The Housewife Assassin's Guide to Gracious Killing (28 page)

Then it hits me. “Carl.”

He nods. “I thought she’d be happy to retire. She was, at first. We had a little place in Paris in the Fourth Arrondissement, on the Île de la Cité. They met there. It was a stupid thing to do, but I brought him home with me because he thought his hotel room had been compromised. That night we let off steam. We drank and told old war stories. He was charming. She was fascinated. Little did I know she was also bored. A bored housewife.”

Yes, Carl can be charming. It’s how he gets away with murder.

“Sometimes he came to town when I was on assignment.” Before I can ask the question, he adds quickly, “And no, I don’t know when it started up between them. For years now, I’ve been trying to figure out the whole timeline. Was he already a Quorum operative when I first brought him home? In hindsight, Ryan seemed to think so. Did he seduce my wife in order to search our apartment for intel? The day she left, a microdot with the code to access the DasS cloud with the Acme Directory went with her.”

“Oh my God.” I shake my head in dismay. This digital directory, which lives on a virtual private network, lists every agent, and every mission, as well as all our leads, assets, agents, and contacts in nations and agencies around the world. 

“Of course, at first I didn’t suspect either of them. I’d been away for a week. When I got home, I found a note that said, ‘I’ll be home soon.’ She added something that, at the time, I thought was a joke. ‘Jusqu'à ce que la mort nous sépare.’ In English, it means, ‘Until death do us part.’”

“The wedding vow?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you consider it a joke?”

“I guess ‘joke’ is the wrong word. We gave our vows in front of a civil judge. At the time, Valentina knew very little French, but the judge insisted she repeat the vow in his language, word for word. Afterward, we laughed at this.” He puts down his drink. “When I first read the phrase in the note she left behind, I presumed it was her way of kidding around. You know, a sweet way of saying she missed me. But when I realized the microdot was missing, and she never came back that night, I presumed she’d taken it with her, perhaps as leverage in case the SIE caught up with her. For the longest time I had faith that, one day, she’d come home to me. Still, you can imagine what Ryan’s reaction was when I broke the news to him.”

“Ha! I’m glad I wasn’t part of Acme then.”

“You came on the scene a year or so later. Carl’s supposed murder was reported a week or two after Valentina’s disappearance. I didn’t put two and two together until eighteen months ago, when I saw video of a hit that went down in Bulgaria. The assassins took out an Acme agent who was following up on some chatter regarding a Quorum mission. As luck would have it, the hit was caught on a surveillance camera. The shooter was a woman. Valentina.”

“What a transition!”

He nods. “We all have it in us, I guess, when we’re angry enough. You’re a perfect example of that. I got angry, too, when Carl was ID’ed at the murder scene. He was driving the getaway car. That was when we realized he’d faked his own death.”

Jack is right. Anger changes us. Right now, I should be feeling angry at Jack. But I now find it hard to be, knowing that he and I have something else in common: spouses who betrayed us. 

Their betrayal made us different people, too. 

Sadder people.

I’m through letting Carl ruin my life. I don’t know if Jack feels the same way about Valentina. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I can only hope and pray that, in time, we can both put our past behind us and realize a future together.

I pick up his hand and kiss it gently. “Let’s go home.”

“You don’t want to order something?” He strokes my cheek gently, as if I’m some apparition who might disappear again into that darker dimension from which I’ve just emerged. 

I pick up his bouquet and breathe deeply into its fragrant petals. “Nope. It’s time to stop and smell the roses. I’m guessing they’ll smell even better floating in our bathroom Jacuzzi tub. Care to join me?”

He doesn’t have to be asked twice. He tosses some cash on the table for our drinks, then takes my hand and pulls me through the restaurant, toward the lobby and out the door.

There’s something about makeup sex that makes it so special. Perhaps it’s the urgency you feel to get beyond “I’m so pissed at you” to “I’m so horny for you” that makes it hard to keep your hands off each other’s bodies. Or maybe it’s the way your skin tingles whenever his finger grazes your skin, or when his tongue tickles your nipple.

During makeup sex, have you ever noticed that, when your hand wraps around his cock, it instantly springs up, grows large, and stays stiff? It beckons to you. The slit in the head is like a sly wink, and the gentle curve of the shaft gives a nod as if to say, “I missed you! I can’t live without you! Hurry up and climb onboard! Don’t worry! I’ll make you happy.”

Content. Satisfied. Lusted after. 

Loved.

Jack doesn’t wait until the tub is filled before pulling me down into the churning bubbles with him. The water is warm and yet I shiver, not because I’m cold, but from the anticipation that is stoked by his soft gaze of adoration. By his hot, deep kisses. By the way his hand slowly caresses my mound before his long, thick fingers slip between its lips. Gently and methodically, he synchronizes his strokes to the natural rhythm of my desire. 

As I burst, I bury my head in the pulsing water. My scream ripples up. When I resurface, he’s laughing. “You sound like a mermaid.”

“Oh yeah? Well, a mermaid can’t do this.” I straddle him, pulling his knees tightly around me. As I rock up and down on his cock, I only get tighter. The way his eyes widen shows me he loves what he is feeling.

His orgasm propels me up out of the warm water and into the cold air, where my nipples harden. He doesn’t mind this at all. In fact, he places his hands on them. This warms them up again.

Then he buries his head between my breasts for so long that I assume he’s fallen asleep.

But no. He’s smiling when, finally, he looks up at me. “Let’s fight every day.”

My response is to pull his legs out from under him, so that he drops under the water.

I think he gets the message because he pulls me under, too.

We’re still entwined in each other’s arms when we’re awakened by a steady tapping on our bedroom door, which gets more frantic with each passing moment, as do Trisha's plaintive whispers, “Mommy! Daddy! Open up!”

Jack can groan all he wants, but she isn’t going away. 

I reach for my robe, and toss the bedspread over Jack. He takes this as my tacit approval that he can go back to sleep.

I try to look stern as I peek out the door, but it’s hard to be cross with a five-year-old pirouetting in a pink tutu. With one leg outstretched, she hops toward me on the other. Then with all the grace of the dearly departed Black Swan, she hands me an envelope embellished with a lipstick heart.

“It’s for Daddy,” she whispers. 

“Trisha, how many times do I have to tell you my lipsticks aren’t crayons?”

Her mouth purses into a pout. “I didn’t decorate the envelope, Mommy! The lady gave it to me that way.”

“A lady? Who is she?” I look down the stairwell. Thank goodness the front door is closed.

“None of those ladies you don’t like. This one was pretty. Mommy, is it Valentine’s Day?”

“No, sweetie, but it will soon be Halloween.” I stare down at envelope, then over at Jack. Yes, I’m tempted to open it.

I shake off this urge. My resolve is now aimed at my daughter. “Lock the front door. You know the rules. Next time, ask Mary to open it.” 

“I did! But she wouldn’t get off the phone.” Miffed that I’m shooting the messenger, she twirls around three times before hop scotching down the stairs.

I close the door with a click. Jack has the pillow over his head, so he can’t hear it. Nor can he see me as I slide a nail under the gummed flap of the envelope and nudge it open, gently…slowly…

The handwritten card has no signature, and just one line:

Jusqu'à ce que
la mort nous sépare.

Until death do us part.

To keep from sobbing, I seek pain somewhere other than my heart by piercing my palm with the same nail that opened the envelope.

I had hoped he’d stay asleep until my tears stopped, but no. Instinctively he reaches over for me. Finding the bed empty beside him, he rolls over and opens one eye.

I don’t have to tell him something is wrong. He can read it in my face.

I walk over and hand him the envelope. The blood red heart on the outside tells him all he needs to know. Still, he pulls out the note that confirms it, then looks over at me in disbelief.

No need to beat around the bush. Even if he won’t say it, I will.

“Honey, she’s home.”

He slides back down in the bed.

I do, too.

We lay back to back.

“She’s a problem we’re going to have to deal with.” I say this so softly I’m not certain he hears me.

Until he responds, “So is Carl.”

We turn and hold each other.

Next Up!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe a lot to the following people, whose love and support gives me the courage to write, every day:

Karin Tabke, who first fell in love with this book, and pushed me (quite adamantly; what are friends for?) to make it a priority; Andy Brown, who is a go-to guru for anything technical and metaphysical. Andy, thanks making the virtual a reality; Rita Abrams, Kendra Williams, Pam Welsh, Elisa Turner, Janell Parque, Susan DiMuzio, Dianne Wallace, Jeanette Conkling, Kimberly Turner and Tom Johnson, who have sharper eyes than mine; Austin Brown and Anna Brown, who are my emotional touchstones, in so many ways; Eddie Concha, Andree Belle, Darien and Don Coleman, Linda May and Ben Brown, and Mario Martinez and Patricia Steadman, who are always there to encourage, nurture and feed me.

And always last but never least, Martin Brown: you complete me.

Dear readers: If you liked the story and Donna, I’d be honored to get a review from you! We authors live by them, and they are always appreciated.

Thank you,

—Josie Brown

HOW TO REACH JOSIE

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HOUSEWIFE ASSASSIN SERIES