Kills Well with Others (Killers of a Certain Age #2)

Chapter Two

“Isn’t this where you toss things out of my suitcase and beg me not to go?” I asked, throwing a pair of boot-cut jeans into my mini-duffel.

“No,” Taverner answered calmly. He was propped against the headboard, eating an apricot and letting the juice drip through his fingers. The shutters were closed—it was too early in the spring to let in the sea breezes—but if they’d been open, I could have seen the broad blue spread of the Aegean rippling away below the cliffs. It would have been a hell of an inducement to stay, but the man in my bed was an even better one.

“You don’t seem upset that I’m leaving,” I said evenly.

“Because I’m not. You’ll go, you’ll do the job, and while you’re away, you’ll miss me.”

“I’m retired,” I reminded him. “This isn’t a job.”

I said it more for my benefit than his. I’d been summoned by the head of the organization we’d both worked for as long as either of us could remember. I had taken forcible retirement a few years before, but good training never dies. The summons hadn’t been much, just a thin, old-fashioned airmail envelope with no return address. Honestly, I hadn’t even known they still made those. I liked the jaunty little blue-and-red stripe around the edge. Inside was a postcard of Colonial Williamsburg with a scribble on the back— Wish you were here! N. Clipped to the postcard was a ticket on the next international flight out of Athens and a printout of a reservation from a cheap car rental at Dulles. They’d left it up to me to make my way to Athens. The ferry ran twice a day, and I had about twenty minutes before the morning boat left.

Taverner took another bite, chewing thoughtfully. “But you hope it’s a job.”

There was a silk blouse in my hands, and I kept folding, but my hands moved a little slower. “Maybe.”

I’d known his smiles for forty years. The one he gave me was gentle, pitying even. “Billie.”

I sighed and gave up folding, chucking the blouse into the bag after the jeans. “Fine. Maybe I miss it.”

“Maybe?” He laughed. “If you’d ever missed me half as much as you miss the job, we’d never have split up.”

“We split up because you married someone else.” I turned back to my packing, throwing a handful of underwear on top of the blouse.

He chose his next words carefully. The subject of his marriage was a minefield, suitable for tiptoes and whispers only. “I married her because I wanted things that you didn’t. That you still don’t.”

I opened my mouth to answer, but he shook his head. “Don’t. You’ll either say something you don’t mean or something I don’t want to hear. So, I’ll talk.” He paused and I shrugged, gesturing for him to go ahead. “You like this paradise you found for us. You like living with me. You might even love me. God knows I love you. But that isn’t enough, is it?”

“Taverner,” I began.

He held up his hand. “Shut up, Billie,” he said, but he was smiling. “You need more. It’s taken me four decades to understand it, but I do. I’m not enough for you. Oh, don’t worry, I don’t take it personally. I’m as close as you’ll ever find to what you want. And you’ll come back to me as long as I don’t try to make you stay. So, go.” He dropped his apricot pit into the ashtray on the bedside table and came to stand in front of me.

I put my arms around his neck. “You’re one in a million, Taverner.”

I spent a few minutes showing him my appreciation before he stepped back. He grabbed my bag and zipped it before holding it out to me. “Go on, then. Get out of here and go kill somebody. I’ll be waiting when you get back.”

—

Now, go kill somebody might not be a romantic phrase for most couples, but for us it was goddamned poetry. It meant he understood me. Of course, it helped we were in the same line of work. Both of us had been recruited—Taverner after a stint in Her Majesty’s Army, me out of college in Austin—to be professional assassins for an organization known as the Museum. Known to outsiders, that is. The real name isn’t important, and you wouldn’t recognize it if I told you. It’s better that way. The fewer people who know who we are and what we do, the safer for everyone. The Museum was born out of the ashes of World War II with a mission to track down Nazis who had escaped justice. If looted art managed to get recovered at the same time, it was a bonus. Hence the nickname. The organization had been created by the disaffected and the lost—former intelligence officers and resistance fighters left without uses for their very specific skills, one or two who’d worked with the Monuments Men to preserve the treasures of Western Europe, some tame psychopaths who liked the idea of killing and not going to jail for it. Every weirdo and misfit found a place at the Museum, hunting Nazis and looted art with equal enthusiasm.

After a few decades, there weren’t many Nazis left to hunt, so the Museum turned its efforts to drug smugglers, arms dealers, human traffickers—folks who needed killing, in other words. I’d been part of a group of four known as Project Sphinx, the first all-female squad in the Museum’s history. The other three, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie, were the closest thing I had to sisters. They annoyed the shit out of me, and I loved them enough to take a bullet for any of them—and I had.

In the few years since our last outing together, we’d drifted. We’d always been like that. Our first missions were conducted as a quartet with strict supervision. After we had proven ourselves, we were let off the leash a little to do jobs with other assassins and the occasional solo mission. Every so often, we’d be assigned a kill that required all four of us, and even if we hadn’t spoken since the last time, we picked up right where we left off. Not that there was ever much to tell on my end. I worked steadily at my cover job of translating textbooks and articles while Mary Alice toiled in accounts payable and spent her free time playing viola in an amateur chamber orchestra. Helen was a stay-at-home society wife in D.C. to a husband with a government job, and Natalie…well, Natalie was the wild card. Her cover was officially “art teacher” but she dabbled in performance art, a number of failed gallery shows, and the same number of ex-husbands. Together we had had a hell of a run, taking out bad guys all around the world, and when we found ourselves in the crosshairs, marked for termination instead of retirement, it was only by banding together that we survived. We’d lived and worked together for an intense few weeks while we sorted that situation out, and I think we all heaved a sigh of relief when it was time to go our separate ways for a while.

It had only been a couple of years since we’d said good-bye, but when I spotted Helen in the scrum at Dulles, I almost didn’t recognize her. She had gained twenty pounds and let her hair go completely white. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been struggling with widowhood and so skinny, I felt like she’d blow away if the wind came in hard. She looked more substantial now. She looked happy.

She came in for a hug and squeezed me tightly. “Let me look at you, Billie,” she said, stepping back to give me the once-over from head to toe. She wouldn’t find much changed. The head still had the same streaky dishwater blond hair with a handful more silver and the toes were still tucked inside scuffed cowboy boots. “You look good, kid.”

“I was thinking the same about you,” I said, nodding towards her snowy hair.

She smiled. “I’d been covering the grey for so long, I had no idea what color it actually was. Imagine my surprise when it grew out fully white.” She checked the vintage Cartier Tank watch on her wrist. “We have thirty minutes to wait until Mary Alice’s plane arrives and another ten after that for Natalie. Let’s have a drink.”

I expected her to lead me to the nearest airport pub. Instead she made a beeline for a shiny juice bar and ordered up something green and pulpy, taking a deep suck of her straw. She looked up to see me watching her and smiled, waving the cup. “Yes, I’ve given up cocktails. And wine. And entire bottles of straight gin. I am reformed now.”

“I’m glad. I bet your liver is too,” I said, taking a sip from my own cup. Something with strawberries and half a dozen other fruits—a few of which I’d never heard of. She didn’t say anything else, but I was happy she’d finally climbed on the wagon. Widowhood had walloped her hard, and she’d spent months in bed with a bottle of Bombay Sapphire for company. It had taken our retirement mission to shake her out of it, and it looked like the changes had stuck.

We talked about nothing in particular until Mary Alice showed up in a black jumpsuit topped with a buttonless coat in an abstract pattern of black and purple and taupe. Her hair was a little longer and the bifocals were new, but otherwise she was Mary Alice, curvy and blond with the kind of pouty lips that other women only got by injection. She’d always resembled a pinup, and now she looked like Marilyn Monroe if Marilyn had lived to her sixties and taken up knitting.

We hugged around and said all the usual things until Mary Alice spotted the airmail envelope sticking out of my tote bag. “I see we got the same briefing materials telling us absolutely nothing,” she said.

“Naomi plays her cards close to the vest,” I reminded her.

The pouty mouth thinned. “And she can keep them there. I only came because I wanted to make sure she’s not dragging us into some trouble.”

I wasn’t surprised Mary Alice was the least enthusiastic about this summoning. She had the most to lose, after all. She’d been the last of us to find true love, and when she had, it had knocked her sideways. She had proposed to Akiko on their second date, and they’d been married within six months. Their fifth wedding anniversary was coming up, and I tried to remember what the traditional gift was. Wood? Maybe I’d get them a cat scratching post.

I grinned. “How is Akiko?”

“At home, taking care of Kevin,” Mary Alice said. “And Gary.”

Helen sucked at her straw, making a slurping noise as she hit the bottom of her green sludge. “Gary?”

“Akiko decided Kevin needed a friend, so we adopted Gary. He’s a Scottish Fold. He weighs four pounds and Kevin is scared shitless of him.”

She whipped out her phone to show us her wallpaper. It was a picture of a stunning middle-aged woman with a sharp, asymmetrical black bob cuddling a small grey cat, its ears lying almost flat on its head like a beanie. He was fighting as if to make a getaway, his eyes rolling like a wild horse’s. Behind them stood Kevin, an enormous Norwegian Forest cat who was looking at the newcomer with pure hatred.

“They are struggling a little to bond, but aren’t they handsome boys?” Mary Alice asked.

Helen and I made all the right noises of admiration and Mary Alice tucked her phone away, pursing her lips. “Is Natalie here yet? I suppose she’s missed her plane.”

“She most certainly did not.”

We turned around to find Natalie, curls hanging halfway to her waist, wearing flared, striped pants and half a dozen fringed silk scarves. She threw her arms wide to hug us all.

“You look like a refugee from Cher’s Dark Lady era,” Mary Alice told her as she pulled back.

Natalie clucked her tongue and pinched a bit of fabric from Mary Alice’s jacket. “Something from the Chico’s permanent press collection for elderly travelers?”

“This is Talbots, you bitch,” Mary Alice began.

I held up my hand. “Not here. And not now,” I said. “And no bloodstains in the car either. It’s a rental.”

—

We collected our bags and made our way to the car with all the usual squabbles about who was going to sit where and what music we should play. Since I was driving, I decided both of those. I put Mary Alice in the front passenger seat where she was less likely to inflict injury on Natalie, and pulled up some vintage Linda Ronstadt for the playlist. I was just easing into the trip, tapping my fingers to “When Will I Be Loved,” and passing a semi on I-95 when Natalie piped up from the back seat.

“So, odds on what Naomi wants from us?”

“It can’t be good,” Mary Alice muttered.

I glanced over and saw she was slumped in her seat, watching nothing in particular. She and Natalie always scrapped, but they were off to a faster-than-usual start, and I had a pretty good idea why.

I caught Helen’s eye in the rearview mirror and she gave the tiniest of nods.

“Well, I have high hopes our pensions have finally been approved,” she said. Retirement benefits from the Museum included substantial pensions, but ours had been canceled when the Board of Directors had decided to kill us instead. Naomi, the acting director when the smoke cleared at the end of our retirement mission, had promised to reinstate them, but so far she’d been stonewalling. There had been a single payout—a generous one, if I’m honest—but nothing since.

Mary Alice snorted. “It’s been nothing but delays and excuses. There’s no reason to think they’ve suddenly decided to live up to their promises.”

“They’d better,” Natalie said, rummaging in her bag. “I need some capital. I’m going to open a new Etsy shop and I need some start-up money.”

“For what?” Mary Alice demanded.

“For these,” Natalie said, pulling out a crocheted pouch. It was striped in lurid shades of blue and orange and embellished with a pair of tiny white pom-poms.

“What is that, dear?” Helen asked.

“A dick warmer,” Natalie explained as she waggled her fingers through it. “There’s an extra pocket down here for the balls.”

“Ingenious,” Helen said kindly as she fingered the pom-poms.

“That is the most disturbing thing I have ever seen,” Mary Alice said.

“Really?” Natalie’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. “I once saw you put an ice pick in a woman’s eye and this is the most disturbing thing you have ever seen?”

“The woman in question was the highest-ranking member of the Nigerian mafia and had personally tortured her own brother to death,” Mary Alice pointed out. She gestured towards the penis warmer. “These atrocities will be perpetrated upon the innocent.”

“Now, see here, Mary Alice, I have had just about enough of—”

I would have reached out and turned up the radio until Linda’s voice was rattling the windows, but Helen was already taking charge.

“I have the briefing packet,” she announced. Helen has three voices—debutante, kindergarten teacher, and Girl Scout troop leader handing out demerits. This voice was the last one, and Natalie and Mary Alice knew better than to test her when she was in that particular mood. Helen went on, skimming the pages she had been sent. Her airmail envelope was thicker than mine, including a map of Colonial Williamsburg and a hotel confirmation. “Did anyone else think the travel arrangements were curious?” she asked.

“Coach seats,” Natalie said scornfully.

“They were Premium Economy,” Mary Alice corrected.

Natalie rolled her eyes skyward, but Helen carried on. “I meant the travel agency. The tickets were not issued through the Museum’s travel office. Although Nat is right—they weren’t first-class seats, which is odd, especially as Billie and I both flew in from Europe.”

One of the perks of working for the Museum was luxury travel unless it would have blown our cover stories. A group of nuns or broke grad students swilling champagne and snacking on caviar might have raised a few eyebrows. For those trips we packed granola into backpacks and slept on yoga mats, dreaming of the return travel when we would be handed martinis and monogrammed slippers. For all other trips it was strictly first class with all the bells and whistles. Chauffeured cars, corner suites, and concierges. It wasn’t a bad life.

“Furthermore,” Helen went on, “our accommodations are booked at—” She peered through her glasses at the tiny print. “Oh dear. A Best Western.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mary Alice muttered. “Do we at least have separate rooms?”

“Doubles,” Helen told her.

“And this rental is a compact,” I pointed out as I dodged around a semi. The trucker had a book propped on the steering wheel and was spooning up cereal out of a bowl as he drove. The last car the Museum had rented for me had been a Maybach. It was enough to make a girl cry.

“So what’s with all the penny-pinching?” Mary Alice asked. “Budget cutbacks?”

To my surprise, Natalie agreed with her. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Times are uncertain, and everybody is slicing budgets. Why should the Museum be exempt?”

The Museum running out of money was a sobering thought. It had been founded by people with means and a knack for turning what they had into a hell of a lot more. Nothing had ever been done cheaply. They hadn’t stinted on training or missions, and through it all they’d kept tabs on any significant threats to international security and humanitarian causes around the globe—extremely thorough and expensive tabs.

I had my own theory about why we were being summoned on the cheap, and I didn’t like it one bit. Nobody wants to be a bargain-basement killer.