The Collector (47 page)

L
ila made a point of going to the gallery the next morning. Ash insisted on going with her, then peeled off to give her and Julie time alone in Julie's office.

“You're going to tell me something I don't want to hear.”

“Probably. Ash is going to the bakery to talk to Luke. You're my closest friend in the world, so I need to tell you, and I need to ask you.”

“You're going to see Vasin.”

“Today.”

“Today? But it's too fast.” Alarmed, she reached out, grabbed Lila's hands. “You can't be ready. You can't—”

“It's all set. Let me explain.”

She took Julie through all the steps, the plans, the fail-safe options.

“Lila, I wish you wouldn't do this. I wish you'd go, just go with Ash anywhere, even if it meant I'd never see you again. I know you won't. I know you, and know you can't, but I wish you would.”

“I thought about it. I really thought about it last night. Middle of the night, going over and over everything in my head. And because I tried to find a way to do it, I realized it had stopped being about sex and fun and affection. I guess it never was just about that. But wherever we went, it would still be a kind of house arrest. We'd never be really sure, really safe.”

“But more sure. More safe.”

“I don't think so. I started playing what if. What if when she can't find us, she goes after our family? Our friends? She could find my parents, Julie, hurt them. She could hurt you. I can't live with those what ifs.”

“I know you can't, but I can wish you would.”

“We're working with the police, the FBI. We'll have these awesome micro-recorders. Plus, the biggest plus, Ash is offering him exactly what he wants. There's no reason to hurt us if we're agreeing to give him what he wants. All we have to do is convince him to make the deal. Then we walk away and the police take over.”

“You can't believe it'll be that simple. You can't think this is some sort of adventure.”

“Not an adventure, a necessary and calculated step. I don't know what it's going to be, but it's worth the risk, Julie, to have a real life again. It's worth the risk so the next time my head won't turn off in the middle of the night, it's because I'm thinking about what I want with Ash. What I can give, what I can take.”

“Do you love him?”

“He thinks I do.”

“That doesn't answer the question.”

“I think I do. And wow.” She rubbed her knuckles between her breasts. “That's a lot to think for me. But I don't know what that means for either of us until this is over. And it's going to be over. Then I'm going to help you plan your wedding to your once-and-future husband. I'm going to figure out my own life. I'm going to finish this book all the way instead of essentially.”

“What time today?”

“We're meeting him at two. Julie, I believe we're going to go there, make the deal, walk out, just the way I explained it. But if something goes wrong, I wrote a letter to my parents. It's in my travel kit, in the top right drawer of Ash's dresser. I need you to get it to them.”

“Don't even think that.” Grabbing Lila's hands, she squeezed hard enough to hurt. “Don't.”

“I have to think. I don't believe, but I have to think. I let a lot of things slide with my parents the last few years. And these last few weeks with Ash have made me think about that, realize that. I want them to know I love them. What I believe I'm going to do is go out there, take a week, ask Ash if he wants to meet them, which is a big, giant step for me. I believe I'm going to take it. I believe I want to take it. If something happens, I need them to know that.”

“You're going to take Ash to meet them, and tell them you love them yourself.”

“I believe that, but I have to think. And I'm asking you to make sure they know in case of the what if.”

“There won't be a what if.” Eyes shimmering, Julie pressed her lips together hard. “But yes, I promise. Whatever you need.”

“Thanks. It takes a weight off. The other thing is the book. I'd like a couple more weeks to shine it up, but if something happens . . .” She took a flash drive out of her pocket. “I made a copy for you to take to my editor.”

“God, Lila.”

“You're the only one I can ask, or would ask. I need to know you'll do those two things for me. Then I can just put them away, and I can just believe you're never going to have to do them anyway.”

Julie pressed her fingers to her eyes a moment, struggled until she found her control. “You can count on me. You won't have to, but you can count on me.”

“That's all I need. Let's have a celebration dinner tomorrow night, the four of us. Tonight's going to be too crazy, I think.”

Nodding quickly, Julie grabbed tissues out of the box on her desk. “Now you're talking.”

“The Italian place the four of us went the first time. I think we should make that our spot anyway.”

“I'll make reservations. We'll meet you there. Seven-thirty?”

“Perfect.” She stepped over, gave Julie a hug. “I'll see you tomorrow night—and I'll call you tonight. I promise.”

And if she didn't, she'd left a letter for Julie in the same drawer with the one for her parents.

L
ila decided the blue dress Ash had given her after their first sitting would serve as a good-luck charm. She wore it with the moonstone necklace from Florence, deciding both would be good mojo.

She spent considerable time on her makeup. It wasn't every day you had a business meeting with an international criminal who hired killers to do his bidding.

She checked the contents of her purse—as the special agent in charge had told her, Vasin's security would. She decided to leave all her usual supplies in place. Wouldn't that seem more normal?

She turned in the mirror, looked at Ash.

Clean-shaven, hair more or less tamed, and a steel gray suit that murmured power—because power didn't have to shout—in every line.

“I'm too casual. You're wearing a suit.”

“Serious meeting, serious suit.” He knotted a tie the color of a good cabernet perfectly, flicked a glance at her in the mirror. Then let it linger. “You look great.”

“Too casual,” she repeated. “But my serious suit is boring. Which is
why it's at Julie's, because I only wear it on boring occasions, which this isn't. And I swear I'm not going to babble like this much longer.”

She rooted through her little section of closet, tried out the cropped white jacket Julie had talked her into. “This is better. Is it better?”

He crossed to her, took her face, kissed her. “It's going to be fine.”

“I know. I'm in full believe-it mode. But I want to look appropriate. I need to be dressed correctly to start the takedown of thieves and murderers. I'm nervous,” she admitted. “But I'd be crazy not to be. I don't want him to think I'm crazy. Greedy or slutty or vengeful. But not crazy.”

“Sorry, you look fresh, and pretty, and appropriately on edge.”

“That'll have to do. We need to go, don't we?”

“Yeah. I'm going to go get the car, then I'll come back, pick you up. No reason for you to walk in those shoes,” he pointed out. “If anyone's watching the loft, they'd think the same. Twenty minutes.”

It gave her time to pace, to practice cool, an-eye-for-an-eye stares in the mirror. And to ask herself one last time if she could just walk away.

She opened the dresser drawer she'd taken as her own, then the travel kit she'd put inside. She brushed a finger over the letters she'd tucked into it.

Better to believe they'd never be opened, that she'd come back with Ash, both safe and sound and done. She'd tear them up, and she'd say what she'd written in them, face-to-face, because some words shouldn't go unsaid.

But she felt better knowing she'd written them, knowing the written word had power, and love would shine through it.

When Ash pulled the car in front of the lot, she stepped out.

The answer was no. She couldn't walk away.

In her mind she imagined the FBI tracking them through downtown traffic. Vasin might have them tracked as well. She'd be glad when she could feel alone again, really alone.

“Should we practice?” she asked him.

“Do you need to go over it again?”

“No, not really, and I know it'll seem rehearsed and staged if we go over it all again and again.”

“Just remember. We have what he wants.”

“And let you take the lead because that's what he expects. It's a little annoying.”

He touched a hand to hers briefly. “Be yourself. Engage him. It's what you do.”

“I can do that.” She closed her eyes a moment. “Yes, I can do that.”

She wanted to say more, found she had all sorts of personal things to tell him. But besides tracking them, the authorities would be listening.

So she kept the words in her head, in her heart, as they drove across the East River.

“After you kill her, we should go somewhere fabulous. I'm in character,” she said when he glanced at her.

“Okay. How about Bali?”

“Bali?” She straightened in her seat. “Really? I've never been there.”

“Neither have I, so we'll be even.”

“Bali. Indonesia. I love the food. I think they have elephants.” She dug out her phone to look it up, stopped. “Are you in character or do you actually want to go to Bali?”

“It can be both.”

“Maybe over the winter sometime. My house-sitting business slows down in February. That's not in character—what do I care about house-sitting when I've got the shiny fish? House-sitting is so over. Bali in the winter—with maybe a trip to Switzerland for some skiing. I'll need to be outfitted, of course, for both. You'll take care of that for me, won't you, baby?”

“Anything you need, sugar.”

“I hope you'd really hate having a woman say that, but reverting to
character, if you could arrange a credit line for me at Barneys, maybe Bergdorf's, too, I could surprise you. A girl wants to give her man a few surprises.”

“You're good at this.”

“I'm channeling an adult Sasha—my spoiled, greedy werewolf girl. Kaylee's nemesis. She'd take you for everything she could, get bored, then rip your throat out. If I can think like her, I can pull this off.”

Lila huffed out a breath. “I can think like her. I created her. I can pull this off. You'll be like you are when you're really pissed off, and we'll rock this meeting.”

“Lila, I am really pissed off.”

She gave him a sidelong look. “You seem really calm.”

“I can be both. Just like Bali.”

He drove along a high stone wall, and she caught the blink of the red eye of security cameras. “This is it, isn't it?”

“The gate's just ahead. You'll do fine, Sasha.”

“Too bad it's not a full moon.”

The gate spanned wide enough for two cars to pass through and gleamed silver in the afternoon sun. A bas-relief of a griffin with sword and shield centered the gate.

The moment they stopped, two men stepped out of a doorway in the thick brick columns that flanked the gate.

Here we go, Lila thought as Ash rolled down his window.

“Step out of the car, please, Mr. Archer, Ms. Emerson, for a security check.”

“Security check?” Lila tried for a sulky look as one of the guards opened her door. On a little huff of breath, she slid out.

They checked the car top to bottom, running scanners over it, then running what she thought must be a camera on a pole under it.

They opened the hood, the trunk.

“You're cleared to enter.”

Lila slid back in, thought like Sasha. She took out a purse mirror
and freshened her lip gloss. But she watched over the glass as she caught glimpses of the house through thick groves of trees.

Then the long drive turned, and she saw it in full.

It was massive and gorgeous, a wide U of golden stone, with its center curve rising above the legs. Windows that shot back beams of sun, giving no hint of what lay behind them. A trio of onion domes topped it, their bases ringed with circular balconies.

A rose garden, with its thorny bushes of abundant blooms, ran in rows of military precision while the vast lawn rolled, green and lush.

A pair of stone griffins with sword and shield guarded the carved double doors of the entrance. Their eyes, like the light of the cameras, gleamed red. Two more security men stood in front of statues, still as the stone itself. Lila clearly saw the sidearm of the one who stepped to the car.

“Step out of the car, please, and follow me.”

They crossed golden pavers to what she'd taken as an elaborate garden shed. Inside, another man studied an array of monitors.

Security station, she realized, and goggled—at least internally—at the gadgetry. She'd have given a lot to play with it.

“I'll need to inspect the contents of your bag, Ms. Emerson.”

She clutched it to her, put on a look of irritation.

“We require you both to be scanned and wanded before entering the house. Are you carrying any weapons or recording devices?”

“No.”

The man nodded, held out a hand for Lila's bag. She surrendered it with a show of reluctance as a woman stepped out of another doorway with something similar to the wands used at airport security.

“Raise your arms, please.”

“This is just silly,” Lila grumbled, but obeyed. “What are you doing,” she demanded when the man removed her multi-tool, her mini can of first aid spray, WD-40 and her lighter from her bag.

“These items are restricted.” He opened the box where she kept her
tapes—double-sided, duct, packing and Scotch. Closed it again. “They'll be returned to you when you leave.”

“Underwire bra,” the woman announced. “Step over here for a manual check.”

“A what? Ash.”

“You can wait outside, Lila, if you don't want to go through security.”

“For God's sake. It's a bra.”

They'd warned her, she thought, but now that it was happening as predicted she felt her heart hammering. She pressed her lips together, looked deliberately at the wall as the woman ran her hands briskly along the wire supports of her bra.

“Next it'll be a strip search.”

“Not necessary. She's clear,” the woman said, and walked to Ash.

“Ms. Emerson, considering the numerous items in your bag on our restricted list, we'll keep your bag, and contents, in our safe here until you leave.”

When Lila began to protest, the security woman called out, “Recorder,” and removed the pen from Ash's pocket. She smirked a little as she tossed it on a tray.

“It's a pen,” Lila said, and frowned at it, but Ash shrugged.

“I wanted some backup.”

“Oh! Is it like a spy thing?” Lila reached for it, scowling as the woman drew the tray out of reach. “I just wanted to see.”

“It will be returned to you at your departure. You're cleared to enter the house. Please follow me.”

He led them out, circled around to the main entrance.

The double doors opened from inside. A woman in a severe black uniform nodded. “Thank you, William. I have it from here. Mr. Archer, Ms. Emerson.” She stepped back into a kind of foyer where glass walls closed it off from a wide entrance hall with soaring ceilings and a central staircase at least fifteen feet wide with the fluid curve of banisters gleaming like mirrors.

And a world of paintings and sculpture.

“I'm Carlyle. Have either of you engaged in the use of tobacco products in the last twenty-four hours?”

“No,” Ash told her.

“Have you been in contact with any animals in the last twenty-four hours?”

“No.”

“Any illnesses in the past week, treated or not treated by a medical professional?”

“No.”

“Contact with children under the age of twelve?”

“Seriously.” Lila rolled her eyes, and this time answered herself. “No. But we have had contact with human beings, including each other. Is a blood test next?”

Saying nothing, the woman took a small spray bottle out of her pocket. “Please hold out your hands, palms up. This is an antiseptic product. It's perfectly safe. Mr. Vasin will not shake hands,” she continued as she sprayed their hands. “Please turn your hands over. Do not approach him beyond the point you're given. Please be respectful and touch as little as possible on the premises, and nothing without Mr. Vasin's permission. Please come with me.”

When she turned, the glass panels opened. She walked across tiles, golden like the stones, with a central tile rug depicting the Romanov coat of arms.

They walked up the stairs—in the center where no one's hands could reach the rich gleam of the railings.

Art filled the walls on the second floor as it had on the first. Every door they passed remained tightly shut, and each had a security swipe.

Here, there was no open, airy feel, but a carefully restricted one. A museum, she thought, to hold his collection. A home by default.

At the final door, Carlyle took out a swipe card, then leaned
forward to put her eye to a little scanner. How paranoid was a man, Lila thought, to require a retinal scan to enter a room in his own home?

“Please sit in these two chairs.” She indicated two high-backed armchairs in merlot leather. “And remain seated. You'll be served a light refreshment, and Mr. Vasin will join you shortly.”

Lila scanned the room. Russian nesting dolls—old and elaborate—filled a display case. Painted lacquer boxes another. Windows tinted pale gold let in soft light and views of a grove of what she thought were pear and apple trees.

The sad eyes of somber portraits stared sorrowfully at the visitors, surely a deliberate arrangement. She couldn't deny they made her feel uncomfortable, and a little depressed.

Central to the room stood a large chair. Its leather gleamed a few shades deeper than the other seating, its back rose higher and boasted a thick frame of carved wood. It sat higher as well, she noted, on legs formed into the griffin.

His throne, she thought, giving him the position of power. But she only said, “This is an amazing house. It's even bigger than your family's in Connecticut.”

“He's playing it for all it's worth. Making us wait.”

“Now, Ash, don't lose your temper. You promised.”

“I don't like games,” he muttered, seconds before the door opened. Carlyle came in leading another uniformed woman who wheeled in a tray holding a pretty tea service of cobalt blue painted on white, with a plate of cookies decorated with tiny bits of fruit, a bowl of glossy green grapes. Rather than napkins, a glass bowl held individual wipes with the griffin seal.

“The tea is a jasmine blend, made for Mr. Vasin. You'll find it refreshing. The grapes are grown here on the estate, organically. The cookies are traditional
pryaniki
, or spice cookies. Please enjoy. Mr. Vasin will be with you momentarily.”

“They look delicious. The tea set's so pretty.”