"Virginia....."
"We have to go."
CHAPTER 5
It was past midnight. The french doors to
Morgan's den were wide open and a light breeze stirred the
draperies. The one desk lamp was lit, casting deformed shadows on
the walls. The leather chair sighed and creaked luxuriously as
Morgan leaned back. He studied Marco's face across the desk with an
intensity that made the other inwardly flinch. Marco's features
were a distortion of bruised flesh, dried blood, and massive
swelling. Every blink of his eyes was a reminder of the tortuous
beating. He held in check his anger and loathing of his employer
for the unjust punishment for letting Clarissa slip away. When
Morgan finally spoke, Marco visibly sagged with relief.
"What happened?" Morgan's voice was low and
icy.
"I tracked the Jaguar west," Marco explained
haltingly at first, dealing with the pain from his swollen jaw,
split lip and missing teeth. He squeezed his eyes shut to clear the
fog from his head, gained his confidence, and went on. "She didn't
go to the hairdresser's place or Sylvia Cheswick's party. She
started heading north on the freeway toward the interstate. Dalton
suggested the warehouse in Sun Valley so I began to head her in
that direction. We were a block away. She knew I was behind her and
she was starting to panic. It was going perfect as planned. Then
there was the train. I thought I had her trapped."
"How could you possibly have lost
her?"
"She drove straight for the train. I thought
she was going to try and beat it so I shot out her tires. Thought I
could stop her right on the tracks. Do the job for us real neat. I
saw the train hit the Jag, or at least I though I did. When the
train passed and I got to the other side of the tracks, the Jag was
smashed up real bad but Clarissa was gone."
"You searched?"
"The whole area. I called Alex again. He sent
Lee Yuen and the two of us went over the whole industrial park with
a fine tooth comb. There was no blood so we don't think she was
hurt. All we found was part of her purse strap in the car. There
was no sign of her. She just vanished."
"She didn't vanish," said Wolfe hotly. "She's
out there somewhere. She saw you pull the trigger, Marco. You had
better find her."
Marco barely held Morgan's stiff glare. In the
eight years he had been with Wolfe, he had prided himself on
perfection. There was never even the slightest crack in Marco's
cool and calm veneer. He was never careless, never made mistakes.
Not until tonight. The crack was almost imperceptible, but it made
Marco's muscles tense and his stomach tighten. If Clarissa was not
found, they were all in jeopardy and the blame would be on Marco's
shoulders. Silently, he cursed himself for not checking the all the
doors to the house a second time before the meeting with Byron
Roth. He had left that task to Alex but security was his direct
responsibility.
He could find her, of that he was certain.
Marco was a born tracker, once long ago, a freelance bounty hunter.
He knew the human animal was a creature of habit. He also knew that
it took knowledge of his prey, setting the right traps, and
patience while he tightened the noose and watched his prey begin to
make mistakes. That was the part of the hunt he enjoyed the most,
the fear and mounting terror of his victims.
"It's gonna take some time."
"You got seventy-two hours."
"Mister Wolfe, I may need more
time."
"In seventy-two hours that bitch could break
wide open this organization," Wolfe hissed. "I want her dead. If
you have to call in outside help, do it. Check on every place that
she could possibly go. Friends, acquaintances, her modeling
contacts, everything you can think of. She's got no family except a
brother in the oil fields in the Middle East. Cut off that route
immediately. Call our contacts in Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Round up
the brother and hold him. Check with Virginia again. She might have
heard from her."
"Dalton and Santos are covering Virginia's
condo. Bateman is watching the Palisades place and Alex is trying
to track her cell phone. So far its offline. No signal. I'll send
Yuen to the hair salon in Beverly Hills."
“Her friend Hugo is in La Jolla, Cover that
too.” Marco nodded painfully. "Don't fail a second time, Marco,"
Morgan said. "I doubt your face could take it."
Marco stiffened slightly but made no reply. He
wanted only to get his hands on Clarissa, now more than ever. Gone
were the fantasies of sadistic pleasure. Marco wanted to torture
her, hear her screams. She would die a slow, agonizing death. He
would make her suffer as retribution for the brutal beating he had
endured by five of Morgan's guards. He had deserved the pain and
humiliation. He had screwed up. Security was his responsibility and
he had failed Morgan Wolfe. He would not do so again. But the blond
bitch would know just how seriously Marco Camponello took his
job.
"Put somebody on the hairdresser's beach house
in Manhattan Beach" Morgan was saying. “He might still have that
apartment in New York. A long shot she could make it there, but
cover both of those as well."
"She tried to call his house earlier tonight,"
Marco replied, shifting his sore ribs and guts uneasily in the
chair. "We've had the phones at Hugo's tapped per the usual
procedure for any new associate. She called from her cell. Roommate
told her Hugo had already left for La Jolla."
"Then no other calls from her
cell?"
"Rogers said it went off line after that. She
probably was smart enough to destroy it.”
“No, that bitch is not that smart. We’ll
probably find it in the wreck.”
“Had is towed and we have people going over it
now.”
Wolfe nodded as he watched Marco disappear
through the french doors before he permitted himself a satisfied
smile.
Clarissa hugged the corner of the elevator as
they made the slow descent to the subterranean parking garage. The
gray-haired woman in the lavender cocktail dress and a rhinestone
collared Chihuahua under each arm, gave her a disgusted glance and
Clarissa stepped closer to Virginia.
"Don't these people know they're to use the
service elevator?" the woman whispered to Virginia, who merely
shrugged and returned to watch the digital display of the floor
indicator. One of the dogs dropped a tiny stool onto the floor.
Clarissa cleared her throat. When the woman started to give her a
cold sneer, Clarissa indicated the dog dropping.
"You dropped something," said Clarissa.
"You're not going to leave it there, are you?"
The woman gave her a look as if she expected
Clarissa to do the dirty work. Clarissa smiled, for the first time
in hours.
"I don't do shit," she told the
woman.
"Ma'am, the rules of the building say you
can't let your dogs do their business in the building," Virginia
said and handed the woman a tissue from her jeans
pocket.
The woman's eyes blazed with
indignation.
"You don't expect...?"
"It's the rules, ma'am," said Virginia.
"Please pick it up.
"The elevator stopped on the ground floor. The
doors started to open. Virginia reached over to the control panel
and held the door closed. Her eyes blazing with anger, the woman
thrust the two overgrown rat dogs at Clarissa and snatched the
tissue from Virginia. In a huff she bend over and picked up the
dropping. Virginia let the elevator door open. As the woman
retrieved her dogs and the door was about to close, Clarissa let
out a cry.
Two of Morgan's security guards had just
gotten out of a dark sedan and were coming up the walk toward the
glass front door. Dalton opened the door with a security key while
the other, Santos, disappeared around the side of the building.
Virginia punched the button to close the elevator door.
"Keep your face hidden," she said sharply. "I
don't think they saw us."
"What are they doing here?"
"I don't know," Virginia replied as the
elevator continued its descent to the garage. "Morgan isn't taking
any chances. He's covering all the bases. You've got him going,
girl. For the first time in his life, you've got Morgan Wolfe
scared."
"He's not the only one. Gin..."
"Just stay calm. He couldn't have known you're
here. He would have sent Marco if he suspected. He's just laying
out the net, hoping you'll fall into it sooner or
later."
"Dalton had a key."
"They all have keys. Morgan owns the penthouse
and three other condos that he leases out in my name and various
other names. He owns the property management company that manages
the place and Alex Rogers is the president of the *homeowners
association."
"Then how are we going to get out of
here?"
"Very carefully. You do whatever I say, when I
say. Don't question. Just move when I tell you."
The elevator door slid open with a whoosh that
made Clarissa jump. She half expected to see a grinning Santos
standing there, his gun pointed at her gut. The tension in her body
was to the point of physical pain. Her neck and shoulder muscles
ached with it like a blinding migraine. There was no relief even
when they stepped off the elevator into an empty and quiet
garage.
"The dark blue Mercedes," Virginia indicated
the car parked mid-way down an aisle of expensive American and
imported cars. "Get into the trunk."
Clarissa started to protest but the elevator
door closed behind them and the car began the assent and stopped on
the first floor. Then it began to descend. When it came down again,
Clarissa knew that the elevator would hold death.
Virginia unlocked the trunk and retrieved a
tan eel-skin briefcase before Clarissa climbed in among some black
plastic trash bags.
"Just some more old clothes I'm giving to the
Goodwill," Virginia explained. "Hurry, get in."
"Please, don't shut it all the way," Clarissa
pleaded.
Virginia lowered the trunk lid enough so that
it looked like it was closed but the lock not engaged. She turned
toward the elevator when the door opened and Dalton
emerged.
"Thought I'd find you down here, Miss Essex,"
Dalton grinned widely. "Scanner showed your care was here, but you
weren't upstairs."
"What are you doing here, Dalton?" Virginia's
voice was hard edged with forced anger that hid the sudden
fear.
"You see Miss Hayden tonight?"
"Miss Hayden is at a party at Sylvia
Cheswick's," Virginia explained. "Would you like to see a copy of
her schedule?"
"She didn't make the party. She might have
tried to come here. As least that what's Morgan said. Wanted Santos
and I to check it out. Maybe you have seen her."
"I haven't. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have
work to do."
Dalton blocked her path to the elevator and
Virginia managed to hang onto her cool despite the panic that was
growing steadily.
"I don't mean to detain you, Miss Essex, but I
want to have a look inside your car."
"What for?" she snapped. "I was just over
there. There's no one inside."
"I'd like to have a look anyway. Sorry to have
to inconvenience you like this, but it won't take but a
moment."
Before she could protest, Dalton grabbed her
upper arm and moved her toward the Mercedes. Virginia's eyes were
riveted on the trunk lid. Dalton took her keys from her and opened
the driver's side door, then tossed the keys back to her. He took a
flashlight from the pocket of his black quilted jacket and searched
the entire interior of the car. Virginia's knuckled were white on
the handle of the briefcase as she huffed with mock
impatience.
"Won't be more than a minute more, Miss
Essex," Dalton said.
"Dalton!" Santos called from farther down the
aisle of cars. He was back-lit by the outside lights shining in
through the security gate, but Virginia could see that he was
carrying an assault weapon over his shoulder. As he approached the
Mercedes he held out something to Dalton.
"What's this?" Dalton asked, taking the small
object and holding it up to the flashlight's beam.
Virginia silently cursed. It did little to
stem the tide of panic that weakened her knees. Her heart pounded
in her chest and she fought back tears of pure hatred and anger.
Dalton handed her the small red object.
"Look familiar?" he asked her.
"No," she said flatly.
Dalton grabbed her hand and shined the
flashlight on her perfectly manicured, but colorless
nails.
"Didn't think you wore these," he said
matter-of-factly. "I notice those thinks about a woman. Now, Miss
Hayden, she has some guy come out to do her hair and sometimes he
brings a girl that does her nails. Glues these on, I think is how
it's done. Then they put on red polish. Like this color. Miss
Hayden, she don't use no ordinary color. Girl mixes the color
special. I know, because I asked once. Though my girlfriend would
kind of like to have a bottle of it."