Les Recidivists (Chance Assassin Book 2)

by Nicole Castle

  She slipped the letter down the front of her dress and leapt up, grabbing the metal gate with both hands and trying to pull herself upward. There was nowhere to place her feet for additional support and she quickly slid back to the ground. She grumbled and tried again.

  “You speak English?”

  She gasped and turned at the heavily-accented gruff voice. But when she saw him she was no longer afraid. He looked like her father; a big man with rough hands but kind eyes. “Yes.”

  “Do you live here?”

  “My boyfriend does,” she said proudly, taking it as a sign of Vincent’s love for her that an English-speaker approached her on the street.

  “Forgot the code, hmm?”

  She smiled innocently, a slight blush coming to her face as she lied, “Yes.”

  He returned her smile and hunched over, entwining his fingers and holding out his hands to her. “I give you boost.”

  Sophie nodded energetically and gripped the bars again, placing her foot on the man’s outstretched hands. As she was lifted she caught a glimpse of a man standing by a black car down the street. He was watching them. There was something wrong with the man's face. She squinted to see him better. She knew she needed glasses but she hadn't yet told her father because she was afraid they would make her ugly. Now she wished she had them, as if the clarity they brought could save her.

  She grabbed the top of the gate, eager to put it between them. She had the key to get inside Vincent’s apartment, and she planned on staying until the creepy man left. She may even call her father to come get her, and they would go to the eye doctor and maybe Vincent would think she looked beautiful in glasses.

  The support beneath her feet suddenly dropped away and she cried out in alarm, desperately swinging her legs for leverage. Her palms burned under the strain of holding herself up as she refused to let go, realizing too late that this man was not like her father and his eyes were not kind.

  She kicked her foot against his solid shoulder and propelled herself forward, reaching her arm over the top of the gate just as he yanked her back down. Her scream was cut short when he clasped his colossal hand over her mouth. He held her to him, dragging her toward the black car.

  “Who’ve we got?” the creepy man asked in English. Seeing him up close made Sophie glad that her vision was weak. She cast her eyes downward, refusing to look at him as she futilely struggled.

  “Says her boyfriend lives here.” He reached down her dress and tore out the letter. Tears slid over Sophie’s cheeks as he glanced at it, then handed it to the scarred man. “It’s in French.”

  “As expected.”

  “What does it say?”

  The scarred man read it aloud as it was written, as if to purposefully humiliate her further. “It’s a love letter. To Frank’s partner.”

  Sophie glared at him through misty eyes.

  “And?”

  “And that means the artist doesn’t live here. Frank does. Or he did.” The man crouched down, bringing his horrific face close to hers. He wiped one of her tears away with the back of a gloved finger. “So tell me, Sophie, where do they really live?”

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Dog walking duty was certainly an appropriate punishment for getting Frank back to hobbling, but forcing me to scrub the blood out of Bella’s car was overkill. So was making me haul all baby paraphernalia up to the attic before the lovebirds came home from the hospital. But since Frank was taking Bella’s miscarriage, or still-birth, or whatever medical classification doctors gave to the horror show so badly, I figured it was the least I could do to let him increase my chores.

  Why the dogs even needed accompaniment into the woods was beyond me, although it did give me the opportunity to get out of the house, which was probably why Frank had gotten into the habit of “walking” them to begin with. Things were tense. There were technically only two females around, but it was like they’d infiltrated every corner of my home, and it was all flowers and loads of laundry and baked goods. That last part I didn’t mind.

  Charlie started barking in the distance, which wasn’t a rare occurrence, but when Hugo joined in I knew there was trouble. And I hoped it was big.

  “Stay here.” I dropped Kiki on a nearby patch of moss just as she started barking too, and dashed through the woods toward the sound. Kiki would follow, but she wouldn’t get very far. Neither would whoever was trespassing.

  “Oh, fuck! Get these fucking dogs offa me! Frankie! Fucking hell!”

  I watched Deaglan try to climb a tree while Charlie and Hugo took turns trying to rip his pants off, and the disappointment I felt at it not being Malkolm was only slightly improved by the pleasure of watching Deaglan scramble for safety.

  “Leave it!” I called out, and Charlie took a last couple of bites before sitting obediently and wagging her tail. Hugo had backed off immediately. He’d always been better at commands. “You all right?”

  “Fucking animals!” he screamed, then glared at Hugo. “I shared a fucking bed with you!”

  “What do you want, Deaglan?”

  “I walked up from the road. I know Frankie doesn’t like cabs coming to the house.”

  “Yeah. What do you want?”

  “Bella called me. Told me about the…you know. I just wanted to…you know.”

  “You could’ve sent a card.”

  “I didn’t know the address. Anyway, it’s better to do this sort of thing in person. More…sincere.”

  “She’s inside.” If she’d called him, there was no point in refusing him entrance.

  “And Stacey?”

  “Casey.”

  “Right.”

  I debated whether I should point him back to the road, but after handling the whole dead baby incident, I figured Casey could take anything the world threw at him. “He’s that way. Picking flowers. It’s the only place left to find flowers within walking distance. He’s picked them all.”

  “Cheers.” Deaglan eyed the dogs suspiciously as he backed up. He was bleeding a bit, and limping more than Frank, but he still made a kissy-face at Hugo before turning and walking away.

  I shook my head. “Heterosexuals.”

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Her hand was cold in his, her fingers limp and weak from the bruising that encircled her wrists and ankles. They lay beside each other in bed, their heads level on the pillow but Bella’s bare feet only coming to Frank’s knees. They both had unlit cigarettes in their mouths, as if that would somehow bring the time she was well enough to smoke again that much closer. “I never noticed that was up there,” he remarked. There was a yellow smiley face sticker on the ceiling, like the antenna ball Vincent had once attempted to put on Frank’s car.

  “You’ll probably find more of them if you look,” Bella said with a wan smile. “I found one on the bottom of my purse when we were at Silva’s.”

  With all that she had been through, Silva’s death and nearly losing her own life several years prior, Frank had never seen her take anything quite as badly as she’d taken this miscarriage. Since Casey put lipstick on her in the hospital, she’d made no further attempt at cosmetics. Her hair lay tangled and loose on the pillow, and the nightgown she wore was perhaps the plainest garment she owned. Frank had very little doubt that if Casey hadn’t reacted the way he did, keeping up appearances with a strength he had no idea the kid possessed, that Bella would have taken it far worse.

  “He did it to one of my guns once.” Frank hadn’t found the sticker for nearly a month, and although it had undeniably brightened his day, he and Casey did have a serious talk about gun safety the next time they spoke. “I think it was a butterfly.”

  “I remember a few summers ago Silva kept a butterfly in his office. He knew the snipers would shoot it if they saw it, so he wouldn’t let it out. It died at his window. He buried it in that plant by Malkolm’s room.”

  Frank laughed. “Do you suppose he was trying to tell him something?”

  “I used to put all my cigarettes
out in that plant just to piss him off. Fuck, no wonder he wants to kill me.”

  “I think blowing up his face was sufficient. I wonder why Silva ever partnered the two of you together. It seems like such poor judgment for him.”

  “Because I requested it.”

  “My God! Why?”

  “Why else, Frankie? I wanted to shag him.”

  He suddenly grew excessively warm, and for a moment believed it was just his accustomed and inconvenient reaction to embarrassment until it felt like the bed had dropped out from under him.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbows. Frank had already risen, bodily trembling. “Fine,” he lied as he heard faint barking in the distance. Something terrible was about to happen.

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Casey was okay when he was near her, or doing things for her, bringing her coffee and food and flowers. And sketching her. The sketches he’d done when she first arrived looked more like her now, with the lack of color and volume, not even enough energy to put on perfume.

  He couldn’t bear to be away from her long enough to drive into town and buy flowers, but after a bit of trial and error, he’d finally found some in the woods that didn’t make her sneeze, even though they may have been weeds. He stood with his hands full of the freshly picked wildflowers, or very tame weeds, turning and dropping them with surprise. Deaglan had been standing directly behind him, too close for comfort, and had the Irishman been taller, would now be right in his face. Casey didn’t want to get hit again. It had hurt.

  “I’m not here to fight.”

  “Oh, good,” Casey sighed. Not that there would’ve been much of one. Maybe that’s what he meant. Shit. “I—”

  “My daughter died. Did Bella tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Losing a child is the worst thing in the world. The worst fucking thing. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Not my worst fucking enemy.”

  “Is this your way of offering condolences?”

  “Aye.”

  “Thank you.”

  Deaglan nodded and began to walk away, then stopped again and turned. “You should get rid of that fucking hat. I could see it a mile away.”

  Casey pulled it off his head, although he couldn’t say why. He liked his hat. Not even Bella making fun of it had convinced him to let it retire. “It’s warm,” he said, folding it and petting it a little like it was alive. Then he unfolded it, ready to put it back on. It flew out of his hands with a booming gunshot. The second shot that followed sent Deaglan stumbling several steps backward. Casey ran to him, tackling Deaglan unceremoniously and pulling him to the ground where he was heading anyway.

  “You fucking idiot. How am I supposed to protect you when you knock me over?”

  “I—”

  “You don’t have a gun, do you?”

  “No, I—”

  “Play dead, dummy,” he said weakly, struggling to his feet. It wouldn’t be hard to play dead. Casey’s shirt was covered in Deaglan’s blood.

  Just as more gunfire erupted somewhere to their left, a large Eastern European looking man came out from behind the trees, like an enormous black bear contravening on an unsuspecting picnic. Casey didn’t move.

  Deaglan smiled at him. The bear smiled back. “I remember you.”

  “Aye,” Deaglan said, barely standing. “And I remember you as well.” He coughed, his whole body wracked with the force. The bear shot him again. “Fuck, man,” he whimpered, wrapping one arm around his middle and putting his hand up as if asking for a moment to collect himself.

  The man growled, actually growled, and rolled his eyes, letting them rest on Casey. He smiled again. Then Deaglan snatched the gun out of his hand and shot him until he tipped over like a lumberjack calling, “Timber!”

  “I’ve wanted to kill that motherfucker for a fucking decade!” he said, dropping to his knees. Casey got to his side just as he slinked the rest of the way to the ground, lying beside his shooter amongst brightly colored wildflowers and Casey’s murdered hat. “This should be you,” he choked.

  “I’ll go get help.”

  Deaglan grabbed his wrist. “Fuck. Don’t let them bury me in fucking France.”

  “You’re not going to die,” Casey said, even as Deaglan’s labored breathing ceased. “You’re not…oh, God.” He shakily took the gun from his hand, pointing it at the other corpse until he was sure he wouldn’t rise from the dead. Then he tried to pick Deaglan up, tried to drag him, and finally decided he’d have to come back for him. Or send Frank back. “Sorry,” he said, and would’ve left Deaglan his coat if he wasn’t wearing such a brightly colored shirt underneath.

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Gripping the banister as he made his way downstairs, Frank took measure of what he could: Maggie was running water in the kitchen, he heard Gideon on his cell phone in the library. Vincent was with the dogs. He heard no further barking. Casey was…

  The water stopped and Maggie walked out, drying her hands on a dishtowel. “You okay, honey?”

  “Where’s Casey?”

  Maggie opened her mouth to speak, gesturing out the door when the color drained from her face. “Oh, my God.”

  A gunshot rang out from east of their property. Vincent had headed west. “Everyone stay inside!” Frank yelled, grabbing the shotgun and yanking open the front door only to find Bertrand standing on the porch with his hand raised to knock. He looked like he had been crying. “C’est Sophie—”

  More gunfire from the east. A single shot from the west. “I’ll find her,” Frank said, pulling Bertrand inside. Sophie was nowhere near his first priority. Vincent was more likely to be able to take care of himself than Casey, and Casey must have been closer. He’d find Casey, then go to Vincent. Sophie was last.

  “Frankie!” Bella called out, coming slowly toward him in her nightgown, her cell phone held out in front of her. “It’s Malkolm. He wants to talk to you.”

  He slammed the front door and took the phone. He already knew what Malkolm had to say.

  “Hello, Frank. I would like you and Bella to come see me. No weapons. Hands above your heads. Just walk out the front door and I’ll call to tell you when you can stop. Obey, and you can have the little girl. Comprends?”

  “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. He hung up the phone. It was different than when Vincent had been in danger with his brother. V had already been dead in his mind, and Frank did not care about anything else. Sophie was innocent, even if she was unimportant. And Malkolm would not hurt Sophie if his commands were obeyed. Henry Mortimer had not cared about commands. He only requested that Frank come in unarmed to prolong the suffering.

  Frank breathed very calmly and asked Maggie to bring him some bandages. “He wants us unarmed.”

  “What about Casey?” Bella asked frantically.

  “Casey’s fine. Everyone’s fine. Malkolm wants us to come out to him. Keep your hands above your head.”

  “Frankie—”

  “He has Sophie. He’s worried I’ll try something.”

  “Of course you’ll fucking try something! Casey’s out there—”

  “Casey’s fine,” he said, taking the bandages from Maggie and quickly wrapping his cast, securing a nine millimeter semi-automatic against his ankle. They would certainly be searched, but not until they were on their knees. “Let’s go.”

  Bella put her hands behind her head and followed him out barefoot. Maggie shut the door behind them. Another shot was fired from Vincent’s direction. There was absolutely nothing Frank could do about it.

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  Kiki was still barking where I’d left her. She’d probably only gone a couple of feet before returning to the soft moss. It was no wonder she reminded Frank of me. I considered laziness to be one of my favorite pastimes.

  “Well, that was uneventful,” I muttered. I knew that waiting Malkolm out was the practical thing to do, but at this rate our marks would die of old age before we were able to kill
them. Or Joe would have to give the rest of our hits to Simon. Maybe now that Bella was no longer carrying a little bundle of fucked up we could be more proactive and start looking for them instead of waiting for them to find us. We could even use her as bait. She probably had the perfect outfit for it.

  And if this took any longer, I would’ve settled for being bait. For Karl.

  “Come on, Killer,” I sighed. I scooped Kiki up only to drop her again as I heard gunfire from Casey’s direction. In my mind I was thinking Shit, but somehow “Yes!” found its way past my lips. This wasn’t some alpha male territorial battle between Deaglan and Casey. This was assassin war!

  I started running toward the sound only to have Charlie bark ferociously and take off in the opposite direction. Hugo ran too, and Kiki followed as closely behind as her little legs could manage. Fuck it. Frank would take care of Casey. The dogs were on someone’s trail.

  I bolted after them through the woods, practically singing “Whistle While you Work” in my excitement even though my temples were pounding and my civilian family members were likely being killed. A gunshot drowned out the noise of barking, and left only silence. Until I got a little closer. Then I could hear the yelling. The accent was Russian. Or demon. Or both.

  Now I said, “Shit.”

  Of all the psychotic assassins it could’ve been, it just had to be the one who wanted to wear my skin. I grabbed a branch from the forest floor, the wood ice cold and wet in my hands. Holding it like a baseball bat, I walked slowly toward the gruff shouting, staying out of sight in case there were more of them.

  I should have been afraid, of Karl and of how pissed Frank would be that I got to kill him, but all I could think was that I fucked up with Henry and he got the better of me, ruining my life for two years and counting. I would never let that happen again.