Old Wounds (Chance Assassin Book 4)

by Nicole Castle

  Now it was Joe's and Frank's turn to gape at me, and right as I realized that my comment about Maggie's death had been a verbal one, I also realized that Casey had come into the room to make a teary-eyed appearance. He didn't say anything, just blinked in confusion like he'd forgotten what he was doing.

  “We were gonna bring you the head of whoever was responsible,” I said sheepishly. “But the head is behind bars right now. And unfortunately still attached.”

  “Can I have a cigarette?” he asked Frank. I wasn't sure whether I was relieved or unnerved that my outburst had such little effect on him.

  Standing up, Frank fished the cigarettes and a light bulb he was carrying for god knew what reason out of his pocket. He gave Casey the whole pack. And the bulb.

  “Thanks,” Casey said, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly in a way that wouldn't even be considered a smile on Frank's face, let alone Casey's.

  Frank watched him leave like he was tempted but too afraid to follow. He was about to give up and take his seat again when Sophie came in and took it for him.

  She was wearing another black dress, her dark hair braided elaborately the way Bella wore hers. She had black eyeglasses this time, with cat-eye frames. The girl had more pairs of glasses than all the other myopic women in France combined. It was the only fashion accessory Bella never had any use for, and could now buy freely for Sophie's near-sighted enjoyment. “I found the bodies,” she said with far more of a smile than Casey had attempted, and far less appropriate.

  I had to hand it to her, the girl was definitely one of us. “How'd they look?” I asked. I'd already seen one set of parents die bloodily, I may as well know what the next set looked like.

  Frank sat beside me on the bed. Joe made no motion to leave either, even though he'd likely already heard this story at least once. It may have been macabre, but this was our business.

  “The room was painted,” she said poetically. She could've started with “It was a dark and stormy night” around a campfire for as thoroughly as she had our attention. Frank had even leaned slightly forward. He did love stories. “They were supposed to be out to dinner with Bella.” She left out the “and Casey” part of the equation, despite said dead parents belonging to him and not to Bella. I couldn't really blame her for that. As much as I liked Casey, he could hardly compare with the coolness factor of an assassin role model. “I had taken Sylvie to the park, and when I got back...” Sophie let us hang on her word for longer than a dramatic pause deemed necessary. It was practically a commercial break before her eyes twinkled and she said simply, “Dead.”

  “Sylvia didn't see anything,” Joe said for our benefit. It hadn't occurred to me to ask the question myself. Children seeing corpses was as normal for me as watching too much TV.

  “No,” she confirmed. “I saw a shell casing on the carpet so I had her wait in the hall. I told her we would play hide and seek, and to count to one hundred.”

  I was fairly impressed that Sophie had the presence of mind to keep Sylvia from seeing anything, considering that she was a bit off in the sanity department. I was even more impressed that she'd manipulated a five-year-old just to get a look at something grotesque.

  “One shot each. In the head. His face was gone. Exploded out the front. Hers was in the forehead. It messed up her pretty curly hair.” Sophie adjusted her own hair. “Hollow point?”

  “Sounds like it,” I said. It sounded like an execution.

  “I took Sylvia back to the park, and I called Bella. She called the police.” Taking her hand away from her hair, she sighed dolefully, like the tragedy had finally hit her. Or not. “I thought we were at war, but it was only that man. Roger. And we can't even kill him. It is sad.”

  I lay back on the bed, trying to picture Gideon's living room. Even with Sophie's graphic details of the event, and my graphic memories of my own messes, I just couldn't see them like that. I could see the blood, I could see the living room redecorated with brains, but when it came to the bodies they may as well have been sleeping soundly.

  Maybe Roger Foster had waited for everyone else to leave the house. Maybe everyone else was lucky to be alive. I suppose we'd find out at the trial if he actually confessed. As far as every courtroom drama I'd ever watched was concerned, taking a plea was his best option. Then again, courtroom dramas also gave Frank the idea to go and insult someone's mother to stage a prison suicide.

  “The caskets will have to be closed,” she added as an afterthought, like mentioning that by the way, there would be sugar cookies served at the reception. I could really go for some cookies. “We still picked out something nice for them to wear.” She suggestively looked me up and down in a way that threatened my honor. “Will you wear a suit?”

  “Would you be offended if someone insulted your mother?” I asked, but Frank didn't get the hint and Sophie didn't get the threat.

  “My mother is dead.” She smiled again and added, “All of our mothers are dead,” like she would've gladly been personally responsible for the deed. “Everyone in this room has that in common. What does that say about us?”

  “That I think I should have a word with your father,” Joe said.

  Sophie beamed at him. “You will tell him you will train me?”

  “Not that kind of word.”

  Giving Joe a glare like she would've gladly been personally responsible for decreasing the number of father figures in the room as well, Sophie muttered a far worse insult than yo mamma en français and left the room in a huff.

  “Do I want to know what she said?” he asked.

  Frank and I collectively said, “No.”

  Chapter Four

  Alan Barker showed up the following day, just in time to take the fun out of funeral. Not that I was planning on having fun per se, but I had intended to dry my tears by fanning myself over how hot Frank looked in a suit while glaring homicidally at well wishers and mourners alike. Now I could barely enjoy the view since Alan kept photobombing every picturesque opportunity.

  Frank hadn't made it very far into the funeral parlor, standing at the door to the viewing room instead like a bouncer at the most exclusive nightclub in town. This particular guest list was far from exclusive. It felt like the entire city had made an appearance. And Frank wanted to kill each and every one of them.

  There were certainly some worthy targets. The hipsters alone would've run me clean out of bullets, but they were Casey's friends, had grown up with him. Before it was cool. They'd probably been in Maggie's kitchen far more often than I had, and now all of us were left with a hunger that could never be satisfied again.

  I crumpled the damp wad of tissues in my hand and Joe patted me on the back. Like Frank, Joe was watching the room, but he was also present for moral support. Frank had barely been present since we heard the news. I couldn't really blame him, although the emotional distance between us was more painful than the physical one and I wanted him with me. I wanted to be with him, but Frank mourned alone. And he'd mourn for a long time. He'd lost more than I had. He'd lost Casey.

  Speeches were made, mostly about Gideon from the type of men I'd go home with as an orphan, or follow home and murder as an assassin. Once everything was done and Maggie and Gideon were as properly eulogized as they could be, people set about socializing and shaking Casey's hand, telling him how sorry they were for his loss.

  The members of law enforcement who'd come to pay their respects were fairly easy to spot even out of their uniforms, since they kept looking suspiciously at tall, dark, and deadly in the corner over there and whispering amongst themselves. Joe kept on top of it until they left though, sending me or Sophie to stand with him and give him an air of innocence. I was way better at it. Sophie just tried glaring along with him.

  Gideon's ex-wife was there, and the family of his deceased first wife who apparently knew Casey well. Gideon's estranged parents even deigned to take time out of their country club lives to formally say goodbye to their son. They'd disowned him because they dis
approved of wife number one. I didn't know whether they'd liked Maggie, or even met her, but Bella politely asked them to get the fuck out and Frank would've less than politely made them had I not intervened.

  I wrapped my arms around him to physically keep him from following them. Or at least slow him down if he were adamant about getting at them while I dangled from his neck. “As convenient as it would be for them to die in a funeral home, social etiquette forbids it. And Casey would probably be upset.”

  “Casey is upset,” he said.

  “So are you,” I reminded him. At the moment, the only thing Frank was dealing with, or more accurately not dealing with, was Casey. I doubted he'd even really registered that Maggie and Gideon were dead, that his friends were dead.

  Frank stroked his thumb across my cheek. “You're so beautiful when you cry.”

  I smiled, pressing myself against him. Another romantic Frankism that would've been creepy as fuck coming from anyone else.

  “Social etiquette forbids what you're presently planning as well, my little peach,” Alan said from far closer than I would've liked him at the moment. I doubted he had a disturbing enough imagination to have any concept of what I was presently planning for him. Then I realized that apart from those brief times where I was at Frank's side to make him look less murdery by association, Alan had never left. He'd come to the funeral to support Frank as much as he'd come to support Casey. More than he'd come to support Casey, if you tallied their time together.

  It made me hate him just a little less, but want to hate him just a little more.

  “Then again,” he said, “you are an American.”

  And we were back at acceptable levels of hatred. Unfortunately Casey would be upset at Alan's death as well. So would Frank. “What's a boy gotta do for a little death around here?” I whined, watching Frank's eyes track a totally killable guy with impeccable timing entering the parlor.

  He was dressed somewhat formally, but not funeral formal. His collar was undone, no tie. He smelled like booze. By the way Gideon's colleagues looked at him, I knew this was gonna be bad. And I knew I should've brought some popcorn.

  “Oh dear,” Alan said with thinly disguised anticipation. He subconsciously patted his pocket like he was trying to locate his opera glasses, then settled back in his seat and primly placed his hands in his lap. “This will not go well.”

  “Hey,” the man called out. He wasn't shouting, but he was louder than anyone else in the room and loud enough to draw attention.

  One of the partners of Gideon's firm stood up, reproachfully saying, “Go home, Ron.”

  “I'm sorry, okay?” Ron said, but he wasn't talking to the lawyer. He was talking to Casey. “I'm sorry they're dead but he didn't do it.”

  Now Bella had stood too, and Casey looked at him with teary-eyed confusion. I knew Joe was going to intervene if it came to it, and if Bella didn't rip the guy apart for daring to speak with Casey. My job was to keep Frank from doing anything crazy. But it was one thing to show up to say goodbye to your disowned son when you weren't welcome, and quite another to bellow at Casey in his time of bereavement.

  Once again proving that I'd spent too much time in front of the television, I could hear Smokey the Bear's voice in my head saying, “Only you can prevent forest fires.” It was a little late for that, Smokey. All the cops had come and gone, and I let my arms slip from around Frank's neck as he calmly walked out of my embrace. I took a seat next to Alan to watch Frank put the fun right back into funeral.

  “You are naughty,” Alan said, holding out a flamboyantly decorated little metal case with candies inside.

  “I know.” I popped one in my mouth and sat back for the show.

  For as much attention as Ron the mystery guest had earned, no one even seemed to notice Frank silently stalking up behind him.

  “He's innocent!” Ron sniffled. He was Casey's age, I could only assume the son of Roger Foster. “You have to tell them. They'll listen to you.”

  “No,” Casey said firmly, and at first I thought he was saying it to Ron but then Joe was on his feet and promptly off his feet as Frank pushed him back into his chair and grabbed Ron from behind in a chokehold. “No no no no,” Casey pleaded but Frank was in the zone and he wasn't listening to anybody. He was hauling Ron towards the door, which would've appeared to spectators like he was planning to throw him out, but I knew the truth. It was like a cat that's caught a bird and runs off with it so it can't be taken away from him before the job was finished.

  “Everything's okay. It's fine,” Joe announced to the terrified room. “He's a soldier. A, uh, Legionnaire. He's just disabling a threat. Frank, let him go.”

  “Let him disable him,” Bella said coldly. Sophie was holding her hands over Sylvia's eyes, her own eyes wide with excitement.

  Frank could've had Ron unconscious in seconds by cutting off the blood flow to his brain, but instead he was going for a true choke, the painful kind that took far longer to knock the victim out. Ron flailed about, trying to get free, mussing Frank's hair which only made it that much more enjoyable for me.

  As they stumbled past me I caught the reproachful, please control your husband look on Joe's face, urging me to do something. I begrudgingly got up and followed, casually blocking the door to the men's room so Frank couldn't drag his injured bird inside to play with him in peace. “We just went over this, babe.”

  He shuddered like I'd abruptly interrupted a particularly pleasurable daydream. “He had no trouble forgoing social customs, why should I?”

  Well at least he was being rational. That made him a lot easier to talk to. “He has no trouble upsetting Casey. You do.”

  Releasing him and letting him fall to a gasping heap on the floor, Frank gave me a damn-your-logic glare and walked back into the parlor, straightening his tie.

  “You okay?” I asked, helping Ron into the bathroom and handing him a cup of water.

  “Fucking maniac,” he stammered.

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “Isn't he dreamy?”

  Ron looked at me like I was the fucking maniac. He was about to find out.

  “Was it your dad you were talking about? Roger Foster?”

  “He didn't do it.”

  “Yeah, well, as disappointing as the truth may be, the evidence is bulletproof. You're not. If you come near my family again, your funeral will be next.” Then I shoved his face into the wall and sat him unconscious on the toilet. After all, I had far less trouble upsetting Casey. And I was an American.

  Chapter Five

  The name of the diner had changed, the decor pinker than Frank remembered it. Cleaner too. The waitresses' uniforms were different, but the tables were laid out the same. The coffee was the same. Stained coffee pots set on warmers for hours.

  It was late but Frank had still had to wait to get the table he wanted. He wouldn't have sat anywhere else, even though the rest of the diner was mostly vacant. He wanted that one, the table he'd sat at years ago, in Maggie's section of the restaurant.

  His waitress tonight was a petite girl with a half-shaved head and a nose ring who was so enthusiastic about the daily special that he ordered it just to appease her. Frank had no intention of eating it. He was only there for the coffee. The memories.

  Frank had killed someone in Southern California, driven straight up to Portland. He still remembered the roads. It had been about sixteen hours when he'd finally stopped for something to eat. Maggie had warned him away from the special. Warned him about the food in general. He'd stuck with coffee. Then he'd stuck up for them when Maggie's boss complained that Casey's presence was disturbing the customers.

  Now she and Gideon were in the ground and Frank was so tired that no amount of caffeine seemed to make any difference. He hadn't even had the energy to punish Vincent for peeking into the caskets before they were taken to the cemetery. Frank didn't need to look. He knew what was in there. He knew what was buried with them.

  The waitress brought his meal and Frank pushed it away as soon
as she left. He warmed his hands on the coffee cup, watching the rising steam. It was like staring down the barrel of a smoking gun, focusing on the black depths as he leaned over the cup, catching his reflection on the surface. He wanted to throw the cup through the window but instead he closed his eyes and lifted it to his lips.

  It was too hot to drink and Frank could imagine Maggie admonishing him after the fact, “Careful, honey, it's hot,” as it burned its way down his esophagus. A single shot to the head. She'd faced her killer. Probably would've called him honey even if she begged for her life. Frank took another sip, letting it scald his mouth a bit longer before swallowing it at a less painful temperature. Maggie wouldn't have begged. She would've been, in her words, “so mad I could spit.”

  Frank could relate to that. He was quite mad. And as he sat there, finishing his coffee, that madness was growing.

  He hadn't noticed at first that the burn had made his eyes water. He supposed that was one way to go about grieving. But they quickly dried and when the waitress refilled his cup he let it sit for awhile to cool. Careful, honey. Frank had been anything but careful these past few days. A singed tongue was the least of his concerns.

  And his biggest concern had just walked into the diner.

  “Same table and everything,” Casey remarked as he sat across from him. He slid his hood off with both hands, his coat speckled with rain.

  Frank intended to nod, but he was so uncertain of what to say or do that it took too long to decide and he sat there blinking in awkward silence.

  “I bet if the manager accused me of bothering customers today you'd do more than speak up for me, huh?”

  Frank didn't have a response to that either, but he blinked again, letting his eyes stay shut for that extra second as if that could make this conversation less uncomfortable. They hadn't talked about it. The last thing Casey had said to him was no, right before Frank ignored him.