The Housewife Assassin's Garden of Deadly Delights (28 page)

“Thank goodness.” She truly seems relieved.

“Wait…you mean, you didn’t want the seeds to get out there? But we thought it was an act of bioterrorism by your government!”
 

“You must have played hooky during Geography class,
sha bi
,” she mutters.
 

Translation: stupid cunt.

I sigh. “Your taunt rolls off me, like water off a duck’s back. Speaking of water—”

Once again, I plunge her face into the toilet. Here’s hoping this baptism loosens her tongue.
 

When I pull her up, she’s gagging.
 

“Do you want to try again to explain why I should believe your claim that the Chinese aren’t involved?” I ask.

“Because, my dear Mrs. Stone, it doesn’t make sense! Considering that your country is practically China’s supermarket, why the hell would we do such a thing? My country imports close to a million and a half metric tons of corn from the United States, not to mention tons of specialty items and novelty foods containing corn”—Xia glances down at my backside—“which is why we’re getting as fat as you Americans. And besides, my family—my parents, my children—live in China! The last thing I’d want is for them to die.”

“If this act of bioterrorism wasn’t initiated by the Chinese, who created and distributed the killer seeds?”

“You are such a fool.” She taunts by clicking her tongue at me. “It was the Quorum.”

“How do you know this?”
 

“I guess you never got the memo. I’ve been freelance for at least two years now. The Quorum is my biggest client. Your dearly departed ex, Carl, certainly knew how to make it worth my while.” She smiles knowingly. “Fringe benefits. Got to love them.”

Interesting.
Still, if she knew Carl like I knew Carl…Oh…Oh…Oh, what a jerk. “
And you tried to double-cross the Quorum by leaking their plan to the Chinese?”

“I had nowhere else to go! Maybe Putin, eh? You and I both know that Russia would have loved watching its two largest enemies face off over some misinformation. Little does it know that the Quorum is also working on a fatal microbe that thrives in caviar—but I digress.” She rolls her eyes.
 

To get her on track, I ask, “Why did you kill Dr. Wellborne’s file clerk, Jilly McIntosh?”

“I didn’t, you idiot!
He
did. Jilly confronted that odious man. She told him she was turning him into Homeland Security, for treason. He killed her in the file room.” Xia smiles. “Little did he know she’d planted a webcam on a shelf. It caught him in the act, then he buried her body who knows where.”

Sadly, I know.

“He didn’t know if he covered his tracks well enough, and was panicking. The Quorum sent me into SeedPlenish undercover, to find out why Wellborne was late with the second shipment of Exodus seeds. When I found out exactly what the seeds were meant to do, I had to stop it.”

“To tell you the truth, Xia, it’s still a toss-up as to whether I believe you. Where is the proof—the webcam video?”

She smirks. “A link to it is on one of the cards I handed off to Yang Cheng. Ha! I guess your ComInt people are too stupid to break the cipher.” She shrugs.
 

It must be contained in the last postcard still to be decoded.
 
Well, breaking three out of four ciphers in less than seventy-two hours wasn’t too bad.

“It’s also uploaded in a secure cloud,” Xia adds. “When you work for the Quorum, it’s always nice to have these little insurance policies.”

I wonder how many juicy little tidbits Carl had on his Quorum associates. I guess now we’ll never find out.

“I presume the Quorum has no idea that you leaked their plan,” I say.

Xia’s eyes narrow in anger. “It doesn’t. And it won’t, if I can help it.” She attempts a smirk. “By the way, Mrs. Stone, you have no reason to be so smug about your own country’s reaction to this scheme. As it turns out, the Quorum approached the United States’ Secretary of Agriculture. Even after witnessing a demonstration, Howard Harkness practically laughed in the Quorum envoys’ faces. He claimed that the Quorum’s threats were hollow.”
 

“And I presume the Quorum felt that a pandemic would convince him otherwise, which is why the seeds were released in the first place,” I reason.

“Correct. And in anticipation of the panic that would ensue, the Quorum has been buying up the corn commodities market in other countries, through Chinese brokers. That way, the Chinese take the fall for an act of terrorism on U.S. soil, giving your politicians the perfect opportunity to ramp up the arms race.” She shrugs. “It would have been a big fat payday for everyone: your political hacks and their cozy bedfellows, and of course, the defense contractors. As for the Quorum, it would have made two killings: in international corn futures, and in munitions sales. To cover his ass, Secretary Harkness’ plan was to disavow any previous knowledge of the plan. As for your president, had you not stopped the distribution of the Exodus strain, he would lie to the public, expressing full confidence in the ability to recall the Exodus seeds and food. And if the Administration failed to do so, it would downplay the extent of any subsequent pandemic.”

I’d be willing to bet that Secretary Harkness never told Lee about his meeting with the Quorum. “If President Chiffray had known—”

A smirk curls on Xia’s lips. “What makes you think he didn’t?”

“I don’t believe you!”

She laughs. “I couldn’t care less.”

I’d love to wipe that smile off her face, and the toilet bowl is certainly hard enough to break her teeth. But if she can’t talk, she can’t give us the answers we need.

Like the one foremost on my mind: “Xia, why did you kill Catherine?”

“You’re not going to like what I have to say,” she warns me.

“I’m disgusted by everything you’ve told me. At this point, you have nothing to lose.”

“I was sent by Lee Chiffray, okay?” Noting the disappointed look on my face, she shrugs. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but in all honesty, you shouldn’t be crushing on such a powerful man, darling. He’s got too many others to choose from.” She winks knowingly.

“For your information, Xia, I’m a one-man woman. And, let’s be honest. If you were actually getting a little POTUS action—or any action at all—there wouldn’t be so many price tags on your play toys.” I hold up the gear-shaped cock ring as proof. “By the way, you do know you can buy all this stuff cheaper in China, right?” I clench my fist just enough for her to feel the lasso tighten again. “If what you say is true, why would Lee sic you on Catherine?”

“Are you jealous that he didn’t send you instead?” She smiles. “How could he? I mean, despite being his loyal little lap dog, you have a propensity toward nobility. No matter how much you hated Catherine personally, he couldn’t very well ask you to murder Evan’s mother. Still, your visit gave me the perfect opportunity, so thanks for obliging.” She winks at me. “Admit it—you’re glad she’s gone.”

Catherine ruined my reputation in high school by starting a rumor that I’d lost my virginity with her boyfriend: Robert. She stole precious moments I could have had with my dying mother. Hell, she even stole my mother’s apple pie recipe.
 

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger—and allows us to take vengeance on behalf of the innocent.

Would I have killed Catherine, even if the extermination had been government-sanctioned?
 

Yes, but only if she were threatening my family.
 

Instead, she gave me the greatest gift of all: her son, Evan.
 

I guess this is what Xia calls noble. But I’ll be damned if I take Xia’s word about Lee’s opinion of me.
 

I’ll give her the ultimate test, even if it is a lie. “You’re right. My allegiance is to Lee, above anything else. That being said, I’ll release you when you’re in his custody, along with the evidence that you killed Catherine.” I hold up the syringe.

Her eyes widen.

“And, by the way, I also have the intel that Catherine intended for me—so yes, you failed in your mission.”

“You silly fool! If you think your president—”
 

Suddenly, we hit an air pocket deep enough that the plane drops a good ten feet. It’s enough to shut anyone up, even a panicking hitwoman with nothing to lose.
 

Damn it, somewhere midair, I lose my grip on Xia. Maybe it’s a good thing, because instinct tells me to put my hands up over my head to protect it.

However, Xia’s instinct is to jerk the lasso off her neck with one hand while she shields her head from the ceiling with the other.

We both hit the floor on our knees, smacking it hard.
 

Before I can scramble onto my feet, she rolls far from my grasp and leaps up. In two seconds, she’s by the bathroom vanity, where she grabs her toiletry bag—

Where she’d hidden a gun.

The next thing I know, she’s got a Ruger SR22 pressed against my temple.
 

“Don’t be stupid,” I warn her. “If you shoot a gun in here, we’ll lose cabin pressure, and we’ll all die.”
 

“My death sentence is assured either way. I don’t mind taking you with me.” She taps my temple with it. “Besides, at this close range, I won’t miss.”

“Neither will I.” Jack is standing in the doorway. He has his Sig aimed at Xia.

“Ooooh, the boy toy plays rough,” she coos. With her free hand, she jerks me closer so that I’m her human shield. “Go ahead, take your shot.”

Don’t mind if I do.

Ego is your enemy. Case in point: Xia’s propensity to flirt, even when the object of her affection has a gun pointed in her direction, has given me the precious few seconds I need in order to flick off the needle cap on the syringe I hold in my pocket.

When I stab her hard in the jugular, she’s still smiling at Jack through pursed lips.

But her simper is replaced by gasps as the Digitalis races through her. Still, she has enough energy to pull the trigger—

I hit her with an elbow to the gut before ducking out of the line of fire.

Jack is not so lucky.

The bullet pierces him in the head. Stunned, his hand goes to the wound: the right side of his head, just over his ear.
 

He reels backward into the galley as Xia hits the floor face down.

As I run to him, my scream fills the cabin.
 

I cradle his head in my lap and press my hand over the wound, ignoring the blood seeping through my fingers. Jack’s eyes are fluttering and he’s trying to speak, but no words come out. Still, his lips form the words
I love you
and
I’m sorry
.
 

Even if he could say them, I wouldn’t be able to hear him, and not just because George is shouting over the intercom, “May Day! May Day! Request immediate emergency landing and an ambulance—” but because I am wailing so loudly and I can’t hear anything over the beating of my heart.

Chapter 17

Frost

The condensation and freezing of moisture in the air is known as frost. Tender plants will suffer extensive damage or die when exposed to it.
 

The same can happen to a relationship, seasoned or tender, if one of the partners can’t forgive the other for an indiscretion.

Ask yourself: if he comes clean, can you forgive, let alone forget?

If not, put up a good front—at least until the frost has thawed.
 

(No, silly—not the one in your marriage! The one outside your window. When it does, it’ll be easier to bury his body.)

Jack is unconscious, but the fact that he is still bleeding is a good thing. At least that is what I tell myself, especially when I consider the alternative.

All of this blood flowing out of him means his heart hasn’t stopped. But when you hold the life of a loved one in your hands, seconds seem like hours, and minutes seem like days. Will we get him to the hospital in time?

The massive storm moving over the Midwest detoured our plane’s flight path to the north and east. Apparently, God did us a favor, because at the moment the bullet entered Jack, we were only eight minutes away from Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
 

When we land, several cop cars and a fire truck are there to meet us, as is the ambulance that will whisk us the eleven miles to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where Ryan has arranged for Jack’s emergency surgery to take place. The fireman and EMTs are real, but the cops are Acme cleaners--that is to say operatives adept at making ugly little problems like dead bodies and crime scenes go away without a trace.

In other words, no one will ever know what really happened to Xia.

The lifesaving ballet of the three emergency med techs fills me with awe. Noting that Jack is unconscious, one of the EMTs—his name tag says Jared— assesses the head wound: “Small entry wound above his right ear. No gray matter visible.” He then applies the necessary pressure to staunch Jack’s bleeding, while another medic—Jason—strips Jack of his clothes with trauma shears. The third medic, Kendra, assesses his head and body for other injuries, then makes sure nothing obstructs his airway. before Jason and Jared lay him on a backboard and strap him down.