False Security (20 page)

His voice pulled her back into reality
and reminded her of the task before her. “You realize how important this is.”
It was not a question.

“Of course.”

“You’ll be entirely on your own.
You won’t have contact with Paul at all. If anything goes wrong, he won’t be in
a position to bail you out. With that in mind, don’t let Cox get control of the
situation. You are to remain in charge at all times. Is that understood?”

Rachel had heard the same
warning several times before, but with the job looming over her, it sounded
more severe this time. If she wasn’t careful every second, she could place
herself in a dangerous situation. “Yes, I understand,” she said.

“Stay confident and focused. No
distractions. When the time comes, don’t think, just act.” He laid his hands on
her shoulders and his mouth brushed against her cheek, his lips sweeping closer
to her mouth than she expected. “Good luck, Rachel,” he said.

“Last minute advice?” Paul
asked, as she settled into the passenger side of the car.

She touched her cheek where he
had kissed her. “Something like that.”

“I still don’t like the dress,”
Paul mumbled, and drove the car away from the house.

Two hours later,
Paul parked the car on a side street. Up a small hill to their right, a
circular, stucco building interrupted the night sky. The stars illuminated the
building and the concrete walkway surrounding it.

Rachel had seen the building
many times in photographs, but seeing it in real life put a lump in her throat
and a weight on her chest. She wanted Paul to turn the car around and drive
back to the safety of the estate, but she knew there was no use asking. Every
opportunity she had to turn away from the job was now gone. She had no choice
left but to go through with it.

Oblivious to her internal
struggle, Paul pointed to a door on the side of the building. “Right there is
where you enter,” he said.

The light above the door
appeared burned out as a coincidence, but coincidence didn’t exist in her
world. Everything about the job was planned down to the second, including the
burned out light. Donovan had worked closely with Wilkes to ensure his men were
as active in the job as she and Paul. His men arrived at the building earlier
that morning, long before the rest of the city was awake, to cut the wires to
the light and take care of other details of the job.

“The door is unlocked,” Paul
continued. “Remember the way you go in because you’ll come out that way, too.
Try not to let anyone see you going in or leaving because they’ll be sure to
remember you later since you’re not using the main entrance. Once you’re
inside, find the restroom near the lobby. Stay in one of the stalls until the
musical is over, then go into the lobby and get into the receiving line.”

Rachel absorbed the details one
last time.

He handed Rachel a ticket stub
to the musical and a hotel room keycard. “The ticket stub is in case someone
asks. Slip the hotel keycard to Cox and meet me back here. You should be gone
no longer than twenty-five minutes.”

Rachel placed both the keycard
and ticket stub in a clutch purse that also held a tube of lipstick and a
compact mirror. She tucked the clutch under her arm, steadied her breath, and
climbed out of the car.

She entered through the door
Paul indicated, and peered both ways down the halls. The building appeared
empty. The attendees of that night’s play were enjoying the last scenes of the
performance, but soon the hallways would fill with people and conversation.

Rachel moved to the restroom and
hid in the middle stall. The smell of antiseptic and the shine on the walls of
the immaculate bathroom stall sparked a memory of a vacation to Disneyland with
her parents the summer before they died. When they stopped off at a gas station
during their road trip, Rachel raced to the bathroom.

Inside the first stall, she
found graffitied walls with language she had never heard before. Wide-eyed, she
used the restroom and ran back to her mother, wishing she could undo what she
saw, even though she wasn’t sure what most of the words meant.

As Rachel waited in the stall
for the musical to end, she wished she had some graffiti to help her pass the
time in the stall. Instead, she only had her nerves to keep her company, and
she second-guessed her role in the job. Doubts had not corroded one of her jobs
before tonight, and she couldn’t let them get the best of her now.

More than ever, she wanted to
impress Donovan by making this job the smoothest they had ever done. She wanted
to solidify herself as much more than a valuable asset to him. She only wished
that he saw her as something more than an employee, as Eric pointed out last
night. But a man like Donovan had a world of attractive and sophisticated women
to choose from, women like Jill Wilkes. Eric was right. There was no need for
Donovan to go near the hired help for companionship.

Women filtered through the
bathroom door to use the restroom and freshen their makeup. They conversed in
rushed, gossiping tones about the musical’s handsome star, Jeff Cox. Rachel
drew a shaky breath and removed the hotel keycard from her purse. She sealed
her left hand around the keycard, gripping it like a tiny security blanket.

She exited the stall unnoticed
and found her way to the receiving line. All of the performers had changed into
dresses and suits after the musical ended, and Rachel wondered what fantastic
costumes they wore during their time on stage. She shook the hands of men and
women she had never seen, and told them what a wonderful performance they gave
in a musical she knew nothing about.

As she neared the front of the
line, she craned her neck to get a better view of Cox. He still had makeup from
the play on his face, but it didn’t interrupt his ability to attract members of
the opposite sex. A handsome man, Cox had blonde hair, blue eyes, and smooth
features, but he exuded arrogance, even more so than Eric. Women almost fell
over each other trying to shake his hand and grab his attention, while he
appeared to regard them as objects created for his pleasure.

Rachel bit her tongue to stop
herself from laughing out loud at the lustful scene. Many hotel room keycards
enter his hands, which he dropped into a trashcan beside him after the adoring
fan left his sight. Now she understood why Donovan insisted she wear such an
alluring dress.

Rachel transferred the keycard
to her right hand when she reached the front of the line. Cox took her hand and
she leaned into him. She whispered the name of the hotel in his ear in a husky
tone. He took the keycard from her hand, and she walked toward the entrance,
swishing her hips without overdoing it. She glanced back in time to see him
slip the keycard in his suit pocket.

“Well?” Paul asked when she
returned to the car.

“He took it.”

“That doesn’t mean I changed my
mind about the dress.”

Rachel rolled her eyes, but
didn’t let Paul bait her into a debate.

At the hotel, she retrieved her
bag from the trunk of the car. Holding the straps of her shoes between her
fingers, she used a designated stairwell to climb to the fifth floor. At the
top of the stairs, she slipped on her heels and took a special key out of her
bag to gain access to a freight elevator.

She rode the elevator to the
closed restaurant on the twentieth floor. From there, she walked through the
restaurant to a private elevator that waiters used to take room service up to the
penthouse. Using a keycard similar to the one she gave Cox, she unlocked the
penthouse door. She made her way down the lengthy entryway, her heels clicking
against the flawless wood flooring.

She had some time before Cox
would come strutting through the door, so she familiarized herself with the
penthouse. Though she had memorized the floor plan, Rachel’s meticulous side
did not want any surprises once Cox showed up.

From the entryway, Rachel
entered a cozy sitting area. Two white sofas with delicate, stitched patterns
were arranged in an L-shape around a glass table standing on iron, claw legs.
The sitting area opened up to a much larger living room, with another couch,
two light blue armchairs, and a luxurious chaise lounge. The dining area next
to the living room boasted a dark wood table large enough to seat eight beneath
a crystal chandelier.

In both the living room and
dining area, sheer blue curtains covered glass doors leading to the balcony,
and abstract oil paintings graced the walls. A partially open door on her left
revealed a white marble floor and Rachel imagined if she opened the door she
would find the first of two bathrooms she remembered from the floor plans. The
bedroom on her right, however, interested her more.

Her eyes took in every detail of
the bedroom. The finest of linens dressed the California king size bed, and she
noted with approval the rails on the headboard of the bed. She placed her bag
next to a telephone and reading lamp on an oak table in the front of the room.
She pressed on the headboard, but could not make it touch the wall. Once Cox
was there and on the bed, she didn’t want any unnecessary noise, despite her
nearest neighbors being two floors down.

With the stage set, she exited
the bedroom and turned her attention to the balcony off the living room. She
yanked back the curtains and the lights of the city greeted her. The balcony
included another chaise lounge and several oversized chairs for relaxing under
the stars.

The door tempted her to go
outside for a moment. She thought of the people the lights represented and
wondered what they were doing. The world she stared out on greatly differed
from the one she knew. There were times when late at night she would lie awake,
dreaming about that world and what it would be like to go back.

No distractions
,
Donovan’s voice reminded her. She needed to focus on the job and nothing else.
She returned to the bedroom, removed her high heels, and sat down on the bed.
There, she waited for Cox, and allowed Donovan’s voice to float through her
mind without censor.

An hour later, the door to the
penthouse opened. She walked to the doorway and leaned against the frame. Jeff
Cox slipped out of his coat and threw it over the side of the chaise lounge.
His eyes journeyed over Rachel’s body and he grinned. “You’re even more
beautiful than I originally thought,” he said. He started toward her, hunger
gleaming in his eyes.

Repulsed by his quick action,
she shuffled backward into the bedroom and stayed a couple steps beyond his
reach. He held his arms out to her, and Rachel tasted bile in the back of her
throat. “I have a better idea,” she said. “Get on the bed.”

He stepped out of his shoes and
climbed onto the center of the bed. “Aren’t you coming over here?”

Rachel went to her bag and took
out two pairs of handcuffs. She tossed one pair onto the bed. “Put this on
first.”

He attached one of the cuffs to
his wrist and snapped the other cuff onto the headboard without hesitation. She
expected some resistance, but it seemed he had done this before.

She walked around the bed and
did the same to his other hand. She returned to her bag and pulled out a pair
of gloves. She tugged them over her hands and reached back into her bag.

“What are you getting now?” he
asked.

“I’m afraid you won’t like it
too much.” She turned around and pointed a gun equipped with a suppressor at
his head.

“What the hell is this?” he
asked.

“Eight weeks ago you were in Los
Angeles, preparing for your musical. You met a woman named Jill at a bar near
the performance hall. Sound familiar?”

“Never heard of her.”

“You went back to her condo with
her, where you slipped drugs into her drink when she changed her mind about
having sex with you. After you raped her, you stole a large jewelry box out of
her room. The box contained hundreds of thousands of dollars of antique
jewelry, which her mother had given her before she died two years ago.”

“Is this a joke?”

“Jill identified you to her
father, Graham Wilkes. He’s someone you don’t want to cross.”

The terror in his eyes
unmistakable, he asked, “Are you mafia?”

The corner of her mouth turned
upward. “No, I’m freelance.”

“I didn’t do anything to this
girl. I don’t even know who she is. I would never do anything to upset Graham
Wilkes.”

“I’m not here to listen to your
pathetic denials. We both know what you did. Wilkes wanted me to cut off your
little friend and bring it back to him on a silver platter. I convinced him we
should let you stay intact, but only if you tell me where the jewelry is. These
are his wife’s family heirlooms. I’m sure you understand his motivations behind
wanting them back.”

His lips tightened.

“Fine, have it your way.” She
reached into the bag and took out the hunting knife she borrowed from Paul.

“Okay! It’s at my home. Look, I
took the jewelry box, but I didn’t rape her. It was consensual.” Cox raised his
eyebrows and smirked. “Why don’t you put down the knife?” Even though his eyes
remained fearful, his tone changed to one of seduction. “I can show you why she
loved every minute of being with me. I have a feeling you’re a bit more feisty
than she is.”

His words disgusted Rachel, but
she pretended to consider his offer and walked to the foot of the bed. She ran
her tongue over her lips and crossed her arms. “Why don’t you tell me where the
jewelry is, and we then can see about the rest? You are already tied up, after
all. No one ever has to find out. You can keep a secret, right?”

Cox relaxed a bit and flashed a
cocky smile. “I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking.”

Rachel softened her voice to
make him think he would get what he wanted. “Is the jewelry in your condo in
Los Angeles or your house in San Francisco?”

“San Francisco.”

“Where is it in your house?”

“It’s in my bedroom on the
second floor, in a wall safe. The safe is in the back of my closet on the right-hand
side.”

“I need the combination.”

He hesitated.

She waved the knife.

He told her the combination.

“You don’t mind if my guys check
it out while we wait, do you?” She picked up the phone on the desk and dialed.
Into the phone she said, “It’s me. San Francisco.” She paused and ran her
fingers over the blade of the knife. “It’s in his room on the second floor.
There’s a safe in the wall of the closet.”

“Wait!”

“Hold on.” Rachel lowered the
receiver to her shoulder. “Yes?”

“I lied.”

She lifted the receiver to her
mouth. “I’ll call you back,” she said. A recorded voice finished giving her the
three-day forecast, and she replaced the receiver. “I’m standing here with a
gun and a knife, ready to use either. Why would you lie?”

“I hoped you were bluffing.”

“Do I look like I’m bluffing?”

“No, and I’m sorry for trying to
trick you. The jewelry is in Los Angeles, under my bed.”