Authors: Julie Leto
“They had the main entrance guarded,” Marisela said to Frankie, her mind racing. How could an assassin get in to this party armed and then escape nearly unnoticed? Thanks to Frankie’s sensual diversion, she hadn’t had a good look at the mansion’s layout, but she had noticed high ceilings, wide-open foyers, and few odd-angled curves. Seemed an ideal place to protect. Big, but with mostly unhampered views inside the main areas. Of course, the place was probably loaded with secret passageways and hidden halls. Look at the staircase concealed behind the bandstand. How many other hidden nooks and crannies did Houghton House possess?
“The dome was the perfect hiding place for a shooter. Security sucked,” Frankie assessed, inducing the ire of the cop still holding a gun on him.
Thanks to Frankie’s outspoken remark, checking out their story took twice as long, but when the police decided that finding the shooter was more important than harassing two private investigators, they took quick statements, recorded their contact information, and then told them to get lost. One officer immediately dashed down the stairs. The other remained behind, protecting the area Marisela pointed out as the shooter’s perch.
Marisela pulled Frankie around the opposite side of the circular balcony, where the cop wouldn’t hear them.
“Why didn’t you give him the casing?”
Frankie grinned and shrugged. “Cooperating with badges ain’t my deal no more.”
Marisela smirked. For years while in prison, Frankie had survived twenty-three-hour days behind bars by working as an informant during the one hour he was in the yard. He’d never ratted out his home-boys, but specialized in putting a crimp in the foreign-run drug trade. And while his service had shaved a few years off his sentence, he tended to look back on his time as a mole with disdain, probably because his dirty deal with the DEA had led him straight to Titan and Ian Blake.
“Let’s find the shooter ourselves,” Frankie offered.
“Our gig is just to watch the jewels,” Marisela pointed out.
Frankie tossed the casing into the air like a coin he intended to flip. “No harm in us taking a look around. Maybe if we catch the shooter, Blake’ll give us a raise.”
Marisela rolled her eyes. “Bored a little?”
Frankie’s grin was pure sin. “Not now that you’re back,
vidita
. Where do we start?”
Marisela took a quick look around. “Where does the main staircase lead?” she asked, pointing to where the officers had disappeared.
“Down to the main entry hall. Two doors lead into that hall. Both had two guards at each site. The cop at the foot of the stairs was just backup. No way the shooter got in through there.”
Marisela nodded. “Then there’s another secret entrance up here. Like the one we took. Could the shooter have used—”
“No,” he interrupted. “The secret staircase wasn’t on any of the blueprints. I found it by accident earlier when I was checking things out. I’d been using it all night to get a bird’s-eye view”
“Couldn’t someone have seen you use it?”
He looked offended. “The cops were sweeping the balcony every fifteen minutes. I was timing myself around them. No way anyone got past me.”
Marisela walked along the balcony, running her hands along the wall panels that encircled the inner part of the dome. On her second pass, she started to count. Belinda would be so proud of her. Her math-whiz little sister was forever preaching to Marisela about the virtues of using numbers to solve all her problems. Unfortunately, most of the time, Marisela needed a calculator to figure out a twenty-percent tip. But something about being surrounded by curves in the circular balcony sparked an idea. She counted the panels between the main stairwell and the secret staircase she and Frankie used to ascend to their private rendezvous.
The numbers didn’t add up. On the left side, where they stood, there were too many panels.
“Damn, where’s Belinda when I need her?” she said in a whispered hiss.
“¿Tu hermanita?”
Frankie asked, clearly surprised. Marisela didn’t talk about Belinda much. Mostly never.
“There are twenty-three panels between the main staircase and the one we used. And forty-six…”
As she spoke, the problem’s solution popped into her brain. So simple. She counted twenty-three panels from the main stairwell in the opposite direction of the secret staircase and stopped. She stretched up and smoothed her fingers into the grooves around the wood. She pressed on the left side. Then on the right. A spring released the panel, revealing another private staircase.
“
Madre de Dios
,” Frankie said.
Marisela shushed him, but inside did a mental salsa step. “Come on.”
She could feel Frankie venturing away from her, exploring the darkness beyond the panel, which she closed so the cops wouldn’t follow. After a few seconds, their eyes and ears adjusted. Light glimmered from below. In the faint distance, they could hear footsteps moving downward.
Frankie grabbed her hand. “This way.”
Marisela followed, wondering how the hell she was supposed to walk quietly down creaky wooden steps in stiletto heels, but did her best to balance on the balls of her feet. She gathered the bulk of her skirt over her arm, preferring not to rip the damned thing to shreds chasing an assassin she hadn’t even been hired to find. But she couldn’t deny the rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins. This was the stuff that had led her to Titan in the first place. The thrills. The excitement. The risk.
At the bottom of the stairs, a partly opened panel led into a short, narrow service hall. Not too far in the distance, pots and pans clattered, steam and grease sizzled, and raucous conversations in rapid-fire Spanish rent the air. Marisela moved quietly toward the door and listened.
What did she have in that bag? How much did she give you to stay quiet?
Whoever had just sneaked through the kitchen had the tongues of the staff wagging.
“Frankie,” Marisela whispered. “She went through here.”
“She?”
“According to the kitchen staff, yeah.”
“Let’s follow her,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
Marisela barred her arm across the door. “I’ll follow her through here. You double back and get outside. Cut her off.”
Frankie narrowed his eyes and she blew out a frustrated breath. He didn’t want to miss all the fun. Well, hell. Neither did she.
He turned back toward the stairwell. “Watch your step and where you wag that thing,” he said, gesturing to her gun.
As if she needed Frankie Vega to give her advice on weapons. Marisela reholstered her LadySmith and slipped through the door into the small kitchen. Chatter came to an abrupt halt and serving spoons dropped in a clatter against the steam tables. Marisela pasted on her best smile and started talking in Spanish.
“I’m looking for my friend,” she explained, thinking as quickly as she could. “She came through here, carrying a bag.”
Six men and women with dark skin and frightened eyes all exchanged furtive glances. They’d clearly been instructed not to talk.
“
Por favor
, I have something she needs. She could be…hurt,” Marisela said, eyeing the door behind her, implying people were after her—and the woman the kitchen staff was oddly protecting.
The confused and clearly torn group remained silent, forcing Marisela to count to ten in order to hold her anger in check. She continued to implore them with her eyes and a pathetic smile, repeating in her mind, Patience, Marisela. Wait for it. They’ll trust you. Give them just a few more…
“
Sí, sí
,” a man dressed in a white chef’s uniform finally answered, grinning broadly, if not guiltily. “Through there.”
Marisela smiled and took off, hoping like hell they hadn’t led her on a wild-goose chase.
* * *
The Houghton House grounds were well lit, glowing with more land, statuary, topiary, and reflective pools than one mansion just minutes from the center of bustling Boston had a right to. In the distance, Marisela could hear the scream of ambulances and twice she saw police dashing through the line of limousines parked along the stone drive far to the west of her, forcing open doors and searching for the shooter.
She and Frankie should back off, she supposed. She hadn’t been hired to protect the congressman. But she’d been so close to the shooter when the hit went down. Maybe she would have noticed the threat sooner if she hadn’t been more concerned with her own sexual pleasure than with keeping her eyes and ears open.
Movement to the east of the main house caught her eye. Shadowed movement. If the shooter was hiding in the cars or along the drive, then the cops and security guards would find her. But no one that she could see was moving in this direction, likely because the manpower hadn’t yet been deployed. Wouldn’t hurt for her to explore a little.
She entered a garden with tall hedges on either side. Only after she was a few steps in did she realize the bushes were shaped into a maze. She stepped back out. She wasn’t screwing around with that shit. Making her way around the outer perimeter, she caught sight of a shadowy figure slipping under the portico.
Just up the brick stairs, inside the tall, beveled-glass doors, the invitees to the masquerade soiree were milling around, sucking down cocktails as fast as the waiters could serve them and talking in hushed, horrified tones.
The closest door was slightly ajar.
A nice touch.
Make them think she went back inside. Engage the next few hours in interviewing each and every attendee while the real assassin makes her escape.
Muy engañosa
.
But the shooter wasn’t the only sneaky female in the house. Marisela bounded up the steps, slammed the door, then hid behind a large urn.
Only a few heartbeats later, Marisela heard fabric rustling on the grass. A second later, a tall, statuesque form folded out of the darkness, looked left, then right, and then dashed toward the sculpted bushes. Marisela took a deep breath and launched herself over the porch railing.
She landed with a thud and a grunt, the wind rushing from her lungs. Marisela snatched and clawed until she had handfuls of the shooter’s slim knit dress in her grasp. The shooter fought back, jamming sharp nails in between the bone and sinew at Marisela’s wrist.
With a scream, Marisela released her. After taking a split second to regain her equilibrium, she rolled on the ground, landing directly behind the assassin, who stumbled only a few feet away.
With a vicious yank, Marisela tore the flouncy skirt off her own gown, kicked off her
tacones
, assumed a fighting stance and shouted for the woman to stop.
Surprisingly, she did.
The shooter turned slowly, oozing confidence. Elegant in a sleek, full-faced white mask and a soft-black gown that hid the identifiable features of her body, she straightened first, then matched Marisela’s crouch.
“Something you want?” the woman asked.
Her Spanish was perfect. Crisp, but chic.
“Just admiring your dress. Did you get that from the set of a horror movie?”
The woman made a sweeping gesture, showing off the dramatic neckline that curved stiffly behind her head. Maybe she didn’t realize that Halloween was over a month away. But the choice was clever, since the accessory made her height hard to judge. The bodice was fitted, but the skirt and sleeves flared, making it nearly impossible for Marisela to tell if she’d challenged someone thick, skinny, or even bottom heavy. She was betting, at least, on strong and wily, because her assailant had taken a stance that would only be familiar to someone who knew how to fight.
“Back off,” the shooter said, the voice deep and throaty, but decidedly female. And she spoke in English. With no accent at all. “I’m not here for you.”
“That makes me feel better. I don’t much like imagining myself lying in a pool of my own blood after being shot by a hidden sniper. It’s a lot like shooting someone in the back, don’t you think?”
The woman’s eyes flashed behind her mask. Except for her flowing dark hair, thick and reaching well past her shoulders, Marisela would have no decent description to offer the cops. The assassin was dark-haired, sneaky, and spoke fluent Spanish and completely American English. She might as well have described herself.
“The manner of death doesn’t matter; he pays for his crime in blood.”
Marisela swallowed thickly. This wasn’t murder for hire. This was revenge.
“Who are you?”
“A shadow. An avenging angel. Don’t cry for that man, Marisela,” she said in Spanish. “He doesn’t deserve your pity.”
Marisela stepped back, the use of her name catching her off guard. Instantly, the assassin feinted left, then right, but Marisela instinctively mirrored her actions, anticipating her next move so that when the assassin grabbed for Marisela, she spun, prepared to kick the woman to the ground. But before she could complete her rotation, the shooter shot out a foot and tripped Marisela, sending her careening onto the lawn.
The woman turned to flee, but Marisela kicked from the ground, hitting the woman in the small of the back with her heel. She followed through with a second, higher kick, sending the woman sprawling. With powerful arms, the woman crawled forward, but Marisela launched on top of her, attempting to pin her arms behind her.
“Let go of me!” the woman screamed.
The assassin kicked and flailed, sending grass and dirt into Marisela’s face. She spit in between her gasps for breath, struggling to keep her grip on the woman’s legs. “Not…in this…lifetime!”
With a twist, Marisela flipped the woman onto her back and propelled herself forward, raising her arm to strike down hard with a hammered fist, but the woman blocked her move. They rolled across the lawn. Seconds ticked by in excruciatingly slow motion, punctuated by scratches, punches, and kicks. When they finally spun to a halt, they both heaved for precious gulps of air.
“This is not your business,” the shooter said, pointing her finger at Marisela.
Marisela could hear someone shouting authoritative orders from the other side of the stone wall. The woman’s only escape route was over a fence at the far end of the property—and Marisela was blocking her path.