by Ritter Ames
Everything that could fit into the Prada went inside, and I filled every vest pocket as well, beginning by putting Jack’s phone and the charger in the pocket with my key ring. I shrugged into the bomber jacket and slung the purse strap cross-body to be hands free. I teed the tables perpendicular, using the legs of the moved table to serve as an anchor to attach the heavy curtains. I pulled down a third drapery and added its length to the end of my makeshift escape route. Still not long enough, but it would get me past the middle of the ground floor. It would have to do.
My gaze quickly inventoried the space. I scooped up anything left that we didn’t want the enemy to see, packing it in one of the filing boxes. Then I grabbed the gloves from the floor and put them on for the third time. I slid open a window. Scooping up handfuls of the hefty make-do curtain rope, I dumped it out to hang down the side of the building. The file box went under my left arm. I anchored it against my body, using the Prada to hold a short side close to my hip, with the bottom angle supported by the leather purse. With my left arm across the top, my hand grabbed the carry handle on the opposite short side. The box was going to have to precede me out the window, the only way to go.
The lock disengaged once more, but I didn’t try to fly over and relock it this time. The last struggle took too much energy. I needed all remaining reserves.
As she clunked the heavy door against the heavier tables, I sat on the sill and steadied myself to begin the descent. I prayed I wouldn’t spill the contents of the box at the same time, but it wasn’t far, and this grip was steady in the short term. I double checked the sharp narrow edge of the box bottom to be sure it was effectively anchored against the leather Prada for no-slip balance. Time to rock and roll.
With only one hand, I couldn’t do a normal rappel. Instead, I wrapped my freehand in the curtain, holding tight as I moved off the sill and did a modified one-armed slide down the scratchy curtains. Nothing elegant like acrobatic silk dancers, but it was effective. Thankfully, the gloves helped my grip and kept me from getting substitute-rope burns. My face, however, wasn’t so lucky. I made the final drop and my heels hit the sidewalk, with the curtain stopping about a foot above my head. My right cheek and the end of my nose felt like the skin had gone through a dry ice epidermis peel treatment.
I steadied myself, then looked out at the street, hefting the box one more time to keep it from slipping, then I caught the other grab handle with my right hand. I hurried down the block, my legs hitting the box as I moved as quickly as possible down the pavement. When I got to the corner, I looked back and saw the Amazon staring at me out the window. I doubled my speed and buzzed around the corner to keep her from following my progress. A number nineteen bus stood midway down the block, and I headed for it, jumping on before I had unearthed my Oyster card from the Prada.
“Hurry, people are waiting behind you,” the dreadlocked driver chastised me.
“Trust me, I want you to go as much as you do,” I replied, moving to the side so others could pass me while I looked.
“What’s that box? You get fired today or something?” he asked.
“Or something,” I said, finally locating the damned card. The driver pulled back into traffic before I even got to an empty seat. I looked back through the windows and caught a glimpse of the Amazon as she got to the corner and swiveled around trying to spot me. Another double decker bus came up behind us, and the red metal of a second one traveled two cars lengths ahead of us on the street. If she figured out I grabbed one of the buses, I prayed having three to choose from would be enough of a shell game to give me the advantage I needed.
Fifteen
“That’s how you escaped?” Jack pointed at the curtains puddling the office floor. He was still tense when I first saw him from the landing below our floor—pacing with the door propped open so he could watch for me. By the time he met me halfway down the stairs though, I could almost see most of the stress visibly roll off him. He hadn’t been six inches away from me since.
During my great escape, I’d switched buses until I reached Cassie’s street, then called Jack from her flat. Luckily, I’d caught him before his head exploded. Because when he saw the SOS text I’d sent and tried to call but couldn’t reach me, he’d contacted Timms and learned the police had already arrived. Timms said they’d found the office empty of people but in a state of chaos inside. Dropping the file unceremoniously on Cecil’s desk, he’d shouted that he’d call later and was en route back to the office when I’d reached him via the burner phone Cassie kept in one of her kitchen drawers. I promised I’d meet him back at the office as soon as I could contact Thomas for a ride. His voice calmed down a smidgeon.
Leading ultimately to this question about my escape.
I nodded. “I was afraid she’d shoot at me up the stairwell if I ran for the fire escape, so going out the window seemed the only recourse.”
“Quite brilliant. Resourceful.”
“Nothing any ten-year-old who’s mad at a parent hasn’t employed as a method for running away from home. Though the climb down was usually only one story instead of a bit more than two.”
“Speaking from experience, are we?”
“I’m an escape artist from way back. Just ask your sister,” I said. “But what would have really been handy is my backpack from the other night, if I’d left it in the office instead of at Cassie’s. I could have used that escape line, except it would have ended shorter than the curtains. This experience proved we do need to get the long rope or the collapsible ladder we’ve talked about for several weeks.”
“You have an ax now,” he teased. “Get handy with the other tools and make one yourself. You know where the home improvement store is located.”
I punched his shoulder and he laughed.
He’d already pulled the entire length of curtains up from outside when he arrived, and I kicked the fabric into a corner and closed the shutters I’d opened earlier. First to watch the street scene. Then to escape. Thank goodness I’d decided to stand there and watch Jack walk back to the Underground, so the Amazon didn’t take me by surprise.
“Do you think she watched me leave?” he asked, making me feel like he was reading my mind. Again.
“My guess would be yes. But she had a gun.” I shrugged. “I can’t imagine even the two of us would worry her since she had firepower.”
“You saw a gun?”
I nodded. “When I checked the stairwell cams.”
“She might have felt she needed the equalizer since you bested her in Barcelona.”
“Only because I had surprise, a travel-sized hairspray, and rose thorns on my side. I can’t count on that lethal combination every time I cross paths with her.”
Jack belly laughed, and I knew he was completely back.
I walked to the door and moved the umbrella stand he used to prop open the entrance.
“Don’t do that.” He grabbed the door and took the umbrella stand away from me, returning it to the previously unusual position. “We can’t let that door close while we’re in here.”
“Why?”
“The police shut it when they left, and I had a devil of a time getting it open again when I got here. I don’t see any damage to the lock or the strike plate, but I don’t want us to get accidentally locked in.”
“The Amazon left the door open when she left?”
“Must have, since the cops were here.”
I remembered the Amazon’s hardworking black box. “My guess is the keypad is toast inside. She used an electronic device to generate the pass code three or four times when I kept relocking the door. It probably didn’t save the code when it discovered the correct one and overloaded the keypad software from hitting again and again with hundreds or thousands of attempts in just a few seconds.”
Jack walked out the door and looked at the keypad. “It doesn’t look burnt out or anything.”
�
�No, but the software is probably compromised inside.” I leaned against the doorframe. “I doubt we’ll have any difficulty opening the door from this side.”
“Forgive me for believing you, but remaining suspicious just the same. This is no longer my week for taking any chances.” He walked back in and waved a hand toward the tables I used for a blockade and pseudo-escape route anchor. “Why move the tables?”
Both were still catty-whompus in the middle of the room. I briefed him on my barricade idea, and how the Amazon had to push the door with the additional table weight to move into the office. He was wide-eyed when I finished. “She moved both heavy tables with the door? I’m not sure I could do that.”
“She seemed to have anger cheering her on from the corner,” I said.
“I’m guessing a regular steroids regimen as well.”
I shrugged, continuing to sweep the room with my gaze. After six months in this ongoing investigation, we’d digitized most of the data, but at least I’d carried away the most sensitive of what had been in physical form. She’d taken everything I had to leave behind. Nothing we didn’t suspect they already knew that we knew, yet irritating all the same. She left the widescreen, and the ceiling cams were too high for her to reach. In seconds, Jack connected his phone with the television screen. He queued up my departure and her entrance into the office a couple of minutes behind my disappearance out the window. After she’d squeezed into the room, she slammed the tables into the center of the space, clearing the door. Then she’d made a perfunctory exploration around the nearly bare office before flying into a rage. Once her volcanic state died down, she made a phone call, spoke quietly for several minutes, then grabbed every loose paper she could find on the floor or wall and left. Jack zoomed in on her phone display.
“I can get five of the numbers she dialed, but not the entire exchange,” I said.
He nodded. “That’s my take too.”
I pulled a small notebook from my purse and recorded the numbers. “Just in case.”
“Good idea. But the beginning looks like an international exchange. One calling Paris.”
“We need to tell Nico.”
“Agreed.”
“It also makes the requested trip to Paris sound like something we need to do soon.” I sighed. “Guess we also need to get a better lock or find new offices.”
“I’ll look into retinal scanners,” Jack said. “But moving might be the best option.”
“Maybe we could buy a food truck, work from inside while we stay mobile around the city.”
“And you could pick up extra money working the lunch hour,” Jack said. “Max would love the idea. You’d be a new revenue stream for the organization.”
“Nah, he wouldn’t want to split the profit with your boss,” I returned, grinning. “Because I’d make sure you worked right beside me anytime our canopy was out, and we were open for business.”
The rest of the video shots showed the police storming in minutes after she left, two police cars with lights, sirens, and four uniformed PCs. One of the constables looked out the window at the curtains and said they probably needed to get a picture from outside. I was surprised they didn’t pull up the fabric. The cops called in to their superior, dusted the keypad and the door for prints, took a few pictures with their phones, and left. I knew they wouldn’t find her prints. She always wore gloves. As the screen showed them leaving, Jack shut down the video.
Jack disconnected his phone from the widescreen. “I’ll call Williams—”
“Hello.”
We turned and found Timms standing in the open doorway.
“Looks like someone has been doing a little redecorating,” he said. I was beginning to wonder how far down Timms was going to land on my list of not-so-favorite people.
“We’re going for that minimalist look,” Jack said. “As of this moment, we’re definitely a paperless operation.”
“Anything of value stolen?” Timms asked. “Anything which could compromise your foundation’s work, Miss Beacham?”
I shook my head. “I spotted her through the security cams and was able to load up the more important and confidential items and take them when I left.”
“Out the window, I understand.”
“Yes, Inspector.”
“You’re quite resourceful, Miss Beacham. Do you often leave buildings in such…an unusual manner?”
Uh-oh. Don’t panic, Beacham, I thought. Aloud, I said, “Nothing like sheer panic to get the creative juices going, Inspector.” I pretended to laugh. Jack didn’t buy it, but Timms seemed to and chuckled. “But it isn’t anything I ever want to have to do again,” I added, crossing my fingers behind my back for the second time in two days after responding to something Timms said.
Luckily, I’d left the work vest and gloves at Cassie’s before I returned, so while I still looked dressed down in my jeans, I didn’t have the kind of clothes on that would raise Timms’s suspicion meter to high alert. Given my current fear of saying too much, I offered to make tea and let the boys talk amongst themselves. It was a good plan. By the time I was playing mother with the teapot, Jack had Timms agreeing there was no reason for me to remain tied to London.
Personally, I think with the Amazon situation happening, Timms feared I would be involved in something else soon that would add to his workload if I hung around town. Which meant he might have been saying okay so I could find safety in another location. Or he hoped I would be killed or abducted elsewhere, leaving him with just Melanie’s death to solve.
“And you think this woman in the video feed is the one whose hair the crime scene people found in Miss Beacham’s hotel suite?” he asked.
“We believe there’s a very high probability,” Jack replied.
Sixteen
Timms left after finishing his tea and securing a promise from Jack that copies of our security cam files which included the Amazon would get forwarded to his Met police inbox. We replaced the tables in their original positions, checked to make sure there wasn’t anything left in the office we could take with us—there wasn’t, the Amazon was thorough—and made sure the door locked fully when we left. Since the same security firm installed our cameras and the keypad for the door lock, Jack asked them to service the keypad when he called and requested today’s video files be emailed to him.
“I’ll forward it on to Timms,” Jack said when the call ended. “But I think it would be a good idea for us to have control of the copy too.”
“Whether I meet with Arlo or not, I think we need to go to Paris and back up Nico,” I said, as we entered the Underground station on our way back to the flat. Then I stopped and touched his arm. “I think you were going to contact Danny about tracing the Amazon’s route when Timms walked in. At least you said you were calling him.”
“Yes, yes, yes. Damn.” Jack pulled out his phone and dialed. “Williams, yes, hello. You may get another call from Inspector Timms, but in case the request goes to someone else in your department I’m wondering if you can do some video tag again for us.”
He listened to Danny’s reply, then said, “That’s right. The break-in at Laurel’s office. I’m getting the video from the security cams sent to me, and I’ll forward you a copy when I send one to Timms per his request. The video should be date and time stamped, so if you could back-follow anything you can about where the ginger assassin came from or what route she took when she left, we’d be most appreciative.”
“How appreciative? No, I won’t agree to let you go out to dinner with Laurel.” He winked at me. “But I can see if Cassie isn’t totally put off by you yet.”
Danny talked, then Jack said, “I’m using Laurel’s mobile because my battery is dead. Feel free to contact us on either line. Mine should be charged up again this evening. And we may be leaving the country in the next few hours, so if you find anything I need to see, call as soon as possible. Thanks,
mate. Cheers.”
He handed me the phone. “Text or call Cassie and see if she’s on her way home yet. If she isn’t, we can meet her on the way.”
“I’ll ask where she is, but I don’t think I should meet her anywhere we could be followed,” I said, texting Where are you?
She responded back immediately: my flat.
“She’s home.” I turned the screen to show him. “Why don’t we make a circuitous route back?”
It took a train, two buses, another train, and an extra twenty minutes, but we finally arrived at Cassie’s flat feeling confident we had no one tailing us.
“But if the Amazon knows where the office is, she might already know where Cassie lives too.” I chewed my lower lip as I inserted the front door key.
“Definitely something to consider. Maybe Cass needs to come along to Paris with us,” he suggested, following me up the stairs. “Be nice to have the gang all back together again in one place. Didn’t you say she has a friend who lives there?”
“Monique.”
“Monique, right.”
As we reached the landing Cassie threw open the door. “Thank goodness. I was hoping that was you I heard talking. Where have you guys been? You should have arrived here half an hour ago.”
“Actually, twenty minutes,” I said.
“Huh?”
“We’re twenty minutes late. We’ve been planning a trip to Paris.”
The compiled video from the office security camera arrived in Jack’s inbox a minute after he took it off the charger. He forwarded everything to the inspector and Danny, while Cassie and I checked plane schedules. When he finished, he said, “I’m going to my place to pack a bag and fetch my car. I want us taking a less direct route to the airport.”
I walked him out and handed him my key to the front door. “Be careful, and don’t do anything risky while you’re gone.”
“Like use my curtains to climb out the window?”
“You called that brilliant when you saw what I’d done.”