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headed for the Oak Hill Cemetery. It was an older, well-forested cemetery, and Clarence lost me quickly.
    Stopped running and considered my options. They seemed slim and I had an important dinner to hostess, a stealth bodyguard to reassure and apologize to, and a daughter to pick up from daycare. And, as I realized it, a package still in my hands.
    Took the moment to look at said package. It was addressed to me, but the return address was also the Embassy.
    The chances of anyone at the Embassy sending a package to me via UPS rather than handing it to me were pretty slim, bordering on none. Meaning this was a package that was potentially dangerous.
    Thought hard and quickly. Ted’s truck had been ransacked, most likely by an A-C. But if that was the case, was that A-C Clarence or someone else?
    Decided to vote on it being Clarence. Sure, I’d seen him when I’d answered the door, but I didn’t normally answer our door, Pierre did. And he’d never seen Clarence except possibly at my wedding, and I doubted the memory would have been top of mind for Pierre, especially not today.
    So, Clarence, or whoever was pulling his strings, wanted a package delivered to us today and was likely watching to ensure it was delivered. But why?
    Looked at the box. We were having a freaking huge party tonight loaded with the political elite. How hard was it to guess why tonight? Get the package into the Embassy, and then release whatever the hell was in it.
    This presented me with a new problem. What to do with the box.
    Curiosity might have killed the cat, but this cat wasn’t stupid enough to figure the box was safe to open. I was more concerned with what kind of bomb it was, or if it maybe contained venomous spiders or something. I put nothing past The Bad Guys League.
    I was, however, the least equipped person on staff to identify whatever it was, short of opening and therefore triggering the badness.
    My phone, which I had in the back pocket of my jeans, chose this moment to ring. I put the box down, walked a couple steps away, and answered the phone, ready to run if this was the trigger for the bomb. “Hello?”
    “Miss Katt?”
    There weren’t a lot of people who called me Miss Katt anymore. And I recognized the voice. It was my “uncle,” Peter the Dingo, also known as the most dangerous and effective assassin alive.



CHAPTER 7
    “Y ES, ‘UNCLE’ PETER? What can I do you for?”
    “You can tell me where you are.”
    “Ah, why would I want to do that?”
    “Because I believe you are holding something very dangerous.”
    Huh. The plot thickened. Or rather, just got weirder, which was pretty typical for my life these days. “How dangerous?”
    “Causing much pain and suffering, and death, kind of dangerous.”
    “Well, I guessed as much, honestly. But how do you know about it?”
    He sighed. “I have been watching your Embassy.”
    “Why? Or rather, who in it or coming tonight is on your hit list?”
    “No one.”
    “I’d fall on the ground laughing, only I want to be able to run away should whatever’s in the plain brown wrapper go boom.”
    “Truly. This is . . . a favor.”
    “For whom?”
    “For you.”
    “Why?”
    “Because someone is being a . . . sore loser, I think you’d say. He was told to move on, but has chosen the path of revenge. Revenge is not a good choice for people in . . . my line of work.”
    Thought fast and furiously again. During Operation Assassination, there had been two assassination teams assigned to get us, me in particular. One had been Peter the Dingo Dog and his cousin. The other had been Bernie and her husband/partner Raul. Buchanan had taken care of Bernie, but Raul had been arrested. I’d never seen Raul in person. But I knew he’d seen me.
    Our enemies were released from prison all the time, because we had very powerful enemies. So Raul likely being out wasn’t much of a shock. And Buchanan had killed Raul’s wife to save me and Jamie, and that meant Raul had the