The Housewife Assassin Gets Lucky

by Deborah Coonts

  Realizing she’s having second thoughts about Jack, I almost sigh out loud.

  My relief is short-lived when she waltzes out the door with the whole box.

  Why, that little slut!

  Serenaded by a cacophony of heaving petting, I slip out the bathroom, down the stairs, and out the kitchen door.

  When I’m a block from Roxanna’s house, I call Jack’s phone. After he picks up, I declare loudly, “Darling, why haven’t you called home? The children refuse to go to bed without hearing you sing them their bedtime song!”

  Jack takes the hint. Sighing, he mutters, “I’ll be right home, dear.”

  He’s at the car in less than three minutes.

  I hold up the Tesco bag. “Mission accomplished.” As I hop in the driver’s seat, he gives me a thumbs-up and tosses me the car fob.

  I wait until we’re on the M40 before saying, “I hope she kept her knickers on. Otherwise, you may have to see a doctor.”

  Jack laughs. “Not to worry. I took that as a given. Besides, I don’t think I could have lived up to her expectations.”

  “Why do you say that?” I ask innocently.

  He holds up Slick Willy.

  I’m laughing so hard that I almost drive off the road. “Why did you take that?”

  “I didn’t, I swear! When I insisted I had to go home to my wife, she threw it at me.” He shrugs. “I thought it might make a good gag gift.”

  “Gag is right,” I declare. “Well, if it’s any consolation, you’ve always lived up to my expectations.”

  In appreciation, Jack kisses the back of my hand. This simple gesture sends a surge of desire through me.

  We make it back to the Ritz in record time.

  Somewhere between Northolt and Greenford, Slick Willy was tossed out the window. It’s for the best. I’m sure it’ll find a home and make some lucky lady very happy.

  9

  Lucky

  “What kind of cruel joke is this?” His head lowered, the sheik looked at me under the shelf of dark brows like a bear eying dinner. “You had me worried sick. What would I tell my brother? Aziza was a sick child. My brother was quite attached.”

  Tongue-tied with shock, I could only stand there, mouth open, staring at the floor.

  The body was gone. The vase was still missing. The door was unlocked yet I had locked it. Where was the connection? Someone was playing games with me. Someone who wouldn’t live long after I found them.

  The mystery lady I’d met at the elevator. She had to be the key.

  I looked up and ran right into the sheik’s glare. “Shouldn’t you be a bit more broken up?” I stammered, riding a wave of the absurd. None of this could really be happening, could it? “She was your niece after all.”

  “And a pain in the ass and an embarrassment to my family.”

  “And you were sent to fetch her.” Now I understood more fully why he was pissed—nothing more demeaning than being his older brother’s toady. I wondered what Sheik Ben had done to curry his brother’s disfavor. Who knew? The whole Arab thing was inscrutable to someone with Vegas sensibilities, not that I didn’t try. But, underneath all of it, men were men. And men, I understood. Okay, rephrase that, men I could anticipate. “All you’re worried about is what you’d tell her father?”

  “Of course not.” He shook off my accusation. “What game are you playing?”

  “I assure you, I am not playing any game.” I gave him my best corporate stare. “Seriously? I run a multi-national business empire. Most days relatively effectively. On any given day, more money than you can fathom passes through our properties.” The minute I said it, I knew that wasn’t true. He and his family had a firm grip on the world’s oil spigot. I rushed on. “I assure you, playing a horrible game with our most valued partner would not be within my capabilities.” I walked around the area where I’d seen Aziza. “Her body was here, stomach down. I could see the new tattoo on the back of her right thigh.”

  “She would never get a tattoo. It is forbidden!”

  “Perhaps Aziza didn’t care to share.” My thoughts raced. I needed to get him out of this room. A murder had occurred here—she’d been dead, I was sure of it. Even though not an official crime scene, it would be—when I found the body. I needed to preserve the evidence, such as it might be, as much as I could. “I need a drink.”

  The sheik followed me back into the great room, but neither of us headed toward the bar. Beads of sweat popped on my skin. One traced a winding trail down the side of my face. Pretending to push my hair back, I swiped the moisture away. “Is it hot in here?” I stepped to the nearest French door and opened it. Unlike in the states, here no one cared if anyone wanted to leap to their death—it opened easily. I felt the sheik’s eyes boring holes in my back. Where the hell had the body gone? The cool, damp night air helped. Keeping my back to the sheik but watching his reflection in the glass, I drank the air like wine in huge restorative gulps. “You must admit, your niece wasn’t forthcoming with you or the rest of her family. She kept her job here under wraps. The girl was going off the grid, and you were sent to fetch her home, which would probably end up like that poor girl snatched off the yacht never to be heard from again.” Oops, a bit too far. The temperature in the room rose. Pissing people off, an odd skill for a customer service rep, but we all have our crosses to bear.

  “Do you really wish to insult me?” His voice had gone lethal.

  “No.” I turned back to face him, then leaned on the door frame, my hands behind me to keep them from shaking. I’d found bodies before, but I’d never lost one. “Her skin was still warm, but I couldn’t detect any pulse.”

  He held his arms wide and circled slowly. “Then, where is she?” Anger radiated off of him.

  “I don’t know, but I will find her. Maybe you can help me. When was your last contact with your niece?”

  He moved to stare out the window next to me. “We are not close. She speaks mostly with her mother, from what I am told. My brother thought it best that I arrive without fanfare.”

  “So, no one told her you were coming?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. And I told your office to be circumspect about who they were making the room arrangements for.” He gave me a slitty side-eye. “Perhaps they weren’t discreet.”

  No way the leak came from my office, but it would be futile and reek of desperation to argue that point now. I needed a solid footing of facts. “Well, someone wasn’t discreet. Aziza was up here readying your room, or so I was told.”

  “That, my dear Lucky, is on you.”

  There was something in what he’d told me earlier… “You said before Aziza wasn’t answering her phone. Yet now you tell me you haven’t tried contacting her. Which is it?”

  “My brother said she was not answering when her mother called. He was most put out.”

  A ring of the buzzer interrupted my train of thought. The door swung open admitting the butler who nodded.

  “Gerald,” The sheik said, his voice icy. A look passed between he and the butler. It wasn’t a good look. Something was there. Anger, maybe?

  Gerald’s expression flattened as he held the door for a phalanx of bellmen, each one rolling in a piece of new Louis Vuitton luggage.

  I launched myself from my perch. “No, no, no! You can’t stay here.” I rushed toward my staff members who, in grand British fashion, forged ahead despite my not-so-thinly veiled order. I turned on the sheik. “Stop them.” I felt compelled to protect my future crime scene—Aziza deserved that.

  One of the bellmen glanced his way. He waved him on. “I’ve booked this room. I intend to stay here. As for you, stay out of my way. And you should seriously consider professional help.”

  A not so subtle cue that it was time to take my leave.

  The sheik had a point. My psyche had been pulling apart at the seams for some time now. The Lucky O’Toole Self-Betterment Program, an abandoned effort, had failed miserably. My downward slide was now complete—I was not only finding dea
d bodies, now everyone thought I was imagining them.

  But I wasn’t. I saw what I saw. And it was up to me to prove it.

  As I waited for the elevator, I scanned the hallway for the security cameras, noting their placement. Two had a direct shot at the elevator.

  Security was on the second floor behind the casino.

  The elevator opened into a different world. My kind of world. Here I could see hints of the Babylon back home. Long streams of colored fabric waved along twenty-four-foot ceilings lending an air of intimacy. Dark purple paint adorned the walls. Gold wall sconces with flames under glass, as if from burning bundled reeds, cast enough light to see, but not a great deal more. A comforting environment. Casinos that had inquisition-style lighting made me nervous and desperate to escape—not the feeling a casino owner wanted to engender in their players, at least by my way of thinking. The carpet, thick and lush to muffle sound, provided an air of elegance with its beautiful colors and patterns. Gaming tables tucked under tented fabric in colorful hues occupied the front of the room. Poker to my right and other table games to my left, baccarat being the most popular along with craps. A high-roller room, invisible from here, catered to the Asian predilection for high stakes Baccarat hid in the far corner of the casino.

  Play was light. Frank Sinatra crooned above the soft sounds of the early-birds settling in to wager the hours away. The night was still young. Most would probably be dining in our five-star restaurant on the roof. This being a private club, the restaurant didn’t have a name—something I thought a gross oversight. Especially given the fact we opened a few reservations to the public. A large doorway to my right, halfway down the wall, opened into the bar, which did have a name, The Library, but everyone referred to it as the War Room given the many high-dollar business deals hashed out there. The Library was home to the requisite grand wooden bar pilfered from some Scottish castle in days gone by. Secretly I thought the Scots had a factory for those bars hidden somewhere. These days everyone seemed to have an antique Scottish bar. How many of them could there really be?

  Shielded from prying eyes by dark, one-way glass, Security hung over the back of the casino on a short mezzanine level. My keycard gained me entry. I paused for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Everything here mimicked Security back home but on a much smaller scale. Several figures huddled in front of a wall of video monitors to my right. The first twelve showed ever changing feeds from the cameras dotted around the property. The rest of them comprising the bulk of the monitors showed constant feeds of each gaming table from overhead. From that vantage point both the dealer and the player’s hands were always in view.

  An office was on my left, the lights dark. And the whole of the casino stretched in front of me through the floor-to-ceiling window that comprised the far wall. The view pulled me—a human moth looking for light. I loved watching commerce in action.

  A presence eased in at my elbow. “Rather spectacular, isn’t it?” The soft voice belonged to Bree Corbyn, our Security Head.

  Short, a bit lumpy, with a ruddy face and a riot of blonde curls, Bree would be one of that last people I’d want to meet in a dark alley, but the first one I’d want on my side. There was a rumor her hands were registered as lethal weapons and were insured by Lloyd’s. I hadn’t personally checked the validity of the whispers. I didn’t need to—at the heart of every bit of gossip was a kernel of truth.

  She sipped from a delicate tea cup, the steam visible as it curled.

  “I think I was a voyeur in a former life,” I said as I refocused on the view. My stomach rumbled.

  “A former life? As far as I can tell, this is legal voyeurism.” In the light from the casino I could see her lips curl into a smile.

  “Stopping short of taking it to a personal level.”

  “Of course. Although you Yanks are dreaming up more ways to invade privacy than anybody I’ve seen.”

  “Those are the politicians—a hand in your wallet, a camera in your bedroom.”

  “What a world.” We both paused in a moment of mourning for the world as it had been.

  “I need your help. First thing, cancel Aziza’s master keycard.”

  “Is she being let go?”

  I didn’t have a good answer.

  Bree could tell she’d put me on the spot. “Not to worry. Consider it done. And the second thing? I’m assuming this involves the woman you had everyone scouring the club for?”

  I squeezed her arm in gratitude. “I’m assuming you didn’t find her?”

  “You would’ve been the first alerted.” She paused as if choosing her words. “The odd thing is, we found no trace on any of the feeds of the woman you described.”

  First a missing body, now a missing suspect. Games. I hated games. “What about the two cameras in the hall leading to the Royal Suite? I was there. The elevator doors opened and there she was, surprising me. She seemed a bit taken aback as well, as if she wasn’t expecting anyone to come up in the elevator.”

  Bree shook her head and took another sip of her tea. “She wasn’t there. You were, but no one else.”

  “But I saw her.” I absorbed all of what she said. This whole thing seemed like an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Did I see dead people, too? Or was I going crazy? I seemed okay to me. But, if I was crazy, and I thought I was okay, that would mean I was crazy, right? I abandoned that line of reasoning before my head exploded, but my heart fell. “You don’t believe me either.”

  “Actually, I do.” She lifted her cup toward her office. “Let me show you.”

  I followed her to her office. She didn’t click on the lights.

  “Take a load off.”

  With piles of paper occupying the two rather spindly chairs, I propped a butt cheek on the corner of her desk while she cued up a video clip. Once she had it set, she motioned me closer. I lurked over her shoulder like a vulture.

  “The first clip is the feed from the two cameras watching the elevator on the Royal Suite floor.” She punched a few buttons, then clicked through a drop-down menu.

  “Can you take it back far enough to see if a young woman on our staff…Aziza, you know her?”

  “I do.”

  “She was supposed to ready the Royal Suite. I’d like to see if anyone went up to the suite with her.”

  “Your mystery lady in Chanel?”

  “Perhaps. Or anyone else.” She shot me a side-eye. “Just curious.”

  “I’ll take it back thirty minutes then run it forward much faster than real-time. We’ll be able to see anybody who entered the suite.”

  “That should be enough time.” We both watched the feed and time sped by on the time stamp. “There!”

  Bree slowed the tape as I pointed. We watched Aziza enter the suite alone. I noted the time. Twenty minutes before I showed up. “Okay, now go forward twenty minutes or to when I arrived. I appeared on the screen as I stepped off the elevator, paused for a moment, then I proceeded down the hall.

  I bolted upright as if someone hit me in the ass with a Taser set on stun. I pointed at the screen. “She was right there! I know I didn’t create her out of thin air—she carried a bag I never would’ve imagined.”

  Bree swiveled around and gave me a flat stare. “A purse?”

  “Vintage Hermès.” I shrugged. “It’s a thing.”

  “Not a Hermès gal?”

  “Totally, just overpriced for my sensibilities.” I pointed to the screen. “Why are we talking about this? What made the woman disappear?”

  Bree turned back around. “She didn’t disappear. Watch this.” She overlaid two different cuts, one showing me pausing and stepping slightly aside, then the other of me right after that. She ran them out a few seconds.

  “What? It just shows me pausing to let her in the elevator then charging down the hall. The only thing missing…is her.”

  “Let me run it frame by frame.”

  I squinted in concentration focusing on the screen and looking for I-didn’t-know-what. She ran it t
o the end. “Still nothing.”

  She backed it up. “Here.” She pointed to a section. “Look there. What do you see?”

  “Run it again.” After the second time, I had it. “My movements don’t flow completely. It’s like I stood still but before the camera rolled again, I moved slightly.”

  I stepped back as Bree swiveled around completely. “Somebody tapped into our computers and manipulated the feed. Really sophisticated, but I think they were in a bit of a hurry.”

  “Sophisticated?”

  “Like government spooks. I should know.”

  “Government? Legit or not?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows these days?”

  I couldn’t imagine what country’s toes we’d stepped on, but the chess game of world politics was not my venue. “So they were in a hurry? Hence the slight hitch.”

  “Right. Normally, your eye wouldn’t even see it in real time if you weren’t looking for it. But they knew you’d be looking and they left it anyway. That’s why I think they did this on the fly.”

  “To cover their tracks.”

  “Did you look for the woman on any of the other feeds from around the property?” I asked even though I knew she would have.

  “The woman is nowhere. It’s as if she was never here.”

  “But you could track her through the club by finding the spots on the feeds where the images have been manipulated, right?”

  Bree blew out a puff of air as she sipped what had to be now tepid tea…with milk. My stomach curdled at the thought. “In theory, sure, but we would have to know where to look. Without any hints as to her route out of the club, it’d be needles in very large haystacks.”

  “I’d really like to know if she talked to anybody.”

  “I’ll get somebody on it, but—”

  “It’ll take time, I know. As many sets of eyeballs as you can spare.” I thought for a minute. The woman had to get in yes, and they, whoever they are, had to get Aziza’s body out. Two separate problems. “And could you check the exterior feeds as well? Maybe focus on the back first, the loading dock and all that?” The woman probably walked in the front door. That one I could tackle myself.