The Housewife Assassin's Killer App (11 page)

“A…bargain?”

“Yes.” He leans in. “All you have to do is spend the night here, with me.”

“Never.” I toss my napkin on the table and stand up.

“Donna, you once loved me. You lived to make love to me. You can’t tell me now that you’ve forgotten how we were…back then, before…before I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
 

He searches my face for something that validates his beliefs. But, no, he doesn’t find it. “Okay, I get it,” he mutters. “You don’t want me anywhere near them, or you. But one way or another, you’re going to pay for that dubious honor. If you want me out of their lives, you have to give me just one night.”
 

The look in his eyes is one I remember from so long ago. Love. Longing. Lust.

It’s the same look he had whenever he came home to me.

Home, from those trips in which he killed and double-crossed, and sold state secrets to save his own skin.

To save us.

Or so he said.

He broke my heart once. For what we once had, I won’t hurt him the same way. All the more reason I have to tell him the truth:

“Carl, even if I said yes, I’ll never love you again.”

The hope in his eyes dissolves into the cold reality. He laughs. “Donna my sweet, I’m not doing it in the hope of changing your mind. I just don’t want the evening to be a complete waste of time for either of us.”
 

The icy realization washes over me:
Carl will hold it over me, forever.

He’ll tell Jack. Or I’d have to tell him.
 

Jack would be devastated. I’d die of shame.

Either way, I lose: my children’s respect, and Jack’s love.

I loathe the knowledge that, to make Carl back down, I’ll have either have to let him inside me—inside my body—

Or kill him.

Not such a bad idea.
 

I slip the knife I used on my salmon up the sleeve of my blouse. Slowly, I stand up. As if in a trance, I walk through the door to the foyer.
 

Slowly, I climb the grand staircase, each step leaden with the dread of what awaits me, should I miss my mark. I don’t have to look back at him to know he smiles triumphantly. I feel his eyes scrutinizing me, hungering for me. I can’t stand the thought of his hands on me. Or his mouth.

By the time I reach the top of the stairs, Carl is right beside me. He leans in close in order to whisper into my ear, “The master bedroom is through the double doors at the end of the hall.”

Instinctively, my head turns in that direction. The doors are dark stained oak, ornately carved, with large brass knobs. One knob has a keyhole, which holds a skeleton key.
 

My torture chamber.
 

Where he will hurt and humiliate me.

Or do his best to pleasure me, to make me desire him.

If I don’t stop him, once and for all.

I start down the long, softly lit corridor. I hold my head high, but I feel my lip trembling.
 

I reach the doors. I turn the key in the lock. The hinges creak as I slowly open the door—

And I’m staring at Jack.

What the hell…

He stands on the far side of the room, in a small alcove holding a large ornate desk. He holds a laptop in his hands. A thumb drive is blinking in one of its USB ports.
 

He glances up. When he sees me, he does a double-take. He holds up a hand with three fingers.
 

Aw, heck.
He wants me to stall for three more minutes.

Quickly, I flip around, closing the door behind me. Turning my face up to Carl’s head, I seek out his eyes so that he can read in mine what I want from him—

A kiss.

He is so surprised that he freezes.

Not me. I lean into him. My lips part as I curl my arm around his neck, drawing his face closer to mine.

At first, my kiss grazes his lips shyly—

Before parting them with my own.
 

His mouth is hungry, filled with desire.

Mine responds in kind, as if I’ve missed him. As if I’ve always loved him.
 

As if he never left me.

We stay in this state of suspended reality for an eternity—

Until Carl reaches around me and pushes open the door.

Quickly, I turn around. No one is in sight. Jack is nowhere to be seen, thank God.

Carl shoves me into the room. Before I know it, he’s thrown me down onto the bed and is straddling me; his mouth bruises mine with insatiable kisses. I slip the knife beneath the pillow at my head while he rips the buttons off the front of my silk blouse.

Damn it, I should buy a dozen of these things and just be done with it.

With lightning speed, he unbuckles his belt. With one quick motion, he strips it through the loops of his pants and stares at it for a second before dropping it on the bed, beside me. “Later,” he promises me. “What’s pleasure without a little pain? But don’t worry. Afterward, I’ll kiss it and make it better.”

Two minutes and twenty-four seconds left, and counting…until I kill you.

Ever the tease, he pulls his shirt out from his pants.

I reach up and tear off his buttons, exposing rock-solid abs and bulging pecs under broad shoulders.

He roars with laughter. Then again, his buttons weren’t expensive seed pearls. And besides, he’s got someone to chase them down and sew them back on.
 

He wags a finger at me. “Eager, are we?”
 

You betcha. There’s now less than a minute before I will stab you and be rid of you, once and for all.

As he yanks my skirt up to my waist, I slip my hand back under the pillow. It grasps the handle of the knife, blade down.
Thirty-three seconds left…thirty-two…thirty-one…

Carl takes time to admire the view of my pink lace cheekini. After giving a low whistle, he hooks the right side with his index finger. Slowly he pulls it down—

Twenty…nineteen…eighteen…
Isn’t Jack finished yet??

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him, inching his way to the door—

Until a floorboard under his foot creaks softly.

Carl freezes, but before he turns his head, I stroke his taut abdomen with a nail on my free hand, raising it slowly, toward his left nipple. When I reach it, I tweak it between my thumb and forefinger.
 

Yes, this has his full attention. He leans down. His mouth hungers for my breast—

Exposing his neck to me.

Perfect.

In one quick motion, I swing my arm out from beyond the pillow and up, deep into his jugular—

My hand is just a mere inch from his jugular when I feel someone grab my wrist—

Jack.

Before I can wrest it away from him, his raises his other hand, and with one swift motion, he jabs Carl’s thick, muscled back, close to the base of his spine—

With a knife?
 

No, it’s a needle.
 

The result is almost instantaneous: Carl grunts. His eyes cross—

And he passes out, flopping down on top of me so hard that he knocks the breath out of me.

As I struggle beneath him, I hiss to Jack, “Why didn’t you let me kill him?”

“Because I’m tired of breaking you out of prisons. And, besides, if you’re right, the files on his laptop will put him away for life.”

“‘If I’m right?’ About what? Seriously, Jack, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh no?” He whips out his cell phone and presses his email app. “I got this email from you last night, begging me to forgive you, and asking me to come to DC as soon as possible to help you prove he’s the source. So, I lined up Aunt Phyllis to stay with the kids, and—”

“Did you say…to forgive
me
?” I try to shove Carl off, but it’s no use. He’s too heavy. I’m feeling claustrophobic. Not to mention pissed.
 

“That’s not all. When I got to the hotel this afternoon, I received a text from you, telling me that Carl had invited you out to dinner, and that I should break into this mausoleum and run a diagnostic on his personal laptop. You even sent me the code to disarm his home security alarm and webcam feed.”

“I swear to you, Jack, I didn’t send anything to you!”
Who keeps hacking my email and texts?

“Yes, it’s now obvious to me, because, A, the thought that he’d have a second computer wouldn’t have occurred to you. And, B, you would not have appreciated me walking in on you, with Sleeping Beauty”—Jack lifts Carl’s head up by his hair, only to let it drop again, onto my chest—“here in his bedroom.”

“He…I…we…” The truth sticks in my throat, like a lump of shame.

Just then, the thumb drive flashes green. Jack removes it from Carl’s computer.
 

Instead of shoving Carl off me, he heads for the door.
 

“Whoa, whoa…wait a minute! You’re not just going to leave me here—like this!…Are you?”

He stops short and turns around. He raises a brow. “Say it.”

Carl must be having a bad dream because his hand goes around my waist, holding me tight.
 

“What the hell are you talking about?” My voice cracks with panic. The last thing I need is for Carl to wake up and find me under him, holding a knife no less. I’ll never leave this Munster Mansion alive.

Jack crosses his arms at his chest. “You know what to say.”

Ah, I get it. “Yes, Jack Craig, you were right! About Carl pulling a stunt like this, and about me falling for it. There, is that better?”

He shrugs. “It still doesn’t explain why you were walking into his bedroom with him.”

“If you must know, he gave me an ultimatum. He said he’d leave me and the children alone, for good if I…if I spent tonight with him.” Because I can’t move my head, I’m choking on my tears. “Just…one night.”

Instead, I would have killed him—if it hadn’t been for Jack stopping me.

Jack flops down beside me on the bed. He stares down at the knife, then takes the knife out of my hand.
 

Best of all, he shoves Carl off me. “The old boy’s put on weight,” he says with a grunt.

A second later, Jack pulls me up, off the bed—

And into his arms.

He’s kissing me, as if he never wants to let me go.

No, it’s more like he never
should have
let me go.

He’s right about that.

To play it safe, he goes to the window, opens it and tosses the knife into the large privet hedge below.

“That knife is an antique. He’s going to have a hell of a time finding a replacement.”

Jack holds up the thumb drive. “If the hacker who brought me here is right, Carl will be eating with plastic utensils for the rest of his life.”

A frigid breeze wafts in through the window. I shiver. “Aren’t you going to close it?”

Jack thinks about it for a moment, then shakes his head. “Nah. If we’re lucky, Carl will get pneumonia, and all our problems are solved.”

I nod. “Good point. Natural causes.”
 

Not as dramatic as a knife to the jugular, but it’ll do.

Chapter 7

Cold Boot

Starting a computer that has been turned off simply by pushing the “power” button is called a “cold boot,” as opposed to a “warm boot,” which is to restart your computer after it’s already been on for a while.

There are other ways in which one might experience a cold boot. Literally, by standing in a foot of snow for two hours. Or, metaphorically speaking, should you offend an associate, you experience a cold boot as he shoves you out the door—a gesture that means you are no longer welcome.
 

Cold-booting a computer gets you what you need: access to information.

Standing too long in the snow will result in sneezing, frostbitten toes, and the need for a nice warm bath.

Receiving the cold boot from a new frenemy is a call to arms, so don’t be afraid to push back—

But before you slam the door behind you, toss a grenade.

“Nothing,” Arnie hisses as he passes Dominic and me in the DI’s reception room.