Chapter Four
"The famous Beverly Hills its not all its cracked up to be." John said as they trailed their rich target.
"Yea, well now we're about to stir it up a little and break the norm."
"So does your ex-wife live here?" Jane asked.
"Jane your not going to kill her."
"I'm not gonna kill her I just wanna know who she is and her social security number." Jane said.
"Jane, come on I'm not stupid."
"Never said you were, John, did you love her?"
"Jane it was a drunk Vegas thing of course not."
"Funny Eddie said you knew her for a year before you guys got hitched in Vegas and she hated you traveling all the time so she divorced." John was silent as he looked at her.
"You didn't talk to Eddie." John said knowing what Jane had said was true.
"He also said that aside from the traveling you two were very happy together and planned on a more formal wedding, but never started planning."
"Cut the crap Jane did you find her or something is that who we're really here to kill?" Jane stopped walking and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"So she lives here in Los Angeles that's a start now what else." John sighed and groaned.
"I don't know, I haven't seen her since our divorce and she moved out. Last I heard she moved out of New York where I don't know. Frankly I don't think I'll ever hear from her again unless I missed something in the divorce and she never got it, its the only reason she'll have to contract me."
"Or she misses you and your cute little cheeks." Jane joked as she pinched his cheeks. She knew how much it annoyed.
"Haha very funny. " John said pushing her hands away. She dragged him into yet another store still looking for their target.
"I don't get it why would he be in here?" John asked.
"He's secretly gay and loves to shop never sends his so called wife out to do the shopping he even does her shopping." Jane whispered. John nodded as she picked out yet another suite for him, at least they were to his liking and not hers for the most part.
"There see right there Bloomingdales." Jane said as the exited Saks Fifth Avenue, which a very good store, John didn't know they had one on the West coast.
"Can't we wait for him to come out, everything is so expensive in Bloomingdales, I mean we just came out of Saks. Besides it sucks."
"What are you talking about I get all your casual wear or semi-formal wear from Bloomingdales, I did happen to notice those were the only clothes you truly liked when I shop for you."
"Oh well you've spent over a million dollars already lets give it a rest."
"I haven't been on a shopping spree in over a year, deal with it. "
"What are you talking about you went for Yasmin just after we got back."
"No, not really, I just got her a few things to last her for a while, between her, you, and work I have no time until now." They went into Bloomingdales. They thought perhaps they were new money until Jane mentioned the online account she had and that they could just charge the clothes to there.
"Your new in town?" Mr. Callahan asked. They nodded.
"New job buddy?"
"No, actually she's the one with the job." John said.
"Oh you must be proud."
"Probably, because I'm carrying all the bags." They laughed. Jane got distracted by some cute dresses for Yasmin or so they thought. Soon Mr. Callahan had left Bloomingdales.
"Aren't you gonna follow him?" John asked as he looked at a dress. Jane was silent as if thinking, but she was merely waiting for a sound. All of a sudden they hear something blow up.
"You didn't?" John whispered.
"What was that?" Jane asked the store clerk alarmed. John put on the pretense of being concerned. The police never even looked their way.
"Good lord now what?" John asked as she dressed in all black. She loaded two guys and put a few knives on her person.
"One more kill." Jane said.
"You were fucking serious about having two kills at a time."
"Well yea, why would you think I'd lie about how many I've killed?" Jane asked as she left out. John just stared after her in disbelief.
Jane drove in an unmarked old black car that you didn't see many of anymore. It didn't take long for her to reach the California state Prison where the assassins were being held. While her people were on their way out legally she had some amateurs to take care of.
"Who the hell are you?" Doug asked.
"Death." Jane said.
"Yea right you can't kill me, I'm trained to kill silly women like you."
"Please you have no real training and your not an assassins, look where you are." Jane said. She punched him and started a fight. She had not really fought in a long time.
"Pathetic." Jane said as she watched him withering on the ground. She took out a can of gasoline and poured it all over the cell. She heard guards coming from all the shouting their fight had generated.
"Adios motherfuckers." Jane said. She lit a match and threw it into the cell before disappearing into the darkness. She watched a hill nearby as alarms went off and they evacuated tons of prisoners while they tried to get the fire under control.
"Huh I guess it had something else to burn that wasn't in just his cell." Jane said to herself as the fire spread. Her cell phone rang it was Stella.
"Have you cleaned up his mess."
"Let's just say they went up in flames." Jane said with a satisfied smile on her lips as she hung up.
"I think I'll go for ice cream." Jane said as she got in the car drove off. By the time she got to the ice cream parlor, she had stored the car for other assassins use and changed clothes.
"Ice cream lover?" the woman asked.
"Yep, it keeps me in a happy mood." Jane said paying her.
"Sound like my daughter she use to love ice cream after she accomplished something."
"Oh, what happen?" Jane asked.
"Lost her when she was five after an accident."
"Oh sorry for you loss." The woman nodded as Jane sat one the stool eating her ice cream.
"Its why I bought this place and started selling ice cream, in memory of her, do you have any kids?" Jane nodded.
"Yea, one is dead and the other alive."
"How old?"
"Um...they're both one, but the second died at birth."
"You must miss her terribly."
"Actually I miss not getting to know her and I wonder what it would have been like to have her around too, I get sad, but than I think it could be worse."
"What could be worse than loosing a child at birth."
"Loosing a child you've gotten to know, see once you have kids there's noise and no matter how annoyed you get and start thinking you can't live with the noise, imagine living with the silence after their gone, it hurts a lot more to know you'll never hear their laugh or whatever again. At least if they die at birth you have one thing to miss and that's them. Not a multiple things that'll take you by surprise when you hear this or that or see something."
"I suppose your right, the silence was horrifying the first few years." Jane nodded.
"How did you loose her anyway, how come the police didn't find her?"
"I don't know we were driving to Connecticut to our country house as usual for the summer when a big rig in front us had some sort of problem, next thing we knew it was on its side and we were turning. I got thrown from the car, my husband was nearly burned alive if wasn't for the driver in the next car, he said he never saw our daughter or he would have gotten her out instead of my husband. We thought she may have been thrown from the car, but no body, so the police assumed her body burned to ashes in the car fire."
"Wow that's horrible." Jane said.
"Yea, Jane was such a good girl." She said.
"Jane?" Jane asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yea, after my grandmother, I'm Laurel by the way." She held out a hand.
"Stephanie." Jane lied shaking her hand.
"Laurel." A man called. He came out of the back room and looked like he was in his mid-fifties unlike the woman who was in her late forties.
"Yes, Jacob." Laurel asked turning. He froze when he saw Jane, who stared right back at him.
"Is there something wrong?" Jane asked.
"Your Jane." Jane frowned he wasn't suppose to know her name.
"Stephanie." Jane corrected.
"I don't care what you call yourself, but your Jane, our Jane." Jacob said.
"She has to be, she has my mother's eyes, and your families trademark chestnut brown hair."
"I'm not, I have to go." Jane said as her cellphone rang. It was welcome distraction to this scene that was unfolding before her. She left quickly and answered her phone when she had gotten in her car.
"Baby I stopped for ice cream I'm on my way back, and no something weird happened, so I didn't grab you and mint chocolate chip."
"If your not gonna shut up and act like that, I'll get you some from the store." Jane said to him as if he was naughty child she knew she shouldn't be giving ice cream too, but just wanted to shut up when she got home.
"So what happen?" John asked taking his ice cream from her.
"Well you know how I told you that my parents died in an accident when I was five." John was silent.
"Yes, I vaguely recall us discussing our parents during a gun fight and car chase."
"Yea, well some guy just recognized me. "
"What! You have to kill him."
"No, no he didn't recognize me like that, he recognized me as his daughter," Jane replied.
"What, start from the beginning starting with your kill." John said, so Jane started from the beginning relating to him everything that was said.
"Wow."
"Wow, wow is that all you have to say!" Jane exclaimed. John sighed.
"Ok, look do you remember being in a crash?"
"No, I just remember waking up in Stella and Father's home, I was told that my parents had died in a terrible accident and they would be taking care of me now, I guess she felt bad for causing my parents death, anyway I just kind of grew up around assassins after that life seemed perfect and I started to forget."
"So you think Stella caused the crash?"
"Yea, I mean it'd make sense, it was the rig in front that went down first and from what Laurel told me he was the only one to die except the little girl who could possibly be me."
"Have you ever looked yourself up, in the police records?" John asked. Jane shook her head no.
"Never had a reason too as far as I was concerned Stella was my only family, and to be a great assassin I had to relinguish all ties to my past except the few memories I could remember, because you can't be successful if you ignore your past."
"That's true." John said. Jane sighed.
"I don't know if I want to find out for sure if my parents survived or leave it be." Jane said.
"Well what could it hurt to know for sure?"
"They'll want to know more about our lives."
"Professional Engineer and CEO at I-temp, your computer crazy." John said.
"You really don't know what my official title is do you?"
"No, not really."
"Professional Computer Programmer." Jane said slowly.
"Gotcha." John said. Jane shook her head.
"What am I gonna do?" Jane asked.
"Well look I say you take a paternity test just so you know and than if you want you can break their hearts by never speaking to them again." Jane let out a long breath.
"Come on let's sleep on it and in the morning before we go you should make a decision." Jane nodded and they went to bed, but Jane didn't really sleep that night.