by Anne Baines
Hunting Delilah
Anne Baines
Copyright 2011, AnneMarie Buhl
All rights reserved. Published by Doomed Muse Press.
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to [email protected].
Cover designed by Greg Jensen.
Formatting by Polgarus Studio.
ISBN-13: 978-0615955469
ISBN-10: 0615955460
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Also By Anne Baines
Delilah Thrillers:
Chasing Delilah
Robbing Delilah
Breaking Delilah
Ice Cold Delilah
Sam Arbichaut Mysteries:
A Perfect Alibi
Butcher’s Dozen
Cold Sweat
Standalone Work:
Bloodlines
Femme Fatale
Small Mercies
Out of Bullets
Not Quite Dead Enough
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
Forty-four
Forty-five
Forty-six
Forty-seven
Forty-eight
Forty-nine
Fifty
Fifty-one
Fifty-two
Fifty-three
Fifty-four
Fifty-five
Fifty-six
Fifty-seven
Fifty-eight
Fifty-nine
Epilogue
About the Author
One
Alan’s pointer scraped over the whiteboard, again, and Delilah sighed. She glanced around the hotel suite and noted that all three of the others were nodding, eyes focused hungrily on the plans being laid out before them. Amateurs. Sure, she needed the cash this job could bring just as much as anyone. Guaranteed to be a chunk of bills paid out, maybe twenty thousand a man in what looked to be an inspired hit on an illegal gambling operation.
Inspired by the movies. Delilah sighed again, mostly for effect this time, and rose to her feet.
“You can stop there, Alan. I’m out,” she said.
The rangy, middle-aged man turned toward her, his pointer stick thwacking to a halt.
“There a problem?” he asked.
“Nah, no problem,” she said. She had to be careful here, be nice but firm about it. She’d been referred to this job by Cardiff, a mutual acquaintance. “I’m a driver. What you need for this,” and she motioned to the parking garage plans and the ramp he wanted her to magically get a car over, “is a movie stunt team. Not worth the risk for me. Sorry guys.”
One of the guys, a lock man, she guessed from his pinched look and small build, jumped up, too.
“This is what we get for lettin’ a woman on a job. You just gonna let her walk?” His voice grated and made Delilah happier about her decision. She wanted out now, out of this room full of wishful thinkers, free from the miasma of stale coffee, staler sex, and old cigarettes that permeated the cramped suite.
“Yeah,” Alan said after a moment. He nodded to the big man leaning against the door. “Yeah, she can walk. It’s ok. She can’t do it, she can’t do it.” And then to Delilah he said, “Tell Cardiff hi for me if you see him.”
She nodded, keeping an eye on the jumpy little man as she moved toward the door. She’d hate to have to fake she had a gun in her purse or something. A man with a gun could scare people into doing what he wants. Delilah had learned the hard way that for a woman to scare people, especially bent types like these guys, she’d have to shoot someone.
Jumpy looked unhappy, but stayed put and only glared at her as she left.
The drive back to her own hotel was quick. Since it was only late afternoon, Delilah detoured the couple miles to the Florida beach, one of the ones that had a name like Seawind or maybe Seabreeze.
She’d driven down in a stolen car from her latest home base in Georgia and then liberated a nice new BMW from long-term parking at the Daytona International Airport. Car’s owner had a hide-a-key tucked up behind the license plate. An automatic, not a stick shift, but she wasn’t that choosy for just a drive-around car. Pity the job hadn’t worked out, but at least the meet location was pretty, if touristy.
She stripped off her shoes, letting the soft pale sand slide between her toes. The waves hushed against the shore, the sound nearly drowning out the shouts of a few college-aged hardbodies playing volleyball somewhere behind her. Delilah shut her eyes, pushing away the other people, letting her mind wander out over that vast and shining sea. For a moment the salt air washed her clean, brushed away the staleness and disappointment from the hotel room she’d just left.
Then she opened her eyes and reality came flooding back in. Somewhere, on a different coast, with a different, colder sea, was a sick little girl Delilah tried not to think about much. But she refused to be like her own mother. She might lack the motherly instinct and disposition to actually take care of her daughter, but Delilah could help out with money. She was good at finding money, taking it from those who had far more than they needed. And Esther needed it. The weekly transfusions and visits to specialists were expensive, even if Jake, her daughter’s father, refused to tell Delilah just how much.
Delilah did what she could, sent money. It was more than her own mother had ever done. A lot more.
She decided that in the morning she’d see about making up some of the cash she’d lost by refusing the job. Twenty grand was maybe out of reach for a day’s work, despite the rich population, but a little breaking and entering was a lot less risky than stunt-driving cars off parking garages. She could head up to the Palm Coast area, pick out a couple nice big houses and work them over while their people were off earning the money to afford four-thousand square feet on the waterfront. Maybe this whole trip wouldn’t be a bust.
Delilah rose just after 8am and drove out to a chain market. She bought a skim latte, a can of WD-40, some dog treats, and a leash. Outside the store she paused at the pay phone, fingertips lightly brushing the handset. It was only five thirty a.m. on the West Coast, but she knew Jake would be up already. Esther had a treatment this week, though Delilah couldn’t remember the exact day. Jake hadn’t been thrilled when she’d last called, telling her that if she’d wanted
involvement in her daughter’s life, she should have started before the kid got so sick.
Delilah took a deep breath and lifted the phone, digging into her pocket for change. She hesitated again and then let the phone drop with a muttered curse. She had no real reason to call. Maybe if her plans for the day went well, she’d call later. Jake might hate where the money came from, but he’d never turned extra down. Not when it was for Esther.
With a sigh she climbed into the car and headed back to the hotel.
Two
With her short, dark hair tucked under a blonde wig, and the right kind of make-up emphasizing her narrow nose and big eyes, Delilah could pass for white or maybe white mixed with a little Cuban and a lot of tanning hours clocked. Almost no one guessed at the Native half. That didn’t bother Delilah. She liked being able to pass as white or Latina or even Asian, and carried the IDs to match. Made living on the sly a lot simpler when you looked like everybody.
A pair of khaki slacks with a narrow belt, and silky floral blouse with a nice oversize shoulder bag completed the bland suburban look. She just needed one more little touch and she’d be ready for work.
Delilah cruised a neighborhood outside Daytona proper until she saw what she wanted. The area was quiet, most people off at work and kids in school on a Tuesday. The palm trees were uncut here, their big shaggy fronds dancing in the slight breeze that shifted and promised more heat later. Taking the dog treats and leash with her, she approached the run-down ranch-style home. It had an open chain-link fence, about waist-high, over which a lonely, friendly golden retriever leaned his head, tongue lolling.
“Hey boy,” she said softly, offering a bacon-scented snack. She smiled, a real one that actually touched her dark eyes, as he licked her fingers and looked at her, clearly hoping for more.
“Come on, Max,” she said and opened the gate. She didn’t really know what his name was, though she could have checked the tag hanging from his collar. But to her, all goldies were named Max. Just the way the world worked. She clipped the lead to the eager dog and took him back to her car.
Half an hour later saw her walking Max casually up and down the grid-like streets of the Palm Coast. Here the trees were trimmed, the lawns all green and manicured until they looked more like a TV representation of ‘lawn’ than grass and dirt.
She passed up the first house; it had too many windows near the road and an alarm system sign jammed into the lawn near the driveway. The next house was a sprawling Spanish-style home, but had a for-sale sign out front, so she skipped that one, too. While the lockbox in front might have made entry easier, and she certainly could just pass herself off as an interested buyer if she had to, homes staged for sale generally had fewer valuables left carelessly strewn about.
The next house looked perfect. It was set back on a nice circular drive, rising like a beige tower among its clean palm trees. Delilah and Max slipped around the back. A screened-in pool took up much of the backyard, with nice high vegetation to block out neighboring views. Delilah left Max tied loosely to an iron lounger in the shade and pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves.
Finding a way inside took only a moment. She checked the large glass French doors and saw an alarm panel on the inside. The alarm light was green and she could barely make out the digital text on the panel. “House Disarmed.” Music to her ears. She took a deep breath, listening to the soft buzz of insects and the swish of the occasional car. After a few moments, sure that she was alone, she lifted a stone hedgehog lawn ornament and smashed through the glass door.
Another long pause. Max had flopped down after being startled by the crash and sat panting, staring at her. A car swooshed somewhere in the distance. She was in.
Delilah stepped through the door, unlocking it and swinging it wide. The floor was white marble tile with deep veins of pink and gold through it. Every detail of the house reeked of money, from the slab granite countertops in the adjacent kitchen to the design magazine furniture tastefully arrayed throughout the great room.
She stopped in the kitchen and opened the freezer. She doubted people with this much money would use the old tried and true method of hiding cash in the icebox, but it never hurt to look. No dice. Just a neat stack of low-calorie TV dinners and a couple athletic ice packs.
Delilah wandered through the main level, stopping in a small office and liberating about forty in small bills from a checkbook in the desk. She left the checks, wanting only cash or things easily turned into cash. She checked behind paintings and under the hand-knotted rug, but didn’t find a safe in the office.
Upstairs were two guest bedrooms, their opulent luster marred by the dead flies in the window casings and the smell of air freshener. Delilah chuckled to herself since it was clear that the owners were paying too much for their maid service if they had one.
The master suite proved more lucrative. She found a set of gold and pear-cut diamond earrings lying on the night stand, as well as a few more small bills tucked in the nightstand drawer. There were no pictures; nothing to make this place lived-in. She wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Harkness, the name on the checks in the office, had only just moved here.
Delilah hesitated outside the walk-in closet. It was a large space, and well lit by the skylights cut into the ceiling. But there was only one door and no real windows. One exit. She took a deep breath and forced herself to walk inside, flipping on the light anyway.
Jackpot. The woman of the house was a purse collector. Delilah had never understood the point of designer handbags herself, but she appreciated the value others placed on them.
She stroked her gloved hand over a crocodile Chanel flip bag she estimated had cost about ten grand. Poppy, her fence back in Georgia, would pay at least seven-hundred for it. And there were more purses, seven more: Dior, Gucci, Hermes, Louis Vuitton. Delilah cursed herself for not bringing a better bag to carry this stuff. She’d have to use something here.
She made herself turn away from the nicely laid-out purses and explore the rest of the closet. On the back of a folding vanity mirror were earrings, none worth more than a few hundred, all tasteful solitaire diamonds or small gold loops and whirls. Delilah pulled them all down and slid them into her purse. She studied the expensive perfumes on top of the vanity, but left them. Their cloying and spicy scents were already giving her a headache.
Behind a large fur coat in a clear plastic bag, worth at least five grand, Delilah found the safe. It was a large combination safe, built into the wall. She studied it for a moment and then stepped out, relief pouring into her as she breathed the clear air of the bedroom.
Back downstairs in the office, Delilah sat down at the computer and jiggled the mouse until the screen woke up. No password needed. She shook her head. A quick search using the words “safe combination” yielded a document titled “passwords.doc”. It was like these people were begging to be robbed. She memorized the combination and slipped back upstairs.
The safe opened easily, an inside light popping on. It illuminated papers in neat folders on the narrow top shelf, with perfect stacks of velvet boxes on lower shelves. There was a billfold with a couple hundred or so in it as well.
The lady of the house had very good taste indeed. Delilah slid a pair of white gold and diamond chandelier earrings into her own ears. She figured Poppy would give her a good one or two grand for those. She also slipped a three-strand diamond tennis necklace on under her blouse, clipping the matching bracelet onto her wrist under her sleeve.
The obligatory Rolex and a surprise Panerai watch went into her large shoulder bag, along with a set of huge vintage ruby and diamond earrings, and a black diamond ring.
She hesitated over a pair of large opal cufflinks. Colin, her father’s partner, had always said that opals were unlucky for anyone not born in October. Having been born in June, Delilah didn’t fit the bill. She bit her lip and smiled at herself. Superstitious bullshit. There was a lot of it in this business, a lot of talk of luck and chance.
She made her o
wn chances. The cufflinks went into her bag.
The last piece in the safe was a set of yellow gold and diamond bracelets. The diamonds were tiny, cut to form flowers all around the bangles. She slid those onto her other wrist beneath her sleeve, thinking maybe she’d keep one for herself when this was over. It would depend on what Poppy offered her for the pair.
A large duffel bag tucked beneath the man’s shoe-rack solved her purse issue. She loaded the designer bags and a couple pairs of new-looking designer shoes into the duffel and headed back downstairs.
Max gave a soft wuffling bark as she stepped out into the pool area.
“Hey buddy, ready to go?” She hefted the duffel. She should just walk away, get in her car, and go to the hotel, clear out of town. But she hesitated.
The purses and shoes would bring in maybe eight grand, since hot items never took in but a fraction of the street price. Jewelry, another six, perhaps, provided the stones were real.
Fourteen, maybe fifteen grand. A decent haul. But she’d come to Florida on the promise of at least twenty. She needed that twenty. That was the sort of amount that might really make a difference for her daughter, with the bonus of making Jake grateful for fucking once.
Twenty. She’d done close in one house. Just one.
“Maybe, two houses?” she muttered, fighting with her instincts to make good and go, and her desire to turn this stupid trip into a really big score, turn it into something worthwhile. She might not be so lucky at the next house, but this neighborhood clearly had stupid complacency mixed with money, and those were two of Delilah’s favorite things.
With a sigh she set the duffle bag down just inside the screened in pool, making sure it was more or less out of sight. She’d pick it up on her way back to the car.