Maggie Lee (Book 19): The Hitwoman and the Gold Digger Read online

  THE HITWOMAN AND THE GOLD DIGGER

  JB LYNN

  Copyright © Jennifer Baum

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Author’s note

  Other Books by JB Lynn

  About JB Lynn

  Copyright © Jennifer Baum

  THE HITWOMAN AND THE GOLD DIGGER

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted by US copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, or organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The Hitwoman and the Gold Digger is intended for 18+ older and for mature audiences only.

  © 2018 Jennifer Baum

  Cover designer: Hot Damn Designs

  Editor: Parisa Zolfaghari

  Proofreader: Proof Before You Publish

  Formatting: Masque of the Red Pen

  You know it’s going to be a bad day when the phone rings at 3:24 in the morning. I mean, is there anything else that can simultaneously trigger the thoughts of “where am I” and “someone died”? Needless to say, my heart was beating triple time and I was barely able to choke out two syllables. “Hello?”

  “Hey, chica,” the voice on the other side of the call said cheerily.

  “Who’s dead?” God, the talking anole lizard, asked.

  “Dead?” DeeDee the Doberman panted worriedly.

  “Why the hell are you calling me at three in the morning?” I asked my friend Armani Vasquez. Since she’s psychic, I needled, “Didn’t you know I was sleeping?”

  “Miss Lee?” a male voice asked. “This is Detective Brian Griswald.”

  Just when I’d started to relax, my anxiety ratcheted up. I found it hard to breathe.

  “I don’t know if you remember who I am.”

  “Of course I remember,” I wheezed nervously. Not only was he the nephew of my Aunt Susan’s fiancé, but I’d met him in a professional capacity. Thankfully, not in the professional capacity of him arresting me since I’m a semi-professional hitwoman. Still, any interaction with law enforcement tends to make me very anxious.

  “I’m here with Armani,” Brian Griswald continued. “We’re sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “Where’s here?” I asked.

  “At police headquarters.”

  “Is she in trouble?”

  “Is who in trouble?” God interjected. “Is it Darlene? Mike says she’s been acting squirrelly.”

  I ignored the fact that a lizard was pointing out that a crow was saying that a human was acting like a squirrel, and focused on the detective’s reply.

  “No, she’s not in trouble.” Brian chuckled knowingly, which reminded me that Armani had played matchmaker for him, so he understood my assumption that she’d done something crazy.

  “There’s been a bit of an…incident.”

  “What kind of incident?” I asked, wondering why they’d chosen to wake ME in the middle of the night. ”And how is she involved?”

  “The Incident at the Haunted House,” God intoned dramatically.

  I covered the phone. “Will you shut up?”

  “Are you familiar with Soliloquy?” Brian asked.

  “Sure.” Everyone knew the most famous restaurant in New Jersey since it had been featured prominently on a reality show where a number of the senior citizen cast members had gotten into a knockdown, drag-out brawl over their sexual shenanigans.

  The news had had a lot of fun with the Sexy Seniors Smash Soliloquy.

  “Well,” Brian continued, “Armani was there during an incident tonight.”

  “Robbery!” Armani yelled in the background. “An armed robbery.”

  “An armed robbery,” Brian confirmed.

  “Was she hurt?” I asked.

  “No. She’s fine.”

  “Then why did you call me?” I sighed my exasperation.

  “She’s a witness…” the detective explained slowly.

  “Okay.” I still had no idea what any of this had to do with me.

  “And according to her, the ringleader looked like Santa Claus.”

  My heart sank at the implication. They were saying that my father, who has at times borne a striking resemblance to Jolly Old Saint Nick, was suspected of being involved in the heist.

  “Sorry, chica!” Armani called from the background.

  “I didn’t want to show up at the B&B and set off the chain reaction of chaos a police visit would start,” Brian explained. “That’s why we called.”

  “Good thinking,” I said drily.

  Detective Brian Griswald had interacted with my crazy family enough to know that any little thing could set off a tsunami of hysteria that was overwhelming to mere mortals.

  “Thank you for that,” I added.

  “Have you seen your father?” he asked.

  “No.” Not lately, anyway.

  “Had any contact?”

  “Not recently.” Technically, that was the truth. I hadn’t had contact with him, though I knew from my uncle, Thurston, that he was heading to town. I frowned—my dad’s twin brother could also pass for Santa Claus.

  “Well, he does fit the description,” Brian said.

  “I don’t think he has a beard,” I told him. In fact, since I’d seen him not too long ago when I’d gone on a road trip with Armani, I knew for certain he didn’t have one, but considering Dad’s in the Witness Protection Program, I couldn’t very well tell the nice detective that we’d had a family reunion.

  I heard Brian and Armani having a conversation, but their voices were muffled.

  “Gotta. Gotta,” DeeDee whined.

  “No, you don’t,” Piss, my one-eyed cat, meowed, clearly unhappy that her beauty sleep had been interrupted. “You were snoring before the phone call.”

  “Gotta,” DeeDee insisted.

  “It’s me,” Armani said through the phone.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Of course. I’m sorry I had to tell them about your dad, but everyone else was giving their statements.”

  “It’s fine,” I assured her. “And it wasn’t him.”

  “So, can you give me a ride home?” she asked, her tone telling me she didn’t believe that it wasn’t my father who’d commi
tted the robbery.

  “Now?”

  “Well, when you get here,” she replied magnanimously.

  “I thought my chauffeuring duties were over,” I said even as I stood up. I’d learned I didn’t have the appropriate temperament to be a professional driver after ferrying her around in an RV for our infamous road trip.

  “Gotta,” DeeDee reminded me forlornly, forcing me to stumble in the direction of the cellar’s storm doors to let her out.

  “I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” I told Armani.

  “Great!”

  Personally, I didn’t think it sounded so great, then again, no one was dead (yet), so perhaps things were going better than I believed.

  Chapter One

  The trip down to Police Headquarters should have gone quickly considering there was no traffic, but I’d brought God along and his endless chattering made the trip feel interminable.

  “You should stay as far away from him as possible,” he opined from his vantage point on the dashboard.

  “Who?” I stared at a red traffic light, willing it to turn green. “Dad or Thurston?”

  “Both.”

  I sighed. “That’s usually easier said than done.”

  “Why would Thurston commit a robbery?” the lizard asked.

  “One. We don’t know it was him. I mean, really, he doesn’t seem the type. He’s the responsible one of the twins. Dad is the reprehensible one. Two. If it was him, I don’t want to know why. I don’t want to get involved. Because of him I had to have discussions with gorillas. I don’t want to know what kind of weird path this could send me down.”

  “Plus, you should stay away from Detective Griswald.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  We basically had that same conversation a half dozen times before I reached the police station. Thankfully, Armani was waiting outside, chatting up some uniformed beat cop, when I pulled up, so I didn’t have to go inside. Which was probably a good thing. Doing so would have probably made me break out in hives, since I’m a sometime-assassin. I really don’t want to make the acquaintance of any more cops.

  She limped over to the car, opened the door, and slowly lowered herself into the passenger seat. “Hey, chica.”

  “Hey.”

  “You know that if you were really fulfilling your chauffeuring duties, you’d have opened the door for me.”

  “But I’m not your coachman…coachwoman anymore. It’s the middle of the night, and I’m here. Don’t push your luck.”

  “I’m hungry. Can we go get something to eat?”

  “Sure.” There are some not-so-hot things about living in New Jersey, like the cost of living and property taxes that can make you think it would be cheaper to live on Mars, but one of the pluses is that we are the home of twenty-four-hour diners. No matter what the hour is, there’s always someplace open to get something to eat.

  I headed for the diner. A place that holds a special spot in my heart since it’s where I met my murder mentor Patrick Mulligan. Well, the first time I met him in his official capacity as my mentor. I’d been with Armani at our former place of employment, Insuring the Future, when I’d met the redheaded detective.

  “I’m sorry I had to tell them about your dad,” Armani apologized.

  I shrugged. “It wasn’t him.”

  I felt more than saw the disbelieving look she gave me.

  Looking over at her for a second, I said, “Really. He doesn’t have the beard. Couldn’t have been him.”

  “Huh.”

  I couldn’t tell if the single grunted syllable indicated surprise or disbelief.

  “So, why were you at Soliloquy, and what happened?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking of investing in it.”

  “In the restaurant?” I don’t know why I was surprised. Since winning the lottery, Armani was coming off with even crazier plans than usual.

  “I think food could be a good creative outlet for me.”

  My stomach roiled rebelliously remembering some of the horrible food combinations she’d paired in the past.

  “Plus,” she confessed, “I had a date with a guy I met online. Or, I thought I did, but he didn’t show up, and I can’t track him down since they stole my phone.”

  “It seems like a strange place to rob,” I mused aloud, thinking that a high-end restaurant probably dealt in a higher percentage of credit cards than cash.

  “Yeah. I don’t think that they even went after the cash register. They were after wallets and pocketbooks.”

  I pulled into the diner’s parking lot, which was littered with half a dozen cars. We weren’t the only ones with the middle-of-the-night munchies.

  “Don’t leave me here,” God ordered.

  “Oh hey, little guy!” Armani cried. “I didn’t even notice you there.”

  “Hmmmph!” The lizard flicked his tail in outrage. “Didn’t notice me indeed.”

  “What’s he squeaking about?” Armani asked curiously.

  “I. Do. Not. Squeak.” Even though the lizard was bellowing, it sounded like squeaking to normal people.

  “He’s offended you didn’t notice him,” I translated for Armani, regretting the fact that I’d ever confirmed to her that I can speak to animals.

  “Tell her I don’t squeak!”

  Ignoring his command, I extended my palm, silently inviting him to climb aboard. Since his desire to go along was stronger than his need to prove his lack of squeaking, he skittered up my arm, paused for a moment on my shoulder to stick his tongue out at Armani, and then dove into my bra.

  I got out of the car and ran around to open Armani’s car door with an exaggerated subservient attitude.

  “That’s more like it.” She laughed.

  “This means you’re buying the food, right?”

  “Nope. The bastards stole my wallet, remember?”

  “Hang on,” I protested. “You woke me up. Got me to drag my tired butt to pick you up. And now you want me to feed you?”

  Undeterred by my complaints, Armani kept limping toward the entrance of the diner. “You know I’m good for it.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?” God asked from my bra.

  “You’re taking advantage of me,” I told Armani.

  “Everyone takes advantage of you,” she tossed over her shoulder.

  I stopped walking. “But you’re my friend, you’re not supposed to do that.”

  Armani looked back at me. “Are you really upset about this?”

  “Yes.” And I was. Usually, I’m willing to turn myself inside out for people, but this annoyed me to no end. Maybe it’s because I was exhausted. Maybe it was because I had just reached my limit.

  “Don’t be mad,” Armani soothed. “You’re my best friend. Who else would I call when I’d been robbed at gunpoint?” A little hitch in her voice let me know that she was way more upset about her ordeal than she’d let on.

  I immediately felt guilty for my little outburst. She’d had a tough time and here I was being selfish. I started walking again, rushing a little so that I could get ahead of her.

  “Were you scared?” I asked as I held the diner door open for her.

  “Sure. Who wouldn’t be? You’ve never looked down the barrel of a gun, so you can’t really understand.”

  I bit back a laugh. I’d faced multiple guns and deadly force a number of times, but she didn’t know about my secret assassin life. Which was weird, considering she’s a psychic.

  “I’m sure it was terrifying,” I told her.

  “Two, honey?” the waitress asked.

  “Close to the entrance,” Armani requested.

  “This one okay?” the waitress asked, pointing to the nearest booth.

  “Perfect.” Armani plunked herself down.

  I slid into the seat opposite, inhaling the soothing scents of coffee and griddle grease, as the waitress slapped a pair of menus onto the table.

  The waitress pulled out her pad and pen. “Get you som
ething to drink?”

  “Coffee. Lots of coffee,” Armani ordered.

  I considered pointing out that caffeine might not be the best choice for her since she was already on edge but thought better of it. “Just water for me, please.”

  I picked up the sticky menu and scanned it.

  Armani stared at the rotating dessert case. “I thought I was gonna die.”

  Reaching across the table, I patted her good arm. “But you’re fine.”

  “But the spirits didn’t warn me.” Her eyes welled with tears.

  “Maybe they knew you’d be okay,” I reasoned. “Maybe you were supposed to be there and if you’d known about the robbery, you would have stayed home.”

  She nodded slowly, chewing on her lower lip as she considered that line of thought. “It was destiny that I was there.”

  I shrugged, studying the menu more closely as the waitress returned with our drinks.

  “Ready to order?” she asked.

  Armani pointed at the spinning desserts. “Can I have a piece of that strawberry shortcake?”

  “Sure,” the waitress turned to me, “and you?”

  Before I could speak, Armani continued, “With a side of chocolate syrup?”

  “Uh huh.” The waitress looked to me again.

  “And some relish,” Armani added.

  The waitress looked at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Relish. Hot dog relish.”

  “With the strawberry shortcake?”

  “And the chocolate syrup.”

  Shaking her head, the waitress jotted notes on her order pad.

  Once I was sure Armani was done, I said, “Taylor ham, egg and cheese on a roll.”

  The waitress arched an eyebrow. “Any condiments with that?”

  Chuckling, I shook my head.

  As soon as she was gone, Armani was back on the destiny thing like a Rottweiler on a rawhide. “I was supposed to bear witness.”

  I sipped my water.

  “Which means, I’m supposed to bring the perpetrator to justice.”

  I almost dropped my glass. “I didn’t say that. That was not what I said at all.”

  She shook her head, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “That’s why the spirits wanted me there.”

  “Why don’t you just ask them why they didn’t warn you?” I asked weakly, suddenly afraid that my innocent suggestion was going to send my friend down a dangerous path.