We find the men sprawled over an enormous U-shaped couch in the media room. They’re munching on pesto pasta primavera and a green salad.
“Did you order in?” I ask.
Abu points to Dominic. “Chef Boyardee made it. Not half bad, either.”
Dominic forks some onto two plates and walks over with it. Maybe he’s praying that the old adage about winning a man’s heart through his stomach works for the opposite sex as well.
I sink onto the couch beside Jack before digging into my food. I can’t remember when I last ate.
Appreciatively, Jack kisses my cheek before plucking a few strands of my fettuccine with his fork.
Lucky waves off the food. “I’m still a bit queasy,” she admits but her smile looks forced. “Dominic, would you mind terribly getting me a glass of water?”
He takes the olive branch and scurries off to do her bidding.
By the time Dominic gets back with the water, Lucky has migrated to Arnie’s side of the couch. Arnie’s plate sits on the coffee table while he taps away on his computer.
“Jack asked that I pull up the Underground camera footage of Nigel’s murder so that you can see it, in case you recognize the killer,” he explains to her.
Lucky watches intently as the assassin stabs Nigel and drags him into the elevator before slinking back toward the subway platform. The footage picks up as he strolls toward the exit stairwell. A third video shows me fighting with him.
Lucky must be somewhat impressed because she rewards me with a thumbs-up.
“Take a good look at the perpetrator,” Jack suggests. “Do you recognize him?”
Lucky squints but shakes her head. “Arnie, do you mind playing it again?”
He accommodates.
Lucky leans in, but she’s blinking as if trying to keep her eyes open. Finally, she mutters, “I do know him…I think.” She closes her eyes for a moment. Suddenly, they pop open. “It’s one of our butlers—Gerald.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Positive,” she insists. “He’s assigned to the sheik. Gerald accommodates him whenever he’s in town.”
“That can’t be a coincidence,” Jack declares.
“The way things are going, I’d guess you’re right about that,” Lucky replies.
“Lucky, as you saw on the tape, Gerald plays for keeps. The odds that he’ll come with us quietly are nonexistent. So that we can exfiltrate him without any undue stress to your staff and guests, we’ll need any address or cell phone you have for him.”
“Of course,” Lucky murmurs, but her eyelids are at half-mast. Slowly, she leans back onto the couch. “Donna, when you found Aziza, did she still have the information you were to get from her?”
“As it turns out, yes,” I reply. “However, she coded it in such a way that the CIA can only see part of it. She was to give us the cipher when she was assured the perpetrators would be brought to justice.”
“Nigel told us that Aziza warned him she was in trouble. Since Arnie never found the email, Nigel and Aziza communicated via inter-office correspondence, Lucky should be able to pull that for us,” Jack suggests.
“What if it’s in code?” I ask.
“They will have a simple one. Acme ComInt will be able to break it. Lucky, can you pull that for us tomorrow?... Lucky?”
Too late. She’s asleep. Exhaustion has finally taken over.
“Let’s not wake her. She’s been through enough.” Jack looks at his watch. “Dominic, do you mind if we camp out here for the night?”
“Not at all. You’ll find three bedrooms on the second floor.”
“Um…” I glance over at Lucky. “What about her?”
“I don’t think we should leave her on the couch,” Jack says.
“She’ll sleep in my bed,” Dominic insists.
Noting my warning stare, he quickly adds, “I’m not that big of a cad, Old Girl. I’ll sleep here on the couch.”
To make his point, he reaches under Lucky, picks her up, and strolls to the elevator. But before he reaches it, he grazes her forehead with his lips.
She sighs appreciatively.
Damn it, she’s going to break his heart.
19
Lucky
How the hell had I ended up, fully clothed, in Dominic’s bed? My memory was iffy. But I did know one thing: if I’d been naked, he’d be dead. And we wouldn’t be pulling up in front of the club, the day barely underway.
I held the door to the club open for Donna, Jack, and the guy, Abu, who I recognized as the pickpocket who had lifted my phone. “After you.” As I trailed after them, my mother’s words about the company you keep, taunted me. The jury was out as to whether this group was a new high or a new low. People who do bad things for good causes normally got twenty-five years to life…or their own Hollywood movie. Jack and Donna didn’t deserve either.
Julie’s normal smile was absent, her eyes bloodshot, and her nose red, when we congregated in front of her at the reception desk. “Did you hear about poor Mr. Ahern?”
“So sad,” I struggled for the right words—a never-ending quest that proved once again results are not always contingent on effort.
“Who would stab him at a train station?” She dabbed at the corner of one eye with a bedraggled hankie. “Where is Mr. Fleming?”
“No idea.” The look of distaste on her face stopped me. “Why?”
“You seemed rather…fond of him…when you left.” She leaned across the desk. “And weren’t you wearing something else?”
My frown shut her down. I so didn’t want to know how I’d humiliated myself under the influence of the roofie. Dominic Fleming should know paybacks are hell.
“The world is a vicious place.” Donna jumped into the awkward pause.
Jack must’ve elbowed her in the ribs as she let out a whoosh of air and crumpled to the side a bit.
I reached across the desk and gave Julie’s forearm a squeeze. “I’m sorry. Our family has lost a valued member. Perhaps we should arrange an employee gathering to honor his memory?”
She brightened a bit. “I could pull something together. Mr. Ahern would’ve liked that.”
“When do Prunella and Lavinia come on duty today?”
She checked her screen. “They came on at midnight. Right now, they are on break.”
“Have them meet me in security.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Thank you.” I stepped back to include Donna, Jack and Abu in our discussion. “Would we have two rooms available—both doubles? Something…understated?”
Julie gave me a long look, then the light dawned. A tiny smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “Yes, Miss.” She pulled out a drawer that contained the computer screen lying flat. The front of the drawer folded down to reveal a keyboard. “It’ll take me a bit to prepare the accommodations.”
“Very good. We’ll go to my room for a bit. If you could, buzz me when the rooms are ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Donna stepped forward. “A colleague of ours, Arnie, will be arriving sometime shortly. I’ll tell him to ask for you. If the rooms are ready, would you mind giving him an extra key to Abu’s room?”
“Not at all.” Julie gave her a smile.
“Could you run the keys for them now?” I asked.
A minute, no more, and Julie had two rooms. She ran the keycards then pushed them across the desk. “First floor. In the back.”
Near the kitchen—something she didn’t add. Night would end late and the morning would start early—the perfect hours for spies. I handed one key to Donna. “For you and the mister.” Then the other one to Abu, who I wasn’t talking to yet.
He offered my phone for the key. “Sorry. Orders. Are we even?”
“You give me something that’s mine and I give you something you don’t deserve. No, not remotely even.” I motioned to all of them. “We’ll wait in my room.”
I wanted to ask Julie about Gerald. Still grappling with the idea that one o
f our own was a murderer, I kept my mouth shut. Donna and Jack had been firm in their request—I was to let them handle him. Any indication I was onto him might spook him off. I got it, not that it set well. Somehow, I managed to keep my mouth shut—perhaps knowing it was three of them against my one tipped the scales in favor of compliance. Also, I figured there was reason not to piss off the pros—I’d seen their torture chamber.
While Donna, Jack and Abu organized their luggage, leaving it with the bellman, I gave them my room number.
“We’ll be up in five,” Jack said on his way to the car to get another suitcase.
Once in the elevator and out of earshot, I made a call.
Bree’s brusque no-nonsense answer came immediately. “Security.”
“We have a problem.”
My last experience with wine being less than satisfactory, and the hour still quite early, I ordered a carafe of mimosas, three glasses, and a bucket of ice. I was just popping the cork when Donna, Jack and Abu arrived.
Donna headed for the windows, Jack for the booze and Abu for a chair.
“You have a nice view,” Donna said, her back to the room.
I bolted down one flute of the happy bubbles, then thought I’d wait a bit considering this was my first nourishment of the day. “One of the perks of taking all the responsibility.”
She looked at me over her shoulder. “And all the blame, too.”
“For that I demand hazardous duty pay.”
Once everyone had taken in the lay of the land and staked out their bit of my turf, we settled down to business. I broke the ice. “As I understand it, you have one dead informant and one dead handler. Someone is tying up loose ends. That would lead me to believe that you didn’t get the information you hoped for from Aziza.”
“We got it, but we can’t read it,” Jack said. “Clever girl. She encrypted the intel. Simple encryption, but virtually unbreakable without the cipher.”
“Cipher?”
“The source document from which they built the encryption. Without it, we’d need a super computer and unlimited time, which the killings tell us we don’t have. We need to find the cipher.”
“Who else would know what she used?” After arguing with myself and losing, I poured myself another flute and forced myself to sip.
“That’s where we need your help,” Donna said from her perch by the window. “We’re working the roommate and her Oxford connections. We need you to work the hotel. Who’d she hang with? Who’d she talk with?”
“I assume you have an in-house communication system?” Jack asked. “We couldn’t find one to hack into.”
“It’s for internal purposes only. We keep all of it offline, no internet connection at all.”
“Good, maybe you can see who she’s been communicating with there?”
“I’m on it.” Every now and then being the boss had its perks. “There is one thing I noticed. It’s a long shot, but maybe just grist for the mill.” Donna and Jack gave me their attention. Abu’s had never wavered. “It’s the flowers in the Royal Suite.”
“Nigel told us they were a sign from Aziza,” Donna said.
“Tell me exactly what he said. The exact words, if you can remember them.”
Donna pushed herself off her perch and started pacing. I sipped my Champagne while she thought back. “Okay, he said if the flowers were different than the sheik’s normal request—yellow roses, I believe?” She looked to Jack for confirmation. He nodded once, and she continued. “If the flowers weren’t yellow roses, then that was a signal she was in trouble.”
“So only if they were different? Not if they were a specific type of flower?”
“Nigel said they’d been changed from yellow roses to red dahlias.’ Frankly, I was impressed he remembered.”
“Why is that?” Jack asked.
“Because he was a guy.” Donna looked like she regretted the comment the minute it was out of her mouth. She motioned for a mimosa. I poured it then held it out to her. She snagged it mid-pass.
“Sexist, but some truth to it,” Jack said.
I was beginning to understand what Donna saw in him…besides the whole oozing virility thing.
“Yeah, just different, not a specific type. Why?” Donna stopped her pacing and faced me. “Do you think the flower she chose holds some special meaning?”
“I do. Red dahlias are very hard to find this time of year and come at a huge premium. I can’t help but think she chose them on purpose.”
Blank stares from Donna and Jack. Abu focused on his phone. When he looked up a smile split his face. “Betrayal.”
I pointed at him. “Exactly. Red dahlias, in the language of flowers, mean betrayal.”
“Someone close to her. That’s who she feared.” Abu stole my punch line.
I raised my glass.
We knew where to look. Now all we had to do was figure out who.
As I’d requested, Prunella and Lavinia were waiting for me when I arrived in Security. Bree had made them cool their heels standing in the corner. All that was missing were two dunce caps.
“You two have been busy little beavers, haven’t you?” I smiled at the pun, which being young and too stupid to live, the girls didn’t get.
“Our shift is over,” Prunella said. “We want to go home. You have no right to hold us here.”
I held my ground. Bree blew into her ever-present mug of tea as I shepherded the girls into her office.
“What did you find?”
“Enough.” She took a sip and winced as she sat behind her video console. “Gather around girls. You’re going to love the show.”
The girls clustered behind Bree, huddled like the blindfolded in front of a firing squad, nervous, but knowing what’s coming.
“You two have been busy.” Bree kept her tone light. She cued the video then hit play.
We all had eyes glued to the screen and its montage of the girls going in and out of various rooms. Five separate instances—the Royal Suite twice, then three of our nicer rooms on the third and fourth floors.
“How long have they been doing this?” I asked Bree as if the girls weren’t there. They wouldn’t tell me the truth, so I didn’t bother asking them.
“No more than a couple of weeks.” Bree angled a look over her shoulder and up at Prunella and Lavinia and raised an eyebrow.
Prunella caved. “Our first was Mr. Smythe, ten days ago.”
I spun them around to face me. “Let me guess how you wanted this to go. You arrange a three-way with one of our married members, or our political ones—anyone with a lot to lose if even a hint of scandal hit the grapevine, or worse, the media. You take a camera into the room in your purse or bag and position it so it will catch all the action. Then you mug for the camera, clean the video up a bit, and send a snippet to your mark.”
The looks on their faces told me I’d dead-centered it.
“How much?”
“Ten thousand pounds each.”
“Who else have you targeted?”
They gave me Dominic, who I knew about, and Sheik Ben, who I did not, and two other names, which were unknown to me. I had some apologizing to do—good thing sucking up was my super power.
Reading my murderous glare, Bree pulled the girls out of my reach, then held onto them, a hand around each girl’s arm. Her knuckles whitened—the girls weren’t getting away.
“Call the cops,” I said to Bree, then I gave the girls my full attention. “You picked the wrong place and the wrong gal to be messing with. Please, I deal with pros in Vegas—you two are total pikers.”
“Calling the cops is pointless.” Lavinia skewered me with a haughty stare. “There’s no one to charge us with anything. Do you really think these men are going to come forward to testify against us?” I admired her spunk. Unfortunately, she’d miscalculated.
She deflated as my smile widened. “I can think of one.”
Dominic Fleming owed me big time. Time for him to pay up.
Even though
it was still early, Sheik Ben opened the door to the Royal Suite when I knocked. No Gerald—a pity but not a surprise. Besides, thinking this would be a “piece of cake” as my father said, I’d arrived in country still dangerous, but unarmed. If I met Gerald in a dark alley or a bright hallway, I wanted a gun. Sheik Ben turned his back, leaving me to fend for myself. “Ever since you showed up, the level of service here has declined precipitously.”
I followed him into the great room, shutting the front door behind me. “I’m so sorry. What have we done wrong?”
He poured himself a cup of coffee. The aroma was tantalizing. When he turned back around his face was a mask. A five o’clock shadow darkened his cheeks, his white cotton shirt looked like he’d worn it since yesterday. The club wasn’t the only thing that had slipped a notch or two. “For starters, you’ve misplaced my niece.”
“I didn’t know I was in charge of her whereabouts.” She was dead, but I had no tangible proof. The CIA, through Acme, had her body. Presumably, at some point, they would return it to her family, but who knew with the spooks. They could pull a Raiders of the Lost Ark thing and Aziza would simply disappear. That would not sit well with me. I might not have power, but I had connections. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to use them.
“She worked for you.”
“She belonged to you.” I didn’t mean that in the Arab sense, but he could take it any way he liked. “What else is not to your satisfaction?”
“Gerald did not show up today. No phone call. No explanation.” He eyed me over the lip of his coffee cup as if measuring my response.
“First I’ve heard of it. Did you alert the staff?”
“Mr. Ahern is not here either.”
“Mr. Ahern is dead.”
Sheik Ben lowered his cup slowly. “How?”
“Knifed in the underground.”
“Terrorists.” A catch-all for groups the UAE funded, and others they fought. Hard to keep it all straight.
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “They’re everywhere here.”
The Housewife Assassin Gets Lucky Page 18