The Lady Is a Thief (11 page)

 
   
“Hey, the kisses were from her. She made me
repeat it four times, until I had it down.”

 
   
A headache gathered in the back of his
skull. “When did she do this?”

 
   
Georgia swallowed another mouthful of coffee
before answering. “Last night. She
cruised
the
boulevard.
Took her for a high roller.
They like to
slum it, sometimes. Course, I don't do chicks.” She gave him the once over and
he ignored the speculative invitation in her eyes. Her smile dimmed. “Anyway,
she offered me
a grand—cash—
just had to swap clothes
and drive her car around until at least 6:00 p.m. tonight. She told me there
were two men who might be looking for her. You were okay but I should avoid the
other guy at all costs.”

 
   
The pain in his head began to hammer. Twice
he underestimated Lady Hardwicke's resourcefulness. He wouldn't make that
mistake again. “And that's it?”

 
   
“Pretty much.
She
gave me her phone and there's a digital tablet in the car and some files.” She
shrugged. “She waved me off and that was the last I saw of her.” She closed her
eyes a half second and glanced down during her answer.

 
   
“Really?”
He didn't
know her well enough to assume the deflection a lie, but the guilt trailing
through her gaze told him to hang onto this thread.

 
   
“Okay, maybe I circled the block a couple of
times to make sure she wasn't screwing me over.”

 
   
“She just gave you a thousand dollars in
cash. She didn't have time to screw you over.”
And Georgia
only a pawn in the game.
No need to sacrifice her or make her task
unnecessarily hard.

 
   
The woman flushed a faint shade of crimson
and guilt worried the lines around her mouth. “True. But that's one hell of an
expensive car and a lot of cash. No one's that nice just to ask you to drive
around and not be up to
no
good. So—maybe I watched
where she went and maybe I made sure there wasn't a body in the trunk before I
hit a highway.”

 
   
He didn't smile, but he couldn't fault her
logic. “So where did she go?”

 
   
“Bus station.
Crazy chick.
She has that kind of cash and this car, and she
heads to the bus station? Why would anyone do that?”

 
   
Because
a bus has less security and no one would look for the heiress to the Hardwicke
fortunes aboard one.
Jarod pulled a hundred out of his wallet and handed it
to her. “I want her things from the car.”

 
   
“Hey, all yours.
Do
you want the car?” Concern and uncertainty flickered in her expression.

 
   
“Nope.
You can keep
it.” He waited for the telltale beep that she unlocked it. He grabbed her bags
and her jacket. “And I need her phone.”

 
   
If Louis tracked her with any of this—he
paused and studied the car. “Tell you what. Take the car to 44th and
Lex
downtown, talk to Mitch. Tell him you need an
exterminator. He'll take care of cleaning the car.”

 
   
Georgia's eyes rounded and she blinked at
him owlishly. “Is there something wrong with my car?”

 
   
The proprietary note in her voice amused
him. “Probably not, but it never hurts.” He handed her another hundred.
“Consider it on me.”

 
   
She traded the phone for the hundred and he
carried all of it with him. He hoped Georgia listened, because Louis had time
to put a tracking device on the car since he arrived at the airport first—but
his arrival so soon as they departed suggested he'd
just
gotten there himself. Dropping her gear on the passenger seat,
Jarod started his own car and kept an eye on Georgia. He sorted through
everything in the bag—files, her digital tablet, a change of clothes, and a
slim pack of tampons.
Nothing to go on.

 
   
Her purse revealed even less. Her wallet was
there, but she stripped the credit cards' magnetic stripes. No I.D. card or
passport—she either took them with her or left them on her plane. She planned
to go into the wind the minute she arrived in Los Angeles. But…she'd taken the
time to fly to L.A.

 
   
So why Los Angeles?
The bus he understood. But had she planned to use a bus from the beginning?
No—the car.

 
   
Georgia talked on her own cell phone now,
sitting in the car across from him. She hadn't backed out of her parking space.
The car waited in the private hanger for Kit's arrival. She planned to drive
away from her plane, her security, and any other observers; in all likelihood,
to another destination to pick up another car.

 
   
His phone rang. He recognized the number, so
he hit the answer button. “Yes?”

 
   
“I'm at the Malibu estate. She's not here.
She hasn't been here in some time. One of the field workers said that she
rarely stays at the estate, even when she is in town, though.”

 
   
“Did he say why?”

 
   
“No, just mentioned that she attended
parties and social functions, but they always saw her leave as soon as the
parties ended and she didn't always return. His sister is one of the house maids
and Lady Hardwicke's things are often packed by them and just sent to the
airport to be picked up by her plane.”

 
   
“How often does she visit?”

 
   
“One moment.”
The
voices on the other end of the phone muffled as though the caller covered the
phone to ask a question. Jarod continued to study Kit's vehicle while he
waited.
“Three to four times a year since age sixteen.
Get this—her father threw a huge soiree here at the estate on her sixteenth
birthday, but the guest of honor never made an appearance. The rumor here is
that she ran away…but a couple of weeks later she returned and everyone acted
like nothing happened. Since then, she visits regularly but never stays.”

 
   
“See if you can find out anything more about
that summer.”

 
   
“You got it.”

 
   
The man rang off and Jarod started his car.
Georgia backed out of her parking spot and waved as she drove off. He shook his
head. He needed to head to the Hollywood bus terminal and review what, if any,
security tapes they had. That meant another call and another favor.

 
   
His Kit Kat was becoming increasingly
expensive.

 
   
T
wo
hours later, he stared at three monitors. The Greyhound station upgraded their
surveillance since 9/11, but the angles were shit. He knew what time Kit met
with Georgia on the boulevard, so he narrowed his search window to those two
hours. How many people bought tickets or passed through the station at four in
the morning?

 
   
Too many.

 
   
“Stop.”
The tech
hit the space bar at his word and all three images froze.
“Back
camera three up ten seconds.”

 
   
The man complied. A leggy woman in skinny
jeans and a red tank top sauntered across in slow motion. A black cap hid her
hair, but he didn't need to see it. She moved with absolute confidence and
control. “Follow her.” He pointed to the screen.

 
   
The man nodded and started typing. The
screens shifted. She walked from camera three onto four and then around the
corner onto seven. At a locker, she inserted a key and pulled out a duffle bag.
She opened it, but blocked their view of the contents.

 
   
Leaving the locker, she followed a path that
took her out of sight until they found her on camera six, four and back to
three. She disappeared again, for ten seconds, before appearing on camera one
at the ticket window.

 
   
She paid cash.

 
   
Jarod smiled.

 
   
She was good.

 
   
“Can you tell me her destination?”

 
   
The third man in the booth, the station
manager nodded. “Give me a minute.” He swiveled to face another computer
terminal and typed in some information.

 
   
“She left here.” The guard scrolling the
tapes said. “Right after she bought the ticket, she exited the station…maybe
the buy was a distraction?”

 
   
Maybe.
Jarod waited for the manager.

 
   
“Seven a.m. departure for
Half Moon Bay.
It's about seven hours north of here.”

 
   
“Run it forward.” Jarod glanced back at the
screens, but the guard was already doing it. She appeared in the station at six
fifty-five. They followed her route to the departure lanes and sure enough, she
and her duffle bag boarded the bus. She didn't give the duffle to the driver
for storage, waving him off with a quick smile.

 
   
The bus left at seven in the morning and
just after five now. She was in Half Moon Bay. “Call ahead to that bus station.
Send them this photo and see if she boarded another bus.”

 
   
The manager nodded. “Should we warn the
driver? I know she's already left the one she booked on, but if she's a
credible threat…”

 
   
Jarod shook his head once. “No. I'll take
care of this and I don't want her knowing anyone is coming.” He relied on the
call from his contact at Homeland Security to keep these guys in line. They'd
been more than cooperative.

 
   
Pulling out his phone, he sent another text.
He didn't have a single asset in that area, but he could put researchers on
trying to link Kit with Half Moon Bay. The small seaside town didn't offer any
direct clues. He couldn't discount the possibility of false trails. The
resourceful and intelligent woman knew someone hunted her.

 
   
“Do me a favor,” he leaned back down to the
guard. “Can you tell if a bus is coming in from Half Moon Bay today?”

 
   
“It's probably a round trip service,” the
guard nodded, switching his screen to the scheduler. He typed in the bus
number. “And it's due back here at eight-fifteen.”

 
   
“Does that bus have a camera on board?”

 
   
The guard blinked. “Yeah—but we're not
supposed to…”

 
   
“Humor me. I'll look away. Just tell me if
she's there.”

 
   
“Why would she?”

 
   
“Humor me,” Jarod repeated.

 
   
The guard glanced over his shoulder toward
the manager and the man gave him an impatient nod, continuing to talk to the
Half Moon Bay station. The guard glanced up at Jarod and he made a point of
turning away from the screens, but watched instead via the overhead mirror. The
man typed in a password, accessed a system and a stop motion feed came in from
the bus. Several passengers were dozing in the dark. But each strike of the
spacebar brought another section into focus.

 
   
“I don't see her.” The guard actually
sounded relieved.

 
   
But Jarod did see her. She'd changed
clothes, added a pair of reading glasses and a green baseball cap rather than
black. She sat three feet from the driver with the duffle bag on the seat next
to her.

 
   
“Thanks.” He glanced at his watch. He had
three hours before she arrived. “Does that bus make any more stops before it
gets here?”

 
   
“Nope.
Sorry she's
not there.”

 
   
The manager hung up the phone. “She arrived.
They tracked her leaving the terminal. She didn't board any other buses.”