Rogues & Rascals in Goose Pimple Junction (Goose Pimple Junction Mysteries Book 4) (36 page)

His head snapped up.

She shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. “I don’t know you, but I bet I can sum up your life story real quick: You were coddled as a toddler. When you were in grade school, you started acting out to get attention because you felt different and unwanted. But that pushed kids away, and the only attention you got was negative. So you got mad at the world.” In a sulking, singsong tone, she mimicked, “Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. Guess I’ll go eat worms.” She cocked an eyebrow. “How’m I doing?”

He gave a half-shrug. His lower lip stuck out slightly, and he kept his head bowed, fidgeting with the water bottle on the table.

“After that, it wasn’t so much about attention. It was more of a contest to see how much you could get away with. Your daddy always fixed the scrapes you got in, smoothed things over when you got into trouble. When money talks, people listen.”

Elbow on the table, he rested his chin on his knuckles. His exuberant demeanor had swung drastically to sullen in the last several minutes.

“How do I know all that?” she asked rhetorically. “It’s classic Punk 101.”

He looked up sharply, his arm falling to the table.

She touched his hand. “That’s what it is, but it doesn’t have to define you, kid. It’s
what
it is. It’s not
who
you are.”

He let out a scoffing laugh.

She tried again, tucking one leg underneath her rear, her voice monotone. “I was never popular. In grade school, I was a fat tomboy with kinky, wild hair and buckteeth. The girls were afraid of me, and the boys didn’t want to play with me.”

“You?” His voice was tight.

She nodded and brought a finger to her chest. “Me. By high school, I was so backward I spent four years sneaking off behind the stage in the auditorium to eat lunch by myself. Nobody ever wondered where I was at lunchtime. Nobody cared. I’ve always been a loner, and I’ve always been invisible.”

“What about your parents?”

“I didn’t have a dad. And my mother was too busy trying to support us to have much time for me. At least that’s what she claimed. I eventually fell in with the wrong crowd, and by ‘fell in,’ I mean I stood around smoking and drinking with them and soaking up everything I could. I wasn’t there to be social. I was there to learn. Being involved with that gang got me introduced to an even bigger, badder gang by the time I graduated high school.

“I got married to the first man who showed any attention to me. Two weeks later, he started using me for a punching bag. I left him, and in a few years, I attracted the
Big Man’s
attention and became his right-hand girl. He liked that I was a loner, I didn’t answer to anybody, and I learned quick. I’d slimmed down by then, and one thing led to another, as it always does,” she shrugged, “and I got pregnant.”

“You got a kid?” He was astounded.

“Yep.” She picked at her fingers. “He lives with my sister. I see him from time to time, but not often. I figure he’s better off without me. I don’t want him to end up like me. And you shouldn’t either.”

“How old is he?”

“Ten. He’s ten years old. Hard to believe, but time, it does fly. You remind me a little of him.”

He narrowed his eyes. “If you were really in the mob, how’d you get free of them?”

“Who says I did?”

His shoulders rose, held, and then fell. “A hunch.”

“Well, you’re right. There were a lot of guns around, and Antonio—”

“He the father? The head dude?”

“Yep. He and Zeke took me to gun ranges and taught me how to shoot, taught me about guns. He wanted me working for him, and he wanted me to be skilled. And I tried. Then I became pregnant, and he didn’t want me anymore. So I limped off to my sister’s house, had the baby, and jumped at a chance for adventure when Zeke offered.

“Zeke?”

She nodded. “He always liked me when I was with
The Man
. He wanted to make a name for himself. He tracked me down, offered to let me be his right-hand girl. She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I seem to do better in that capacity than as an assassin.”

“So what are you gonna do now?” His eyes went to her face instead of the bottle of water on the table.

“I haven’t decided.” She met his eyes. “I have some thinking to do.”

“You know what I think?” He scratched his nose.

“No, but I’m guessing you’re gonna tell me.” She sat back in the chair and propped her feet on the nearby bed.

He took a long drink, enjoying the fact that it was his turn. “I think you should go get your little boy and settle down somewhere. You tell me not to choose this life, yet you won’t leave it? You’re a hypocrite, lady.”

She stared at her hands, twisting a ring.

He continued, his voice stronger now. “Maybe you had a crappy life. But is that any reason to continue living one? You’ve never trusted anyone in your entire life, have you? Does anyone besides your boy and your sister even know what you look like? What you
really
look like?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. When she opened them, he was staring at her. They sat studying each other for several minutes.

Finally, in a thick voice, he spoke. “Well, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll change if you’ll change.”

Mama always said . . . Never get overly excited about a man/woman by just the way they look from behind.

A
s soon as Jimmy Dean left, Wynona raced to the bathroom where she removed all traces of John Noseworthy. With her face scrubbed clean, and her blonde hair still in a ponytail, she looked more like she was twenty instead of thirty. She slipped first one foot then the other into her four-inch heeled Jimmy Choo leather booties, cut at the ankle. She zipped up the gold zippers on the side and stood.
Ah, it feels good to be back in my Jimmy Choos.
She stood and practiced walking in the shoes.
Not bad.

Scurrying around the hotel room, she gathered all of her belongings into garbage bags and made three trips to the car. She returned and did one last sweep over the room, wiping down with Clorox wipes the hard surfaces and the entire bathroom, making sure she hadn’t missed anything. Finally, she was satisfied. She pulled her ponytail through the back of a baseball cap, pushed down the bill over her forehead, and closed the door.

The rain had let up, but it was still drizzling. It took her two hours to drive to three different remote locations, setting fire to her belongings at each stop, getting rid of a little bit at a time until all of her disguises, clothes, and IDs were turned to ash. She’d worn John Noseworthy’s long black coat until the last stop. It was the one thing she hated to give up as it had kept her reasonably dry.

She’d used a different persona to rent this car than any she’d used while in Goose Pimple Junction, so she wasn’t worried about the police connecting the car to her. Afraid to push her luck by going to Beau again, this time she drove to the local Enterprise store, filled out the return envelope, and put the key in it. She slipped it into the dropbox, leaving the trunk open so she could move her belongings, mostly tech stuff, to the black Lexus she’d parked beside.

Wynona had picked up how to steal cars very well. She worked fast. Sliding a slim jim tool between the car window and the door skin, she fished around until she felt the lever and pulled up. Once in the car, she located the trunk lock, transferred her gear to the new car, hot-wired it, and pulled out of the lot. By the time they noticed the car was gone, it would be parked in a lot at the Knoxville airport, a two-hour drive away. Her flight didn’t leave until 11:00 a.m. Assuming she arrived one hour ahead of time, that left her with . . . she thought for a minute, using her fingers . . . nine to ten hours to kill.
She shook her head. She was getting tired of her assassin puns.

Tired, hungry, and thirsty, she was overjoyed when she saw the neon sign for the Mag Bar up ahead. She added a little eyeliner to her eyelids, brushed two strokes of blush over her cheeks, and applied some lipstick. She didn’t want a pick up, but her mama always said there was no sense in looking like a washwoman.

The bartender gave her a nod as she sat on a barstool. He was pouring a beer but raised his eyebrows in question.

“Kill me now,” she requested with a straight face.

The bartender pushed up the tap, put the mug of beer on a waiting tray, and said, “Huh?”

“Kill Me Now. It’s a cocktail.” His face was blank. “Tequila, rum—” She saw no sign of comprehension on his face and said, “How about a beer?”

He nodded and said, “Draft or bottle?”

“Bottle.”

He held up one finger indicating he’d be right back.

When he brought the beer, she ordered a cheeseburger and fries. And when he brought the food, she ordered another beer. She’d just ordered her third beer and had hamster cheeks from taking a huge bite of cheeseburger when Hank Beanblossom sat three stools down from her at the bar.

She almost choked; some food went down the wrong way, and she began coughing and gasping for air.

Hank rushed to her, pulled her arms up over her head, and patted her back. When she’d gotten her breath and the coughing fit had gone, he sat beside her.

“You scared me there for a minute.”

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. He handed her a napkin.

“Thank you. And thanks for your help.” She rubbed her chest; it was hurting from the coughing fit.

The bartender slapped down a napkin in front of Hank. “What’ll it be?”

“Gimme whatever the lady’s having, and bring her another.”

“I don’t usually have that effect on women,” he joked. “I’m Hank.” He stuck out his hand, and she shook it.

Would he recognize her? Gone were Trixie’s brown contacts, brassy shag hairstyle, heavy makeup, and hippie clothes. Still, she was afraid to look him in the eye. But even more, she was tired of being someone else. Tired of pretense. Tired of life as she knew it. For the first time in a long time, she was purely herself. She couldn’t help it; she met his gaze and said, “Wynona.”

“You live around here?”

“No. Just passing through. I’m guessing from your uniform, you live close by?”

“Yep, little town about fifteen miles away called Goose Pimple Junction. Ever been there?”

“Nope. Maybe one day. I’m headed to Knoxville tonight to catch a plane in the morning.”
Why are you talking like a magpie? Shut up, shut up, shut up!