by Linda Howard
She heard a faint sound in her bedroom, and a chill ran down her spine. Rafael! She whirled and unlocked the door, pulling it open in the same motion and stepping out without looking, as if she hadn’t heard anything and didn’t know he was there. She all but bumped into him, and jumped with a fake yip of surprise. “I didn’t know you were in here,” she said, pleased with how hoarse her voice sounded.
He put his hands on her waist and frowned down at her. “Are you sick? You sound terrible.”
“I might be catching something,” she mumbled, looking down. “I woke up with a cough.”
He tilted her face up, his dark eyes sharply examining her pallor, the shadows under her eyes. Drea could barely force herself to stand there and let him touch her. He was a handsome man, with thick black hair and chiseled features, but she had never loved him and at the best of times had found only mild pleasure in being with him. There was no pleasure left now, only hate burning so strong and hot she could barely contain it.
Still, she managed to put suffering in her expression as she looked back up at him, then she closed her eyes and swallowed. Straightening, she gently removed herself from his grasp and went to her closet. Opening the door, she turned on the light and stared into the small room, at the shoes scattered across the floor and the laden hangers jammed together without any sort of system. “I need to find a job,” she said in a wobbly voice, the tone a little lost and bewildered. “But I don’t know what to wear.”
The truth was, there was nothing in her closet appropriate for job-hunting, and nothing she would mind leaving behind. Every garment had been chosen with the purpose of showcasing her assets, and was either too flamboyant or too revealing. There was nothing tailored, not a single skirt long enough to reach her knee—or, if it did, there was also a side slit to add oomph.
Rafael came up behind her and this time he slid his arm around her, pulling her close against his side. He bent his head, pressed his warm mouth to her temple. “I think you have a fever,” he murmured. “You should stay home today, and when you’re feeling better you can worry about what to wear.” He gave a small, indulgent smile, as if he were talking to a child.
“But I have to—” She knew damn well she didn’t have a fever, because she wasn’t sick, but that was exactly what she’d wanted him to say.
“No,” he interrupted. “You don’t have to leave, and you sure as hell don’t have to hunt for a job. You don’t have to do anything, except rest.”
She pulled back from him and searched his face with a desolate gaze. She let her lips tremble a little “But…yesterday…”
“Yesterday, I was an idiot,” he said forcefully. “Listen to me, babe: I don’t know how many times you want me to say it, but I’m not tired of you, I swear. I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay here and let me take care of you the way I always have. You can’t make it on your own. You’re not qualified for any job except looking pretty, but you’re damn good at that.”
Drea let a weary sigh leak out of her, and she leaned her head into his shoulder, let him support her weight. “I don’t know what to do.” The vulnerability of her posture disarmed him, and also gave her the chance to make certain she could control her expression. She was incredulous that he’d actually admitted he’d been in the wrong about anything—a first—and enraged that he so completely dismissed her capabilities. Logically that last shouldn’t matter, because she’d worked damn hard to make him think exactly what he’d said, but to hell with logic. She was in an emotional free fall, and the only handholds she could grab were those of hate and rage. She clung to them, because without them she’d never stop falling.
His hand slid up and down her back, gently rubbing. “That’s what I’m telling you: you don’t have to do anything. We’ll go on the way we did before. Nothing has to change.”
He had no idea how much things had already changed. She didn’t say anything, pretending to think things over, then she threw in a bout of coughing just to be on the safe side. The last thing she wanted was for her voice to begin recovering and sounding normal.
He hugged her close, squeezed her. “You should take it easy today, see if you feel better tomorrow. How about if I bring you a present tonight? What would you like?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and sighed again. “I think I will just stay in today. I don’t feel like shopping. What are you doing today? Are you staying here?” She injected a faintly hopeful note into her raspy voice as if she actually wanted him to stay around, though she felt relatively safe in assuming he wouldn’t; Rafael rarely spent the day at the penthouse. He liked to see and be seen, and unless there was some party to attend he never took her with him.
“No, I have business I have to attend to. I’ll leave a couple of the guys here, okay? Anything you want, anywhere you want to go, just tell them.” He never left the penthouse empty; someone was always there, making it difficult for the FBI or anyone else to slip in and plant surveillance devices. At first she’d always had two babysitters watching out for her; one would stay behind while the other kept watch on her if she went anywhere. Later, after Rafael decided he could trust her, just one man stayed behind to watch the penthouse and if she went out she went alone. It had been awhile since she’d had one assigned specifically to her; Rafael probably thought he was giving her a perk, when instead he was making her plan that much tougher to play out.
“Who?” Not Orlando, please, she prayed. Orlando Dumas was the sharpest arrow in Rafael’s quiver, especially with computers. The last thing she needed was someone computer-savvy looking over her shoulder. When she’d first moved in with Rafael, Orlando had been her most frequent babysitter, because Rafael knew Orlando was the most likely to spot anything suspicious.
“Who do you want?”
“I don’t care,” she said listlessly. If she expressed a preference at all, Rafael would wonder why; even asking whom she didn’t want would trigger his suspicions, so it was safer to let him choose the person he wanted. She’d deal with it regardless. “I guess I’ll look at some things online this morning, and if I feel better later on I’ll go to the library.”
“You do that.” He kissed her again, this time on the forehead. “I don’t know what time I’ll be back, so eat without me, okay?”
“Okay.” Perfect. Eating without him wasn’t unusual. They usually shared breakfast, which she wouldn’t have to do today because she’d overslept and was late, but most of the time she ate her other meals alone. She’d never been a big part of his life, she realized; how could she have deluded herself that she was anything more to him than convenient sex? She was easily replaced, easily forgotten—and easily bartered.
That was about to change. By the time she was finished, Rafael would never forget her.
Satisfied that he’d weathered the threatened upheaval to his domestic arrangement, Rafael gave her another hug and kiss and strolled out. Drea blew out a huge breath, her legs going weak with relief. Maintaining her act, schooling her every expression and word, had never been a problem, but now it took real effort and she felt the strain. In her head she could hear a clock ticking, warning her that she couldn’t keep this up for much longer.
Still, she played it safe, because he might look in on her again before he left the penthouse. She turned on her television, put it on a shopping channel with the sound turned very low, and curled up in a chair with a cashmere throw pulled over her legs. Then she waited, closing her eyes and straining her ears for the sound of the door closing. She’d have muted the television if she’d been certain Rafael wouldn’t reenter her room, but until he actually left she had to assume he would. How much of her life had she wasted doing this, setting the stage and making certain every detail was perfect, on the off-chance he might notice?
This time it paid off. He opened the door without knocking. Drea opened her eyes as he crossed the room, and to her astonishment saw he had a cup of coffee in his hand. “I brought your coffee,” he said. “It’ll help your throat.”
>
Impatience roiled inside her, made her want to clench her teeth, but she stopped herself just in time. He’d notice the motion of her jaw muscles, and he’d know she was putting on an act. God in Heaven, would he just leave? He must have some worm in his brain, to be acting like this.
“That’s so sweet,” she said, and coughed some more as she took the cup from him. “Thank you.”
“Cream and three sugars, right?”
“Right.” No, it was two sugars and skim milk, which told her how much attention he’d paid. Now she’d have to skip her morning toast to make up for these extra calories. She sipped the too-sweet, too-rich brew, and smiled at him. “Perfect.”
A faint blush tinged his high cheekbones, and it was all she could do not to gape at him. Rafael Salinas, blushing? The world as she knew it must have ended, and she’d been too damn busy being traded around like a whore to have noticed.
She let her head rest against the back of the chair, and sighed as if she felt really miserable. Maybe the bastard would take the hint and leave her alone. She had to be careful not to overdo it, though, or he’d be strong-arming some doctor to check her over. She also didn’t want him checking on her all day long. He never had before, but today was a day for firsts.
“Call me if you need me,” he said.
“I will.”
He was clearly torn, wanting to go about his business but at the same time not wanting to leave her. For once, she was out of ideas. She just wanted him to go, and couldn’t think of any maneuver that would steer him out the door, so she curled deeper into the chair and closed her eyes; that way, at least, she wouldn’t have to look at him.
But, wonder of wonders, either that worked or he couldn’t think of any more reasons to delay. She heard him leave her bedroom, then the rumble of masculine voices, and finally the blessed sound she’d been waiting for: the closing of the main door. She could still hear the television in the parlor, and an occasional comment as the two men he’d left behind settled down to watch some sports on the tube.
She resisted the urge to peek and see who Rafael had chosen to babysit her. She was supposed to be sick, and lying down; she didn’t want to make anyone suspicious by bouncing out of the bedroom as soon as the door had closed behind Rafael. Her timing didn’t have to be down to the minute, but she wanted to leave Rafael as little time to react as possible.
There were plenty of things she could do to get ready, though. She tiptoed over to the door and turned the lock in the doorknob. Locks like that were flimsy and wouldn’t slow down any of Rafael’s men for more than a few seconds, but she felt safer having that little bit of warning.
Going to the closet, she pulled out a large leather tote. First into it went one of her few pairs of flat-heeled shoes. Once she managed to slip away from her babysitter, she’d have to do some fast walking, and the four-and five-inch heels she preferred might be glamorous but they were hell to walk in.
One thing that worried her was that she didn’t know how much influence Rafael had in specific areas. Cameras were everywhere in this city, recording people in stores, walking down the sidewalk, getting on a subway. Everything that went on in a bank was definitely recorded, but she felt safer about that because Rafael didn’t know about her safe-deposit box, or which bank she had used. But if he had any pull with the city, the traffic engineers, or the cops, he might be able to get access to recordings and be able to track her movements. That was a chance she’d have to take, because if dematerializing was a learnable skill, she hadn’t yet found the class that taught it.
Almost everything here would have to stay. She selected some basic cosmetics, enough to get her by but not enough that Rafael would ever notice part of her stuff was missing. The rest she left scattered across her vanity, as if she were expecting to return. She rolled up a pair of black cropped pants, and a skimpy black shirt, and added them to the bag. Black was the least noticeable color in New York, because so many people wore it, even during the summer. Another bag, smaller and plainer, also went into the tote.
That was it. She’d buy everything else she needed as she needed it. She was satisfied that no one, looking at this room, would think anything other than that she’d gone shopping and would soon be back. Rafael, knowing how she loved clothes and makeup, would never believe she’d willingly left all this behind, and that would buy her precious time—she hoped. She’d have to make a clean escape; if the babysitter saw her, tried to catch her, then she’d have no grace period at all.
She paced. She watched the clock. After awhile, hunger pains drove her from her room to the kitchen. Rafael didn’t have a cook because he didn’t trust people outside of his network, and generally thugs didn’t develop their culinary skills, but he did have food delivered so there was always something available.
She made herself walk slowly, as if she didn’t have a lot of energy. The two men sitting in the living room looked around. To her relief, neither of them was Orlando Dumas. Their names were Amado and Hector, and if she’d ever heard their last names she’d promptly forgotten them. They were okay, sort of middle of the pack: not the smartest, not the dumbest. Cool. She could handle that.
“You feelin’ better?” Hector asked.
“Some.” She’d forgotten to keep coughing, but her voice was still a little raspy. “I’m going to heat some soup for lunch. Do you want any?” She doubted it, because she could see plates and glasses on the coffee table, indicating they’d already eaten, plus Amado had his hand in a huge bag of Doritos.
“Nah, we’ve already had lunch. Thanks, though.”
Hector had fairly good manners, for a thug.
Drea went into the kitchen and nuked a bowl of soup, ate it standing up at the counter. Her heart was kicking into high gear; she could feel the rhythm of the beats picking up in speed, feel the excitement beginning to race through her veins. She looked at the clock again: two p.m.
Showtime.
* * *
7
AFTER LOCKING HER BEDROOM DOOR, DREA GOT HER LAPTOP and logged on. She had carefully researched this, not because she’d been planning all along to wipe out Rafael’s bank account and go into hiding, but sort of as a “just in case” type of thing.
If Rafael had played straight with her, she’d have been content to rock along at the status quo for as long as he wanted her, then she’d take her jewelry and leave. That was what she’d expected to happen, and she’d played her part to convince him that she was completely harmless, so he wouldn’t worry about something she might have seen or overheard.
Besides all that, what if Rafael had been killed? Things like that happened to people like him. She hadn’t seen any point in letting all that money sit in the bank, his accounts frozen, until the feds stepped in and took it all.
So she’d planned for the future—her future.
She truly had no idea where or how Rafael kept his other set of books, for the big money that hadn’t been laundered. She hadn’t tried to find out, judging that effort way out of her league in terms of the risks she was willing to take. But the bank account that Rafael used for his personal needs, and the one from which he made transfers to the account he’d set up for her, well, that was different.
The penthouse had a hard-wired router for their computer use; Orlando had told Rafael to go that route instead of wireless, as a wireless router made it easier for someone else to capture his information. Drea’s laptop’s IP number was different from that of Rafael’s laptop, but from the router outward only one IP number showed up at the other end, meaning that, if she accessed Rafael’s bank account, as far as the bank was concerned, the access came from the correct IP number.
Getting Rafael’s password had taken months of watching, catching glimpses whenever she could, watching his hands and working out what keystrokes he was using. If he’d changed his password regularly, she’d never have been able to figure it out, but like most people he didn’t bother. Nor was his password particularly imaginative: he used his cell phone number
. He had two cells, an encrypted one Orlando had gotten for him, and another one that he used for ordinary stuff. Drea didn’t know the number for the encrypted phone, but she’d often called his regular cell. After she’d figured out three of his keystrokes, she’d known what the password was.
She went to the bank’s website, then logged on as Rafael, holding her breath until the account information actually flashed onto the screen. First she went into his account preferences and changed the e-mail address so that any notifications would be sent to her e-mail address instead of his. From the research she’d done, she knew that a bank would send an e-mail when any unusually large transfers were made, and she didn’t want Rafael getting that e-mail today.
How long it would be before he—or rather, Orlando—thought to check her e-mail account was anyone’s guess. At first, when Rafael realized she had disappeared, he’d check her room. He’d never expect her to leave all her clothes behind, so he’d be concerned something had happened to her, and he’d have his men searching for her. Unfortunately, that meant she also had to leave the laptop behind, because he’d notice immediately if it were gone. She didn’t care; there were no files she needed to keep, no photos saved on it.
Besides, she wanted Rafael to know what she’d done—after she’d had plenty of time to get away, of course. She wanted him to know that she’d made him pay. He might not find out about his empty bank account until he bounced a check, which could be days. That was the best-case scenario, but sometimes the ball bounced her way. She wasn’t counting on it, though; she intended to run far and run fast. She’d have to change her name, spend some money to get a new ID that would hold up under at least a first round of scrutiny, but she knew all about reinventing herself and the prospect didn’t bother her.
