Maggie Lee (Book 10): The Hitwoman's Act of Contrition (11 page)

“Do you know what makes a good real estate broker, Maggie?”

I shrugged. “A knowledge of architecture?”

She looked up from her papers. “No one’s ever given me that answer before.”

I thought that was probably because she’d never interviewed anyone who had less of an idea of what they were doing than I did, but I kept that opinion to myself.

“It’s definitely part of the equation, but a bigger part is going with your gut. It’s how I ended up here.” She waved at the office. “Built my career from nothing because I always pay attention to my instincts. And my instincts are telling me that you’re right for this job.”

“But you haven’t even seen my resume,” I protested.

She smiled. “I don’t need to. The job is yours, Maggie. If you want it.”

I hesitated, unsure.

“It’ll give you the schedule you need. You’ll be able to take care of your niece, and while the salary isn’t much to start, with the skills you’ll learn, you could carve out a nice career for yourself.”

Somehow I found myself nodding, shaking hands, and giving her a start date.

“Great.” She beamed. “I’ll be away for the first two weeks after you start, but two of my best employees, Susan Cambra and Angela Loayza, will show you the ropes.”

It wasn’t until I’d gotten back into my car that I realized that Lani was a hell of a saleswoman. I might learn a lot from her.

Since I still had some time left on my lunch break, I headed back to the B&B to grab something to eat since I hadn’t packed any food and didn’t want to contend with the cafeteria at the insurance company

When I got to the house, I couldn’t immediately pull into the driveway because a mail truck blocked my path. While I waited for the driver to deliver his package to the house across the street, I glanced toward the B&B and saw Aunt Susan carrying a cardboard box about the size of a toaster out to her car. She put it in her trunk, and then looked around guiltily, as though she didn’t anyone to know she’d snuck something out.

Because of the angle, she didn’t see me watching her.

She closed her trunk and went back inside.

I wondered what she was up to. It had certainly looked like she was doing something sneaky, but what?

My gut told me something was going on, but I couldn’t figure out what.

My appetite gone, I drove straight back to work, wondering what kind of secret Susan was keeping.

As I drove down the long, private driveway to the retreat center, I had second thoughts about my plan. I wasn’t sure I could pull off the Krout job, let alone survive a weekend filled with people with some bizarre desire to improve themselves.

“Maybe this isn’t the best idea,” I muttered.

“What could go wrong?” the lizard drawled from his resting spot in the cup holder. “It’ll just be uptight, close-minded, stuck-in-your-ways you, spending the weekend with people who are seeking inner-growth and spiritual enlightenment.”

“I’m not close-minded.”

“What would you call your obstinate resistance to change?”

I pulled off the driveway onto a patch of dirt. If I was going to argue with God, it was going to be in private.  “I change.”

“You’re defensive and resist change.” He clambered up out of the cup and scaled the dash so he was able to perch on top of the steering wheel and look me in the eye. “Something happens, anything happens, and your immediate reaction is ‘no.’”

“Everyone resists change.”

“Not everyone.”

“Change means uncertainty,” I argued. “It’s scary.”

“It’s a necessary part of life. Without it there’s no growth, no improvement.”

I frowned. “Has my life improved with all my recent changes? Look at me, I live with my crazy aunts—”

“Loving family,” he corrected.

“Kill people for money.”

“Restore the balance of good and evil,” he countered.

“And talk to you,” I finished with an exasperated sigh.

He flicked his tail and puffed out the orange flap of skin under his chin, signaling his displeasure.  “If that doesn’t improve your life, then don’t do it.” With that, he ran back and settled himself into his cup.

I looked down at him. “Really? You’re going to sulk now?”

He didn’t respond, just stared up at me with his unblinking eyes.

When I knew I was about to lose the staring contest, I looked away and pulled back onto the driveway.

A few moments later, I rounded a bend and found myself beside a white, clapboard structure that seemed to be the focal point of the parking area. Picking a spot on the outskirts in case I needed to make a quick getaway, I parked the car and grabbed my overnight bag off the passenger seat.

“You coming?” I asked the lizard. “Or are you going to complain incessantly that I left you here to freeze to death?”

He remained silent, but pulled himself up to balance on the lip of the cup. I extended a hand and he ran up my arm, rappelled down my bra strap and settled between my breasts without a peep.

Bag in hand, lizard in bra, I climbed out of my car, maintaining what I hoped came across as the semblance of a smile.

A tall, thin man practically tripped over himself in an effort to reach me. “You must be, Margaret.”

“Maggie,” I corrected automatically.

“I’m Father Vanpelt. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

I squinted at him suspiciously. “Finally?”

“Your aunt talks about you all the time, gushes really.”

“Leslie?” I asked disbelievingly. Ever since she’d gotten clean, she’d been harder on me than Aunt Susan.

“She’s very proud of you,” Vanpelt assured me. “Let me show you to your cabin. Your roommate is already there. She’s a little different than most of our participants, but I’m sure you’ll get along just fine.”

“Different?”

He didn’t respond.

I followed him down a path through the woods, wondering how I’d ended up agreeing to stay in a cabin and how I’d ended up with a complete stranger as a roommate.

“Dinner is in about thirty minutes,” Vanpelt told me. “There, the leader will give you an overview of how the weekend will progress.”

“I printed out the schedule online,” I gasped, after twisting my ankle on a tree root. Nature is not my friend.

“Well,” he said in a condescending tone, “that is the
practical
schedule.”

“There’s an impractical one?”

“That’s the worldly schedule, but since most of our work is on the spiritual plane…” He stopped in front of a cabin that looked like it had been built during the Revolutionary War.

I worried that the cabin didn’t have electricity or running water. “So the schedule is more a guideline than a rule?”

“Exactly.” He seemed relieved to find I wasn’t a totally spiritually deficient idiot. He gestured toward the cabin’s door. “Your roommate’s name is Gladys. I’ll let you make your own introductions. Dinner in thirty minutes.”

“How will I find it?” I called after him as he hurried away.

“Follow the bell.” He disappeared from sight.

“What bell?” I asked aloud, approaching the cabin door. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for barging in on someone I’d never met before, so I knocked politely.

The door flew open like the occupant had been standing on the other side listening to my conversation with Vanpelt.

“Hi,” I said to the thirty-something, frizzy-haired woman who looked even more miserable than I felt. “I’m Maggie.”

She stared at me.

I felt my smile falter. “You must be Gladys.”

She turned around and walked into the cabin without responding.

I followed her inside. The accommodations were stark. Two beds. No chairs. I was relieved to spot the single bare bulb that hung from the ceiling since it meant we wouldn’t be living by candlelight. It smelled like mothballs and old wood. I was starting to think Aunt Loretta’s idea about a spa was much better than my current reality.

Since one bed had a flowery duffle bag on it, I put my own beat-up overnight bag on the other bed and gingerly sat down, expecting a mattress spring to poke me in the butt. The mattress was lumpy, but nothing protruded.

I looked at Gladys who’d sat on the opposite bed and was watching me.

I contemplated her for a long moment, choosing my next words carefully. “Have you taken a vow of silence?”

A corner of her mouth lifted and shook her head.

“Because I didn’t know if that was a thing at these kinds of things.”

Still nothing.

“I’ve never done this retreat business before, so I don’t know what to expect,” I told her.  I didn’t think she was deaf, and I doubted she was mute, but for the life of me I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t talk to me.

It was kind of creepy.

“I was told dinner is in thirty minutes.”

She lay down, making it clear the conversation, such as it was, was over.

I did the same thing, knowing it was going to be a long weekend.

If my roommate talked too little, the women we encountered on the path to dinner talked too much.

I was following the sound of a chiming bell, trailing behind Gladys, when I was almost mowed down by a trio who were so busy talking to each other that they didn’t notice me until one of them had stepped on the back of my sneaker.

“Sorry!” The shoe-stepper giggled.

Her tinkling laugh irritated me and I threw a nasty look over my shoulder.

“I’m Millie,” she trilled. “And these are my friends Linda and Donna.”

“Maggie,” I murmured, noticing that Gladys had increased her pace and was putting distance between herself and the chatty swarm.

“Hi, Maggie,” the three said in unison.

I felt like I was at one of Aunt Leslie’s “Anonymous” meetings.

“Is this your first time?” Millie asked, obviously the leader of her talkative group.

“Yes,” I admitted as she linked her arm through mine as though we were fast friends about to skip through a field filled with cartoon butterflies and singing flowers.

“Ours too.”

It took every ounce of my self-control to not swat Millie away like an annoying insect.

“Our husbands thought it would be a good idea,” Millie explained. “And who’s going to pass up a weekend away, right?”

When I didn’t immediately agree with her, she jammed a pointy elbow into my ribs. “Am I right?”

“Uh-huh,” I grunted, busy imagining how satisfying it would be to deliver a karate chop to her throat. I understood why her husband was eager to get rid of her.

“We thought it was going to be a spa experience,” Donna griped. “Massages, facials, pedicures.”

“But we’ve decided to make the best of it,” Linda interjected with enough sweet cheer to make my teeth ache. I locked my jaw closed against the sensation.

“How about you?” Linda asked. “Why are you here?”

“Rest and relaxation.” I managed to get the words out while grinding my teeth.

“You’ll get plenty of that,” Millie said.

I slid her a sideways look.

“Have you met your roommate yet?” Linda asked.

“Yes.”

“What’s she like?”

“Quiet.” A trait I was appreciating more with each passing moment.

As though she knew I was talking about her, Gladys looked back and waved for me to join her.

Disentangling myself for Millie’s best-friends-forever grip, I said, “I’ll catch you ladies later” before breaking into a jog.

“Don’t call us ladies!” Millie joked as I left them in my dust.

When I caught up with Gladys, I panted, “Thanks.”

She nodded and then led the way to the dining hall.

If the cabin looked like it had been built during the Revolutionary War, the dining hall must have been built by the Pilgrims. It was all rough beams and uneven surfaces. The lighting was insufficient and the stale smell of wood smoke seemed to cling to everything.

“It will be a miracle if I get out of this without a splinter in my butt,” I muttered.

Gladys looked toward me with a half-smile, reached into the rear pocket of her jeans, and whipped out a pair of tweezers.

I laughed. “I like a woman who’s prepared.” I looked around at the rough-hewn tables. “Is there somewhere special we’re supposed to sit?”

Gladys shook her head, tucking away her tweezers.

“Then I vote for near the door so we can make a hasty retreat.”

Nodding her agreement, Gladys sat down at the table nearest the entry. Not wanting to sit with my back to the rest of the room, I slid onto the bench beside her.

While everyone else filed in, I examined the table’s surface, admiring the vandalism that had been done to it over the years. Some people had carved their names, others their initials, and still others proclaimed their “true love forever” both with and without primitive hearts gauged into the wood.

I wondered if the spoon Armani had given me was supposed to be used so that I too could mark my spot on the table. Somehow I didn’t think that claiming to be here was high on my list of accomplishments, so I left the spoon where I carried it in the back pocket of my jeans.

As the room filled with people, most of whom actually looked happy to be there, I watched Father Vanpelt observing the crowd and occasionally jotting down notes on a memo pad.

I got distracted when Millie, Linda, and Donna decided to sit at our table.

“Mind if we join you?” Millie asked, sitting down opposite Gladys before I could claim we were holding the seats for someone.

“Well this is rustic,” Donna opined, taking the seat opposite me.

Linda plopped herself next to me, accidentally swiping me with her elbow in the process. “I think it’s quaint and charming.”

“I think it’s a shit hole,” I muttered under my breath.

The way my roommate’s shoulders bounced up and down, I knew she’d heard me, but I didn’t think anyone else had.

A smattering of polite applause drew my attention to the front of the room where Father Vanpelt was addressing the group. Apparently, I’d missed his welcome, but was just in time to hear him introduce the Activities Director, a solemn-looking woman named Shirley, who had frown lines that made her appear as though she was perpetually scowling.