The Hitwoman and the Mother Load

by JB Lynn

  Pushing past me, she proceeded to look under the bed, in the closet, and in the bathroom.

  I wondered what she was up to. I worried she would try to do me bodily harm.

  Finally she returned to my side and whispered, “I need you to get a message to my father.”

  “Okay,” I agreed in a normal voice.

  She winced at my volume and raised a finger to her lips to shush me. “You need to tell him that I think my sister is trying to kill me.”

  Considering that her sister had tried to kill their father the night before, that didn’t sound nearly as crazy as it might have at another time.

  She must have sensed that I believed her, or at least in the possibility the suggestion wasn’t totally insane, because she continued, “I think she paid an orderly to mess with my drugs.”

  I considered that for a long moment. Again, knowing what I knew, it didn’t sound all that far-fetched. “I’ll tell him,” I promised.

  She flashed a tentative smile of gratitude.

  “Do you know how my mother got out of here?” I asked, figuring it was a long shot, but that I had nothing to lose.

  “Romeo,” she stated unequivocally. “Romeo whisked her away.”

  I sighed unhappily.

  “Good try,” God whispered.

  Angelina stared at my squeaking chest.

  “My father,” I explained. “He always claimed they’re like star-crossed lovers. Romeo and Juliet.”

  “They both end up dead,” the mobster’s daughter supplied helpfully.

  “They do,” I agreed, looking at her closely.

  She seemed more lucid than usual.

  “Do you know which orderly is messing with your drugs?”

  Her eyes widened. “You believe me?”

  “I think I do. Can you point the orderly out to me if we walk around the building together?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, let’s do that. If anyone asks why we’re together, we’ll just tell them you’re helping me look for my mother, okay?”

  “Juliet.”

  “Or Mary. Mary Lee,” I said, hoping she was grounded enough in reality to remember that.

  “Mary.”

  Together we went in search of the orderly. It didn’t take us long to find him: a tall, skinny man with a bad comb-over. His upper lip twitched in a semblance of a sneer when he saw Angelina and I could feel the wave of animosity directed at her.

  I got the distinct impression that while she might be paranoid, and maybe a little crazy, she wasn’t wrong about the man meaning her harm.

  When he glared at her, she trembled and looked away.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered in her ear. “Your father asked me to get you out of here.”

  She met my gaze, hope and doubt in her eyes. “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “Now?”

  I glanced toward the orderly who was watching us with curiosity. “Not now.”

  “When?”

  “Soon,” I whispered. “Be ready.”

  “Be ready for what?” another voice asked.

  Startled, we both whirled toward the sound.

  Angel stood a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest, tension radiating from his body.

  “Angel!” Angelina threw herself into her cousin’s arms. “I have to tell you the most marvelous news.”

  I held my breath, afraid she’d reveal our plan.

  “There’s going to be chocolate cake for dessert tonight,” she gushed. “I’m waiting for it.”

  Angel’s expression relaxed. “You always were a chocoholic.”

  I scooted away under the pretense of giving them their privacy, but really I wanted to avoid Angel and his constant questions.

  With the photograph of the twins in my pocket, and my promise to get Angelina out of there haunting me, I rushed out to my car and drove away as fast as I could.

  I should've known better than to think I could outrun my problems.

  Chapter Nine

  I got a call from Aunt Susan about two minutes after I’d peeled out of the parking lot.

  “We have a problem,” she informed me the moment I answered.

  “What now?”

  “The school wants to hold an emergency conference with you within the hour.”

  I swallowed hard. That didn’t sound good.

  “Margaret?”

  “I’m here.”

  “What should I tell them?”

  “That I’m on my way.”

  God, thankfully, held his tongue until we’d completed the call. Then he said, “This can’t be good.”

  “Probably not.”

  “They could expel her. It could end up on her permanent record.”

  “Who in the world came up with this nebulous permanent record crap?” I muttered bitterly. It had been lorded over my own head so often that just the words made me want to go hide in my bedroom. Not that I could, Marlene had commandeered it upon her return to the family fold. Hence my living in the basement where anyone could waltz in.

  “You shouldn’t be flippant,” the lizard warned.

  “I’m not flippant. I’m tired of life, I’m overtired from a lack of sleep, and now I need to deal with some school administrator who probably speaks in buzz words.”

  “This is not going to go well,” God predicted.

  I didn’t disagree with him.

  “Deep breathing,” he urged. “Release your stress hormones.”

  I practiced sucking in air for the rest of the ride to the school. “If you say one word,” I warned as I climbed out of the car, “one word, I swear I’ll leave you out in the cold. Do you understand?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Do you understand?” I asked more loudly.

  He still remained silent.

  I took that to mean he was taking my order not to speak seriously.

  I focused on my breathing as I sat in the school office, waiting for someone to come along and tell me what was going on with my niece.

  “Ms. Lee?” A kindly looking older woman waved me into her office. “I’m Agnes Billsworth, the vice principal. Come in. Sit down. This won’t take long.”

  I sat down in a hard-backed chair across from her desk. Her walls were filled with all kinds of diplomas. Her desk was covered with photographs I assumed were her family.

  “It was good of you to come right in,” Billsworth said with a soft smile.

  “I heard it was important.”

  “We have some…let’s call them concerns about Katie.”

  I nodded curtly, my stomach in knots as I waited to find out what would be said next.

  “She’s been acting out a bit. Throwing things at other students, refusing to listen to her teachers.”

  I frowned. I’d just been at the school the day before, helping out at the Valentine’s Day party and hadn’t witnessed any behavior like that.

  “But that’s not what concerns me the most. It’s these.” She handed me a sheaf of paper with crude drawings rendered in the age-old artist’s tool of choice, crayon.

  I examined the pictures carefully and understood her alarm. All of the pictures were done in black or brown. All of them depicted a crying girl, alone on the ground, with two smiling people holding hands floating in the air.

  I swallowed hard, trying to hold back tears.

  “Her grief and feelings of separation are to be expected,” the vice principal said gently. “She’s been through quite the ordeal.”

  I nodded, unable to tear my eyes from the papers I held in my trembling hands. “I don’t know how to help her,” I whispered.

  “Well, I understand you’ve got her seeing a therapist?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s a good step.”

  “But it’s not enough,” I choked out.

  “Maggie. May I call you Maggie?”

  I jerked my head in the affirmative.

  “It’s obvious that you love your niece…” She trailed off.

&nbs
p; I lifted my gaze to meet hers. “But?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “She’s struggling.”

  “I know that. What I don’t know is how to help her.”

  “Maybe you’d both benefit if you saw a therapist too.”

  Internally I balked at the idea, but I did my best to keep a neutral expression.

  She opened a drawer of her desk and rummaged inside. “Perhaps if the child’s therapist could recommend someone for you to see, they could coordinate their treatment plans.”

  Knowing she meant well, I ground my teeth to keep from telling her I didn’t need a ‘treatment plan’.

  She pulled a brochure out of her desk and offered it to me. As I took it, I tried to give her back Katie’s drawings.

  She shook her head. “You can share them with her therapist.”

  I took the brochure entitled “Families in Crisis”, thanked her for her time, and walked out, feeling like the biggest failure of all time.

  That is, until a minute later, I stopped by Katie’s class to pick her up and bring her home, and she turned away from me, pretending I wasn’t there.

  “Come on, Katie,” I said quietly. “It’s time to go.” I tried to ignore the way the teacher and students were staring at me.

  Katie looked up at me, anger flashing in her eyes. “I don’t want to go with you. I don’t have to.”

  “Actually you do, kiddo,” I said with a forced smile, trying to keep things light, equally embarrassed and hurt by the exchange.

  She put her head down on her desk, which I guess was her equivalent of collapsing in the middle of the cereal aisle. “Go away.”

  “Katie, please,” I finally tried helplessly.

  She crawled under her desk.

  The rest of the kids were murmuring amongst themselves, clearly becoming agitated by the scene.

  “Maybe someone else should bring her home today,” her teacher suggested.

  Part of me wanted to stand my ground and stay there, but another part of me sensed that doing so would just make everything worse. Unable to speak, I nodded and stumbled out of the classroom.

  I stood there in the hallway, leaning against macaroni artwork, and burst into tears. I covered my hand with my mouth to prevent my sobs from echoing through the hall.

  “Shhh,” God soothed. “Breathe, Maggie. Just breathe.”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. The contact was warm and solid. I looked up to find Angel staring down at me.

  “Katie hates me,” I whimpered.

  “She doesn’t hate you.” He pulled me into his arms. “She’s a scared, confused kid who had her whole world blown apart, but she doesn’t hate you.”

  “I suck,” I blubbered into his chest, dimly aware my tears were soaking his Navy t-shirt.

  “No you don’t. She’s lucky to have you.”

  I don’t know how long we stood there. Me with my head buried in his chest, him wrapping his arms around me. After a while my tears stopped, but I didn’t pull away.

  It felt nice to have someone taking care of me for a change. Cradled in his arms, I soaked up Angel’s strength, soothed by the steady thump of his heartbeat beneath my ear.

  Finally God whispered. “Are you trying to suffocate me?”

  Angel tensed at the squeaking sound, but didn’t jump away.

  “She won’t leave her classroom with me,” I said to the kind man. “Do you think you can bring her home?”

  “Of course. That’s why I’m here,” he murmured against the top of my head.

  “I don’t know how to thank—” I began.

  “Air!” God gasped. “I need air.”

  I stepped back out of Angel’s embrace so that God could breathe.

  “Do you ever leave the lizard at home?” Angel chuckled.

  “Rarely.”

  Shaking his head, he moved toward Katie’s classroom. “I’ll see you at home.”

  Leaving him to contend with Katie, I left the school and got in my car.

  “Where to now?” God asked as I placed him on the dashboard.

  “The blonde.” I put the car in gear.

  “The blonde?”

  “That woman that Belgard visited on a regular basis.” I’d found Darlene’s journal in the home of the recently deceased cop, Kevin Belgard.

  “The woman Patrick asked you to stay away from?” God slid across the dash as I took a turn a tad too sharply.

  “He ordered me to stay away from her.” I squeezed the steering wheel, annoyed at the memory of being told what to do.

  “You’re upset about Katie,” the lizard countered. “Maybe this isn’t the time to make any rash decisions.”

  “I can’t help Katie. I can’t find my mother. I’ll be damned if I’m not going to pursue the best lead I have to find Darlene,” I bellowed.

  “No need to shout at me,” God admonished.

  We rode the rest of the way to the blonde woman’s neighborhood in silence. I wasn’t sure what I’d say to her when we met, but I was going to get some answers.

  Once again, I parked a few houses down and stared at the woman’s home.

  “Don’t turn it off,” God pleaded. “The heat feels good.”

  I left the motor running for his benefit.

  “I still don’t think this is a good idea,” God said.

  “It’s not like you’re coming up with any better suggestions.”

  “I’m sure that Patrick has a reason for wanting you to keep your distance from that woman.”

  “Me too. But since he didn’t share it with me, I’ll get my answers myself.”

  I was reaching for the door handle when God shouted, “Wait!”

  “What now?”

  “Look!” He stuck his tongue out in the direction of the blonde’s house.

  The door was opening.

  I leaned closer to my steering wheel to get a better look.

  A redhead stepped out of the house.

  My redhead.

  Patrick.

  “What the…” I whispered.

  Then he turned back toward the house as the beautiful blonde woman stepped outside and kissed him. Not a polite peck on the cheek, but a passionate, clothes-singeing kiss. One that Patrick returned.

  And deepened.

  I gasped.

  It wasn’t like we’d had an exclusivity talk or anything, but I thought we shared something special. But there he was, making out with the woman in public, in broad daylight.

  “I think we should go,” God said quietly.

  I didn’t even look at him. I stared at Patrick and the blonde, watching with horrified fascination as they ran their hands over one another.

  “No good can come of you being found here,” God continued.

  He was probably right about that.

  “If you go now, while he’s…” He paused, choosing the most delicate way to phrase things. “It would be best if you go while he’s otherwise occupied.”

  Knowing he was right, I quickly executed a K-turn and drove away before Patrick was any the wiser.

  I headed home to nurse my broken heart.

  Chapter Ten

  Exhausted from the night before and the trials of the day, I went back to the B&B, snuck into the basement, got into bed, and took a nap.

  It was dark when something wet and warm massaged my cheek.

  “Uggh!” Flailing around beneath my bed covers it took me a moment to push the source of the wet warmth off me. “What are you doing?”

  "Shine sleepyhead rise and,” DeeDee panted.

  “I was sleeping.”

  “But you have that meeting with the reporter in an hour,” God reminded me from his terrarium.

  “Crap.” I tumbled out of bed.

  “Job good I did a?” DeeDee asked.

  “Excellent,” God told her. “Thank you.”