Free Stand By Your Hitman by Leslie Langtry Page A

my son.
    Monty broke into a wide grin. He looked like a bat, hanging upside down like that. Jackson unfolded himself next to his brother with the same smile.
    “We wanted to help!” Monty said.
    “You’re supposed to be back on Santa Muerta with your grandmother! Does she even know you’re here?” I did feel a flicker of satisfaction thinking of Mom realizing the boys were gone. And I will admit, it did my heart good to see them.
    “We told her we were going camping up near the ropes course. She never goes there,” Jackson said. That was true. Mom wasn’t big on nature. Well, except for her recent interest in my glaucoma stash.
    I looked around. “You are going to get me in trouble. I’ve got a job to do and we aren’t supposed to haveany contact with outsiders!” Yeesh! I sounded like that bitch Julie.
    “At least come down here and give me a hug!” I added.
    The boys shook their heads. “This is safer,” Jackson said.
    “Cool!” Monty pointed at the teeth around my neck. “Where’d you get those!”
    I sighed and filled them in. My sons announced that they thought I was the coolest mom ever, which made me happy.
    “We’re going to help you,” Monty announced.
    “Here.” Jackson tossed something down to me.
    I looked around before opening the small brown bag. It was filled with chocolate protein bars—twelve in all. Good boys.
    “We’re staying at the resort,” Monty added.
    “We’ve got Grandma’s credit card.” Jackson grinned.
    I couldn’t hide a smile. My boys.
    “Well, get back before anyone catches you. I can’t have them filming me talking to trees.”
    The boys laughed and pulled themselves into the upper recesses of the tree.
    I shook my finger at them. “Just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I don’t know you’re there!”
    “Uh, who are you talking to?” Cricket’s voice brought me up short. I slowly turned to find her and the cameramen staring at me.
    I carefully shoved the bag into my shirt. “Oh, just a couple of monkeys. They threw mangoes at me.” Igrinned, holding up the fruit and hoping they would buy it.
    “You are so weird,” Cricket said. Bert and Ernie said nothing, of course. “You have to come back to camp. We got our sea mail.”
    “Sea mail?” I asked, realizing it was the rip-off’s version of “tree mail.” Cricket looked at me in disgust and walked away. What had I done to piss her off?
    Bert and Ernie stayed with me. So I looked up into the tree and said, “Bye-bye monkeys! I’m watching you!” Of course they filmed the whole thing. But I had to say something to Monty and Jack. They were my sons, after all. I stopped for a minute, then looked up again.
    “Love you!” I said to the tree, then headed back to camp, ignoring the strange looks from the cameramen.

Chapter Twelve
    MICHELE : For me, it’s like I’ve just given birth to my own baby girl, except she’s like a big, giant girl who smokes and says “shit” a lot. You know?
    —Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion
    Everyone was huddled around something when I got back. Lex saw me and broke off from the group.
    “Are you okay?” he asked as he checked out my hand. “Cricket said you were talking to monkeys.”
    I smiled. “Just trying to freak her out. It was nothing.” I was relieved to see him smile back. In six months, when this aired, he’d see that I was, in fact, talking to a tree. But I’d have time to explain before then.
    Sea mail consisted of a piece of parchment in a bottle. How original. There was a map that would lead us to a clearing in the jungle where we would have an immunity challenge. The losing team would vote a member off tonight. We had a couple of hours before making the trek.
    I managed to slip protein bars to everyone but Silas without the cameras seeing. It was obvious he would disapprove, but we needed a little boost before the challenge. I told my teammates I’d gotten them from the spa yesterday.
    One by one, the cameramen took us