The Housewife Assassin's Tips for Weddings, Weapons, and Warfare (Housewife Assassin Series Book 11)

  The Housewife Assassin’s

  Tips for Weddings, Weapons, and Warfare

  A Novel

  Josie Brown

  © 2015 Josie Brown. All rights reserved.

  Published by Signal Press Books.

  mail@SignalEditorial.com

  V062915AMZ-2

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 You Do—But Does He?

  Chapter 2 Breaking the News to Your Bestie

  Chapter 3 Choosing Your Bridesmaids

  Chapter 4 Four Reasons Why You Need a Wedding Planner

  Chapter 5 Three Reasons to Get Cold Feet

  Chapter 6 Couples Counseling

  Chapter 7 Sampling Wedding Cakes!

  Chapter 8 Putting a Ring on It

  Chapter 9 Picking Out Your Wedding Dress

  Chapter 10 Engagement Party!

  Chapter 11 Pre-Wedding Pampering Pleasures

  Chapter 12 Your Bachelorette Party

  Chapter 13 What Your Invitations Say About You

  Chapter 14 Tossing the Wedding Garter

  Chapter 15 Writing, and Honoring, Your Vows

  Chapter 16 Giving Away the Bride

  Chapter 17 Wedding Bell Blues

  Chapter 18 Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

  Chapter 19 Happily Ever After

  Chapter 20 How You Know the Honeymoon is Over

  Next Up!

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  HOW TO REACH JOSIE

  NOVELS IN THE HOUSEWIFE ASSASSIN SERIES

  OTHER BOOKS BY JOSIE BROWN

  PRAISE FOR JOSIE BROWN

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Chapter 1

  You Do—But Does He?

  You answered, “Yes, I do!” when he proposed? Well, huzzah!

  Now if you both can forget you had the barrel of your gun nudging up against his forehead when he asked, you may have a chance to live happily ever after!

  By following these three must-do tips, neither of you will bolt (or be murdered) before the big day:

  Tip #1: So that you’re not disappointed, be prepared to take on the important things yourself: finding the venue, hiring the photographer, and choosing the cake, his tux, and the menu. All of these items call for an attention to detail that…well, let’s face it, he lacks in regard to everything—other than the planning of his bachelor party.

  Tip #2: Don’t sweat the small stuff. For example, don’t let his mother get under your skin. And certainly don’t get depressed if the ring is somewhat less than you hoped, just grin and wear it. You can always “lose” the ring in a hole in the backyard—and perhaps his mother too.

  Tip #3: Just the facts, ma’am, that’s all he needs to know. Give him the date, time, and a map, so that he knows what to do and where to go on the big day.

  If he doesn’t show, call out the posse.

  And, yes, it’s okay if they shoot to kill.

  “Someone is shadowing you.” This declaration comes from my limo driver, Abu Nagashahi.

  That is to say, someone is shadowing the person I’m pretending to be: Liang Xia, a freelance spy and hit woman who successfully executed a contract killing of Catherine Martin, a former United States congresswoman with valuable intel on the Quorum, an international terrorist organization.

  Abu isn’t really my hired ride. Like me, he works for Acme Industries, a black-ops organization sanctioned by the United States government for the kind of wet-work that gets the CIA hauled in front of Congressional committees for more than a mere slap on the wrist.

  I hold up a makeup compact and look through it. Yes, I see the car: a black Lexus sedan.

  “How close are we to the rendezvous location?” I ask.

  “Just a few blocks,” Abu assures me. “Should I try to shake him before we get there?”

  “Don’t bother,” says Jack, our mission partner—who also just so happens to be my fiancé. We hear him via our ear buds. He is already situated next door to our final destination: an elegant two-hundred year-old Federal-style mansion located in Washington D.C.’s most prestigious neighborhood, Georgetown. “Dominic is two car-lengths behind you. He can tail him and find out who he is. Besides, if the tail is working for the target, he knows where we’ll end up anyway. The only thing the driver will be able to do is confirm ‘Xia’s’ entry and drive off.”

  “Righto,” Dominic Fleming, another one of my backup assets, is quick to confirm. “If I do say so myself, Acme’s prosthetics department did a passable job with Donna’s mask. Had I not known better, I’d have presumed Xia had come back from the dead.”

  Abu nods at me through the rearview mirror. “Even from a few feet, I’d say you’re the spitting image of Xia.”

  I shrug. “Let’s hope so.”

  Xia left China’s Ministry of State Security for a lucrative retainer with the Quorum, the worst kind of terrorist group there is—in other words, well-funded.

  There is a lot about Xia that is nothing like me. For starters, she’s Asian. Ergo, the need to wear a mask of her face.

  Also, she’s dead.

  I know this because I killed her.

  Only a few others know it too, including Jack; our boss at Acme, Ryan Clancy; the rest of our Acme team; and Lee Chiffray, the President of the United States.

  If Lee is also a member of the Quorum, God help us all.

  In truth, this is a reconnaissance mission to determine whether he’s one of the bad guys. Since he knew of Xia’s death, he won’t be her mystery date. But if no one shows up, we have even more reason to suspect him.

  Right now, the odds are in his favor. Texts coming into Xia’s cell phone from her client’s Caller ID—362433—haven’t stopped.

  Whoever it is doesn’t want her for another hit. He’s looking for a booty call.

  Before she died, Xia indicated that she was more than willing to oblige. The phone-sexting between them, monitored by Acme since her death, was much more than flirtatious. It was downright vulgar, detailing every role-playing sex act to be performed. Based on their mutual fantasies, it would be a full week before Xia and her mystery date came up for air.

  Acme’s ComInt director, Emma Honeycutt Locklear, now monitors Xia’s texts. Between reading them and groaning, she plays along, lacing her responses with language so titillating that Emma’s husband, Arnie, finally asked her, “Hey, um, did you ever work as a sex phone operator? I mean, it’s okay with me if you have…” his voice trailed off hopefully.

  “Wishful thinking,” Emma retorted.

  For Arnie, perhaps, but not for me. Unfortunately, I’m elected to take Xia's place since I’m the only crack shot in our mission team who can squeeze into the size four gold metallic twist-front backless jersey gown, sent by her mystery date as a gift to inaugurate what he calls their “virgin tryst.”

  Yeah, I know—lucky me. I’d much rather have been planning my upcoming nuptials than memorizing Mystery Date’s sadistic bondage fantasies. If he has his way, I’ll be tied up for quite some time. Is the “downstairs media room” really an S&M dungeon? If so, I’m sure I’ll find out firsthand. I’ve never stepped foot in their well-appointed love nest. It is owned by Graffias International, a shell for the Quorum. Emma was able to pull up the architectural plans on record with the city from its most recent renovation. I’ve been studying it too.

  To make this charade believable, I flew in from Xia’s home base of Beijing via a private jet with untraceable ownership. The plane’s flight plan was altered three times while winging its way over the Pacific
towards the United States—a necessary precaution if Acme was to throw off anyone who may not already know Xia’s final destination.

  We landed at Manassas Regional, a smaller airport outside of D.C. that might not have been watched. By then my prosthesis was in place and accessorized with brown surveillance contacts.

  I’m certainly dressed to kill, and I don’t mean that figuratively. But if all Mystery Date is expecting is a few sex toys, he’ll be sorely disappointed. Instead, Acme has sewn in a few hidden pockets for such little items as a knife, a capped syringe with liquid Rohypnol—the knockout drug also known as a “roofie,” for the goal of taking the target alive—and the smallest Glock available: the 43.

  “We’re here,” Abu says finally.

  I lift my head and put a smile on my face in order to steel myself for the mission at hand: taking down one more link in the Quorum leadership chain—

  Even if it turns out to be Lee.

  The doorbell of our destination—the mansion that takes up the whole block of Thirty-ninth and P Streets—sounds like Christmas church bells.

  I wait a few minutes, but no one answers.

  Strange.

  I try the doorknob. It opens to my touch, but still, no one is there to greet me.

  Hmmm.

  Slowly, I cross the entry threshold. Before I’m six feet into the foyer, the door closes gently behind me and I hear the click of the doorknob—

  And then the slide of a lock, followed by the latching of another.

  I turn around to find that the door has automatically bolted itself in two places: near the top frame of the door, and near the bottom, close to the floor.

  I also notice that the hinges on the door are held into place with twelve bolts apiece, so they aren’t going anywhere.

  Not good.

  As quickly as I can, I move into the living room. A stack of logs crackles in the five-foot-tall fireplace. It is fronted by a nine-foot empire sofa, and flanked by two Queen Anne wingback chairs. The windows are covered by thick floor-to-ceiling swag curtains, tied back on each side by braided tasseled ropes draped over ornate hooks to reveal sheers made of stark white silk.

  I walk over to them and pull back the sheers to find that the windows aren’t glass inside of pane, but steel panels.

  Okay, yes, I’m scared.

  “Do you see what I’m seeing?” I murmur.

  “Try another room,” Jack answers matter-of-factly. But the silence that follows tells me that he has muted my ear bud. I presume he’s giving the rest of the mission team orders to find a way to get me out of this hellhole.

  Under any other circumstances I’d enjoy roaming through the exquisitely decorated rooms of this mansion. Not today. I jog through the downstairs to find the windows in every room the same: in lockdown mode.

  The kitchen is in the rear of the house. The back door is also bolted shut from the outside, as are the double doors leading from the dining room to the backyard. By the time I get to the library, I realize that I’m back around to the front of the house. Its doors, which lead out onto the sun porch, are also made of steel.

  Frantically, I tug at them, as if that’s going to do any good.

  In regard to its height and depth, the library’s fireplace is almost identical to the one in the living room. It also houses a roaring blaze—too hot in fact, as if someone has set the gas starter beneath the grate on high. The flames lick the wood mantel jutting out above the opening. As one log crumbles into red-hot coals, two more roll beyond the hearth onto the varnished floor.

  Embers catch hold of a plush Persian rug. I try to stamp out the flames, but I’m too late. “The ground floor is on fire!” I scream.

  “Donna, the fires are deliberate! Some sort of accelerant has been used, for instant combustion and a quick burn!”

  By now, smoke is also pouring out of the living and dining rooms.

  “I’m heading upstairs!” I shout.

  I take the staircase two steps at a time, since the ground floor is now an inferno, and each previous step incinerates behind me.

  I am running for my life.

  The upstairs hallway has at least six doors—three on each side. I try the one closest to me: a well-appointed bedroom. I run to the window, only to discover that the opening is solid concrete.

  I run back into the hall, toward the staircase—

  Only to find that the bottom half of the stairs has disintegrated in the flames.

  I hear a crash and turn around, just in time to see a fireball jump out of a hole in the hall floor.

  “I’ve got to go up to the third floor!” I yell, in the hope that they hear me over the snap, crackle, and pop of the flames.

  “Donna, don’t!” Jack shouts. “This place is stone on the outside, and all of its exits are airtight—in other words, it’s a mausoleum! Whatever air is left will draw the fire straight up like a wick! If you go up there, we may not be able to reach you—”

  “Jack, I have no other choice!”

  I hustle up the stairs to the third story. From the look of the simple rooms, it was previously the servants’ quarters. But it’s certainly too much to expect that the windows have regular glass-and-pane sashes. They too are filled with solid cement.

  I run into the room closest to me. It takes up most of the attic. Beds line the wall. Unfortunately, like the ones on the other floors below, the small garret windows have been cemented over.

  I circle the big room desperately, like a caged animal. There are no other exits.

  Jack is right: the fire, contained within the mansion’s impenetrable stone walls, is sucking up the oxygen. Exhausted, hot, and weak from lack of air, I freeze. So, this is how it all ends?

  Like a warm shawl, the finality of my life settles over me. Its threads are my dearest memories: the smiles and voices of my three children—Mary, Jeff, and Trisha; Jack’s gentle kisses; and the heady euphoria of our lovemaking.

  Those sensations will be lost to me forever.

  And I’ll be lost forever to those I love most.

  No. I won’t let it end here, like this.

  Exhausted, I slump against the wall.

  Ouch. The small of my back hit something—

  A handle of some sort, to a metal panel in the wall.

  I pull it open, expecting to find a cabinet, or perhaps a safe. I reach inside. Just like the door, the sides are made of sheet metal—not as heavy, and there is no bottom panel.

  “I found a laundry chute!” I don’t know if Jack or anyone else can hear me, but it’s worth a try. “I’ll meet you in the basement!”

  I look around the room. Mattresses and sheets are bundled on top of the twin beds throughout the room. I grab one of the mattresses and stuff it down the chute. It’s too dark to see how far it has fallen. Still, I do the same with a second mattress. Afterward, I hoist myself into the chute, curl up into a cannonball, and leap off into oblivion.

  I pray for a safe landing, but, for all I know, I’ve tossed myself into the heart of the inferno.

  By the count of three, I’m riding the second mattress down the chute. Two more seconds go by before I catch up with the first mattress. But I’m still flying down into the abyss, so I guess my weight, coupled with the speed in which I’m falling, may still earn me some pain.

  I brace for it—

  Oomph.

  Not so bad.

  In fact, bounced on my heels, I rise a foot into the air.

  This time, when I land, my feet slip out from under me. I find myself on my backside.

  I roll onto my knees. One of the four walls within the chute contains a door from which a laundress would have removed soiled linens. I shove my right arm below the mattresses and move it around until I find the door, which is also metal.

  But it is latched from the outside. I kick it—hard—again and again.

  I’m exhausted.

  Then I hear it: the roar of a fireball. It’s coming down the chute.

  Damn it, the metal door at the top of t
he chute was left open.

  I brace myself against the wall opposite the laundry room door in order to give it one more big kick—

  It gives.

  I roll out, slamming the door behind me.

  The flames gasp for air. Finding no more, their whispers die in the chute.

  I’m safe—for now, anyway. The basement is cinderblock on all sides. Besides a laundry room, it holds a large wine cellar. In this case, that’s a good thing, not because I feel like celebrating, but because the wine cellar’s metal door and cooling system—metal ducts that line the ceiling—create a barrier to the heat. It is the only thing standing between Death and me.

  So how do I get out of this hellhole?

  The only door leads up into the house, to and from the kitchen. Like the others, the opening is solid concrete. In this case, I breathe a sigh of relief.

  Still, the room is heating up. Ah, I see why now! A gap between two of the metal ducts directly above me is bulging from the heat above it.

  Just at that moment, the fire burns a hole through the ceiling, dropping sizzling embers at my feet.

  I spot a solitary glass-pane window on the far wall, above a room-length laundry table. The window is high on the wall, and certainly not the ideal size: three feet wide side-to-side, but only two feet high, top-to-bottom.

  Too bad. It’s the only way out, so it’ll have to do.

  I grab an iron. Holding on to its electrical cord, I hurl it at the window. It crashes through an old glass pane, but the wooden sash holds firm.

  As if trying to lasso a wild horse, I swing it over my head again and again and again—

  Then I let it rip. This time, the iron crashes through the sash’s wooden grid. All of it lands on the sidewalk.

  I hop up on the table. The heat from inside the house is so intense that the stones and cinderblock are now hot. Still, I heave myself through the window.

  My landing is anything but gentle. I’m scorched, scraped, bruised, and charred.

  But, hey, I’m alive.