Death Takes a Partner: A Mary Jo Assassin Novel Read online

  The poison wouldn’t last in the air like that for another thirty minutes and the gloves would dissolve in two hours.

  “Help!” Mary Jo shouted to the officers inside as she opened the door. “She just collapsed into my arms on the front steps.”

  Two cops ran to grab the young officer, then a third nodded to Mary Jo and offered his sincere condolences. Clearly the guy recognized her as the wife of the now-dead chief.

  Mary Jo broke into sobs, as scheduled for her part of this passion play.

  They let her sit in a back office and calm down before having an officer drive her home.

  Then, as she closed her front door, Mary Jo killed the bug on her blouse and made sure the rest of her house and the nearby houses were clean of all recording and electronic devices and cameras.

  Everything was clean.

  She dug out a burner phone from a fake bottom of her purse and dialed a number.

  “Yeah,” a voice on the other end said.

  “Target is dead. The remainder of my fee has tripled because of your attempt at a double-cross. If the money is not in the agreed-upon account by this time tomorrow afternoon, you know the consequences.”

  “You can’t threaten me,” the voice said.

  “I know where you live, where your children sleep, where your wife loves to eat sushi,” Mary Jo said, keeping her voice calm and low and slightly angry. “I am patient, invisible, and you hired me because I get the job done. The job you hired me to do is done. The price is now four times my fee. Please do not fail me.”

  Then she hung up, put the phone in a baggy and smashed it into tiny pieces.

  Then she put some bleach and a few drops of a special solution into the baggy, sealed it, and tossed it into the trashcan outside. The entire thing would be a puddle of goo in the bottom of the can in an hour.

  She then took a deep breath.

  Finally, it was time.

  She took out the pitcher of orange juice, a highball glass, and the vodka. She filled the glass with ice, added a good solid shot of vodka, then filled the rest of the glass with orange juice.

  Then she put everything away before sipping the wonderful drink.

  Perfect.

  Just perfect.

  Maybe, just maybe, a little later, she might just have one more.

  And after the funerals, maybe she and Jean might share a few drinks as well.

  After all, grieving widows could be forgiven a drink or two.

  PART FOUR

  Gaining a Partner

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WHEN JEAN SAW Mary Jo be dropped off at her home by an officer, she knew the young cop was dead. On the police scanners, the call for an ambulance for the police station had gone out at the point Mary Jo would have reached the police station.

  Jean smiled and took the bug from her collar and smashed it, then put it into a solution that would dissolve it within an hour.

  She then took out a burner phone that she had kept hidden in the kitchen, taped up underneath a lower cabinet shelf. She dialed the only number on the phone and when a man answered, she said simply.

  “Target is dead. I am not sure why you tried to double-cross me, but my fee for such action on your part has now doubled. I will expect it in the account shortly.”

  “You can’t threaten me,” the man said, his voice full of bluster with no real power behind it.

  “You obviously don’t know who exactly you hired,” Jean said, keeping her voice low and level. “My fee is now four times. I do not expect to be disappointed.”

  Jean clicked off the phone, put it in a very heavy plastic bag and then smashed it until it was dust. Then she poured the solution with the bug in it into the plastic bag, wrapped it all in an old rag, and dropped it in the bottom of her garbage can in her garage.

  In an hour the entire thing would be nothing more than a gooey mess inside the cloth.

  She laughed as she went back into the house. She had a hunch that Mary Jo had just called the same guy and said basically the same thing. The only issue was if they had been hired for the same target by two different clients.

  And, of course, she and Mary Jo both had an issue since the young cop had clearly known about both of them. So others might as well and know where they both lived.

  Precautions were in order.

  Jean went into her bedroom and into her secret stash behind her closet. There she took out a very special phone. She had never used the phone which had been handed to her four years ago for direct contact with the ancient order of assassins. The organization had no real name, never had.

  And in thousands of years, Jean had seldom had need to actually speak to anyone in the order.

  She checked to make sure there was no tracking on the phone, then hit the number four.

  A moment later a recorded voice said, “State your name.”

  Jean said simply, “Freyja Mist.”

  A moment later a human voice said simply, “May I be of service?”

  “Were two assassins hired for the same target in upstate New York just over a year ago?”

  “We keep no records. But such occurrences have happened throughout time. It would be possible.”

  “Understood,” Jean said. “Both assassins were then targeted by an amateur killer after the target was eliminated. How could such a thing happen? No contact with the client was made by either assassin.”

  Jean knew she was speaking for Mary Jo, but she had no doubt Mary Jo would have had no reason outside the normal channels to contact the client in any way.

  Silence greeted Jean’s question.

  Finally the voice asked simply, “Has the threat been eliminated?”

  “The immediate threat has, yes.”

  “The phone you hold will ring exactly twenty-four hours from this moment. I will have information for you at that point.”

  The phone went dead.

  Jean glanced at her watch, then put the phone away and closed the secret panel on her closet.

  That was done.

  She set all proximity alarms around the house, made sure she had weapons in various places throughout the house, then took a deep breath.

  “I need a drink.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MARY JO HATED everything to do with the funeral for her husband. The entire town was a mess, actually. Three detectives killed, another young cop drops dead, a writer murdered for no reason.

  Mary Jo hated the sitting and pretending to mourn, she hated the questions that the poor cops had to ask and kept apologizing for asking.

  And she really hated not being free to move around the way she wanted. This was always the worst part about killing a target you had made into a spouse.

  Finally, a week after the funerals, things seemed to be starting to calm down. But she didn’t drop her guard at all, since somehow some amateur killer had found out about her and Jean.

  She had no idea how that might have happened, but she would figure it out. Something she or Jean had done had let the client on to who they were and where they were.

  On the ninth day after the funeral, she decided she needed to get some answers. So just after ten in the morning, with a bottle of the Absolut Crystal vodka and a thermos of orange juice in a bag, she headed three houses up the block to Jean’s house.

  Jean answered the door after one knock, smiling and offering for her to come in.

  Mary Jo for an instant had trouble even moving. She had thought a lot about Jean over the last two weeks, but now, facing her, she was more beautiful than Mary Jo remembered.

  This morning Jean’s blonde hair was pulled back and her green eyes seemed to shine. She had on no make-up and wore a white blouse with a sports bra under it and jeans. She was also barefoot, something that Mary Jo did around her house as well.

  “I come bearing drinks,” Mary Jo said, patting her bag.

  “Ah, a neighbor after my own heart,” Jean said, leading the way through the entry and toward the modern kitchen beyond.

>   Actually Mary Jo wanted to say she was after Jean’s body, but instead said nothing and settled for watching the wonderful ass of the woman in front of her. She normally never looked at women’s asses, instead preferring eyes and smiles and hands. But for Jean, Mary Jo was making an exception.

  Mary Jo pulled out the bottle of vodka and the thermos of orange juice and set them on the counter.

  Mary Jo had left the vodka in its original container now that she didn’t need to hide it from her husband.

  “I see you have great taste in vodka,” Jean said, smiling.

  “You like screwdrivers?”

  Jean’s eyes lit up and then Jean laughed, a wonderful sound Mary Jo could come to enjoy. “My favorite drink. How did you know?”

  “My favorite as well,” Mary Jo said, laughing along with Jean.

  And what little bit of tension between the two eased as Jean got them tall tumblers and filled them with ice and Mary Jo poured their drinks.

  They took the drinks and went to the kitchen table and sat down, both sipping at the same time.

  “So,” Mary Jo said. “You have this house protected?”

  Jean nodded, taking a second sip. “Completely. No one can hear a word we say or get close enough to cause any damage.”

  “So who hired you?” Mary Jo asked. Then she went ahead and volunteered her client’s name. “Stanton Cobble the Third was mine.”

  Jean nodded. “Same jerk. And I bumped his final fee to four times the two million he owed me and he paid me only a million.”

  Mary Jo laughed. “I did the same and the guy only paid me a million as well.”

  Jean smiled as she took another sip from her drink. “Seems we have some fees to extract from a client.”

  “And teach him a lesson as well,” Mary Jo said. “But first we have to figure out how he found us.”

  “The phones we used to call him,” Jean said so easily that Mary Jo was surprised.

  Jean smiled. “I called the order and asked them if two of us had been hired for the same client.”

  “They don’t keep records so they wouldn’t know,” Mary Jo said, surprised that Jean had called the order. That wasn’t something she had done in the modern world.

  “I told them about our rookie assassin and they called me back with how the client would have found us. Seems he had someone trace the phones somehow to our homes.”

  “So more than one person knows about our involvement in the events of a few weeks ago?” Mary Jo asked. She wasn’t happy at all with the sounds of that.

  “The order says no,” Jean said. “They traced it all, so we are clear there, but I am taking no chances just in case.”

  “I agree,” Mary Jo said. “Very slow. Guard completely up.”

  “So next spring we think of moving on the client?” Jean asked.

  “Next spring,” Mary Jo said, nodding and smiling. “Give the bastard time to relax a little. And us time to make sure the order is right about only the one amateur.”

  “And to plan,” Jean said. “Sometimes that’s half the fun.”

  “I agree,” Mary Jo said, raising her glass. “And sure sorry about killing your husband?”

  Jean laughed. “Nice guy, dull in bed, and a mediocre writer. I was going to have to kill him when I moved on the target anyway, so I owe you one.”

  “Ouch,” Mary Jo said, laughing. “Nice, dull, and mediocre. I hope you didn’t put that on his tombstone.”

  Jean laughed again and Mary Jo just watched and listened and enjoyed. She hadn’t been looking forward to the winter, but having Jean so close was sure going to make it a lot more fun.

  PART FIVE

  A Winter Hot Tub

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  JEAN NEVER UNDERSTOOD why someone with money seemed to automatically think they could get away with anything, including murder. Granted, enough money bought a murder.

  And even more money bought her skills for the murder.

  But it never bought a double-cross.

  Over the thousands of years that she had been an assassin in the order, she had had clients who had not paid her after she finished a job. That client always paid dearly with his or her life and the lives of those that were treasured by the person doing the double-crossing.

  To Jean, a deal was a deal. Yet often people with money thought otherwise.

  So the idiot who had not only double-crossed her, but another assassin from the order at the same time, would pay dearly.

  In time.

  She and Mary Jo were very, very patient killers.

  And they both liked to plan.

  In fact, they loved to plan.

  So they settled into their homes for the winter, still both living the grieving-widow routines when out in public. By the time two months had passed since what she and Mary Jo laughingly called “The Event,” they were spending more and more time together. They hadn’t gone out into public at all together, and Jean had gone back to work after two weeks to keep up appearances.

  But six nights a week they had dinner together. Every other night Jean cooked, every other night Mary Jo cooked.

  Mary Jo could stir up pasta dishes that could make a person’s mouth water from a hundred paces. And Jean loved to cook with fish and chicken. Both of them, over the centuries, had learned the art of cooking and now they both had someone to appreciate their skills.

  And they could talk about where they learned what and not hide the fact of their ages and their experiences. To Jean, that was such a wonderful treat.

  Before, her life had been closed off, something to never be talked about. Now, she and Mary Jo both had thousands of years of experiences and learning to talk about with each other.

  And wonderful food to share.

  In fact, most of the purchases Jean had made in the last month were for better kitchen cookware.

  And Mary Jo had been doing the same.

  But what Jean had loved the most about the last two months was the flirting and staring into Mary Jo’s dark brown eyes. At times, when Mary Jo left, Jean had just wanted to stop her and kiss her. But as in murder, Jean was very patient in love as well.

  Frustrated, but patient.

  Just over two months after “The Event,” Mary Jo had gone into New York City to do their first scouting of Stanton Cobble and his life. When she returned on the late train just after eight, Jean met her at the station and drove her home.

  “Dinner at my place if you’re hungry?” Jean said as they left the station. She had hoped Mary Jo would be hungry, so had done some prep work on a special chicken dish Jean had learned a few hundred years back in Italy.

  “Famished,” Mary Jo said, easing her shoulders around.

  Jean could hear the cracking in Mary Jo’s back.

  Jean smiled. Long train rides stiffened up her muscles like that as well.

  “You sound like you could use a dip in the hot tub after that ride,” Jean said, trying to focus on driving and not think about seeing Mary Jo without clothes on.

  “That sounds heavenly,” Mary Jo said, smiling. “But dinner first. I got a lot to tell you about our idiot target.”

  “Dinner will be ready in forty-five minutes after we get home,” Jean said.

  Mary Jo sighed and nodded. “Thanks. That sounds wonderful. Gives me time to take a quick shower and change clothes.”

  Again, it took every ounce of training for Jean to keep her eyes on the road and her attention on her driving instead of imagining Mary Jo without clothes on.

  Somehow she managed to get them both home safely.

  Somehow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  AFTER A SHOWER and fresh clothes—jeans, a sports bra and a tan silk blouse—Mary Jo felt almost human again. The four-hour train ride from the city could take the energy out of anyone. She was in shape and exercised every day, but that trip still was draining, especially since she had caught the early morning train at five.

  She had only needed six hours in the city to get a sense of how good-o
ld-idiot Stanton was living. In just two months, he was clearly starting to relax his guard.

  And it seemed his wife never had been guarded. And his parents were open targets. Both Mary Jo and Jean had studied Stanton’s activities before moving north to do their hired job. Now the idiot hadn’t seemed to alter much of anything.

  He still met his mistress two afternoons a week, still had dinner at the same restaurants, still lived in the same penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park.

  But the key was going to be to get his money and disgrace him without actually killing him. Killing him, both Mary Jo and Jean had decided, would be too easy on him.

  He needed to suffer and suffer he would.

  They just didn’t know how yet.

  Jean had been a dream friend, getting up early and taking Mary Jo to the train station and then picking her up and offering dinner.

  And the idea of crawling into Jean’s hot tub after dinner had Mary Jo so distracted, she could hardly think. For two months now, Mary Jo had been flirting with Jean and loving every minute of it.

  And just about every night Mary Jo went to sleep in her own bed wishing Jean was beside her. It had been a very long time since Mary Jo had felt anything like this for another person. And she was enjoying it immensely.

  Maybe tonight, finally, they could take this budding relationship and friendship to the next level.

  She sure hoped so.

  When Mary Jo did her standard knock and then let herself into Jean’s comfortable living room, the fantastic smell hit her. Rich, thick garlic and oregano spice smell seemed to just thicken the air like a sweet sauce over thin pasta.

  “Wow, does that smell wonderful!” Mary Jo said, heading for the kitchen.

  “Thanks,” Jean said, turning from the stove and smiling at Mary Jo as she entered. “Fresh orange juice in the fridge.”

  Jean looked as heavenly as always tonight, with tight jeans, a green blouse with the sleeves rolled up, and a full dark apron tied in the back. Mary Jo just stared at her for a moment before heading to the fridge to pour them both a vodka and orange juice to go with their dinner.