CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MARY JO WAS watching television when the expected two uniformed cops came to her door.
One was a woman cop who seemed to be almost in tears.
They told Mary Jo the news and she broke down as the two cops expected her to do.
They asked Mary Jo if there was anything they could do and Mary Jo told them she had a sister who would come over and stay with her. She didn’t, but the two cops bought it.
Then the woman cop hugged her harder and longer than was necessary and gave Mary Jo her card for anything she needed.
Mary Jo wondered if her good old husband had been getting a little of that on the side. He didn’t seem to be the type. But that had sure been a strange hug.
Mary Jo was about to go fix herself that long-overdue second Screwdriver after the two officers left when her alarm bells went off.
Instead, she went to her bedroom, all the while pretending to be distraught.
She quickly used a scanner she kept hidden in the back of her dresser drawer to check for audio and visual bugs in the house or surrounding neighborhood.
The woman officer had planted one all right, under the back collar of her blouse.
Audio only.
Not high grade.
There were no other bugs in the house or around the house or neighborhood.
No young rookie cop would do that, especially so quickly after the entire department was tossed into panic mode. Besides, there was no reason to suspect Mary Jo.
That girl worked for someone outside the department. More than likely the same idiot who had paid Mary Jo to kill her husband and would pay a second half as soon as she reported in to him.
And the stupid woman was a rookie at the job. Not a member of the order, that was for sure.
Mary Jo shook her head.
How the bastard had known it was her was a question she would deal with later.
For now the bastard who had hired her would pay a far higher sum. You didn’t try to double-cross Mary Jo. Not ever. The idiot who had hired her had no idea the order of assassins even existed.
So he thought Mary Jo would be easy to get rid of.
Keeping up the act of a distraught wife for the bug, she put on thin, clear gloves and took from what looked like a perfume bottle a small drop of fluid on a pad. She carefully wrapped the pad in a tiny bag and stuck it in her pocket. It was an odorless, untraceable poison that would kill anyone who touched it within five minutes.
She took off the glove and put it in her pocket as well.
She was about to call the young officer when there was a knock at her door.
She glanced at the security feed to see the face of Sam’s recently widowed wife.
She was a beautiful woman. Wow, just stunning.
But what the hell was she doing here at this point in time?
Mary Jo, making sure her tears were in place on her face, opened up the door.
The woman facing her was about Mary Jo’s size and so beautiful it took Mary Jo’s breath away. The woman had deep green eyes that seemed to see everything and a body that under other circumstances, Mary Jo wouldn’t have minded spending time exploring.
A lot of time, actually.
It took Mary Jo a moment to say to the woman, who was also crying, “I’m sorry, this is a bad time.”
The woman nodded. “I know. I just want to say how sorry I am for your loss.”
At that moment, the woman standing in the door put up a finger to her lips for Mary Jo to say nothing more, then held up a yellow legal pad against her chest for only Mary Jo to see.
On the pad it said:
I am being monitored. Audio only as far as I can tell. I assume you are as well. The young woman cop who gave us the news about our husbands planted the bug. I am also with the order.
Mary Jo felt stunned.
Completely stunned.
Clearly the jerk that had hired her had hired another assassin for the same target.
Mary Jo nodded as the other woman pointed to her collar, the same place the cop had planted the bug on Mary Jo.
“Thank you,” Mary Jo said, following along on the speaking script they clearly were both on now. “Can you come in for a moment?”
The woman nodded. “Only a moment.”
“I am sorry for your loss as well,” Mary Jo said as she closed the door. “It is horrid what has happened.”
The moment the door closed the other woman stopped actually crying and so did Mary Jo.
The woman said, “Thank you.” Her voice sounding like she was barely holding it together while her face clearly wasn’t following the part.
The woman turned the page on the notebook. There Mary Jo read:
My guess is we were both hired for the same target. Now clearly someone is trying to double-cross us both. Clear us both out of the picture.
Mary Jo nodded and said aloud, “Do you have family to come and help you?”
“I have a sister,” the other woman said. “By the way, my name is Jean.”
“I am Mary Jo,” Mary Jo said, taking the pad from Jean’s hand and the pen.
Mary Jo quickly wrote:
Discovered the bug. About to call the bitch who planted it and deal with her.
“I’m so sorry we had to meet like this,” Jean said, smiling at Mary Jo.
Mary Jo had a hunch she would come to love that smile.
“I am too,” Mary Jo said as Jean wrote on the pad:
Need help?
Mary Jo shook her head.
“Maybe through these trying times we can be of support to one another,” Jean said.
“Thank you,” Mary Jo said, taking back the pad. “I would like that.”
She wrote on the pad:
Got this. The little bitch cop will be dead in thirty minutes.
Jean nodded. “Good.”
It was clear to Mary Jo she meant both the seeing each other and taking care of the bug planter.
Jean took the pad back and wrote:
I will contact the order and tell them what happened. Ask how someone could track us…
“Thank you,” Mary Jo said, nodding.
Jean opened the door, leaving the pad of paper. Then with a smile at Mary Jo, Jean said, “We both have things we need to take care of.”
She indicated her collar and then turned to go down the sidewalk and back to her home.
Mary Jo just stood there for a moment, watching her go before closing the door.
So someone had hired two assassins to kill the same target. And then tried to double-cross both.
What an idiot.
The guy was going to pay and pay large. And pay them both.
But first Mary Jo had to take care of the immediate problem of the bug and the young cop who planted it.