L
ET GO OF ME.”
“Un-huh.”
She tried to push him away. He tightened his grip on her shoulders, which only caused her to struggle harder. “Stop that!” he said.
“Then let me go.”
“Not a chance.”
She stopped trying to fight him off, but her eyes threw daggers. “How did you get past the guards?”
“They’re in the stairwell. One of them’s missing his hat, shirt, and gun belt,” he said, nodding down at himself. The shirtsleeves were several inches too short, the buttons strained against his chest, and the fit across his shoulders wouldn’t pass close inspection, but it had fooled Laura enough to get her to open the door. He hoped it would fool anyone who saw him escorting her from the building.
“I didn’t hit them hard. They won’t be out long. I’ve got to smuggle you out of here before someone realizes they’re not at their posts.” He pulled her away from the wall. “Get some clothes on.”
She dug her heels in and tried to wrest her hand free from his grip. “I’ll scream this building down before I go anywhere with you.”
He took her by the shoulders again. “I did not kill your husband, Laura.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head, refusing to hear.
“Listen to me. Manuelo Ruiz stabbed Foster, not me.”
Her eyes popped open. She gaped at him. “Manuelo would never—”
“He did. And I’ll give you a detailed account of what happened that night. Later. Right now, we’re getting out of here. Now, dammit, get some clothes on.” He said it with an undertone of threat, playing on her evident fear. He would make amends later, but he didn’t have time for niceties now.
Coolly, she said, “I can’t dress as long as you’re holding on to me.”
Gradually he removed his hands from her shoulders but was poised in case she tried to get to the door. She stepped around him and moved to the bureau. She took several articles of clothing from a drawer, considered them, exchanged them for others.
Impatiently, he yanked the items from her hand and threw them onto the bed, then jerked on the belt of her robe, untying it. “Get into them, and make it fast.” She turned her back and let the robe slide off her onto the floor. She was naked. He was running for his life, but it was a sight that momentarily stopped him from thinking about anything else. She stepped into panties and worked a T-shirt over her head, then started moving toward the door. He grabbed her arm, halting her.
“There’s a tracksuit in the closet.”
The closet was adjacent to the door. He went to it, slid open the door, and sorted through the clothes.
“That,” she said.
“This?” She nodded. He peeled the tracksuit off the hanger and thrust it at her. “Hurry.”
She stepped into the stretchy pants and pulled them on. “If you force me to go with you—”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Of course you do!”
“Shoes.” He took a pair of sneakers from the closet and dropped them at her feet.
“You’ll be adding kidnapping to your other crimes.”
He helped her balance while she worked her feet into the sneakers. “Where’s your purse?”
“Griff, I implore you.”
“Are you wearing the jacket?”
She pulled it on. “Rodarte—”
“Will be checking with these guys any minute.”
“That’s right. You’ll never get me out of this hotel. He has guards posted downstairs, too. They’ve got my car keys.”
He fished her ring of keys out of his pants pocket and jangled it at her. “You’re walking out of here, Laura. You and your
police escort.
Anyone challenges you, you say you need some things from the store, you have a hankering for Taco Bell, your grandmother is sick. I don’t care what excuse you give, just make them believe it.”
She looked him over. “Despite the getup, don’t you think they’ll recognize you?”
“For your own safety, you’d better hope they don’t.”
She glanced down at the holster on his hip. Rather than frightening her, it seemed to embolden her. Taking a stance, she folded her arms and looked up at him. “You wouldn’t hurt me. I know you wouldn’t.”
“You don’t think?”
Slowly, she shook her head.
He moved in close and lowered his face to within inches of hers. “I’m not going back to prison. So if I’m caught, all bets are off. I’ll blare to the whole frigging world that Foster Speakman couldn’t get it up. He was no longer a man, the marriage was a sham, and, in order to have a kid, he hired me to fuck his wife.” Her face went slack with dismay.
“Yeah,” Griff said, “think about that. I saw the pictures of his funeral, watched the stories about it on TV, saw you posed so pretty at his graveside. I’ve read his obituary and listened to politicians singing his praises. Everybody thought he was bloody wonderful, didn’t they? What do you think their opinion of Foster the great is going to be when I tell them he paid me to play stud for him?
“And don’t forget, to prove it’s true, I’ve got a hundred grand in the bank with his name on the signature card.” He encircled her biceps, forming an unbreakable grip with his strong fingers, and shoved her toward the door. “Now move it.”
“Hey, Thomas?”
Griff pulled up short, and Laura with him. The sound came from the earpiece he’d stuck in his ear after putting on the cop’s uniform. Thomas was being paged by one of his counterparts downstairs. Giving Laura a warning look, Griff clicked on the transmitter clipped to the shoulder seam of the shirt. “Go ahead,” he mumbled.
“Where’s Lane?”
“At the elevator with Mrs. Speakman,” he whispered, as though not wanting to be overheard. “He’s bringing Her Highness down.”
“What for?”
“She wants some carryout.”
“Sick of room service food?”
Griff grunted a noncommittal reply.
“Yeah, she’s got it really tough,” the cop said sarcastically. “Even with Lane tagging along, Rodarte isn’t gonna like it, her going out after dark.”
“Then Rodarte can come babysit her.”
The other cop laughed. “I hear that.” He clicked off.
Griff looked through the peephole, then pulled open the door and checked the hallway. He pulled Laura behind him as he ran toward the service elevator. He’d placed a dolly in the open door to keep it there. When they were inside, he dragged the dolly in and pushed the button for the ground floor.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
“In the employee parking lot.”
“Once we’re out of the building, where?”
“To the right.”
“How far?”
“Fairly close.” His eyes drilled into hers, demanding more. She said, “Within steps of the entrance. But we’ll never get past the guard at that door.”
“He’s napping.”
The cop was still out cold, right where Griff had left him, behind a Dumpster, out of sight of any hotel employee who happened to use that entrance. Griff had come dressed in a set of navy blue work pants and shirt, carrying a stack of empty boxes. The ruse had worked long enough for him to get close to the cop and knock him out.
The policeman on the top floor, guarding the stairwell and service elevator, had reacted with surprise when the elevator doors opened and Griff stepped off. “Hey, you’re supposed to clear it downstairs before—” Griff had thrust the boxes at him and punched.
Hearing the commotion, the cop guarding Laura’s door had come running. He’d rounded a corner and got clouted on the head with the butt of his buddy’s service pistol. Of the two, he was the larger. Griff had hastily stripped him of his uniform shirt, hat, and gun belt.
He’d handcuffed each of them behind their backs, also linking the pairs of handcuffs together, then put duct tape over their mouths. Even when they regained consciousness, they’d make an awkward, mute, four-legged animal that would have trouble getting out of the stairwell and raising an alarm.
He was guilty of assault on three police officers. That was the least of his worries.
He knew there was another cop posted at the corner of the parking lot. It was just dark enough that Griff hoped from that distance the cop would see only a uniform shirt and hat and would mistake him for Lane. As he and Laura emerged from the service entrance, Griff kept his face averted but raised his arm and waved. The cop waved back.
Laura led him to her BMW. He unlocked the driver’s side. Thinking of the horn, he said, “Remember what I told you upstairs. If you want to uphold your late husband’s reputation, you do not want me to be caught.”
He closed the door and quickly walked around to the passenger side. Once he was in, he put the key in the ignition and started the motor. “Take the freeway to Oak Lawn. Exit and head north until it merges with Preston.”
She looked at him with surprise.
“That’s right, Laura. We’re going to your house.”
Getting past the policeman at the gate was going to be the next tricky part. While Laura drove, Griff formulated a plan.
“You won’t get away with this,” she said.
“I have so far, haven’t I?”
“Policemen in five states are looking for you.”
“But they haven’t found me.”
“Where have you been hiding?”
He didn’t answer that. “When we get to your place, make sure your headlights are on bright. Pull in so that they’re shining directly into the windshield of the patrol car that’s parked in front of the gate.”
“Are you sure the gate is still being guarded?”
“I’m sure.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Followed Rodarte.”
She looked at him with astonishment. “You’ve been following Rodarte? How?”
“What’s the code on your gate?”
She turned her head back to the road, and her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I can’t think of a single reason why I should tell you that.”
“Can you think of a reason why your husband would have had half a million in cash at your house that night, stacked neatly in a stationery box?”
“I explained that to Rodarte.” In nervous stops and starts, she told Griff about Foster’s heavy tipping practice.
“Half a million dollars’ worth?” Griff said, laughing. “Nobody’s that generous.”
“Rodarte believed me.”
“I doubt it. In any case, I could throw a shitload of doubt on that explanation. Or”—he paused for emphasis—“you could give me the gate code.” She gave him the code, and then he told her how it was going to play out when they reached the estate.
As instructed, when she turned in to the private drive, she pulled in so that her headlights shone directly into the squad car. Griff opened the passenger door. Before getting out, he said, “I could make mincemeat of Foster Speakman’s reputation. Remember that.”
He stepped out of the car, leaving the door open, and walked toward the keypad on the column near the gate.
The policeman had got out of the squad car and was approaching him, his hand raised, shielding his eyes against the glare of Laura’s headlights. Griff kept moving, asking over his shoulder, “How’s it going here? Everything quiet?”
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“Officer?” Laura called out to him.
The cop turned toward her. Griff reached the column, punched in the sequence of numbers she had given him, holding his breath until the double gate began to swing open.
“Is everything all right here?” Laura had alighted and was standing in the open door of her car, talking to the policeman.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“This additional security is so unnecessary.”
“Better to be safe, ma’am.”
“I need to pick up some things from the house. I shouldn’t be long.”
By now, Griff was back at the car, sliding into the passenger seat. She bent down and addressed him. “You don’t have to go inside with me,” she said, following the script he’d given her. “In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. I’ll be perfectly safe inside my own home.”
“I’m supposed to stay with you, ma’am. Rodarte’s orders,” he said, making sure the other cop heard it.
She huffed as though vexed and looked back at the officer. “Could you move your car please, before the gate closes?”
Quickly he returned to his squad car, started it, and rolled it forward far enough to clear the gate. Laura drove through.
Griff didn’t start breathing again until the gate closed automatically behind them. But if that officer was any kind of sharp, he’d be checking with Rodarte to see if Laura’s visit to her home had been approved. Or he would soon be receiving a call from the hotel telling him that Mrs. Speakman had been abducted. Griff hoped to be in and out before either happened.
“Go in through the front door, where he can see us.”
She followed the driveway and parked directly in front of the house. Griff got out and approached the mansion’s grand entrance, looked around, played the role of bodyguard in case they were being observed. Laura used her key and opened the front door. The alarm started beeping. She made no move toward the keypad.
Griff said, “The house on Windsor Street would become a tourist attraction.”
She understood the warning and punched in the code that silenced the alarm.
“Lights?”
She touched a switch that seemed to turn on every light in the house. “Fancy,” he said, impressed.
“Now what?”
“Now we go to the garage. Specifically, to Manuelo Ruiz’s apartment above the garage.”
She looked at him with incredulity. “Is that what this is about?”
“That’s what this is about. How do you get to the garage?”
Looking like she wanted to argue, she turned instead and walked stiffly across the foyer. He followed, relieved that she was leading him in the direction opposite the library.
The kitchen was three times larger than the house Griff had grown up in.
On the far side of it was a door. Laura walked toward it. “Wait,” he said. “That goes outside?”
“Through the mudroom, then outside.”
“Is the exterior door visible from the front gate?”
“No.”
Griff went around her, opened the door, and saw a utility area that deserved a more glamorous name than mudroom. He opened the exterior door and looked out. There were no longer policemen patrolling the estate grounds. They’d been pulled off when Rodarte had moved Laura to the hotel yesterday evening. Griff had been watching, and he knew.