To my surprise, Natalie agreed with her. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Times are uncertain, and everybody is slicing budgets. Why should the Museum be exempt?”
The Museum running out of money was a sobering thought. It had been founded by people with means and a knack for turning what they had into a hell of a lot more. Nothing had ever been done cheaply. They hadn’t stinted on training or missions, and through it all they’d kept tabs on any significant threats to international security and humanitarian causes around the globe—extremely thorough and expensive tabs.
I had my own theory about why we were being summoned on the cheap, and I didn’t like it one bit. Nobody wants to be a bargain-basement killer.
Chapter Three
Naomi’s map of Colonial Williamsburghad a faint star penciled on an empty corner across from the Capitol building. At the bottom of the map, there was a list of opening times and a tiny circle had been ringed around tenam.
We were in place by nine forty-five. I’d set my alarm for five—jet lag be damned—and gotten in a jog around the area. I ran as much to get the lay of the land as to stretch my legs. A long, easy loop of two miles took me down a street of buildings full of ye olde charm and around a cluster of pastures where a few draft horses and some fat sheep nibbled on the dewy grass. After a shower, I’d joined the others for breakfast at the hotel coffee shop where Helen picked at some oatmeal, Mary Alice ordered an egg-white omelet, and Natalie ate her body weight in French toast. I stuck with yogurt and fruit, and we dawdled over a third round of coffee until it was timeto leave. It was easy to see why Naomi had chosen the Best Western. It was prime real estate if you wanted to approach the historic district on foot, and we weren’t the only tourists making our way over. It was cool but sunny, an early fog burning away in the pink morning light. We walked slowly, carrying our maps and pointing out landmarks to each other like any other visitors. We passed a few workers heading in, and Mary Alice stared after them.
“Can you imagine coming to work in a mobcap and petticoats?”
Before anybody could answer, a gentleman in a frock coat and breeches rode past on a chestnut horse that tossed its head and pranced a little. He tipped his tricorne in our direction. “Good morrow, ladies.”
“Good morrow toyou,” Natalie said, peering over the top of her glasses to watch him ride away. She had a point—he did have a particularly nice rising trot.
“Down, girl,” said a voice behind us. “He’s a prosperous gentleman in colonial times. I smell an enslaver.”
We turned to see Naomi Ndiaye bearing down on us, dressed like any suburban mom and pushing a stroller. She grinned, showing off a smile that was either the result of excellent genes or expensive orthodontia.
“Is that a prop baby?” I asked, nodding towards the sleeping child.
“I wish,” she said.
“She’s beautiful,” Helen said as she peered at the serene little face.
“That’s because she’s asleep,” Naomi said. “Awake, sheshrieks like a pterodactyl and takes a bigger crap than her father has ever managed. Y’all keep your voices down if you don’t want to wake the beast.”
She led us to a group of benches tucked under a spreading oak tree. She eased down onto a bench and I wondered if her hemorrhoids were playing up. The last time we’d seen her she’d been heavily pregnant with the baby before this one and suffering from a host of baby-related ailments.
She pushed her sunglasses up onto her head and looked around. “Y’all look good. Mostly. A little jet-lagged, but you’re keeping it tight.”
She seemed a little too pleased by the notion. “You’ve got a job for us.” I didn’t make it a question because I already knew the answer.
Naomi grinned. “I like a woman who gets right down to business. I’ve got passes for Busch Gardens this afternoon and I want to get there before all the funnel cakes are gone.” She paused and looked around again. “Does the name Lilian Flanders ring a bell?”
Memory is a funny thing, especially as you get older. I can remember all the lyrics to “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” which came out in 1966, but I have forgotten the faces of half the men I’ve slept with.
It was Mary Alice who suddenly snapped her fingers. “Our first mission. 1979. We posed as stewardesses on a private plane in order to take out Boris Lazarov, a Bulgarian assassin. He had a flair for torture, if I remember. Lilian was the Provenance agent who compiled the dossier on Lazarov.”
Our organization was divided into three departments whotook their names from museum nomenclature. Provenance was surveillance and information, collecting data on two kinds of people, the ones we recruited and the ones we killed. Acquisitions folks were in charge of supply and logistics, doing whatever was necessary to make a mission possible. They built everything from fake social media profiles to elegant explosives. Think Q fromJames Bondand you aren’t far off. The third department was Exhibitions—the actual assassins in the field. Overseeing each department was a curator and overseeingthemwas a Board of Directors whose votes to recruit or kill had to be unanimous. Pretty simple as far as international crime syndicates go. Naomi had come up through Provenance, and after a conspiracy that ended up with the previous board members dead, she had taken charge as interim director. She had appointed new curators for each department and was still trying to restore the confidence in the organization’s leadership that had been badly shaken.
Natalie was staring at Mary Alice in astonishment after her recitation. “How in the name of Satan’s balls did you remember that?” Natalie demanded.
Mary Alice shrugged. “The first boy I had a crush on was named Flanders. I remember wondering at the time if Lilian might be related to him.” Helen raised a brow at her and Mary Alice rolled her eyes. “I caught the lesbianism in junior high, Helen. After I learned about boy cooties.”
Naomi broke in. “Full marks to Mary Alice. Lilian was a longtime and highly decorated member of the Provenance department before her retirement ten years ago. Now she hasdied at her home on Mount Desert, an island off the coast of Maine.”
“So?” Natalie asked. “What was she, late seventies? She probably keeled over watchingThe Price Is Rightwhen she bid closest without going over.”
“She was eighty-one,” Naomi acknowledged. “But that’s not the point. She was extremely active in her local needlework guild and line-dancing group, and she passed her last physical with flying colors. At first, the medical examiner chalked it up to a heart attack, but somebody decided to poke around and have a closer look. They found fibers in her mouth and nose from a needlepoint pillow. Lilian Flanders was suffocated.”
Mary Alice gave her a narrow look. “What does that have to do with us?”
“Lilian provided all the information for that mission in 1979,” Naomi explained. “Nobody knew more about Boris Lazarov than she did. The hit would never have been possible without her. And I think somebody is settling the score.”
“After forty-four years?” Natalie asked. “My god, get over it already. Assassinations happen.”