Wicked Intentions(20)

Twelve





Ryan




By the time the police finished poking around my room and collecting evidence, I’d missed my flight. I’d also discovered from my new friend the chief that a twin-engine Cessna was stolen from the local airport sometime during the night. Security cameras caught nothing but a glimpse of a woman—dressed in a black T-shirt and a pair of men’s white briefs and carrying a small backpack—slicing through a chain-link fence with bolt cutters before sprinting away across the tarmac.

I got hard thinking about Angeline wearing my clothes as she flew off into the night. After breaking into an airport and stealing a plane. After breaking into a hotel suite and stealing a ruby necklace.

After breaking into my heart and stealing the whole goddamn thing.

I’d never spent time considering what my dream woman would be like, but apparently she’s on Interpol’s Most Wanted list.

My mother always said I didn’t like things easy.

I spent another two days at the resort after Tabby and Connor continued on the rest of their honeymoon and Darcy, Kai, and Juanita headed back to New York. I was determined to assist the local police in their investigation, but when it became apparent they worked on island time, I took matters into my own hands.

I talked to everyone at the hotel who’d interacted with Angeline. I hacked into the resort computers and pored through the video footage. I broke into Angeline’s room after the police were gone and hunted for any clue that might point me in the right direction. Her direction.

I came up with zilch. She was Gone Girl.

But only for now.

Tabby was amused by the whole thing. And ridiculously unhelpful. She liked Angeline nearly as much as I did.

“I’d help you find her, but I’m on her side,” she’d said brightly, kissing me goodbye as she and Connor got into their taxi to head for the airport.

“Fuckin’ Hello Kitty,” I’d muttered, shaking my head.

“That too, but here’s the thing, Ryan.” Tabby looked me dead in the eyes. “She’s living life on her own terms. She’s nobody’s fool. You know how I feel about women like that.”

Jesus. The fuckin’ crazy chick mutual admiration society. “She’s an outlaw, Tab.”

“She’s a badass.”

“She lied to me! She drugged me!”

Tabby’s gaze softened. “She didn’t want to.”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

She shook her head. “What you understand about women wouldn’t fill a thimble, you know that?”

Then she got into the cab and left with Connor, who was chuckling like a real asshole the entire time. I had to drop and do fifty pushups just so I didn’t punch someone.

My plan at that point was to go back to New York and regroup, but then I got a hit on a search spider I’d set up on Metrix’s computer system that trawled all the online news outlets, and it changed everything.

Cessna stolen from St. Croix found abandoned in a field in a rural part of Cornwall.

Cornwall is in southwestern England. That’s about as far as a Cessna could fly from the Virgin Islands on one tank. And one hell of a trip across the North Atlantic for a lone pilot. It would probably take nine hours nonstop, maybe ten, mostly in the dark, completely over water.

Talk about grueling.

But still…Cornwall. It has one city. It’s one of the poorest parts of the UK. Not exactly a great place to fence a fifteen-million-dollar ruby necklace. I took a look at a map to see if it might jiggle anything in my mind. Sure enough, it did.

Cornwall is a four-hour drive from London, one of the richest cities in the world.

With some of the oldest and most powerful crime syndicates in the world.

When I did a search of police reports for stolen vehicles in the Cornwall area within the past seventy-two hours, I got one hit…and the stolen car was found with switched license plates less than a day later in a parking garage in Chelsea, a suburb of London.

For the first time in two days, I could breathe again.

I spent the flight to London thinking about something else my mother used to say: It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

I had a bad feeling the fun-and-games part was behind me.





Thirteen





Mariana




After I finish my business with Genevieve, I take a taxi to the Victoria Coach Station and retrieve my bug-out bag from the storage locker I rented before I visited Reynard. Then I use the burner phone in it to reserve a suite at the Ritz-Carlton for the night because there’s nothing on earth that could compel me to stay at the Palace while Capo is there. And I can’t stay with Reynard. He’d take one look at my black-and-blue throat and do something stupid like go and confront Capo and get himself killed.

Reynard might be a lot of shady things, but a man who tolerates violence against women isn’t one of them.

I pay for the room in cash. When the front desk associate requests a credit card for room incidentals, I use a prepaid Visa gift card I bought at a grocery store. I’ve already changed from the dress, heels, and overcoat I wore to the Palace—all stuffed into the train station bathroom garbage bin—into a nondescript outfit any tourist might wear: comfy shoes, ill-fitting beige slacks, and an oversized knitted sweater the color of baby shit. My hair is hidden under a short, curly black wig. I stole the reading glasses from a rack at a dime store.

Glimpsed in a lobby mirror, I look like someone who owns too many house cats.

I mouth meow to myself and head to my second-floor room. I never stay higher in any hotel, in case I need to make a speedy exit out a window or there’s a fire. Reynard taught me that fire trucks in most countries have ladders that only reach the third floor. Apparently, he found that out the hard way.

Once I’m inside the room, some of the tension leaves my body. I draw a bath, take a long, hot soak, and try not to think. Tomorrow is for thinking. Tomorrow is for planning. Tonight is for washing the stink of Capo’s cologne out of my nose and trying to pretend I live a different sort of life.

Of course the only thing my brain wants to do is serve up some nice, juicy memories of the American.

Cursing to myself in four different languages, I rise from the tub, stalk naked into the bedroom, and call room service. I need food, and if I’m ever going to get to sleep, I need something strong to drink. Then I get dressed, lie down on the bed, stare at the ceiling, and count cracks to distract myself.

When the knock comes, I go to the door and glance through the peephole.

A guy in a black-and-white uniform stands behind a cart draped in white linen. He’s looking down, fussing over a place setting, so I can’t see his face.

My fingers curl around the folding blade in my pocket. “Yes?” I call through the door.

He looks up, smiling. “Room service, madam.”

He’s no one. Just a hotel employee.

Or is he?

“One moment, please. Just getting dressed.” I go to the phone and dial room service. They pick up on the first ring.

“Good evening, in-room dining, this is Gwendolyn,” says a friendly female voice. “How may I be of service?”

“Hi, I’m calling from room two-oh-five. The gentleman who delivered my food…” I pretend to think, then mutter, “Shoot. What did he say his name was?”

“Christopher was sent up with your order, Ms. Lane.”

Penny Lane is the name I used to check in. And Christopher is the name inscribed on the gold tag on the chest of the man standing outside my door.

“Oh, yes, that’s it. I just wanted to tell you he was wonderful.”

I hang up before the woman on the other end of the line can respond.

I go to the door, unlock the dead bolt, remove the security chain, and stand aside to let Christopher in. “Sorry about the wait.”

“It’s no problem at all. Shall I set the food out on the table for you, madam?”

“No, don’t bother. You can just leave it the cart by the desk. I’ll call down when I’m finished.”

“Very good.” He rolls the cart to where I’m pointing, then produces a receipt for me to sign. On his way out the door, he wishes me a good night.

An hour later, I’ve got a full stomach and a nice buzz. I recheck the bolt on the door, then turn off the lights and crawl into bed. I’m asleep within minutes.

I awaken sometime near dawn, my skin prickling with a sixth sense that something is terribly wrong.

Reaching for the knife I’d stashed under my pillow as soon as I checked in, I quickly glance around the shadowed room.

Everything looks normal. There are no strange sounds, no odd scents in the air. The security chain is still latched on the door.

My nervous system isn’t convinced.

I ease the knife out. It catches a moonbeam spilling through a gap in the curtains and throws a silver flash along the wall.

“Careful with that. You could cut yourself.”

The voice, deep and male, comes from the bed beside me.

I leap from the mattress like it’s on fire. I’m caught midair by a pair of big arms that cinch around me and drag me backward on my heels. I fight, trying to stab my attacker in the thigh, but I can’t get enough leverage because my arms are pinned. I jerk my head back in an attempt to break his nose, but he’s too fast. He dodges my move with an expert countermove and a chuckle.

“Aw, you don’t seem happy to see me, Angel. My feelin’s are hurt.”