Escaping Vegas (The Inheritance Book 1) (15 page)

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

S
o, tell me what you know,” Cole said in lieu of hello. He tucked the cell phone between his ear and his shoulder and got up from the table. Leaving the laptop behind, he strode through the room to the window and looked down on the parking lot, waiting for Thaddeus to stop shuffling papers and talk.

“All right, here’s what we’ve got. The agents contacted me about an hour ago, and after passing along your message, they’ve agreed to set up a meeting with you. I took the initiative when they inquired what we wanted from them and said that all harassment of the girl has to stop. No more stalking, chasing, abducting.”

“Did they agree?” The muscles of Cole’s shoulders bunched with tension. This was a precarious, dangerous line he was walking.

“Yes. Now that we’ve initiated a dialogue with the agents, I established that the meeting would take place in two or three days, giving us some time to come up with a good location—”

“I’ve been researching that already,” Cole said, heading back to the computer. He peered down at the screen. “There’s an annual summer festival happening in Whittier three days from now. Tell them to meet me by the funhouse at four in the afternoon on the first day of the fair. That will give me time to pay a visit to the forger.” And give him time to talk to Madalina. He only felt a little relief knowing he’d diverted the agents’ attention. Real peace of mind would happen
after
the exchange of the dragon.

“I’ve got the information. Also, the closest guy available to make your replica was in Dallas, but I got him on a plane and he should have landed a half hour ago. Meet him at a place in Santa Monica called Uniquities. That’s the closest I can get this guy to you and still have all the tools available to him that he’ll need.”

Cole scribbled the name down on a small pad of paper. “Thanks. Santa Monica isn’t too far from here.”

“The man you want when you get to Uniquities is Radnee. I didn’t give him too much detail over the phone, but he’s prepared to do whatever he has to.”

“Excellent, thanks.” Cole tore the scrap of paper from the pad and closed the laptop. “Shoot me a text when you’ve got the meeting with the agents all set.”

“I will. I’m going to ask one more time: are you
positive
you don’t want me to send Brandon out there? He can be in Los Angeles by tomorrow morning.”

“No, I can handle it. I’ll talk to you soon.” Cole ended the call, pushed the phone and the paper into his pocket, and departed the hotel room.

He was one step closer to redemption.

“You want a sandwich, Madalina?” Lianne asked from the kitchen.

“No, thanks.” Sitting on the floor with her legs folded beneath the coffee table, Madalina tapped away on Lianne’s laptop. In the seven hours since their return from the police station, she’d been trying once more to track down Mr. Cole West. To say she had failed spectacularly was an understatement.

He was about as easy to track down as visiting Martians. She knew he wasn’t in online databases, but she thought she could find something
somewhere
. Everything led to dead ends. She’d gotten creative with search terms and had tried even the most remote social media sites, all to no avail. A few cold calls to possible leads resulted in the inevitable
Sorry, you’ve got the wrong number
. Frustrated, needing a change of pace, she switched back to a search for clues about the dragon.

“You’re going to waste away to nothing. You’ve hardly eaten a thing.” Lianne, slowly recovering from her cold, walked to the door to check the kitchen chair braced under the knob.

During the downtime, Lianne and Madalina had “secured” the house. Chairs were braced against doors, and wooden dowels had been placed in most of the windows to prevent them from being opened on the sly. They’d booby-trapped the door to the garage, too, and took shifts monitoring the front and back yards. Lianne had provided three small but potent cans of Mace as a last resort.

Madalina knew she was on borrowed time. The agents would eventually expand their search criteria and wind up at Lianne’s door.

“Lost my appetite with all this,” Madalina said, leaning back against the edge of the couch. Propping her elbow in the cushion, she rested her head in her palm and watched Lianne check all the doors, then glance out the windows. She hated to see her friend act as paranoid as she herself felt. On the other hand, it was a good idea to keep watch so they reduced the likelihood of surprise as much as possible. Madalina knew, too, that when Lianne had to go back to the boutique—and she would, within the next day or two—that the agents would get a bead on her. So far the boutique hadn’t been hit, probably because they were scouting it out to see if Madalina showed up first. If they went inside and started asking questions of Nelly, the manager, Nelly would call and let the girls know. Madalina figured the men wouldn’t risk it. They were playing a waiting game that would come to a head sooner than later.

“Anything new?” Lianne asked, sinking into the cushions of the love seat. Biting into a bologna sandwich, she peered at the computer screen over Madalina’s shoulder.

“No. I’ve been scouring the antique sites again. It’s all collectible jade or hand-carved dragons or resin figurines. I must have looked at a thousand photos total since we started digging for information.” Madalina rubbed an eyelid with a knuckle. Her lids itched and burned from lack of sleep.

“What about West Bastard?”

Madalina’s lips quirked. “Cole West doesn’t exist on the Internet. He wasn’t joking when he said he’d had himself blocked. Part of me wants to drive to Rhode Island and search. Which is ridiculous and the equivalent of looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“I don’t know how you’re not angrier at him,” Lianne said, repeating an old mantra.

“You’re angry enough for the both of us,” Madalina retorted. In truth, Madalina knew that she was targeting research as a way to avoid any more emotional turmoil. If she allowed herself to dwell, she
would
wind up as furious as Lianne, which would only serve to keep her agitated and uneasy.

Lianne laughed. “Seriously. You’ve got impressive control of yourself. I wouldn’t be taking it half so well.”

“You’re not taking it well, and you’re not even me.”

“So what are your plans, then? I know we figured tomorrow would be D-day. We’ve got to start living again; there’s no avoiding it.”

“I’m still thinking. I can’t just go back to the shop like nothing happened. Can’t return to my house—”

“What
are
you going to do about your house? It’s still wrecked.”

“I know. I can’t go over there until this blows over. It hurts to leave it, but right now, I don’t have any choice.”

“Have you heard back from your mom and dad yet?” Lianne asked.

“No. I’ve left multiple messages. They’re touring Malaysia and might be out of phone contact a few days. That happens sometimes.”

“I remember when they visited Africa and they were out of contact for like a whole week. They sure do like to get around.”

“They’ve always loved to travel. Now that they’re retired, they don’t stay put very long in one place. I guess it’s helpful in a way. If
I
can’t get in touch with them, then the agents will have a hard time, too.” For a moment Madalina envied the free and easy travel her parents engaged in every year. As long as she could remember, her folks had loved to see different places, immerse themselves in different cultures. They’d saved and planned for retirement, and were living their dream. Declining their frequent requests to join them, Madalina had instead focused on getting her business up and running.

An hour later, Madalina’s stomach demanded food whether she liked it or not. Rising from the floor, she grunted and stretched her legs. Lianne took over the search for information while she wandered into the kitchen to make a sandwich. Taking cold cuts, cheese, mayonnaise, and mustard from the fridge, she set the makings on the counter and pulled a piece of bread from a fresh loaf. Rather than get fancy, she laid the meat and cheese onto the single slice, squirted a skinny stream of mayo and mustard over the top, and folded it in half. Taking a bite, she put everything back where she got it.

Tilting her hip against the sink, she glanced out the window. Darkness had fallen, reducing visibility to just a few feet. Somewhere out there, Cole was doing God knew what with the dragon. Every hour that went by chipped away another sliver of hope. Hope that he would call or knock at the door with plausible and reasonable explanations on his lips. She didn’t know if it would matter at this point. All the pretty words in the world couldn’t take away the fact that he’d taken the dragon and lied.
Used
her, possibly from the very beginning.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

M
adalina!”

Lianne’s urgent call snapped Madalina out of a brooding reverie. She brushed the crumbs off her hands over the sink and rounded into the living room, her gaze darting at the door, the window . . . suddenly she was worried that Lianne
had
seen something suspicious. But Lianne was still sitting on the couch in front of the computer, phone in her hand.

“What? What is it?” Madalina asked.

“Nelly called.
She’s
sick and needs to go home. The only person left in the boutique is Carmen, and she’s only got three weeks of training under her belt. She’s not ready to fly solo yet. I have to go to the boutique; there’s no getting around it.” Lianne made a face, closed the laptop, and stood up.

“Crap. All right. We knew we wouldn’t be able to put it off forever. Just be careful, okay? I’ll be all right here.” Madalina would brace the garage door again after Lianne departed. It was the best she could do.

“I’m going to take my bike. That way, if you need my car—”

“No, no. You can’t ride a bike to work in the dark.” Madalina’s eyes widened in disbelief. The boutique was only a few miles away, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

“It’s not that far, and I’m feeling a lot better. Besides, I’ve heard exercise is good to help get over sickness. And I don’t want to leave you stranded here without a getaway car.” Lianne walked past Madalina toward the bedroom.

“But what if you need the car? What if the agents show up at the boutique?” Madalina followed Lianne into the bedroom.

“Honestly, Mad, if they show up there? I’ll call the police. I’ll try my best not to give them all the details, but I won’t let those men trash our place.” Lianne changed into a smart pair of black slacks and a shirt of cream layered chiffon. Choosing flats—probably for the bike ride—she exited to the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth and combed out the wild layers of her blonde hair.

Madalina followed, still putting up an argument. “It’s thoughtful of you, Lianne, but—”

“No buts.” Lianne dabbed a little makeup on her cheeks, her eyes. She muttered, “I look like the walking dead.”

“You look fine. I’ll try and wrap all this mess up within the next few days, so you don’t have to keep covering for me at work.” Madalina needed closure, one way or the other.

“Don’t worry about it. Nelly needs the practice, and this will allow us to develop the part-timers more. One of them may find themselves assistant manager, so I can help you if you need it.”

“Thanks, Lianne.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The girls shared a quick smile.

After Lianne rolled her bicycle out of the garage, Madalina closed the outer door, then braced the chair beneath the connecting door. She made another cursory check of the house, then went to the kitchen for a fresh bottle of cold water. She needed to start making hard decisions about the immediate future. The time for research—and hope—was coming to a close. With no new leads, no phone calls to make, no way to put off the agents, she figured she had four options: join her parents in Malaysia, go on the run by herself, explain everything to the police, or stride right up to her house and wait for a confrontation. Then she could tell the agents that Mr. Cole West had stolen the dragon and now had it in his possession.

If by some miracle it wasn’t the dragon they were after, then she’d be in bigger trouble than she thought.

Taking the water back to the laptop, she gave herself two final hours to turn up
something
. Just a snip of info to keep her going. To set her on the right path. It was either that or pace a hole in the floor.

Less than fifteen minutes later, a bump at the back door jerked Madalina’s attention away from the computer screen. Scrambling to her feet, she snatched a can of Mace and her cell phone. Moving fast and low, she angled into the gloomy kitchen and stopped adjacent to the door, listening intently for another noise. It could have been the wind blowing something across the patio; she didn’t want to panic and call the police only to find the “threat” was a dislodged chair cushion.

A trio of rapid knocks nearly made her set off the Mace by accident. Heart pounding in her chest, she pushed to a stand and turned her phone on, fully intending to call for help.

“Madalina? Lianne? It’s Cole.”

Sucking in a surprised breath, Madalina set the phone on the counter but kept the Mace in her hand. In seconds, several scenarios ran rampant through her head: the agents had captured Cole and were holding
him
hostage, forcing him to lure her out into the open; Cole hadn’t really stolen the dragon at all and was returning, triumphant, after battling the agents and winning; he
had
stolen the dragon under duress and had come back to finish her off on order from the agents.

It was crazy what the mind, in times of intense stress, will come up with.

Mace at the ready, she flipped the lock and opened the door. Cole stood there, one hand in his pocket, wearing a resigned but determined expression. He didn’t look frantic, in immediate danger, or like someone was holding him hostage.

He
had
taken the dragon, no doubt about it. And
not
because someone forced him to.

Madalina’s hand flew up and connected a ringing slap to his jaw.