The Housewife Assassin's Relationship Survival Guide (21 page)

After what he just said about me having cottage cheese thighs, he’ll be lucky to get me out of that fluffy bathrobe. 

But then, I remember that naughty smile of Jack’s when he teases me, like now. 

And the way in which his pale, green eyes darken when he’s worried about me. Not to mention how great it will feel when his long, strong arms pull me close to his broad chest.

I can’t wait to feel his hungry kisses on the back of my neck, on my lips, my breasts.

 Just thinking about what will be waiting for me under Jack’s robe gives me all the motivation I need to get the hell out of here.

Not that he needs to know that. “You had me at prison,” I murmur instead. 

With a sigh, I hoist El Chihuahua over my back and totter out the door.

My hike down the steep, winding stairwell is accompanied by a duet of snores: the guard’s, and El Chihuahua’s. By the time we reach the fourth story platform, my back is aching. Hector is one hundred and thirty pounds of pure pain. 

And let’s not forget, he’s also naked. 
Ewwwwwww….

I push him up against the stucco wall. He slumps into a corner, but at least he’s still standing. Good. As long as he stays out of my way.

“Donna, remember, you’re just barely within the line of fire, and you’ve only got one shot. When you take it, be sure to lean over the edge as far as possible. I’ll site you on GPS.”

“Gotcha.” I fumble to take off my earrings. I loop one through the zip cord. Then I hook the other to the lip-gloss missile launcher, leaning over as far over the banister as I can, toward the side facing the water.

“More to the right,” Jack murmurs. “No, you’ve gone too far. Head left, just a bit… Perfect! Okay, now—”

A bullet whizzes past my nose.

Another one hits the stucco wall behind me. 

A third one pierces El Chihuahua in the thigh. He groans loudly and then rouses from his sleep with a long string of Spanish curses. 

My instinct is to put down the missile launcher and staunch the spurt of blood. 
We can’t lose our asset.

Jack’s shout sets me straight. “Donna, do it! 
Now!
” 

I press the button on the missile launcher. The zip line whistles as it flies out over the rocky beach below. 

The guard who has spotted us is shouting now. The other guards are either herding the prisoners out of the yard and back into their cells, or running in our direction. 

I lasso the zip line over a heavy wood beam above our heads, then clasp my open compact pulley on the zip line. All the while, El Chihuahua roars out in pain. “You bitch! You got me shot! My lawyer said this was going to be a smooth op—”

To shut him up, I elbow him in the gut. No pain, no gain, right?

As long as all the pain is his.

He doubles over, which makes it easier for me to wrap one end of my belt around my wrist, then the other around one of his, shove him over the side, and leap after him.

A spray of bullets race after us as we hurtle over the palm trees flanking the beach. With just a few seconds to go before we fall into the ocean, I yell, “Hold your breath, asshole!” 

His eyes get big as he shouts back! “
Ay, dios mio
! No! I—I can’t swim!”

Now
 he tells me.

We hit the water with the velocity of a cannonball. The sub is just thirty feet below the surface, close enough that we won’t get the bends. We would have popped back up if the pulley’s GPS system wasn’t honed in on the submarine’s outer chamber, which is set to close after us, draining water and filling with oxygen before the main cabin opens. 

What I haven’t counted on is that El Chihuahua would panic. He grabs me around the neck, as if I’m a flotation device. With my free hand, I try to fight him off, but the more I struggle, the tighter he holds onto me. 

My lungs feel as if they are about to burst.

A dark shadow circles us slowly. Proof that the Grim Reaper not only walks the Earth, but swims the oceans…

El Chihuahua feels it, too. I can tell because he lurches forward and his eyes pop wider, if that’s possible. His mouth widens with a silent scream. He’s thrashing frantically. The bubbles around us rise furiously, all pretty and pink—

With El Chihuahua’s blood. 

Apparently, his injured leg has attracted a shark. 

The crunch of bone against the great white’s bicuspids roars, like a sonic boom, through the murky water. Jaws and I are playing tug of war with Hector. I fight the urge to let go of him and save myself. The only thing that may save his life—and mine—is the speed in which we’re racing toward the sub.

I’m still holding onto him—really, to what is left of him—when I slam into the submarine’s antechamber. 

Pissed that his brunch has been rudely interrupted, the shark rams the sub again and again, rocking it from side to side. Gasping for air, I choke as I scream to Jack, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

When the engine kicks in, the sub pitches forward, and I flip over—

Onto what used to be Hector Negrón de la Moraga, which is now just a severed torso and bald head. His bulging eyes stare into mine, accusing me of fucking up royally.

Yep, he’s right.

Along with the salt water sieving through the antechamber’s drainpipe is the last of El Chihuahua’s blood, some of his entrails, and my vomit.

Chapter 18

What to Do When You Don’t Like His Friends

You’ve met the guys who hang with your new boyfriend, and you’re less than impressed. He may be your Han Solo, but his buds could pass for rejects from the Star Wars bar!

On one hand, you feel guilty passing judgment this way. Then again, maybe you have a reason to be concerned. If they’re losers, maybe he’s one, too. Here are a few telltale signs that he needs a classier set of friends:

1: They greet you by saying, “Hubba, hubba!”

2: When you reach out to shake the hand of one of his bros, you find it up your skirt.

3: Half of these dudes show up with bodyguards.

4: The other half show up with an ATF squad on their tail.

5: They never remember your name. Instead, they call you Chick, Chica, Babe, Doll, or Bitch.

6: Their way of saying “Thank you” is to burp.

Taken collectively, all of these idiosyncrasies indicate that your main squeeze needs a new entourage. Should he (a) balk, (b) bitchslap, or (c) laugh in your face when you suggest that he consider more refined company, take it as a very broad hint that he’s not your Mr. Right.

Then take his lowrider, ram it into the nearest ditch, and set it on fire. Doing so will be your subtle hint that you’ve moved on. 

“Well, I guess half an asset is better than none.” Count on Jack to look at the bright side. 

“Think so? Good. I’ll let you explain that to Ryan.” My teeth are still chattering. That’s to be expected, considering I was just a few seconds away from being a great white shark’s dessert course.  

I turn my back as I strip out of my wet clothes to the bikini underneath, not because I’m modest in front of Jack (he always admires the view), but because I can’t stand to see El Chihuahua glaring at me.

I know why Jack is wincing, and it has nothing to do with the jiggly bits he claims he sees, but because he dreads the thought of calling Ryan. “I guess the sooner we get it over with, the better.” 

He’s right. With or without Hector’s intel, we’ve got to figure out a way to find the Quorum’s safe house and break into it.

After setting our GPS coordinates and our speed on autopilot, Jack crouches down for a closer look at El Chihuahua. “There are some strange markings on this dude. Not the usual gangbanger tats. More like… I don’t know, calculus or something.”

I quit toweling my hair for a closer look. “You’re right. But it’s certainly a little more complicated than Mary’s eighth grade homework.” I follow one line of digits, which seem to run on forever but is connected with a plus sign to an equally crazy alphabet.

Could it be . . .? 

“Oh my God! Jack, this is some sort of code!” I circle El Chihuahua’s torso. “By the look of things, the guy’s whole body is a database!” 

 “If that’s the case, then I hope Jaws didn’t munch on what we need. Let’s show old Hector here to Arnie. He’ll know if these are ciphers—and if so, how to decode them.” Jack grabs his iPhone off the control board console and then goes in for a tight shot with the camera app, and takes pictures of what’s left of Hector. I’m surprised he doesn’t pass out, what with the sickening condition of Hector’s corpse. 

The way Hector’s eyes follow me makes me want to gag again.

I try to shake it off, but it’s hard to forget his shit-eating smirk as he tapped his head and boasted, “
It’s all up here…”

I grab Jack’s arm. “I think I know which one to decipher! When I asked him about the Quorum’s villa, he pointed here.” I shiver as I put my finger over Hector’s left ear. 

“That gives us a place to start.” Jack tosses me the iPhone. “But go ahead and take pictures of every inch of your friend. The more samples we supply Arnie, the easier it will be for him to break the cipher. In any event, it’s time I call Ryan.”

He’s given me the easier of the two tasks. 

I’ll thank him later, in a way I know he’ll appreciate.

First, I click off a few shots of the tattoo over Hector’s ear. Then I move the iPhone’s lens ever so slightly, to another section of Hector’s head.

Rest in peace, Hector. You smart ass.

Turns out you were certainly smarter than you looked.

As I snap away, Jack radios into Acme. In no time at all, Ryan’s gruff bark is echoing through the submarine. “How’s the party?”

“Bad news.” Jack pauses. “It got crashed. A shark ate our Chihuahua.”

Ryan’s curses would make a sailor cringe. When, finally, he calms down, Jack adds, “But we saved enough of him that I think we may still have a chance to save this operation. The guy seems to have written his life story on his bod. You’ll see what we mean. We’re transmitting now. Have Arnie take a look. Maybe he can make something out of it. Tell him to start with the first code we send, the one over Hector’s left ear. Donna thinks he indicated that it’s the magic number.”

He gives me the high sign. Within a few minutes, I’ve texted the .jpeg in question, followed by all the other tats, too. 

“If you’re right, it’s the nuttiest thing I’ve ever heard.” Despite the doubt we hear in his voice, the next thing we know, Ryan is shouting to Arnie to get on it. 

The line is silent for too long. Finally, Arnie’s jubilant shout confirms our suspicions. “Damn, this is awesome! My guess is that the computer will crack it within the hour.”

Jack’s lips graze my forehead with a congratulatory kiss.

For the first time since I saw that godforsaken island, I’m breathing easy.

 But not for long. The submarine’s engine lets loose with a bang and a wheeze—

Then silence.

Not good.

Only the emergency lights keep us from groping around in complete darkness.

I’m almost afraid to ask, but someone has to. “What the hell happened?”

Jack checks the life support data on the control console. “Looks like our battery died. We have, at the most, another thirty minutes of back-up power and oxygen.” 

Unfortunately, we’re still one-hundred-twenty-two nautical miles from Cabo.

Jack shakes his head. “We’ve got to capsize quickly, before this sardine can sinks like a stone.” He tosses the radio receiver and the iPad at me. “Radio Ryan. Tell him to send a helicopter for us. He can track our whereabouts with the iPad, via its GPS coordinates. When you’re done, put both in waterproof pouches along with our ops gear, while I inflate the portable DSRV. And as much as I’d personally prefer you in that bikini, I’m guessing you’d be more comfortable if you wore a wetsuit when we get topside.”

Thank goodness our sub is equipped with a Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle. 

Suddenly, I remember Hector. “But… what about him?”

Jack laughs and then gives me a swift kiss. “Sweetheart, this isn’t 
Weekend at Bernie’s
. We’re not dragging him along. If his tats are encoded, we’ve gotten what we came for.”

He’s right. Hector’s fate is a burial at sea.

 Not mine. Somewhere thirty feet above us is a piña colada with my name on it.

And a date with the Quorum.

After explaining the reality of our situation to Acme, I pack up our op gear and stow it securely inside the DSRV. Then I jump into a wetsuit and fit a scuba mask over my face.

When Jack gives me the high sign, I push the button to the sub’s exterior antechamber—

Nothing. Won’t open.

I pound on the button, then on the door. Nada. Zip.

I shrug. “Your turn.” 

Jack grabs a crowbar from the utility closet and tries to pry open the door of the antechamber. Granted, he’s six-foot two-inches of gumption, charm, and sinewy muscle, but even he’s not Superman, and it ain’t budging. 

My eyes scan the cabin. The only portion of the hull that is not made of reinforced fiberglass is the glass bubble at the top of the submarine.