The Hitwoman Hunts a Ghost (13 page)

I nodded weakly, offering her the semblance of a smile. All I wanted was the dog. I didn’t need a new friend.  I looked down at Ghost. “I’ll be back for you, fluffball.”

Baring his teeth, he snarled, “No chip.”

I led DeeDee out to the parking lot and had put her in the backseat of my car when Tara came out of the building. “Hey,” she called, “if you like my office, you’ll love my car.”

She hurried across the lot, waving for me to follow her. Since I didn’t have much choice, I did. She led me to a purple Volkswagen Bug.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Tara unlocked a door so I could peer inside.

I have to admit, that as the interior of cars go, hers was pretty spectacular. The seats were covered with lavender velvet and the dashboard had been painted with some sort of glitter paint that made everything sparkle.

“Cool,” I said appreciatively.

“And check this out,” she said, showing off the custom paint job on the rear bumper. A bunch of numbers, painted in the shape of flowering vines, covered the bumper. “It’s my phone number.”

I stared at it and at her SNGL GRL license plate. “Wow,” I murmured, thinking I’d never seen someone so eager to date... not even Loretta.

Tara thought I was in awe of her car. “Can’t say I don’t try to meet men, right?”

“Can’t say that,” I told her honestly.

“I gotta get back to work,” she said. “Nice meeting you, Maggie.”

She hurried back toward the building, leaving me to admire her car. I pretended to do that, when in reality I was scoping out the pound’s security system.

“Is the coast clear?” God asked.

“Yup.”

He wriggled out of my bra, hauled himself up on the strap, and perched on my shoulder. “She has her phone number on her car?”

“I guess she thinks it’s good advertising.”

“Advertising what?”

I pointed at her license plate.

“It doesn’t say anything,” the lizard complained.

“Seriously?”

“That is not a word.”

“It’s two words,” I told him.

“Two?”

“Single Gal.”

“That’s not what it says,” he argued.

“You are the world’s worst
Wheel of Fortune
fan,” I told him, heading to my car.

“There’s no reason to get nasty about it.” He sniffed.

Pulling him off my shoulder, I gently placed him on the dashboard of the car.

“Hungry,” DeeDee whined as I pulled on my seatbelt.

“I’ll get you something soon,” I promised her.

“Ghost doesn’t want to go with you,” the lizard said.

“I got that much on my own.”

A sharp rap on my side window startled us all. I gasped, the dog barked, and the lizard screamed, “Aaaaaah!”

I twisted in my seat to glare at the offending knocker.

She smiled back.

I barely suppressed a groan when I realized that the intruder was Candace.

“Hi,” she said, though her voice was muted by the window glass between us.

Grudgingly I got out of my car, leaving DeeDee and God behind. “Hi.”

“I see great minds think alike,” she said with such cheerful chipperness I wanted to smack her until her face turned as pink as the flowery top she wore.

Instead I said, “Come again?”

“The pound.” She waved her hand in the building’s general direction. “We both thought Ghost might end up here.”

“He did.”

“You’ve been inside?”

I nodded. “Yup. He’s there, but unless you can prove ownership, he won’t be released for ninety-six hours.”

A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You’re sure it’s him?”

“Pretty sure,” I replied.

“Maybe I can get some fake papers.” She pulled out her phone.

“Fake papers? For a dog?”

“He’s a very valuable dog.”

“So I’ve heard,” I muttered.

Candace, glancing up from scrolling through her phone’s directory, looked at me suspiciously. “What do you mean, you’ve heard?”

“They’ve got both you and me searching for him. He must be valuable to somebody.”

Satisfied with the answer, she nodded. “Let me see what I can do about the papers. I’ll be in touch.” Fiddling with her phone, she walked back to her car. A pink Mini Cooper.

I wondered if she too had velvet seats. It was more likely, I decided cattily, that her seats, like her shirts, were covered with flowers.

I watched her drive away before I got back into my car.

“Hungry,” DeeDee whined immediately.

“Do you think that was a good idea?” God asked. “Telling her where she can find Ghost?”

I shrugged as I started the engine. “I was told to find the dog. I was told to work with her. I did both, so I don’t see how there could be a problem.”

“Found Ghost DeeDee,” the dog barked from the back seat.

“Huh?”

“She says she’s the one who found Ghost,” God translated. “Aren’t you ever going to become fluent in mutt?”

“Thank you, DeeDee.” I reached back and pat her head as I drove down the street.

“This isn’t the way back to the B&B,” God announced haughtily.

“I know. I need to check out Ira Frankel’s address. Delveccio gave it to me.” I drove toward the ritzier end of town.

“And what are you going to do once you get there?” the lizard demanded to know.

I clenched my jaw, not liking his tone. “I don’t know.”

“Brilliant plan.”

Squeezing the steering wheel and trying to ignore how much his second-guessing bothered me, I told him, “I didn’t claim to have a plan. This trip is just recognizance. I need some info about the man besides he’s a crowbar-wielding-accountant with a penchant for ripping off mobsters.”

“I think—” God began.

“I don’t care what you think,” I shouted, my voice bouncing off the car’s windows.

“Angry Maggie,” DeeDee whined, hiding on the floor of the backseat.

“I’m not angry,” I said in a tone that confirmed how royally pissed off I really was.

“Liar,” DeeDee panted softly.

Called out by a grammatically-challenged dog, my shoulders sagged. “I’m not mad at you,” I amended, properly chastised.

“God mad?”

“No,” I assured her. “I’m not mad at God. I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Yell you not should.”

It took me a second to translate that one.

In the meantime, the lizard drawled, “The beast has a point.”

I took a deep breath, trying not to lose my temper again. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have yelled. I’m sorry.”

“Okay!” The Doberman leapt up and licked the back of my ear to let me know all was forgiven.

I pulled to a stop and jerked my chin in the direction of the building across the street. “That’s the house where Ira Frankel lives.”

“Gate. Security system. Won’t be easy to breach,” God remarked.

“I’ll figure something out.” Before he could get a chance to offer another unasked for opinion, I jumped out of the car. “I’m going to take a walk around and see what I can see.”

“Walk!” DeeDee yipped excitedly, then looked crestfallen when I left her behind.

“Don’t get caught!” God yelled, sounding an awful lot like he was spouting one of Patrick’s rules.

Doing my best to look nonchalant, I strolled around Ira Frankel’s abode. The lizard was right. It was going to be a difficult place to break into. Sticking my hands in my pockets, I stared at the alarm system control box outside the garage.

“Help you?” a male voice asked.

Startled, I jumped. Turning, I found that I was face-to-face with the balding accountant Delveccio had shown me in the newspaper picture. In the photograph Ira Frankel had appeared mild-mannered, but this close I could see in his eyes, hints of the murderer he kept disguised.

“Oh…um…hi,” I stuttered.

A quick visual sweep revealed the man was holding an ax.

An ax.

For a moment the idea that I could be killed by a real, honest to goodness, ax murderer tickled my morbid sense of humor and I couldn’t help but smile.

“What the hell are you doing?” Frankel asked, his voice full of swagger, his eyes filled with hate.

I replied with the first thing that popped into my mind, “Have you seen a little white dog?”

He blinked.

“He’s like ten pounds. Maybe this high off the ground,” I bent to indicate a spot a few inches below my knee.

“There’s no dogs allowed in this neighborhood,” Frankel snarled.

“Oh I know. I know,” I hurriedly assured him. “It’s just that mine got loose and…”

“What kind of game are you playing at?” Frankel asked, his gaze narrowed with suspicion.

Deciding that my bimbo act was the best defense, I stuck with it despite the fact the murderer had changed his grip on the ax handle. “My dog got loose and…”

From the car, DeeDee barked a loud warning, “Danger!”

Frankel’s gaze swiveled to her.

“Man bad,” DeeDee barked.

“That’s my other dog,” I explained. “You’d think if you had one dog, you could use it to track the other dog, but she has a cold.”

Frankel looked back at me. This time his expression just seemed annoyed, not ominous. “There’s no little dogs around. Now get that yapping mutt out of here.”

“Okay, but if you see my dog, could you call the dogcatcher?”

“Sure, lady. That’s exactly what I’ll do.”

I didn’t believe him for an instant, but it was as good a time as any to make myself scarce. “Quiet!” I yelled, hurrying back to the car. “Quiet.”

Sliding behind the steering wheel, I saw that Frankel was still watching me, but he’d rested the ax blade on the ground.

“Good girl,” I murmured under my breath. “That was great timing.”

“It was my idea,” God informed me huffily, displeased he wasn’t getting the credit he deserved.

I watched Frankel in my rearview mirror as I drove away.  Now my target had seen me and probably gotten my license plate number. “That was a bad idea, Maggie,” I muttered.

“I tried to tell you,” God said.

Thankfully, he didn’t say anymore as I drove across town, silently berating myself for my monumental screw-up.

“Hungry,” DeeDee reminded me.

“I know.” We rolled to a stop at a red light. I considered locking the doors since this wasn’t the nicest part of town, but I didn’t want to alarm the animals. “We just have to stop by Patrick’s for a minute and then I’ll take you home.”

“Templeton!” she barked excitedly.

“Not Templeton, Patrick,” I corrected.

“Templeton,” she insisted. “There Templeton.”

“She’s right,” God said. “Over there, by the Pawn Shop.”

I looked over just in time to see Templeton slinking through the pawn shop’s door. “What’s he doing here?”

“Probably pawning something,” God said. “Have you ever seen those shows? People try to pawn the most interesting things, some of them are utter garbage, but others are pieces of history.”

The car behind me honked. Realizing the light had turned green, I pulled forward, but immediately coasted to the side of the road, my tires hugging the curb.

“Doing what?” DeeDee asked.

“I’m wondering if he’s pawning a piece of my family history.” I adjusted my rearview mirror so that I could watch the shop’s entrance.

“You’re just going to wait for him to come out?” God asked.

“Yup.”

“Hungry,” DeeDee complained.

Reaching into the glove compartment of the car, I rummaged around blindly, straining to keep an eye on the mirror at the same time. Finally my fingers found what I was looking for. I pulled out a foil wrapped package, tore it open, and tossed a piece of its contents into the back seat.

“You can’t feed her that,” God’s outrage practically shook the car.

“She’s hungry.”

“Hungry,” the dog agreed.

I tossed her another piece.

“You’re feeding her potato chips. What if they make her sick? What if she vomits in the car?” God complained.

“What if I smother you with the greasy, salty package once she finishes the chips?” I asked, tossing the dog another.

The lizard fell silent.

The only sounds in the car as I watched that doorway intently were the occasional crinkle of the bag and chomping of DeeDee every time I tossed her a chip. When the bag was down to crumbs, I twisted in my seat to empty them onto the floor of the back seat so the dog could get at them.

“I’ve never seen anything so disgusting,” God groused.

“That’s how I feel when you eat crickets,” I told him.

As I turned back around, Templeton emerged from the shop. He’d gone in seemingly empty-handed and it appeared that was the way he left to. I watched him disappear from view before I reached for my door handle.

“What are you doing?” God asked, appalled.

“I’m going to see what he was doing in there.”

“You can’t leave us here. Not in this neighborhood. The car could be stolen with us in it.”

“Then I’d never have to listen to you again,” I snapped.

“Scary,” DeeDee said, siding with God.

“You’ll be fine, sweetie. I’ll lock the car and if anyone comes near just smile at them.”

“Another brilliant plan,” God muttered. “You do remember the last time you lost her was because you left her alone, don’t you?”

“But she won’t be alone. She’ll have you,” I replied with faux-sweetness.

“Fabulous. I’ve been relegated to the beast’s babysitter.”

“Five minutes,” I promised them, hopping out of the car. “I’ll be back in five minutes.” Locking the car, I hurried toward the pawn shop.

I hadn’t gone two steps when my cell phone buzzed. I glanced at the screen, didn’t recognize the number, and almost turned it off, but then I realized it might be Patrick calling from one of his burner phones. I answered, eager to share the good news that I’d found DeeDee.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Ms. Lee.

My happiness evaporated as I recognized Ms. Whitehat’s voice. If anything, her tone was icier than usual and a sense of foreboding made me feel a bit sick to my stomach. I stopped where I stood on the street.

“Okay?” DeeDee barked from inside the car.

Turning, I saw that both she and God had their faces pressed against the windows and were watching me intently. Waving them off, I turned away so I could give the conversation my full attention.