On the pad it said:
I am being monitored. Audio only as far as I can tell. I assume you are as well. The young woman cop who gave us the news about our husbands planted the bug. I am also with the order.
Mary Jo felt stunned.
Completely stunned.
Clearly the jerk that had hired her had hired another assassin for the same target.
Mary Jo nodded as the other woman pointed to her collar, the same place the cop had planted the bug on Mary Jo.
“Thank you,” Mary Jo said, following along on the speaking script they clearly were both on now. “Can you come in for a moment?”
The woman nodded. “Only a moment.”
“I am sorry for your loss as well,” Mary Jo said as she closed the door. “It is horrid what has happened.”
The moment the door closed the other woman stopped actually crying and so did Mary Jo.
The woman said, “Thank you.” Her voice sounding like she was barely holding it together while her face clearly wasn’t following the part.
The woman turned the page on the notebook. There Mary Jo read:
My guess is we were both hired for the same target. Now clearly someone is trying to double-cross us both. Clear us both out of the picture.
Mary Jo nodded and said aloud, “Do you have family to come and help you?”
“I have a sister,” the other woman said. “By the way, my name is Jean.”
“I am Mary Jo,” Mary Jo said, taking the pad from Jean’s hand and the pen.
Mary Jo quickly wrote:
Discovered the bug. About to call the bitch who planted it and deal with her.
“I’m so sorry we had to meet like this,” Jean said, smiling at Mary Jo.
Mary Jo had a hunch she would come to love that smile.
“I am too,” Mary Jo said as Jean wrote on the pad:
Need help?
Mary Jo shook her head.
“Maybe through these trying times we can be of support to one another,” Jean said.
“Thank you,” Mary Jo said, taking back the pad. “I would like that.”
She wrote on the pad:
Got this. The little bitch cop will be dead in thirty minutes.
Jean nodded. “Good.”
It was clear to Mary Jo she meant both the seeing each other and taking care of the bug planter.
Jean took the pad back and wrote:
I will contact the order and tell them what happened. Ask how someone could track us…
“Thank you,” Mary Jo said, nodding.
Jean opened the door, leaving the pad of paper. Then with a smile at Mary Jo, Jean said, “We both have things we need to take care of.”
She indicated her collar and then turned to go down the sidewalk and back to her home.
Mary Jo just stood there for a moment, watching her go before closing the door.
So someone had hired two assassins to kill the same target. And then tried to double-cross both.
What an idiot.
The guy was going to pay and pay large. And pay them both.
But first Mary Jo had to take care of the immediate problem of the bug and the young cop who planted it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JEAN WAS STUNNED at the reaction she had had seeing Mary Jo up close. The woman was stunningly beautiful. And her dark brown eyes were something Jean knew she could stare into for a very long time.
Mary Jo seemed to be shorter than Jean, if that was possible, and, of course, in perfect shape. And Mary Jo had what looked to be perfect, smooth skin.
The reaction to Mary Jo had been unexpected and had actually caught Jean by surprise, something that was difficult to do in general.
She walked slowly along the sidewalk toward her own home. All she could think about was seeing Mary Jo without clothes on, sliding into Jean’s hot tub on her back deck.
The idea of that just made Jean short of breath.
She pretended to sob slightly for the bug on her collar, but the sob was more of a shudder of anticipation.
She had met very, very few other assassins over the years. And her last real relationship (not counting the fake marriages to the likes of poor old Sam) had been almost a hundred years earlier. She had fallen completely in love with a woman named Sarah and the two of them had traveled the world as traveling companions. Sarah had died of consumption after fifteen years together.
A wonderful fifteen years.
And never since that point had Jean felt an attraction toward another person like she had felt this evening for Mary Jo.
This could be a problem, of that there was no doubt. There were no rules in the order forbidding a relationship between two assassins, and Jean actually had no idea if Mary Jo would even be attracted to her.
But for the moment, they were both stuck three houses apart in the same neighborhood in the same small New York town, playing the same grieving widow part.
So it would be interesting.
Jean reached her front door and tried to shake the image of a naked Mary Jo from her mind.
That was a hard image to clear.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARY JO CLOSED the door on Jean and stood and thought for a moment. This had gone from a simple target to really twisted in very quick order. Clearly the client who had hired her hadn’t trusted she would get the job done, so he had hired another assassin.
Or maybe Mary Jo had been the backup and just got to the target first. No way of knowing.
And then the client had hired a rookie killer to take care of both of them after the job was finished.
This needed to get cleaned up and cleaned up fast.
Mary Jo took a deep breath, dropped back into acting for the bug in her collar and called the young woman officer’s number on the card.
“I want to see my husband.”
“I don’t think that is such a good idea,” the young woman cop said.
Mary Jo nodded. Both of them were right on the script that Mary Jo knew would happen.
“I’m coming to the station anyway,” Mary Jo said, and hung up.
Mary Jo smiled. That would screw with the young twit’s mind.
Ten minutes later, Mary Jo pulled up out front after pretending to cry most of the way to the station so that anyone listening to the bug wouldn’t be shocked.
When she parked, Mary Jo spent a moment putting on the one clear glove and getting the poison solution ready to go, all the while pretending to cry.
The young woman cop met Mary Jo at the big double door. Concrete steps led up into the front desk of the station. Around them the night was still warm, without even a breeze.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” the young cop said. “Your husband was shot and they need to do an autopsy.”
Mary Jo had the poison pad in her hand and her hands were covered in the thin, almost invisible gloves with fake fingerprints.
“You may be right,” Mary Jo said after a moment, keeping on the script that she expected. “I don’t know what I am thinking.”
She gave the young cop a hug, rubbing the pad along her neck before backing away.
“I’m sure sorry,” Mary Jo said.
“It’s understandable,” the young cop said.
The young woman cop had no idea what Mary Jo really meant and that actually, she wasn’t sorry at all.
Suddenly the young cop looked pale and swallowed hard.
Mary Jo took her under her arm and turned to take her up the three steps and into the station. The drug was very fast acting and this woman would be dead in five minutes tops.
As she helped the woman up the steps, Mary Jo pretended to pause and stagger a moment. As she did, hidden from view from any camera, she slipped off the gloves and tossed them into a garbage can near the front door. The can was full of Burger King cups and food bags from the nearby fast food restaurant.
The poison wouldn’t last in the air like that for another thirty minutes and the gloves would dissolve in two hours.
“Help!” Mary Jo shouted to the officers inside as she opened the door. “She just collapsed into my arms on the front steps.”
Two cops ran to grab the young officer, then a third nodded to Mary Jo and offered his sincere condolences. Clearly the guy recognized her as the wife of the now-dead chief.
Mary Jo broke into sobs, as scheduled for her part of this passion play.
They let her sit in a back office and calm down before having an officer drive her home.
Then, as she closed her front door, Mary Jo killed the bug on her blouse and made sure the rest of her house and the nearby houses were clean of all recording and electronic devices and cameras.
Everything was clean.
She dug out a burner phone from a fake bottom of her purse and dialed a number.
“Yeah,” a voice on the other end said.
“Target is dead. The remainder of my fee has tripled because of your attempt at a double-cross. If the money is not in the agreed-upon account by this time tomorrow afternoon, you know the consequences.”
“You can’t threaten me,” the voice said.
“I know where you live, where your children sleep, where your wife loves to eat sushi,” Mary Jo said, keeping her voice calm and low and slightly angry. “I am patient, invisible, and you hired me because I get the job done. The job you hired me to do is done. The price is now four times my fee. Please do not fail me.”
Then she hung up, put the phone in a baggy and smashed it into tiny pieces.
Then she put some bleach and a few drops of a special solution into the baggy, sealed it, and tossed it into the trashcan outside. The entire thing would be a puddle of goo in the bottom of the can in an hour.
She then took a deep breath.
Finally, it was time.
She took out the pitcher of orange juice, a highball glass, and the vodka. She filled the glass with ice, added a good solid shot of vodka, then filled the rest of the glass with orange juice.
Then she put everything away before sipping the wonderful drink.
Perfect.
Just perfect.
Maybe, just maybe, a little later, she might just have one more.
And after the funerals, maybe she and Jean might share a few drinks as well.
After all, grieving widows could be forgiven a drink or two.
PART FOUR
Gaining a Partner
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHEN JEAN SAW Mary Jo be dropped off at her home by an officer, she knew the young cop was dead. On the police scanners, the call for an ambulance for the police station had gone out at the point Mary Jo would have reached the police station.
Jean smiled and took the bug from her collar and smashed it, then put it into a solution that would dissolve it within an hour.
She then took out a burner phone that she had kept hidden in the kitchen, taped up underneath a lower cabinet shelf. She dialed the only number on the phone and when a man answered, she said simply.
“Target is dead. I am not sure why you tried to double-cross me, but my fee for such action on your part has now doubled. I will expect it in the account shortly.”
“You can’t threaten me,” the man said, his voice full of bluster with no real power behind it.
“You obviously don’t know who exactly you hired,” Jean said, keeping her voice low and level. “My fee is now four times. I do not expect to be disappointed.”
Jean clicked off the phone, put it in a very heavy plastic bag and then smashed it until it was dust. Then she poured the solution with the bug in it into the plastic bag, wrapped it all in an old rag, and dropped it in the bottom of her garbage can in her garage.
In an hour the entire thing would be nothing more than a gooey mess inside the cloth.
She laughed as she went back into the house. She had a hunch that Mary Jo had just called the same guy and said basically the same thing. The only issue was if they had been hired for the same target by two different clients.
And, of course, she and Mary Jo both had an issue since the young cop had clearly known about both of them. So others might as well and know where they both lived.
Precautions were in order.
Jean went into her bedroom and into her secret stash behind her closet. There she took out a very special phone. She had never used the phone which had been handed to her four years ago for direct contact with the ancient order of assassins. The organization had no real name, never had.
And in thousands of years, Jean had seldom had need to actually speak to anyone in the order.
She checked to make sure there was no tracking on the phone, then hit the number four.
A moment later a recorded voice said, “State your name.”
Jean said simply, “Freyja Mist.”
A moment later a human voice said simply, “May I be of service?”
“Were two assassins hired for the same target in upstate New York just over a year ago?”
“We keep no records. But such occurrences have happened throughout time. It would be possible.”
“Understood,” Jean said. “Both assassins were then targeted by an amateur killer after the target was eliminated. How could such a thing happen? No contact with the client was made by either assassin.”
Jean knew she was speaking for Mary Jo, but she had no doubt Mary Jo would have had no reason outside the normal channels to contact the client in any way.
Silence greeted Jean’s question.
Finally the voice asked simply, “Has the threat been eliminated?”
“The immediate threat has, yes.”
“The phone you hold will ring exactly twenty-four hours from this moment. I will have information for you at that point.”
The phone went dead.
Jean glanced at her watch, then put the phone away and closed the secret panel on her closet.
That was done.
She set all proximity alarms around the house, made sure she had weapons in various places throughout the house, then took a deep breath.
“I need a drink.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MARY JO HATED everything to do with the funeral for her husband. The entire town was a mess, actually. Three detectives killed, another young cop drops dead, a writer murdered for no reason.
Mary Jo hated the sitting and pretending to mourn, she hated the questions that the poor cops had to ask and kept apologizing for asking.
And she really hated not being free to move around the way she wanted. This was always the worst part about killing a target you had made into a spouse.
Finally, a week after the funerals, things seemed to be starting to calm down. But she didn’t drop her guard at all, since somehow some amateur killer had found out about her and Jean.
She had no idea how that might have happened, but she would figure it out. Something she or Jean had done had let the client on to who they were and where they were.
On the ninth day after the funeral, she decided she needed to get some answers. So just after ten in the morning, with a bottle of the Absolute Crystal vodka and a thermos of orange juice in a bag, she headed three houses up the block to Jean’s house.
Jean answered the door after one knock, smiling and offering for her to come in.
Mary Jo for an instant had trouble even moving. She had thought a lot about Jean over the last two weeks, but now, facing her, she was more beautiful than Mary Jo remembered.
This morning Jean’s blonde hair was pulled back and her green eyes seemed to shine. She had on no make-up and wore a white blouse with a sports bra under it and jeans. She was also barefoot, something that Mary Jo did around her house as well.
“I come bearing drinks,” Mary Jo said, patting her bag.
“Ah, a neighbor after my own heart,” Jean said, leading the way through the entry and toward the modern kitchen beyond.
Actually Mary Jo wanted to say she was after Jean’s body, but instead said nothing and settled for watching the wonderful ass of
the woman in front of her. She normally never looked at women’s asses, instead preferring eyes and smiles and hands. But for Jean, Mary Jo was making an exception.
Mary Jo pulled out the bottle of vodka and the thermos of orange juice and set them on the counter.
Mary Jo had left the vodka in its original container now that she didn’t need to hide it from her husband.
“I see you have great taste in vodka,” Jean said, smiling.
“You like screwdrivers?”
Jean’s eyes lit up and then Jean laughed, a wonderful sound Mary Jo could come to enjoy. “My favorite drink. How did you know?”
“My favorite as well,” Mary Jo said, laughing along with Jean.
And what little bit of tension between the two eased as Jean got them tall tumblers and filled them with ice and Mary Jo poured their drinks.
They took the drinks and went to the kitchen table and sat down, both sipping at the same time.
“So,” Mary Jo said. “You have this house protected?”
Jean nodded, taking a second sip. “Completely. No one can hear a word we say or get close enough to cause any damage.”
“So who hired you?” Mary Jo asked. Then she went ahead and volunteered her client’s name. “Stanton Cobble the Third was mine.”
Jean nodded. “Same jerk. And I bumped his final fee to four times the two million he owed me and he paid me only a million.”
Mary Jo laughed. “I did the same and the guy only paid me a million as well.”
Jean smiled as she took another sip from her drink. “Seems we have some fees to extract from a client.”
“And teach him a lesson as well,” Mary Jo said. “But first we have to figure out how he found us.”
“The phones we used to call him,” Jean said so easily that Mary Jo was surprised.
Jean smiled. “I called the order and asked them if two of us had been hired for the same client.”
“They don’t keep records so they wouldn’t know,” Mary Jo said, surprised that Jean had called the order. That wasn’t something she had done in the modern world.
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