The Housewife Assassin's Handbook Read Online Free PDF Page A

light that filtered through the shades, I saw him, sitting there, in a chair by the window.
    Finally! I propped myself up, but I still ached from my delivery. Hearing my groan, he turned toward me–
    And that’s when I realized that I was looking at Ryan Clancy, Carl’s boss.
    What was he doing here?
    Ah, of course. One of Acme’s far-flung clients must have had some acute emergency that merited taking Carl from my side in my time of need. Hurt at the presumption, I was loaded for bear. “You’ve got some nerve, Ryan, calling Carl into work while I was in labor–”
    He winced. “No, Donna, we didn’t call Carl into the office. But I came as quickly as I could, to explain what happened, face-to-face–”
    Face-to-face. Why was that necessary? Unless Carl was…
    “Ryan, where the hell is Carl?”
    He was silent for what seemed like an eternity before he just came out with it: 
    “He’s dead.”
     “Dead? What? … How do you know? What do you know?” A wave of dread washed over me. I felt as if I was suffocating. As rapidly as my heart was beating, I thought that I, too, would die.
    If I do, then my children won’t have anyone to take care of them, I thought. I will have left them, just like Mother left me…
    “When? How?” My questions came out as demands.
    “At this point, I’m not at liberty to say.”
    “What the hell does that mean?”
    “Donna, please, you’ll just have to trust me that it’s for the best right now–”
    “Trust you? Hell, I don’t even know you. At all.” That was the truth. I’d only met Ryan a few times, at the obligatory holiday party. Even then, we barely exchanged more than a few words. It had always bothered me that he never smiled.
    Well, now I know why.
    “You tell me that my husband has disappeared off the face of the earth—worse yet, that he’s dead–but you can’t say why, or how you know? So, why should I believe you?”
    Again he was silent, as if considering what the truth might cost him in the long run. But we can’t ask for trust if we can’t give it first, can we? It was Ryan’s turn to put out.
    “Because I work with the CIA, Donna. And so does–did Carl.”
    CIA… Ryan? And Carl, too?
    “You’re right. You deserve some answers. I’ll tell you what I know…”

    By his nature, Ryan is not one to mince words. What he said that night boiled down to this:
    I had been living a lie.
    Okay, in truth, it was Carl’s life that was bullshit. A severe whopper, in fact, from the moment I’d met him.
    Even back then, he was already a spook.
    Acme had recruited him before he’d left the SEALS. What with the combination of his military training and his math acumen, apparently he had the makings of a perfect street agent.
    He was in fact what they called a “hard man.” Forget the usual stuff like surveillance or dead drop retrievals. Carl had the chops to infiltrate a hostile environment, and to carry out what they call “executive actions.”
    In other words, Carl was an assassin.
    Finally, whether I liked it or not, I had the answers I had been looking for all these years. To Carl’s extended business trips, in which he never called home. To his sullenness since his “promotion.” To the fierceness with which he made love to me.
    As if it might be our last time in each other’s arms.
    Yes, now it all made sense.
    Damn it, where had I been, these past years, anyway? In some dream?
    What a beautiful dream it was: four bedrooms and three baths, gourmet kitchen, rockscape pool, home theater–
    And let's not forget the panic room.
    As if that could keep out the bad guys.
    Apparently it could not.
    “For the past year now Carl had been in deep cover,” explained Ryan. “He had infiltrated a loose collective of rogue operatives who call themselves the Quorum: freelance assassins who had previously worked at various intel agencies from around the globe. But somehow they had discovered his true identity.”
    Carl must have figured this out the