The Housewife Assassin's Deadly Dossier (7 page)

“She refuses to have her baby until her husband comes back!” The nurse, Allison, was so embarrassed by what she was saying that she whispered it into the doctor’s ear.

He groaned. “Give me a break.”

“I’m serious!” She nodded toward the pregnant patient, whose moans were low, but constant. “Supposedly he went home for her overnight bag, but he hasn’t returned.”

The doctor sighed. “When the hell was that?”

He couldn’t see the nurse’s mouth because she had on her surgical mask, but the way it clung to her lips, it was obvious she was sucking in her breath—something she did whenever she had bad news. “He left four hours ago.”

“That’s ridiculous! For all we know, he’s hitting every bar between here and their house.” He rubbed the fatigue from the last six deliveries from his eyes. “Get her prepped.”

“No!” The patient shouted from across the room. “Not until…not until my Carl is here at my side!”
 

The doctor grabbed the clipboard from the hook at the bottom of the woman’s bed. According to Donna Stone’s chart, she had come in some time around three in the afternoon.

In fact, Allison had been the one to check them into the hospital’s labor-and-delivery floor. Mrs. Stone, big with child, was already breathing through her labor pains, just like they taught in all the Lamaze classes. Allison was surprised the husband wasn’t more anxious. To break the ice, she teased him about it.

“This one will be our third,” he assured her. “I know the drill.”

She chuckled with him, even as she patted Mrs. Stone’s sweaty palm. “Ah! Well, then, you’re old hands at this. Do you know yet if it’s a girl or a boy?”

“No. We want to be surprised.” He winked at her. “Besides they’re all little bundles of joy, aren’t they?”

Together they helped the patient onto the bed. As Allison strapped Donna’s arm to the blood pressure pump, Mr. Stone—Carl, as his wife called him—suddenly declared, “Honey, in the rush to get over here, I must have left your overnight bag at the house. Now that you’re checked in, I should go back and get it. Don’t worry, be back in no time.”

He’d kissed her—full on the lips; tenderly, fervently.

As if it might be the last one they’d ever share.

That’s when it hit Allison: Mr. Stone wasn’t coming back.

On the other hand, the baby would be here any moment now.

Although Donna was offered an epidural immediately, she refused to take it. Now that she was already dilated to nine centimeters, it was too late, despite the fact that she was convulsing from the pain.
 

Still, Carl was nowhere to be found.

“Your baby is coming, Donna! You have to be prepped for delivery,” Allison begged.

Donna’s eyes shadowed her shifting emotions—disappointment, anger, concern, and fear—

And finally, resignation.

“Okay,” she murmured. “For the baby’s sake.”

As Allison positioned Donna’s knees and pelvis, Donna grasped her hand and whispered, “For Carl not to be here, something must be terribly wrong.”

Allison smiled and forced herself to say, “Everything will be alright.”
 

Still, she couldn’t help but feel Donna Stone was right.

In the delivery room, pain trumps anger, but fear trumps pain.

Most importantly, faith trumps death.

The Stone child was in a frank breech and too far down the birth canal for a C-section to be performed. However, the doctor could still position the infant to be pulled out from the mother, depending on her level of distress.

The delivery team worked furiously to do just that. Throughout the process, they monitored the child’s and the mother’s heartbeats. But then, at the exact moment the infant girl emerged into the world—seven-twelve that evening—the mother’s blood pressure dropped precipitously.
 

Allison attended to the baby while the doctor and the other delivery nurses worked the crash cart until Donna was stabilized.

When she came to, she whispered, “Can I hold my baby?”

Allison tucked the infant into the crook of her arm. “It’s a girl.”

“Does Carl know?” Even as Donna Stone asked the question, the dread in her eyes showed she already knew the answer.

“I’ll wake you the moment he comes in,” Allison promised fervently. “In the meantime, you should try to sleep.”

Donna looked down at her baby. “Yes, all right.” Gently, she handed over the child. “Trisha is her name. He chose it.”

“It’s beautiful.” Allison smiled. “And she is, too.”
 

She put Trisha in the isolette, then administered a light sedative to the infant’s mother.
 

Donna’s eyelids fluttered as the drug took effect. Slumber came with a sigh.

After placing the child in the nursery, Allison ran to the emergency room. No one who matched Carl Stone's description had been admitted. A visit to the hospital morgue relieved her of her worst fear—that her premonition was right.

Still, he might be there. Maybe he took the elevator to the main floor, where the hospital’s chapel was located. It was worth checking.
 

The room held two rows of six benches. She always chose the side closest to the window. The light from a lamppost outside hit the stained glass windows, bathing the altar in front of the pews in a kaleidoscope of color. She fell to her knees and prayed—not just for the mother and the child, but for the father, too.
 

Solace surged over her, if only for a brief moment. Then it occurred to her that St. Orange was just one of fifty hospitals in the LA metro area—

Each with its own morgue.

She sighed. On her patient’s behalf, she’d spend the balance of her shift describing the tall, handsome man to morgue attendees all over Los Angeles in the hope that they, too, would relieve her of her fear.

She didn’t see the man in the chapel’s last pew until she was practically out the door. He was in his early fifties. What hair he had left was graying. There was a bulkiness to his frame.

He didn’t smile at her. Instead, he kept his eyes downcast, as if in prayer.
 

She wondered what news he’d heard to bring him there.

She said a little prayer for him, too.

Donna Stone slept through the night.

Since the husband, Carl, never came back, Allison saw no reason to wake her.

Because she was working a double shift, she was there when the patient awakened. She’d just gotten back to the nurses’ station after assisting with the delivery of twins when she saw an overnight bag under her desk. The tag on it was marked D STONE - MATERNITY.

A nursing assistant was sifting through patient files. Allison tapped her on the shoulder. “My God! How long has this been here?”
 

The woman shrugged. “It was there when I came on my shift, so at least since last night.”

Shaking her head, Allison grabbed it and hurried to Donna’s room.
 

She was surprised to see the man from the chapel sitting in one of the guest chairs. Donna was awake, but whatever the man said to her had her sobbing.
 

Allison handed the bag to her. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “It was left yesterday, at the front desk. I hope you didn’t miss it too badly.” She knew she sounded silly. It wasn’t the bag Donna wanted. It was her husband.

Donna opened the bag. Allison could see the head of a stuffed animal. It looked like a white teddy bear. Donna held it for a moment, brushing its fur with the palm of her hand before placing it in the perambulator beside her sleeping baby.

They were silent as Allison placed a pitcher of fresh water on Donna’s bed stand. Afterward she scurried out of the room, but since the door was left open, she could hear Donna’s reactions to the news he’d brought her—words and phrases such as, “...But my children should be able to mourn their father…” And, “Okay, Ryan. I’ll go along with your little charade…”

So, Carl Stone is dead
. Saddened, Allison bowed her head.

A few minutes later, the man left.

Allison noticed he had the teddy bear with him.

What followed—the new mother’s brokenhearted sobs—howls, really—brought both Allison and the nursing assistant into the room in a flash. Allison gave her patient a sedative and stayed at her side until she fell back asleep.

Donna grasped Allison’s hand and never let go.
 

When finally she untangled their entwined fingers, Donna murmured, “My life is one big lie.”

Chapter 4
Burn Notice

A covert operative who receives a burn notice is being told in not-so-polite terms that somehow he’s screwed up, and therefore his services are no longer needed.
 

So that there is no mistaking the meaning of this message, usually this notice is delivered with a bullet to the back of the head.
 

Last call made to Acme Agent #415’s (deceased) authorized cell phone, 6:43 pm:

“Carl, please pick up! This has got to be the sixth call I’ve made to you! The pains are coming every ninety seconds, and the nurse says it should be any moment now. (Soft crying) I don’t want to have our baby without you. Please, just—just call to say that you’re okay! That you’re…alive.”
 

—The caller, female, has been verified as that of Agent 415’s wife, Donna Stone.

She is also the caller on the six prior calls.

The slick, black Porsche Carrera pulled up to the Hot Wheels All-Nite Truck Stop sometime after sunset.

Neither of the women on duty had anything better to do than stare out at the driver as he unwound himself from the low-slung sports car.
 

“Dibs on Hottie,” murmured the café’s waitress, Jolene Caruthers.

The cook, Beth Patrick, shrugged. “Why? Do you really think he’ll actually come in here for a cup of that dishwater that passes for coffee?”

Jolene shrugged. Beth was probably right. In the one-hundred-and-nine-mile stretch between Palm Springs and the Arizona border, the odds were against him doing anything other than swiping his credit card on the high-octane pump and driving on down the road.

The man who emerged from the sports car stretched tall, as if he had all the time in the world. The lamppost hanging over the gas pumps shed enough light on him that it made it easy for the women to scrutinize him.