck. It was amazing what money and power could do.

A quick skim of the article beside Krout’s smirking face informed me that he was being investigated for being part of a child pornography ring that was responsible for the death of one of its young victims.

I couldn’t argue with Delveccio. He was a bad guy. He probably did deserve to die.

I looked up to see Delveccio watching me closely.  Swallowing hard, because I wasn’t sure I was going to like the answer, I asked, “What’s your involvement?”

Delveccio tilted his head, his gaze narrowing.

I gripped my coffee cup, hoping he wasn’t going to say that he was part of the ring. If he was, I might have to try to kill him, too. Somehow I figured that wouldn’t end well for me.

“I’m a third party. Brokering the deal.”

I frowned. The last time he’d brought me this kind of job, I’d been tasked with knocking off one of Aunt Loretta’s ex-husbands at a wedding. I hadn’t been able to do the deed, but the man had suffered death by disco ball. A kill Delveccio attributed to me. I’d never corrected his assumption and had taken the credit, and more importantly the money, for getting the job done.

“Who?” I asked.

Delveccio’s gaze tightened to two thin slits.

I waited.

Shaking his head, he leaned back. “I’ve never worked with anyone like you. Criteria, questions, giving me a hard time.”

“I’m not giving you a hard time. I just want to know who wants him…” I glanced around, making sure there was no one within earshot. “Gone.”

“His mother,” Delveccio admitted grudgingly. “She’s tired of him”—he made air quotes with his hands—”besmirching the family name.”

I let out a low whistle. “Wow.”

Delveccio shrugged. “So you gonna take it?”

“I have to think about it.”  For all I knew, Patrick could have turned down the assignment because Wayne Krout was under police surveillance.

Delveccio nodded. I got the impression he hadn’t expected me to say yes.

“I’m glad Dominic’s doing better,” I said, starting to stand.

“Sit.”

I sat.

“I haven’t told you why I wanted to talk to you.”

I looked down at the newspaper.

“That’s business,” Delveccio said. “I need you for a family job.”

I swallowed hard. The last “
family job
” had involved killing his son-in-law, the jerk who’d put Dominic into a coma.

“I need you to get her this.” He reached beneath the table and pulled out a small purple teddy bear.

I knew who “her” was. Angelina, his daughter, the woman I believed to be Dominic’s biological mother, a woman who lives in the same mental health facility as my mother.

I stared at the toy, unsure of what to do.

“Say yes,” God whispered. “It fits perfectly with my plan.”

I had no idea what God’s plan was.

Delveccio stared at my squeaking chest. “Slipped the lizard in to visit your niece?”

I nodded sheepishly.

He grinned his approval. “You understand the importance of doing whatever’s necessary for family. That’s why I like you.”

I smiled weakly.

“And it’s why I know you won’t turn down my request.”

I studied his face, wondering whether there was a veiled threat in that last remark.

I picked up the teddy bear.

“Today,” Delveccio added. “She’s got to get it today.”

I considered telling him that the deadline was too short, but thought better of it. “Today,” I agreed.

He grinned and slowly got to his feet. “Speaking of family, make sure your uncle skips the poker game tonight.”

With that ominous warning, he lumbered away.

I guessed he meant Templeton since I’d seen Loretta’s fiancé leaving a game frequented by unsavory, criminal types… one of whom, a while back, I’d been sent to kill. The company Templeton kept, plus his predilection for visiting the local pawn shop, were some of the reasons I couldn’t trust Loretta’s latest beau.

Once the mobster was gone, I asked aloud, “What plan?”

The one you agreed to,” the lizard replied immediately, having anticipated my question.

“I didn’t agree to any plan.”

“You owe me an act of contrition,” God countered. “It’s time to pay up.”

Instead of answering him, I opened the newspaper Delveccio had left behind and flipped to the article I’d spotted during breakfast.

The man’s death was front page news. A car accident, the article said, but I wasn’t sure I believed it.

I stared at the familiar face, wondering what this new development meant for me.

The man who had poisoned Patrick Mulligan was dead. The man who was the husband of the woman Patrick’s wife was having an affair with was now out of the picture.

How would this affect the dynamics of their relationships? How would it affect mine with Patrick?

The last time I’d seen my red-headed cop/hitman he’d said he was going to do something he should have done a long time ago. Was this it?

“Reading the classifieds?” a familiar voice asked from behind me.

Spinning around, I found Aunt Leslie watching me. “What are you doing here?”

She blinked, surprised by my sharp tone. “Service.”

I nodded, relaxing. She hadn’t been spying on me with Delveccio. She was here to push patients around in wheelchairs as some sort of weird penance for decades of addiction. “Katie has double PT today.”

Leslie nodded, flexing her arm and pointing at her muscle just like Katie had.

I grinned. “I’m sorry I interrupted your yoga session this morning.”

She waved off the apology. “Don’t be. Old Agnes is a stick-in-the-mud. She’s got to learn to go with the flow.” She glanced at the newspaper again. “Deciding whether to work for Loretta?”

I nodded. It was a lot safer than telling her I’d been wondering if my almost-lover had knocked off the guy on the front page.

“Looking for advice?”

“Sure.” Not that Leslie’s advice was ever worth anything.

“See if you can combine two of the jobs.”

“What?”

“See if two of the jobs will let you work part-time. If they do, you’d end up with a more flexible schedule for Katie.”

“That’s a great idea.” I felt guilty for sounding so surprised, but Leslie didn’t seem to notice.

“Plus,” she added with a wink, “if you hate one job, at least you’ll only be there half the time.”

“That’s great advice.” I jumped out of my seat and hugged her tightly. “Thank you.”

“I have sensitive skin!” God bellowed, afraid he was going to be crushed.

I tried to pull back, but Leslie clung to me, ignoring the series of squeaks of my chest.

“You’re going to make it through this,” she whispered in my ear. “I know it’s scary, but if anyone can handle this, it’s you.”

“Sensitive skin!” the lizard warned.

“Thanks, Aunt Leslie,” I murmured, disentangling myself from her. “I appreciate that.”

She gave me a watery smile. For a moment, I thought she was going to cry, but she shook her head and composed herself. “Where are you off to now?”

“The pet store.” I hoped that getting God his meal would distract him from whatever his
act of contrition
demand was.

Leslie nodded, then looked at me thoughtfully. “You need to de-stress before Katie comes home.”

Again, not a bad idea. If she was still smoking pot, I might have asked her for some just so that I could mellow out for a few hours, but I decided that, given her current clean state, that wouldn’t be a good idea.

“I’ll work on something,” she pledged.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“But I want to.” She nodded emphatically. “Susan helps with your physical needs. Loretta’s helping with your financial. I’ll be in charge of your spiritual needs.”

That
did not sound like the best of ideas.

But I didn’t have the heart to say so.

God was surprisingly quiet as we made our way across the hospital parking lot.

He didn’t even say anything when I gently placed him in the paper cup, stuffed with a silk scarf (for his sensitive skin), that I kept just for his transportation.

Wordlessly, I put my seatbelt on, started the car, put it in gear, and pulled forward. Suddenly, another car darted in front of me and I had to slam on the brakes.

“Idiot driver,” I muttered.

The other car stayed where it was, blocking my path.

I tooted my horn, trying to get the offending vehicle to move.

Instead of doing that, the other driver rolled down the window. A familiar face peered out at me.

“Patrick!”

The redhead mouthed “Follow me” and waved for me to pull out behind him.

“I’m never going to eat again,” the lizard sighed dramatically.

“Later,” I promised.

“Pfffft.”

I followed Patrick’s car across town. As I drove I popped a couple of mints, finger-combed my hair, and worried about when the last time I’d bothered to shave had been.

I shouldn’t have worried. Our final destination was an alley behind a strip mall.

God, who by this time had clambered up onto the car’s dashboard, took in the surroundings and drawled sarcastically, “Mulligan takes you to the
nicest
places.”

“Shut up.” I said it without moving my lips since Patrick was approaching. “Please,” I added for good measure as I climbed out of the car.

“Don’t you dare leave me in here again,” God warned.

I turned to look back at him. “I won’t.” I promised. Forgetting him in the car was what had saddled me with this act of contrition thing in the first place.

When I spun back, I was so happy to see Patrick that I couldn’t help but grin goofily at him.

He didn’t smile back.

He just closed the distance between us with an intense gleam in his green eyes.

For a second, I thought something was wrong and I backed up into my car.

And that’s where he pinned me.

With a kiss.

Without a word, he captured my mouth with his own, drinking me in as greedily as a man who’d been lost in the desert.

Not that I minded. It felt nice to be wanted. More than nice.

His body pressed against mine, the delicious weight trapping me against the car, as he branded me as his own. He tasted like the mint lifesavers he was so fond of chewing.

As our tongues tangled, he slipped a hand under my shirt, splaying his fingers across the bottom of my ribcage.  Gasping with delight, I mimicked his actions, reveling in the warmth of his skin beneath my palm. I swallowed his groan of pleasure as I worked my fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans.

Suddenly, he pulled away, ending the kiss as abruptly as it had begun.  He moved a step back and we stared at one another as we each tried to catch our breath. Pulling a roll of Lifesavers from his pocket, he put one on his tongue and held the pack out to me, an offering.

The only sound between us was him crunching on the wintergreen candy as I shook my head no.

“Well hello to you too,” I finally managed to joke weakly. “It’s been a while.”

Jamming his hands into his pockets, he shook his head.  “I’m sorry, Mags. I didn’t mean for that to go that way.”

“I’ve had worse greetings.”

A half-smile played at his lips. “You never cease to amaze me.”

“I feel the same way.” Disdain dropped from every syllable God uttered.

Bending over, Patrick peered into the car. “Hey, little guy.”

The lizard didn’t respond.

“Bring him in,” Patrick suggested. “Don’t want him to roast in the car.”

That’s the kind of guy this hitman was, the kind who cared about the well-being of animals.

Reaching into the car, I scooped God up. He ran up my arm to perch on my shoulder.

“This way.” Patrick led the way deeper into the alley and around a dumpster to a door marked Do Not Enter.

“Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” God intoned.

Pulling out a key, Patrick unlocked the door and stepped inside. I followed.