The Hitwoman's Juggling Act Read online

  “Let me explain,” I said hurriedly, not wanting to be on the mob boss’s bad side. I quickly filled him in on the whole deal with the doctor threatening my family.

  He nodded slowly. “I understand your concerns. But this job needs to get done. I’ll put protection on your family. You have nothing to worry about.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” I said. “They’re kind of spread out.”

  Delveccio turned back to the game, picked up a ball, and started throwing. “Most of them are at your sister Darlene’s place. Your aunt, Susan, is with the U.S. Marshal Griswald. Your half-brother…” he trailed off and gave me a side eye.

  I gulped, surprised that he knew about Ian’s existence.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about him?” Delveccio asked.

  I shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

  The mobster shook his head. “I hear ya. Family is always complicated.” He rolled another ball. “Anyway, I can cover him, too.”

  I considered what he said for a moment. He had more resources than I did, so chances were my family was safer with him watching out for them than me trying to do it all. “Okay,” I said slowly. “But I don’t have a plan. I don’t have supplies. I don’t really have a clue as to what I’m doing.”

  “Good thing the redhead does,” Tony said.

  Gino scurried across the room behind us, heading for the door we’d entered through.

  I watched him nervously.

  “Relax,” Delveccio told me. “We’re expecting a visitor.”

  I watched Gino open the door and the shadow of a man stepped into the space.

  Relief flooded through me when I realized it was Patrick Mulligan.

  My murder mentor, and former lover, nodded at me.

  At that moment, Anthony waddled out, carrying a white paper bag.

  “You look hungry.” He thrust the bag, already stained with grease, into my hands. “You like zeppole? Like Skee-Ball, it’s an Atlantic City favorite.”

  I inhaled the scent of fried dough and freshly shaken powered sugar. “Who doesn’t like zeppole?” I countered with more than a little bit of attitude.

  Beside me, Tony chuckled. “Always some sass from this one.” He looked over at Patrick, who still stood by the door. “She give you this much trouble all the time?”

  Mulligan nodded.

  Turning back to me, Tony said, “I’ll take care of your family. You just concentrate on the job at hand.”

  “Thank you.” I opened the bag, reached in, pulled out a wad of hot dough, and took a bite. I’m pretty sure that my eyes fluttered closed in appreciation.

  “Good, huh?” Anthony asked.

  Chewing, I nodded and gave him a thumbs up. I wasn’t sure if they were good simply because fresh zeppole is always good, or if it was because I hadn’t eaten all day, but suddenly, between Tony’s reassurance, Patrick’s appearance, and my mouthful of fried dough, I was feeling a lot better.

  I followed Patrick out of the warehouse, and he led me to yet another car of his I’d not seen before. He opened up the passenger door of the black SUV like he was helping me into a chariot.

  I extended the paper bag to him. “Want some?”

  “No.” With that, he walked around to his side of the vehicle.

  I climbed into mine, closed the door, and remained silent while he started the engine and pulled away. We drove in silence for the first few minutes.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked finally as the tension in the vehicle made me feel sick to my stomach. So much for feeling better.

  “I don’t like last minute jobs,” Patrick said through gritted teeth. “Too much can go wrong.”

  I glanced at him nervously. It wasn’t like him to be worried. Usually, he was calm and in control. I was the one who was usually freaking out.

  “Plus, we’ve gotta do it without getting the kid involved,” Patrick said. “We can’t afford to have him talking to anyone about what happened.”

  I nodded, thinking about Boy. “What’s going to happen to him once Griffith is out of the picture?”

  “Child Services will get involved once his stepfather’s body is found.”

  “Maybe Mike can help with that,” God suggested from my chest.

  Patrick glanced over at me sharply, shook his head, tightened his grip on the steering wheel, and muttered, “Save me.”

  Ignoring Patrick’s reaction, I considered God’s suggestion. It really wasn’t a bad one. Boy was already entranced with Mike, if the crow could avert his attention…

  “You look like hell,” Patrick said.

  “Gee, thanks,” I drawled. “You sure know what to say to make a girl feel good.”

  Undeterred, Patrick asked, “What happened? Why does your family need looking after?”

  I told him about the strange encounter with Doctor Oliver at the hospital.

  Patrick glanced over at me worriedly. “You have no idea who the threat is coming from?”

  “None. But Delveccio’s watching over my family.”

  Patrick nodded. “That’s good. I’d feel better if you and I had some protection, too.”

  20

  Patrick parked the SUV on an unfamiliar street. He turned off the engine and twisted in his seat to look at me. “I have a bad feeling about this.” The worry lines etched between his eyebrows accentuated his point.

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Did he want me to reassure him? Was he expecting me to drop out of the job? I did what I’ve always found the safest thing in these kinds of situations: I remained silent and waited for him to fill in the blanks.

  “If it starts to go sideways, you’ve got to run,” Patrick told me urgently. “I don’t know whether or not I’m going to be able to protect you.”

  I nodded my understanding. “I can’t afford to piss off the Delveccios, not when my family is in danger.”

  He sighed heavily.

  “Besides,” I punched him lightly in the shoulder, “you and I make a pretty good team.”

  A grudging smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “We do, Mags. That we do.” He reached across the distance separating us and drew his thumb along the length of my lower lip.

  Nerve endings sparked to life, setting off a wave of fireworks throughout my body.

  “You’ve got some sugar on you,” he murmured seductively.

  I remained motionless, trying to quell my body’s traitorous reaction to his touch. Even though my mind knew he and I would never make for a good couple, he still could turn me on with the slightest gesture.

  He leaned back again and licked his thumb.

  I almost slid off of my seat.

  Hoping to bring things back from red-hot intimacy to a professional level, I managed to choke out, “Where are we?”

  “This is the back entrance into the property.”

  I nodded my understanding, willing my heartbeat to slow.

  He reached into the back of the SUV and pulled out a dark gym bag. Unzipping it, he pulled out and handed me a wad of dark cloth. “Ski mask,” he said.

  I fingered it nervously.

  He reached back into the bag and pulled out black leather gloves. He handed them to me wordlessly. I slid my hands into them, wondering if they were really worthwhile.

  “I don’t have a weapon,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “You never do, Mags. It’s a wonder that you’re ever able to get anything done.”

  I flinched a little at the insult.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly. “I just meant that the fates seem to smile upon you.”

  “He’s saying you get lucky a lot,” God piped up from my chest.

  Patrick looked in the direction of the squeaking and said, “You cannot take him with you.”

  I hesitated. I couldn’t well tell him that God was the reason why I had pulled off so many of my jobs successfully.

  “Perfect,” God declared. “Put me down on the ground and let me go see if I can find Mike.”
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  Opening my door of the SUV, I started to step out.

  Patrick grabbed my left arm. “Hang on, what’s the hurry?”

  Shaking off his grip, I bent down so that God could run out of my bra up to my shoulders and down my arm to get down to the ground. “Be careful,” I whispered. Then I straightened slowly and met Patrick’s gaze. “I didn’t want to leave him here alone,” I told the redhead.

  He eyed me incredulously, and I got the distinct impression that he wasn’t feeling too secure knowing he had to pull off this job with a woman who he kind of suspected is crazy.

  “Weapon?” I reminded him hopefully.

  He shook his head. “They want him alive.”

  I frowned.

  Patrick sighed heavily, cutting off any protest I might have made. “You have to follow my lead.”

  I nodded. “Whatever you say.”

  He raised an eyebrow, letting me know he already knew that I’m not the most obedient person he’d ever worked with.

  We exited the SUV and crept through the bushes that DeeDee had run through to greet Patrick when I had been visiting Boy. That felt like a lifetime ago.

  Hoping to hear Mike, I listened carefully, but I couldn’t hear the crow’s distinctive craw in the cacophony in the evening creatures’ voices.

  Sticking to the shadows, we crept slowly up to the darkened house. I wondered where God had gotten to. A light, obviously from a television, flickered in the otherwise dark residence.

  “Hey, toots,” Mike cawed.

  I was so startled by his greeting that I almost screamed. Instead, I sucked in a frightened breath. Patrick glanced at me.

  “I’m going to unlock the door now,” he told me. As he crept up onto the porch, I looked around for the black bird. I heard the flapping of wings, but he was invisible.

  I inched up closely behind Patrick. He took out some sort of kit, removed a long metal blade, and began jiggling the lock.

  I looked around the shadows, but it was too dark to see Mike.

  “It would help if we knew what room the kid was in,” Patrick muttered underneath his breath.

  “Second floor, front of the house,” Mike answered.

  “Second floor, front of the house,” I parroted in order to convey the information to Patrick.

  He glanced at me sideways. “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. The crow had never led me wrong before.

  “Let’s hope that Frank is passed out downstairs in front of that TV then,” Patrick murmured as the door to the house swung open.

  It was a wonder he couldn’t hear my heartbeat thundering. I thought for sure it would give away our arrival as he slowly swung the door open and we tiptoed inside.

  21

  “Let me go ahead and scout,” I heard God whisper from the floor.

  I reached a hand out and placed it on Patrick’s elbow to stop him from moving as I sensed the lizard scurrying ahead of us.

  Patrick looked back at me, a question barely visible in his eyes in the shadows of the room.

  “Give me a sec,” I requested. It wasn’t like I could tell him that I’d sent my lizard buddy ahead to make sure that we were going to stay safe. I took a couple of steadying breaths and was impressed by how patiently Patrick waited.

  “He’s in the back room,” God whispered. “Follow me.”

  Following him was easier said than done, considering that the room was bathed in dark shadows. Because the lizard was whispering, Patrick couldn’t hear him. Even I had to strain to follow his whispers.

  I sensed Patrick stiffen with surprise as I leapt ahead of him.

  “This way,” I said with more assurance than I felt.

  “This way. This way. This way.” God kept whispering as I shuffled forward, Patrick on my heels. I resisted the urge to tell the little guy that he sounded an awful lot like Benny at that moment, the way he was repeating himself.

  “He’s sleeping,” God told me as we approached the doorway to the den.

  I hesitated inside the doorway as Patrick peered over my shoulder. We took in Frank Griffith sprawled out across a couch, empty bottles of beer on the floor beside him.

  “Let me go first,” Patrick whispered in my ear.

  I nodded my agreement. Physically, Patrick stood a better chance against Frank Griffith than I did. Plus, I was guessing he probably had a weapon.

  Patrick extended his arm, and I saw that he had a taser in his hand. He inched closer and closer to the prone man, intent on his target. So intent that he didn’t see the half-eaten bag of potato chips right in front of him.

  It let out a massive crunching sound as Patrick stepped on it.

  The noise awakened Frank Griffith. His eyes opened slowly, and he struggled to sit up as he recognized there were intruders in his home.

  Patrick didn’t speak, he just squeezed the trigger of the taser and shot.

  Griffith shook violently as the electrical currents took hold of his body. But he still managed, despite the jolt, to stumble to his feet.

  “Not good,” God warned from his space on the floor.

  “No shit,” I muttered under my breath.

  Ignoring me, Patrick stepped up to Griffith and delivered one roundhouse punch to the man’s chin. He toppled over, landing with a crash on a coffee table that splintered beneath him. The noise was so loud that I expected it to wake the entire neighborhood.

  “Subtle,” God mocked.

  Patrick winced at the commotion. “There’s no way the kid slept through that.” Tucking the taser back into his pocket, he bent, working quickly, to secure Griffith’s wrists and ankles with zip-ties. “We’ve got to get him out of here now.”

  He grabbed Griffith underneath his shoulders, and I grabbed his ankles, and we awkwardly half-carried, half-dragged him out of the house. Patrick kept glancing at the stairway, looking to see if Boy was coming down, but we saw no one.

  “Kid must be a heavy sleeper,” I whispered.

  Patrick grunted a response.

  “Hurry,” God urged, “I don’t know how long Mike can keep him occupied, even with his bribery.”

  “Put him down,” Patrick said suddenly once we were on the front porch.

  I dropped my end of Griffith unceremoniously. He hit the ground with a thud. Patrick maneuvered himself so that he could pick Griffith up in a fireman’s carry, groaning as he stood.

  Together, we hurried back toward the black SUV. Patrick breathing heavily, me glancing worriedly back the entire time.

  When we reached the SUV, Patrick unceremoniously dumped Griffith into the back seat and handcuffed him, in addition to the zip-ties, to a pole that had been installed between the front and back seats. He did the same thing to Griffith’s ankles, effectively hog-tying him to the car.

  “Don’t take off your mask,” Patrick warned, “and whatever you do, do not speak.” So saying, he rushed around to the driver’s side door.

  “Isn’t it going to look suspicious to be driving around wearing ski masks?” I asked. “Someone might call the cops on us.”

  He ignored me.

  Before I climbed into the SUV, I felt a skittering sensation moving up my leg. Looking down, I saw the brown anole lizard moving upward. “Nice job,” I whispered.

  “He’s right, don’t speak,” God said. “If he survives this ordeal, we don’t want him to be able to identify you.”

  We rode in silence, Griffith’s sweat-and-beer stench threatening to suffocate us. I glanced over at Patrick nervously. His posture was rigid, and I saw the determined gleam in his eyes. Behind us, Griffith started to stir. He groaned. Glancing back at him, I realized that Patrick had also slapped a piece of tape over the man’s mouth, so despite his best efforts, he wasn’t able to enunciate whatever insults he was trying to hurl at us.

  I didn’t recognize the area that we pulled into with the SUV. But Patrick seemed to know exactly where he was going. He drove quickly, precisely. I got the distinct impression he wanted to dump our package and get the hell out
of there as fast as possible.

  I didn’t blame him.

  He pulled into a dark alley and threw the SUV into park. He motioned for me to exit the SUV. I did, closed my door, and was surprised when he peeled off, leaving me in a less than desirable neighborhood in the middle of the night.

  “I wasn’t expecting that,” God said.

  “Me neither,” I replied, glancing around nervously. I tore off my ski mask.

  “I’m sure he did it to protect you.”

  I nodded, just as a drunken bum staggered around the corner. I didn’t feel particularly safe and really wished I had a weapon.

  22

  I pressed my back against the wall behind me, the smell of rotting garbage strewn about the alley making my nostrils curl with revulsion.

  “Arm yourself! Prepare for battle!” God urged.

  I decided that I was going to follow the example of Matty, the possum who played dead in the dining room of the B&B before it blew up. I stayed still. I held my breath. I reminded myself that the staggering bum, who was slowly growing nearer, could not possibly hear my heartbeat.

  “You’re not just going to stand there, are you?” the lizard asked impatiently.

  I nodded.

  “Then you’re a bigger fool than I believed,” the lizard announced before skittering down the length of my body and disappearing into the dark shadows.

  Not that God provided any protection, but I suddenly felt even more alone in the alley. I watched the bum, his hand scraping along the wall, propping himself up, draw nearer. I couldn’t see his face; the lower half was covered with a scraggly beard and the upper half was shrouded with an over-sized baseball cap. But I could smell him. He reeked of cheap alcohol. I wrinkled my nose against the scent. He was humming beneath his breath. I couldn’t quite make out the melody. When he was only a few yards away, I decided that my playing dead trick wasn’t working. Jumping away from the wall, I scooped up the first weapon I found, a broken bottle. I held it out in front of me and said in my loudest, most powerful voice, “Get away from me.”

  “I highly doubt that’s an effective deterrent,” God mocked from the shadows.