Old Wounds (Chance Assassin Book 4) Page 6

  Joe chuckled when I called him to let him know my new location. “Frank won,” he said.

  “Won what?”

  “The bet. I thought you'd tough it out for at least a night but I guess I underestimated your prissiness.”

  “Tough it out?” I scoffed. “I'm not prissy. I'll have you know it was overrun with Germans.”

  “Uh huh. Thanks to you I'm down a hundred euros.”

  “There should be a cancellation clause in case of German invasion.”

  “Our friend will prove useful. Just watch.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Wanna bet?”

  “Yeah, double it. Now behave and stick to the plan.”

  “Yes, sir.” I hung up and went to get some takeout kebabs near my hotel which were even better than the fish and chips but far less English, then I got the official you're-in-trouble phone call from Frank.

  “I put you in that hostel for a reason, Vincent,” Frank scolded.

  “You placed a bet!”

  “It was central, close to everything. Now you're in a shitty part of town.”

  “It's close to the cemetery,” I said meekly as I glanced out the hotel window from behind the dingy curtains, since Frank was bound to know more about which parts of town were shitty than I would. Judging by my surroundings it certainly wasn't Belgravia, but I was quite accustomed to shitty parts of town. Then again, I was also quite accustomed to being with Frank.

  Frank sighed, backing off a bit since we'd had our fair share of arguments about him treating me like a novice. “Just be careful, okay?”

  “Should I go somewhere else?”

  “No, it's fine. Try to limit how much walking around you do after dark. If necessary, take a cab back to your hotel.”

  “Okay, babe.” I got a warm fuzzy feeling over him making such an effort to let me be an adult, and for basically thanking me for saving his life again without so much as saying a word. Frank always had been the quiet type. “Did you used to live around here?”

  “I think so. I don't remember many specifics.”

  “Well don't worry. I'll be good.”

  “That'll be the day,” he muttered. “I'll see you soon, V.”

  “Au revoir.” I let the curtains fall back over the window. It wasn't dark yet. I'd be good later. Now it was time to go look for assassins.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The cemetery was basically empty, more of what appeared to be teenagers in search of a scare than mourners paying their respects. Definitely no assassins present, apart from yours truly. I ditched the flowers I'd brought since they made me stick out more than my obviously superior good looks, and went meandering through the rows of tombstones. At the time of her death, Frank's mother was using the alias Julie Herbault which she got from The Count of Monte Cristo. She used many aliases through the years, which was probably a good thing considering that Frank had inherited her love of fire and she had a habit of burning down their homes when they were evicted.

  I walked past her grave a few times once I found it. It was covered with overgrown grass that I couldn't do anything about while there was any possibility of being observed, but I did kick away the broken bottle some fucking asshole had left.

  Frank had visited my parents' graves back in Branford. He told them he'd take care of me. My promise to her was a bit more...direct. “I will mount our enemies' heads as trophies on our wall. Rest in peace. Mom.”

  Instead of returning to my hotel, since it was now officially dark and it wasn't a safe place to wander, I headed back where I was supposed to be staying and made a few passes through Alan's neighborhood. There was hardly anyone there either, much less anyone who resembled the masterpieces from our own personal sketch artist, but I was being good so I didn't break into Alan's flat in honor of my husband.

  Bella was out of the city scoping out where the Alcotts lived near Tunbridge Wells, and where Frank's father used to live in Waverley. I'd be going there tomorrow afternoon on a sightseeing bus. Joe was somewhere around now, lurking in case either of us needed him.

  Right now what I needed was a cure for my boredom. Where the hell were all the deadly assassins? Probably down at the pub.

  I didn't get carded which honestly made me a little sad, but I was by far the prettiest person in the room so I didn't need to completely drown my sorrows. I wasn't, however, the only blond.

  Out of curiosity I'd looked up Grace Alcott online, expecting some snobby rich bitch with the physical traits of generations of inbreeding. But my expectations were a bit biased since we were kinda enemies. She just looked normal. Definitely a high-class society girl, but one that worked at a nonprofit organization, more of a Princess Diana than Marie Antoinette. The apple had fallen far from the tree if even half the stuff about her was true.

  Seeing her in person all I could think was why the fuck a woman like that would go near a man like Henry Mortimer. Or how he got near her.

  Grace Alcott was with a group of friends, drinking, laughing, her engagement ring glittering on her finger in the dim lights. The ring was smaller than expected, but her fiance was listed online as a broker instead of baron or earl or whatever so maybe she was still slumming it. He wasn't present. Just the girls. Two with dark hair that could be sisters, a faux redhead, and one with a horse-face who I would've bet anything would be the maid of honor just to make the bride look that much better by comparison.

  I watched them for awhile, playing with my pint glass in the back of the pub with no intention of drinking it. I couldn't afford to get a headache from the alcohol right now, and besides, I was still on the lookout for murderers. Plus, cocktails were much more of my thing.

  Thinking like an assassin should've come naturally to me, all things considered, but rationalizing what they would do next and being one step ahead of them wasn't that easy when we weren't sure how much Simon knew or what step they were on. It all boiled down to what Frank would do versus what did they think Frank would do. Frank had never heard of Grace Alcott, so from my perspective there would be no point in having someone watch her in case he showed up. But did Simon know that? We couldn't even be reasonably sure how Simon knew Frank in the first place.

  And now my head was starting to hurt. I would've called it a night but it looked like Alcott was doing the same and any information we could use would be worth the effort, so I waited a few minutes and followed them. Three of the women went one direction and Alcott went the other with her horse-faced friend. They walked arm in arm.

  There was a guy a hundred feet or so away who could've passed for one of us, looking around but never quite at me. Then a girl ran up to greet him and they had an animated conversation that I imagined was her apologizing for being late. The only other people around were in groups.

  Alcott and the mare turned down a residential street and I hung back a little, stopping to retie my shoelace. I watched her pull keys out of her purse. She lived just a few blocks from Alan. I kept walking. No one followed me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bertrand dropped Sophie off in the morning, coming inside for a cup of coffee before going to work at Frank's bookshop. He only ever came inside when Vincent was away. Whether it had been from Sophie's vividly violent recollection of the events that took place following her kidnapping, or Bertrand just seeing the look on Vincent's face after he'd killed two people, the man was as unnerved by V as Maggie had been. How either of them looked past the always present murderous look on Frank's own face but saw angelic Vincent as a threat was beyond him.

  “Has she been sleeping any better?” Frank asked. Bertrand had come into their lives because of his daughter, it was only natural that most of their conversations were about her.

  “It is the same,” Bertrand said. The girl had a difficult time adjusting after Malkolm, as any civilian might, but instead of distancing herself from the very people associated with her nightmares she'd only increased her presence in their lives. A psychopath in the making, certainly, but she was their psychopath. “She is br
ave when she is awake. It is only at night that she is afraid.”

  “She'll get better.”

  Bertrand nodded. He'd also increased his presence in their lives, seeing them as his daughter's rescuers rather than the reason she was kidnapped in the first place. He took care of their dogs whenever they needed it, and even reburied what was left of Malkolm and company when the dogs dug them up. Kiki was sleeping in his lap now, this gentle giant of a man stroking Kiki's white fluff. “Should I pick her up this evening?”

  The plan was for Sophie to stay the night so the kids wouldn't get too antsy about Bella being gone, but Bertrand seemed to be under the impression that someone waking up screaming would disturb a household with an infant. “I'll drop her off tomorrow morning. Casey is going to an exhibition so we'll be in the city anyway.”

  “Merci beaucoup.” Bertrand handed Kiki to Frank as he stood and went to the library where his daughter was playing with Casey's to say goodbye. Frank waited until he was gone to go upstairs and bring out the guns.

  He remembered teaching Vincent to shoot, and promptly being shot by Vincent. Casey had already shot him, worse in every way. Frank shook his head. It had really come to this.

  “That's quite the cache,” Casey said from the doorway to Frank's bedroom, bouncing the fussing baby in his arms as he admired the weaponry Frank had set out on the bed.

  Frank added another from the nightstand. “Don't worry. They're all locked up where the kids can't get them.”

  Casey gave him a reproachful look. “Do you really think I'd ever believe otherwise?” He wouldn't, but Frank frequently wondered whether he should. “You're better with him than anyone.” Casey gave him the baby. “See?”

  The now silent child and Frank had bonded immediately, not solely because being named Frankie had done what years of correcting Bella couldn't: it had got her to stop calling Frank that. And regardless of the amount of screaming he did, Frank found him endlessly fascinating. He was innocence incarnate, a tiny little being completely defenseless against the world. Frank had killed countless men, watched the light leave their eyes, felt their final breath against his face, held their hearts as they ceased beating, and never had anyone fought so hard just to be alive as that baby. Everything he did was about survival, the screaming and sleeping and feeding. And he had Casey's smile.

  The smile Casey used to have.

  Cradling the baby's head, Frank pointed out the different guns, the multiple semi-automatics and the one revolver that they had specifically because Vincent liked the idea of having a “six-shooter.” He scooted a duffel bag over with his foot. “Put them in there.”

  “Any specific order, or...”

  “I'm partial to pyramids.”

  In his nervousness to pick them up, it took Casey longer than it should've to realize Frank was joking. He paused as he glanced at him, awkwardly holding the final gun in his hand above the precariously stacked pyramid. Casey huffed a laugh and set it down, zipping the bag and sitting on the bed. “You're such a brat when Vincent isn't around.”

  “Someone has to be. Let's go.”

  Frank made Casey carry the bag, handing the baby off to Sophie who promptly reclaimed the title of brat for herself and whined about not being allowed to come with them. “No target practice until you're seventeen,” Frank said, earning a nearly convincing murderous scowl. He had a cigarette lit before they'd even stepped off the porch.

  “Are you really going to teach her?” Casey asked as they walked through the woods, leaning forward to balance the weight of the duffel bag.

  “Someone has to. Better me than Bella.”

  They stopped at the same tree Casey had used, or rather, attempted to use as target practice before. Frank only knew it was this tree at all because Bella had carved an X in it to mark where Casey was supposed to hit, and the tree itself was completely devoid of bullet holes. Casey set down the bag with care even though it was heavy enough that he would've just as soon dropped it, and Frank took a deep drag from his cigarette before pulling out the first gun. Then he put the gun back and kept smoking instead. “It's not as if you'll have to shoot anyone.”

  “Jeez, I hope not.” Casey gave a tense laugh, plucking the cigarette from between Frank's lips and taking a drag himself. “I can barely stomach the thought of shooting that poor tree.”

  “Poor tree,” Frank mused, that simple statement making the entire situation feel less like a corruption of the virtuous than honest brotherly fun. He let Casey finish the cigarette as he showed him how to load the gun, and just as importantly, how to check that it was loaded. But when he went to hand it over, Casey didn't reach for it.

  “I never thought we'd actually be doing this.”

  “Believe me, kid, neither did I.”

  Accepting the gun, Casey quietly said, “I wanted to, you know. At first.”

  Frank hadn't thought Casey wanted to at all. He'd never shown any interest in it, or in any sort of violence after drawing his mother's boss exploding on a napkin the night they met. “Why's that?”

  Casey looked the gun over, holding it away from himself like he would a dirty diaper. “I idolized you.” He smiled at Frank. “Still do.”

  “But you didn't want me to teach you?”

  “Do you remember when I put that butterfly sticker on your gun?”

  Yes, he remembered. With a panic. “We had a serious discussion about that.”

  “You told me you hated guns.”

  Frank cocked his head. “That's why? Because I hate guns?”

  “They weren't quite so cool after that,” Casey admitted with a slight blush. He gave the gun back. “Can I watch you? I've never seen you shoot before.”

  Frank would normally be blushing himself at such attention, such admiration, but he was too distracted by the way Casey was looking at him to be self-conscious: like Casey was still the impressionable twelve-year-old whose only worry in the world was that his parents didn't get along. “Here. Put these on.” Frank gave Casey Vincent's noise canceling headphones. V would've brought them with him to London in case he got a migraine, but it was better to hear someone coming up behind him than have relief from the pain.

  Tucking his long hair behind his ears, Casey put the headphones on and took a few steps back, his eyes never leaving his big brother.

  Frank hadn't ever been one to show off, but by god he fired nearly every bullet they'd brought with them before letting Casey try his hand at it. He smiled smugly as Casey performed the coup de grâce on a rotting branch on the ground, since he really was concerned about that tree. Casey hadn't been able to shoot anything under Bella's instruction. At least not anything deliberately.

  But what Casey said next surprised Frank more than a bullet through his foot. “This is the first time you've really smiled around me since they died.”

  Busying himself with removing the empty clip, Frank maintained a neutral expression. It wasn't as if he were in the habit of smiling to begin with, but could Casey have a point? Was Casey just reacting to him, not still to their deaths? Instead, he just said, “I smile.”

  “Yeah, when you're not doing the whole everything-is-bad-I-want-to-kill-the-whole-world scowl you usually do.”

  A scoff of disbelief escaped him, which he covered up as a cough that called for another cigarette. “Not the whole world,” he muttered through smoke.

  “I'm okay.” Casey took a deep breath and sighed it out. “I...” Frank handed him the cigarette and Casey nodded appreciatively before continuing, “I'd be a hell of a lot worse if I didn't have you.” But would he be a hell of a lot better if he still had Maggie instead of Frank? Casey held out the cigarette but Frank didn't take it, and Casey didn't seem to notice. He went right back to smoking. “You and mom were never on the same wavelength, but I know you guys cared about each other. She would...she would rest easy knowing I was here with you. That the kids were here with you.” And instead of Casey's cheerfulness disappearing like smoke into the air as it had been with him, the opposi
te happened. In his melancholy he buoyed back up with laughter. “Can you imagine what Gideon would say to all this? He'd try to sue Simon for...I don't even know what.”

  Frank smirked, finally accepting the cigarette now that it was nearly to the filter. “He would.”

  “I'm gonna bring the drawings tomorrow when I see Alan. Maybe he'll recognize Simon.”

  “Maybe,” Frank agreed, although he had a gnawing feeling that as curious as he was, he didn't really want to know.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It wasn't exactly Downton Abbey like I'd pictured, but there were more rooms in the house than the hostel I wasn't staying at and it was museaumy enough to have its own little gift shop with guidebooks to other houses of the same ilk and some local goodies like jam and clotted cream, whatever the fuck that was. There were paintings on the walls along with the heads of forest animals, and a lovely staircase to fall down and break your neck. The tour guide was a little old woman who smelled like baby powder and wore glasses so thick they kept sliding down her face from the extra weight until she shoved them back up again and scrunched her red button nose, all the while telling the small, barely interested group how some rich, barely famous so and so had once spent the night.

  The house had been in the family longer than my home state had been a state, but Frank's father was the last one to live here, and even that was probably just to use the lovely staircase to rid himself of his conveniently wealthy wife. Like father, like sons. By then the house was already falling apart and Henry Sr did nothing to stop it, apart from keeping on a small staff to manage things and ensure it stayed in relatively livable condition. If it were up to me, which it really should've been considering that Frank was the heir apparent and I was his adequately spoiled spouse, I would've blasted the place into Stonehenge with my rocket launcher.