The Hitwoman and the Family Jewels (20 page)

“Be a good girl,” I kissed the top of her head and hurried out of the room blinking away tears.

“You okay?” Patrick asked, concern shadowing his gaze.

I nodded. “It’s just been a long couple of days.”

“I know.” He moved closer. “You’re doing great. Just hang in there a little longer.” Then he kissed me gently, nibbling on my lips, teasing my tongue with his. He tasted sweet and salty.

“C’mon,” he said, after he’d left me breathless. “Let’s finish this thing.”

Anyone else would have asked where the discs were. They would have demanded to be told where the password was.
I
would have, but not Patrick. He just drove us to the hospital with quiet efficiency.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked quietly. “It’s a big gamble.”

I nodded. “It’s the only way. I can’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.”

“You’ll never see him again.”

“See who?”

“Your dad. Once he goes into Witness Protection you can’t see him. You can’t contact him.”

I shrugged. “I went years without seeing him.”

“But that’s when you thought he was someone he’s not,” Patrick reminded me gently.

I thought about that for a second. “He’s not a murderer, that’s true, but he did this. He put everyone I care about in danger. All because he was chasing a quick buck. It’s all he’s ever done. Looked for a shortcut, consequences be damned.” Realizing I’d balled my hands into fists, I forced myself to relax. “Losing touch with him won’t be a loss.”

“Okay,” Patrick said. “This is your show. What do you need from me?”

I took a deep breath, knowing this was the part of the plan he wasn’t going to like. “I need you to go to the B&B, while I go into the hospital.”

The tension in the car ratcheted up tenfold despite the fact he didn’t say anything.

“We need to be able to say I gave you the slip,” I explained hurriedly. “If you go to the B&B looking for me, the Lubovskys will never connect you.”

“I don’t need you to protect me, Mags,” Patrick whispered, his voice strained. “I’m not leaving you.”

“You have to,” I urged. “You go to the B&B looking for me. You go up to my bedroom and you find the picture that’s in the drawer of the desk. When you see the picture, you’ll know where to tell Griswald to look for the discs.”

“What? Where?” Patrick asked, confused.

“You’ll know,” I promised him. “And once you’ve told Griswald, you can race back here and get me.”

“But—“ Patrick protested.

“
I
need to protect my family,” I told him, “but I need
you
to protect
me
.”

“But what if Lubovsky has men inside the hospital?”

“Delveccio’s men won’t let anything happen to me. I eat a lot of chocolate pudding with their boss.”

Patrick speared a hand through his hair. I half-expected him to pull a handful out. “This is an idiotic plan.”

“But it’ll work,” I told him.

“Or you’ll get yourself killed,” he countered.

“You’ll be back in time,” I said. “I have faith in you.”

“I can’t—“

“It has to be now,” I told him. “Before my father gets out of surgery. Before they can question him. While I’m still the only one with the answers. I need you to believe in me, Patrick.”

“I can’t lose you, Mags,” he whispered.

“Then drive like hell.” I pressed my lips to his and then jumped out of the car and ran toward the entrance.

For a moment I thought he was going to follow me, but then I heard a squeal of tires and an engine racing away.

I was alone again, with everyone depending on me.

Well, almost alone.

“
That’s
your brilliant plan?” God asked from the valley between my breasts. “You send away the one person who we
know
wants you to live through this.”

“This is going to work,” I promised.

“It’d better,” he groused.

I slowed to a walk and strolled through the hospital doors like this was just another visit I was paying to my niece.

It was late, so the hallways were relatively empty. I smiled and nodded at nurses and orderlies, just another dutiful family member visiting.

Two men in suits flanked the door of Delveccio’s grandson’s room. They glanced at me, surprised, and one immediately dialed his phone. I felt a surge of satisfaction. They’d tell Griswald where I was, who’d in turn tell Patrick, so it would make perfect sense when the redheaded detective showed up looking for me.

Two of Delveccio’s goons were watching a wrestling match on television when I stepped into the room. They both reached for their guns, but then relaxed when they recognized me.

I nodded at them both and then went to check on Katie. She slept soundly, but I could have sworn I saw a bit more color in her cheeks than usual. I touched her forehead to make sure she didn’t have a fever. Her skin was warm, but not hot.

She stirred beneath my touch. I stood very still, not wanting to disturb her.

I moved slowly to take Dino, the stuffed dinosaur, out from beneath her arm.

Dad had left each of his daughter’s a clue. He’d left me the jewel cases, told Marlene exactly where the discs were hidden, and given Theresa the password.

Picking up the tattered toy, I turned it over to examine the tag sewn into the tail. I read it carefully “Handcrafted by 3 W1TCH3S 012203240413.”

“I should have known,” I chuckled.

The mob goons glanced over at me, then turned their attention back to the television and the man smashing a chair over another’s head.

I took the dinosaur down to the cafeteria and bought some chocolate pudding. Except for the teenaged cashier who was wearing earbuds and doing what looked like calculus homework, I was the only one there. I sat down at one of the familiar tables I’d spent too much time at over the past few months and waited in the vast, empty space.

“What are we doing?” God whispered from his hidey-spot in my bra.

“Waiting,” I muttered.

“For what?”

“Him.”

“Him who?” the lizard squeaked.

I didn’t answer as I watched someone else enter the deserted cafeteria.

I knew he’d come.

I’d only finished half the pudding when he showed up.

“It’s in that toy, isn’t it?” he asked. “I knew it.”

I looked at the barrel of the gun he had pointed at me. The fact that it had a silencer attached told me he was more than willing to shoot me in public. I swallowed hard. “I knew it was you.”

He sat down opposite me, keeping the weapon trained on me. “How?”

“She’s a space cadet,” I said.

“I don’t follow.”

“Stacy the social worker. The
real
social worker. Nice lady. Sweet as could be, but she’s a dingbat. No way would she have ever written a report about my altercation with Alfonso Cifelli.”

The man who’d presented himself as Mr. Withers, the hospital social worker frowned. “Give me the toy.”

“No,” I said, shoveling another spoonful of pudding into my mouth like I wasn’t about to get shot any moment.

“No?” he asked. “Do you have any idea how painful it is to get shot?”

I shook my head. “You’re not going to get the discs.”

“Because Griswald is tearing apart the restaurant?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Discs are useless without the password and I know your father changed that. I supplied the code for it myself. So all the Griswald brothers are going to end up with are some small, silver Frisbees.”

“So why do you want the password then?” I asked, but then guessing the answer I said, “You’re not working for the Lubovskys. You want to blackmail them.”

“You’re much smarter than you look and act,” Withers said.

“My grandmother used to say I’m
exceptionally unexceptional
,” I confided.

“So don’t be exceptionally stupid. Give me the password or I’ll shoot you
and then
take the toy.”

“I’d like the good guys to win,” I told him.

“Not going to happen.” Withers raised the gun and pressed it to my forehead. “Give it to me.”

Sliding my eyes in the direction of the cashier, I saw her head was bent over her homework and she was oblivious to my imminent death. I squeezed the dinosaur’s neck tightly. “Did you break my father out of prison?”

“No. That was Leon Lubovsky. He was afraid the rat was going to give the Feds the discs in order to get himself a sweeter deal.”

“He is,” I told him.

“You’re not going to be around to see it,” Withers said.

I smiled. “I certainly hope not.”

Then I made my move. I swung that toy dinosaur as hard as I could at the bald head of the bowtied “social worker”.

He squeezed off a shot.

“You’re trying to get me killed!” God yelled tugging on my bra strap.

I ignored them both. I was already ducking beneath the table. Of course being a monumental klutz, I hit my head on the edge of the table so hard that the room darkened.

When I’d gone to pay for the pudding I’d known what I had to do, not because I’m an overly clever gal, but because I’d been told enough times over the past two days.

The box cutter had been lying next to the plastic utensils, no doubt put down and forgotten when someone realized they needed a plastic spoon.

“Take it,” God had urged, having climbed onto my shoulder to get the lay of the land.

I’d picked up the blade with some extra napkins.

I used it now on the man who was trying to kill me, plunging it into his soft belly hearing both Piss saying, “Gut the thug” and Armani’s pulled letters, “G U T T H UG”…not “tug-hug” but “gut thug.”

Withers screamed in agony as the blade pierced him. I almost left it at stabbing him, but then I remembered the photograph I’d sent Patrick to go see.

One year, when my father went deep sea fishing with Rob, the owner of Artie’s, he’d brought me along. My hatred of seafood had been born that day as they’d taught me how to gut a big fish. I remembered how they’d laughed at me struggling to gut the huge marlin, which now hung on the wall of the restaurant.

I yanked the blade upward, tearing through Withers’ skin and organs.

He squeezed off two more shots, trying to shoot me through the table. I flinched as the whistling pings splintered the surface above my head.

“Aaaaah! Help!” God screamed in abject horror.

Withers collapsed onto the floor beside me. Dropping his gun, he clutched his stomach, making a terrible gurgling noise.

I took a deep breath. It was over.

“Impressive,” a voice said from above.

I looked up to see Agent Weller, the one who’d been stabbed guarding Katie’s room, looking down at me. He kicked Withers’ gun out of reach. He looked awfully spry for a guy who himself had been stabbed earlier.

“He was trying to kill me,” I told him breathlessly.

“He talked too much.” Weller raised a gun and aimed it at my head. It too had a silencer attached.

I’d found Griswald’s leak. Not that I was going to get a chance to tell him. I’d gambled everything and I’d lost.

I closed my eyes, not wanting Weller to have the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

There was a thud and when I opened my eyes, I no longer saw the end of my life facing me, instead I saw Patrick holding a gun on Weller, who was crumpled in an unconscious heap on the floor.

“You’re damn lucky I drive so fast,” Patrick growled.

I wanted to nod, but instead I passed out.

It wasn’t until I’d asked Patrick to tell my aunts to come to the hospital because Marlene was waiting in Recovery for dad, that I felt like I’d done everything I could for my family. For the first time in two days I could breathe.

A number of people had tried to kill me, but the worst injury sustained was self-inflicted. The bump I’d given myself as I’d hit my head diving under the table alternately stung and ached despite the ice pack I’d held to it for hours while I waited for the deal I’d negotiated with Griswald for my father to be approved.

While I waited, Weller had been cuffed and dragged away for questioning, Withers had been rushed to the Emergency Room, and cops, marshals and FBI agents swarmed the scene.

Patrick, who’d been in-and-out of the hospital cafeteria, doing detective-y things no doubt, had avoided talking to me except to honor my request to call the aunts. He’d barely even spared a glance in my direction.

I wasn’t surprised that Aunt Susan found me in the cafeteria, and I was amused that she was able to bully her way into the crime scene. I watched her face, pinched and horrified as she skirted around the pool of blood that had leaked from Withers. Blood I had spilled.

Marshal Griswald, looking determined, marched toward us, as Aunt Susan, paler than usual, settled into the seat beside me.

“I’m fine,” I told her quickly, trying to alleviate her worry, and then, because I didn’t want her to hear it from Griswald, I added. “I had to stab a guy, but I’m okay.”

She stared at the blood and then turned to look at me. “Thank God,” she murmured, pulling me into a tight hug. “If I’d lost you…” she sniffled.

I hugged her tightly, rubbing comforting circles between her shoulder blades. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”

“You’re crushing me,” God gasped, using my bra strap to climb up to my shoulder. He looked right at Susan and said, “Hello.”

His appearance was her undoing. My stoic aunt, the one who never let anything get to her, the one everyone depended on in times of crisis, dissolved into great heaving sobs in my arms. Her cries echoed off the cafeteria walls, causing everyone to look over at us.

I patted her back helplessly, unable to comfort her.

Griswald slowed his approach at the sight of the crying woman in my arms. “Everything okay?” he called from a distance.

I shrugged. Talk about a loaded question.

“I need to talk to him,” I told Aunt Susan. “Why don’t you go take Marlene to the B&B? When I’m done here, I’ll come see all of you.”

Eyeing God nervously she nodded, stood, and keeping her gaze averted, shuffled past the pool of congealed blood.

Griswald did a double-take when he spotted the lizard, but then sat in the seat beside me without commenting on his presence. “How are you holding up?”