The Housewife Assassin's Relationship Survival Guide (11 page)

At least this time I’m not wearing Spanx.

The butler pulls out a chair. I take it I’m supposed to sit down. Okay, works for me.

What I don’t count on is his strapping me into arm restraints, and putting a blindfold over my eyes.

“Not good,” Jack whispers in my ear. “Now, just how are we going to recognize our man?”

I’m just about to answer when a voice behind me says, “My word! You’re not at all what I was expecting! You can’t be more than seven stone thirteen.”

I do the conversion in my head. That’s around one-hundred-and-eleven pounds. Really? I look that heavy to this guy?

Blimey, he hit it right on the head.

“You’re pretty good,” I say with a sexy murmur. “How about taking off this blindfold, so that I can see you, too.”

“No no no, my wispy little sylph! First a little appetizer, to fatten you up! Open up and say, ‘Ah.’” 

The voice is so close now, I can smell his breath. Pickled herring? Ewwww, yuck. If he sticks that in my mouth, I’ll gag, I swear.

I feel his fingers on my lips. When I open them, he crams something between them.

I’m prepared to spit the crap out. But hey, it’s pretty darn good. “Yummy! Is that a peach trifle, with a hint of lemon?”

“Yes, sweets for my sweet! Do you like it?”

“To die for. You must give me the recipe.”

“You’ll have to settle for this.” Sugar CEO Number Three tips my nose with something creamy.  

I stick my tongue out and up as far as it will go. Alas, not as far as I'm sure Sugar CEO Number 3 would appreciate. No matter. He dabs a little on my lips. 

I smack them together. “Whipped cream, with just a hint of mocha?”

“Ooooh, you’re good, my little Yankee Doodle noodle.”

He sticks a creamy finger in my mouth. My gag reflex is in full force but I tamp it down and do my best impression of a woman in the throes of an foodgasm.

He must believe I’m turned on because the next thing I know he’s slapping something cold, wide, and wet on my décolleté. “Um…excuse me, are those lasagna noodles?”

“Yes. You’ll love the sauce! Pesto!”

So much for my designer Cavalli. The only saving grace is that he pulls it off, over my head.

“Oh my God,” Arnie gasps, “The dude’s a WAMer!” 

“A what?” Abu asks.

“He has a food fetish,” Jack explains. “WAM is an acronym for ‘wet and messy.’ As in any kind of food that can be licked off another person.”

Abu and Arnie are laughing so hard in my ear that I have to keep from wincing, let alone telling them to shut the fuck up.

 “You know, I have a fantasy, too,” I purr to Sugar CEO Number Three. 

“Do tell, milady.”

“I’m lying on this table, naked except for my heels. You can only imagine what I can do with your trifle. Among other things.”

His hand pauses on one breast. Next, I feel the restraints come off my wrists. Finally the blindfold comes off, too.

And I’m staring at Britain’s answer to Jabba the Hutt. In a tux no less.

Yeah, okay, what did I expect? Calories in and in, and in, equal pounds on. Do the math.

I hold out a dainty hand. “We haven’t met formally. I’m Cookie Lonergan. And you are?”

“Hungry,” he hisses. He bends down over my breasts, the better to lap up the pesto sauce. “Your name is…. 
delicious
.”

“I need him looking at you, not drooling on you,” Arnie mutters. “Otherwise, the system can’t recognize him. I hope his face isn’t covered in sauce, or that might make it harder, too.”

“Thank God she’s not wearing a wire,” Abu snickers. “He would have eaten it by now.”

I jerk Jabba’s head up by the roots of his hair. “My, you’ve got the most beautiful eyes.” I lick my lips. “They’re the color of chardonnay grapes. Speaking of which, how about a little wine? You know, something to whet our appetites for our meal?”

“Jolly good idea! We can do it the Japanese way. I’ll drink mine out of your golden triangle. Delicious!”

The next thing I know, Jabba is tossing a few of the dishes on the floor and I’m being lifted onto the table. All I can do is pray that Arnie’s facial recognition software kicks in, or I’m so greasy that I can slip out of his big paws before I’m his main course.

“He’s Baron Maynard McChesney of Whitefriars,” Arnie declares triumphantly. “He owns the United Kingdom’s largest media conglomerate, including two tabloids, and the country’s largest financial newspaper. Rumor has it he’s got dirt on every UK celebrity as well as every member of Parliament, and even a few secrets stashed away on the royal family.”

 “If so, he can blackmail a few pawns who will be valuable for the Quorum,” Jack says. “Donna, he should be easy to turn, because he’s got so much to lose: wealth, his company, prestige, contacts—”

“Not to mention prison chow is nothing like this,” Abu pipes in. “Go get’em, Cookie.”

I’m just about to read Maynard the riot act when there’s a knock on the door. He sighs, annoyed that he’s been interrupted from the task at hand: slathering pesto sauce on my thighs. As he lumbers toward the door, he wipes his hand on a napkin. 

“Ah! The 
piece de resistance
 has arrived!” When he returns to the table, he has a soup tureen with him. “It’s my favorite, turtle. Care for a bowl?”

I tamp down the bile rising in my stomach before murmuring, “I’ll pass. In fact, this little party is over.”

He has different thoughts on the subject. He shoves me onto the table, face down. The soup is hot. He drizzles some up my spine and around my bum and shoulders. When I shudder, he slaps me back down. “You mustn’t move, my dear. Not to worry! Daddy will lap it all up.”

I struggle, but he’s too damn big for me to fight off. And quite frankly, his tongue on my spine is somewhat ticklish and it’s making me giggle. 

Is he laughing, too? It sounds as if that may be the case.

No, he’s gagging on something. 

Spasming, really. I hear him gurgle, then sigh.

Then…nothing. All three hundred or more pounds of him flop on top of me.

Make that twenty-one stones. At least!

“Baron, wake up and get off! Now!” I try to jerk myself up, but his dead weight is holding me against the table.

“He’s dead?” I hear the dread in Jack’s voice. Then: “Aw, damn, a heart attack? Just our luck! Listen, Donna, shimmy out from under him, and get the hell out of there, now.”

“Yeah, okay, thanks for that.” I squirm to the left, then to the right, but big boy is simply not budging. 

“Smear yourself with the mint jelly,” Abu suggests. “It may be slippery enough to get you out from under him.”

At this point, I’ll try anything. I take a handful out of the bowl, and wedge my hand between me and the dead man, then slather it up and down my back.

That does the trick. I inch my way out from under him. I slip back into my dress, which now looks like a Jackson Pollock canvas, and smells like the kitchen sink at an Italian trattoria.

“How the hell are you getting out of there?” Arnie asks.

“Something tells me that many a sugar baby has taken a walk of shame from the baron’s abode. Alas, I’ll be the last.”

“Try to lock the door behind you,” Jack says. “I’m sure his staff knows better than to interrupt him at feeding time. They may lose an arm or something.”

“Then I guess he never sees them at all. Did you see that spread?” Abu’s tone is dripping with sarcasm, unlike me, who is dripping in pesto, mint jelly and turtle soup.

Green has never been my color.

Turns out I’m right about the Baron’s love life. The guards don’t give me a second glance.

I walk, make that run, away from the estate. When I turn the corner, Jack and Abu are already waiting for me. 

As I hop in, Jack says, “What? No doggy bag?”

Always the smart ass.

Chapter 8

Is He a Player?

Before you fall in love with the new man in your life, ask yourself: does he have what it takes to be true blue to you?

He doesn’t if these clues ring true:

Clue Number 1: Whenever you call him, you hear women giggling in the background, along with heavy breathing and gasps: either his, or someone he calls “Doll” when he thinks he’s muzzled the phone and you can’t hear him. 

Clue Number 2: He takes other women along on your dates, who he claims are his sisters. Not only do they look nothing like him, they take turns snuggling him and sitting on his lap;

Clue Number 3: When you finally permit him to ravish you, he insists this passionate act take place at “his sisters’ home, because they have a bed large enough for some real fun.” The real fun he means comes in the form of the sister act, which is already on said bed, in various states of dishabille. 

Clue Number 4: Soon he’s introducing you to another woman, he refers to you as “my little sis.” Um, no. You have a different kind of relationship with your real brother, one in which swapping spit only happened before the age of twelve, and from a distance of six feet, as opposed to in each other’s mouths. 

Now, taken together, these clues point to one very important thing: this is not the sort of family you want to marry into, so run away as quick as you can. Take my word for it, he’ll be too busy tongue tussling with his supposed sisters to realize you’re no longer there.

 “Donna, I think you need to sit down for this.” Ryan’s voice is calm, but since he walked through the door he’s been pacing my dining room floor, which is not a good sign.

I freeze from tossing crap into the three Welcome to Hilldale baskets I’m making as part of my Penelope penance. “Oh, heck! Did Reynolds find out I’ve been AWOL?"

“Thank goodness, no. But—” he pauses to take a deep breath. “The deaths of your Quorum dates weren’t accidents.”

Emma and Arnie both look up. “Well, the first one was a suicide, so technically it wasn’t an accident,” Arnie reminds him. “And the third one was a heart attack, so that doesn’t count either—”

“Arnie, zip it! The point I’m trying to make is that Donna’s dates were murdered.” Ryan shakes his head in despair. “The first man—Benjamin Rooney—was shot with a high-powered air rifle. It hit him broadside, and spun him off the roof.  The assassin must have been in one of the high apartment buildings, right across the street from the museum. As for Richard Higginbotham, the assassin took down the horse first, in the same manner. He took a second shot, right to the heart, the moment he fell.”

Emma’s eyes open wide. “But no one could have shot Mayor McCheese—I mean, Maynard McChesney. He and Donna were alone.”

“The soup contained aconite. Unless the coroner suspected otherwise, it looked like a heart attack. Acme’s autopsy picked it up because we specifically tested for it.”

 I slump down in my chair. “Well, that certainly explains a lot! I mean, what are the odds that three men would all die on a first date?

“One in 54,302,239, in fact,” Arnie pipes in. “But if it’s any consolation, your odds decrease by thirteen percent each year, between now and when you’re eighty-five. Old codgers keeling over on dates are more prevalent.”

“Great to know.” Not. “And after eighty-five?”

Arnie looks perplexed. “I didn’t calculate beyond that, because it’s a long shot that by then any man will even look in your direction.” Instinctively he ducks below my couch.

He’s lucky I’m too upset to bother throwing anything at him. 

The truth of the matter is that I’m worried about Jack. On the plane ride home, he was silent, a telltale sign that he’s also concerned about how things have gone down. This morning he left the house before I woke up. His note said he was dropping off two welcome baskets. 

But why is it taking him so long to get home?

“I’ve got more bad news.” Ryan puts his hand on my shoulder. “The DOJ refuses to rescind your house arrest order.”

“By that, you mean Reynolds still insists I’m one of the bad guys, right?” I crumple tissue paper and stuff it between a bag of cashews, a Hilldale welcome bear, and some homemade jam. If Reynolds were here now, I’d stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine. 

“Well, yes. He’s made an excellent case to his higher-ups that you may in fact be a flight risk.”

“The man is crazy! I’ve got three kids, I’m divorcing Carl, I’m in a loving relationship, and I’ve got high-security status. What part of my dossier reads ‘terrorist moll’?”

“Even if that’s the case, you make great bait.” Jack’s voice comes from directly behind me. Arnie, Emma, Ryan, Abu and I turn toward him at the same time. 

Emma shrugs. “Jack’s right. If you remember, it’s how we resurrected Carl in the first place.”

By the look on Jack’s face, I imagine Ryan has already given him the bad news about the assassin shadowing our dates with the Quorum. Even before I open my mouth, he knows what I’m going to ask, and he shakes his head. “We've picked up a shadow. At the same time we can't forget we've got a serious enemy in Reynolds."

I’m so angry that I rip a stack of fifty-percent-off local merchant coupons in half.  “In other words, I’m the worm in Reynolds’s fish hook?”

Ryan shakes his head. “You’ve wiggled off that hook three times already and he hasn’t noticed, thanks to Emma subbing for you, and Arnie watching the FBI surveillance team.”