'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy Read Online Free Page B

worked alone and moved around a lot with no family commitments, I’d hired him and sent a limo to pick him up. Of course, the limo driver had been Dak, who had given him a cup of coffee laced with one of my special knockout drugs. Robby Carmichael hadn’t known what hit him. He had woken up in St. Louis ... or rather . . . he thought he’d awoken in St. Louis.
    Instead, he’d been here. I’d put him up in the guest room, and he’d begun work immediately. My cover story had been that as a single woman, I was incredibly paranoid and wanted a secret “safe room.” Robby hadn’t watched TV, listened to the radio or gone out. He simply ate, worked and slept. Those had been the conditions of his job, and I paid him well.
    The whole time he’d been here, I wore a wig, fat suit, brown contact lenses and several facial warts. I’m sure he’d wondered why I needed a “safe room.” considering my appearance, but to his credit, he had never asked. Once he’d been done, I killed him so no one would know I even had this room.
    Just kidding. Bet you thought I really iced him, eh? Nah. I had just rendered him unconscious and had Dak deliver him home. He had woken up in his bed, none the wiser and a whole lot wealthier.
    The secret room was completely white, with a ceramic tile floor. The ceiling had skylights disguised as solar panels. There were ten different surveillance monitors on the wall opposite the door.
    Metal bookshelves took up the rest of the space, filled with jars labeled with numbers. This system made sense only to me. There was a small desk with a laptop computer and one of those really cool, ergonomic task chairs from Levenger’s.
    Bolted to the floor, in the middle of the room, were two lab tables and a sink littered with beakers, test tubes, a microscope and slides. There were no personal effects, except for a poster with a kitten dangling from a branch and saying “hang in there.” My mom had given it to me when I started training.
    Anyway, my daughter didn’t know about my workshop yet. Why not introduce her? ( Romi, this is Mommy’s death lab. Death lab, Romi . Actually, she’d probably like the kitten poster.) I don’t know. She thought of me as her mother: bedtime storyteller, owie-kisser, cuddler. I wasn’t ready to reveal that other side to her. It was schizophrenic, but that’s what made it tolerable. There were two Gins: one who was a model mother, perfect daughter, etc. And one who could hogtie a man in such a way that the slightest release of tension in the rope could break his neck. That had taken all of my sixth-grade year to learn, by the way. And there were no merit badges for that kind of knot-tying in Girl Scouts. Believe me. I checked.
    My lab was so well-concealed that my late husband hadn’t even known it was there. Of course it helped that he had been oblivious to anything outside of his den. He had once gone three weeks without noticing that I bought all new furniture for the living room. In fact, I had to tell him. Compare it to the day I had borrowed his letter opener (not for a job, but to actually open letters) and laid it on his desk instead of placing it back in his cup. The man had freaked out.
    Of course, I had loved that about him. I had loved everything about Ed. He’d been smart, quirky, funny, and he’d had the loveliest blue eyes. And when he laughed at one of my jokes, I swear I levitated off the ground with euphoria.
    Where was I? Right. My lab. Anyway, the laptop was my entire office. Grandma Mary would kill me (if I have to explain it at this point, you haven’t been paying attention) if she knew how much stuff I had in there, including files on every member of the family.
    That was where I found myself the next morning after Romi went to school, sitting at my desk, checking up on the Bombays. I thought if I could figure out who was going down, I might have an edge. Even with family, you can never have too much leverage. And I have to admit I was a little