Uptown Thief

Uptown THIEF

AYA DE LEÓN

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
wwwkensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

 

DAFINA BOOKS are published by

 

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

 

Copyright © 2016 by Aya de León

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

 

 

Dafina and the Dafina logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

ISBN: 978-1-4967-0470-2

 

eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0471-9
eISBN-10: 1-4967-0471-1
First Kensington Electronic Edition: August 2016

 

I would like to acknowledge the following people for their incredible help in making this book happen: my agent, Jenni Ferrari Adler, and Union Literary; my editors, Mercedes Fernandez and Esi Sogah, and all the folks at Kensington; Lulu Martinez, Sofia Quintero, Dana Kaye, Toni Ann Johnson, Susie Meserve, Galadrielle Allman, Simha Evan Stubblefield, Sara Campos, Shailja Patel, Tracy Sherrod, Jill Dearman, Cara Diaconoff, Tobe Correal, Bishop Yvette Flunder, Pastor Donna Allen, Adrienne Crew, Lisa McCalla, Alicia Raquel, La Bruja, Julia Hutton Randall, Diane Balser, Peechington Marie, Nova Anon, Shannon Williams,
$pread
magazine, the St. James Infirmary, SWOP Bay Area, The Harm Reduction Coalition and Training Institute, Xanthos, Inc., MK Chavez, Sara Kershnar, Alisa Valdes, Cristina Garcia, Tim Hernandez, Brooke Warner, Carolina De Robertis, Pam Harris, BinderCon, HackerMoms, VONA, Sandra Garcia Rivera, Elmaz Abinader, Mat Johnson, Achy Obejas, Aurora Levins Morales, Torrey Maldonado, Gail Burton, Sharan Strange, my Tigress Crew: Kirsten and Jennifer, The Debutante Ball crew: Louise, Abby, Heather, and Jennifer. The crew of women who has helped keep me serene through it all: Carolyn, Peggy, Staci, and Julianna. My family: Stuart, Anna, Larry, Paci, Coco, and Dulari. And Natasha Bedingfield, for my anthem, “Unwritten.”

Chapter 1

 

M
arisol Rivera ran down the stairwell of the eighty-story building, trailing the banister with one hand and gripping the stolen brick of $10,000 cash in the other.

The center of the stairwell was open. Three floors above, a door opened and a security guard pointed down and yelled, “There he goes!”

In her ski mask and bulky black jacket, she had been mistaken for a man, but at closer range, they would see her curves and understand their mistake.

Her bare feet thudded down the stairs, pressing off against the concrete steps.

She ran for the fifty-seventh floor.

Tyesha was holding an elevator car on the fifty-seventh. Numbers flashed by Marisol in the stairwell: sixtieth . . . fifty-ninth . . . She heard the boots of security guards thundering down above her head.

Her calf muscles ached, and air burned in and out of her lungs. Her heart beat even faster than the rapid fire of her feet against the steps.

She had just started down the final flight, when another squad of gray-uniformed security guards rushed out of the stairwell on the floor below.

Had they caught Tyesha? Marisol clenched her body to a stop, one hand gripping the banister, and the accumulated forward motion sent her stumbling, almost falling down the stairs. She hurled herself back the way she had come and slammed against the push bar for the fifty-eighth floor.

As she lunged into the hallway, she heard the chime of the elevator and the door began to open, maybe ten yards ahead.

More guards? Would she be cornered?

She ran faster, hoping to . . . to what? Hit the opposite stairwell? Where could she go?

Before she could decide, she saw that the figure stepping from the elevator wasn't a guard, but a brown-skinned woman in a green cocktail dress and platform sandals—Tyesha.

“
Gracias a Diós!
” Marisol breathed, as she peeled off her jacket and ski mask. She balled them up and tossed them into the elevator, as her long hair fell over her shoulders. Some of the strands stuck to her forehead, and a few ends tangled in the lacy neckline of her red blouse.

“Hit some buttons!” she yelled to Tyesha. “Send it up.”

Tyesha stabbed the elevator's Door Close button repeatedly.

Marisol pulled her stiletto heels out of her oversize purse and shoved her feet into them. She left the $10,000.

The two women stepped back from the elevator as the security guards stormed through the stairwell doors.

“Please!” Marisol begged, looking into the empty elevator. “Don't hurt us!”

The guards rushed closer as the elevator door began to close. Another few feet and they would see it was empty.

“Step away from the elevator!” the security guard yelled.

“He's got a gun!” Tyesha shrieked.

“Wait!” Marisol wailed. “He might shoot us if you come closer.”

The guards slowed their progress, as the metal doors gradually slid closed.

The moment they shut, the two women fell back against the wall, gasping in relief.

“Oh, thank God.” Marisol wiped the perspiration from her face with a handkerchief. As she returned the sodden cloth to her purse, she palmed the brick of cash and stuck it in the waistband of her black silk pants.

Five guards approached the pair of women and surrounded them. Marisol shoved her purse back past her hip to hide the cash lump against the base of her spine.

One guard was on the radio. “Suspect boarded the elevator on the fifty-eighth floor, headed up.”

“Can you describe the assailant?” another guard asked Marisol and Tyesha.

“Short, stocky build,” Tyesha said. “Maybe he was black.”

“I'm not sure,” Marisol disagreed. “It was hard to tell in the ski mask.”

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” the guard in charge said. “We'll need to do a search.” He called one of the young guards over.

Marisol and Tyesha handed over their purses as a voice crackled over the radio: “Caught the elevator on sixty-three. Nothing but a ski mask and a jacket. A ceiling panel was loose. He must've climbed out. Seal the building for search protocol.”

The young guard called to his superior. “Purses are clean.”

The older guard stepped forward. “Now we'll do a pat down.”

“We'd like a woman to search us, please,” Marisol demanded.

The older guard pulled up the radio. “I need a female assist on fifty-eight to frisk two suspects . . .”

* * *

Two hours earlier, Marisol and Tyesha had been working in the office when Kim called.

“Marisol, you'll never believe it,” Kim said, her voice thick with tears. “We're here at the corporate party but I'm hiding under the CEO's desk. He's a goddamn sex trafficker!”

“He's what?” Outrage swelled in Marisol's chest. It took a few minutes to get the story out. Kim and her girlfriend, Jody, were escorting two clients to the after-party of an awards event where the host had been honored for humanitarian efforts in Mexico. But Kim recognized him as one of several CEOs acquitted—despite extensive evidence—in a Mexican sex trafficking scandal. Kim had followed the CEO and slipped into his office, where he had locked up the award. After he left, she had tried unsuccessfully to crack the safe.

She was sobbing. “I can't breathe. I think I'm having a panic attack. I can't go back to the party and pretend everything's okay. But what was I thinking? I don't know how to open a safe.”

But Marisol knew how. An hour later, she and Tyesha snuck into the party and Kim let her into the CEO's office. Marisol had smoothed Kim's glossy hair from her face, and coached her breathing back to normal.

Kim was Korean and in her mid-twenties. Marisol had met her when she was a topless waitress in a seedy club. She worked eight hours, gave the occasional blow job, and didn't have health insurance. Now she worked one night a week and had a 401K.

“I'm sorry,” Kim said. “I know these software guys pay a lot of money. I should've just rolled with it.”

“No,” Marisol said, drying the girl's eyes. “When you're working and anything goes wrong, you call me. Always.”

Kim nodded and blew her nose.

“Go back to your date and act like nothing happened,” Marisol told Kim. “I'll take care of this.”

Marisol had stolen the award and $10,000. She had almost reached the stairwell when someone yelled for her to stop.

On the landing of the seventy-second floor, she'd pulled the ski mask over her face and sprinted down the stairs. She hurled the award down the center of the stairwell. The glass trophy was designed like a map of the world, with continents and the CEO's name in twenty-four-karat gold. As it fell tumbling through the air, the stairwell's fluorescent lights glinted off the crystal planes and smooth surfaces of gold. Seventy stories below, it crashed into the marble floor like a meteor, creating a ragged hole, an explosion of fine glass fragments, and bits of molten gold shrapnel.

* * *

On the fifty-eighth floor, the head of security returned with a female guard. A blond bun peeked out beneath the gray uniform cap.

As she patted Tyesha down, the lead guard asked, “What were you two doing on this floor?”

“We were looking for someplace quiet,” Tyesha said.

“She's clean,” the female guard said of Tyesha.

“We just wanted to be alone,” Marisol said, putting her arm around Tyesha. Behind their backs, Marisol slid the cash out and handed it to Tyesha.

The man sneered. “No wonder you wanted a woman guard.” He pointed at Marisol. “Step forward.”

Marisol let the woman pat her down as Tyesha slid the cash into her own purse.

Marisol felt the woman's gloved hands patting down her body. The guard checked under her hair and ran a hand gently down her back, passing over the spot where the cash had been, barely a moment before.

“Can we go back to the party after this?” Marisol asked. “I need a drink.”

“She's clean, too,” the female guard said.

“Party's over,” the head guard said. “We'll escort you to the ground level, where they'll check your IDs.”

The two women stood flanked by both guards, as the elevator descended fifty-seven floors to the lobby.

Marisol watched a uniformed guard do a slipshod job of sweeping shards of glass into a dustpan.

At the security desk, Marisol and Tyesha handed over IDs for Lourdes and Danita, both with Long Island addresses. A guard copied the information, then let them go.

As they approached the street door, the guard yelled, “Wait a minute!”

Marisol turned around, her heart hammering.

“You should use the other exit,” the guard said. “There's broken glass on this end.”

“Don't worry,” Marisol said, steering Tyesha around the crater in the marble floor. “My shoes are invincible.”