Running Scared

by Elizabeth Lowell

  A minute later Shane hit the enter key and pushed back from the computer terminal. The screen showing the 3-D graph kept changing. He gave it a disgusted look and turned away. He had seen enough.

  “What?” April said.

  Shane glanced at the screen that was executing his most recent program and decided it was safe to let her in on the good news. Good for her, at any rate. It sure as hell wasn’t good news for him.

  “I’m the owner of an unusually profitable casino,” he said evenly.

  “Meaning?”

  “My slots have been steadily earning more than they should, despite the losses from a techno-team last week. Instead of the usual autumn slump at the tables, things have been humming along. Nothing outrageous enough to send up an alarm. A few percent here. A few more there. It adds up fast. Because my watchdog programs are designed to chase consistent, unexpected losses rather than gains, no alarms got tripped.”

  April watched Shane with dark eyes and total concentration. She didn’t say a word.

  “I made it easier on them—whoever they are—by not shifting my firewall program every few weeks,” Shane added. “I’ve been too busy chasing Celtic gold.” And Risa, a fact he didn’t figure April had any need to know.

  “Keep going,” April said.

  “Somebody got into my computer. Instead of hosing me the usual way, they added money to my accounts, millions of dollars that I have no way of explaining but have already declared to the Gaming Control Board and paid all appropriate taxes on.”

  “Bottom line?”

  “Looks like you have yourself a laundry boy.”

  The leashed emotion in Shane made her pause. He was agreeing to help her, but he was a long way from beaten. Angry, yes. He was furious. Yet there was a feral kind of triumph in his eyes that she didn’t understand.

  And what she didn’t understand made her nervous.

  “Drop the other shoe,” she said.

  “Did one of Uncle’s computer experts set me up?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You better hope it was the bad guys.” Shane glanced at the program that was running and smiled when program completed flashed on the screen. “Because I just destroyed somebody’s very expensive toy.”

  Chapter 64

  Las Vegas

  November 5

  Evening

  Gail Silverado, Rich Morrison, and Carl Firenze no longer sat around the table that had been rolled into Gail’s office for dinner. The remains of duck, steak, and shrimp congealed on the abandoned plates. Only Carl had been hungry enough to eat everything he’d ordered. Gail never ate much anyway. Rich had eaten half of his duck, finished his wine, and watched the phone.

  Now all three were drinking coffee in the “conversation” area of Gail’s office. In Rich’s case the coffee came with an extra kick. Gail and Carl were taking their caffeine straight up, no alcohol chaser. Neither of them wanted to be slow or stupid while carrying a million dollars in cash.

  Nobody had much to say. The money had been counted and packed into two suitcases that could have fit in the overhead storage bin of any major airline.

  Everyone was waiting for the call to come through the main desk and get switched to Gail’s private number.

  “Ms. Silverado,” Carl said, setting aside his coffee, “sure I can’t talk you out of this?”

  She jerked, startled out of her own thoughts. Then she sighed and admitted, “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Think harder,” Rich said. “I have been. I don’t like what I’m thinking.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gail said. “You were the one who was so eager to—”

  “I changed my mind. Yes, it would be nice to have you testify against Tannahill as an on-the-spot witness to an illegal act. Icing on the cake, as it were.” Rich shrugged. “So who needs icing? We’ve got his cock in a wringer. No point pushing our luck.”

  Before Gail could answer, the phone rang. She reached for it with a hand that trembled.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Now, that’s a word I love to hear,” Cherelle said. “You ready to buy some gold toys?”

  Gail looked at the two men. Carl was already on his feet, settling his shoulder holster with an automatic motion of his body.

  “Yes,” Gail said.

  “The Midas Motel. You know where it is?”

  Gail hesitated, swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Room 121. Twenty minutes.”

  The line went dead.

  Gail hung up the receiver and thought about walking out into the night with a million in anonymous bills.

  “Well?” Rich said.

  “Midas Motel, Room 121,” Gail said. She looked at her hands. “I think I’ll have that drink after all.”

  Chapter 65

  Las Vegas

  November 5

  Evening

  Nobody looked at the telephone.

  Everybody waited for it to ring.

  No one talked about the fact that it was late, getting later, and Cherelle still hadn’t called with instructions.

  The only good news was that Ian, who was watching Gail Silverado with the help of some extra bodies from the Golden Fleece’s security staff, hadn’t called in either. Gail was still at her casino, waiting as they were waiting.

  Niall put the half-glasses on Risa, adjusted them, and judged his handiwork. “You’re going to make a cute little old lady someday.”

  Dana snickered.

  Risa ignored both of them. She was trying not to look at Shane. He hadn’t had a civil word to say to her since he’d walked back into her apartment, found her being fitted for special electronics, and was informed by Dana that Risa was going after the gold.

  Alone.

  It’s the only way we can be sure that a spectacular, and spectacularly meaningful, piece of human culture won’t vanish into an underground black market and never reappear.

  Niall, usually Shane’s ally, had weighed in on Dana’s side. Look, boyo, you’ve already fired Risa, Rarities can front the money if you refuse, and there’s sweet bugger all you can do about it. She’s going alone. Get used to it.

  End of discussion.

  End of conversation, too.

  Risa glanced uneasily in Shane’s direction, wondering just how angry he was beneath his silence. Plenty, if the tightness around his eyes was any sign. And he was walking his gold pen again, jade eyes unfocused, thinking, thinking, thinking.

  That alone made her more nervous than waiting for the phone on the table next to him to ring.

  At the kitchen table Dana was polishing off the last of a meal of lobster, filet mignon, sinfully rich mashed potatoes, bread, buttered vegetables, salad drenched with dressing, and dessert. If Risa hadn’t liked Dana so well, she would have hated her for the turbo-metabolism that allowed the petite woman to eat whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it, and never put on an ounce. The thought of what all that food would do to her own hips made Risa cringe.

  “Okay,” Niall said, stepping back from her. “She’s ready. Remember, to trigger the stereo camera you bite down on the gold cap we put on your left back molar. A short bite for one low-resolution frame. Continued pressure for higher resolution. You can store two hundred frames at low resolution. Twenty at highest. How does it feel?”

  She plucked at the loose dark shirt and black jeans she was wearing. Beneath them her black “underwear” nibbled and pinched. “Fits better than the body armor you found for me. Whoever wore this last was at least two sizes smaller in the butt.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers. Is the trigger loose on your tooth?”

  Risa delicately tongued the cap. She hadn’t been able to stop fiddling with it since he had tapped it into place a few minutes ago. Like a sore tooth, it was irresistible. “No. It just feels strange.”

  “How about the earpieces on the glasses? Do they pinch or give you a headache?”

  “No pinching yet. Headache? Every time I look down, why?”

&n
bsp; “Don’t look down,” Dana and Niall said together. Then Niall continued alone, “Think of them as reading glasses. The focal length is approximately your reading distance. When an object is in focus for you through the glasses, it’s in focus for the camera.”

  “Keep that in mind,” Dana said, licking her dessert fork. “If things go to shit tonight, whatever bytes are stored in the earpieces will be our only record of some internationally important artifacts.”

  Before Risa could answer, the phone rang. She reached for it.

  Shane was quicker. He didn’t lift the receiver. He didn’t let her lift it.

  “If I was the one going in alone with two million dollars in cash, how would you feel about it?” he asked.

  Ring.

  Her eyelids flickered. “At least as mad as you are right now.”

  Ring.

  “Even though you know I can take care of myself with or without a gun?”

  Ring.

  “That’s being reasonable,” she said in a low voice. “Fear isn’t reasonable.”

  He lifted the receiver and held it out to her.

  “Hello?” Risa said, grabbing the phone.

  “What the hell took you so long, baby-chick?”

  “I was counting money.”

  Cherelle laughed. “Two million?

  “Yes. Where and when?”

  “Fifteen minutes. The Midas Motel.”

  Shane started for the door.

  “The Midas Motel?” Risa looked at Dana and followed orders: stall. “Never heard of it. Where is it?”

  Niall barely made it to the front door before it slammed in his face.

  Dana didn’t waste time yelling about what she couldn’t change. She just flipped over the shopping list and started writing down the instructions as Risa unhurriedly repeated them aloud.

  “Okay,” Risa said. “I’m going to read the instructions back to you just to be sure.” Slowly she read off the sheet that Dana handed over. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  “Alone,” Cherelle said.

  Risa thought of Shane and wondered if Niall would be able to keep him from kicking down Cherelle’s door. “I don’t like that part of it.”

  “Tough shit. Don’t fuck with me on this one. I’ve been waiting all my life for this break. Ain’t nothing gonna get in my way. Are you hearing me, baby-chick?”

  “Yes.”

  She should have saved her breath. Cherelle had already hung up.

  Chapter 66

  Las Vegas

  November 5

  Evening

  Socks flipped through the motel’s piped-in channels twice before he switched back over to the commercial offerings. He was tired of waiting for the call, but he wasn’t nearly as head-banging fed up with life as he had been on his uncle’s boring houseboat tied to one of Lake Mead’s boring docks under the boring winter sun. After the first few hours even the collection of porn tapes he’d discovered made him yawn.

  When the call had come telling Socks to get back to Vegas and check in to the Lucky Sun motel under the name of Ed Hutch, he hadn’t asked any questions. He just climbed into a rental car, wished it was his screaming purple baby, and headed for Vegas. Now he was waiting again, bored again. If it hadn’t been for the promise of money—and a dead bitch—on the other end of the waiting, he would have hauled his ass out of the motel and gone for some long-overdue raving around town.

  But the chance to make a bundle of money while getting even with Cherelle was just too good to pass up. The cocaine would wait. The pussy would wait. He had a date with a million dollars. The gun that had been put in the motel room before he got there was a sweet, hard weight against his belly. Fully loaded, semiautomatic, ready to party. All he needed was an address.

  The phone rang.

  He picked it up, listened, smiled.

  Party time.

  Chapter 67

  Las Vegas

  November 5

  Night

  As Shane drove swiftly down the Strip, rivers of colored lights flowed in silent glory over the windshield. He didn’t notice. To him the lights were like the night—just one more thing to get through before Risa was safe.

  Niall glanced sideways with eyes as dark as the bottom of a well. “What if we lose the gold?”

  “As long as we don’t lose Risa, I can live with whatever happens.”

  “Yeah, I got that impression. So did Dana.” Niall smiled. “She told me you wouldn’t stay behind. Then she told me to stick to you like fresh shit on a hiking shoe.”

  Shane didn’t say anything.

  “I won’t get in your way, boyo.”

  “Do what you have to do.”

  Niall grimaced. He had worked with enough commando groups to recognize Shane’s state of mind. It was beyond anger, beyond rage. Take no prisoners didn’t even begin to describe it.

  Men were never more dangerous than when they were cold and calm.

  “If you tell me what you’re planning, I can help,” Niall said.

  More silence.

  Lights, buildings, and other cars flowed past in a rainbow river. Shane pushed the yellow on two stoplights and took the third red. He wasn’t careless about it, but he was quick.

  Just when Niall thought he’d lost whatever trust the other man had had for him, Shane shifted his grip on the wheel and braked for a light that would have been too dangerous to run.

  “I’m going to take Cherelle down before Risa gets there,” Shane said. “You want to help, fine. You want to get in my way, fine. Either way Cherelle goes down.”

  “What are you going to do—kick in the door?”

  “If I have to.”

  “What if she’s armed?”

  “So am I.”

  “You think she killed that pawnbroker?” Niall asked.

  “Possible, but not my first vote.”

  “Socks?”

  “Probably. Socks’s police profile shows someone with a ninety-one IQ and a short fuse.”

  Shane switched off his headlights before he turned at the Midas Motel entrance. A glance at his watch told him he had perhaps six minutes to spare. He reached into his wallet, pulled out some twenties, and handed them to Niall.

  “I might be recognized by the night clerk,” Shane said. “Damn all news photographers anyway.”

  “Serves you right for having such a pretty face.”

  Shane ignored him. “Can you find out if the room on either side of 121 is available?”

  “Will you be here when I get back?”

  “If I’m not, you know where to find me.”

  Niall strode quickly into the office.

  Shane didn’t wait to see about rooms, empty or otherwise. He left the car and walked along the bottom wing of the motel. If the parking lot and the amount of lights showing through room windows were any indication, the Midas Motel was on a steep downward slide toward bankruptcy or flophouse status.

  The room to the right of 121 showed lights. The room to the left didn’t. The door lock on the left-hand room was the old-fashioned, nonelectronic kind. Easy, in a word. Shane pulled a credit card from his wallet, worked it between the door and the jamb, and finessed the lock in less time than it took for Niall to check in.

  By the time Niall got to the room, the curtains were drawn, the lights were on, and the television was chattering loudly about the latest fashion trend—neon mesh underwear worn outside a black bodysuit. The door leading to the parking lot was slightly ajar. He didn’t knock and he didn’t lock the door behind him. They might want to get out in a hurry.

  Shane was working on the inner door that opened into Room 121. The lock was proving much more difficult than the front-door lock had.

  “Step aside, boyo.”

  Shane looked over his shoulder. Niall had a tire iron in one hand and an assortment of lock picks in the other. Shane got out of his way.

  “I didn’t see a good hiding place outside,” Shane said. “How about you?”

  “That’s why
I’m in here. We don’t have a lot of time. Dana and Risa are about two minutes away.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Cellular connection.”

  For the first time Shane noticed the nearly transparent earpiece and cord that connected Niall to a cell phone in his rear pocket. “Is Dana giving you a running commentary?”

  “Nothing so obvious. She just turned her phone up to max sensitivity and put it in her jacket pocket.” Along with a gun, please God, Niall added silently. Dana hated them, but he had made sure she knew how to use one. “Bugger!”

  He switched lock picks and went back to work.

  Shane stood to one side of the front window and watched for the flash of headlights entering the parking lot.

  Chapter 68

  Las Vegas

  November 5

  Night

  “Right at the intersection after the next light,” Dana said.

  Risa glanced in various mirrors as she braked for the yellow light.

  “See anyone?” Dana asked.

  “No.”

  Dana could have told her she wouldn’t—not if the follower was Niall, at any rate.

  Her cell phone beeped softly, warning her that a call was trying to come through the open line. With rapid motions Dana closed the connection to Niall and picked up the incoming call.

  “Dana here. Make it fast.”

  “This is Ian. Silverado hasn’t moved.”

  “All right. Obviously we’re going to be first in. Risa will have my phone, so don’t call back.”

  “Gotcha. Want me to come in?”

  “Stay with Silverado.”

  Dana broke the connection.

  Risa glanced sideways. “What’s this about your cell phone?”

  “It’s going in your pocket with an open connection to Niall,” Dana said, punching in numbers as she spoke. “That way he’ll at least know what you’re up against. Have you had any weapons training?”