by Angie Martin
Cox relaxed a bit and flashed a cocky smile. “I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking.”
Rachel softened her voice to make him think he would get what he wanted. “Is the jewelry in your condo in Los Angeles or your house in San Francisco?”
“San Francisco.”
“Where is it in your house?”
“It’s in my bedroom on the second floor, in a wall safe. The safe is in the back of my closet on the right-hand side.”
“I need the combination.”
He hesitated.
She waved the knife.
He told her the combination.
“You don’t mind if my guys check it out while we wait, do you?” She picked up the phone on the desk and dialed. Into the phone she said, “It’s me. San Francisco.” She paused and ran her fingers over the blade of the knife. “It’s in his room on the second floor. There’s a safe in the wall of the closet.”
“Wait!”
“Hold on.” Rachel lowered the receiver to her shoulder. “Yes?”
“I lied.”
She lifted the receiver to her mouth. “I’ll call you back,” she said. A recorded voice finished giving her the three-day forecast, and she replaced the receiver. “I’m standing here with a gun and a knife, ready to use either. Why would you lie?”
“I hoped you were bluffing.”
“Do I look like I’m bluffing?”
“No, and I’m sorry for trying to trick you. The jewelry is in Los Angeles, under my bed.”
“Is there a safe?” Rachel asked.
“No.”
“Thank you.”
“Why don’t you get yourself out of that dress and come over here with me?”
His ego oozed out with his words, and Rachel shuddered. She put the knife back in her bag and gave herself a rapid, silent pep talk. It was time. She pointed the gun at his head.
Terror returned to his face. “What are you doing?”
“I have the information I came for.”
“Wait! I lied again! It’s not in Los Angeles!” As Rachel anticipated, the headboard moved according to his frantic struggle against the handcuffs, but it did not touch the wall.
“Yes,” Rachel said, “it is in Los Angeles.”
“But you can’t kill me. Someone will find my body here in your hotel room and they’ll trace this back to you.”
“Don’t you know who owns this hotel? Graham Wilkes.”
His eyes widened.
Don’t think, just act.
Her index finger squeezed the trigger, releasing a bullet that entered his forehead. She lowered the barrel of the gun and fired two more shots into his chest, as Donovan instructed her to do. The gun had more kick than she remembered and the exiting bullets jarred her arm. His body slacked when the bullets hit his body. Rachel forced out the breath she was holding in a rough wheeze that scraped against her lungs.
There was no need to check his pulse to confirm Jeff Cox was dead. Blood was spattered behind him across the headboard rails and the wall, and more blood ran down his body onto the bed. A small amount of blood trickled from the wound in his forehead, forming a thin river and flowing past open, foggy eyes that stared back at her, accusing her, damning her.
She tore her eyes away from the sight. Even though Cox deserved death, her stomach churned at what she had done. In the past two years, she had broken into seven homes. Now, she was a killer. She wondered what her father would say if he was alive.
The job not yet complete, Rachel forced herself to move. She picked up the phone again and dialed a predetermined extension. “I need fresh bedclothes, please,” she said when a male voice answered the phone.
Opening her bag, she removed a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes. She left the wig on her head and changed her clothes. Without looking at Cox, she threw the dress, heels, and gun on top of his body. She set the hotel keys and ticket stub to the musical down on the edge of the bed. All of it would be disposed in a manner that wouldn’t be traced to her or anyone else involved, but that was left for others to do.
At the sound of the door opening, she picked up her bag and moved into the front room. Two men under Wilkes’s employ stood waiting, both dressed in all black. One of the men pulled on latex gloves and the other walked toward her.
Pointing to the bedroom, she said, “He’s in there.” She handed a small key to the man closest to her. “Here’s the key for the cuffs. The jewelry is at his condo in Los Angeles, under his bed. Tell Wilkes to contact King.” Fighting another wave of nausea, she left to meet Paul.
Chapter Forty-two
Silence filled the two hour drive back to the estate. Images of lifeless eyes and bullet holes ran through Rachel’s mind. The longer she sat in the car with Paul, the more she thought about what she did. She couldn’t deny Cox was a distasteful person, but disposing of even a bad person who did horrible things still made her a much worse person.
With every passing mile, Rachel wished she could turn around and run. She knew she would have Donovan’s approval of her work, and as much as she coveted that from him, she wanted to receive it under different circumstances.
Now that she had jumped from cracking safes to removing a target, she wondered how many more times Donovan would ask her to take someone’s life, and how many times she would be unable to refuse him. If Donovan came to her with the request to do a similar job, she would have no choice but to follow through.
Donovan stood in the foyer when they returned to the estate. “How did it go?” he asked.
Rachel glanced at him. “It’s done.” She brushed past Donovan and moved with determination down the back hallway toward the stairs. As she walked away, she heard Paul and Donovan conversing. She thought Donovan said her name, but she didn’t care. She wanted to get downstairs, shower, and climb into bed. Sleep would not come easy and once she did fall asleep, her dreams would resurrect Cox.
As she untied her tennis shoes, Donovan came through her bedroom door. Shutting the door behind him, he asked, “Are you okay?”
She remained seated on the bed and didn’t look up. “I’m fine.” She tugged off her shoes and placed them on the floor.
Donovan sat down on the bed beside her. “Rachel, you’re not okay. Your face is pale and your hands are shaking.”
“I said I’m fine,” she said through her clenched teeth.
He touched the ends of the wig. “As good as the dress was, I didn’t like this thing on you,” he said. “You are far more beautiful without it.”
Any other time, Rachel would love to hear the words that came from his mouth, but tonight they rang hollow. She didn’t want him to placate her to take her mind off the job, instead of being sincere with his compliment.
Somehow she thought when she returned to the estate she would feel elated at her success and be met with affection from the man she pined for. Her expectations were childish at best, and her heart broke over what he made her do and that he was still unattainable.
Donovan removed the wig from her head and laid it on the floor by her shoes. Strands of her hair tumbled down to her shoulders with each bobby pin he extracted. “I spoke with Wilkes. His men raided the condo and found the missing jewelry. He’s very pleased with the work you did. So am I.”
Rachel closed her eyes and tried to control her jagged breathing. She wished he would go away, but she also wanted him to stay. Frustration contorted her face and no words came out as she tried to speak, leaving her chin trembling.
“Hey,” he said, touching her shoulder with concern.
“I killed a man tonight.”
“Yes, you did.”
“You don’t understand. He was alive and he was breathing and he was talking and moving and now he’s dead.” Rachel could not control the words that flowed from her panicked lips. “He’s dead because of me.”
“I understand a lot more than you realize,” he said. “Jeff Cox wasn’t a good man and he deserved to die. After what he did to Jill, it was the righ
t thing to do. What you did was okay.”
She shook his hand away from her shoulder. “It’s not okay! I killed him!”
“Come here,” he said with a soothing tone. She let him pull her head down to his shoulder. “It’s okay, Rachel. I’m proud of you for going through with it. Most people would not have been able to do that. It’s fine if you feel some guilt, that makes you human, but you can’t let it overcome you. You did nothing wrong.”
Her defenses broke down with each stroke of his hand through her hair. Thoughts of Cox evaporated, replaced by a cloud of comfort that settled around her. Her immediate feelings frightened her and she spoke through her muffled sobs without thinking. “Please don’t touch me. Not now.”
Donovan stiffened and moved away from her. Standing up, he said, “You should try to get some sleep.”
“I don’t know if I can sleep,” she said. Rachel kept her eyes averted from his face.
“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be back shortly.”
As soon as the door shut, she cupped her face in her hands and broke down. She wiped away the tears as fast as they flowed. It was bad enough she already fell apart in front of Donovan. She did not want him to know how much the job affected her by seeing her reduced to tears.
As the last of her tears dried on her cheeks, Donovan returned to her room carrying a glass of water in one hand, his other hand balled into a fist. He handed her the glass and opened his fist.
Rachel pointed to the small white pill in his hand. “What is that?” she asked.
“It’s a sedative. It will help you sleep tonight.”
“I don’t want to take anything. You know how much I hate pills.”
“In this case, it’s okay to make an exception,” he said. “This will relax you into sleep, which you desperately need right now. In the morning you will see things more clearly and feel better about what you did.”
Rachel knew he was trying to help her cope, but she was unsure if she would ever agree with his last statement, no matter who she killed. She did not want to discuss the job any further. The best way to get him off the topic was to divert his attention. “Where did you get the sedative?”
“Paul keeps all kinds of things around. One of the many benefits of having a doctor on staff.” Donovan turned her hand over and placed the sedative in the center of her palm. He closed her fingers and covered her fist with his hand. “I wouldn’t let you take anything that wasn’t safe,” he said.
His eyes always convinced her of things that words never could. She trusted the light in those caring, amber eyes, her beacon of hope to pull her through anything. Those eyes now told her he was not lying. He wouldn’t endanger her by exposing her to pharmaceuticals that may harm her.
He also wouldn’t make her do something that wasn’t right, Rachel reasoned. Killing Cox only made her feel bad because she extinguished a life. Cox, however, was not a person that deserved to continue living, especially after what he did to Jill Wilkes.
If Cox did something so horrible to Jill, he may have done it to others in the past, as well as planned to do it in the future. By killing him, Rachel saved countless potential victims from enduring the same horror as Jill. That was enough for her to accept her role in his fate. Lingering guilt was normal under the circumstances, and she would find a way to live with it.
Rachel set the pill on her tongue toward the back of her throat. She tipped the glass and drank just enough to wash the pill down. She only hoped it worked fast.
He took the glass from her and placed it on her dresser. He sat back down on the bed, his body much closer to her than she liked. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“No.”
“Would you like me to leave you alone?”
Rachel contemplated before answering. “I don’t really want to be alone right now.” The tension under the silence unnerved her and her thoughts started revolving around Cox again. “Do you ever regret—”
“Regret what?”
Rachel cut off her thought. Donovan was so purposeful in everything he did that he had no reason to regret his criminal lifestyle. Instead of answering his question, she changed the subject. “Why do you do it? You have everything you could ever need. The company, the estate. So why do all the other stuff?”
He shrugged. “The company was what my father did. The other stuff is what I do.”
“So your father was a businessman and you’re a spoiled rich criminal?”
Donovan stifled a laugh. “I suppose you could say it like that. But that’s enough analyzing me. Why do you do it?”
She did the jobs because he asked her to, but she couldn’t tell him that. “There’s a rush, I guess.”
“Ah, the proverbial rush knowing stolen art or jewelry worth millions of dollars is in your hands.”
Rachel looked up at him. When she returned from a burglary, the goods were transferred to the hands of expert fences, but she had no concept of the value of what she stole. She always assumed it was not for her to know.
Value did not matter to her. Donovan took good care of her, providing shelter, food, and enough of what she needed to satisfy her basic needs with a shot of luxury. Everything they had was costly, even their meals. Nothing on the estate was cheaply done. Everyone who lived there would be taken care of until the day they died, including her. It was part of the deal they made when they gave up their lives in the real world.
Donovan also gave her protection against the world, which could be very cruel. She fast learned this idea with the death of her parents and with the atrocities Cox committed against Jill Wilkes. Because of Donovan, she would never know how horrible life could be.
Although Donovan would never suspect her of getting greedy, she still believed value of goods was the part of the business belonging to him alone. After he brought it up, though, she became curious at his hints of value. “Have I ever stolen something worth that much?” she asked.
“You’d be surprised. Or maybe you wouldn’t. You are my rising star, after all.”
Rachel frowned. He always referred to her as the best safecracker around, or an excellent employee. “Rising star” was another way of putting a barrier around their relationship, one she wished she could destroy. She wanted to be so much more to him than another employee, no matter how valuable he considered her. If she could get his mind off her skills and onto her, maybe he would see her in the same way she saw him.
“Are you still thinking about Cox?” Donovan asked.
She ignored his question and turned to look at him. “You said you understand what I’m going through. Does that mean you’ve killed someone, too?”
Donovan’s eyes fell to the floor. “Yes, here and there. They all needed killing. I never would have asked you to do this if I wasn’t willing to do it myself.”
The revelation surprised Rachel, as she never thought of Donovan as someone who had killed before. Knowing she was not alone made her feel better about her job, and reignited her attraction to him. Though still riddled with guilt over Cox, she enjoyed sharing something as intimate as her guilt with him, and learning from his wisdom.
“Did you feel guilty after the first one?” she asked.
“The first time I did a little. It was a job for Graham, something he didn’t trust any of his people to do. I was only a few years older than you when it happened, and it bothered me for a little bit. After that first one, I didn’t feel much of anything. There were reasons for each of them, so the kills were always justified. That doesn’t leave much room for guilt.”
“Have you killed anyone since I came to the estate?”
“Some, and I’m sure there will be more to come,” he said. “Don’t worry, Rach. After a few days, you won’t think about it much. Then, next time you do it, you won’t think about it at all. It only gets easier each time. Maybe when the next one comes along, I can go with you and we can do it together.”
Next time. Rachel didn’t want to think he would ask her to take another life, but
he clearly trusted her more than anyone else on the estate, much like Graham trusted him. He was training her to be like him, and she took comfort in knowing he was willing to help her through the next job. With him by her side, it would make killing someone much easier.
A strange calm rushed over her mind, the sedative making its presence known far quicker than she imagined. Her voice sounded distant as she spoke. “I have a question about the job. What was Paul’s problem with the dress?”
“The dress.” Donovan paused. “The dress was...revealing, and Paul didn’t like that.”
“But you said the dress was okay.”
“It was the perfect dress for the job. We had to ensure Cox met you in the hotel room and the dress...” He swallowed hard and looked away from her. “Well, never mind. Paul didn’t want you to have to wear it, that’s all. He has a hard time realizing that you’ve grown up. Sometimes he still sees you as a child.”
Her eyes studied his face. He was so close she thought she felt the warmth of his skin radiating onto hers. Her heart pounded in her chest and a fever set her face on fire. The desires she associated with his presence crept through her unchecked. “Do you still see me as a child?” she asked.
“How could I?” Donovan brushed his knuckles across her jaw line. “You’re an incredible, beautiful woman.” He kissed her hesitantly, and then pulled away from her. “This is wrong, Rachel.” He rose from the bed.
She looked down and bit her lower lip. Her chest tightened, part from frustration, part from heartache. After tasting him for the first time, she wanted so much more than a small kiss. He seemed to want less.
In the corner of her eye, his hands gestured aimlessly, as if he was unsure of what to say. She glanced at his face and saw the conflict in it. She had never seen this side of him, insecure and less than strong.
“This is so wrong,” he repeated. He briefly met her eyes and put forth the best excuse he could find. “You’re half my age. I’m sorry, Rachel,” he said, and started for the door.