Maggie Lee (Book 11): The Hitwoman Hires a Manny Read online

  I nodded slowly, wondering if Aunt Susan had recognized a kindred soul in Angel. “If we hadn’t had my aunts, I don’t know what would have happened.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “I am lucky,” I corrected.

  He smiled. “So these are your pets?”

  “And Piss.” I looked around the room trying to spot her.

  “Piss?” Katie’s possible caretaker sounded slightly alarmed.

  “She’s a cat,” I explained. “The vet called her Piss and she refuses to tell me her real name, so that’s what we call her.”

  If he found it strange that I said the cat wouldn’t tell me her name, he didn’t give any indication.

  “Piss,” I called. “Come out, sweetheart. I want you to meet someone.”

  The cat didn’t make an appearance.

  “Where is she?” I asked DeeDee.

  “I’m here.” The feline pulled herself out from beneath the couch. “You do know that cats don’t come when called, don’t you?”

  “Sorry.” I scooped her up and placed her on my lap. “And this is Piss.”

  Angel hinged forward so that he was eye-level with her. He took in her one eye, half an ear, and generally beat-up appearance and murmured softly, “I bet you could tell some stories, beautiful.”

  I felt Piss tense, her claws flexing against my legs, as he slowly extended a hand toward her.

  “You look like how I feel,” he soothed as he gently covered her head with his hand and rubbed her bad ear.

  I wondered what he’d meant by that statement. Did he feel beaten up? Was he too covered with scars that I hadn’t yet spotted?

  As Piss purred happily beneath Angel’s ministrations, I knew I’d hired myself a manny.

  Chapter Five

  It was dark when DeeDee decided to eat my sneaker.

  “Hey, knock it off.” I threw a throw pillow at her from where I was lying on the couch. I’d been staring at the phone Patrick had left for me, wondering where he was and how the hell I was supposed to find Darlene without him.

  Unlike the lizard who thought such an action was an attack on his life, the dog thought it was a new game. She grabbed the pillow in her mouth and immediately ran to the opposite end of the room.

  Imagining her tearing the fabric and spilling feathers or stuffing everywhere, I warned the Doberman in my most stern voice, “Don’t even think about it, missy.”

  She looked at me with her dark eyes and then shook the pillow like it was a squirrel whose neck she was trying to break.

  “DeeDee!” I jumped to my feet.

  “Easy, Sugar,” Piss drawled from the other end of the couch. “She’s been cooped up in here for days. She’s bored.”

  “She’s too simple to be bored,” God opined from his terrarium.

  I glared at him. “You’re not helping.”

  DeeDee dropped the pillow so that she could pant, “Bored. Walk?” She tilted her head to the side and eyed me hopefully.

  Feeling guilty that I’d slacked in her care, I shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Walk! Walk!” she barked like it was the most exciting thing she’d ever gotten to do.

  Once I got the leash on her, she practically dragged me out of the house. We moved quickly down the street, her straining forward with her nose to the ground, me, hanging on for dear life, trying to keep up and stay upright. Not an easy combo.

  Finally, when she’d slowed down to a pace that wouldn’t result in me ending up with a broken neck, I became aware of my surroundings. Specifically, I noticed that a car was slowly approaching. Too slowly.

  I tensed. “Doomsday,” I whispered. “Pay attention.”

  “DeeDee,” she corrected, sounding insulted that I’d dared to use her original name.

  I didn’t have time to soothe her feelings. I was too busy trying to look nonchalant as I watched the approaching car.

  It stopped a house-length away.

  My mouth went dry. Would the driver try to run me down? I glanced around, trying to determine the best escape route. Deciding the safest course would be to run straight up a yard to the front door of a neighbor’s house, I told the dog, “Get ready to run.”

  Her ears perked up, “Run?”

  Then the driver’s door of the car popped open.

  I squeezed the handle of the leash, adrenaline coursing through me.

  The driver emerged, a long-haired, heavily tattooed guy, who looked downright shifty.

  It took me a moment to realize he was carrying a pizza.

  I let out a shaky sigh of relief as he carried the food to the nearest house.

  “Holy heart attack,” I muttered. “Just a pizza delivery dude.”

  DeeDee licked my hand. “Okay Maggie you are?”

  “I’m okay,” I reassured her, patting the top of her head. “Just a little on edge. Let’s go home.”

  Changing direction, I realized that there was a car parked across the street from the B&B, lights dark, engine running. I frowned, trying not to let my imagination run away from me again.

  “There’s probably a perfectly good reason that’s there,” I assured myself aloud.

  “Good.” DeeDee wiggled her stump of a tail.

  But as I drew closer to the car, I couldn’t come up with a single reason it would be there except the occupant was watching the B&B.

  Suddenly I remembered Aunt Loretta having claimed to have been accosted by a man in the parking lot at The Corset, and Susan saying that Angel had scared off an unsavory character.

  Had both of those incidents involved Rivalgi? Was he stalking the people closest to Templeton? Was he sitting there, watching me, plotting his revenge?

  The way I saw it, I could play dumb, walk past the vehicle, and hope the occupant didn’t attack. Or…

  Or I could confront the driver.

  “Show no fear,” I said quietly.

  The dog glanced up at me. “What?”

  “Show no fear.” I forced myself to sound firm.

  DeeDee gave me her best scary face, lips drawn back in a menacing snarl, teeth gleaming.

  “That’s it,” I encouraged her. Ignoring the icy sensation taking up residence in my gut, I squared my shoulders and marched determinedly toward the car chanting, “Show no fear. Show no fear.”

  It was too dark to see and for all I knew, the driver could have had a gun pointed right at me, but I still rapped sharply on the driver’s window, determined to face him down.

  When the window didn’t immediately lower, I bent down and peered inside…just in time to spot two teenagers hurriedly readjusting their clothes.

  I groaned. I’d become that adult. The nosy, busybody interfering with the neighborhood’s business.

  “Sorry,” I shouted, turning away. “I thought you were someone else.”

  Mortified, I rushed away, dragging my snarling dog behind me.

  “I’m losing it,” I told her.

  She trotted ahead, without a care in the world, while I tried to calm down. Paranoia doesn’t suit me.

  The cause of my paranoia, or at least the source, had the misfortune of rushing out of the B&B at the exact moment we reached the driveway.

  “Templeton!” I shouted.

  He jumped, startled by my aggressive tone. Then, recognizing me, he waved. “Sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

  We met midway in the driveway.

  I got right to the point. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m on my way out,” he countered. “Can it wait until tomorrow?”

  Taking in the slight twitchiness of Aunt Loretta’s fiancé, I wondered if he too was feeling paranoid.

  “Actually it can’t,” I said, as he tried to move past me, toward his car.

  That stopped him in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder at me. “Is something wrong?”

  I nodded.

  “Is it Katie?” The concern in his tone seemed genuine.

  “It’s late and I don’t think you’re hanging out with the right kind of
people.” I knew that I sounded haughty and judgmental, but it wasn’t like I could say that I knew he was off to a high-stakes poker game with a bunch of criminals. As far as he knew, I was just a lowly office clerk. I couldn’t reveal that I’d actually killed one of his poker buddies in the recent past.

  He had the good sense or at least courtesy, to not try to deceive me. “I understand your concerns.”

  “I don’t think you do,” I said coolly. “Arnold Rivalgi is out of prison.”

  Templeton wobbled a bit, but tried to put on a good face. “Who?”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  He looked away. “How do you know that?”

  “A concerned…let’s call him a friend, told me.”

  Templeton flinched.

  I guessed that he was imagining Delveccio had told me.

  I didn’t disabuse him of the wrong assumption, hoping that his fear of the mobster would compel him to change his ways.

  “I really have to go,” Templeton muttered, moving toward his car again.

  “At mad Templeton?” DeeDee panted uneasily as Templeton slid behind the steering wheel of the car.

  “I’m not mad at him,” I told her. But that wasn’t completely true. If his past came back to endanger my family, I’d be furious.

  I didn’t try to stop him as he drove off, but I did scan the darkness once he was gone, unable to shake the uneasy feeling that someone was watching.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning after confirming that DeeDee wasn’t stealing the cat’s food, after Piss requested an additional can of tuna, I took God’s advice and launched my search for Darlene.

  With the lizard tucked securely into my bra, I drove over to the mental facility where my mother resides.

  “I’m proud of you,” God announced after I’d parked and stepped out of the car.

  I froze in place. “Why?” I whispered, wondering why he couldn’t have said his piece in the privacy of the car.

  “Because you avoided your mother for so long and here you are, on your way to ask for help. You’ve made great progress.”

  “I guess so.” I didn’t tell him that for the entire ride over I’d been replaying a recent unpleasant visit when my mother had thrown gelatin at me and slapped my face.

  “You’re only responsible for your own reactions,” the lizard reminded me, as though he was able to read my mind.

  “Done with your pep talk?” I asked. “I really don’t need people giving me looks because my chest is making noise.”

  “Ungrateful cur,” he mocked, but then fell silent.

  I tilted my head to one side and then the other, loosening up my neck so that I could walk into the facility with my head held high.

  After signing in with security, I made my way down the halls in search of my mother.

  Instead, I encountered a different familiar face.

  I sucked in my breath as Delveccio’s daughter, Angelina, hurried toward me. I tried to appear relaxed as the beautiful, dark-eyed woman approached, but every cell of my being tensed, having witnessed firsthand how unstable she could be.

  “Do you have something for me?” she asked excitedly as soon as she was within earshot.

  I recognized the gleam of manic madness in her eyes and had to fight the urge to run away. I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  She pouted like a three year old. “Is Daddy mad at me?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said gently. “He didn’t even know I was going to be here. I’m here to see someone else.”

  “Your Ma?”

  I blinked, surprised she was able to make the connection. “Yes.”

  “Did you bring her anything?”

  I chuckled. “No. I came empty-handed.”

  Without another word, Angelina stalked away. I had no idea who she was after, but I made a 180 degree turn and hurried away in the opposite direction.

  I found my mother in her room. She was sitting in a chair, sketching.

  I stood for a moment watching her, trying to gauge her mood. When my mom is in a stable mood, she’s sweet and kind and everything anyone could want in a mother. When she’s not, she scares the hell out of me.

  Still, I needed to talk to her. Patrick had discovered that Kevin Belgard was behind the disappearance of all the records of my sister Darlene’s “murder” and my mother was the only person who might know the connection.

  Holding my breath, I knocked softly on the door jamb, hoping the noise wouldn’t startle her.

  She glanced up, a dreamy expression softening her gaze, making her appear almost angelic.

  I waved. “Hi Mom.”

  She blinked, struggling to focus.

  “It’s me.” I slowly stepped into the room.

  Her confusion cleared and a warm smile lit her face. “Maggie.” She held up her arms in welcome.

  The pressing tension in my chest evaporated and I smiled back, hurrying forward to accept her hug, relieved she wasn’t going to smack me.

  “What are you drawing?” I asked, glancing down at her paper.

  “Candles.”

  “Why candles?”

  “So I can make a wish,” she said wistfully.

  I knew better than to ask her what the wish was. Since she was relatively lucid, I needed to take advantage of the moment. “Can I ask you about something?”

  She nodded, smiling benevolently. “Of course.”

  Perching on the edge of her bed so that I could see her face, I said gently, “Tell me about Belgard.”

  Her smile disappeared and she curled her hands into tight fists.

  “Please, Mom,” I pleaded. “It’s important.”

  “Terrible,” she spat out.

  “What’s terrible?”

  Pressing her lips into a flat line, she glared at me.

  I swallowed hard, wondering if broaching the subject had been a mistake. Still, having no other clues to go on, I pushed on. “Kevin Belgard?”

  She looked away, as though holding my gaze suddenly burnt her.

  Hand shaking as she held her pencil, she made angry slashes across her drawing, as though by destroying the sketch, she could eliminate what was upsetting her.

  I made no move to stop her. I just waited, watching.

  “It’s his fault,” she ground out, breaking the point of her pencil.

  “What’s his fault?” I prompted.

  She raised anguish-filled eyes at me. “Darlene.”

  A chill skittered down my spine at the confirmation that Kevin Belgard had something to do with my sister’s disappearance. “Why is it his fault?”

  She shook her head.

  Moving slowly, so as not to startle her, I left the bed and knelt by her side. “Please, Mom. I need to understand.”

  She reached out with trembling fingers and brushed my hair away from my face.

  “You think it’s my fault. You already blame me.”

  I tried to keep my expression neutral. She was right. Part of me did blame her. If, at the carnival Darlene had disappeared from, I’d kept a better eye on the twins, than on the antics of my mother, maybe the family would still be intact.

  I didn’t tell her that. I told her the other half of the truth. “I blame myself.”

  She shook her head, a sad smile dancing on her lips. “You shouldn’t. It’s his fault.”

  “Belgard’s?”

  “He gave me the tickets.”

  I sucked in a breath. “Kevin Belgard gave you the tickets to the carnival?”

  She nodded. Her smile faded. “I should have known.”

  “Known what?”

  “Not to trust him. Your father was always warning me about him, but…” She trailed off and stared into space as though watching a distant memory. Tears began to drip down her cheeks.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” I stood up and wrapped her in a hug. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  She went unnaturally still in my arms.

  “Mom?”

  When she didn’t respon
d, I released her and leaned back in order to get a better look at her.