Now, here was Laney once again stuck in the cage with only Fatso in the room.
“Who’s coming?” she asked in a soft voice.
“One of our Cleveland operatives.”
She already knew that. “What does he think I know?”
Fatso turned a sneer on her. “I don’t know. But, you don’t figure out, it will be very bad for you.”
***
The Associate
Wasn’t it just typical? Life and death in the balance and the flight was a half hour late. People were milling around the gate, waiting to get on the damn plane when he spotted her—Elizabeth McClaine.
His heart almost ceased and his face flashed hot. How would he explain this? Worse yet, who would she tell?
He was considering leaving, abandoning the plan when the boarding announcement was called.
Two choices: to turn around and go home, hope no one had seen him there? Maybe even rebook on the next flight out?
Or to go ahead with the plan, go to Boston and get rid of all his troubles at once?
There were certainly enough passengers that he could safely get on without her spotting him. All he had to do was keep his back to her. If he boarded after her, and got off before her, he wouldn’t have to cross her path. Then again, she was bound to be flying first class. Same as him. There was no way she wouldn’t see him.
But what if she did see him? He could simply say he’d been called to Boston for business.
Yes, of course. That would be entirely feasible. Didn’t the company have business contacts in Boston? He’d have every reason for being there. But the elderly woman in line gave him an idea.
So he made his decision. Waited until Elizabeth had gone on ahead and disappeared through the tunnel with the first-class passengers to the plane, then approached the gate with his boarding pass. He handed it to the attendant.
“Sir, you’re in first class. Have a great flight.”
Stalling to let Elizabeth get to her seat, he said, “Ma’am, I believe this lady behind me would benefit more from the extra room than I would. I’d like to take this opportunity to swap seats with her, if I may.”
Both the attendant and the old woman looked mildly shocked.
“Why, that’s so kind of you, sir,” the old woman told him.
The attendant took both boarding passes and advised each of them of their new seat numbers and noted them on the tickets. She checked him onboard, and while the attendant checked the old woman on, he made his way down the tunnel to the plane. The second he stepped aboard, he glimpsed Elizabeth in his peripheral vision. She was sitting in one of the front seats on the port side of the plane, a matter of a few feet from him, fussing with her seatbelt.
“Your seat is down this way,” the boarding attendant said, gesturing toward the aisle Elizabeth was sitting in.
“Would you mind if I went down the other aisle? I have a business partner sitting down there and I just need a quick word with him.”
“Absolutely,” the attendant said, and stepped back for him to pass by.
As he dodged people in the narrow aisle, he kept one eye on Elizabeth. She’d settled back in her seat, staring out the window while she waited for the flight to take off.
He was just passing through the doorway from first class into coach when the old woman called out. “Oh, sir! Thank you so much.” When people in first class shuffled in their seats, giving her curious side-glances, she said, “I have terrible arthritis and that man over there changed seats with me so I could have more room. Now, that’s a real gentleman.”
A smattering of applause followed and passengers turned and craned to see this mysterious benefactor. But by that time, he had stepped through the dividing curtain, out of Elizabeth’s line of sight. When he finally located his seat, he found an ill-tempered teenaged boy in the aisle seat who was listening to an iPod. The kid gave him a long-suffering look and barely moved while he squeezed past him to his seat. Ignoring the brat, he settled in next to the window, snapped his seatbelt into place, and turned his attention to the tarmac.
At least back here, he could wait until the entire plane had emptied before getting off. That would run what little time he had even tighter. But that was easier than more explanations.
So, despite his height, he hunkered down in the seat as far as he could, and waited.
If things went the way he’d planned, he’d be on the six o’clock flight home and his wife would be none the wiser.
If he failed, he’d pay the ultimate price. And then nothing would matter.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
DAY THREE—4:02 PM—ELIZABETH
The second the seatbelt light snapped off, Elizabeth unlatched her seatbelt and grabbed her purse. Everyone around her was on their feet, locating their luggage and waiting at the door before the plane had even stopped. That meant the aisle was already clogged with passengers waiting to get off.
Trapped in her seat, there was nothing else she could do, so while the airline crew readied the exits and did whatever they had to, Elizabeth got out her phone and ordered a cab to meet her at the terminal doors. Finally, the aircraft door opened and the lines of people began inching up the aisles. She waited until the line thinned and departing passengers began moving freely, then rose from her seat and followed.
Outside the arrivals door, she found her cab waiting. When she got in and gave the driver the address, he shot her a quizzical look in the rear-view mirror.
“You sure that’s where you wanna go?”
“That’s why I gave you the address,” she said. When he tipped his head as if to say, Whatever, it’s your call, she said, “You obviously know the place.”
He twisted the key in the ignition, and without turning around, pulled into the flow of traffic.
For some while Elizabeth watched the city streets slide by, wondering whether she should have made more effort to contact Laney before leaving; wondering if she’d made just one too many assumptions. She was biting her lip and chastising herself for her impulsiveness when she noticed the driver’s eyes flick up and meet hers in the rear-view mirror.
When the light they’d stopped at turned green, he kept his eyes on the road ahead, saying, “I gotta say, I wouldn’ta thought The Hyde Park Luxury Stop was the type of place a lady like yourself might wanna go.”
“And why do you say that?”
Another quick look in the mirror. “Just things I heard. Y’know. Stories.”
“And what kind of stories might those be?”
A tip of the head with the brief chuckle of dubious past experience, he said, “It’s a whorehouse, if you’ll excuse my expression. It fronts as a gambling house. Illegal, o’ course. I don’t know how the cops keep letting it run. I guess they got their reasons.”
So, is that where the girl Laney was following had gone?
Determined to encourage him to keep talking, she said, “What kind of girls work there?”
“Ooo, they got some beautiful girls workin’ there. I seen ’em. They don’t hang around the street corners like the usual kinda street whores. Oh, yeah, they’re high-class, those girls.”
“But the place doesn’t exactly seem a secret. Why would the police allow it to keep going?”
He did a deep shrug and met her gaze again with a meaningful look.
“I see. So, who owns the place?”
A one-sided smirk reflected in the rear-view mirror. “The kind of guy whose name people don’t mention too much. He has a habit of making people disappear. Cops here say they’re working on it.”
“And the girls who work in his establishments? Where do they come from?”
“All foreign.” He lifted his head and did a squint-eyed look in the mirror. “Are you meeting someone else there?”
“No, why?”
“There’s a cab been following us for the last couple miles.”
Elizabeth turned in her seat. Sure enough, not far behind them was another cab.
“You think they’re foll
owing us?”
Another check of the mirror. “Maybe. Maybe not. They just been right behind us for a while now. I gave it some gas and watched to see if they stayed with us. And they did.”
Her heart did one large thud. “How far is it to the address I gave you?”
“Should be around another ten minutes. You want me to go faster?”
Elizabeth glanced back. From here she could just see the driver and the outline of someone in the back seat. “No, keep at this speed. Just let me know if it keeps following us.”
“Will do.”
***
The Associate
Elizabeth McClaine wasn’t among the first passengers off the plane as he’d hoped. He’d waited until the last of the stragglers were still collecting their bags from the overhead lockers and begun moving freely down the aisle. Then he got up, inched past the snack wrappers the surly teen had left on the seat, and made his way slowly toward the front of the plane. When he got to the partition between coach and first, he saw her. She was just easing her way out of the seat, so he dropped back and waited until she’d exited.
“Sir? Is there a problem?”
He looked up to find a concerned cabin crew member approaching from behind.
“No…well, yes. I think I left my paperback book in the seat pocket. Would you mind if I went back for it?”
“Not at all,” she said. She watched him return to the seat, and search the pocket.
Conscious of her attention on him, he placed his briefcase on the seat, opened it, then looked up and sheepishly smiled. “Oh my gosh. I must be going crazy. It was in my briefcase all along.”
Her smile widened as he approached and left the plane.
“Have a great day, sir.”
“I certainly will,” he replied, stepping from the exit and striding up the tunnelway.
Walking quickly toward the arrivals lounge, he would have bet his life Elizabeth McClaine wouldn’t have luggage. She would have just brought her purse, so the chances were high that she’d already left the terminal.
Just to be sure, he gingerly stepped into the arrivals lounge and searched the area. No sign of her. So he stepped onto the descending escalator feeling like a deer on open ground during peak hunting season, then headed straight for the door.
Outside, he spotted her just getting into a cab. He ducked back, waited until her cab had pulled out, then hailed the next one along. He immediately got in, gave the driver the address, and sat back. It wasn’t until they’d been driving for almost twenty minutes when he looked up ahead and spotted that same cab—the one Elizabeth had gotten into—he was sure of it. When they stopped at the lights, he could clearly see her sitting in the back seat, yapping to the driver.
Where the hell was she going?
As soon as the lights turned green, the car in front sped off. After a couple of miles, it was beginning to dawn on him that they could be going to the same address.
If they were, the last thing he wanted was to turn up right behind her.
“Slow down a little, will you?”
“I’m not a betting man, but I’d put money that the car in front is going to the same place as you,” the driver said.
“Probably one of my colleagues,” he said.
The driver chuckled. “Yeah, for a top-level business meeting, I s’pose.” And he shook his head as if his passenger thought he was stupid. “Government think tank on the Syrian crisis, maybe,” he added and chuckled.
All he could do was shoot the idiot a sour look. He had no time for imbeciles and their stupid jokes. He had bigger fish to fry.
Like where the hell Elizabeth McClaine was going. And why? Had she discovered something? All those questions she’d been firing around about Gate Westrum had unsettled him. But at the time, he wasn’t worried. He’d been confident that all the dirt and everything connected with Gate’s murder had been buried.
Now he was wondering if he’d missed something.
The cab slid around the final corner and pulled to the side of the road. Up ahead, he could see Elizabeth’s cab parked outside the huge Victorian house. Outside the small sign hanging from the wrought iron post announcing Hyde Park Luxry Rest Stop rocked back and forth in the breeze.
She’d gotten out and was bent at the driver’s door. He knew what she’d be doing—quizzing the driver, asking him what she knew about the place.
“Drive straight by. I can’t make out if it’s my colleague or not.”
The driver sounded amused. “Yeah, sure you can’t. But if I get any closer, I’m gonna run her down.”
“Just drive by,” he snapped.
They took off again, swerving out and around the car in the narrow street. Just as they passed, he ducked down in the seat, resisting the urge to look back to see if she saw him.
“Park around the next corner.”
The cab came to a rest just within sight of the house.
“No, farther along.”
The driver gave him a world-weary look in the mirror, but pulled out and did so.
As they came to a halt, he reached into his jacket pocket, dredged out a hundred-dollar note, and passed it to the driver, whose world-weary look morphed instantly into eager obedience.
“Wait here until I come back. There’ll be another one.”
“How long?” the driver asked, as if the promised “one” might become a point of negotiation.
“For as long as I need,” he replied, irritated.
The driver folded the hundred, tucked it in his shirt pocket, and slouched back in his seat as though he’d just been robbed.
Incensed by the greed of the driver, he got out and moved cautiously back to the corner of the street. Through the branches of a straggly shrub, he watched the cab pull away, leaving Elizabeth walking up the front path, her purse tucked under her arm.
She climbed the stairs, running an admiring eye over the front of the house, going as far as smoothing a finger across one of the cherub urns out front. After a quick glance up and down the street, she moved to the front door and knocked. Almost immediately, the door opened and his heart flipped.
It was only a glimpse. But that’s all it took. Now he needed a new plan.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
DAY THREE—5:36 PM—ELIZABETH
The instant Elizabeth saw him, her knees almost gave out. Those chiseled good looks, the startling green come-to-bed eyes, his hair expensively cut and slicked back, tailored suit over an impeccably crisp white shirt. Only now did she note the diamond ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. Under any other circumstances she might have smiled, might have run an appraising eye over him. Might have felt a flood of attraction. Instead, all she could hear were Delaney’s words echoing through her mind—Give them a wide berth.
“Ah, Mrs. McClaine,” Gate Westrum said, widening the door and gesturing for her to enter. “Do come in.”
The perfect gentleman. The appealing demeanor and welcoming attitude. None of it real. None of it fooling her.
She crossed the threshold, looking all around. A tastefully decorated lobby with black and white marble floor, deep burgundy walls, with ornate, white-painted plaster architraves. Four high bay windows set in the front to look out over the street were topped with deeply embroidered pelmets and hung with heavy brocade drapes, each drawn aside to reveal thick gauze window shades beneath.
Had she not known the purpose of the building, she would have given her right arm just to take a tour.
After standing back like the proud father of a newborn, watching her as she took in their surroundings, he gestured her towards the next room. As she entered, Elizabeth almost groaned aloud in awe. In here was the same deep burgundy wall color, but it was accentuated by enormous oil paintings in lavishly ornate gold frames overlooking groupings of deep-seated leather chairs. Central to the room was a glass and intricately turned gold coffee table that sat square on a thick, richly woven Turkish rug.
He showed her towards one of the chairs “Please, Mr
s. McClaine…or may I call you Elizabeth?”
She stood where she was. “I’m afraid I won’t be staying long.”
“Then, please, sit.” He dropped into one of the chairs and crossed his legs, watching her with an appraising eye.
Feeling as if she’d awoken onstage to a packed theatre, she perched gingerly on the edge of the chair opposite and lifted a solemn gaze to him. “Thank you.”
“By the way,” he said with a casual hand gesture. “I should also thank you for the invitation to your party. It was…most enlightening.”
So he was prepared to put that out in the open. At least that saved her some time. But it also left her feeling vulnerable.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to speak to you,” she said.
A gentle frown furrowed his almost perfect brow. “No. And sadly, I wasn’t able to stay for long, either. Otherwise I would most assuredly have made your acquaintance.” He shifted comfortably in the chair and laced his hands across his midriff, showing it was time to get down to business. “Now, tell me how I may be of service to you.”
Such panache. If she didn’t know better, she could easily believe he was a Russian aristocrat. Or a member of royalty from some far-flung East European nation. A diplomat intent on the business of foreign trade.
If she didn’t know better.
“Then I hope you can help me. I’m looking for a young woman that may have come calling here.”
Hands spread wide, an overblown expression of wonder, “Who came here?” he asked, as if the very notion were inconceivable. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth, I have no knowledge of any such person. Can you tell me what she was looking for?”
This was a charade. She knew it. He knew it. All she could do was play along and hope she discovered something.
Gathering every atom of patience and courage, she lifted her chin and replied. “Her name is Elaine Donohue. She was searching for a nurse aid who worked for an establishment which I believe you do have knowledge of—Sunny Springs. It’s a facility for the disabled in Cleveland.”
[Elizabeth McClaine 03.0] A Stolen Woman Page 23