The Hitwoman and the Poisoned Apple (Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman Book 8) (8 page)

I didn’t tell him that I’d been in the black dress because I’d come to the hospital straight from Teresa’s funeral. Nor did I think it was the time to mention that my surviving his son-in-law’s attack had been dumb luck.

“Our mutual friend wasn’t sure you were cut out for what was being asked of you,” Delveccio continued, picking up his spoon. “But here you are.”

“Here I am,” I confirmed weakly.

“One of my most trusted associates.” He scooped up some pudding. “You understand the importance of family. Of doing whatever it takes to protect them.”

“I do,” I murmured.

“You can’t teach someone that lesson.” He put the spoon down without having eaten its contents. “Look at my daughter. She only ever puts herself first. She married Alfonso and now she’s dating an idiot cop. But do you know the worst part?”

He paused.

I held my tongue, pretty sure I knew what he’d say next.

“Well do you?” he prompted.

I swallowed hard. If I didn’t answer him he’d think I was an idiot. But if I answered incorrectly, I could upset him by insulting his family.

“Say it,” he urged.

“She doesn’t do what’s best for Dominic?” I guessed.

He pounded on the table, causing the bowls and spoons to clatter. Flinching, I looked around to see if anyone else was aware of the outburst, but there was no one else in sight.

“Right.” He hit the table again for emphasis. “She’s his blood but she doesn’t do what’s best for the boy. She should be at his bedside all the time. Talking to him, reading him stories, holding his hand.  She says it’s
‘too hard,’
” he mocked in a cruel tone. “But that’s the reason he hasn’t opened his eyes. He doesn’t know he’s loved. He doesn’t feel it.” The mobster buried his head in his hands.

I got the impression that was the first time he’d said those terrible thoughts aloud. I could feel the tension emanating from him like heat off a fire.

“I disagree,” I whispered so softly that I could barely hear myself.

He looked up. “What?” There was an edge of anger in that one syllable that threatened to slice me to shreds.

“I disagree,” I repeated, steeling myself against the killer look he gave me. Even  so, the fear made it hard to breathe. “You’re there every day,” I choked out. “He knows you love him. He has to feel it.”

Delveccio’s anger melted away and I saw tears shimmering in his gaze. “You think so?”

I looked away, not wanting to see the tough mobster cry. “I know it.”

He didn’t speak for a long time, but I stubbornly kept my eyes on the clock on the far wall, watching the second hand tick away.

Finally he cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

Daring to look at him, I saw that he’d regained his composure.

“It’s nice of you to say.”

I nodded, not sure of what would be safe to say.

He systematically ate his entire bowl of pudding before he spoke again.  Noticing I hadn’t touched mine, he asked, “Not hungry?”

“I had olives for lunch and now I don’t feel so great.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Too much salt. I wanted to give you the package to be delivered.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box wrapped in silver paper and slid it across the table.

I covered it with my palm. “Where does it have to go?”

“All in good time,” he murmured mysteriously. Then he warned, “Just don’t open it.”

I tilted my hand to look at the tiny, light as air, box. “It’s not a bomb, is it?”

He chuckled. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”

I shrugged.

“No. It’s not a bomb and it doesn’t offend your sensitive principles.” He got to his feet, his half-unbuttoned shirt gaping and showing off an expanse of jiggling flesh I could have lived without seeing. “I’ll be in touch.”

He lumbered away, leaving me with uneaten pudding and a mysterious box.

I didn’t dare to go visit Katie right away because I was afraid that Delveccio had gone to see his grandson, so I ate the chocolate pudding.

Hey, it’s a legitimate stalling technique.

“Ahhh, I see you’ve slipped to the dark side.”

I looked up to find Jack Stern, the man who hadn’t bothered to mention he was a reporter, watching me eat. Remembering how chummy he’d been with Mrs. Mulligan the day before, I tried to keep my expression blank.

“Jack Stern. We met yesterday,” he prompted. Just like the last time I saw him, he wore black jeans and a black leather jacket, but this time a white shirt softened his look.

“I remember, Mr. Stern.”

He hesitated, puzzled by my cool demeanor. “I shouldn’t have intruded,” he murmured finally, stepping backward.

“You weren’t,” I found myself admitting. “I was just daydreaming.”

“Mind if I join you?” Without waiting for an answer, he settled his lanky frame into the seat Delveccio had occupied.

I stared pointedly at his bottle of water, the only type of sustenance he carried.

He grinned and leaned forward and whispered, “I’m waiting for an order of French toast.”

“You’ll have a long wait,” I countered. “They only serve breakfast in the morning.”

“Maybe they’re making an exception for me.”

Glancing over my shoulder, he smiled and waved at someone behind the counter.

I turned in my seat just in time to see the young hair-netted server turn a lovely shade of pink and duck her head.

His low, amused chuckle made me twist back toward him.

“A little charm goes a long way,” he told me with a wink, leaning back in his seat.

His self-satisfied smirk annoyed me.

“You make it a habit of preying on young women who are barely legal?”

He cocked an eyebrow and made a show of leaning to the side so that he could get a better look at his clueless victim. “You think she’s legal? I’d pegged her as younger, but if you’re saying you believe she’s over eighteen…” He trailed off, letting the speculative innuendo hang there.

If I’d had any pudding left I would have flung it in his face like mud on the pig he was.

His gaze flicked back to mine. Seeing my disgust, he threw back his head and laughed, the sound bouncing off the hospital walls, the echoes mocking me.

“You….you…” Too angry to come up with an appropriate response, I spluttered wildly, clutching my spoon. It was the only weapon I had, but I had the distinct urge to plunge it into his winking eye.

“Easy, Maggie,” he soothed. “We’re at the opposite end of the building from the emergency room.”

“Good,” I spat. “You don’t deserve their help.” I jabbed the spoon in his general direction for emphasis.

“Me?” He looked at my death-grip on the utensil and suddenly looked slightly alarmed. Rocking back on the rear legs of his chair, he held up his hands in surrender. “I meant you. You look like you’re about to have a stroke.”

Considering I could feel my pulse pounding behind my eyes, he probably wasn’t far from the truth.

“I was just kidding about the girl,” he added hurriedly.

I eyed him suspiciously, but something in his tone made me lower the spoon. “Sure. That’s what you say now.”

Sensing the immediate threat to his safety was gone, he tipped forward, resting all four legs of his chair on the ground. “If I was interested in chasing after the girl, why would I want to sit with you?”

“Maybe you’re playing hard to get.” That was a weak argument, even to my ears.

“Someone’s gotten burned,” he murmured quietly.

Instead of dignifying that with a response, I continued on the offensive. “Even if it was a joke, it was in bad taste.”

He dipped his head, accepting culpability. “This is not how I wanted this to go.”

Against my better judgment, I asked curiously, “How did you expect it to go?”

“Hold that thought a sec?” he asked, jumping up.

I watched him go up the counter, pick up his tray of food, and pay the giggling girl.

“That’s a lot more than the usual portion,” I said when he returned to the table.

“Jealous?”

“Annoyed.”

“I’ll share.”

While he slathered butter on the bread, I reminded him, “You were going to tell me how you expected things to go.”

“I thought I’d walk over and be all cool with a ‘fancy meeting you here’ vibe.”

My shoulders tensed. “Are you saying that it’s not a coincidence our running into each other?”

He shrugged. “I
may
have stopped in here every hour for the past four hours hoping to see you again.”

I could practically hear Patrick lecturing in my ear, “Don’t get caught.”  It couldn’t be a good thing that a reporter was looking for me.

“Some women would find that flattering,” Jack suggested, interrupting my thoughts.

“Some women could find it stalkerish,” I snapped.

“Stalkerish isn’t a word,” he replied mildly, struggling to open a plastic container of syrup.

I frowned at him.

“But I get what you’re saying,” he added.

“Why are you stalking me?”

Putting down the unopened condiment, he stared at me. “Wow. Somebody
really
burnt you.”

Fighting the urge to look away from his scrutiny, I muttered, “You have no idea.”

His dark eyes softened. “Tell me about it,” he invited.

For a moment, I thought he really wanted to know. That he cared. That I should welcome the chance to unburden myself. Then I realized this could be some devious interviewing technique he’d perfected.

I shook my head, silently refusing his offer.

Shrugging he returned to fighting the syrup.  “So after
happening
to run into you again, I was going to smoothly tell you that I’d like to see you again. Maybe in a place that doesn’t reek of antiseptic and all the food isn’t covered with a film of plastic.”

Tired of watching him struggle with the container, I plucked it from his hand. “And you thought I’d go for that?”

“I’d hoped so.”

I peeled the lid off and handed it back to him.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So what do you think, Maggie? Will you take me up on my offer?” He poured the syrup over his food.

Instead of answering, I asked, “You never said why you’re here in the first place.”

He cut a mouthful of food and tasted it. “I told you. I was looking for you.”

Under other circumstances, that kind of answer would have been flattering, but my life wasn’t normal, so I found it evasive.

“I meant at the hospital.”

“I’ve been visiting an old friend.” His tone remained even, but a sudden flatness came into his eyes.

Thinking of his
visit
with Mrs. Mulligan, I frowned.

“Try it,” he urged, lifting a forkful of French toast toward my mouth.

“No.”

“You don’t like it?”

“I don’t like men who I barely know trying to feed me,” I retorted.

The corners of his mouth twitched with amusement. He spun the fork around, so that the handle faced me. “So feed yourself.”

“I—”

Sensing I was about to refuse, he held my gaze, “Unless you’re afraid.” The challenge in his tone was unmistakable.

Impulsively, I grabbed the utensil and jammed the food into my mouth.

He watched me chew like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen and a bolt of sexual awareness exploded in my core. “Good, isn’t it?” he murmured.

Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.

Before I realized what he was doing, his thumb stroked along the bottom of my lip. “Sticky.”

Ignoring the tingling that spread from my lip to every cell in my body, I slapped his hand way and sat back in my chair. “What the hell are you doing?”

Even though he was able to keep his expression pretty bland, his gaze hardened. “You had a drop of syrup on your mouth.”

“That’s what napkins were invented for.” I rubbed the back of my hand across my mouth childishly.

He didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “I was just trying to help.”

“I’m not like her,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of the hapless cafeteria attendant. “It’s going to take a lot more than that to
charm
me.”

“That’s becoming obvious,” he murmured.

“And I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your hands to yourself. I’m not a fan of being manhandled.”

He raised his hands signaling his surrender.  “I wasn’t trying to manhandle you.” Distaste dripped from every word.

Hating the way my body still hummed from the brief contact with his, I pushed my chair away from the table, needing to put some distance between us. I leapt to my feet, intent on beating a speedy retreat from something I didn’t quite understand, but instinctively knew was dangerous.

In a low, intimate voice he confessed, “I was
trying
to seduce you.”

That stopped me in the tracks. My body practically screamed that it wanted to be seduced while my heart reminded me that Patrick was lying in a bed in this very building, and my brain argued that Jack was a reporter and therefore a threat to my safety.

“But nothing I’m trying is working,” Jack continued, unaware of the internal battle waging within me. “And to be honest, I don’t get it. I mean, I thought you felt what I did yesterday.”

I shook my head in denial.

“Since nothing else seems to help, let me just try the honest approach.”

“That would be novel,” I sniped.

He had the good graces to wince. “I like you, Maggie. I’ve liked you from the moment I met you, which is why I paid Sarah over there”—he jerked his head in the direction of the cafeteria worker—“to call me when you showed up.”

“I thought you said you’d shown up every hour,” I reminded him.

“I did. And the rest of the time I wandered these hallways, hoping to catch a glimpse of you, but I was afraid I’d miss you, so I enlisted her help.”

“So she’s your paid informant?” I felt pretty clever coming up with that one. After all, reporters aren’t supposed to pay their sources for information, are they?

“She is,” he admitted hanging his head.

Turning, I began to walk out. The last thing I needed in my already crazy life would be to add a nosy reporter with stalker tendencies to the mix. Even though his unabashed pursuit was kind of flattering.