“Has she spoken with her boss?”
“He’s looking into it.” Silva was doing no such thing, Frank knew. He was up to something. Plotting, always plotting, and writing in that journal of his: a leather-bound book of secrets only he could translate. Frank preferred to keep his secrets in his head. He would not even sign his name without it being absolutely necessary, or without having legal council present.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” Gideon said, his tone growing serious. “I’d like an honest answer.”
Frank tensed, realizing that Gideon’s presence that morning may have been an ambush.
“You’re aware of what happened with my first wife?”
He nodded gravely, sensing the direction this was going. Maggie had told him about Elise Adler, née Nolan. Gideon had met his first wife while they were in school. His parents had threatened to disown him if he continued seeing her. Despite their warning he married her, and shortly after the wedding she was killed.
“Is it possible that someone…” Gideon paused, swallowing hard as if he could barely stomach the thought, “is it possible that my parents were responsible? That they hired that man to kill her because of me?”
Frank’s response was both immediate and impassive when he replied, “Yes.” He was quite certain that it was not a hit. It was nowhere near the caliber Gideon’s family could afford. But anything was possible. And Frank did not appreciate being accosted with questions first thing in the morning, much less by someone who upset his husband the day before.
Gideon rubbed his face. He looked horrified, as if he had been expecting his suspicions to be completely unfounded. “Yes?”
“They’re wealthy. They disapproved of her. Yes, it is possible.”
“That’s all it takes? Disapproval?” he stammered with revulsion.
Frank helpfully added, “And money.”
Gideon rubbed his face again. “Do they ever survive once it’s been paid for? Your...what are they even called, victims? Targets?”
“Marks.”
“Marks,” Gideon repeated. “Do your marks survive?”
“Mine?” Frank scoffed. “Certainly not. But yes, it has happened. You’ll be fine. And I’m still alive.”
Gideon opened his mouth to speak, then paused and knit his brow before continuing, “You?”
“The Alcotts.”
“My God! I thought you were just avoiding them because of the inheritance. That’s why you wanted everything in Vincent’s name?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Frank, I could’ve—”
“Done something about it?” he asked incredulously. Gideon never could leave well enough alone. He was like a bloodhound fixated on the scent of injustice. He would’ve gone after Casey’s father for every cent the man had if Maggie had permitted it. And after discovering the cruelties Vincent suffered in foster care, Gideon persistently tried to get V to press charges. He had even encouraged Frank to claim his inheritance, not because it was his due, but because it was right.
“No, I suppose not,” Gideon sighed. “So you hide for the rest of your life, or you die? Those are your choices?”
Frank bristled at the implication that he was hiding out of fear for his life. He was not a coward, and he never had been. The Alcotts didn’t scare Frank. If he felt so inclined, he could have killed each and every one of them. He had stayed out of sight so he could have a life; his career in killing and the anonymity he found in America. The hit on Frank was a joke. Silva assigned it to Bella knowing it would never be completed, and Bella bought Frank a first edition copy of A Tale of Two Cities with the proceeds.
“You have missed one meeting. I’m sure you’ll survive,” he said bitterly. “Enjoy your extended holiday.”
The stairs creaked. Frank braced himself for an attack, but having not heard the clicking of high heels, figured he had nothing to worry about. Casey came up behind him and said, “You’re mean.” He playfully pinched Frank’s ear, which was in fact less damage than Frank had inflicted upon Bella. “I asked you not to retaliate.”
“I did not retaliate,” he said. The kid was in for a rude awakening if he thought she’d take kindly to chivalry. Bella was not the type to go looking for protection. Any man who dared defend her would hear about it, and in most cases feel it. But Casey was in one piece. He wasn’t even missing any more hair. Could Bella have really gone to Casey to complain instead of coming after him for revenge? Or was this part of her plot?
“Who’s retaliating?” Gideon asked, his night clothes suddenly passing for a three-piece suit as he transformed from an American tourist in France back to attorney at law.
“Easy, Dad,” Casey said. Frank smiled; Casey had taken his side even though it was an argument the kid had no idea they were having. “You’re on vacation. Stop being a lawyer.”
“That’s just what I was telling him,” Frank said, channeling his bratty husband.
“Sounds like someone got up on the wrong side of Vincent this morning,” Casey muttered, and went to get everybody a cup of coffee.
Frank took the opportunity to sneak away, grabbing a few of Bella’s cigarettes from his secret cache in the locked cabinet in the library and calling the dogs to the kitchen door. Casey handed him his coffee and unexpectedly started to follow him outside in his socked feet. It would not be the first time the kid walked outdoors without the essential clothing, whether it was a coat, which he was also missing, or his shoes. Frank stopped him on the porch, letting Charlie and Hugo run off on their own. “Il fait froid, Case.”
“You’re smoking again. Want to talk about it?”
Casey had picked up this inquisition technique from Vincent: stating a fact to be denied, then asking a question he’d automatically oppose, therefore confirming the statement as fact. “Go put on a coat.” Frank said, and walked away. “And shoes.”
“Wait for me!” Casey ran back inside. He appeared moments later, pulling on one of Frank’s coats and wearing a pair of glittery Doc Marten boots, unlaced with his yellow jellybean pajama pants tucked inside. His sleep shirt was striped in green and blue, and he had put that god-awful purple hat over his uneven hair.
When Frank first met Bella, he had been wearing hand-me-downs from Charlie. She purchased an entire wardrobe for him out of pity, as he liked to think, or disgust, which was more likely the case. Perhaps Casey’s choice of sleepwear was why she had pushed him down in the mud and thrown a knife at his head. The hat alone could invoke violence.
Casey followed him, spilling some coffee on Frank’s coat as he attempted to sip and step simultaneously. Casey was a caution at the best of times, but apart from Vincent, there was no one Frank preferred to be around. “Can I ask you something?”
Frank lit a cigarette as they walked. There was no point in pretending when Casey already knew about the smoking.
“Did Bella really shoot a Degas?”
He laughed. It was not surprising that she would tell Casey that story. If only the kid got the point she must have been trying to make. But then, he wouldn’t be Casey if he did.
Frank remembered how out of place the painting had seemed the first time he saw it, when he had been shoved into a chair before Silva’s desk, bleeding and in pain. As Frank had gotten to know Silva, the painting on his wall proved to be even more appropriate than the rest of the artwork in the house, as it was the only one with a bullet hole. The only one with damage at all. A houseful of killers, some of the most violent men Frank had ever encountered, and it took a woman’s touch to destroy a priceless piece of art.
“Oui. She certainly did.” That had not been Bella’s only brush with the art world. Frank hoped, for her sake, that their assassination of the Russian art dealer would never be disclosed to Casey. It was one thing to shoot a Degas, and quite another to decapitate a man with a genuine eighteenth century guillotine and put his head on display to a mass of modern art enthusiasts, floating in a crystal bowl of Chanel No. 5.
; “Silva’s wife was a dancer,” Frank said. Charlie and Hugo were a long ways off, only Charlie’s brightly colored collar visible amidst the leafless trees and dry, brittle brush. Casey held Kiki while Frank lit another cigarette.
“Bella didn’t mention that.”
“Why would she?” Frank had never understood how Silva could proclaim love for his wife yet share his bed with someone young enough to be his granddaughter. How the man could ever share his bed again at all. It was the same with Gideon. He had loved his first wife enough to defy his parents and take her hand, only to have her die on him. Then he marries again, and again, and finally declares his love for Maggie, and marries her too. If he lost Vincent, Frank would not move on. He would not even consider it. He would swallow a bullet at the first opportunity.
“She isn’t shagging him,” Casey said with a small laugh. Frank had a hard enough time keeping up with Vincent’s American slang, and Case had it down in both forms of English. And French for that matter. “Silva’s like a father to her. Like Gideon is with me.”
Now it was Frank’s turn to laugh. “Bella and Silva are nothing like you and Gideon.” The thought that Gideon could be like Silva upset Frank. It reminded him how little he knew about Gideon, and why he had let his trust in the man waver to begin with. “I would never let that happen.”
“Let what happen?” Casey asked, the smile not leaving his face, simply diminishing in his confusion. “What is going on between you two?”
This was not a conversation he had prepared himself for, nor was it one he was willing to participate in. Certainly not without another cup of coffee. “Nothing, Case. I’m just being protective. You know I would never let anything happen to you.”
“I don’t need protection from Gideon,” he said, smile officially gone.
“That is not what I said.”
“Does this have something to do with him writing in my sketchbook?” he asked, smile officially restored.
Frank maintained his sangfroid, even while feeling like the wind had been knocked out of him. Who the fuck told him about Gideon writing in his sketchbook?
“He’s not going to turn me into a lawyer, Frank!” Casey laughed, as if that were worse than recruiting him into a life of crime. “It was the only paper in the house. Relax. You know he can’t stop working.” He reassuringly rubbed his shoulder. “Jeez, you can really hold a grudge. That was like, three weeks ago.”
“Did Bella tell you about that?”
Casey chewed on his lower lip, trying not to give the truth away by sheer brute force. It wasn’t working. Smiling was his default expression even while attempting to lie.
“You two certainly enjoy each other’s company,” he said. If his jealousy was apparent, Casey did not pick up on it. But then, he did seem rather distracted, grinning away in his own little world at the mention of spending time with Bella.
“She’s great. You shouldn’t be so hard on her.”
Frank stubbed his cigarette out on a tree in lieu of responding.
“Don’t worry, you’re still my favorite assass—”
“Do not say it,” Frank groaned. “Please?”
“I’m twenty-five, Frank. When are we going to stop pretending that I don’t know what’s going on?”
Was Casey really twenty-five? When did that happen? He lit another cigarette.
“Vincent told me why Bella’s here.”
He gasped, and then spent the next several minutes coughing perfumed cigarette smoke out of somewhere it should not have gone. Vincent was a dead man. “He what?”
“Bella confirmed it,” Casey said, offering him the last of his coffee. Frank shook his head. The last thing he needed was cold coffee. He had a husband to murder. And a sister. “Is that why you’re mad at her?”
“When did he—”
“The day after she got here.”
Frank closed his eyes. Tightly. He may have whimpered.
“You shouldn’t get mad at people when you’re worried about them. It’s counterproductive.”
Getting mad at people when he was worried about them happened to be one of Frank's strong suits, but perhaps Casey knew less than he thought. “Pardon?”
“Bella. You’re mad at her because you’re worried. But being mad at her doesn’t accomplish anything. If she has to stay here to be safe, you should be nice to her. Enjoy your time together.”
“To be safe,” he muttered. What had Vincent told him? “I shall consider it.”
“And be nice to Gideon. It’s only paper.”
“Will do.”
“And don’t punish Vincent.”
Frank forced a smile. Punishing Vincent was precisely what they both wanted, but how could you truly punish someone that you were terrified you'd hurt?
“I’m glad we had this talk,” Casey said cheekily, and gave him a big hug. “Mom’s sending me into town for groceries. You want real cigarettes?”
He glanced at the filter between his fingers and sighed heavily. “Oui.”
Chapter Twenty
I rested my head on the kitchen table, waiting impatiently for Maggie to finish making breakfast. It wasn’t fair to be woken up so early without even being allowed to immediately eat. But apparently I was in trouble because Frank had dragged me out of bed by the hair and then left without fulfilling any caveman fantasies. Bella was sitting beside me, wearing a hat that I was pretty sure had once been living. Charlie stared anxiously at her head, waiting for the opportune moment to attack. I almost warned her, but it was likely her fault that I was in trouble and therefore she deserved to have her head mauled. “Bad hair day?”
“Shut your face.”
Maggie gave Bella a dirty look as she set a plateful of pancakes in front of me. I loved when Maggie visited. Frank could only do crepes.
She fed Gideon next, and when Bella responded negatively to an offer that wasn’t given, she sat down beside her husband and dug in. Casey was off at the hypermarché buying more groceries, and Frank was brooding amongst his books in the library.
Because Gideon was going to be murdered, he and Maggie were staying for Thanksgiving. This hit was just getting better and better. Frank was a great cook, but he couldn’t do traditional American food. Or maybe the French side of him just blatantly refused, and it was in his blood to add wine and spices where basting was more than sufficient. He still didn’t understand why it was always on a Thursday, not that I understood it either.
Frank came in and shooed Charlie out of the kitchen before she could attack Bella’s hat. He sat next to me, placing his hand roughly on the back of my neck and pulling me close for a good morning kiss. He smelled like Bella’s cigarettes again. “Nice hat.”
Bella punched him in the arm hard enough that I felt it on the other side of him. He smiled instead of flinching. Normally I liked when he played a tough guy, but there was obviously something going on that I hadn’t been included in, so I punched him too. He glared at me. I kept eating my pancakes. It was probably for the best that I’d been left out.
“Do we have any updates on…you know?” Maggie asked. Of course she’d wait for Frank to show up. I couldn’t possibly have answered her. I was just a sweet innocent kid.
“No,” Frank said.
It looked like Bella had been about to respond, but now she just turned away, fixing her attention on her fingernails. She always appeared bored and slightly hostile when Casey wasn’t around.
Gideon sighed in frustration like Frank was purposely holding out on him. Then he asked Bella directly, “What did your boss say?” Everyone paused to gape at him, as if speaking to her was against the rules. Like we were supposed to pretend she wasn’t really here.
Even Bella gave him a funny look for addressing her. Although, she had been almost pleasant to Gideon for the past few weeks. She and Maggie were still on the verge of clawing each other’s eyes out, but she seemed to have warmed to him. “Silva didn’t recognize the names.” She looked down for a moment, then stormed away from the table.
At least she had a bedroom to sulk in now. I could hear her stomping the entire way up the stairs.
“Silva’s sick,” Frank said. “He’s dying.”
“What happens if he dies before we…” Maggie started, mentioning Silva’s impending doom with an ease that didn’t come for Gideon’s.
“I guess we’ll soon find out,” I said. Frank smacked me. Hard.
“Frank!” she exclaimed. “Don’t hit him!”
“If he would shut his mouth once in awhile I wouldn’t have to.” He stormed away like Bella. If I’d known he was going to be so sensitive this morning, I would’ve kept my mouth shut. Maybe.
She leaned forward like a mom afraid I was being bullied in kindergarten. “He doesn’t do that very often, does he?”
“Jesus, Maggie, I’m not being abused!” I made my own tempestuous exit so as not to be left out. Having someone around to baby me after I got hurt had been just what a series of doctors ordered, but now that I was basically better I wished she’d stop treating me like a little boy. Especially in my own house.
Frank was back in the library as I knew he would be. He welcomed me with a glare. “Don’t let Bella hear you saying that shit. I won’t be able to protect you.”
“I'm sorry,” I said. Considering that I was still experiencing the effects of how badly Frank responded to losing someone—nearly losing someone—I should've known better than to say anything negative about Silva while the man was on his way out the door. I hesitantly sat on the side of Frank's chair, testing the waters by tugging gently at his ear. He didn’t rip my arm off, so I slid onto his lap without apprehension. “What does happen if he dies before we find out who ordered the hit?”
He laughed. It was part of his inhuman nature to laugh at things that weren’t funny, and stare grumpily when they were. At least it spared him from finding humor in Jerry Lewis like the rest of his people. “I guess Gideon would have to lay low the rest of his life. And so would Bella.”
Les Recidivists (Chance Assassin Book 2) Page 13
