by Josie Brown
The Housewife Assassin’s
Husband Hunting Hints
A Novel
Josie Brown
© 2015 Josie Brown. All rights reserved.
Published by Signal Press Books.
[email protected]
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 First Comes Love, then Comes Marriage
Chapter 2 Honesty Is Always the Best Policy!
Chapter 3 Separation Anxiety
Chapter 4 Jack’s Diary, Day 1
Chapter 5 Kiss and Make Up
Chapter 6 Jack’s Diary, Day 2
Chapter 7 “He” Time
Chapter 8 Jack’s Diary, Day 4
Chapter 9 Teamwork
Chapter 10 Jack’s Diary, Day 5
Chapter 11 The Couple Who Plays Together Stays Together
Chapter 12 Jack’s Diary, Day 6
Chapter 13 Communication Issues
Chapter 14 Jack’s Diary, Day 7
Chapter 15 How Do You Know if He’s Strayed?
Chapter 16 Jack’s Diary, Day 8
Chapter 17 Fantasies
Chapter 18 Jack’s Diary, Day 9
Chapter 19 Be Polite to Your Partner
Chapter 20 How to Welcome Him Home
Next Up!
HOW TO REACH JOSIE
NOVELS IN THE HOUSEWIFE ASSASSIN SERIES
OTHER BOOKS BY JOSIE BROWN
PRAISE FOR JOSIE BROWN
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Chapter 1
First Comes Love, then Comes Marriage
To demonstrate your total commitment to each other, you and your mister tied the knot! (And lo and behold, it wasn’t around his neck—literally, if not metaphorically.)
However, should it turn out that his idea of marital bliss differs substantially from yours, these tips will bring you two lovebirds back together (without knocking heads):
First, should a conflict arise, listen to his rationale as to why his way is better than yours. As you listen, be silent, smile, and nod.
Next, when he is done, it’s your turn. As with a four-year-old, simply saying, “No—because I say so,” should suffice.
Finally, if he insists on further debate of the issue, a rock salt blast at twelve feet from your trusty shotgun should preclude any further negotiation. From now on, “Because I say so,” should yield the Pavlovian response it deserves: complete obedience. Talk about a happily-ever-after ending!
“Just tell me what it will take to get my husband back.” I refuse to cry while I’m on the phone with Eric Webber, leader of the international terrorist group known as the Quorum and the son of a bitch who kidnapped Jack.
“But, I have told you, my dear.”
By that he means I’m to be a pawn for the Quorum.
A paid killer for a terrorist organization.
A traitor to my country.
Despite knowing that every second matters if I’m to get the hell out of this honeymoon suite and track down Eric’s operatives, I count to ten. Finally: “Okay, I’m in.”
“Easier said than done,” he warns me. “There will be a series of initiation tests. Should you pass them, your husband lives.”
Click.
As I stare down at the one clue Jack left me—a bloody button, torn from the shirt he wore when he walked out the door, I think, What have I done?
Hopefully, I’ve given Jack a chance to survive until I find him.
Or perhaps, a chance to escape.
In the meantime, I am married to the Quorum.
At least, that’s what I’ll let Eric think.
I presume I’m being watched and heard, to see what I’ll do next. Will I call Acme Industries, the black-ops company that both Jack and I work for?
Or will I try to run out of the room in search of Jack?
Neither. Instead, my eyes scan for anything that could pass for a webcam—for example, a digital eye in hanging art, or a camera hidden in an overhead light fixture or an alarm clock. Or perhaps there’s a camera staring out at me from the glass-fronted mini-bar.
A full sweep of the room pulls up nothing.
Is there a camera hidden inside the television? I move an ottoman in front of the TV, then lift my suitcase and place it on top of it. I open the lid so that it blocks the television screen.
Even if the Quorum operatives weren’t able to get a camera in the room, they might have planted an audio bug. I go into the bathroom and turn on the shower—
Before slipping out the balcony door.
The room has a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean. Gentle waves roll onto an empty beach. Lights from a few boats dot the black water under an indigo sky.
My hotel room is on the third floor. If those shadowing me are next door, I can only go down.
I drop onto the balcony below.
Like our suite, this room has two sliding doors—one to the bedroom, another to the living room.
The good news: one is unlocked.
The bad news: it’s the bedroom door.
Even worse news: a couple is thrashing around on the bed, in the throes of passion.
I’m being polite when I say that the woman is riding high in the saddle. Between her highs and lows, her grunts and groans, a stream of dirty words spews from her pursed lips.
While she’s being satisfied by her partner’s most essential appendage of the moment, each of his other four is shackled to the nearest bedpost. The man’s eyes open wide when he sees me crossing the room toward the hallway. But, with a silk scarf tied over his mouth, all he can do is grunt out his shock and indignation.
The woman takes it as tacit approval that she’s saying all the right things. By the time I’m out the door, she’s turned into a real potty mouth.
It’s not our form of love play, but to each their own.
Right now, I’d give anything to feel Jack’s arms around me.
I run down the hall to the fire exit that leads out to the side of the building.
The kid at the reception desk in the hotel lobby is too busy texting his buddy to see me make my way into the general manager’s office.
It takes me just a few seconds to pick the lock.
The desk is cluttered with files. I have to push some aside in order to find the general manager’s nametag: Tommy Scott. From the number of boards hanging on the walls, apparently, Tommy is a surfer dude from way back. His personal photos in the frames scattered on top of the credenza and on numerous file cabinets throughout the room move through his life progression: from a bronzed flaxen-haired Samson in a wetsuit, to a paunchy leathery balding Boomer in a Hawaiian shirt.
There are no pictures of a wife or kids, just a Labrador retriever: first as a puppy, then aged, to the point of having a gray, grizzled snout. I squint to read the dog’s tag, which is visible in the closest picture. It reads Maui. Scrawled on the photo is:
RIP 2015
It takes me about a minute to figure out the password to the laptop. First I try Maui2015, but it doesn’t work. Next I try SurfsUp. Still nothing.
WipeOut does the trick.
Yikes. If Tommy’s password is indicative of his self-esteem, I’d hate to be his shrink.
The security camera’s app is sitting right on the computer’s desktop. It launches with a click. Immediately, the lobby comes into view. The kid at the front desk is just as I left him: comatose, except for his fingers, which tap away at his text. I guess at the command to bring up the videos on the various floors. Since Jack and I are on the third floor, I hit the number 3.
Bingo.
The screen changes to the hallway outside our door, in real time. The back co
mmand button rewinds the video feed.
I stop it when I see Jack.
He is being pushed into a hotel laundry cart by a woman dressed as a housekeeper and a large broad-shouldered man in his mid-thirties with a swarthy complexion. His head is shaved. The woman is perhaps in her late twenties, a pretty girl with sultry features: a broad forehead, almond eyes, and olive complexion. Her long dark hair is loose to her shoulders. Both are Latino, no doubt.
Jack is bleeding. Why? How? Is it a fatal wound? I can’t tell at this angle.
I rewind it further, to the exact moment in which the first person enters the previously empty hall. It is the housekeeper. She enters via the elevator and stops outside the doorway exactly across from ours, but she doesn’t go in. When she nods, I presume it’s because her partner has just said something to her via an earpiece.
As Jack comes out of our room, she turns slightly and picks up a stack of bath towels. By the time he’s next to the cart, they’ve made eye contact. He nods. She smiles. She holds out the towels.
Her offer takes him off his guard. He smiles back and says something as he takes them.
The moment his arms are full, she stabs him in the neck with a syringe.
Jack refuses to go down without a fight. He takes the cart between them and shoves it into her so hard that she hits the back of her head against the wall.
He stumbles to get back into our room—
But he doesn’t make it. Her companion comes flying out of the hotel room across from ours. He carries a gun.
Thank God the man doesn’t shoot Jack with it, but he hits him over the head.
Instinctively, Jack’s hand reaches for the wound. As he draws his hand away, he sees that it is covered in blood. He takes a step toward the man, only to succumb to the drug now coursing through his veins.
His hand swipes at the wall, leaving a smear of blood.
By now, the woman has regained her footing. The man angrily motions at her to help him drop Jack into the cart. She then scurries to pick up the towels that are now scattered throughout the hall, and tosses them into the cart with Jack.
My husband's kidnappers roll him down the hall, into the service elevator.
For Jack’s captors, it is an interminable wait before the elevator doors open. I realize this when the man anxiously slams his fist hard and fast against the button, as if this will improve its speed.
I stare at the cart on the screen, ashamed that I lay in the blissful afterglow of sex while Jack struggled for his life.
Finally, the doors open.
They shove the cart into the elevator. They stand in front of it, prepared to block it from the view of anyone else who might enter.
I switch to the elevator camera, rewinding to a few seconds before they enter it.
The camera’s eye is directly overhead. Because of this, the housekeeper and her henchman don't see what I do: Jack's arm rising from the cart.
He drops something.
I found it: the bloody button from the shirt he wore out the door.
The time stamp shows eighteen minutes ago.
I shift to another camera—the one in the lobby—and rewind to the same time stamp. When the elevator door opens, the housekeeper hauls the cart in the direction of a service hallway, while her companion walks out the hotel’s front door, just as carefree as can be.
I now switch my view to a camera that covers the back of the hotel. The housekeeper stands near the service entrance. A moment later, her henchman drives up in an unmarked white service van. Together, they haul the cart up the van's back ramp.
I zoom in on the license plate and write it down.
When the van pulls out of the parking lot, it turns right onto the Pacific Coast Highway.
South.
I copy the digital files I've just seen, along with any files beginning with Jack’s and my arrival at the hotel, sending them to a secure data cloud I set up several years ago under my Aunt Phyllis's name. Thank goodness Phyllis is a Luddite when it comes to anything other than the poker game app on her cellphone.
Afterward, I delete the same data files on Tommy's computer, as well as those on the hotel's account to the cloud where its files are uploaded.
I then delete the webcam app. By the time Tommy loads it back into his computer, I'll be long gone.
I'm about to head out the door when I hear someone coming. I duck below the desk and ease myself under the credenza.
The door opens. It’s the housekeeper.
She rushes toward the desk and plops down in front of the computer. She had the same idea as me, only her goal is to delete the files. It's doubtful that Tommy or anyone else on his staff will take the time to peruse them if there are no guest complaints filed prior to its seven-day auto-deletion, but she’s not taking any chances.
Well, neither am I.
She's too busy clicking away in a desperate attempt to find the webcam app to hear me as I rise silently behind her. I take the pristine letter opener off Tommy's credenza. I will stab her, but in some place that won't kill her.
I need to keep her alive, if only to torture her to find out where the Quorum has taken Jack.
I'm just about to strike when she stops clicking. I realize why when our eyes meet in the reflection on the computer screen.
Before I can stab her, she elbows me in the gut.
When I double over, she reaches across the desk, pulling the scissors from the pencil cup.
This gives me time to jab her thigh.
She yelps and shoots straight up—
Into my sidekick.
It slams her into the wall that holds the surfboards. One clatters to the floor, barely missing her head.
She picks it up and runs at me, swinging at my head.
I duck just in time.
Before she has time to swing again, I jab at her once more with the letter opener.
She blocks it with the surfboard and it sticks in the damn thing!
Realizing this, she smiles triumphantly. She swings it at me again, but this time she flings the board high over her head in an attempt to crack my noggin—
Ain’t happening.
I charge her, head-butting her in the stomach.
Doubling over, she drops the surfboard.
I catch it.
It makes a great bat. I catch the back of her head just as she tries to right herself. She goes down face first, cracking her head on the edge of Tommy's desk before slamming into the hardwood floor.
Oh, hell.
I feel for a pulse—
Nothing.
Shit.
A cellphone is buzzing. It's somewhere on her body. Frantically, I search her uniform for pockets. I find the right one, under her apron on her right hip.
Thank goodness it’s a text message, not a call.
It's in Spanish: Dónde estás?
Ah. He asks, Where are you?
I can read Spanish un poquito (a little) but writing it? Ay, caramba!
Not to panic. I pull out my own cellphone and hit the translator app. My answer:
Limpiando. ¡Ja! La esposa perra es un desastre. Ella está en la ducha, llorando como un bebé. Tenga cuidado de los negocios sin mí. Me pondré al día en 24 horas.
Translation:
Cleaning up. Ha! His bitch wife is a mess. She is in the shower, crying like a baby. Take care of business without me. I'll catch up in 24 hours.
A moment later her accomplice texts back: OK.
Now, just one more task before I take out the trash: I scan the security system’s QR code so that I can remotely access the camera feed with my cellphone, and then I split the feed so that anyone else accessing this feed sees a loop of archival footage taken from the twenty-four hour period prior to Jack’s kidnapping. That way, no one sees my comings and goings, yet I see the real thing, in real time.
Finally, I lift her from under her arms and drag her out of the office. Something falls out of her pocket: her master key card. I take it. Maybe I can peek inside my
surveillance team’s room while they’re napping, or out by the pool.
Conveniently, she left the laundry cart outside the door. I shove her into it and head down the hallway.
Time for us to take a joy ride.
The front desk kid doesn't look up as I wheel the cart past him toward the service door.
One of the hotel's amenities is a pier, where a couple of sailboats and a small skiff with an outboard motor are tethered for guest use.
After heaving the housekeeper into the skiff, I set sail. I go far enough out to sea that should her body find its way to shore, it'll be much further down the coast.
Is that where they've taken Jack?
Had I kept her alive, I might have my answer.
Too late now.
Over the side she goes.
The housekeeper’s body bobs twice above the waves before slipping under the frothy chop. At that second, I wish I could conjure her from the dead in order to ask her.
Hell, I've just made a pact with the Devil, so maybe I can.
Before Eric or another of his operatives discovers me missing from the room, I have one more stop to make:
I must find Ryan Clancy, my boss at Acme Industries, where both Jack and I work.
I’ll head over to the office on the off-chance that he may actually be there.
Black-ops organizations aren't like other companies, with a human resources director who coordinates a personnel directory containing everyone's home address and telephone number. It would certainly have made it easier for sending out my wedding invitations.
Or, for that matter, those for a funeral.
I won’t let my mind go there.
Never.
But before I find Ryan, I have to ask myself: how much can I tell him without jeopardizing Jack’s life?
Chapter 2
Honesty Is Always the Best Policy!
Helpful hint to husbands: when it comes to couples communication, total and complete truthiness must be adhered to—
Despite the consequences.
For example:
Even if the iron is within tossing distance, it behooves you to answer yes when she asks, "Do I look fat in this dress?" Granted, you'll be in a coma for at least a few days after it hits your face, but isn’t it worth it if she is saved from the giggles and eye-rolls that undoubtedly would have come her way had she not been at your hospital bedside? Someday she will thank you for taking it on the chin, quite literally.
