CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

 

 

MARY JO GOT to their new apartment just a minute before Jean did. They kissed and hugged and then both laughed.

Their apartment together was about ten blocks from Stanton’s lover’s nest and was also a penthouse, but it didn’t have a hot tub and they both missed that.

They spent the next hour on Jean’s computer, making sure all the money had moved correctly and was now impossible to trace and living in their accounts.

Mary Jo wasn’t even surprised at how much richer she and Jean both were now. It made no difference to her, since they hadn’t done this for the money. But it still pleased her.

In her world, money and death were staples of what she worked for.

And now she lived for Jean and for a good vodka and orange juice.

After dealing with the money, they both got dressed up and headed out for a wonderful night on the town. They had a perfect dinner followed by a little dancing at a local club and then some wonderful lovemaking after they got home.

And, there was vodka and orange juice involved all along the way.

The next morning, Mary Jo awoke smelling rich coffee and eggs.

She washed her face, put on her bathrobe and joined Jean in the kitchen.

The television was on low, but loud enough to hear.

“Anything happening in the world?” Mary Jo asked.

Jean came over and kissed her, poured her a cup of coffee, and then went back to fixing the eggs.

“The press is saying some rich businessman blew up his wife and his parents,” Jean said, “so he could escape with his bimbo. It wasn’t terrorists at all.”

“That’s good to know it wasn’t terrorists,” Mary Jo said. “Did they catch him?”

“They got him coming out of a love nest not far from here.”

“Perfect,” Mary Jo said, laughing. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man.”

“Got that right,” Jean said.

They ate and laughed and talked and Mary Jo knew that wonderful breakfast was the start of their new life together.

Then, two months later, on the anniversary of what they called The Event, when Mary Jo killed both Jean’s and her own husband, Mary Jo and Jean put a bid in on Stanton’s love nest. A bid so high, they knew they would get it.

After all, they were using Stanton’s own money.

Then at exactly three-ten in the afternoon, while standing on the sidewalk outside what they hoped would be their new condo, they used a burner phone to put in a call to Stanton where he was being held on suicide watch in a prison upstate.

Mary Jo had sent money through channels to make sure one of the guards gave Stanton a burner phone as well at exactly the right time.

And she gave the guard enough money also for after the phone call, to make Stanton hurt a little without killing him.

Mary Jo stood close to Jean against a stone wall of one building, holding the phone out on speaker so Jean could hear.

“Yes,” Stanton said.

The sound of Stanton’s voice just made Mary Jo shudder.

“You should have paid us the six million,” Mary Jo said.

Then she clicked off the phone and dropped it into a bag of bagels she had just bought. Then ten steps later she dropped the entire bag into a garbage can. She had rigged the phone to melt into a pool in two minutes after she used it.

Then the two of them walked hand-in-hand back toward their penthouse.

“Wow, that felt wonderful,” Jean said. “Just flat wonderful.”

Mary Jo had to agree. It did feel fantastic. Usually killing a target didn’t feel this good. But they hadn’t actually killed their target.

At least not in a way that would make it easy on him.

But they had made sure he knew who had done all this to him. And having him know felt perfect.

Three months later, she and Jean were looking over the empty condo and the recently cleaned hot tub of Stanton’s former love nest. They had just bought the place and the two of them were planning furniture and acting like excited schoolgirls getting ready for the first day of school, especially around the wonderful rooftop hot tub.

Mary Jo loved the city.

Mary Jo loved Jean.

And they both loved the condo.

And surprisingly also important, Mary Jo had realized that she loved vodka and orange juice even more when she had someone to enjoy it with.