PENITENCE: An Andi Comstock Supernatural Mystery, Book 2 (95,893 words) (5 page)

Everything looked idyllic from the outside, but inside would be a different matter. Denise would be grieving for a husband she loved, lost too soon, who would never see his children reach adulthood. None of them would suspect that their world would soon be shattered again if Andi couldn’t do something to stop whoever Clem had hired to kill his wife.

Torn with both anger and frustration, she was tempted to park her car and march right up to the front door. Denise had a right to know she was a target. She had a right to defend herself. She had a right to hire protection for herself
and
the kids, because they might very well be in the way when the contract killer came calling.

Instead of caving into a desire that would be futile at this point, Andi drove on past and headed for the Hemmers. She half-expected to find the oldest twins, Ashley and Etta, sledding on the gently sloped front yard with the younger twins, Micah and Trevor, under the supervision of Dotty Tobias, who lived in as a housekeeper–nanny for Vaughn. They weren’t.

Andi rang the doorbell and could hear what sounded like a stampede of tiny feet, but which, in reality, was two three-year-old boys hoping to beat Dotty or Vaughn to the front door. It turned out to be Vaughn.

“Andi! Come in!” He leaned down and gave her a hug.

“Me, too,” the boys said, tugging on her coat.

She squatted to give them each a hug. “I think you grew two inches since I saw you at Christmas.”

That puffed them up and they started to jabber about not only their height, but the toys they’d received from Santa.

“We’re just about to have hot dogs,” Vaughn said. “Care to join us?”

“Love to. Thanks.”

“Go wash your hands,” he said to the boys, who scurried off to the downstairs half-bath.

She looked around. “Where are the girls?”

“At school, why?”

“Oh, I saw some kids playing in the snow and thought maybe the schools called a snow day.”

“I heard on the radio this morning that one of the charter schools did close, but the public schools are open.”

That might explain the children in the Naylor’s front yard. Either that, or their mom hadn’t sent them back to school yet, following their father’s unexpected death. “Where’s Dotty?” Andi asked, following Vaughn to the kitchen.

“She’s been having problems with her knees. I finally had to tell her, if she didn’t get them checked out, she had to quit working for me.”

“Ouch, you’re a hard taskmaster.”

“Gotta be, otherwise she’d go twenty hours a day.”

Andi knew that to be a truism. Dotty had raised a set of twins of her own who were just a couple of years younger than Andi. Both of them lived out-of-state now, so she’d taken on the job with Vaughn, more to keep herself active and sane than because she needed the money. The fact that she knew something about twins came in especially useful with the two sets of Hemmer twins. “I’ve read that a lot of knee-replacement surgeries are being done these days.”

Vaughn pulled four plates from the cupboard and handed them to Andi, who set them out at the table. “If the doc says she needs surgery, Eddie and Sally said they’ll move in for a while and help out. We’ll have to convert the office to a bedroom for Dotty, because she won’t be able to climb the stairs.”

Andi pulled napkins from a basket on the counter. Sherry’s parents weren’t exactly spring chickens themselves. “I’ll be glad to help out any way I can, too.”

“Thanks.” He paused for a moment over the hot dogs and buns he was assembling and looked at her. “You’ve done so much for my family already.” He put up his hand when she opened her mouth to respond. “I know you’re uncomfortable with praise of any kind, Andi, so just accept that I will forever be in your debt, okay?”

Andi’s face grew warm and a proper reply escaped her.

The boys came racing into the room. “Mustard on mine!” Trevor yelled.

“Ketchup on mine!” Micah shouted.

“Sit,” their father instructed them. “Andi doesn’t want to hear a lot of yelling and screaming and neither do I.”

Both boys climbed up onto their chairs, kneeling to reach their plates.

“No more booster seats?” Andi asked.

“We too big,” Trev informed her.

“Yeah, too big,” Micah echoed.

“Some battles are better left unfought,” Vaughn added.

As soon as the boys wolfed down their hot dogs, Vaughn cleaned them up and hustled them upstairs to their room for an afternoon nap. They must have been going at full speed all morning, because they didn’t argue. “They closed their eyes and went to sleep immediately,” Vaughn said when he came back down. “Thank God.”

Andi, who had cleaned up the lunch dishes and wiped the table, grinned at him.

“Want a coffee?” Vaughn asked.

“Sure.”

He poured her a cup and set a sugar bowl and creamer in front of her. She added both to her cup.

“So, what have you been up to?”

“Working like crazy on the Wild Hare game. I’ve got ten chapters finished as of this week and started on a new one yesterday.”

“I wonder if Orion’s Belt needs any capital. I’m looking for a good, solid company to invest in.”

“I have no idea. I never hear any conversations about finances, thank goodness. I’m happiest just writing code.” She blew on her coffee and took a sip. “Orion is a nice man, though. I’m sure he wouldn’t be offended if you made an overture.”

“I think I will.” He took a drink from his own cup. “Still talking to the dead?”

“Yes, and I don’t see any end in sight unless I quit my job and never go back on that block again.”

“Any more…like Sherry?”

“Not exactly.” She decided not to mention the Naylors by name.

“I just wondered because I went to a funeral for a guy I know this week—Clem Naylor? He was cremated and I thought maybe he stopped by to chat.”

So much for not naming anyone. “He did speak to me in passing.”

Vaughn tilted his head at her. “I hear a hesitation in there.”

Andi bit her lower lip in indecision. She trusted Vaughn, but criminy, she still wasn’t privy to all the facts. “I can’t talk about it yet.”

“I guess that means it’s ongoing, then.” He narrowed his eyes on her. “Like Sherry, but not.”

“That pretty much describes it.”

He drummed his fingers on the table top. “He and I were running buddies. We met in the neighborhood on the running paths right after we moved in here. Admittedly, we weren’t BFFs, but I knew him well enough to notice a drastic change in him over the last couple of months.”

“Umm.”

He grunted. “That’s pretty noncommittal.”

Andi fidgeted with the handle of her mug. “I really can’t say more, Vaughn. I barely had a chance to discuss it with Jack, because he’s off in Iowa on an extradition.”

His head jerked in a quick nod. “You answered my question, anyway.”

Andi stared at him with owl eyes. What had she said that gave away anything?

“Don’t worry. I won’t bug you about it, but if you want any insight into Clem, come see me. I may have something stuck away in my brain that you need to know.”

She blinked at him.

He winked back at her.

Andi almost fell afoul of her common sense to ask,
Did he ever talk to you about hiring someone to kill his wife?

Andi spent th
e
afternoon working on Bunnicula. Clem Naylor, for whatever reason, stayed away.

She kept at her coding until just past six, when her phone belted out the
Cops
theme. She considered not answering it, but why deprive herself of a conversation with Jack just because she was on pins and needles waiting for Clem to get into her head again? “Hi.”

“Hi, back. Are you at home?”

“No, still at my desk.”

“Darn! I was thinking we could have some phone sex.”

“Jack!”

He laughed.

Andi felt a shiver of excitement course through her at the possibilities, but quickly shook it off. “Did you make it over to Field of Dreams?”

“Yeah, I did. It was more interesting than I thought it would be. I’d like to come back sometime in the summer, on a Sunday. The ghosts show up and play ball.”

“Cool. That sounds like fun. We should do it.” She hesitated. “That is, if you want me along.”

“Can’t think of anyone I’d rather be with.”

Warm tinglies surged through her. “Was it an all-day trip?”

“Nah, I spent the afternoon tagging along on a murder investigation.”

“You can take the boy out of the EPD, but you can’t take the EPD out of the boy.”

He laughed again. “How was your afternoon?”

“Okay. I took a long lunch and drove by the Naylor house and before you start yelling at me, all I did was look. I didn’t go up to the door and knock.”

His silence told her he was debating which response would be the right one to dole out to her.

She continued before he could decide. “Afterward, I stopped by Vaughn’s. He was home babysitting because Dotty had to see a doctor about her knees. She may have to have surgery.”

“I hope not, but if she does, at least these days, the recovery time is shorter. How’s Vaughn doing? We haven’t seen him since Christmas.”

“He’s doing well. He seems to be a lot more organized and in control now. He’s always going to miss Sherry, but he’s learning how to live without her.”

“That’s good.”

“My brother invited him for the Super Bowl party, so you can catch up with him then.”

“I thought they only met once, at the Christmas party.”

“I guess they got to talking about remodeling. You know those firefighters. Whenever they’re off duty, they’re doing some kind of carpentry or other. Dell discovered that Vaughn wants to add an outbuilding on his property for a home office, so he can work away from the kids, but still be close to home.” She added a little facetiously, “My brother is now an expert on home construction, you know, since he built his house.”

Jack chuckled. “I do know that. He’s been trying to talk me into building one so he can come help with it.”

“He needs to find a wife so he doesn’t have so much free time,” Andi said.

“You don’t have to have a wife to occupy your spare time,” Jack responded. “A girlfriend will do just as well.”

“You should know.” Andi had a different opinion on the subject, but she kept it to herself. Yeah, she’d thought about a long-term relationship with Jack, as in
married
to Jack, but he’d never given any indication that it was on his bucket list, so she sure as heck wasn’t going to bring it up. Besides, things were going well between them. Why rock the boat?

“Did you hear from your Smokie today?”

“Nope. No Clem, no Smokie whatsoever.” Should she tell him what Vaughn had to say about Clem, or save it until he returned?

“I gave the LT a heads-up that you might be contacting her on a possible case.”

“Good to know. I’m hoping Clem talks to me again tomorrow. I have this horrible feeling that time is running out for Denise.”

“Don’t go getting yourself all riled up about it. Until you know all the facts, you can’t do anything about it, nor should you.”

“Yeah, but if I knew—”

“Andi, stop! You don’t even know how far along in the process he was.”

“His exact words were, ‘I hired someone to kill her.’ I’d say that pretty much tells me
exactly
where he was in the process.”

Jack’s huge sigh of either impatience or capitulation traveled over the line and left her wondering what would come out of his mouth next.

She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

“That’s one of the things I love most about you, Andi. You have a fine brain and you know how to use it.” He paused a moment, then continued. “You also have common sense and I hope to hell you’ll remember to utilize it when Clem speaks to you again.”

Stuck on Jack using the word
love
in a sentence that pertained to her, she almost missed the lecture he’d imparted in the next breath. “I’m not twelve, Jack. You don’t have to scold me about using my common sense.”

“I know that, babe, but sometimes I just think you forget you
have
common sense. You get caught up in the moment or something and it goes out the window.”

“You should have stopped while you were ahead, Jack. I need to go.”

“Andi, wait—”

“I can’t. Someone’s here and it’s not someone who’s living.”

. . .

I did something bad, Andi, and I don’t know how to fix it.

“I can help you, Clem, if you’ll let me.”

How? I don’t even know the name of the person I hired.

Andi felt like screaming. How could he
not
know who he hired? “Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Once you decided to hire a hit man to kill your wife, how did you find someone to do it?”

It’s so damned simple. You go on the Internet to a hitman site.
He listed the URL and the steps he followed with rapid-fire delivery.
You email them your details. In return, you get instructions on how to access their secure online forms. They find you a killer, based on your needs. You agree to the amount they charge, which includes expenses. You give them a down payment. You agree to make the final payment within seventy-two hours of the hit. You choose how you want it done, and when. Or you can be surprised.

Andi almost fell out of her chair. She’d spent hours looking up contract killers and never found the website he was talking about. “How did you even locate such a web page?” Had someone told him about it? Someone who’d used it?

I read about it on the FBI website.

“What?”

Well, not this exact website. That was HitmanForHire.net and it’s no longer up on the ’net, but it gave me the idea to plug in different, similar URLs and I found it that way.

“You’re kidding!”

I wish I was. I wish all of this was one big joke or a really bad dream, but it’s not. I paid someone I’ve never met a ten-thousand-dollar retainer, with a promise to pay another forty-K when the job was done. All I know from there is that he—or she—intends to kill Denise, but I don’t know exactly when.

Goosebumps skittered up Andi’s arms. “How long since you made these arrangements?”

A few weeks ago. Denise was MIA one time too many and I was sick of it.
His voice broke.
Why didn’t I just ask her where she was going, and what she was doing?

Hindsight was a heckuva of a teacher. Andi planned to remember this lesson in communication, vicariously, forever. “Whoever you hired never gave you a name?”

He—I’ll stick to the masculine pronoun, okay?—calls himself The Liquidator. Apropos, don’t you think?

“In a sick sort of way. Did he give you any indication of where he might be from, or where he lives?”

No, he told me he had several other jobs to take care of before he could do mine. One I gathered must be in Florida, because he mentioned that he’d be ‘catching some rays in the Sunshine state.’ One or more of the others must be out-of-country, since he also mentioned that he was anxious to get away from all the political bullshit for a while. He didn’t give any more details than that.

“Do you know which order his trips were in?”

No, but I got the impression Florida was first.

“He may not be going further than the Caribbean or Cuba, or even Mexico or Venezuela for the others.”

You may be on to something. He said
hasta la vista
in his last communiqué to me. Doesn’t that mean ‘see you’ or ‘so long’ or something like that?

Andi hadn’t taken Spanish in school, but she did know a few words. “Yeah, but that could even mean he was going to Spain.” She looked down at her notes. “He didn’t give you any indication at all about his timing?”

None.

“Tell me about the website. How’s it organized?”

I’ve never been on a dating site, but I imagine the hit-man site is set up like that, only without pictures. There’s a little bio that tells how many kills each hitman has. It says who they will and won’t kill and a range of how much they charge for what.

“So, some of them are amenable to killing women and children?”

If silence could have a startled pause, his did.
Why are you asking about children?

“If you hired someone to kill Denise, and she’s the primary caregiver for your two kids, especially now that you’re gone, when is she without them? Only during school hours, right? What if he tries to hit her on the weekend, or in the evening? What if they’re at home to witness the killing?”

I don’t understand! Why are you bringing the kids into this? I didn’t hire him to kill my children.

Andi knew her words were harsh. She knew he felt remorse for his actions. But so what? He had put not only his wife, but his children in danger from a psychopath who killed for money. “If your kids get in the way, or if he thinks they can identify him, do you honestly think he’ll let them live?”

But I never gave him permission to kill Aria and Christian!

“If you didn’t discuss when he’s going to make the hit, it’ll be a crapshoot, won’t it? Where were you going to be when it all goes down?”

I gave him some times when I’d be otherwise engaged.

Andi threw up her hands in disgust. “Oh, for God’s sake, why didn’t you say so? Give me the dates and times you stipulated.” She wrote as fast as he talked. The list began with a date the following week and went into February. It included lunch meetings and several weekend events, along with four evening engagements. “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. The hit will occur sometime between next Wednesday and the eighth of February.”

That’s right and if he doesn’t complete the job as promised, through no fault of his own, the contract is automatically cancelled on February ninth and I don’t have to pay the balance owing.

That condition took Andi aback. She made a note to ask him about it later. “More than half the times you stipulated, your wife will be home with the children.”

You’re right! Oh, dear God, what have I done?

He said nothing more for an ominous few seconds, then,
It’s a ten-day window, so we still have time. Andi, you need to warn Denise. She needs to know.

“Don’t worry. Denise is going to be safe, and so will your children.”

How can you make promises like that?

“Trust me, I can, and I have a small of army of people
I
trust who will help me make sure.” She tapped her pen against the journal page. “I’d like to take a look at the website. Will you give me your password?”

He rattled it off, though he sounded distracted doing it. She repeated it back to him and asked, “Is that correct?”

Yes.

Andi had more questions swirling around in her brain, but before she could ask them, the scent of smoke evaporated.

Clem Naylor had gone.

She would have liked nothing more than to follow him to wherever he vanished to and smack the crap out of him for being so damned stupid.