The Housewife Assassin's Hostage Hosting Tips Read online

  Why, that son of a bitch.

  He’d been in Paris, and yet he told me he was in Chicago.

  None of this should surprise me. Still, Carl’s lies and betrayal sting after all these years.

  The report with the photo says, simply:

  Obtained via public security cameras, provide formal verification to Acme Agent J. Craig’s eye-witness report that Acme Agent C. Stone conducted unauthorized contact with the suspect, Russian FSB agent Tatyana Zakharov. –E. Honeycutt.

  Unauthorized contact? That’s putting it mildly.

  Well, at least now I understand what Jack meant when he said he has some unfinished business to take care of before he can walk away from Acme.

  Go for it, Jack. You have my full support, for as long as you need it.

  The final photo in the file is one that shows Tatyana as I last saw her: high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes the color of a bright cloudless sky, white blond hair, and dressed in her Versace widow’s weeds.

  Apparently, Arnie captured her via the morgue’s security webcam during my face-off with her. Knowing him, I presume he erased all video traces of both of us from the web feed.

  It is attached to a report that was filed by Jack. It is a surveillance map, studded with coordinates listing dates, times, addresses, routes, and descriptions of contacts made since she left Club Dread.

  There is also a video feed of her Club Dread stay.

  It ain’t pretty. Her initial torture, which was carried out by Abu, gave her orthodontic surgery without anesthesia–the most pain, leading to quick gain–if they don’t have a heart attack first.

  Several teeth later, she still hadn’t broken down. On the upside, she won’t be smiling for quite some time.

  Jack’s turn up to bat gives her a blood-striped back to go along with her jack-o-lantern grin. I wince with each slash of the cat-o-nine-tails. On the other hand, Tatyana seems to enjoy it. Why am I not surprised?

  However, when he hits her kidney with his fist, she coughs up blood. Thank goodness the video is soundless, so that I don’t have to hear his jeers and taunts, or her screams and pleas.

  I have to close my eyes when, with one twist, his pliers break the first bone in her pinky finger.

  I can read his lips: That one was for Donna.

  Not as romantic as the casket charm and bonbons, but it’s certainly comforting to know how far he’ll go to defend me. I’ll have to show my appreciation to him later tonight–only no S&M roleplaying.

  If he hadn’t let her go in order to track her, her latest accessory would be a nine-millimeter bullet, which she’d be wearing somewhere deep in the gray matter of her cerebral cortex.

  There are better fashion statements.

  I’ve got to face it. Honeypots are part of the business. I know this, firsthand. But as far as Jack is concerned, if she goes after me or anyone else he loves, he’ll treat her just like any other enemy.

  Talk about true love.

  Also in the report is a hyperlink of a map. When I click on it, I see that it is live, and in real time.

  The object being tracked is initialed TZ. By its coordinates, I pinpoint her location as Mosul, Iraq. If so, it means she is meeting with ISIL’s leaders.

  The Intelligence Community can’t decide which is the bigger terrorist threat to the United States, ISIL or Al Qaeda. But ISIL is certainly in the lead, what with impressive military tactical planning. Currently, it controls of half of Syria, two-thirds of Iraq, and enough of the rolling desert within Lebanon and Yemen to make the rest of the Middle East quake in fear.

  Worst of all, it’s got very deep pockets, thanks to the very lucrative resources located in the lands it now controls. The region’s oil fields gush out forty-thousand-barrels-each day–at least two million dollars.

  If you think any of it will go toward the care and feeding of the region’s eight million citizens, you truly are living in a fantasy world. This money is used to recruit those with a deep hatred of Western culture–a hate cultivated during a life spent in a country occupied by Western armies whose leaders care less about the blood spilled on the parched earth than about the oil flowing under it.

  Oil creates money. Money is power. Control the oil and you have the power.

  The big question: Is ISIL the threat facing my mission team at Acme?

  As I stare at the computer screen’s glow, I envision Tatyana’s smug smile. According to its coordinates, she’s been in the same location now for the past sixteen hours. That doesn’t seem right. If she was running a mission that takes place on U.S. soil, she’d be here, not there. Even if she’s only acting as a carrier or cutout, she’d be on the move within a few hours of touching base.

  I’ve just run after Emma in order to point this out when I hear the back door open.

  For the life of him, Arnie doesn’t know how to make a graceful entrance. Today his excuse is that his arms are filled with five bags of disposable diapers, which fall out of his arms in his attempt to juggle them while, at the same time, closing the door behind him.

  When he sees me, he does a double-take. “Donna! What are you doing here?” The guilty look on his face proves he knows that Jack never told me Emma was part of the team, and that he never clued her in to the fact that I wasn’t.

  “Having an impromptu lunch with Emma.” In a flash, I turn to block her laptop on the counter in front of me and I say brightly, “What are you doing home so soon?”

  “I’m using my lunch break as a diaper run. Before I left for work this morning, I noticed that Nicky was down to just one.” He attempts to hold up the boxes, only to have them tumble out of his arms again.

  “You’re a very thoughtful dad and father. Here, take this as a reward.” I move toward him, the other sandwich in hand. “It’s blackened salmon on focaccia, with an aioli sauce.”

  As I suspected, his eyes lock onto my offering like tractor beams. While he tears into it, I close the lid on Emma’s laptop, and head for the door. “You made it just in time. Emma is changing Nicky’s diaper, and I think it was the last one in the house. Please let her know it was great seeing her, but I have to run. I still have some grocery shopping to do. Feel free to eat my piece of cake too." I hold it up and watch his eyes water in anticipation.

  He’s still thanking me through a mouthful of fried green tomatoes as I sashay out the door.

  Chapter 7

  How to Stuff a Wild Canapé

  The most memorable thing about any party is its food! (That is, unless a dead body pops up.) A delicious tray of canapés is a must–especially if the ingredients are farm fresh and organic. A tried and true favorite:

  Wild Mushroom Caps Stuffed with Blue Cheese

  For these mouth-watering morsels, use sustainably farmed or foraged ingredients. Your guests will be begging for more (as opposed to for their lives).

  Ingredients: Onion, Wild Mushroom, and Crumbled Blue Cheese.

  Directions: Slice an onion, then grill it. After popping off the stems of the mushrooms, fill the cap with an onion round, then add crumbled blue cheese, and grill the mushrooms until they are soft.

  How do you know the mushrooms are wild? Why, you picked them yourself! How do you know they’re not poisonous? You don’t–

  Which is why you have the guest you like the least take the first bite.

  I’m making Jack’s favorite dessert: double fudge cherry brownies. When they come out of the oven, I’ll let them cool before forming them with a heart-shaped cookie cutter, then icing them with chocolate, whipped cream and a cherry on top.

  It’s the perfect act of contrition.

  Well, that and what we’ll do with the whipped cream later tonight.

  I’ve just placed the brownie pans in the oven when the doorbell rings.

  I open the door to find the mothers of Mary’s two closest friends standing on the front veranda–Babs Groves’ mom, Janine; and Wendy Sims’s mom, Loretta.

  Neither is smiling.

  Oh no–what has Mary done no
w?

  I do my best to keep my sunny side up. “Ladies, so good to see you. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Janine and Loretta exchange awkward glances before Janine takes the lead. “Donna, we wish this were just a social visit–Heaven knows, it’s been ages since we got together just to play catch-up. But the truth is that something is going on with Mary. We feel you should be aware of it before it gets out of hand.”

  “Please, come in.” I usher them over to the living room couch and take one of the facing chairs.

  Loretta hesitates before taking a seat, almost as if she’s afraid she’ll catch something. Instead, she perches at the very edge of it. “We might as well come to the point. Mary has been slipping off campus during lunchtime.”

  For anyone but seniors, doing so is strictly forbidden at Hilldale High. I sink further down into my chair. “But…the school would have called me about it!”

  “Wendy and Babs have been covering for her,” Loretta declares. “They sign her into the lunchroom, and buy a meal with her lunch card.”

  A cold chill runs through me. I rouse myself, only to stutter, “How did you find out?”

  “I overheard Wendy talking it over with Babs on her cell phone.” Loretta frowns. “Of course I was angry that they’d even cover for her once, let alone every day for more than two weeks–”

  “Two weeks! ...When you confronted them, did they say why?”

  “Apparently, she goes off with some boy,” Janine says quietly. “From what Babs has told me, he’s a couple of years older.”

  “But she’s not dating anyone–” Even as I say this, I realize how foolish it sounds. The looks Loretta and Janine exchange confirm my fear:

  If Mary hasn’t brought him home, it’s because she knows I wouldn’t approve of him.

  “What else do they know about him?” I ask.

  “He doesn’t go to Hilldale High. In fact, from what Wendy said, I don’t think Mary’s mystery date is in school at all.” Wendy’s right brow rises to her bangs. “I have to be honest with you, Donna. I’d never blame Mary–or you, for that matter–for your husband’s atrocities against our country. But Mary’s own indiscretions are making it hard for me to condone our daughters’ friendship.”

  Janine must find Loretta’s tone just as irritating as I do, because she frowns. Noting my tears, she takes my hand in hers. “Donna, the reason we’re here is because we care very much about Mary, and about you. My goodness, we’ve known you both since the girls met in second grade! We love and respect you, as we know you do us. That being said, if the shoe were on the other foot and you knew if our girls were going through a rough patch–well, we have no doubt you’d let us know, before it escalated into something regrettable.”

  Janine is right. In fact, last year when the girls began their freshman year, Babs caught the eye of a senior boy. His very jealous girlfriend made it her full-time job to encourage Wendy and Mary to break off their friendships with Babs. She almost succeeded.

  Mary came to her senses only after stumbling upon my teen diary. In it, I’d detailed my own experience with my school’s queen bee mean girl, CeeCee Connolly. It was an eerily similar situation. Her boyfriend, Bobby, showed me too much kindness. It didn’t help that I had a crush on him. It also didn’t help that, at the time, my mother was dying of cancer, and without my knowing it, she’d hired CeeCee to hang out with me.

  To quash my feelings toward him and his kindnesses in return, CeeCee ruined my reputation while burnishing her own–with my mother’s famous apple pie recipe.

  After college, CeeCee and Bobby got hitched. By the time CeeCee ran for Congress, she was going by her married name: Catherine Martin.

  When she ran for president, I was one of the Acme bodyguards charged with safeguarding her California whistle stops.

  But when Bobby–by then called Robert–decided Catherine’s political supporters had the wrong agenda for the country and decided to divorce her during the campaign, she had him murdered.

  Playing the grieving widow bought her the sympathy vote. But with the evidence secured by their teenage son, Evan, we were able to bring her to justice.

  Janine was grateful that Mary stood beside her daughter during that tough first year of high school. Since then, despite bone-wearying shifts as a registered nurse, this single mother has shown her appreciation with random acts of kindness toward Mary, me, and the rest of the Stone family. In fact, she was one of a few neighbors who knew better than to believe Penelope’s gossip when it was revealed that Jack wasn’t the real Carl Stone.

  Loretta rises–her way of signaling that the ball is now in my court. “Sorry I had to be so blunt, but we’ve got our own daughters’ reputations and futures to consider. We know you respect our motives.”

  I mean it when I tell them, “Thank you for your candor. I appreciate you coming straight to me about this.”

  Even before we reach the front door, Loretta gives me a peck on the cheek, but she strides quickly to her car.

  On the other hand, Janine stands there as if she doesn’t have a care in the world, except for me. Leaning in for a hug, she murmurs, “Your family has been through so much in the past year, what with the reemergence of Mary’s real father, and his recent death. Once you and Mary clear the air, you may want to consider family therapy. In fact, I could suggest someone. When Don and I went through our divorce, Babs, Don, and I saw Dr. Bonnie Ramsey.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate the referral.”

  Janine’s goodbye hug is warm and real.

  By the time I get back into the kitchen, the brownies are charred and hardened. I’m so angry that when I reach in to pull out the pans, I burn my pinky on the red-hot rack.

  Angrily, I dump the pans in the sink.

  After a good cry, I pull out the flour, chocolate, and cherries, and I start all over again. I’m not going to let this news about Mary’s antics ruin the rest of my day, let alone my night.

  And I pray that whatever she’s doing won’t ruin her life.

  Mary is scanning the carpool line for Jack’s Lamborghini. Her eyes widen with surprise when she spots my mommy mobile instead.

  “Oh! ...I thought Jack was picking me up today.” When she hops in and realizes that she’s the only passenger on the Donna School Express, her eyes narrow suspiciously. “You didn’t have to worry about me. I’m sure Wendy’s mom would have dropped me at the house.”

  I smile and nod. “It was no problem at all. Jeff has basketball practice. It’s Penelope’s turn to carpool. And Trisha went to ballet after school. I had errands to run out this way. You don’t mind taking a little detour with me, do you?”

  She purses her lips, but nods anyway.

  It’s a thirty-minute ride to our destination. The whole time, Mary’s declarations to my innocuous questions and polite asides are only either yes or no. To fill the void, she takes control of the car radio, clicking around from one rock station to another.

  I’m surprised that she doesn’t ask about our destination. Even more so, I’m disappointed that she is so oblivious of our route and her surroundings. Only when we turn onto the placid street in Santa Monica where we find the tiny cottage we owned prior to moving to Hilldale do her eyes register the memory.

  It’s the first time I’ve driven by since we moved to Hilldale, just before she turned eight. From the way in which she tears up, my guess is that she hasn’t seen it in some time either.

  Nor has she forgotten it. Instinctively, her eyes move to the window of the room that was once her bedroom.

  Ah, good times. Simpler times. Happy times.

  I park across the street, and turn off the engine.

  At first, neither of us says a word. Finally, she turns to face me. “Why are we here?”

  “Because it started here. At least, I presume it did.”

  She doesn’t say anything, but she knows what I mean:

  The beginning of the end of our happiness as a family.

  “Your father had just retur
ned from one of his business trips. While he was in the shower, I picked up his phone, by mistake. The man at the other end of the line spoke German. It was a language I’d never heard your father use, and it surprised me. By the time the man asked for someone named Peter, your father was out of the bathroom. He grabbed the phone out of my hand. He was angry.” The memory makes me wince. “No, in truth, he was terrified. It was a few weeks later that he suggested we look for a new home, in Hilldale. I presume he felt it would be safer for us.”

  “From his enemies,” she mutters.

  “Yes. I’ve no doubt he knew he’d have to leave us–to disappear. It was several years later that I joined his old firm, Acme. I did it to avenge his death. I did it because–because I felt we needed more than a panic room and a security system in a gated community to keep us safe. At the time, I hadn’t known what he’d become.”

  She nods slowly.

  “Mary, I’m leaving Acme. His death made it possible for me to put aside my concerns–my fears–that he can harm us, or break us apart as a family, physically or legally. I’m resigning because I want to be here for you and Jeff and Trisha–always.”

  There is no relief in Mary’s face, only wariness.

  I’ve got to make her understand that I’m doing what I can so that we can heal and move on, as a family. “I think you’re old enough to know this. Should you have other questions about your father or me, I will answer you truthfully.” I pause, then add, “In return, I’ll always want the truth from you too.”

  The blood goes out of her lips, as if stunned from an unexpected blow.

  “Mary, where do you go at lunchtime? Who’s the boy?”

  My openness isn’t enough to win her trust. I realize this when she slumps down into her seat and turns her head toward the window to avoid my eyes. “To the mall. He’s just...a guy.”

  “Tell me about him. In fact, I’d like to meet him.”

  She shrugs. “When the time is right.”

  “The time is right, now. Before…before you both do something you’ll regret.”