Running Scared

by Elizabeth Lowell

  As she hung up, she met Shane’s questioning green eyes. She could see that he wanted to know what was going on, but she was out of patience with him, herself, and the world. Worse, there was no short explanation for Cherelle, lost keys, and an old friend’s bittersweet presence in Risa’s Golden Fleece apartment.

  “I don’t have time to go into it now,” Risa said as she punched in Dana’s number.

  “Later, then.”

  She moved her shoulders, trying to loosen knots tied by Cherelle and guilt and impatience and stolen gold. She really didn’t want to talk about it.

  Any of it.

  “Risa?” Shane pressed.

  “Sure. Later. Whatever,” she muttered as she gripped the phone. “No, not you, Dana. My boss. Sorry.”

  Shane listened while Risa set up an immediate courier delivery of the four gold objects for a complete Rarities search. But it wasn’t gold he was thinking of. It was Risa’s unwillingness to talk about the woman whose tab was at $9,678.23 and counting.

  It was one thing to give an opportunist like Cherelle Faulkner a place to stay and permission to play with the charge account. It was quite another to give her the key to the Golden Fleece’s secure floors.

  Chapter 31

  Las Vegas

  November 3

  Afternoon

  Cherelle smiled at the earnest young man behind the guest-services section of the front desk. It was the kind of smile that was guaranteed to raise male blood pressure and hope, among other things. Though balancing packages in both arms, she still managed to caress the hairy fingers that were holding out her new key.

  “Thanks, sugah,” she said as she took the key.

  “Let me help you up with your packages.”

  “Oh, I can’t take you away from your work.” She brightened her smile and backed away before he could point out that helping guests was his job. “But I’ll be sure and look you up the next time I come in from shopping.”

  “You sure?”

  “It’s a big ol’ promise,” she said over her shoulder.

  The instant she turned away from the man at the desk, her smile vanished. She knew that Socks would be after her. She just didn’t know how soon he’d be in any shape to stake out the Golden Fleece and watch for her.

  Before I rang his chimes, I should have asked him what he did to Tim, she thought bitterly. Then I could have called the cops and sicced them on Socks.

  Too late now. Oh, she still could call the cops and report a missing person and mention Socks as the last one who’d seen Tim alive, but the cops wouldn’t do dick until two days or two weeks had passed. That was way too late to do her any good.

  Unless a body turned up.

  Cherelle’s rapid steps jerked, then steadied. She wanted to believe that Socks wouldn’t kill his old jailhouse buddy, but she hadn’t believed in fairy tales since . . .

  Never.

  She had always seen pretty stories for the con they were. Here’s some candy, little girl. Get in my car and we’ll take a nice little ride. Oh, yeah, baby, I love you.

  If Tim was still alive, he would just have to take care of himself. The candy he handed out was great, the ride had been the best she ever had, and whining about losing either one was a waste of time she didn’t have. Besides, maybe he was fine and just hiding until she cooled off.

  And maybe dogs shit diamonds.

  She pushed thoughts about Tim away to the dark corners of her mind. With the gestures that had quickly become routine, she balanced packages, keyed elevators and doors, and hurried down hallways until she reached Risa’s apartment.

  Even as worried as she was, she still felt a spurt of surprise laced with pleasure that she was actually walking into a place with city views, plush carpets, vivid colors, a bathroom you could host a football team in, and not a lick of work to be done by her except to enjoy it all. No cleaning, no cooking, no laundry, no picking up Tim’s crap, no cracked bathroom floors laced with black slime, and no cockroaches crawling out of rusty drains.

  No cocaine either. She hadn’t had time to make a connection. Yet even without blow, living here for a day sure had been fun. Too bad it was over. But it was.

  She dumped her packages on the bed and began going through them with quick, raking fingers. Short brown wig. Sports bra guaranteed to turn mountains into molehills. Golden Fleece T-shirt, triple-X large. Really baggy jeans. A variety of nylon security pouches. Tennis shoes. Oversized man’s heavy nylon windbreaker. Enough safety pins to hold up a building. Baseball cap and generic sunglasses. Big maternity cushion.

  The last item made her snicker. She would bet every bit of gold she owned that she was the first woman to boost a “full-term” pad from a maternity-store dressing room.

  With one eye on the clock, Cherelle emptied out her two suitcases. She jammed all she owned except the gold into one of Risa’s nifty little suitcase trolleys. Everything fit but the big lime green purse. With a stab of regret, she tossed it aside. She couldn’t carry it openly. Even someone as dumb as Socks would recognize that purse if he saw it again, no matter what the woman looked like who was carrying it.

  Carefully she wrapped each of the gold pieces in toilet paper so that they wouldn’t clank. Then she put the objects into the various nylon pouches that had been designed to carry cash, credit cards, and small jewelry against a person’s body and away from pickpockets. Safety pins flashed as she fastened straps to other straps, pouches to other pouches, and straps to neighboring pouches.

  By the time she was satisfied, she had rearranged the gold around herself five different times and was down to her last card of safety pins. Carrying all the gold on her body was turning out to be a big ol’ bitch of a job. Even after she took out the two heaviest gold pieces and hung them under her arms, she still waddled instead of walked. When she finally had everything strapped into place, she felt like a mule and looked like a burrito.

  “How do they do it?” she muttered, balancing her weight over her hips by leaning slightly back. “Pregnant women gain, like, fifty pounds and still walk around. Shit, I’m not carrying near that much and I’m staggering.”

  She jiggled up and down experimentally. Nothing clanked. Everything stayed put, more or less. After a last jiggle she grabbed the maternity cushion and strapped it on over all the lumps.

  The jeans barely fit over her bizarre “pregnancy,” but the tough denim helped to keep everything in place, especially after she used the last of her pins. She yanked the sports bra on, swore, and shifted herself cautiously until the bra stopped pinching and the gold stopped biting her tender underarms. The gaudy black and gold T-shirt hid a multitude of strange bulges. So did the blue nylon shell.

  Five minutes in the bathroom took care of all her makeup and got the wig pulled into place. She dumped her huge leather purse upside down on the bed. Driver’s license, car keys, cash, cell phone—all went into the jacket pockets. The rest went into the trolley.

  She settled the baseball cap gently into place over the wig and her own hair stuffed up beneath it. The hat was almost as gaudy as the casino shirt, but she wasn’t going for invisible. She just didn’t want to look like a well-dressed blonde with great tits.

  Two more minutes at the mirror assured her that nothing showed that wasn’t supposed to. She grinned at herself in the glass and then laughed out loud. There was nothing she liked more than conning the dumbs.

  Too bad Risa couldn’t come along for the fun, but her old friend would just have to do what Cherelle was doing.

  Take care of herself.

  Chapter 32

  Las Vegas

  November 3

  Afternoon

  All the way down the hall to her apartment, Risa told herself she was dragging her feet because she was tired, not because she simply didn’t feel up to a second night of playing Remember When with Cherelle. The shared memories only made the present distance between herself and her friend more obvious, more painful.

  The discreet magnetic card that reques
ted no service please was stuck on the door above the lock to Risa’s room. She let out a relieved breath. If her luck held, Cherelle would either be out shopping or adrift in another sea of bubble bath. Whichever, Risa would have a chance to get her second wind before she had to be sociable.

  For the space of several breaths she stood and savored the quiet elegance of the carpeted hall, the fragrance of fresh flowers in their bronzed wall niches, and the gilded yet simple frames of the botanical drawings that dotted the long, peaceful hall. But she couldn’t put off going inside forever. With a muted sigh she shrugged out of her sensible business jacket, kicked off her high heels, tucked everything under one arm, and slipped her key into the lock.

  “Cherelle?” she called out from the doorway. “It’s just me. Don’t—” Her words stopped abruptly. “My God, what happened?”

  Everything had been ripped apart. The contents of drawers, cupboards, closets—everything that could be lifted and thrown had been. The mess was incredible.

  She started to call out to Cherelle again before old habits of fear kicked in. Her friend might have had a fit and trashed the place, but not likely. Which meant that someone else had been here.

  Might still be here.

  Waiting.

  Risa started to spin away. She wasn’t fast enough. A thick hand closed around her wrist and yanked her through the doorway into her own apartment. The door started to close automatically, only to hang up on the shoes and jacket she had dropped when he grabbed her.

  “Where is it?” the man demanded through the opening in his black ski mask.

  “Where is what?”

  Socks glared at the pale lady with the big blue eyes and trembling lips. What did she think he was, stupid? “The gold,” he snarled. “Where’s the fucking gold!”

  “I think you’ve mixed me up with someone else. The only gold I know about is locked in the casino’s safe along with—”

  Fingers closed like steel cables around her wrist. “The gold she got from that geezer in Sedona.”

  Risa wanted to think she was in the grip of a madman wearing surgeon’s gloves and a ski mask. She had a sickening, spreading fear that he wasn’t crazy. He was mad, period, as in furious. “Look, I’ll be glad to help you find whatever you lost—”

  “The bitch stole it,” Socks cut in. “I didn’t lose it. What kind of dumb fuck loses millions in gold?”

  “Which bitch?” Risa asked, and prayed she was wrong.

  “Cherelle Faulkner, who else? You know any other dumb bitches that live here?”

  Just me, Risa thought bitterly.

  “So where is it?” he demanded.

  “If you could describe what she took,” Risa said with aching control, “I might be able to help you.”

  Socks looked the offer over from all sides, searching for hidden traps. While he was at it, he looked his captive over, too. She was worth the effort. Classy but not a stick. Really nice tits under that loose shirt. Hard to tell about the ass under her straight dark skirt, but it showed promise. Too bad his dick wasn’t up to that kind of workout yet.

  Risa didn’t like the greasy, dark-eyed appraisal. She had seen it in too many men’s eyes once she grew breasts. But none of her fear or disgust showed. That was another thing she had learned as a kid. Show emotion, especially fear, and you’re dead meat.

  “Are you Cherelle’s man?” Risa asked, trying to get his eyes back up above her collarbone.

  Anger and something a lot darker tightened his mouth. “I coulda been, but the bitch stole my gold.”

  Risa wondered if that had been before or after he had swiped Cherelle’s key to the Golden Fleece’s secure apartments, and what had happened to Cherelle and her new key in the meantime. But those were questions Risa wasn’t going to ask.

  She might not like the answers.

  But no matter where Cherelle was now and in what condition, Risa couldn’t help anyone until she got free of this jerk in the explosive Hawaiian shirt and scary ski mask. Gently, very gently, she tested the man’s grip on her wrist. Not as tight as it had been. The fact that cold sweat was slicking her skin helped.

  “What kind of gold?” she asked. “Coins? Jewelry? Watches?”

  “I didn’t see all of it.”

  Risa didn’t point out that if he hadn’t seen the gold, how could it be his? Her captor might not have been particularly bright, but he was plenty strong.

  Just like the old days, Risa thought savagely. My brains against their brawn.

  “Can you describe what you did see of the gold?” she asked, letting a subtle whine creep into her voice. “I really want to help you, mister, but I can’t unless you tell me what you’re looking for.”

  Socks frowned. “Well, there was two little statues that looked like a dog or a buck or something. Then some freaky kind of pin. And an armband that was pretty cool. Looked kind of like a skull. The other stuff must have been the same.”

  Risa’s stomach turned over, then clenched. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  And it sure explained why Cherelle had been interested in Risa’s work for the first time in memory.

  “Cherelle stole those from you?” Risa asked.

  “Yeah, and a bunch of others.”

  “A bunch,” Risa said neutrally, yet her head was spinning. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. There are more Celtic artifacts.

  The thought was staggering, but she was careful not to show it. Instead, she let her voice and her words slide backward into the time when she and Cherelle prowled their rural world like healthy young animals, a time when men like this one were all too common in the girls’ lives.

  “So . . . a bunch,” she said. “Is that a big ol’ bunch or just-a-few-more-than-four kind of bunch?”

  Brawny fingers tightened on her wrist again. “What do you care how many?”

  “Jeez, I’m just trying to help. If it’s one or two, then she might have left them in the powder room in my office. If it’s a big ol’ bunch, then they’re somewhere else.”

  “From what Tim said, there gotta be at least twenty.”

  Holy Mary, Mother of God. “Okay. A big ol’ bunch, so we forget the powder room in my office.” She made a show of looking around the shambles that was her apartment. “I’m thinking she didn’t leave them here or you’d have found them.”

  “Unless you got some secret place?”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “Bitch wasn’t here.”

  Relief flickered through Risa. Cherelle wasn’t somewhere underneath all the mess, hurt or beaten or worse.

  “I don’t have a secret place except . . .” Risa let her voice trail off. It was a long shot, but sometimes you didn’t have any choice but to bet the odds that the game handed you.

  Socks jerked on her wrist hard enough to stagger her. “Where?”

  “Downstairs in the public restroom by the auditoriums.”

  “Huh? Why’d ya use a dumb-ass place like that?”

  She shrugged. “It works.”

  Socks muttered and looked around again. No inspiration came. He lifted his big shirt enough to show her the butt of a gun. “Don’t get wise with me.”

  She swallowed hard. “Hey, I’m with you on this, okay? No need to get snake mean.”

  “Just so you know.”

  He shouldered her out the apartment door. Side by side, her wrist clamped in his fingers, they walked to the elevator. He had an odd hitch in his stride. Not quite a limp, not quite a roll. More like a creaky old man than a young one.

  But there was nothing weak about the grip on her wrist.

  She prayed that whoever was on “God” duty at the cameras would be experienced enough to understand that if some guard barged in right now with his gun blazing, a lot of people would get hurt.

  And Risa would be first.

  Getting caught in that kind of crossfire was a guaranteed trip to the emergency room. Or the morgue.

  It took her three tries to get the passkey into the tiny slot near the elevator
. Her hand wasn’t as steady as it had been before Bozo the Hawaiian Clown had grabbed her.

  When the door opened, he crowded her in and watched while she punched buttons with fingers that were a breath away from shaking too much to be useful. What was making her really nervous now was the fear that he would spot the discreet camera in the elevator ceiling and panic. Being locked alone in a falling metal box with a twitchy gunman wasn’t her idea of fun—and that was exactly what would happen if she triggered any of the obvious or subtle alarms on the elevator panel.

  As the elevator slowed, the man yanked off his mask and stuffed it in his back pocket. She was careful not to look at him. There was no point. The cameras could do a better job and not make him nervous.

  When the doors finally opened on the lobby floor and Risa stepped out, she wasn’t a whole lot happier than she had been in the elevator. She didn’t want her captor to go nuclear in the middle of the crowded casino. What she needed was a distraction, just a second or two, just long enough to wrench her sweaty wrist free and run for cover.

  Across the room a long buffet line of hungry tourists waited for the chance to spend fifteen dollars each for a place at the all-you-can-eat trough that was one of the Golden Fleece’s big attractions. To either side of the room the flash and glitter and strike-it-rich noise of the slots called out a siren song of instant wealth. The loudest—and best-paying—slots were parked near the street doors of the Golden Fleece, where everyone who came inside would be tempted to drop a little change into the pretty machines that seemed to pay off every third roll. And then drop a little more money farther inside the casino, and a little more at the tables, and then a little more . . .

  Gotcha.

  The slots were Risa’s target, but not the high-traffic ones. She wanted the less popular slots, where only the bleary-eyed and dedicated pumped smudged coins into the Las Vegas equivalent of a cosmic black hole. At the end of the row of quiet slots were the two auditoriums, closed now between shows. Between the auditoriums was a restroom that the employees called the Maze because people got lost in it so often. There was a west door and a south door to the restroom, but almost nobody read the signs on the way in, so they found themselves in the wrong area of the casino when they came out.