Winter's Curse

by Mary Stone

  He couldn’t bring himself to look at what had been done to them, much less feel for a pulse on either man. He didn’t have to. It was pretty obvious that Heidi hit what she aimed at.

  Two more muffled pops came from another part of the suite. Moments later, Heidi appeared in the doorway with two small briefcases. “We’re done here.”

  Back in the hallway, she loaded the take onto the room-service cart she’d pulled out of a utility closet, tucking them under a white tablecloth. A silver tray rested on top, adding to the convincing look of the setup.

  He didn’t bother to ask how she’d arranged for it to be there. Or where she’d gotten the master keys and uniforms. She’d planned everything down to the last detail, and he pitied the person she’d gotten her supplies from.

  Come to think of it, that could have explained the reasoning behind her slutty outfit when she’d showed up in his room. It hadn’t been for his sake, for which he was grateful, both then and now.

  He’d seen enough of her to know that she discarded her tools when they were of no more use to her.

  He steeled himself against the thought of what came next. Not only in the next few minutes, but when this was all over. When his obligation, or blackmail, or whatever this was, was complete. He couldn’t think about it.

  Now, it was just time to play his part and try to land on his feet like he always did, when all was said and done.

  Entering the reclusive, elderly heiress’s apartments wasn’t difficult. He’d been given a key. He hadn’t expected the woman to be sitting up in her dining room, playing a game of solitaire. Ryan fumbled for his gun, hating the weight and feel of it. The metal was cold, even through the thin white gloves he wore.

  Charlotte Edwards was a tiny wisp of a woman, with sharp green eyes that snapped wide when she saw him in the doorway. She wore a quilted, lavender silk robe that hung on her thin frame, and little half-moon glasses that hung around her neck on a beaded chain. Her hair was thin and white, standing out around her wrinkled face like the fluff of a dandelion. She was no bigger than a ten-year-old child.

  She set her cards down in a slow, deliberate way on the table in front of her. “I suppose I don’t have to ask why you’re here. I don’t get many visitors.” Her voice was as thin and insubstantial as the rest of her, but it was threaded with resigned humor.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said, using his most gentle tone. “Can I ask you to move to the living room, please?” He gestured with the gun, and she stood, her movements shaky, reaching for a three-legged cane that rested to one side of her chair. Her progress was painful and laborious, and he wanted to yell at her to hurry.

  The living room, decorated in heavy and ornate carved wood furniture, was lit only by a glass-globed lamp on a side table. Its rosy light illuminated Persian rugs with subdued patterns in deep, rich burgundy and blue. Oil paintings in gilded frames graced the biscuit-colored walls. The room was like a shrine to Victorian-era elegance.

  Charlotte sank down on the couch. “You’ll find my safe behind the Matisse. It’s on a hinge. Swings outward to the right.”

  The woman looked like a hard sneeze would be fatal, and he was supposed to shoot her? He moved fast, heading to the painting she pointed out, disgust at himself twisting in his belly.

  She recited the combination. Inside, there were neatly stacked metal boxes.

  “The top one is cash,” she offered, sounding like she was trying to be helpful. “The smaller boxes are jewelry. If you plan to kill me, you might as well take them all. If you don’t, please leave the smallest one. It’s a necklace my father gave me on my seventeenth birthday, and I’d planned to be buried in it. It’s worth nothing except in sentiment.”

  He took the large one and a few of the smaller boxes. His mind raced as he set them on the floor. “Listen,” he said, turning around. He tucked the gun away and moved to the couch. “I’m a thief.”

  “I’d ascertained as much, young man. I’m old, not stupid. And despite that bad wig you have on, you are a young man.”

  He grinned at the acid in her tone. She was spunky.

  “I should have said I’m a thief, not a killer. This is not the kind of work I normally do. Sneaking in and lifting that pretty Matisse on behalf of a client of mine in Germany who happens to be a collector, maybe. But not bang, bang, take your money. Tonight, though, I’m supposed to kill you.” As he gazed into her bright eyes, his decision became concrete. “I’m not going to.”

  Charlotte folded her gnarled fingers together neatly in her lap and cocked her head, her eyes bright with curiosity. “Do you give your backstory and a rationalization like this to everyone you burglarize?”

  He couldn’t help laughing. She was a delight. She’d completely lifted the black mood he’d fallen into this evening with her sparky personality.

  “Long story short, my associate is vicious and thorough, and I don’t have a choice when it comes to participating in this. But you seem like a very nice lady, so I’m going to shoot one of these nice chairs of yours in case she checks to see if my gun’s been discharged. She has to think I killed you. If not, she’ll come back here and do it herself. I’m also going to take a few of your boxes, and I’m sorry about that.”

  Charlotte nodded and eyed him, her eyes sharp on his face. “So you’re not toying with me. You’re really not going to shoot me.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Good.” She gave him a wide smile and pulled a small pistol out of the folds of her night-robe, setting it down on the cushion beside her. “Then, I won’t have to shoot you first.”

  “Charlotte,” Ryan said, reaching out to squeeze her small hand. “I think I like you.”

  “Oddly enough, the feeling seems to be mutual. This is actually very exciting. Much better than solitaire.” Charlotte pushed to her feet. Leaning most of her weight on her cane but moving with a little more pep to her step than she had when he’d first arrived, she headed away from the living room toward the back of the apartment. “If you’re going to pretend to kill me, at least do it in the bedroom where I can be comfortable until someone finds my not-dead body.”

  “By all means.” Ryan was charmed by the little old woman, but nerves tingled beneath his skin. Time was running short, and he’d been here too long already. Heidi would have already finished with her finance guy. It was time to move things along.

  Charlotte climbed into a high, four-poster bed using a kind of small ramp with a railing on one side. “The joys of aging.” She wrinkled her nose. “Next thing you know, they’ll want to put rails on my bed like a baby’s, so I don’t fall out at night.”

  “Ma’am,” Ryan said, raising the gun as she settled herself beneath the brocade comforter. “It was a pleasure to meet you, and I do apologize for all of this.”

  He waited for her to hold her hands over her ears and then fired twice at an overstuffed ottoman in the corner. Stuffing flew, and Charlotte giggled. “I never liked that chair.” She fell backward dramatically onto her pillows, one arm outstretched, one fist clenched over her heart. “How’s this?”

  “That’s perfect, love. I’ll lock the door behind me. Take care, Miss Charlotte, and I hope you live to be a hundred and twenty.”

  11

  Heidi had never lost control.

  She looked around at the mess she’d made and grimaced.

  Richard Covington was very, very dead.

  She’d marked him as a target, not only because of the proximity of his rooms in relation to the other two targets, but with the expectation that he’d have plenty of cash and valuables on hand. He was a last-minute addition to the plan. She admitted to herself that she hadn’t done her full due diligence on him. But she hadn’t expected him to laugh at her when she’d woken him up and demanded money.

  She didn’t like being laughed at.

  And now, she thought with a little shudder, she’d broken from her plan. Had blacked out a little, actually, when it came to the kill.

  Heidi let her
self out of his rooms, trying to shake the uneasy feeling that had come over her. She’d deviated from her own plans. It was unthinkable.

  Down the hall, Ryan was coming out of the old lady’s rooms. He had his hands full of metal boxes and jumped, looking almost guilty when he saw her coming. As she drew closer, his eyes widened.

  She looked down at herself. No stains showed on her black uniform, but her gloves were spattered with red.

  “Everything okay, love?”

  “Shut up.” She glanced at her watch. No time to check Ryan’s handiwork now. That, too, wasn’t part of the plan. “We have three minutes to get back to the room and turn the elevators back on before security makes their next round.”

  “Ah, you seem to have left a trail,” he pointed out.

  Behind her, on the beige, tastefully patterned carpet, were bloody footprints.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Let’s go.”

  After slipping off her shoes, she moved fast, her brain squirreling around to recalibrate the situation.

  The original plan had involved them going back to the suite. She’d paid the same person, who had left a cart in the supply closet for her and snagged the master keys, to bring her a hotel comforter. It had gone into “Dr. Foster’s” rolling suitcase ahead of time. She’d planned on leaving it behind in the room—less obvious than a pile of clothes—and repacking the suitcase with their take. Then, they’d check out first thing in the morning, before the bodies were discovered.

  That wouldn’t work now.

  She opened the door to her suite. “Change of plans. We’re going to have to leave fast.”

  That was an understatement.

  Heidi moved to her computer and rebooted the elevators and cameras. The one for Richard Covington’s floor, she left on loop. The timestamp might be noticed, but not as quickly as the set of bloody footprints trailing down the hall from his doorway. She’d planned on them having plenty of time to check out and be gone. Depending on circumstances after that, they could have had a head start of hours. Maybe days. Not now.

  Again, she felt apprehensive. She’d planned this all for so long. Control was everything. She had control of the situation, control of Ryan O’Connelly. But control of herself? Maybe not.

  “Unload the rolling suitcase,” she instructed Ryan, not sparing him a glance. She tapped into the security system to monitor the movements of the guards. “Take the blanket out and load the briefcases and containers inside.”

  “What about the stuff from the Covington guy?”

  There was no Covington money. Richard Covington had lost it all in a stupid Ponzi scheme. So much for being the next Warren Buffet. He was broke, on the verge of eviction from the hotel. A complete waste of time. And he’d had the nerve to laugh when he’d told her.

  Well, he hadn’t laughed for long.

  She turned on Ryan, her voice a furious undertone that warned him to tread lightly. “If I wanted you to put more in there, I would have told you. Don’t fucking question me.”

  He looked at her, his eyes speculative, but didn’t argue.

  Good. If he had argued, she might have changed her plan and ended his involvement right here and now. It would mess up her last scene, but she was tired of him, and her temper was frayed, to say the least.

  “Change out of those clothes. Put the uniform in the carry-on bag.”

  Keeping silent—a wise move—he began loading the suitcase, not knowing how close he’d just come to being dispatched early.

  She checked the cameras again. The regular security guard, a tall, muscular man she’d identified already as Andre, was on the thirtieth floor. He appeared to be chatting it up with the employee who ran the elevator. They had time.

  Her fingers flew over her phone as she ordered an Uber.

  She stripped off her bloody clothes in the suite’s second bathroom. Wadding them up into a ball to shove in the carry-on she’d brought to hold her costumes, she looked in the mirror. Blood was spattered across her cheek. It had dried into tiny, crusty flecks. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, she pulled off her wig and scrubbed her face hard with a washcloth.

  Heidi didn’t bother to worry about DNA evidence on the hand towels or stray hairs that could be picked up by enterprising forensics specialists. She’d been diligent about wiping prints, but the FBI could try and identify her and succeed, for all she cared. They’d never dealt with anyone like her before. She wasn’t planning on getting caught. And when she finished what she’d started, she had an exit plan in place. No one would find her where she was going.

  Moving fast, she dressed in one of “Dr. Foster’s” outfits—another pantsuit, this one in brown. She pulled on the frosted blonde wig and quickly did her makeup. With any luck, the security guard would stay occupied with the elevator operator for a while, buying them a few more minutes. Luck, though, had not been on her side this evening. She wasn’t holding her breath.

  When she came out of the bathroom, Ryan was already dressed and ready to go, his stomach and cheek padding in place. His face was aged and wrinkled-looking from the makeup he used, and he looked exactly how she wanted him to look. A middle-aged professor, no threat to anyone except his tailor, who had to account for his expanding waistline.

  She did a quick check of the room—no booby traps for this one—to make sure nothing had been left behind. Checking the camera views on the laptop, she saw that the guard was halfway through his loop on the thirty-fifth floor.

  If they went now, they’d miss him on the elevator.

  They left the room, as serene as if they weren’t carrying stolen goods. She walked the short distance to the elevator and pushed the down button.

  She could feel the weight of her Ruger in the underarm holster she’d stashed under her blazer. If she had to, she’d shoot her way out of there.

  Ryan/Oliver, as if sensing her tension, gave her a reassuring smile just as the elevator doors slid open.

  “Now, now, dear, there’s no reason to be nervous.” His eyes glinted at the irony of his words, behind his hazel contacts. “I know you absolutely hate to fly, but you’d think you’d be an old hand at it by now, with all the traveling you do.”

  The elevator operator, a pimple-faced kid who couldn’t have been more than twenty, smiled with the polite distance of a bored hotel employee who’d seen everything. “Early flight?” he asked, making an effort to put cheer into his voice. Angling for a tip.

  Heidi gave him a curt nod.

  “Oh, yes,” Ryan groaned. “I absolutely despise getting up before dawn. I can’t imagine working an overnight shift. How do you stand it?”

  The young man smiled as he pressed the button for the ground floor. “It’s not so bad. Pretty quiet. Kind of boring. Sometimes, I wish something exciting would happen to break up the routine,” he added in a stage whisper. “Just don’t tell my boss I said that.”

  The elevator dinged on the thirty-fifth floor, and Heidi stiffened.

  They descended a few floors, and the doors slid open again. Andre, the security guard, entered. He looked surprised to see anyone else in the elevator. It was just after four in the morning.

  “Early flight,” the elevator operator explained.

  “Too early,” Ryan said in a dark tone.

  The other man smiled, commiserating. “Got to love those red-eye flights. Where are you folks headed?” he asked, leaning against the side of the elevator.

  “We’re going to Germany for Christmas,” Ryan answered without skipping a beat. “Dusseldorf. Constance is going to show me the sights. You’ve been there dozens of times, haven’t you, Connie?”

  She wanted to scream at him to shut up. He didn’t need to make conversation. They just needed to get out of the hotel and away to the safe house she’d set up. Her plans depended on speed and accuracy.

  She was going to leave the police and FBI chasing their tails in circles.

  “Darling?”

  She dragged herself to the present. Control.

  �
��Yes, of course, sweetheart.” She smiled, her lips a tight seam. “Dusseldorf is beautiful this time of year. There’s a little pub on the Rhine that you’ll just adore. You know how much you like to drink.”

  “She’s not a morning person,” Ryan muttered to the security guard, who stifled a chuckle.

  They finally reached the main floor just as her cell phone buzzed. Their Uber had arrived.

  “Have a nice trip,” the elevator operator offered, disappointed that a tip didn’t appear to be forthcoming.

  The security guard, though, watched them as they left the elevator and headed toward the exit. She could see him in the little rearview mirror of the glasses she’d planted on her nose.

  His scrutiny pissed her off, scraped at her nerves. Even without the glasses, she felt sure she could feel his stare on her back. After what felt like hours, she heard the elevator doors swish closed again.

  Beside her, Ryan let out a long breath.

  They’d made it halfway across the lobby, moving quickly across the checkerboard floor. The registration desk was darkened and empty, pre-morning shift. A silver minivan sat out front, illuminated in the lights from the hotel. They just needed to get through the revolving entrance door, and they would be out.

  And then the elevator doors opened again.

  The security guard stepped out. “Excuse me!”

  Heidi stiffened and turned, her hand slipping inside her jacket. Her fingers closed around the butt of the gun, nestled under her left arm.

  “Yes?” Ryan called out with manufactured calm, putting a casual, restraining hand on her elbow.

  She subtly tried to shake him off, but his fingers tightened.

  Andre quickened his pace to a light jog as he crossed the lobby, holding something out in front of him. “You dropped this.”

  It was Ryan’s burner phone. The cheap little black throwaway she’d picked up a half-dozen of from a Walmart in Topeka. It wasn’t the type of phone a middle-aged professor at Oxford would carry.

  “Thank you,” Ryan said, taking it and slipping it into his pocket. “I almost wish you wouldn’t have found that.” He heaved a regretful sigh. “My secretary hasn’t stopped ringing it since I left for my sabbatical two weeks ago.”