The Hitwoman and the Poisoned Apple (Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman Book 8) (9 page)

“Maggie, wait!” I heard his chair scrape against the floor in protest as he jumped to his feet.

He strode past me, blocked my path, and stopped. “I’m sorry.”

I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but that wasn’t it.

“I’m sorry,” he reiterated. “I acted like a Neanderthal male trying to strong arm you into agreeing with what I want.”

“And what’s that?”

“I want to get to know you.”

“That’s not a good idea,” I told him firmly. “I have too much going on in my life. I don’t have the time or energy for a relationship.”

“How about a friend? Could you use a friend?”

I was going to tell him to take a hike, but then I remembered the old saying, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” If he was a reporter and he was talking to Patrick’s wife, he could very well be an enemy.

“I could use a friend,” I admitted grudgingly.

I expected him to grin triumphantly, but he surprised me by saying solemnly, “Me too.”

As soon as I was sure that Jack Stern was remaining in the cafeteria and not following me, I hurried to Patrick’s room. If anyone asked what I was doing there, I’d just tell them I was looking for Stacy.

I hovered nervously outside his door, hearing voices inside.  He was deep in conversation with another man.

I certainly couldn’t burst in and tell him about his wife’s miraculous recovery and affair if someone else was there, so I made my way to Katie’s room.

She was playing Go Fish with Aunt Susan.

“Hey there, baby girl.” I greeted her with a big hug and kiss.

“It’s bad enough your sister couldn’t decide on a name for the poor child,” Susan grumbled. “I don’t know why you insist on using that nickname.”

The little girl glared at my grumpy aunt over a handful of playing cards. “Mommy gave me a name. It’s Katie.”

“That’s right,” I soothed, shooting Aunt Susan a look of reproach. She should know better than to badmouth Teresa in front of her daughter.

“I concede.” Susan threw her cards down on the bed. “You win. You all win.”

“Yay!” Katie cheered.

I didn’t share her happiness. Susan never gave up, something must be really wrong.

“Do you wanna play, Aunt Maggie?” Katie asked.

“Sure do,” I told her with a wink and grin. “You deal.”

Turning my attention back to my aunt, I asked, “Are you okay?”

She leveled flinty eyes at me. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Struggling to keep my inner ten-year-old from caving, I forced myself to not look away. I even managed to come up with a weak smile. “The whole thing with Bob and Griswald  must be challenging.”

“Do not mention that man to me.”

“Which one?”

“Robert.”

She looked away, staring out the window.

If I didn’t know better, I would have thought her lower lip was quivering a tiny bit.

“Do you have any fives, Aunt Maggie?” Katie asked.

Scooping up the cards she’d dealt me, I handed over a five.

“Do you have any queens?”

I had to hand one of those over too.

“I am the champion!” she declared.

“Not yet,” I told her.

“Do you have any fours?”

“Go fish.”

“Look,” I said to Susan who was still looking out the window, “I know it’s none of my business, but—”

“Exactly,” she interrupted. “It’s no one’s business and so I’d appreciate it if everyone could just keep their thoughts to themselves.”

“I wasn’t going to offer an opinion. I was just going to say that if you need someone to talk to, I’m willing to listen.”

She sniffed derisively. “I should take advice from you?”

“You have to ask for a card, Aunt Maggie,” Katie prompted.

“Do you have any aces?”

“Go fish!”

I pulled a card from deck. “I wasn’t going to give you advice, I just—”

“You
are
the one who dated that cop who tried to kill you and your sister, right?” Susan steamrolled. “And you
are
the one who won’t give Zeke the time of day even though it’s clear he’s crazy about you, aren’t you?”

“Do you have any fours?” Katie asked.

“You already asked me that,” I told her while handing over the four I’d just picked up.

“Do you have any aces?”

I handed that over too. The kid was already down to one card. I was starting to suspect she’d fixed the game while I’d been distracted.

“Do you have any sevens?”

I handed one over.

Thrusting her hands overhead she shouted, “I
am
the champion!”

“And you’re
such
a gracious winner.”

“I have to pee.”

I helped her out of bed and held her hand as she wobbled toward the bathroom. She still hadn’t regained her full strength or balance, but I was struck once again by her incredible improvement.

I glanced at Delveccio’s grandson, Dominic, still as could be in the other bed, and wished him the same kind of recovery.

“I can do this myself,” my niece declared. Closing the bathroom door on me, asserting her independence and right to privacy.

“Amazing.” Susan sighed as I returned to my seat. “There was a time when I thought she’d never…” Tears dampened her eyes.

Feeling the same way, my throat closed up, so all I could do was nod.

“Zeke and I are complicated,” I told Susan quietly, after I’d regained some of my composure.

For one thing, my childhood friend is a conman and I’m a paid assassin. For another, we’re both being blackmailed by a mysterious organization headed up by a woman I call Ms. Whitehat. And then there’s my whole obsession with Patrick. Zeke and I are complicated.

“Your sister managed to find a nice enough young man,” Susan lectured.

“You like Doc?”

“You don’t?”

“I barely know him. I don’t have much of an opinion. But since when did you become the sister who worries that her nieces haven’t found a man? That used to be Loretta’s job.”

“I’m not,” Susan denied. “I…”

“You’re just deflecting the attention away from you and Bob and Griswald,” I finished for her.

Susan tilted her head to the side and gave me a long assessing look. “I forget sometimes.”

“Forget what?”

“That you’re not like the rest.”

“The rest.”

“You see beyond your own agenda. You care more.  You’re more like me than I’d prefer to recognize sometimes.”

I was pretty sure there was a compliment or two buried in there, but she sounded so sad, I wasn’t sure.  “There are worse people to be like,” I told her with a gentle smile.

She nodded. “But it would be more fun to be like almost anyone else.”

Katie burst out of the bathroom and stumbled across the room.

“Did you wash your hands?” I asked. Realizing how many times my aunt had asked me that very question over the years, I found myself smiling self-consciously. Glancing at Susan I saw that she had picked up on the similarity too and was smiling.

“All washed.” Katie tottered precariously.

I jumped up, ready to catch her, but she steadied herself and made the way to her bed under her own steam.

“I’m sleepy, Aunt Maggie,” she murmured as I lifted her onto the bed and tucked her in.

“Maybe it’s a good time for a nap, baby girl.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll stay for a while,” Susan offered as Katie’s eyes drifted closed.

I pressed a kiss to my niece’s forehead and mouthed “thank you” to my aunt.

“I’m avoiding going home,” Susan confessed on a whisper and a wink.

Leaving Katie in Susan’s care, I once again returned to Patrick’s room. This time, while standing in the corridor, I didn’t hear any voices from inside, so I stepped in.

Imagine my disappointment when I saw his bed was empty.

I sighed heavily. This seemed to be indicative of how things went with Patrick and me. The timing was never quite right.

Still, I needed to tell him about his cheating wife and how she might have motive to kill him, so I rounded the bed, looking for something to use to jot down a quick note.

“Hey, Mags.”

Gasping, I turned around to find him standing behind me. Dressed in a hospital gown, he’d obviously emerged from the bathroom.

“Great timing.” He waved the cellphone I’d hidden for him. “I was just about to call you.”

I nodded, wishing my heartbeat would slow down a bit.

He shuffled toward the bed, stopping on the way to place a chaste kiss on my cheek.

“How are you doing?” I finally managed to ask as he lowered himself onto the mattress.

“They should discharge me tomorrow.” He groaned slightly as he swung his legs up.

I looked away, worried that the hospital garb might reveal more than it should. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

“Getting out of here? Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

“Someone tried to kill you,” I reminded him.

“I’ll be more careful.” He patted the sheet beside him, indicating I should sit next to him.

I hesitated. “What about Rule Number One?”

“You can jump off if someone walks in.” Leaning over, he grabbed my hand and tugged me over.

I held my ground, worried that whatever drugs he was being given were messing with his mind. Rule Number One is Don’t Get Caught. Sitting on his bed in a place where anyone could pop in at any moment was definitely in violation of that.

Dropping my hand, he frowned. “Something’s bothering you.”

I nodded, bracing myself for what was going to be one of the more awkward conversations of my life. “Marshal Griswald is back at the B&B.”

“Why?”

“He’s pursuing Susan.”

“Pursuing?”

“Romantically.”

“Yeah, well, we saw that coming.”

I nodded.

“That’s what’s bothering you?’

I shook my head, my gut twisting tighter than a boa constrictor.

“You’re scaring me, Mags.”

I sank down onto the visitor’s chair. “This isn’t easy.”

Patrick’s gaze hardened, the green turning to sea glass. “What isn’t?”

“You should prepare yourself for a shock,” I told him.

“Consider me prepared,” he said dryly.

“It’ll be a lot to take in.” I looked away.

“It can’t be any worse than what I’m imagining. Just tell me.”

“It was something Griswald said,” I began slowly. “According to him, most poisonings are done by the victim’s significant other.”

“Uh-huh.”

I jerked my gaze back to him. “So I followed your wife.”

He arched his eyebrows. “How’d you find her?”

“DeeDee and I staked out that the hospital’s handicapped parking for visitors.”

“I’d be impressed if you hadn’t just told me you’d done it with the dog.” Amusement softened his gaze, returning his eyes to a shade of green that didn’t scare me. “Go on.”

“So I followed her.”

“It wasn’t her,” Patrick interjected. “Our relationship may not be the best, but she’s got no reason to want me dead.”

I swallowed hard and looked away again.

“Easy, Mags,” he teased. “You clench your jaw any harder and you’ll break something.”

I forced myself to relax my facial muscles.

“So you followed her and didn’t find anything, so what’s got you so uptight?”

“But I did,” I blurted out.

His eyebrows drew together as he scowled. He sat straight up in the bed, his posture reverberating with tension. “What?”

“This is one of those ‘don’t kill the messenger’ type things,” I pleaded.

He nodded tightly, waiting.

Not sure which of my tidbits he’d find more disturbing, I decided to tell him what I’d discovered based on the order I saw it.

“She can walk.”

He sank back onto his pillows, exhaling a sigh of relief. “Oh, is that all?”

Surprised by his reaction, I asked, “That doesn’t shock you?”

“No. I know she can walk. The wheelchair is an outdated crutch. She likes the attention it gets her.”

“Oh.” I felt slightly disappointed that my revelation hadn’t upset him. The entire time I’ve known him, I’ve been under the impression that his wife was pretty much a homebound invalid, but now I was finding out how wrong my assumption had been.

Patrick chuckled. “Was that what you got yourself all twisted up over?”

“Not just that.”

“What other earth-shaking revelation do you have to make?”

Not liking his teasing tone, I blurted out the next part, not making an effort to lessen its impact. “I followed her to a motel.”

“Oh shit,” he muttered, dropping his head into his hands.

Remembering that he’d recently almost died, I felt a stab of guilt for shocking him. He dropped his hands from his face, skewering me with a sharp look. “Tell me they didn’t see you.”

I automatically shook my head before the thought occurred to me. “You knew?”

He nodded.

I frowned, trying to make sense of what he was saying. “You suspected?”

“Knew.”

I blinked and sat back against my seat. Apparently, the only one enduring shocks. “And you know she’s with…” I trailed off.

“Another woman? Yeah, I know Molly. Great girl. Just had dinner with her and her husband last week.”

The room spun as I tried to process the information. “You know that your wife doesn’t need a wheelchair and that she’s having an affair with another woman?” I practically squeaked.

Patrick frowned. “I wouldn’t have expected you to be so small-minded.” He sounded deeply disappointed in me.

But his disappointment was nothing compared to mine. For all this time, I’d been thinking he and I couldn’t be together because of his wife, but now I was finding out that wasn’t the case.

“Are you okay?” he asked as I started to tremble from a mixture of anger and pain.

I nodded. If I spoke I knew I’d scream at him.

At that moment, a nurse bustled in. She nodded politely to me, but smiled flirtatiously at the redhead in the bed. He grinned back at her.

Taking advantage of his distraction, I jumped up and ran from the room without a word.

I didn’t dare breathe as I hurried for the hospital’s exit. If I did, I was afraid I’d burst into tears. His betrayal seemed to stab me anew with every step I took away from him.