The Housewife Assassin's Handbook (26 page)

“Besides, I want to help you stop Jack and the Quorum—”

“This isn’t up for debate, Donna. I don’t need your help. I need to know that you’re safe.”

“But tomorrow is the parade for the team—”

He takes me by the shoulders, and stares right into my eyes. “Don’t you get it? If you don’t leave by tomorrow night, it will be too late!”

“Why do you say that, Carl? What do you know?”

“I—” He pauses. Since when does he feel he has to watch what he says to me?

He no longer trusts me.

Thanks to Jack.

His cough tells me so.

“What I know is that your housemate, Jack, is trying to throw everyone off the scent. So don’t believe a word he says. Just get the hell out. I warn you, do it right after the parade. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

He’s telling me that the nanobomb will be detonated even sooner than we thought.

I nod, but that’s just because I’m too confused to do anything but grab my clothes and head for the front door.

“Nice necklace,” Jack says as he pulls my hair gently off the nape of my neck. “Is it new?”

My skin burns under his touch.

I’ve succeeded in avoiding him since we last made love, the night of our burger party. What I’d give to have one of the kids burst in on us now.

But no: they are all tucked in their beds. It’s adult time.

Despite Carl’s insistence that I submit to Jack, his touch leaves me feeling soiled. A few days ago I would have welcomed his lips on mine. Now the smell of his warm breath makes me nauseous—

But I suck it up. “This necklace is a family heirloom,” I murmur, grazing my lips on his cheek. “It’s been a while since I’ve worn it.” I feign a yawn. “Gee, I’m so exhausted—”

He’s not buying it. He probes my lips apart with his tongue—

And pulls me closer, so that my belly is against his hard-on.

He’s not going to let me say no.

Okay, then. It’s show time.

He lifts my hand and kisses it, gently, before placing it on his face. Feeling his scratchy five o’clock shadow on my palm used to be such a turn-on.

Now I just want to gouge out his eyes. 

Chapter 21

Frozen vs. Canned

Frozen fruits and vegetables are great time savers. The process of freezing holds in much needed nutrients, and defrosting just takes a few moments, Just put it in warm water. Easy, peasy!

Unfortunately, cans are lined with plastics containing BPAs, so stay away from them. However feel free to add BPAs to the meal of anyone you wish to assassinate.

Granted, the death will be slow, but the trade-off is that it will also be painful!

Hilldale has declared Friday a local holiday in honor of the Wildcats’ big game tomorrow. There will be a parade down Main Street. Every local business has sponsored a float for members of the teams, each one decorated in colorful florets made of tissue paper, by a different middle school class.

Jeff will be riding on the float provided by Beyond Heavenly, so he’ll be sitting atop a humongous cupcake.

I would have balked if it were a giant bong.

Mary and her gal pals, Babs and Wendy, cheer and squeal as the school’s band marches by. Trisha has a prime seat—on Jack’s shoulders. It irks me, but what am I going to do, yank her off and tell her to run as fast as she can to the man who stares longingly at her from across the street?

I know it breaks Carl’s heart to see our children falling in love with his nemesis.

I’m making a promise to myself right now: with or without Carl’s approval, my last act before we leave Los Angeles is to break Jack’s heart.

By sticking a knife in it.

Jack is wearing dark shades, so I don’t know if he sees Carl, but I’m guessing he does, considering that Carl is in plain sight of us.

Since we last made love, Jack has been polite, but distant—both emotionally and physically. Not that I’ve seen him much these past few days. He doesn’t come home most nights.

With all I know about him, I feel for our team. Emma is pulling her hair out about the lack of online static. Even Ryan’s usually stoic facade is showing some cracks.

I’m dying to tell him what I know about Jack.

If Carl doesn’t give me permission tonight, I may do it anyway.

Okay, this is odd: Penelope is practically running down the block, and angrier than I’ve ever seen her. When she spots me, she jerks her head to beckon me over. Normally I’d ignore it, and certainly today of all days I don’t need her drama. Still, I don’t need her ruining the parade for the rest of us, so I stroll over.

As if that will defuse any emotional explosion. “That bitch! It’s Cheever’s big day, and his ride stood him up!”

“Excuse me?” Does this mean that she’s now allowing Cheever to date? (That would be a surprise, considering that Penelope has yet to cut the umbilical cord that ties him to her. This is not a metaphorical exaggeration. I know for a fact that she keeps a piece of it in a keepsake box under her pillow.)

“It’s that damn Nola!” Just saying our comely neighbor’s name has Penelope hyperventilating. 

Wow, Nola … and Cheever? Talk about robbing the cradle!

“She was lending us her Thunderbird for the parade! Of course she insisted on driving it herself. She also asked if I’d lend her one of Cheever’s baseball uniform shirts—although heaven knows it would have been much too small for her—”

Ha. And doesn’t Nola know it.

“But she never answered when I rang the doorbell.”

“She’s probably sleeping off some date.”

“You mean, sleeping with some date. Although I doubt she sleeps much in that bed of hers! Do you know she has a swing hanging over it?”

“Really? How would you know that?”

“Paul said so—” Suddenly her eyes get big. “I mean, she asked him over for an appraisal—”

I’ll just bet she “appraised” him.

Not that I’d say that to Penelope.

I don’t have to. I think the same idea has just dawned on her. She bares her teeth. “Why that—that—”

“Ladies, is something wrong?” Jack asks calmly, as if he’s talking to two children.

The nerve of him.

Completely ignoring him, I pat Penelope’s arm. “You know Nola. Unless you’re a man panting after her, she’s a total flake. If you want, Cheever can ride on the Beyond Heavenly float with Jeff.”

She sniffs disdainfully. “On some pom-pom’ed cream puff? That would be such a letdown for my sweet little man—”

“You mean, she didn’t answer the door?” The concern in Jack’s voice angers me.

I shrug. “Big deal. So Nola overslept. She must have been up all night.”

He takes Trisha down off his shoulders and hands her off to her big sister.

The next thing I know, he’s running down the block, in the direction of our home—

And Nola’s.

One of Penelope’s penciled-in eyebrows arches curiously at this interesting turn of events.

I’d love to erase it from her face. Maybe I’ll intercept her at her next facial, and do just that. 

With a straight razor.

In the meantime Cheever can walk, for all I care.

As I hurry down after Jack, I shout to Mary: “Watch your little sister! I’ll be right back.”

Jack is banging on Nola’s front door.

Now he’s picking the lock. When it springs open, he runs inside.

Well, I guess he can’t pretend anymore that he doesn’t care about her.

Of course, I follow him in. This ought to be good.

It isn’t. The place is in shambles. Suitcases are half-packed, as if she left in a hurry—

But no, there is her purse: open. Her cell and her wallet are still in it—

Jack lurches from room to room, calling her name—

Would he care this much if it were me he felt was in danger?

Why do I even care what he thinks of me anymore?

But I can’t deny that I do.

Finally he stops short, in the kitchen. “Do you hear that barking?” He looks out the window, into the back yard. “It’s got to be Rin Tin Tin. But where is he?”

I stop to listen. “The garage maybe, or the basement—”

There is nothing in the garage except for Nola’s prized Thunderbird.

We run back into the house, to the basement door, where Rin Tin Tin’s yelps can be heard loud and clear.

We find him, clawing frantically at the freezer. When Jack lifts the lid, his face loses all of its color.

I have to take a look:

Nola’s skin is blue from the cold. Frost clings to her nostrils and her eyelashes. Her hands reach toward the lid, which is scratched and dented where she tried to claw or bang her way out.

No one should have to die that way.

Jack holds me steady as I heave what’s left of my lunch. When I get done, I’m hunched over, taking deep breaths—

Then I knock him in the gut with an elbow.

As he keels over, Rin Tin Tin whimpers and growls and lunges at us, upset at my assault on his mistress’s friend while she lies in her frozen sarcophagus. I reach for the closest possible weapon to use against Jack: a shovel. But before I can grab it, Jack grabs for my ankle, and I fall face down. Despite my kicking and screaming, I can’t escape his stronghold. The concrete is too slick. He jerks me closer and closer.

Finally he throws himself on top of me, in a tight bear hug. Even my legs are pinned. In this position it would be so easy for him to bash my head into the concrete floor until my skull cracks open. I envision ending up as the second human popsicle in Nola’s freezer, which I’m sure, he’ll dump somewhere in the middle of the ocean— 

But no. He just waits until I quit squirming, then reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out his cell phone. He presses a single digit, and murmurs into it, “Time to pull the canary out of the mineshaft.”

I jerk my head straight up.

He groans when my skull hits his nose. “Damn it, Donna!” He smacks the back of my head with the cell phone, then places it beside my ear.

“Donna,” says Ryan in his always calm, mannered way, “You have to believe me when I tell you that Jack is not your enemy.” He hesitates before adding, “It’s Carl you have to worry about.”

“Carl?... You know about Carl?”

“Yes, we’ve known for quite some time that he’s alive, and that he’s finally contacted you.”

It’s a trap. It’s got to be…

As if reading my mind, Jack says, “I know you want to believe it was me who killed Nola, but don’t you think Rin Tin Tin would have mauled me by now, had I attacked her?”

He’s right, of course.

“Look, I know that Carl told you that I’m head of the Quorum. But the truth is that he’s the bad guy, not me. He faked his own death. We suspected it for a couple of years now.”

“You’re lying! He’s been chasing down the Quorum—”

“Donna, for your sake, I wish that were true.” He shakes his head, as if to shake out the pain I’m causing him. “Do you remember when Nola moved into the neighborhood? Wasn’t it about the same time when the man you shot tried to break into the house?”

I wrack my brain to remember. “Yes. Okay, so what?”

“Nola was one of us. She was an Acme operative. She went deep cover,  around that time, for this day: when Carl would finally come home to you. To his family.”

“Nola has been spying on me?”