The Hitwoman's Juggling Act
Page 1
The Hitwoman’s Juggling Act
Book 20
JB Lynn
Copyright © Jennifer Baum
THE HITWOMAN’S JUGGLING ACT
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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.
Cover designer: Hot Damn Designs
Editor: Parisa Zolfaghari
Proofreader: Proof Before You Publish
Formatting: Leiha Mann
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Author’s Note
Also by JB Lynn
About JB Lynn
Prologue
You just know it’s going to be a bad day when you literally trip over a body.
I’m Maggie Lee, and obviously I’m a klutz. What’s not so obvious is that I am an amateur assassin. I say amateur because, although I’ve killed a few people (only bad people, I promise), I’m not very good at it.
So there I was, staring at the slack-jawed face of Detective Brian Griswald.
But maybe I should back up and tell you how I got here and why it’s such a big problem.
1
Being homeless is pretty miserable. I guess that’s a pretty uninspired observation to make, but it’s true.
I was homeless because the family Bed & Breakfast had been blown up.
As Godzilla, God for short, has pointed out numerous times after the fact, if I’d just carried the bomb into the backyard instead of leaving it on the dining room table like some school science project, things would be very different.
He’s very good at telling me what I should have done, not so hot at giving useful advice before everything literally blows up in my face.
Anyway, I was pretty miserable being homeless. My sister Darlene, who lived next door to the B&B had taken in our Aunt Leslie, Leslie’s twin, Loretta, and Loretta’s fiancé, Templeton. Considering she already had a husband, two kids of her own, and our niece, Katie, living under her roof, she had a pretty full house.
Our sister Marlene was flitting back between Darlene’s place and that of her boyfriend, Doc.
Newlywed Aunt Susan had shacked up with her new husband, U.S. Marshal Lawrence Griswald, at his place.
That left me without a place to stay. Me and my menagerie; God, an anole lizard, DeeDee the Doberman pinscher, Piss the one-eyed cat, and Benny the white mouse. Not to mention Mike, the gangster crow, who doesn’t like to be imprisoned in rooms, but is always hanging out nearby.
My half-brother, Ian, who can also talk to animals, offered to take them, but my non-human family refused to leave me. I’m not sure if that’s love or just codependency.
So we moved into a hotel. Well, officially, I moved into a hotel that accepted pets with DeeDee, and I snuck everyone else (except Mike) in. That alone would have made for a crowded space, but we also had another roommate. My friend Armani, whose own home had been blown up. Damn those pesky bomb-makers!
She, too, had been staying at the B&B, and now she was afraid and didn’t want to stay alone. She took one bed and I shared the other with my pets, who all insisted on sleeping close.
To Armani’s credit, she’d offered to buy a new place for everyone with her recent lottery winnings, but even that would take some time since she needed to rebuild her identity before she could access hundreds of thousands of dollars. Besides, while I love my friend, I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of putting my entire family in her debt. I’m of the theory that it’s never smart to owe someone more powerful than you.
So my close-knit, albeit kinda crazy, family was fractured, my pets were on edge, our lives were in turmoil, and I was the one who had to figure out how to fix the impossible situation.
Aunt Susan kept saying she was in her element taking care of all of the paperwork, but I wasn’t sure I believed her. Obeying her summons to come see her at Griswald’s apartment, I left everyone at the hotel. Well, everyone except God, who was tucked into my bra after swearing an oath to remain silent. I brought him along as my emotional support animal.
Griswald’s neighborhood was like him, unassuming but fastidious. I got the distinct impression that his neighbors were the kind of folks who lived and died by their Home Owner Association’s rules and regulations. Their whole life order was probably determined by what color mulch was allowed.
I walked up to his front door, observed the fact that even his welcome mat didn’t appear to be scuffed, took a deep breath, and rang the bell.
A moment later, the door swung open and he smiled at me. “I’m glad you made it. Come in. Come in.”
I smiled weakly. I like Griswald. He makes Susan happy and he takes most of my family’s theatrics in stride. But he’s law enforcement and I’m a criminal, so I’m never fully comfortable with him.
He ushered me in and led me to the kitchen, where Susan stood behind a table covered with a plethora of notes. A pencil tucked behind one ear and a phone pressed to the other, she was so fixated on the piece of paper in front of her that she didn’t even notice our arrival.
“She’s obsessed,” Griswald whispered worriedly. He nudged me farther into the room. “Look who’s here.”
Susan looked up and beamed. “Margaret?”
Jumping to her feet, she put the phone down, hurried around the table, and embraced me in a tight hug.
A little confused, I hugged her back. I love my aunt and she loves me, but we’re not prone to displays of affection.
She stepped back and gave me a once over. “Are you sleeping?”
I nodded, not wanting to voice a lie. Truth was, I laid in bed most nights overcome with guilt and worried about the future.
“Sit, sit. Lawrence, can you make us some coffee?”
“Of course, dear.” He hustled across the room.
I bit back a smile, wondering how many bad guys he’d taken down in his career and what they’d think of this docile
, domestic side of him.
“So much paperwork,” Susan said, pointing at a chair for me to sit in. “It’s incredible, really.”
I know she meant that it was overwhelming, and I felt a twinge of guilt about how stressed out she had to be. As a newlywed, she didn’t need the pressure she was under.
“Lucky for Loretta and Leslie, I’m reconstructing the paper trail of their lives, along with mine. For some reason, Templeton wanted to do his own. I can’t understand why he’s being so obstinate.”
Over at the coffeemaker, Griswald grunted. I glanced over, knowing that, like me, he was well aware that Templeton had some questionable dealings in his past. Hell, for all I knew, he was still making choices that skirted along the edge of lawful. Still, I felt impelled to defend the man who’d now saved my life twice.
“Templeton’s his own man,” I said quietly. “He saved all of us, so maybe you should give him a break.”
Griswald glanced over and caught my eye. He nodded slightly, acknowledging my point.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Susan conceded. “What about you, Margaret?” my aunt asked. “Are you getting your affairs in order?”
“That makes it sound like I’m dying,” I told her, avoiding the question.
She raised an eyebrow and gave me a hard look, reminding me that I was still the equivalent of a teenager who couldn’t escape her inquisition.
“Yes,” I lied smoothly. The truth was, I’d let Ian pay for the hotel room and give me some spending money. I had done very little to contact the appropriate parties to re-establish my identity. It was a headache since all of my identification and credit cards had been destroyed in the explosion and subsequent fire.
“Good. Good,” Susan said. “I know you’ll land on your feet. You always do.”
I squinted at her, surprised by the praise.
“But we do have to provide a united front,” Susan continued.
“A united front?” I asked suspiciously.
“To reunite the family.”
2
Aunt Susan asked me to drop off some paperwork for her sisters to sign, so I stopped by Darlene’s house on the way back to the hotel.
I parked in the driveway of the B&B and stood for a long moment staring at the remains of my former home. I focused on the hole in the backyard where a treasure had been buried for decades. It was the reason the B&B was now gone. A very bad guy, Steve “the Shark” Sincero had been intent on getting the loot and getting revenge on the family of my father, Archie Lee.
As a result, everyone was homeless and the pressure to find a place to resettle (not to mention the means to pay for it) was mounting, since there was no indication from the insurance company that they were going to process a payment anytime soon. The knot of anxiety that had seemed to take up permanent residence within me grew tighter as I surveyed the burnt out destruction.
The only thing that had gone right was that Sincero was under arrest. I hoped he’d rot in jail for the rest of his life.
God climbed up on my shoulder and surveyed the devastation. “It’s a mess.”
“That’s an understatement,” I muttered. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Susan will figure it out. She’ll bully the insurance company and the place will be rebuilt in no time.”
I shook my head. “You’ve watched too many of those home renovation shows. It’s never that easy.”
“Well, that’s because they usually find mold, or support beams aren’t up to code, or that the foundation is crumbling, but none of that is a possibility with this job.”
I gave him the side-eye. “Gee, thanks for putting such a positive spin on it.”
“You-hoo,” a distant voice called. “Is that you, Maggie?”
Grudgingly, I turned toward Darlene’s place. “Yeah.” I was getting really tired of verifying my identity to my aunts.
Aunt Leslie waved excitedly at me from Darlene’s front door.
Head down, I trudged toward her. God skittered back into his hiding place in my bra, whispering, “It’s all going to work out.”
“Susan said you were on your way over,” Leslie said as I approached her.
“Of course she did,” I muttered. “She’s in her glory micromanaging everyone’s life.”
Leslie frowned. “Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
Wordlessly, I handed her the envelope with papers for her to sign.
Taking it, she waved me into the house. “Everyone will be so happy to see you.”
I arched an eyebrow as I stepped inside. “Because they’ve missed me so much in the past sixteen hours I haven’t been here?”
“I missed you,” Templeton admitted. He was sitting on the couch in the living room, staring morosely at the television, which was playing a screeching cartoon.
I nodded at Aunt Loretta’s fiancé sympathetically, noting the fact that someone had placed a pink, glittery bow in his hair. The poor man was suffering from estrogen fatigue. At least at the B&B he hadn’t been sharing living quarters with three little girls.
“I’ll tell everyone you’re here,” Leslie said, moving to leave.
“Do not lose those papers,” I warned. “Aunt Susan says they’re important.”
“She says everything is important,” my aunt muttered as she sauntered away.
Templeton patted the seat cushion beside him, silently inviting me to join him. “You look tired.”
I shrugged as I walked over. “Our hotel room is next to the elevator.”
He raised his eyebrows, clearly not believing my excuse.
“You look pretty exhausted yourself.” I sank onto the cushion and reached for the remote control so that I could turn off the blaring television.
He snatched it out of my hand. “Don’t. The moment it switches off one or more wild, wailing children descend claiming that they were watching it. The tears, the tantrums…” he trailed off, clearly traumatized. He gingerly put the remote down as though he was afraid he was going to trigger some deadly booby trap.
“Wild, wailing children?” I raised my eyebrows.
Realizing that one of the kids he’d been complaining about was my beloved niece, Katie, he said gruffly, “This has been quite the ordeal for everyone.”
My sister, Darlene, wandered into the living room and gave me a hard look.
A twinge of guilt twisted my gut. I might be stuck in a hotel with Armani and the animals, but she was contending with Leslie, Loretta, and Templeton living under her roof, in addition to her own family and Katie.
“Susan called,” Darlene began. “She wanted to make sure you’d brought the papers.”
I frowned. “I came straight here from Griswald’s place. Short of being a carrier pigeon, I don’t know how I could have delivered them any more efficiently.”
Darlene cocked her head to the side. “Hey, I’m just the messenger.”
I sighed. “Sorry.”
She shook her head. “Everyone is stressed out. Are you taking Katie for her play date?”
I nodded.
“Has Susan found a new place for them to live?”
Templeton perked up, waiting to hear the answer.
“Not yet,” I admitted.
Seeing the disappointment on Darlene’s face and the way Templeton slumped in his seat, I added quickly, “I’m going looking tomorrow.”
That was a flat out lie. I hadn’t planned on going house hunting. But the hope I saw kindled in them both made me realize I needed to do my part to get the family resettled ASAP.
“Something with privacy,” Templeton wished fervently.
“And space,” Darlene added. “Lots and lots of space.”
Katie ran into the room. “Aunt Maggie!”
She threw herself into my arms at full speed. Blinking back tears, I scooped her up in a bear hug. It hadn’t been that long ago when she’d been in a coma and her recovery had been a giant question mark. Now she was pretty much like any other little girl.
“Great! Templeton made bunny pancakes for breakfast.”
“God bless, Templeton,” Darlene muttered, waving at me and leaving the room. “Otherwise, we’d all starve.”
I glanced at Templeton, who shrugged. “Have to do something to earn my keep.”
“Are you ready to go?” Katie demanded.
“Are you ready to go?” I stared pointedly at her shoeless feet.
“Oops! Be right back.” She ran out of the room.
“You’re seeing Delveccio’s grandson?” Templeton asked.
I nodded.
“You sure it’s the best idea to be connected to them?”
I raised my eyebrows, surprised that he, who had a number of questionable contacts, was questioning my relationship with the mob boss. “Dominic and Katie are friends.”
Templeton nodded and turned back to the TV.
“I appreciate your concern, though,” I told him gently, remembering that his pugilist skills had literally saved my life.
Without taking his eyes off the screen, he reached out and patted my knee.
Katie raced back in. “Are you ready NOW?”
“I’ve been ready.” I got to my feet and held out a hand. “We just have to make a stop on the way.”
3
We were just getting in my car when a familiar voice called out, “I need food.”