Maggie Lee (Book 10): The Hitwoman's Act of Contrition (14 page)

“Put one pill in his martini shaker and the job is all but done,” Patrick elaborated. “You don’t even need to be there. It’s a drop-and-go job.
If
you’re still intent on doing it.”

“He’s still alive?”

The redhead tilted his head to the side. “You heard about that?”

“I
saw
it.” I told him about my previous night’s adventure, leaving out the part about how deeply the pornography had affected me.

Patrick studied me for a long moment and I found myself wondering why I ever tried to hide anything from him. “If it’s too much for you ”

I shook my head defiantly. This was one job I actually wanted to do. “Who’s my competition?”

Patrick shrugged. “The guy you saw last night was the father of one of Krout’s victims.  Guy had too much to drink and decided to avenge his kid.”

“Can’t blame him,” I murmured, remembering the video I’d glimpsed.

“You shouldn’t take the job personally,” Patrick warned. “You could make a mistake.”

I lifted my chin. “So why two pills if I only need one to do the job?”

He looked away and seemed to choose his words carefully. “In case you drop one.”

The man knew me too well.

The distant chiming of a bell startled me.

“Crap!” I jumped to my feet. “It’s sharing time.”

“Sharing time?” he mocked.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll attract attention if I don’t show up for any of the events.” I thought of Shirley’s disapproving stare. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Go,” he said, pressing the pillbox into my palm.

“Take me,” God ordered. “I’m losing my mind here with nothing to do.

I scooped up the lizard with my other hand, and headed for the door, but skidded to a stop. I turned back to Patrick. “I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“To thank you. For everything. For this.” I shook the pillbox. “For the sandwich, but most of all for…” I trailed off.

He tilted his head. “For…?”

“Being you.” With that, I spun back around, yanked open the door, and ran away from the cabin.

I shoved the pillbox into the pocket of my jeans, and the lizard down my shirt as I jogged toward the dining hall for sharing time.

“Thank you for being you,”
God mocked from my chest.

“I can’t believe I said that,” I muttered, feeling like an idiot. A flush of embarrassment spread through me as I wondered what Patrick had thought about my declaration.

Then I decided I really didn’t want to know.

Gladys was waiting for me by the door. She looked at me strangely and pressed a cool hand to my hot cheek.

“I didn’t want to be late so I ran,” I explained, even though that wasn’t the reason why my cheeks were burning.

She offered me a bottle of water and then indicated that I should follow her. I was thrilled when I didn’t spot Millie, Linda, or Donna in the hall.

Together we made our way to a table at the back of the room just as Shirley started droning on about how the point of sharing time was to make ourselves vulnerable so that we could tap into our inner strength.

I was pretty sure I heard God snore.

The theme of sharing time was again forgiveness, but this time it was about who we needed to forgive us.

I had to hand it to Armani, for once her Scrabble letter prediction had been right on the money.

Two hours later, I was pretty sure Gladys and I were the only two participants who hadn’t shared, and I felt the watchful gazes of Father Vanpelt and Shirley on me.

Deciding I needed to keep my cover intact by making a show of participating, I cautiously raised my hand when Shirley asked if there was anything anyone wanted to add before we concluded the session.

“This should be good,” God whispered.

Gladys, who heard the muted squeak, looked at me sharply, but no one else had seemed to notice the strange noise coming from my chest.

“Yes?” Shirley acknowledged me with a nod of my head.

I folded my hands under the table, knitting my fingers tightly together. Suddenly nervous about making myself vulnerable in front of these strangers, an uncomfortable pressure settled in my chest and my throat constricted. I choked out, “I’d like my niece—”

“Speak up,” Shirley interrupted.

I cleared my throat. “I’d like my niece to forgive me for things I haven’t even done yet.”

A dull roar of excited murmuring filled the room. No one else had wanted forgiveness for future deeds. I closed my eyes, wishing I’d come up with something a little less honest to share.

“Go on,” Shirley urged.

Gladys patted my back, offering silent support.

I forced my eyes open and stared at a heart carved into the table. “That’s all I’ve got.”

“You believe you’re going to wrong her?” Father Vanpelt asked, striding toward me from the back of the room.

I shrugged, not taking my eyes off the heart. “I’m doomed to.”

Vanpelt tilted his head to the side and studied me carefully.  “And why is that?”

I felt like a witness on the stand in some bad legal drama and had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from yelling, “
Objection, Your Honor!
”

Vanpelt tapped his foot impatiently.

“My sister was a good mom,” I began slowly. “She wasn’t perfect, but she was good at it. She
wanted
to be a mother. But now she’s dead and I’m going to be the only mother Katie has and I just know I won’t be good at it.” I drew in a shuddering breath and finished in a rush. “I know I’m going to screw up a million things and I need her to forgive me for all of them.”

Vanpelt nodded his understanding, his gaze sympathetic.

Around me, I heard soft murmurs and sniffling. Finally lifting my gaze from the surface of the table, I saw that a number of people were blinking away tears.

Gruff Shirley had somehow shown up at my side. “Your niece is a lucky girl to have someone who loves her so much and is so worried about her future.”

I swallowed hard as a painful lump lodged in my throat. “Thank you.”

“No,” Father Vanpelt. “Thank you for sharing. You’ve given us all a lot to think about.”

The dining hall erupted in spontaneous applause.

I suddenly felt like a rock star.

A naked, vulnerable rock star.

I looked to Gladys, the closest thing I had to a friend there, needing to feel grounded.

She rolled her eyes at me and pretended to gag herself by sticking her finger in mouth.

Suddenly, I felt a lot better.

As Vanpelt made an announcement about the rest of the day’s activities, Gladys grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the dining room. Together we ran back to our cabin before the rest of the trampling horde escaped.

We’d almost made it to our door, when three people came out of nowhere. We all crashed into one another, ending up in a pile on the ground.

It took a moment to get ourselves sorted, but when we did, I realized we’d collided with Millie, Linda, and Donna.

Donna looked pissed.

Linda looked worried.

Millie took charge, getting to her feet first. “Sorry about that,” she said breezily. “We hadn’t realized sharing time was over.”

I slowly stood up. My gut telling me that something was wrong.

I glanced at Gladys and saw that she was staring at three red gasoline containers lying on the ground.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“What are you looking at?” Donna sneered menacingly, as she picked up two of the cans.

“We can explain,” Linda began in a small voice, but then trailed off as both Millie and Donna gave her a warning look.

I moved slowly to stand by Gladys, who struggled to get to her feet. “Did we miss marshmallow roasting time?”

“That’s not until tomorrow night,” Gladys piped up from behind me.

The other three women stared at her, as though surprised she could speak.

Donna looked at Millie. “So much for your perfect plan.”

Millie sighed. “If we don’t do something about them…” The three women moved to form a trap around Gladys and I.

Instinctively, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my spoon, keeping it hidden in my hand. It wasn’t much of a self-defense weapon, but it was all I had.

“Eyes. Nose. Throat. Groin,” I muttered, reminding myself of an attacker’s most vulnerable body parts.

Gladys and I turned so that our backs were to each other, ready to defend ourselves.

“You might want to get out of here,” I whispered.

Gladys, thinking I was talking to her, whispered back, “I’d love to, but I don’t see how we can.”

God, who knew I’d been talking to him, hauled himself up my bra strap, perched on my shoulder and surveyed the situation. “You’re outnumbered.”

Everyone focused on the lizard that seemed to be squeaking on my shoulder.

Linda shuddered. “I hate reptiles. Horrid things. Scaly, slimy monsters.”

Insulted, God puffed out his dewlap, the orange flap of skin under his chin.

“I think you hurt his feelings,” I told Linda.

“We can explain it to them,” Linda reasoned. “When they find out who and why—”

Before she could finish, Donna swung the gas container at my head. Batting it away, I lunged at her with my spoon like I was a lifer at a maximum-security prison and the spoon was a shiv.

Of course I missed her, and almost fell again as I stumbled forward. So much for my semi-pro assassin skills.

She tried to knock the spoon from my grip and we ended up in a wrestling match for control over the eating utensil.

Then we heard the stampede.

Everyone who’d been in sharing time rushed down the path, a giant tidal wave of humanity bearing down on us.

The distraction provided me the opportunity to free the spoon from Donna’s grasp.

Realizing more witnesses were moments away, Millie, Linda, and Donna grabbed the gas cans and disappeared into the woods, shouting, “You didn’t see anything. Remember that. You didn’t see anything.”

Gladys and I sagged against each other in relief.

“That was—” I began.

“Smoke!” God shouted in my ear, making me jump. “Fire!”

I searched the sky, searching for what he saw. Sure enough, a dark plume of smoke, coming from the direction of the Krout Estate, rose in the sky.

I pointed it out to Gladys. “Fire.  Go tell someone in the office.”

Nodding, she tried to run in the direction of the office, but she was fighting the tide of sharing time participants.  So she did the most logical thing. She began to shout, “Fire! Fire!”

The pathway erupted into chaos as some people stopped to gawk, others tried to get to their cabins, and some ran away. I used the opportunity to duck into our cabin, grab the ladder, and sneak off in the direction of the smoke.

“What are you doing?” God asked, alarmed. From his vantage point on my shoulder, he knew I wasn’t running away from the fire.

“The job,” I panted. I was running hard, knowing that the distraction of the fire would provide the perfect opportunity to get into the Krout house.

“You’re going to get us killed.”

I slowed to a stop. “I can leave you here if you want.”

He considered that option for what seemed like a long moment.

“I can’t let you do this alone. Who knows how much you’ll screw it up,” he finally declared.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I began to run again, the bag containing the ladder bouncing against my hip with every step.

“You do realize that Millie, Linda, and Donna may have already done your job for you.”

“That had occurred to me.”

“Burning someone alive is cold.” I was pretty sure I felt the cold-blooded creature on my shoulder shiver.

I actually thought it was the furthest thing possible from cold, but didn’t say that aloud. Reaching the fence, I dropped the bag on the ground and pulled out the ladder. When I did, a ski mask and latex gloves flew out of the bag too. No doubt gifts from Patrick who always thought of everything.

I clamped one end of the ladder onto the fence, and then tried to chuck the rest of it over the top. Instead of going over, it fell back down and hit me in the head.

“Sensitive skin!” God yelled as one of the rungs barely missed him. He dove back under my shirt and nestled himself in the relative safety of the space between my breasts.

I picked up the end of the ladder, took a couple of steps back, and gave it the old heave ho. Mercifully, it made it over the top, draping over the fence just the way it was supposed to. I pulled on the ski mask. It itched and I considered leaving it behind. “Here we go.”

A rope ladder is more challenging to climb than a regular ladder, and already out of breath from running, I struggled to find my balance as I pulled myself upward. Turning myself around to climb down the other side proved just as difficult. I was exhausted and gasping for air before I even touched the ground on the other side.

We were getting closer to the source of the smoke. It filled the air, making it harder to breathe.

“Stay low,” God urged. “The air will be better down there.”

Bending over, I half-ran, half-waddled toward the mansion. As I drew nearer, I could see a car engulfed in flames, and the man I recognized to be Wayne Krout standing beside it, wringing his hands. Fortunately, he didn’t notice me. Pulling on the gloves, I tried the nearest door, which was unlocked, and slipped inside, searching for where Krout kept his martini shaker.

Luck was on my side when I spotted it in the den, the second room I looked into. I made a beeline for it, pulling the pillbox out of my pocket. I picked up the metal shaker and unscrewed the top.

“You’re not with the fire department,” the woman said from behind me.

Whirling around, I found a well-dressed older woman, watching me. I’d seen her face enough times in the newspaper to know this was the woman who’d taken out the contract on her son. I froze. All that went through my head was Patrick’s voice telling me Rule Number One: “Don’t get caught.”

Instinctively, I reached up to make sure the ski mask was still in place and that she hadn’t seen my face. The itchy disguise was still there.