Olivia was used to being disguised, but it was a special relief to pull off the wig that had turned her into Rebecca Mansfield. She washed her face in the sink, scrubbing it with the skimpy washcloth. Divesting herself of Rebecca’s clothes, she threw herself on the bed to think. Instead of plotting her next move, she thought of the almost hysterical hostility Lewis Goldthorpe had thrown at her, though he hadn’t known who she was or why she was at the house. Olivia grimaced, imagining living with someone that angry and unrealistic, day after day, especially if you were elderly and sick and worried. It would be exhausting.
Olivia felt a rare moment of empathy for Rachel Goldthorpe.
She wished she had killed Lewis. What a useless waste of oxygen.
She decided to search the house that night. She had looked very carefully at the alarm system. She’d worked at an alarm company for a while, and she knew what to look for.
Olivia was certain that the maid, Bertha, didn’t sleep in. A woman as unpretentious as Rachel (going by Manfred’s description) would not have sleep-in staff. But Olivia hadn’t survived until now without double checking, so she drove back to Rachel’s neighborhood at four thirty that afternoon in her own car. At one minute after five o’clock, she watched Bertha drive away in an old Subaru. Interestingly, the gardener was with her, and they were having an animated discussion. Mother and child?
As a bonus, a moment later Olivia saw Annelle depart in a Lexus. Presumably, that left only the odious Lewis in residence in the pool house. She wished she’d managed to see the garage in back, find out what he drove. She returned to her humble motel to finalize her plan, but it remained very basic. She would break into the Goldthorpe house and search for the jewelry. And if Lewis interrupted her? Well, people got killed when they confronted burglars just about every day. No one could blame her for that, right?
Hours later, Olivia parked blocks away from Old Pioneer Street. She’d leave her car, the rental, on a more modest street, one where there were occasional pedestrians and a few other cars parked at the curb. She was still in Bonnet Park, though, so she’d taken care to be appropriately camouflaged in black jeans, a flowered T-shirt, and high-end sneakers. Her hair was braided. She strode away confidently, the messenger bag slung over her shoulder. In it were some innocent items: a thin dark sweater, a wallet (with the identification of Rebecca Mansfield, which she’d used when she’d rented the car), some keys, a broad knit hair band, things anyone might need. She had had to include a few things no innocent person would carry, though, so this was definitely the vulnerable part of her evening.
Nobody seemed to be curious tonight. A casually dressed, attractive woman out for a walk was not anything unusual in the neighborhood a few streets from Old Pioneer. Perhaps the bag was a little odd; most women wouldn’t choose to take their evening walk carrying a bag. Apparently, if any of the inhabitants noticed her, they didn’t find anything suspicious in her progress toward the fancier area where the Goldthorpe house stood.
Olivia didn’t see a single patrol car as she walked.
In fact, she didn’t see that many moving vehicles, period. Though it was Friday, Olivia estimated at least ninety percent of the people of this Dallas suburb were home. At least two or three percent of the rest were gone on their summer vacations. And a percentage of the remainder were at the movies or out having drinks. By the time Olivia reached the Goldthorpes’ street, she was completely unobserved. When she reached the right driveway, she simply turned in to walk up it.
After her confident entrance, her path became more circumspect. She stepped off the crunchy gravel right away and moved silently across the grass to hide in the shadows created by a clump of bushes. She crouched and listened, closing her eyes to aid the process. Nothing moved in her immediate vicinity. After a moment, a car passed on the street, but it didn’t slow or turn in. Olivia’s lips turned up in a smile. Manfred had warned her there were surveillance cameras, but she had noticed this afternoon that the two in front were stationary, mounted on the front corners of the house. They were both aimed toward the front door. That left Olivia plenty of room to approach the house unseen. In her pool of shadow, she pulled on the dark cardigan and buttoned it to conceal her T-shirt. She slid the broad hair band across her forehead and neck to keep her braid from swinging. She tugged it down low over her brows. She tucked dark thin plastic gloves into her waistband. She’d need them soon, along with her lockpicks. She exhaled deeply and almost silently before she began her creepy-crawl up to the main house.
This was what Olivia lived for. Her heart beat faster, and though she didn’t realize it, she was smiling. Since she knew the cameras were pointed at the front door area, she kept to the hedge as she worked her way toward the left side of the house. One of those windows would be her first attempt at entry. She hoped the front room, the formal living room, would provide her access, because that room had no furniture drawn up to the windows, a glance had told her.
If everything was tight as a drum on both sides, she’d resort to the lockpicks on one of the doors. But Olivia felt optimistic; the evening had had a good beginning. She drew parallel to the living room windows and had to leave her cover to cross the driveway and reach the shelter of the foundation plantings. The camellia bushes (she thought that was what they were) had ample space between them for her to hug the wall below the window. With some excitement she reached up to feel out the situation.
Then everything went to hell.
11
Manfred was hungry, and he was tired of feeling trapped in his house. Toward evening, the reporters began to drift away, and he felt pleased with himself. After eleven o’clock, he got into his car and drove to Davy, picking a barbecue joint called Moo and Oink, which was about the only place open this late. He had the chopped beef and the beans and the onion rings, and he enjoyed every bite. Most of all, he enjoyed being in a place that wasn’t his house.
When he pulled out his wallet to pay, he saw the slip of paper with Olivia’s other phone number on it, the phone in another name. As he pulled it out of his wallet, he had a sudden and clear vision. Olivia was in bad trouble; he could feel her fighting someone.
Tonight was the time she was supposed to be reconnoitering the Goldthorpe house. Manfred sat, the piece of paper in his right hand, absolutely paralyzed. Should he call her? But how could she answer, if he did? He might just make things worse.
All Manfred’s pleasure in the evening had evaporated.
He looked at his watch. It was now nearly midnight. It would take him at least two hours to drive to Dallas. What did he need to take with him?
I don’t need anything, he thought. I’ve got my wallet and my credit cards and my driver’s license. I can buy anything else I need. This was one time when it felt good to live alone, without even a pet. Though he had no clear idea of what he would do when he got to Dallas, Manfred walked out of the restaurant and drove to the interstate. Usually, he found the Texas speed limit more than generous. Tonight, he prayed there was no state trooper concealed by the side of the road.
Along the way, he had enough sense to call Lemuel.
Lemuel answered.
—
Without any warning at all, Olivia had been smashed against the brick wall of the house by a man who was so strong, she’d wondered for a moment if he was a vampire. He knew about fighting, too. Olivia was used to employing her ruthlessness and agility to win a fight, but this man, whoever he was, seemed to know her capability. Her hands were pinned, one above her head and the other at her waist. His body was pressing hers against the hard surface, but there was nothing sexual about it.
Since she couldn’t kill him, she went limp while she waited to find out what his intentions were. Her captor was not Lewis Goldthorpe; she was sure of that, simply from his height and his strength. Olivia realized what she hadn’t heard. This man had not called for backup. So he was not police, not a security guard, or he would have alrea
dy called for help. And if he’d been another sneak thief, he would have left before she knew he was there, to avoid confrontation.
Instead, when she went limp he forced her hands together and used a plastic zip tie to secure them. But he was trying to do too much by himself, and he didn’t succeed in getting her wrists in tight proximity. She had some wiggle room. Not that that helped just at the moment, because he again used his whole body to keep her against the bricks, her hands trapped between them. He was doing something with his right hand. She heard some electronic beeps.
He’d gotten out a telephone. He’d punched two buttons.
Now he whispered, “McGuire, I’ve got her.”
Olivia’s blood turned to ice water. A moment before, she’d been cautious, waiting for more information: who this man worked for, what he planned for her. Now she knew. He’d automatically leaned a little away from her, just an inch or two, while he talked.
Olivia twisted just a little, brought her knee up sharply, and then shoved with all the power in her bound hands. Her knee landed exactly where she’d hoped it would, and he gagged and doubled over. She wheeled sideways, lifted a foot, and braced herself against the wall to kick the side of his head with all the force she could muster. She wished she’d been wearing boots. He landed on the ground on his back, and while he was fumbling to pull out a weapon, she stomped on his throat.
She knew from the feel of it she’d landed a killing blow.
She couldn’t find her balance on the uneven surface. She pitched forward onto the ground beside the dying man. As he finished dying, Olivia drew herself up into a crouch. Awkwardly, she patted him down. It was no surprise that he had a knife. In the darkness, she fumbled to extricate it from its sheath. As a bonus, she felt a familiar cylindrical shape and knew he’d brought a flashlight. Yes! It was easier to free it from his belt than to work her tiny one out of her pocket. She switched it on, setting it on his stomach to shine on her hands. Even with its help, she nicked herself in the process of cutting the zip tie. Once she’d freed her hands and stanched her own bleeding with the hair band, Olivia gave herself a minute to recover. By the time her sixty seconds were up, her breathing was back to normal and her pulse had stopped hammering.
She had gathered her wits, too. Olivia used the dead man’s flashlight to check that her own blood wasn’t anywhere on the ground. She stuck the sawed-up zip tie in her pocket. She would take his knife, flashlight, and phone, which she found on the ground beside his body. Did he have a wallet? Yes, he did. She took that, too. No gun, which was a slight surprise.
There wasn’t any way to conceal the body, so she left it where it lay. Finally, she switched off the flashlight.
Forcing herself to move stealthily, Olivia worked her way closer to the street, bush to bush, until she came to the shadowy place where she’d left her bag. She pulled down the sleeves of the sweater to cover her abraded wrists. She draped the messenger bag to cover as much of her as she could, in case there were spots she hadn’t noticed.
Olivia took a few deep breaths, then started the long walk back to her car, reminding herself with every step to be wary. He’d made the call; they’d be checking. Though not twenty-five minutes had passed since she’d turned onto Old Pioneer, she felt it had been hours.
Olivia stayed in cover wherever she could—overhanging tree limbs, shadows of any kind, parked cars as she moved into the less grand streets. If she heard a vehicle approaching, she hid and remained hidden until it was past. That only happened twice. As she came closer to the street where she’d left the rental car, she abandoned the sidewalk altogether. She crouched, watching the car, from the lushly planted yard of the corner house on that block. Concealed by a cluster of yucca plants and pampas grass, Olivia watched for fifteen minutes. Nothing happened. She was just about to stand when the phone she’d confiscated began to buzz quietly.
It made her jump about a mile.
She held it up to her ear. “Falco? Where are you now?” said a familiar voice. “Did you have to hurt her? She okay? We’ll be there in two.”
When Olivia said nothing, the voice hesitated. Then the man said, “Isabel? Is that you?”
Gently, she placed the phone on one of the large rocks bordering the planting bed. She brought her heel down on it like a jackhammer. She was able to crack it significantly. She bent to pick it up, happy that she couldn’t hear the voice anymore. Happy that she’d destroyed something that her father had paid for, though the purchaser had been his right-hand man, Ellery McGuire.
Done with waiting, Olivia strode to the rental car just as confidently as she’d left it. She climbed in as though this were part of her daily routine, and she pulled out and drove away with smooth expertise. She coasted around for an hour, checking for a tail, before she headed for her motel. She parked at the back and started up the stairs, feeling suddenly exhausted.
Somehow she was not surprised to find Lemuel sitting outside her room. “How?” she said, but he caught her up in his arms and held her close. After a second, she let herself lean on him. Then when a couple of minutes had passed, she opened her door and they went inside.
He sat by her on the bed, his arm around her. “Manfred called me directly,” he said. “I was closer than he was, so I told him to turn around and go back to Midnight, if he wanted. He said he would.”
“Where were you?” she asked, trying to keep her teeth from chattering.
“Here in Dallas,” he said. “I had a plane layover. I can delay a night.”
She started to tell Lemuel he didn’t need to postpone his departure, but when she tried to make her lips move, she simply couldn’t make them form those words. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I got away from him.”
“Woman, I know that,” Lemuel said in his quiet voice. “Manfred gave me the address. I saw the body. Who sent him?”
“My father’s right-hand man,” she said. “Ellery McGuire.”
Lemuel was silent. “Does he know where you are?”
“He knew I was going to that house, or at least suspected enough to put someone there. I don’t know how. I’ll figure it out.”
“Did you get whatever you went there to get?”
“No, I never got inside. Falco caught me first. I was too cocky. On the other hand, why would I ever imagine there’d be someone waiting there for me? I had other things to worry about.”
“What were you afeared of?” From time to time, you could tell Lemuel had been born in another age.
“That there might be security measures I didn’t know about, or that the jerk who now lives there would catch me and I’d have to do him in . . . which wouldn’t have been such a bad thing.”
“But instead, someone you never expected was there waiting for you.”
She nodded.
“You have no idea why?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t had time to think. I was too . . . intent on getting away from the area before the body was found. I had to get to a safe place.”
“You’re safe now,” he said, his cold lips brushing her cheek.
Suddenly she wanted the familiarity of him, the touch of him, more than anything else in the world. She turned to him, put her hands on each side of his face, brought his lips to hers.
For the first time that night, something went exactly like she’d expected. Maybe even better.
12
Manfred was rejoicing in the lifting of the siege the next day. He didn’t know what had happened in Dallas to make most of his watchers withdraw, but there were only two lone reporters outside the next day. He immediately checked the Internet. His search parameter was “Goldthorpe Bonnet Park,” and he got information immediately.
“Hmmm,” he said. “So Lewis found a body.” Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, he thought. “No identification. Well, well, well.”
There was a quiet knock on his back door, so he was gl
ad he was dressed and had brushed his teeth. He was sure who his caller must be. He opened the door and Olivia came in. It would be an exaggeration to say she looked like hell, but it would be accurate to say she’d looked better every other time he’d seen her.
“You just get in from Dallas?”
“Yeah.” She stood facing him, her mouth tight with reluctance. “Okay, thanks for calling Lemuel. As it turned out, I didn’t need him. I got away by myself. But it was nice to have backup. Don’t ever do that again.”
“Sure, don’t babble on and on about it,” Manfred said in a friendly voice. “I didn’t worry at all after getting a picture of you in danger, and I wasn’t halfway to Dallas when I heard from Lemuel telling me all was well, so I only wasted half a tank of gas and some sleep. That’s fine! I don’t mind. Anything to help a friend.”
Olivia looked more and more angry as he spoke. Just when he began to believe she might hit him, she smiled, though reluctantly. “I do thank you,” she said. “But most situations, I can handle myself. I was really, really glad to see Lemuel. It was a stroke of luck that he was in Dallas, by the way. He’s not there any longer.”
Manfred didn’t ask where Lemuel had gone. “So, are you hurt?” he asked.
“Not to speak of. Definitely not as badly as the other guy.”
“I never intended anything like this.” Manfred looked at her directly. “If I’d known the Rev was going to ask you for help, I would never have consented. Maybe this is a day for us being ungrateful with each other. Because I feel pretty bad that the guy is dead, Olivia.”
“I feel pretty bad that he was trying to capture me to turn me over to my enemy,” she retorted.
“Who is the enemy? And how does that relate to the problem with Lewis Goldthorpe?”
“I’ll try to explain.”
“Please do.” Manfred suddenly realized he felt a little silly arguing in the middle of his kitchen, and he gestured toward the little table. A bit to his surprise, she sat. He pointed at his Keurig, and she nodded. He made her a cup of coffee, and then one for himself. There was creamer and sugar on the table, and she used both.