Stand By Your Hitman (16 page)

“All right boys, Momma’s coming,” I said quietly as I made my way through the trees and vines. My attitude had gone from freaked-out mother to Rambo-nator in a matter of seconds. This transition was important or I’d never have kept my head in whatever situation I found.

This was the only area I hadn’t yet searched and I stayed close to the trail. I hoped something would surface to give me a clue.

Even though I’d spent a lot of years in the lab, I still knew how to launch into stealth mode. I’d spent my whole life learning how to be silent and invisible—which was probably a lot different from growing up in other families. But if I’d had to kill someone, I could have. And if my kids were in danger, I’d take out anyone who had them, even if it was Isaac.

Thinking about that for a moment made me realize that I was finally in the Bombay zone. If Isaac wasn’t dead or in danger from some mysterious stranger, he was probably holding my kids hostage. And that, I just couldn’t have. Mother hen, indeed. More like deadly-ninja-angry-mother-hen thingy!

I went over various scenarios in my head, preparing for any kind of combat there might be. I’ve always been like that. It gives me quick reflexes and allows me to think fast and implement almost anything as a weapon. I remember this one time when I had to kill a guy with a drinking straw. That was actually funny. Because if you hold your thumb over one end of a straw, it’s pretty much a deadly weapon….

Sorry, got off track there. Damn, this was taking a long time. I had to keep my mind busy or I’d…Too late. I was thinking about Lex.

The man really had to hate me. After catching me saying I’d more or less used him to win the game, he had to be upset. Forget the fact that it was a lie. I’d hurt him and that was very bad.

Truth was, I think I was actually falling in love with him. I shook my head to clear it.

Keep moving, Missi
. I willed my feet to continue even though I felt like I was dragging my heart behind me like a deflated parachute. I tried to think of something else but the idea refused to budge from my brain.

What did you expect, Missi? That after the show you
and Mr. Ethics would shack up together in your condo
on Santa Muerta? Maybe he could use his stunt-
planning
skills—the ones he used so no one got hurt—to help you
kill people?

I shuddered in spite of the heat.
Forget Lex! Forget
him! Focus on Isaac, Monty and Jack. Think of tough
things
. I pictured scorpions, poison, laser sights, anything to take my mind off of Lex Danby.

At least Sami still liked me. And Moe and possibly the fake Dr. Andy. Hell, Isaac liked me, even if he had figured out I was sent to kill him. I didn’t know if that was the case or not, but it really didn’t matter.

I’m gonna harden my heart. I’m gonna swallow my
tears. Oooh, a little Pat Benatar should help
. Picturing the lyrics, I kept pressing farther north until the trail ended. I’d been gone about an hour. Now what? Should I go back?

Just as I was about to turn around, I thought I saw a flash of red. Jackson?
Maybe I should push on a bit
farther
. I turned in the direction where I’d spotted it and followed.

“Boys!” I called out. “Monty! Jackson!” I didn’t want to yell too loudly in case they were in jeopardy.

After about five minutes I spotted a clearing ahead. At the far end was a dilapidated shack. How cliché was that? I mean seriously? A ramshackle lean-to in the middle of nowhere?

Could the boys or Isaac be there? It was a little obvious, but I had to check it out. I carefully made my way around the perimeter, trying desperately to be silent, but my heart was pounding like tribal drums in anticipation.

The shack was only a few feet away. Rough-hewn planks spotted with holes where the wood had rotted away was all that stood between me and some answers. And through the holes, I could hear voices.

“Yeah, you boys almost had me.” I heard Isaac’s voice through the splintered wood. He laughed, and
my blood ran cold. “It’s a good thing I caught on, or this would’ve been bad for me.”

Oh shit. Isaac
was
the baddie. And I’d led my boys into a trap. There was no way I was winning Mother of the Year.

“As soon as I get out of here, I’ll make sure your mother is taken care of.”

I heard the boys mumbling. Obviously they were bound and gagged.

“And it’s a good thing you had these sandwiches on you or I’d have to resort to cannibalism,” Isaac stated, as if it were all a joke.

Damn, damn, damn! No one threatens my sons.

I hoped that Isaac’s monologue was distracting him as I slipped up to the door. Taking a deep breath, I flung the door open, jumping out of the way of potential gunfire.

“Mom?”

I leaned into the doorway. Isaac, Jack and Monty were sitting on the floor of the shack, eating turkey paninis.

“Mom!” Jack sprang from the floor into my arms and pulled me into the cabin. Monty closed the door.

“You’re…you’re okay?” I blinked. “All of you?” Well, this was a bit anticlimactic.

Monty cocked his head to the side—a motion he made when he thought I’d lost my mind. “Well, duh. What did you think?”

“I…I…I…,” was all I could manage.

Isaac stood up, grasping my shoulders in his hands. “It’s okay, Missi. We’re all right.”

The four of us looked at each other for a moment. They were safe. All three of them. No bad guys anywhere. I relaxed. And then I blew my stack, because I was an angry-lethal-assassin-chicken, or something like that.

“Oh my God! You guys scared the crap out of me!” I stabbed a finger toward Isaac. “And the police are looking for you! They think you’ve been kidnapped!”

Jackson put his hand over my mouth as Monty brought his finger to his lips and peered out of one of the knotholes.

“Your boys rescued me, Missi.” Isaac shrugged.

Monty gave the all-clear sign. Jackson flashed me a look that told me to shut up.

“Isaac is an officer from Interpol, Mom! Isn’t that cool?” Jack feigned fascination. Obviously, Isaac had no clue who the boys and I were (which was good), so they were pretending they’d never met anyone from that agency before. As if.

I narrowed my eyes at Isaac. “Is that so?”

He flipped out his wallet and handed it to me. Yup. It was real, all right. I’d made enough forgeries of these to know the real thing when I saw it. But what was going on? The Council would never ask me to take out an Interpol agent. We just didn’t kill the good guys. Maybe he was rogue?

“But I don’t understand. You said you rescued him?” I pointed at Isaac as if he were a fish or a plant.

“The guys from the show had him tied up on the seventeenth hole,” Monty explained. That was only
one hole away from where I’d found Sami. Either these guys weren’t very imaginative or they just got bored and left them next to each other.

Jackson, as usual, added his take. “We thought something was up.” He left out the fact that they knew Isaac had been taken as a challenge and was actually in no danger. My kids were good at playing dumb.

Isaac started. “Some guy was leading me into the jungle and I thought I was just doing what everyone else was. Then the moron ties me up and tells me the others have to find me or I’m off the show. Your boys came along and found me and brought me here.”

I looked around the shack. Crumpled and deflated bags and boxes that had once held a delirious array of junk food peppered the corners. On my left was the generator-run minifridge I’d invented for my workshop. On top of that was a
Playboy
magazine.

“You two have been living here?” I shrieked. “I thought you said you were staying at the Tigre!” All this time I thought I was the only liar. My kids trumped me! Not like it was the first time, but it still bit.

Monty shook his head. “We did have a room at the Tigre. But we also made up this place to hang out.”

My eyes widened as I looked around the seedy building. “You made this?”

Jack nodded proudly. “Yup. We found some scrap wood and put it all together using paper clips.”

“And my fridge?”

The boys looked at each other. “Well,” Monty said, “we needed someplace to put the pop.”

It took only two steps before I was able to yank open the door. If I found beer in there, they were going to suffer. Slamming the door shut and grateful that there were only two pop cans and a water bottle inside, my rage was still boiling.

“And that?” I pointed to the magazine. On the cover was a dazed-looking blonde, half-naked in a library. She looked as though she was about to say, “Oh! I didn’t see you there! It was getting hot in here so I had to remove a few articles of clothing. Is that all right?”

Isaac turned away to hide a grin. Men. Monty and Jack froze. I’m not a prude, but I don’t like that crap. It’s hard enough raising teenage boys. And I understand their curiosity about the female body. But the thing about these rags is that they don’t show real women. Blonde Librarian looked like she’d had everything done but her eyelashes. And we are not giggling idiots, either!

The boys hung their heads. “Sorry, Mom.”

For a moment, I debated the idea of letting them drown in an expletive-strewn stream of feminist dogma (swear jar be damned). But then I remembered that they had Isaac and we had to get him back to the resort to call off the search party.

“We’ll talk about this later,” I hissed through my teeth at my young. “We need to get Isaac back before they call out the Costa Rican national whatever.”

“That’s just it, Mom,” Jack protested. “He’s in hiding right now—since the kidnapping stunt.”

“That’s why we brought him here instead of returning him to you,” Monty answered as if Isaac were a missing lump of headcheese.

I spun around. “Why are you in hiding? Can’t we just go back?”

Isaac shook his head. “Not yet. I have to make sure you guys are safe. The man I’m dealing with is very dangerous. You could get hurt just by being with me.”

I held my breath to keep from laughing. Yeah, right. We needed protection from him. If Isaac had had a clue, he’d have realized the three of us Bombays were far deadlier.

“Why?” I asked.

“I’m on a case,” Isaac said using the typical vernacular these guys used on civilians. “One of the castaways is an international arms dealer.”

“What? Who?” Was he joking? Uh oh. The Bombays had the wrong guy! I almost killed the wrong guy! But who was the right guy?

At that instant, the door crashed open and in walked my friend Moe, carrying a submachine gun. Huh, Moe wasn’t really the washed-up loser he’d led us all to believe he was. I guess I’d really,
really
misjudged him.

Moe grinned, this time a sickly leer. “Thanks for the lead, Missi. I never would’ve found him if not for you.”

“You followed me? How?” How had I missed a three-hundred-pound man behind me? I had to work on my skills.

He reached over and plucked a ladybug off of my tote bag. At least I thought it was a bug.

“Tracked you. I knew you’d find him.”

Ah. The old ladybug-that-wasn’t-a-ladybug trick. How did I fall for that one? I make them to look like flies. Far more believable than a pansy ladybug.

Moe punched Isaac with the butt of his gun, causing him to double over. “I’ve been trying to lose this son of a bitch for two years.”

He turned the gun toward Isaac. “Tie him up,” he told me. Moe kicked a length of rope toward me. “Then tie up your brats.”

Well, that was just great. I hate it when someone throws rope at me and tells me to tie up my own sons. Isaac sat down in front of me, demonstrating compliance, and I tied his hands behind him. I was still in shock. Moe? Seriously?

Moe shoved Jackson toward me and Monty sat next to him. “Pretty clever—having your sons infiltrate the show. You probably could’ve won with a strategy like that.”

I said nothing as I tied first Jackson, then Monty, hoping my silence would encourage him to talk. Of course, he didn’t know I was using a special knot I’d invented when I was ten. It looked like a real nasty mess, but in truth it fell away when you pulled the left tail. Monty and Jack gave me the thumbs up behind their backs, indicating they knew what I’d done.

“I didn’t want you to get hurt, Missi,” Moe continued,
but not saying what I wanted him to. “I thought I could just lay low here for a while. Of course, if I knew this bastard was who he was from the beginning, I’d have killed him and moved on. Once my contacts at the Blanco Tigre told me he was Interpol, I put it all together.”

“Uh, if you knew someone was tailing you for two years, how come you didn’t know who he was?” Isaac asked. Maybe that was a tad impertinent.

Moe sneered and turned the gun on him. “I knew it was
someone
, dude—not you in particular. And I don’t have to explain myself to you!” Moe was starting to get a bit panicky.

“Don’t kill him,” I said slowly, stalling for time. “Just leave us here and run.” Then I almost laughed picturing a man as big as him running. I didn’t really expect him to take my advice. It was just something to say.

Moe shook his head. “Too late. I tried laying booby traps but nothing worked. That damned zip line was beautiful. I had the wrong team on the right line, but those are just details. And then you screwed it all up.”

“You are the saboteur?” I couldn’t believe it. Big, clumsy doofus Moe.

He paused and stared at me for a moment. “You thought I was a nobody, didn’t you?” He seemed surprised. “I must’ve done a good job fooling everyone.”

“No, I wasn’t fooled.” Yes, I was. He did a great job.

“It doesn’t matter anyway because now I have too
many witnesses.” Moe leveled the gun at my head. Nasty way to die—having your skull split by machine-gun fire. A bit overly dramatic if I do say so.

“Knock it off. Kill me but leave Missi and the boys alone.” Isaac was dead calm.