Further Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman (14 page)

Chapter Seventeen

T
HE ALARM ENDED
up being no big deal, just the result of one of my neighbors roasting marshmallows . . . indoors, but it spooked Patrick.

“I can’t be seen!” he shouted, before running out of my apartment.

I didn’t see him again.

Instead I spent an hour milling around the apartment complex parking lot with my fellow displaced neighbors until the fire department gave us the all-clear to return to our homes.

“Home Sweet Home.” I leaned tiredly against the front door once we were back inside, slipping Doomsday’s leash off.

Keeping the seventy-pound mutt relatively still when all she’d wanted to do was chase the fire trucks had worn me out, as had listening to God’s incessant snotty commentary. There was no way I could have managed the dog and his terrarium, so he had perched on my shoulder the whole time, alternating between lecturing about getting romantically involved with the redheaded hitman and telling me how stupid the actions of all my neighbors were.

I didn’t even bother to get undressed as I tumbled onto my bed. It had been a hell of a day between the bridal shower, the attempted hit, and my late-night rendezvous with Patrick.

The next morning, when someone knocked on my door, waking me from a sound sleep, I was fully dressed. I jumped up to answer the door, ran about three steps, tripped over the dog, and sprawled headfirst down the hallway.

I lay there for a long moment, gasping like a beached whale, having had the air knocked out of me.

“Okay Maggie?” Doomsday sniffed my face.

I swatted her away and was rewarded with a searing pain in my wrist. I didn’t think I’d broken anything, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to prove my hypothesis since my knees felt as though they were on fire.

The pounding on the door intensified.

“I’m coming for chrissakes!” I shouted.

“Could you
please
keep it down?” God requested. “I have a headache.”

As I unsteadily got to my feet, the poison pendant swung on its chain, smacking me in the mouth. I entertained using the contents in his water, and Doomsday’s, and on the person doing their best to bang my door.

“What?” I asked, yanking open the door.

“Coffee?”

A Styrofoam cup of brewed nectar of the gods was waved beneath my nose. Transported by the delicious aroma, it took me a second to focus on the offerer.

I took the cup. “What do you need?”

Alice had the grace to look offended. “Why would you think I need something?” She moved to step past me into my apartment without answering my question, but was greeted with a chorus of “Gotta! Gotta! Gotta!” from Doomsday.

Alice stepped back with a gasp. “There’s a dog in there.”

“Alice, meet Doomsday. Doomsday, say hello to Alice.” I reached for her leash.

Doomsday hurried forward to greet Alice, licking her shoe and then sitting and offering her paw.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

God couldn’t either. “Her grammar is atrocious, but her manners are impeccable. Who knew?”

“Oh what a darling.” Alice shook the offered paw. “What his name?”

“Her. She’s wearing a pink collar because she’s a her.” I latched the leash onto the said collar and let the dog pull me outside.

“Fine. What’s
her
name?”

“Doomsday.”

Alice wrinkled her nose. “That’s not very feminine.”

“I didn’t name her.” Doomsday dragged me in the direction of the garbage Dumpsters.

“Who did?” Alice had to hurry to keep up with us.

I took a sip of coffee to keep from telling her,
The hitman who owned her before me.
“Her previous owner.”

“You should give her a new name.”

“Yes!” Doomsday agreed with an excited yip.

“Something not so scary. Something girly.”

“You’re the girly one, not me,” I reminded my oldest friend.

“Girly?” Doomsday wagged her stump of a tail hopefully.

“What was the name of that dog Loretta had?”

“Fifi. I am not calling Doomsday the same thing as the prissy purebred poodle.”

“DeeDee?” Doomsday asked. “DeeDee?”

“But,” I said slowly. “I could call her DeeDee.”

DeeDee licked my hand in gratitude.

“She likes it.” Alice patted the top of the dog’s head.

I nodded. “Okay, now that we’ve got that settled . . . what do you need?”

She looked away. “I’m worried about Susan.”

As a general rule, I worried about Leslie and Loretta. I didn’t normally have reason to be concerned about Susan. Alice’s worry frightened me. “Why?”

“Well, you know how perfectly pressed and primped she usually is . . .”

I nodded.

“I saw her drive away wearing her pajamas this morning.”

Relieved, I chuckled. “Those aren’t PJs. That’s her kung fu uniform. She started taking classes a few months ago.”

“Susan?”

“Gotta give her credit for trying new things,” I said. “Now, why don’t you tell me why you’re here and what you need?”

“You don’t know that I need something.”

“Sure I do. You brought me one of my vices.” I raised the coffee as though it were evidence in a legal proceeding. “Most of the time you bring things that you think will make me better. I’ve got subscriptions to running magazines, a rice cooker I’ve never used, and a collection of chakra cleansing crystals to prove it. But today, you show up with a fully caffeinated beverage for me . . . that means you need something.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting the best for you.”

“Just as there’s nothing wrong with bribing me to get what you want.”

“I wasn’t bribing you.”

I raised an eyebrow, calling her bluff.

“I was buttering you up.”

“What’s up?”

“First I wanted to thank you for the shower. It was terrific.”

It would have been easy to just tell her she was welcome, but I felt compelled to tell her the truth. “That was more Zeke than me.”

She smiled. “I know, but I also know how much you hate those things. I appreciate that you were there and you were such a good sport about it.”

“You’re welcome.” We walked back toward my apartment in companionable silence.

“You’re a good friend, Maggie.”

“Ditto.”

“You’re picking up your dress today?”

“Yeah. I really am capable of doing that by myself. I don’t need Zeke to babysit me.” Unlocking my front door, I ushered her inside.

“He really wanted to go with you.”

A niggling suspicion tickled the back of my brain, but before I could think about it, she dropped her bombshell.

“I need you to go see my mom.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “Why?”

“I want you to ask her to come to the wedding.”

I sank onto the couch, dumbfounded. Alice hadn’t spoken to her mother since the day my dad had beat the crap out of her stepfather. Like Zeke, Alice had been kicked out of her home, for what her mom had called “vicious lies.” Unlike Zeke, she’d had family who were only too happy to take her in. She’d lived with her paternal grandparents, right here in town, while she finished school and attended college.

“I want you to invite her to my wedding,” she said again, nervously pacing the length of the living room.

“Why?”

“I dunno. I saw you and your dad together . . .”

I squinted suspiciously at my coffee, wondering if she’d laced it with something because nothing she was saying made any sense. “I don’t understand.”

“I saw how you two were together. You don’t hate him anymore.”

“Yes I do,” I said quickly, without considering it.

“No. You don’t. Maybe you’re still nursing a grudge, but you don’t hate him. I want that with my mom.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m getting married. Because she’s going to be a grandmother.” She patted her nonexistent baby bump.

“So you’re just going to forgive her for everything?”

Alice nodded.

“For what she did? For siding with him?” We’d made a pact, years earlier, to never mention her stepfather’s name. Despite the fact I was upset, I honored my commitment.

“She isn’t with him anymore.”

“He probably hooked up with someone else with a younger daughter.”

Seeing the horror in her eyes, I slapped my hand over my mouth, but it was too late. The words were already out.

“I’m sorry,” I said hurriedly. “That was a stupid thing to say.”

“It was mean.”

I nodded, biting my tongue to keep from telling her that while it may have been mean, it was probably true.

“I want her at my wedding, Maggie.”

“So why not go yourself?”

“What if she says she hates me? What if she says she never wants to see me again?” Her lower lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. “I couldn’t bear to have her say those things to my face.”

I wrapped her in a big bear hug and squeezed. “Okay, okay, I’ll do it.”

“And you’ll be nice to her?”

“If you wanted nice, you should have asked Zeke to do it.”

“Zeke’s not my best friend. You are.”

I hugged her even more tightly. Her saying that was the first thing that had gone right in quite a while. It felt good.

Of course those good feelings evaporated the moment I put on the salmon-colored tutu.

“Y
OU SAID YOU’D
take care of it,” I accused Zeke as I stepped into the dress. I was in a cramped fitting room of the dress shop. He leaned against the wall, just outside the louvered door, waiting for me to come out and model the monstrous creation.

“I said I’d take care of it when I thought it would be dinner and a couple hands of blackjack, but that’s not what she wants. Alice wants to go to a strip club, and
that
, I’m not doing.”

I tugged the skirt over my hips. “So all this time you’re Mr. Helpful, taking care of everything, lending a hand to anyone who needs it, and now, suddenly, you’re bailing?”

“I’m not bailing.”

I caught my reflection in the narrow mirror, contorted like a Chinese acrobat, trying to zip the dress. “I can’t get the stupid thing zipped.”

“I could give you a hand.”

Unlatching the door, I stepped out of the dressing room, holding the front of the dress in place. “I look fishy.”

“Turn around.”

I did, but that was even worse, because I could now see my reflection in a large, three-sided mirror. The horror was multiplied.

Zeke stepped behind me and a shiver slipped down my spine as he grasped the zipper, his hand brushing against my bare skin.

“I look like an idiot.”

“A beautiful idiot,” he soothed.

Something in his voice had me searching for his face in the reflection of the mirror we stood opposite. He smiled at me, something devilish shimmering in his gaze, as he slowly inched the zipper upward.

“You’re bailing,” I accused again, trying to ignore the way my hormones were once again racing into overdrive for a guy who’d never be interested in me.

“It’s not like the two of you need my help sticking bills in a stripper’s G-string.”

“They’re exotic dancers,” I corrected. “And I won’t be doing any sticking. That’s why I need you there.”

“It’s not my kind of thing. You’re all set. You’re too tense. ” He started giving me a neck massage. Which was almost enough to throw me off track, but not quite.

“It’s not mine either, but it’s what Alice wants, so it’s what we’re going to do, dammit.”

He chuckled, seemingly unimpressed by my attempt to be authoritative. “It’s what
you
are going to do.”

“Why? You watch scantily clad guys grinding and gyrating and you watch women make fools of themselves. It’s no big deal. They’re totally used to gay guys being there.”

His eyes locked on mine in the mirror’s reflection. Leaning closer, he whispered, “But I’m not gay.”

He watched my reaction in the mirror as the revelation sank in.

“I thought . . .”

“You thought wrong.” His breath against my ear sent delicious shivers of sensation cascading through my body.

“But . . .” It was difficult to make my thoughts make sense when a million fireworks were exploding in my body.

His eyes gleamed devilishly as he wrapped his arms around my waist. “I could prove it to you.”

I practically collapsed when he pressed his lips to the side of my neck, his hands drifting upward to brush the swell of my breasts.

“I believe you,” I gasped, legs trembling.

As though he sensed my knees might fold, he grasped my hips, steadying me.

I might as well have been wearing nothing considering the way his touch burned.

“It might be fun to prove it to you, Maggie. It might take a while. I could kiss you. Touch you. Taste you.”

“Stop,” I pleaded. “Someone might hear you.”

He glanced around. Even though there was no one in sight, he said, “You’re right.” Spinning me around, he gently propelled me into the fitting room.

I watched our reflections in the small mirror as he stepped in behind me, and closed the door. I moved further forward so that he was no longer touching me, hoping that the lack of physical contact would help me think.

“Turn around, Maggie.”

I shook my head.

“Why not?”

“You shouldn’t be in here.” The accusation sounded childish, but it was the best I could come up with. The space had felt small when I’d been in there by myself, but now it felt downright cramped. “You’re not who I thought you were.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Even though he kept his tone light, I could hear a note of hurt in his voice.

“When I was seventeen I would have thought it was a great thing,” I admitted shakily.

“Really?”

“You didn’t know?” All these years I’d thought I’d made a fool of myself mooning over him with my schoolgirl crush.

“I knew Alice did,” he said slowly. “Your Aunt Susan threatened that if I ‘accepted her advances’ she’d kick me out of the B&B.”

“Sounds like something Susan would say and do.”

“But I never got that feeling from you.”

“I’m not surprised. Alice always has been the bright shining star who eclipses me.” Realizing how bitter that made me sound, I hurried to add. “I’m ‘remarkably, unremarkable,’ as my grandmother used to say.” I offered him a weak smile in the mirror to assure him that it was okay.