The Laundry Hag's New Year's Clean-Up

by Jennifer L. Hart

  “He’s not where I left him.” Neil shone the light around the nearby floor and under the chaise as though in his drunken stupor our friend had somehow managed to roll off and under the dainty piece of furniture.

  “For the love of grief.” I threw my hands up in the air. “Did you find any light switches for this room?”

  Neil moved to the left side of the exit door and flipped a switch. Overhead lights, angled to illuminate the art, came on at full strength. They must have been the same sort of bulbs used in the greenhouse. The sudden illumination was so bright after the dimness that I hissed. I could swear my retinas shriveled up like fatty bacon.

  “Sorry,” Neil adjusted the dimmer switch on the wall so the overheads were less stabbing pain and more let there be light.

  Unfortunately, even with the lights on, there was still no sign of Leo.

  “He either went to pray to the porcelain god or he went to find another drink.” I held out my hand and Neil relinquished my cell phone.

  I dialed Leo’s number and he picked up on the first ring. “Maggie, my love where for art thou?”

  “Where are you?” I shot back. I was in no mood for his drunken shenanigans.

  Neil stepped closer and I held the phone between us.

  “Why at the New Year’s party of the century of course. It’s a shame you are missing it.”

  In the background, I heard the laughter and clinking of glasses from the party below.

  Neil stepped back and we exchanged a look.

  “Leo, it’s time to go.” I used my most authoritative voice, the one the boys knew to hide from. “Neil and I are going to meet you by the kitchen door in five minutes. Do not, I repeat do not make us come looking for you.” The or else was implied.

  “You’re no fun. Oh, I think I see a B list celebrity. Gotta jet.” There was a click and I knew he’d hung up.

  “What are the chances he’ll actually be by the kitchen door?” Neil asked.

  “Slim to none.” Especially if he really had just spied a semi famous person. I could only pray that he didn’t Technicolor yawn all over the B lister.

  Ignoring the priceless art on the walls, I followed the massive curved gallery hall toward the door I’d first come in, dictating our plan of action as I walked. “You, go get the car and have them pull around to the back so you can help me load him up. I’ll go get him.”

  “You can’t handle him on your own,” Neil had no problem keeping stride with me. “Let me go with you. I can wrangle him better.”

  “Neil, we’re lucky Amber didn’t recognize me, but if she sees you, there will be no freaking way we can get out of here without making a scene.” An outcome I wanted to avoid at all costs. “Think about what Leo said. Anybody who is anybody is at this party. Your boss might be at this party. It’ll be bad enough if word gets around that the Laundry Hag crashed this event. If you’re at the epicenter of any New Year’s Eve drama, you might lose your job.”

  It was really a longshot, but I could see the worry in my husband’s eyes. He was his mother’s son. He understood that reputation meant everything. Even if he didn’t subscribe to that idea himself, he knew others did and he wouldn’t run the risk of being unable to support his family, especially not with a new baby.

  “I’ll play the pregnancy card if I have to,” I held out my hands and spun, illustrating my maternity garb. “Get some of the bigger men to help me manage Leo. Trust me to take care of this.”

  We reached the door and he paused with his hand on the doorknob. “All right. Just be careful.”

  “It’s Leo,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “He won’t hurt me,”

  “Not on purpose. The only one he really hurts is himself. I just don’t want you caught in the crossfire.” With that he turned the knob and opened the door leading to the upstairs hallway. He held it for me and I was halfway out, when the next door down opened. Instinctively, I stepped back and gestured for Neil to shut the door.

  “What is it?” he hissed.

  “There’s someone exiting the room next door.”

  “So, we’ll just wait for them to go downstairs.”

  I pressed my face to the door to see if it was the same couple I’d walked in on earlier. What I saw made me suck in air like my lungs were starving for it. “Hit the light.”

  Neil, bless him, did exactly that.

  “Did you hear something?” The woman in the hall asked her companion.

  The man replied, the pitch of his voice too low for me to hear.

  “Come on,” I hissed, gripping Neil by the wrist and hurtling away from the door back into the pitch blackness. We rounded the first curve, just far enough that we were hidden by the angle of the room in case the people outside decided to come investigate and happened to know where the light switches were.

  “Maggie?” Neil asked. “What is it?”

  Maybe I had seen wrong. Maybe, just maybe, the stress of a new baby was playing tricks on my fragile little brain. Or maybe I had fallen asleep on Neil’s lap during the first episode of Black Mirror and this was all a warped dream brought on by too many appetizers.

  The door opened, I could see the reflection of the rectangle of light growing large in the window. Gripping Neil’s shirt, I tugged him down to the floor, just as the overhead light came on. His face was inches from mine and I leaned in closer, risking the noise so he would know what I had seen.

  “They’re armed,” I breathed in my husband’s ear. “The man had what looked like an assault rifle.”

  Neil held perfectly still, his body caging mine, using his own flesh to shield me from any threat.

  All too easy, I could imagine that body shredded beneath a hail of bullets.

  “You’re imagining things,” the male voice was deep and rhythmic, as though soothing a child. “No one would miss this party to poke around up here. All the art is bolted to the walls and besides it’s dark.”

  “I could swear the light was on when I glanced over.” The woman had a smooth cultured voice, like someone who’d taken elocution lessons.

  “It’s probably from the greenhouse upstairs. The timer switches off at ten. Speaking of which, come on we’re late.”

  The light went off again. Neil didn’t move more than his lips as he exhaled one smooth question back. “Are you sure?”

  Was I? Slowly, I shook my head back and forth. It was better than a shrug, better than admitting I didn’t know what I had seen.

  Neil moved back. It was too dark for me to see his expression but his hands were gentle as he helped me to my feet. “Come on, we need to get you out of here.”

  “How?”

  “There was an exit sign at the other end of the room. You’ve been here before— do you know where it might lead?”

  I thought about it, shook my head. “Most of my work focused on the back gardens and the pool house. I really don’t know the layout of the main building that well, beyond the kitchen and the parts we saw together.”

  Keeping a tight grip on my hand, Neil led me through the dark, back toward the exit at the other side of the room. “We’ll have to take our chances.”

  I let him drag me along. “What about Leo?”

  He didn’t even break stride. “Let me make sure you’re safe first. If I can get you off the property, I’ll sneak back and try to figure out what’s going on, get Leo if it’s possible.”

  I wasn’t trying to play Devil’s Advocate but the image of the weapon had imprinted on my brain. “If it isn’t?”

  “We’ll get help here. Call the police. Hell, half the guests probably have private security. It’ll be all right, Uncle Scrooge.”

  I wanted to ask more questions but was too out of breath to keep up with Neil’s quick deliberate stride to waste my air. Up ahead the exit sign glowed like a beacon of hope. I glanced to my right to see if I could make out the rectangle of light from the upstairs greenhouse, but either the man had been correct about it switching off automatically or we’d already gone past t
he turnoff.

  Neil paused beneath the exit door, allowing me to catch my breath. When I squeezed his hand, indicating that I was ready, he pushed it open. We both held our breath. I don’t know about him but I was just hoping an alarm wouldn’t alert the people who potentially had firearms and ill intentions to our whereabouts.

  He pushed through the door and although it groaned in protest from obvious disuse, no blaring alarms sounded.

  We faced what appeared to be a thick curtain, like something you would see on stage at the theater. Voices drifted through the thick fabric, adding to the feeling of being on stage.

  “Stay here,” Neil whispered in my ear. “I’m going to scout the situation.”

  “Wait,” I hissed, picking up on a familiar laugh, but it was too late.

  He vanished into the shadows between two folds of fabric. The only thing missing was the puff of smoke.

  Again, I heard a too high laugh that belonged to a too drunk man. I spent a solid thirty seconds debating the wisdom of poking my head out when Neil reappeared. “We’re in an alcove off to one side of the other set of stairs. Looks like maybe it was designed as a servant’s staircase.”

  “How very Downton Abbey,” I muttered and followed him past the curtain.

  The alcove was hidden in shadows and was much less ornate than any of the main areas of the house. No sense using marble and limestone on servant’s stairs. I felt a bit like the Phantom of the Opera, looking down on the glittering scene below. No sign of Christine but I spied Leo right away, couldn’t miss the way his mask caught the light. No one appeared to be armed either.

  “There’s no sign that anything’s wrong,” Neil read my mind in that way he did sometimes. “Maybe you were mistaken about what he was holding.”

  “Maybe,” I conceded.

  “Better safe than sorry.” Neil made to step toward the sturdy functional staircase when a van crashed through the plate glass window from the backyard.

  Chapter Four

  Two hours ‘til midnight

  Maggie

  Quick as a striking snake, Neil pivoted and dragged me down onto the floor of the alcove. “Get back behind the curtain,” he growled.

  I could barely hear him over the sounds of shattering glass and screaming from the partygoers. He made an impatient move it or lose it gesture that I understood all too well. On hands and knees, I crawled back behind the curtain a second before a horrible ripping noise overpowered the chaos from below.

  Gunfire.

  “Neil,” I yelled, fearing the worst. That someone had spied him, shot at him.

  But a moment later he pushed through the curtain as well. Grabbing my hand, he yanked me back through the doorway and then up the stairs to the Orange grove. He practically shoved me into the hidden garden where we’d made love barely an hour ago.

  “What now?” I panted when he crawled into the space.

  “We hide here and wait for help.” Digging in his pocket, Neil retrieved his phone, then frowned at the display.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Let me see yours.”

  I handed the device over.

  Neil fiddled with it a moment, looked over to his phone and then returned mine. “There’s no signal from either the Wi-Fi hotspot or the network. I just tried sending myself a text and nothing went through. Whoever just bust in here must have some sort of jamming equipment in place.”

  I swallowed. “Does that mean we can’t call for help?”

  “Not with these.” He handed my phone back.

  I swayed a little where I sat. “What do we do.”

  “We have a couple of options,” from his expression, I could tell Neil wasn’t thrilled with either of them. “One, I could leave you hidden here and go hunt down a landline or cable box. Something that can contact the police.”

  “Or?” I prompted, not liking the thought of twiddling my freaking thumbs while Neil played evasion wargames with the bad guys and their big guns.

  “Or you could come with me.”

  I swallowed. “So, either we stick together and I am literally a huge liability to you or separate and hope the other doesn’t get you killed?”

  He didn’t correct me.

  The grow lights snapped off, leaving us in the moonlight.

  “Well that makes things simpler.”

  “You’re coming with me?”

  “Yeah, I’m so not staying here in the dark.” I told him.

  He reached for my hand, squeezed it once. “Take off your shoes. Stay right behind me. Don’t make a sound and if I give you an order, follow it immediately. Do you understand, Maggie?”

  Maggie, not Uncle Scrooge. He meant business.

  I took a deep breath. Our marriage was a partnership but right now Neil was the one with the skills and I was the deadweight he’d been saddled with. It wasn’t a sexist thing, if I’d been the one with BUD/s training, I would have been taking point. I slipped my shoes off.

  He brought my hand to his lips. “It’ll be all right.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I have to. We have three kids counting on us to come pick them up tomorrow.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Any other tips?”

  “If we get separated for any reason, I will meet you back here as soon as I can. I doubt anyone except the owners know about this particular spot. There are two exits, from the curtained balcony and the third-floor gallery exit. It’s a solid hiding place.”

  “Our spot, got it.”

  He was quiet a minute before he added. “Try not to think beyond the next moment, the next step, the next heartbeat. Keep your mind clear and your senses sharp. You have lousy eyesight and your hearing isn’t much better,”

  “Gee, thanks,”

  He continued as if I hadn’t interrupted. “But you have a much more acute sense of smell than I do and your instincts are spot on most of the time. If you smell anything or feel any sort of trepidation, I want you to squeeze my hand twice, like this.” He demonstrated with two deliberate squeezes.

  Okay, so maybe I wasn’t just deadweight. “Will do.”

  Neil cupped my face for a moment. Then his hand fell away. I sensed the change come over him. He’d told me once that when he was in a combat situation or hot zone, he had to stuff all of his emotions deep down and lock them up. The vast amount of training had to take over for him to succeed. It was eerie, especially because I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell what was happening by the way his grip on my hand shifted from affection to more detached, methodical.

  He was Ice. And God help us, I was his wingman.

  “Just call me Maverick,” I muttered.

  He released my hand only long enough for us both to exit the hidden grove. In the dark, the trees were much more ominous, their branches looming over us menacingly. Even in shoes, Neil moved soundlessly. I did my best to imitate him, stepping where he stepped as lightly as I could manage.

  We crept down the stairs at a snail’s pace. The door must not have shut all the way because I could hear sounds from the gallery below. Someone was shouting, but at least there was no more gunfire.

  Neil turned back down the long path leading to the third-floor corridor. He paused every few steps, listening. I couldn’t hear anything above the pounding of my overzealous heart.

  Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. I mentally chanted. Maybe the chanting was just as distracting as thoughts, but the mental exercise kept me from freaking the hell out.

  An age later, we finally made it to the door. Neil took my hands and positioned me flat against the wall, behind the door and murmured, “Stay exactly like this.”

  I wanted to make a joke about kinky positioning, but swallowed it. Don’t think.

  Neil pressed his ear against the door. Even though it was dark, I closed my eyes and held my breath, trying to meld with the wall so that I could hear through it.

  He must have had some sort of count in his head because he waited a long, long time before reaching
for the doorknob.

  I swallowed as he turned it quickly, then yanked it open.

  “What the...?” A man’s startled voice.

  He didn’t get the chance to say more before Neil burst from the room.

  My eyes flashed open and I saw a flurry of moment through the crack in the door. There was some sort of light out there, not overly bright, more like a battery powered lantern, but after the dimness of the gallery, it was plenty.

  Within seconds the struggle was over. The man who’d been out in the hallway was dragged by the ankles back into the gallery.

  I stayed frozen in place until Neil looked up at me.

  “All clear.”

  I didn’t move. “Is he dead?”

  “No, I just cold cocked him with this.” Neil set down a large scary looking assault rifle, like the one I’d seen earlier.

  Neil got busy patting the man’s pockets.

  After taking a hesitant step away from the wall I asked, “What are you looking for?”

  “I.D., extra weapons, a satellite phone.” From the edge of frustration in his voice, I could tell he’d discovered none of the above. Instead, he shucked his jacket and then his shirt. The sound of rending fabric filled the room.

  “What are you doing?” In spite of our dire circumstances, I was horrified by his actions. “That jacket was expensive as all get-out.”

  “We need to tie him up and gag him before he comes to,” Neil yanked and seams gave way.

  I moaned.

  Neil looked up. I couldn’t read his expression in the low light but could feel his gaze was on me. “Would you rather I kill him?”

  “No?” It came out like a question.

  “You don’t sound too sure about that.”

  “No.” This time it was on a sigh. I had no doubt that my beloved husband had Done Things in the line of duty, things that weighed on his heart and his soul. A jacket wasn’t worth the toll, no matter how many toilets I had to scrub to make up for the loss.