The Hitwoman and the Family Jewels (16 page)

“I don’t—“ he began.

I silenced his protest by licking his flesh, loving its texture beneath my tongue, loving the taste of him.

Groaning, his hips bucked off the mattress.

I reached for the button of his jeans, but had barely touched it when he moved. Suddenly he’d hauled me down onto the bed against him with a tormented moan.

His mouth, tasting faintly of Susan’s soup, was on mine hot and demanding, a potent mixture of heat and power aroused my most feminine instincts. His wild abandonment both shocked and pleased me as he yanked at my shirt, impatient to get the same chance to touch skin as I’d had.

I shivered with pleasure as my core rocked against the evidence of his arousal. I’d done this to him. I’d broken through the reserve that always shrouded him.

I’d thought I’d experienced a passionate embrace with him before, but this was different. It was evident in the way his mouth clung to mine, drinking me in. I felt it in every feathery caress as his hand worked its way down my spine, tattooing a seductive pattern of delight. I knew it from the way he grasped my chin possessively, his touch both tender and savage, claiming me, branding me.

Wrenching his mouth from mine, he buried his face in my neck, teasing the vulnerable skin with licks and nips that left me squirming against him. Slipping an arm around my waist, he pinned me to him increasing the pressure against my core.

“Patrick,” I moaned, wanting more, needing more.

In a quick, fluid motion, he flipped us over so that he was now on top. Lifting his head, he stared down at me, his eyes glittering with a want so intense and primitive, my heart sped up.

I clung to his shoulder, feeling like the world was spinning at a dizzying pace.

He closed his eyes for a long moment and when he reopened them, I saw the flames of desire had been banked by compassion and tenderness.

“The things I want to do to you,” he gasped, his breath, like mine, came in short, choppy gasps. “But this isn’t the time, this isn’t the place.”

A chill settled over me as the meaning behind his words set in. He was doing it again, abandoning this red-hot desire that burned between us. It wasn’t enough for him.

I wasn’t enough.

Tears pricked the back of my eyelids.

“No,” he hurried to say. “I want this. You’ve got be believe me, Mags. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted a woman before, but not like this.”

A tear trickled out of each of my eyes. “It’s okay,” I choked out. “You don’t have to say that.”

Shaking his head away, he brushed my tears away with a gentle touch. “I don’t want to rush it. I want to be able to savor it. I want to be able to protect you. I want to make love to you, Mags.”

I swallowed hard, wanting to believe him.

“But I don’t want to do it on a twin bed worrying that one of your aunts is going to walk in on us. You can understand that, can’t you?”

I nodded slowly. “My head gets that. My body, not so much,” I joked as an errant shockwave of arousal shuddered through me.

“
That
,” he said, his fingers trailing tantalizingly down my stomach to rest on the fastening of my jeans, “we could do something about.”

And I believe we could have, but at the moment God crooned in his best Marvin Gaye impression, “Let’s get it on. Let’s get it on.”

It totally ruined the mood.

Which ended up being a good thing because we heard high heels rat-tat-tatting toward the room.

Like two teenagers afraid of getting caught naked, we leapt apart. Patrick sat on the opposite bed, tucked in his shirt, and smoothed his hair. Grabbing a mug of soup from the tray with both hands, he held it out like it was some sort of shield.

I forced myself to take a deep breath and answer calmly, when Loretta knocked on the door.

While she prattled on about what a brute Marshal Griswald was being to Leslie, Patrick and I shared a secret look.

I saw the unspoken promise in his eyes that what we’d started we’d soon finish.

If we both lived long enough.

Loretta convinced Patrick to go play mediator between Aunt Leslie and Marshal Griswald, leaving me alone in the room with the lizard and cat.

“Eat something,” Patrick urged with a sexy wink as he pulled the bedroom door shut behind him. “You’re going to need your strength.”

“Told you he was your man, Sugar,” Piss drawled, pleased with herself. She scratched at something on the floor.

I offered her another piece of turkey to shut her up. “No destroying things,” I reminded her.

“What about me?” God asked.

“You see a cricket sandwich here?” I asked, forgoing Susan’s healthy soup in favor of one of her out-of-this world BLTs.

“The Geneva Convention guarantees me a right to food,” he groused.

“You’re not a prisoner,” I told him. “I can put you out in the yard and you can hunt your own damn crickets.”

“But you—“ he began.

I held up a hand to silence him. “It was your choice to go see Katie. It’s not my fault that things worked out the way they did. It was your choice to stay with DeeDee—“

My cellphone buzzed, interrupting me. Pulling it from my pocket, I saw an unfamiliar number displayed.

“I told you I can’t help you, Dad,” I said, answering the phone.

“But can you help your Jewel?” Paul Kowalski’s menacing tone snaked through the speaker.

My blood ran cold. My knees gave out and I sank down onto the bed.

“Cat got your tongue, Maggie?” Kowalski mocked.

“What do you want?”

Something in my tone must have given me away, because suddenly I had three eyes trained on me intently.

“A trade,” Kowalski said. “You give me what you want and you can have Jewel back.”

“Maggie?” Marlene’s voice, weak and afraid, drifted out of the phone.

“What do you say?” Kowalski asked. “I mean I know Jewel’s nothing but a cheap whore to me, but what is she worth to you?”

“Her name is Marlene,” I told him.

“You can call her whatever you want,” he taunted. “I’m calling her my bitch.”

“Don’t you hurt her,” I warned.

Kowalski laughed, a cold, heartless sound that felt like a physical slap. “
You
are not in a position to call the shots anymore. No cops. No Feds. Nobody shows up with you. You leave your phone right where it is. You bring them to me.”

I didn’t know what he wanted, but I knew if I told him that he’d kill Marlene. “Where?”

“The place I wanted to take you to dinner,” he said. “You remember that, Maggie?”

“I remember.”

“Good. You’ve got one hour. No phone. No friends. Nobody but you, me, and Jewel. We’ll have some fun before you get here, and then once you’re here,” I could hear the malevolent smile in his voice. “Once you’re here we’ll get to our unfinished business. You cross me, Maggie, and she’s dead.”

He disconnected the call.

Hands shaking, I put down the phone.

“What are you going to do?” God asked.

“I have to go meet him,” I said.

The lizard clambered out of the crystal bowl. “Without back-up?”

“What choice do I have? You heard him. He’ll kill her.”

“He’ll kill you both.”

I nodded, knowing he was probably right. “I have to try.”

“Your gun is at the apartment. Even the poison is at the apartment.” God paced the length of the tray nervously. “You don’t even have the element of surprise on your side.”

Ignoring our conversation, Piss scratched at the floor. Deciding I had more important battles to wage I didn’t try to correct her behavior.

“I have my lucky shark’s tooth,” I joked weakly, crossing the room to open the closet door. Sure enough Aunt Susan had put my box of shoes in there. I rummaged through and pulled out the shark’s tooth Armani had given me weeks earlier as a good luck token.

“Seriously?” God asked.

“It’s sharp,” I said.

“Gut the thug with it,” Piss suggested, taking a break from destroying the floor.

“You haven’t seen the size of this guy,” God told the cat worriedly.

“Hey, the croquet mallet is in here. I can take that too.” I held it out for the lizard to see.

“Yeah,” he drawled sarcastically, “because the mallet worked so well on the monster last time.”

“Your negativity isn’t helping,” I told him.

“Neither are your delusions,” he countered. “Where are you meeting him?”

“Artie’s.”

Piss wrinkled her nose. “I know that place. It has the stinkiest fish in town.”

Artie’s is a steak house, but the proprietor, an old friend of my father’s, had an insane love of fish, so it had a nautical theme and too much seafood on the menu. “Maybe that’s why it was closed down months ago by the Health Department.” I muttered, rifling through my old desk.

“What are you doing now?” God asked. “Looking for a pencil so you can stab him in the eye?”

“I’m leaving a note.” I pulled a piece of paper out of an old notebook and began to scribble on it with the stub of a purple crayon.

“What are you saying?” the lizard asked nosily.

“I’m asking my aunts to feed you live crickets for Katie’s sake, give DeeDee a good home, and to apologize for dropping Pi—the cat, in their laps,” I said.

“You should tell them you love them,” God suggested.

“If I do that, they’ll know for sure I thought I was going to die. This way, they’ll think I thought I had a chance,” I said.

“Delusional,” God muttered.

“There’s something here,” Piss said from the floor.

“It’s called wood,” the lizard sniped.

“No,” she insisted in a pitiful whine, “I think you should see it.”

“Do you want me to tell them your name?” I asked the cat.

“Trust me, Sugar, you really need to see this,” she insisted.

Putting my note aside, I dropped to the floor, realizing she’d pulled up the very board I’d put back into place moments before Paul’s attack. “What did you find?” I asked, knowing I hadn’t left any treasures hidden in the floor.

I pulled out a four-inch-square black velvet box.

“Maybe it’s your father’s loot from the bank heist,” God guessed.

I frowned. “You watch too much T.V. No one talks like that.”

“Open it,” Piss urged.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” I cautioned.

She narrowed her good eye at me. “Cats have nine lives.”

Flipping open the box, I knew that whatever I found inside I wasn’t going to like.

I stared at the contents disbelieving.

“What is it?” God asked. “Is it the missing jewels?”

“No,” I said, slowly, “but maybe it is.”

“Seriously delusional,” God muttered.

“It’s jewel cases,” I said, holding up the empty CD holders for him to see.

“So when they said they want the jewels…,” God began.

“They might have meant these,” I finished.

“But they’re empty,” Piss reminded us both.

“My dad told me to ask Marlene where the treasure is,” I told the animals. “If he thought I’d find these and they’d be a map of sorts…”

“Then the contents are wherever he said the treasure is,” God concluded.

“It can’t be,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because he said it’s in Marlene.” I gathered up the empty jewel cases. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Going after Kowalski by yourself doesn’t make any sense,” God warned, pacing the edge of the serving tray.

“If I tell anyone he’ll know,” I said, searching the drawer of the desk. I found an old pair of scissors and stuck them in my back pocket. “I have to go alone. It’s the only chance I’ve got to save her.”

“Please don’t do this,” God implored, wringing his little front feet. “You’re not going to be able to save her and you’re going to get yourself killed.”

“You’ll be taken care of,” I promised him.

“I’ll take care of you, Sugar,” Piss pledged.

He shuddered at the thought. “Take me with you,” he begged me. “I can be a scout. A lookout.”

“Not this time,” I said gently. “Katie needs you more than I do.”

I bent down so that I was eye level with him. “Promise me you’ll take care of her.”

He shook his head.

“Please?” I wheedled.

He looked away.

“C’mon,” I said, not quite believing I’d been reduced to bargaining with a lizard.

“No. You’re making this choice. I don’t have to support it.”

“Don’t you see how impossible this choice is? Everything I’ve done over the past few months has been for my niece, but I can’t turn my back on my sister when she needs me.”

“That’s not the choice,” God argued. “You’re making the choice to do this all alone.
That’s
what I disagree with.”

Annoyed that I was wasting precious time arguing with a reptile, I straightened and moved toward the door.

“At least leave it open in case we have to get out,” God demanded.

Looking back at Piss, I said, “Try not to kill him.” Then I walked out, leaving the door open the barest of cracks.

I snuck downstairs unnoticed, got outside, and took off at a run.

I couldn’t be late for my rendezvous with Kowalski.

The restaurant was dark when I reached it. Its parking lot was deserted, draped in ever lengthening shadows. The only sound that greeted me was the evening song of crickets.

God would have heard a smorgasbord. All I heard was how alone I truly was.

I approached the door cautiously, still breathing hard from the three mile race-walk I’d just completed to get here.

I wasn’t sure what the etiquette was for visiting a kidnapper. Was I supposed to knock?

I leaned my forehead against the glass of the door, trying to see inside.

Something banged into the other side of the glass. Startled, I jumped away. Tripping over my own two feet I fell to the ground with a body-crunching smash.

The door opened and Paul Kowalski stepped outside, the silhouette of his body barely visible in the waning light. “Glad you could join us.”

Catching a glimpse of a glint of silver, I realized he had a gun pointed at me.

“Come inside,” he said.

Scrambling to my feet I asked, “Where’s Marlene?”

“I can’t believe that Jewel, one of the best whores to work the street, is the sister of the woman who wouldn’t put out for me,” Kowalski taunted.