The Hitwoman Hunts a Ghost (7 page)

Realizing she believed that the first time Patrick and I had met was when Paul Kowalski had tried to kill me and had stabbed my dog, I chose my words carefully. I couldn’t very well tell her that DeeDee (or Doomsday as she’d been called back then) had saved Patrick’s life, helping to drag him out of a burning house, where we’d gone to kill her master, a scummy, blackmailing hitman, Gary the Gun. “I hear what you’re saying, Aunt Loretta.”

She nodded her approval.

I fought the urge to cross my fingers behind my back as I remembered the way he kissed and touched me. “I’ll take it slow with him. I promise.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to be happy,” she hurried to assure me. “It’s just that I wouldn’t want to see you repeat the same mistakes I’ve made. There are no such things as knights in shining armor, who ride white steeds and take you to Happily Ever After.”

Hearing such cynical words from my always “in love” aunt was a shock.

“You’re responsible for your own happiness, Margaret,” she told me solemnly. “Never look to a man to give that to you.”

“Then why keep getting married?” I asked her.

She grinned, but I saw sadness shimmering in her eyes. “Because being happy alone isn’t a heck of a lot of fun.”

“You’re having problems with Templeton?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know why everyone thinks that. He’s fine. The problem is mine.”

“Can I help?”

“There’s the blind leading the blind,” God mocked.

I looked to Piss for support.

She licked her paw, squinting at me with her good eye. “He’s not wrong about everything.”

“I think your friend, Elana, is the only who one can help.”

“Armani,” I corrected automatically.

“Armani.”

“I don’t know if finding missing things is even in her repertoire,” I told my aunt, while at the same time I was thinking I’d been an idiot not to ask her for help finding Ghost.

But at least I had DeeDee lined up to help.

For whatever that was worth.…

As agreed, I met Candace downtown at eight in the morning. On Saturdays, the stores don’t open until ten, so the place had the deserted, spooky feel of a ghost town. My head had the distant pounding feeling of having left the house without caffeine consumption.

For once, I hadn’t started the day with “Gotta! Gotta!” being panted in my ear. I’d forgotten to set my alarm and had overslept since the dog hadn’t awakened me.

Instead, the cat kneaded my chest, so I woke up to her rumbling purr and her nails piercing my flesh.

I’d vowed then to just remember to set my damn clock since the animal alarm system always proved to be unpleasant.

Massaging the back of my neck, trying to ward off the impending headache, I waited for Candace at the predetermined corner. I wasn’t alone.

DeeDee lay at my feet, vigilant, convinced she was going to spot the missing dog. God, nestled between my breasts, complained about being dragged out at the early hour. I’d told him the only way he was going to get to see Katie today was if he came along on this dog-catching adventure.

He was there, but he was making it clear he wasn’t happy about it.

While we waited for Candace’s arrival, I called Armani and left her a message, explaining that Aunt Loretta needed her help and asking if there was any way she could stop by the B&B to give her a reading.

“You know that’s not going to end well,” God drawled as I disconnected the call.

“I know,” I sighed. “But what else am I supposed to do?”

Before he could reply, Candace, in a pink outfit with a matching beret, rounded the corner.

I would have griped; she looked even cuter, but she carried two cups of coffee from my favorite donut shop. Instead of making a catty comment about her clothes, I murmured a fervent prayer that she’d bestow some of the heavenly brew on me.

“I didn’t know how you take it,” she chirped cheerily, extending a cup to me. “I had them put cream in, and I have sugar in my pocket, I hope that’s okay.”

“Great”.” I tried to hide the trembling of my addict-hands as I took the drink from her. “Cream is good. I don’t take sugar.”

“Really?”

She sounded shocked. Flipping the sip hole open, I eyed her through the steam that emerged. “Really.”

“I couldn’t stomach it without sugar. Lots of it.”

I nodded, not surprised, that Miss Cute subsisted on sweet stuff.

“You brought your dog.”

“Can’t get anything past her,” God piped up from his hiding spot.

Candace’s eyes grew wide. “What was that?”

“My lizard,” I replied nonchalantly, like it’s perfectly normal to tote a reptile around in one’s bra.

Candace blinked rapidly, too stunned to even comment.

“I’m an animal lover,” I told her drily.

“More like torturer,” God groused.

Shaking her head, Candace turned away as though facing me was too much for her. “There was a Ghost sighting last night.”

“I love
Ghost Hunters
,” the lizard opined.

Poor Candace twitched a bit.

Bringing my cup to my lips, I pressed my forearms to my chest, lightly crushing my breasts.

“Sensitive skin!” God shrieked. “You giant, clumsy oaf.”

“Shut up,” I muttered.

“Excuse me?” Candace asked, looking back at me.

“Not you. I want God to shut up.”

Her eyes grew positively saucer-like. She backed up a step. Then another. “You think God’s talking to you?”

“He is.”

Candace glanced up and down the street furtively, perhaps looking for men in white coats who could snatch me up in an oversized butterfly net and take me to the nearest insane asylum.

I grit my teeth as a familiar surge of fear, followed quickly by anger, swelled inside me. My mother was the crazy one. Not me.

Not me.

“The lizard’s name is God,” I hurried to assure her. “It’s short for Godzilla.”

She nodded slowly, but still looked ready to flee from the unhinged lady at the slightest provocation.

Feeling guilty for freaking her out, heaven knows I’ve been freaked out by crazy people myself, I explained further, “He’s my niece’s pet, and once we’re done here, I’m going to the hospital to visit her. I thought maybe he’d cheer her up.”

Nodding slowly, she relaxed, as though sneaking a pet lizard into a hospital was perfectly normal behavior. Though I guess compared to talking to the actual God, it might be.

“So there was a Ghost sighting?”

“He got into some garbage, last night. Two blocks away.”

“Go let’s!” DeeDee declared, leaping to her feet and dragging me down the road.

If I’d had two hands to use on the leash, I might have stopped her, but since I wasn’t willing to relinquish my coffee, I followed docilely, like a sled behind a bunch of mushing Huskies.

“Where are you going?” Candace asked, running to keep up with us.

“Ghost find!” DeeDee barked excitedly.

“To find the dog.” Wasn’t that obvious?

“He was spotted in the other direction,” Candace said, jerking her thumb backward.

“Stop, you four-legged imbecile,” God roared. “You’re going the wrong way.”

Obediently, DeeDee skidded to a halt. I, on the other hand, did not, which meant I tripped over her. To her credit, Candace didn’t plow into me. She may have been cute, but she was also quick on her feet.

Once I’d regained my balance, I ordered, “Other way.”

DeeDee happily led the charge in the opposite direction.

Hustling to keep up, Candace asked breathlessly. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

I would have answered “no,” but at that moment, DeeDee woofed, “Dog!”

Sure enough, half a block away, a little white dog with a studded blue collar sat staring intently into the window of a shop.

Of course the moment DeeDee barked, any chance we had of sneaking up on the little guy evaporated because he turned, looked at us, and barked, “Away go!”

“That’s him,” Candace yelled excitedly, breaking into a run. “Ghost! Ghost!”

Since she was running, DeeDee decided it would be okay to race ahead too.

“No!” I shouted desperately, yelling at both my human and canine companions. “You’ll scare him.”

Neither listened to me.

“Chip no. Alone leave,” the little white dog yipped fearfully, before turning tail and running away as fast as he could.

“Back come!” DeeDee urged.

“Come back!” Candace shouted. “Come back, Ghost.”

“Stop!” I yelled again. My plea was ineffective.

Everyone, including me, because I was still hanging on to the dog’s leash, kept running, even though our target had disappeared from sight when he’d rounded a corner at the end of the street.

“You’re killing me!” God shouted. “Death by mammary glands!”

~#~

Needless to say, we never caught up with Ghost. We never even spotted him again despite the fact we spent another three hours looking.

Candace kept blaming herself for not being fast enough, God kept blaming DeeDee for frightening Ghost off, DeeDee kept blaming her cold for not being able to track the little dog.

Finally, we gave up and each went our separate ways. Candace went off to report our failure to Ms. Whitehat and I went off to the hospital to visit Katie.

When we got there, I let DeeDee out of the car and tied her to a tree at the very back of the lot. Before you go thinking that I’m cruel or something, let me specify that it was a cool, but not cold day, and I left her with both a bowl of water and a giant rawhide to chew on.

“Promise me you’ll stay here,” I ordered as I double-checked the knot in her leash.

“Promise.” At least that’s what I think she said. She’s difficult enough to understand in the best of circumstances, but when she’s slobbering over some dried animal flesh, she’s even worse.

“I can see the headline now,” God opined as I strode purposefully across the parking lot toward the hospital. “ASPCA called in for neglected dog.”

“Shut up,” I muttered. “If you hadn’t been so insistent about going to the pet store with me to find your new cage, I’d have had time to drop her off at the B&B before coming here.”

“It’s not a cage. It’s a dwelling. A domicile. A home.”

A guy walking to his car looked at me like I was a circus oddity as my chest squeaked repeatedly as I walked past him. Of course it wasn’t my chest that was emitting the high-pitched noises that only I knew were about his dwelling, domicile, home.

“It’s my sanctuary,” God declared.

“It’s a glass cage,” I muttered. “Now shut up before your noise catches the attention of hospital security and you get us kicked out of here.”

“It’s cold,” the lizard groused as I stepped into the air-conditioned building.

Ignoring him, I made my way to Katie’s room, but I couldn’t get in because a familiar muscle-bound knucklehead was lounging in the doorway, admiring his own bicep.

“You know what they say about men with oversized muscles, don’t you?” I asked Vinnie.

Delveccio’s idiot bodyguard narrowed his gaze as he frowned at me. “What?”

I had been going to make a crack about other body parts being undersized, but that was before I’d looked into his eyes. A murderous rage was rolling off him almost as strongly as his sickening cologne. Strange—the murderous rage, not the cologne. Not wanting to antagonize him, I said simply, “They pump more iron.”

Tilting his head, he regarded me thoughtfully, trying to find an insult in my words. Unable to, he agreed, “That’s true. You look like you could use some chocolate pudding.”

That’s code for his boss, the mobster, wanted to talk to me privately in the cafeteria.

Part of me wanted to protest since I was there to see Katie, but I didn’t think that was the best of ideas considering Vinnie’s mood, so I just shrugged my compliance. I continued down the corridor, hoping Delveccio wouldn’t ask me again if I’d seen Patrick.

The “alleged” mob boss sat at his usual table in the far corner of the hospital cafeteria, reading the newspaper. Even though the periodical hid his face, I knew it was him because of the giant diamond ring glinting on his pinky.

He lowered the paper when I slid into the seat opposite him.

“I know why our mutual friend hasn’t been in touch,” he said as way of greeting. Like his bodyguard, he looked royally pissed.

Trying to keep from panicking that he was angry with Patrick, I did my best to maintain a poker face. “Oh yeah?”

Folding the newspaper, he placed it on the table in front of me, jabbing at a photo centered on the page. Slowly, I lowered my gaze, not wanting to look at whatever he wanted me to see.

Patrick, holding some plaque and wearing a grimace that was supposed to pass for a smile, stared back at me.

“Hero cop,” Delveccio sneered, snatching up the paper before I could read the caption beneath the photograph. “Makes sense he’s keeping his distance considering the scrutiny he’s under.”

I let out a shaky sigh of relief.

“Of course that means he’s not available, so I’ve got to go to my second string.” He gave me a significant look.

“Me?” I squeaked nervously.

“Not ideal,” Delveccio told me, sounding displeased that he had to rely on me. “But I’m in a jam and I need this job done ASAP. Capiche?”

Swallowing hard, I nodded.

Picking up the newspaper, he rifled through it.

I stared at him worriedly. Did he expect me to just magically intuit who it was he wanted taken care of? I tried to figure out a polite way of asking.

Suddenly, he slammed the paper back down in front of me, rage burning in his eyes.

Startled, I leaned back, clapping my hand to my chest, as my heart practically leapt out of it.

“Ow!” God yelled.

I winced, realizing that I’d smashed my palm against him when Delveccio had scared me.

“What part of sensitive skin don’t you understand, you moronic biped?” God roared.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

It was the mobster’s turn to be alarmed. His eyes widened as he stared at my squeaking chest.

“It’s the lizard,” I hurriedly explained. “I was sneaking him in to see Katie.”