The Housewife Assassin's Hostage Hosting Tips (Housewife Assassin Series Book 9) (9 page)

In other words, she’s primed for some office gossip.

I know this, because I’ve been retired just over four days (two hours and sixteen minutes) and I’m climbing the walls.

Sadly, with Jack and me in Cold War mode, all I have to offer her is my gourmet cooking. Seeing her reaction (not to mention the boxes of cereal lining her cabinets, as Emma isn’t much of a cook), I’m hopeful that it’s enough of a trade-off.

The way in which she gulps down her sandwich makes me laugh. “Considering you’ve just had a baby, you’re looking pretty svelte–at least, in all the right places.”
 

They say that pregnant women have a certain glow. Frankly, I think the light in a new mother’s eyes is even more spectacular. There is no smile wider than that of a woman who has witnessed one of her child’s many firsts–be it an adoring smile, a tenuous step, or an unintelligible word.
 

There is no sigh as content as that of a mom who holds her sleeping baby in her arms.
 

And for that matter, nothing swells your heart quicker with love than when your newborn infant wraps his tiny hand around your pinky finger, the way Nicky’s does now, around mine.

In fact, Emma looks happier than I’ve ever seen her. As I stare down into Nicky’s eyes, I say a prayer of thanks that Nicky is now a part of her life.

Pre-Mama Emma had been wary of love. She approached the acceptance, respect, and adoration of others as if they were landmines that could blast through the steely armor of her disaffection that, for some unknown reason, encased her heart. The Emma who now sits in front of me is beaming with the kind of joy found in women whose hearts are open to unconditional love.

My joke about Emma’s figure has her instinctively turning toward the mirror over the foyer table. A half-turn sideways allows her to scrutinize her postpartum chest. Shrugging, she mutters, “Yeah, well, I guess there’s one advantage to breastfeeding. At least, Arnie thinks so. Frankly, I hate the fact that I’m stretching out my T-shirts.”

“Speaking of Arnie, I guess he’s excited about this latest mission, right?”

“That’s putting it mildly! But he was sweating bullets while they waited for Tatyana’s GPS feed to go live.”

“Jack felt the same.” Even as I rock back and forth on my heels with her cooing son, I widen my eyes as if I know what the hell I’m talking about.

“I’d hate to think how Ryan would have reacted if Jack’s plan hadn’t worked. I mean, Tatyana, of all people!”
 

I nod, but keep my head down as I shift Nicky into one arm so that I can cut her a nice healthy slice of the apricot brandy cake. Sliding the plate in front of her, I murmur, “Yes, of course! Then again, you know Jack’s feelings about her in general.”

“Tell me about it!” she exclaims through a mouthful of cake. “The history they share is something else! And to think, if Jack hadn’t gone to that party with her, how much longer would it have taken us to learn about the Quorum?”
 

Jack was partying–with Tatyana?
 

Emma reaches into the fridge for a carton of milk and pours it into two short glasses. Handing one to me, she tips hers toward it so that we can toast our reunion. I’m in the middle of my sip when she adds, “So, tell me the truth–does it change how you feel about…you know…”

I can’t let her in on the little secret that I don’t know what the heck she’s implying, so I simply shrug. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I guess if I were you, I’d feel…betrayed.” She looks closely at me.
 

Oh, I get it now.

I wish I’d killed Tatyana when I had the chance.

“Of course I feel betrayed,” I say angrily. “I also feel...” I’m hoping my pause gives her the impression that I’m at a loss for words, so that she’ll keep talking and shed some light on what the hell she means.

“Pissed.
I know
.” She pats my arm. “Heck, who wouldn’t be?”

I don’t think I’m too successful keeping the bitterness out of my voice as I say, “Sometimes our business makes for strange bedfellows, doesn’t it?”

“You mean, he confessed about sleeping with her?” Emma’s eyes open wide. “Well, look at it this way. If it hadn’t been for her going after Carl, we might never have known about his role in the Quorum–”

Wait…

She went after Carl? How? When? Why?

To cover up the fact that I don’t know where the hell Emma is going with this, I nod slowly.

“–not to mention what she did to Jack.” Emma nods knowingly.

I want to scream,
Tell me, damn it! Just tell me…

Instead, I take another gulp of my milk.
 

Emma stares at me, waiting for me to say something, so I mutter, “Well, if she leads us to her clients, we’ll have our payback.”

Emma frowns. “But she did, yesterday in fact. That’s the beauty part.”

“Oh!” My exclamation elicits a funny look from her. To cover my tracks, I add weakly, “I guess I missed that memo.”

“Are you sure? I wrote it up myself. And I know Ryan had it distributed the moment the DOD confirmed it.” She heads to her computer.
 

“
You
wrote it up? But…you’re on maternity leave!”

“I’ve been working from home for the past two weeks now. But, of course you knew that…right?” She’s clicking through emails on her computer. I watch as she halts to scan one. “Wait…Donna, you’re not copied on any of these!” She stares up at me.

Busted.

I shrug. “I thought Arnie would have mentioned that I turned in my notice–on the day Tatyana pulled her disappearing act, in fact.”

She nods slowly as she takes this in.
 

She knows I’ve played her.

“I’m still on payroll,” I insist. “In fact, I’m now assigned to vetting the candidates for my replacement.”

“But you don’t have clearance on this mission.” She’s not accusing me, she’s just stating a fact.

“Well, to be honest…no.” I take a step closer. “You said it yourself, Emma. Tatyana is the key to everything that happened in my life since Carl walked out on me. And yet, Jack won’t clue me in!”

“Had you not retired, you would have been part of the mission,” she points out.

“Look, I didn’t even know about this Russian hussy until she waltzed in as Hardy Higginbotham’s widow–and put a bullet in me!” Emma winces at the anxiety in my voice.

That only makes me all the more desperate as I add, “And now you tell me that she’s the key to everything that changed my life–that she has some hold over Jack–”

“What I meant was…” She shakes her head sadly. “Look, Donna, it’s not my place to tell you. I could get fired! In fact, I’ve said too much already.”

She’s right. We both know it.

“I’m sorry I misled you, Emma. It’s just that Jack refuses to discuss her.” I wipe away a tear. “To be honest, even if I hadn’t turned in my notice, I don’t know if he’d have told me how she fits into the big picture.”

She nods sympathetically. “I wish I could help you, Donna. Really, I do. But the rules–”

In unison, we sniff the air. Something smells rotten. This is no figure of speech.

In my arms, Nicky stretches, then cries.

Emma rises to take the culprit from me. “Sorry about that! My guess is that he’s hungry, too.” She heads down the hall. “I’ll be gone for a good twenty minutes. Of course, I don’t need my computer in the nursery with me.” She turns around to give me a wink.

Thank you
, I mouth to her.

I wait until she closes the door before I open the only file on the computer’s screen.

The dossier for Tatyana Zakharov is one of the documents within it.

With one click, I’ll discover how this woman changed my destiny.

The dossier is fairly slim. In fact, Acme only has a few pictures of Tatyana, and the two reports are just a few pages long at best.

In the first photo, she is several years younger. In it, she’s a redhead, and she’s wearing a turquoise sundress and a matching wide, floppy hat. It looks as if she’s stepping out of a sleek motorboat onto a dock alongside a Venetian canal.

Jack is on the motorboat too. At least he’s not the man helping her off the boat while giving her the once-over. And, to his favor, he’s also not one of the many men giving her admiring glances.

As I read the report attached to the photo, I understand why. Later that night, Jack was found along the canal with a bullet in his shoulder. He lost a lot of blood before a couple of good Samaritans took him to a nearby hospital. He was sent to retrieve intel at some private party.

Apparently, she was too.

The accompanying report puts it this way:

The photos enclosed herewith, obtained via public security cameras, provide formal verification to Acme Agent J. Craig’s eye-witness report that Russia FSB agent Tatyana Zakharov was onsite and carried out the extermination of Irina Romanov. – A. Locklear

Jack succeeded in obtaining what he came for, but the price was precious: an innocent bystander’s life. Thank goodness it wasn’t his.

In the third picture of Tatyana, it’s obvious that she’s in Paris because she’s descending in one of Charles de Gaulle Airport’s famous escalator tubes. She’s so gorgeous that she draws the attention of many eyes–those of strangers from some of the other tubes. Jack owns a pair of them. I spot him in a tube that seems to be ascending to the gate she must have just left.

They seem to have spotted each other. Whereas he glares at her, she smiles supremely back at him.

The last photo of Tatyana must have been taken a few moments before the last one, at a departure gate. The sign over it indicates the plane is headed to Los Angeles.

The security camera only caught her from behind. She’s kissing someone, but her head is tilted so that you can’t make out his face.

I don’t need to see it. I already know who it is: Carl. I recognize him from his Burberry raincoat, now slung over one arm. His valise is open because of a toy jutting out of it.

A Wolverine action figure.

He’d brought it home from a trip right before Jeff’s fifth birthday.

Why, that son of a bitch.

He’d been in Paris, and yet he told me he was in Chicago.

None of this should surprise me. Still, Carl’s lies and betrayal sting after all these years.
 

The report with the photo says, simply:
 

Obtained via public security cameras, provide formal verification to Acme Agent J. Craig’s eye-witness report that Acme Agent C. Stone conducted unauthorized contact with the suspect, Russian FSB agent Tatyana Zakharov. –
E. Honeycutt.

Unauthorized contact? That’s putting it mildly.

Well, at least now I understand what Jack meant when he said he has some unfinished business to take care of before he can walk away from Acme.

Go for it, Jack. You have my full support, for as long as you need it.

The final photo in the file is one that shows Tatyana as I last saw her: high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes the color of a bright cloudless sky, white blond hair, and dressed in her Versace widow’s weeds.

Apparently, Arnie captured her via the morgue’s security webcam during my face-off with her. Knowing him, I presume he erased all video traces of both of us from the web feed.

It is attached to a report that was filed by Jack. It is a surveillance map, studded with coordinates listing dates, times, addresses, routes, and descriptions of contacts made since she left Club Dread.

There is also a video feed of her Club Dread stay.

It ain’t pretty. Her initial torture, which was carried out by Abu, gave her orthodontic surgery without anesthesia–the most pain, leading to quick gain–if they don’t have a heart attack first.

Several teeth later, she still hadn’t broken down. On the upside, she won’t be smiling for quite some time.

Jack’s turn up to bat gives her a blood-striped back to go along with her jack-o-lantern grin. I wince with each slash of the cat-o-nine-tails. On the other hand, Tatyana seems to enjoy it. Why am I not surprised?

However, when he hits her kidney with his fist, she coughs up blood. Thank goodness the video is soundless, so that I don’t have to hear his jeers and taunts, or her screams and pleas.