Maggie Lee (Book 10): The Hitwoman's Act of Contrition (9 page)

Impressed by his candor, I replied, “Half the battle is knowing your enemy, right?”

He laughed. “That’s one way to look at it.”

Marlene reemerged and handed me a steaming paper bag. I took it and held out a ten dollar bill.

She shook her head.

“Take it,” I ordered.

“No.”

“Table three!” the accented voice from the kitchen called.

Marlene whirled around and dove into the kitchen to retrieve the order.

I offered the cash to Ferdinand.

“It’s on the house.”

“I didn’t come here to mooch,” I told him.

He smiled. “No. You came to check on your sister. That’s sweet. Next time you can pay, but not this time.”

Realizing I’d lost the battle, I tried to concede gracefully. “Thank you.”

“It was nice to meet you, Maggie.”

As Marlene rushed out past us, a pizza pan balanced overhead, he ducked back into the kitchen.

I made my way to the door as Marlene delivered the order to the appropriate table. She caught up with me once I’d stepped outside.

She surprised me by throwing her arms around me, hugging tight, and planting a kiss on my cheek. “Thanks, sis.”

“You’re welcome.” I snaked my free hand around her waist and squeezed.

“Tell Katie I sent it?” she pleaded.

“You bet,” I promised.

“I’ve gotta get back.”

“Go.” I gave her a gentle shove.

With a grin and a girlie wave, she practically skipped back into the pizzeria.

Her happiness was infectious and I found myself grinning all the way to the hospital as the aroma of pepperoni pizza filled my car.

Katie was playing Go Fish with Delveccio when I arrived at her room, after first skirting past the steroid-fueled bodyguard Vinnie, who hadn’t even spoken to me but just waved me in.

“Aunt Maggie!” Katie cried when she saw me.

“Are you beating Mr. Delveccio at cards again?”

She nodded excitedly.

I suppressed a smile, knowing that the mobster knew she cheated and took delight in letting her get away with it.

I pressed a quick kiss to Katie’s forehead before turning my attention to Delveccio, who was gathering up the cards.

He raised his eyebrows, silently enquiring as to whether I’d managed to deliver the teddy bear.

I nodded and he winked at me.

“What’s that smell?” Katie asked.

“Pizza,” I whispered. “Aunt Marlene sent it.”

Katie clapped her delight.

“It does smell good,” the mobster agreed.

I put the two slices on two paper plates, down on the table Delveccio had just cleared.

Sinking deeper into her bed, Katie frowned. “Only two?”

“Only one for you, young lady.” I told her.

“But what about Mr. D.?” she asked. “Why didn’t you bring enough for him?”

Delveccio looked startled by the child’s generosity. He raised his hands in protest.

“That
is
his piece, silly dilly,” I lied smoothly. “I ate mine with Aunt Marlene.”

Katie brightened. “Really?”

“She didn’t want to eat alone.” I wondered if there was some special karma punishment for lying to children.

Katie picked up the plate with the larger slice and held it out to Delveccio. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.” He gave a slight bow as he accepted the food.

Katie pulled the other plate closer to her and took a bite. “Yum!”

Delveccio gave me a look that told me he knew I’d lied to the kid before he took a bite of his own. “Not bad. But it’s not from Tony’s.”

“Gran Paradiso,” I replied.

“Big dreams naming it after a mountain,” he murmured as he took another bite.

It didn’t take the two of them long to polish off their pizza. When Katie was done, it was time for me to go.

“I won’t be here for a couple of days,” I told her carefully.

Delveccio moved across the room to sit by his grandson’s bed, where he began to read him a short children’s story.

Katie pouted. “Why not?”

“I’m going to take a quick… vacation.”

“Can I go?”

“It would be a
very
boring vacation for a little girl. No rides, nothing to do except sit around.”

Raising her hands overhead, she slammed them into the mattress at her sides, letting out a sigh of exasperation. “That’s what I do here.”

“But here you get to go to PT and OT,” I reminded her since her various therapy sessions seemed to be the highlight of her day.

She wrinkled her nose. “How long will you be gone?”

“Just a couple of days,” I promised.

“Will Aunt Marlene come to visit?”

“I’m sure she will.”

“Will she bring pizza?” Katie asked hopefully before yawning.

I chuckled. “That you’ll have to ask her.”  I stood up and kissed her cheek. “You’re my favorite niece.”

“I’m your
only
niece,” she reminded me, playing along with our familiar routine.

“Even if I had a million, you’d still be my favorite.”

She yawned again. “What about a
billion
?”

“Even if there were a
trillion
,” I assured her, moving toward the door.

“Aunt Maggie?” she called out when I reached the doorway. “Would you tell Aunt Marlene that the pizza was the best thing I ever ate in my whole, entire life?”

“I’ll tell her. Sweet dreams!”

“Sweet dreams,” she murmured, yawning again.

I stepped into the hallway and met Vinnie, the bodyguard’s, distrusting gaze. “I’m in the mood for pudding.” With that I walked away toward the cafeteria, hoping to get the chance to get something since his boss had just eaten my dinner.

When I reached the cafeteria, I looked around to see if there were any familiar faces. There weren’t.

I got myself a turkey sandwich and a chocolate pudding and went and sat in the most deserted corner. I wolfed down the sandwich while I waited for Delveccio to show up. I was just about to start on the pudding when he walked in, trailed by Vinnie.

He waved a greeting and walked toward me like we were friends, or at least two people who had relatives sharing a room. After all, it wouldn’t help either of us if people found out I was working for the mob boss. The bodyguard went and stood on the food line.

“Sorry I ate your dinner,” he said, taking the seat opposite me.

I shrugged. “It was easier that way. Thanks for playing along.”

“You have any problems making that delivery?”

“None. Except for the whole decapitation thing,” I replied. “She seemed happy to get it.”

“So I heard. That why you wanted to see me here?”

I shook my head. “That other thing we talked about. It’s still available?”

“It’s a hot one,” he warned. “Lots of people watching. Lots want him gone. You might run into some competition.”

I frowned, worried it might be a Gary the Gun situation all over again.

“Not from my side,” Delveccio hurried to assure me. “I only offered it to the redhead and you, and you two are usually on the same page.” He paused as though he were trying to determine whether Patrick and I were anything else.

I kept my expression blank.

“But,” he continued, “there are a lot of people who think the world would be a better place without the guy around so, like I said, you might encounter… competition.”

I nodded my understanding.

“And you still want to?”

“I do.”

He leaned back in his seat and looked me over. “I always say you’re one ballsy chick.”

I nodded my acceptance of his compliment.

“You do that other thing?”

Having no idea what he meant, I tensed. “What other thing?”

“The poker thing.”

“Crap,” I muttered. I’d totally forgotten he’d urged me to make sure Templeton didn’t go to the poker game that night.

“Go.” He reached the table and took my pudding as I jumped to my feet and hightailed it out of there.

With all the excitement of the day, I’d neglected to do the simplest thing asked of me.

I ran toward my car, hoping my failure wouldn’t cost Templeton his life.

While I broke a half dozen traffic laws racing back to the B&B, I tried calling Loretta in the hopes she could use her feminine wiles to convince her fiancé to forgo his night with the boys, but she didn’t answer.

Desperate to stop him, I called Susan.

She answered on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” I said, taking a turn too tightly and making my tires squeal in protest.

“Are you driving, Margaret?” my aunt asked with icy disapproval.

“It’s an emergency.”

“More dangerous than driving while intoxicated,” she lectured. She promptly hung up on me.

“Crazy, controlling, uptight, know-it-all,” I screamed at the top of my lungs, my voice echoing back at me off the windshield.

When I roared into the driveway a couple of minutes later, I was sorely tempted to ram the back of her car. Instead, I slammed on the brakes, leaving skid marks behind me and centimeters between my bumper and hers.

I felt a temporary surge of relief when I spotted Loretta’s car in the driveway, but the adrenaline coursing through my body still sent me flying into the house like a madwoman.

“What on Earth?” Susan exclaimed as I barreled through the kitchen.

“Where is he?” Before she could answer, I ran up the stairs toward the bedroom. For once, I didn’t care if I caught them in flagrante delicto. I just had to make sure he stayed home.

I stumbled to a stop in front of their bedroom door and knocked on it. Loudly.

When I got no response, I yelled, “I know you’re in there!”

Still nothing.

“Margaret?” Aunt Susan’s voice trembled.

I turned to find her standing at the top of the steps, staring at me with wide eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for Templeton, which you’d know if you hadn’t hung up on me!”

“I’m sorry.” She blinked worriedly.

“I
told
you it was an emergency.”

“What’s the emergency, dear?” she asked in a tone that was supposed to be soothing, but just sounded condescending.

“I need to talk to Templeton.”

“He’s downstairs in the dining room.”

I rushed toward her, almost knocking her over in my haste to get down the stairs. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“Because you ran out before I could,” she called, hurrying after me.

Bursting into the dining room, I spotted Templeton sitting beside Aunt Loretta. Relieved to see him, I leaned weakly against the wall.

“What’s wrong?” Aunt Loretta asked.

Templeton jumped to his feet and rushed to my side as though he was going to catch me if I suddenly collapsed.

Aunt Susan rushed in behind me.

I grabbed Templeton’s forearm, stared into his eyes and begged, “Stay home tonight.”

He looked from where I gripped him to my face. “Why?”

I froze. I couldn’t tell him that a mobster had said it would be safer for him than going to his illegal poker game.

Susan patted my shoulder. “It’s alright, dear.”

I shook her off without letting go of Templeton. “It’s not alright.”

“I know you’ve had a tough day,” Susan soothed.

“Is that why you hung up on me?” I snapped.

Hurt flickered in Susan’s eyes, but she remained calm. “I knew you were distraught and I didn’t want you to be distracted. I know what happened when you visited your mother.” She looked at Loretta. “The floor nurse called. Mary attacked her.”

Loretta batted her fake eyelashes. “Oh my!”

Templeton patted my hand, which still had a death grip on his arm.

“I know how upsetting that is,” Susan continued, keeping her voice even. She raised her hand to touch me again and then, thinking better of it, she dropped her arm back to her side. “Do you want to talk about it?”

A surge of guilt hit me square in the chest as I realized how nasty I’d been with her when she’d just been worried about me. I released Templeton’s arm, pivoted, and hugged Susan tightly.

She squeezed back.

“I’m sorry,” I half-sobbed, feeling like the worst niece the world had ever known.

“Shhh. I understand. We all understand,” Susan soothed, rubbing my back in  a circular pattern, just like she had when I was a child.

“Understand what?” Aunt Leslie asked walking in late to the discussion. “What did you do to upset the girl?”

“Nothing,” I sniffled. “It was all my fault.”

“Mary attacked her,” Loretta explained in a muffled tone.

I glanced over and realized she’d crossed her arms on the table in front of her and had rested her forehead on them so she was staring at the ground.

Still holding my arms, Susan stepped back a step so she could look me over from head to toe. “You weren’t hurt, were you?”

I shook my head.

“Of course she was hurt,” Leslie interjected. “Her own mother attacked her. There may be no visible injuries, but there are psychic wounds.”

Susan closed her eyes as if Leslie’s observation hurt her.

“Actually, I believe her cheek is bruised,” Templeton murmured.

I swung my gaze back to him and saw genuine concern in his eyes. He cared about me.

“Please stay home,” I cajoled.

“I have plans,” he said gently.

“But I have a really bad feeling about you going out tonight.”

Loretta gasped. “Maybe Armani’s gift is rubbing off on her.”

“Maybe it’s her intuition,” Leslie added. “Gut instinct is a powerful tool.”

I looked to Susan, sensing that if she agreed with her sisters, Templeton would fall in line.

Susan looked from me, to each of her sisters, and finally at Templeton. “If it would bring her peace of mind…”

I swung my gaze to Templeton and saw his indecision. “Just this once?’

He nodded his agreement.

Without thinking, I threw myself at him, giving him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. “Thank you.”

He chuckled. “Well if I knew that was all it would take to get a beautiful woman to throw herself at me, I would have agreed earlier.”

His joke eased the tension in the room and everyone laughed. He reclaimed his seat beside his beloved.