Chapter Thirteen
Now it was his turn to stay silent.
Helen looked amused. “You told me you took Celeste for a ‘turn on the dance floor’ on Thursday night and didn’t see her after that. But I happen to know the replica didn’t arrive until Saturday morning, and you’ve obviously seen it before.”
Still next to the armoire, she swiftly reached into an open drawer and pulled out a gun.
Well, shit. “Seriously, Helen? What are you going to do with that gun?” He held up his hands as she pointed it at him. She walked slowly from the armoire to the corner of the room between the door to the hallway and the door to the patio, effectively blocking both exits.
“I don’t know what your game here is exactly,” she said. “But you lied to me, and that’s enough of a transgression when you know too much about me as it is.”
He considered mentioning the recording—everyone in the world was soon going to know too much about her—but he worried she’d run straight out of the house and he didn’t want her encountering Jess with the gun in her hand.
Of course, that was a scenario he couldn’t prevent. Any minute now, Jess would hear the word “gun” burst through the transmission, and he knew his partner wouldn’t wait for the cops to show up since they were ten minutes away. The thought of Jess rushing to his aid was a little terrifying. The last time Jess had tried to save his life, she’d ended up with a bullet in her shoulder.
Helen bit her lip, raised and lowered the gun a little. She wasn’t comfortable with it, which was a good thing. On the other hand, she seemed to have no problem shooting him, which was a bad thing. “This will work out quite nicely,” she mused. “Todd will die, and if the story needs a bad guy, now it has one. You’re a thief who came after both of us. I’ll find a way to link the mushrooms to you.” She adjusted her angle, probably trying to figure out a realistic way to shoot him that would support her intruder story.
He sat down on the bench next to the dressing table again, both to seem as non-threatening as possible and to make her pause. After all, it wouldn’t look right to a forensics team if an intruder had been sitting down with no weapon when she shot him to death.
She wouldn’t let that go for long. If she told him to get up, he wondered if he should dive under the bed or scramble over it. Maybe she’d move away from the doors, if so. Also, a moving target would be much harder for a novice shooter to hit. She wouldn’t let that stop her, though. She’d likely keep shooting until he was hit. He took a deep breath. Damn it. There was no way he was getting out of the room without being shot. The very most he could hope for was a flesh wound.
* * *
Parked in the car on the driveway, Jess listened anxiously to the transmitted bursts of conversation between Adam and Helen.
God, he was good. Helen didn’t trust him at all, but she bought into his “fellow criminal” routine enough to let the information about the reservoir slip. As soon as she did, Jess started the car and waited.
Actually, it was a little strange that she needed to wait. With the slight delay in the transmission, she would have expected Adam to be at the car by the time she heard it.
Uneasy, she got out of the running car and stood on the mansion’s driveway. It was awkward to walk and listen to the laptop speakers, so she missed pieces of the conversation. Adam said something about the necklace replica, Helen said something about Saturday morning.
But then there was a sentence that she heard clearly, one that would haunt her nightmares for years to come. “Seriously, Helen? What are you going to do with that gun?”
She started running.
Easy, Jess. She could practically hear Adam’s voice in her head. There was no gunshot yet—he was still okay. She needed to be quiet if she was somehow going to sneak up and help him with Helen. She forced herself to shut the laptop, which silenced the conversation.
Tucking it under her arm, she touched the knob to the front door. But then she hesitated, thoughts racing. If Helen had pulled a gun intending to shoot Adam, she’d need to put herself between Adam and the door if she didn’t want him to escape. Which meant that Jess would have a hard time sneaking up on her if she had to walk down the second-floor hallway while Helen was standing right by the door.
Another option, another option, there had to be some other option. Yes! Remembering the Thursday night barbecue, Jess ran as fast as she could around the outside of the house to the southwest corner and silently climbed the outdoor stairs that led to the patio of the master suite.
The shades were open. Oh God, there it was. A scene from a terrible dream. Helen, in profile, pointed a gun at Adam who sat across the room with his hands up. He glanced at the doorway to the hall and Jess’s gut clenched. Was he expecting her to run through that door and save him?
His eye movement distracted Helen as well. She took a step closer to him and anchored herself more firmly against the frame of the door leading to the second-floor hallway. She probably figured that if he was going to try and escape, he’d more likely launch himself through an open doorway than have to fiddle with a locked patio door while she stood three feet away with a loaded gun.
Hunched low, beneath eyesight, Jess dug in the copper pot closest to the stairs for Todd’s hide-a-key. Luckily, it was right on top. Moving silently forward on her knees, she took a deep breath and inserted it into the lock. She hoped like hell this door worked as silently and seamlessly as everything else in Helen’s perfect home.
The lock turned. No movement from the master suite. Inside, she could hear Adam’s cajoling tone, but not the actual words. Helen appeared to be ignoring them and working on some sort of internal calculation.
If she rose from her knees, would Helen see her? Maybe not. It was dark outside and bright within. If Helen looked quickly at the glass back door, she’d see her own reflection.
Jess lifted her chin and peeked through the glass. Helen’s back was still to Jess. Dressed all in white, her long black hair fell to her hips. Her shoulders were stiff and raised.
It was time to move. At any moment, Helen could decide that Adam was too big of a threat and just shoot him. She might convince herself that staging the crime scene after he was dead might work. Jess said a silent prayer that her action wouldn’t make things worse. If she made a noise while opening the door, Helen’s focus would be diverted long enough for Adam to either tackle her or take cover. Right? Right? Oh God. For a moment, Jess thought longingly of her old life, of her safe office, of losing herself for hours in nice, sterile code.
But... Adam.
Staying low, Jess raised herself to one knee and tucked her other foot under, almost like she was preparing to run a race. With her laptop still tucked under her right armpit, she turned the knob with her left hand and pulled.
The door opened soundlessly. Only an inch, sure, but it was open and neither Adam nor Helen noticed.
No. Adam had noticed. Maybe no one else in the world would realize it, but Jess knew his face like she knew her own soul, and the corner of his mouth turned just the tiniest fraction of a millimeter up.
“I’m standing up now,” he announced loudly. “Don’t shoot.” Jess took advantage of the volume and Helen’s renewed focus on him to pull the door open wide enough for her body to slide through.
“I wanted you standing anyway,” Helen said. “In fact, I want—”
They never found out what Helen wanted, because the moment she started talking, Jess took two large steps closer, raised her laptop with both hands, and then cracked Helen over the head with it as hard as she could. Without a sound, Helen crumpled to the floor.
Adam started to laugh. Hard.
Kicking the gun away from Helen’s limp hand, Jess hissed at him. “What’s so funny?”
He gestured between her and Helen, his shoulders still shaking with suppressed chuckles. “Really? With your laptop?”
It was difficult, but she tried to match his lightheartedness. “Well, you know it’s really the only weapon I’m comfortable using. Besides,” she sniffed, “this laptop has saved your life twice in two days so maybe you should be more respectful.”
He crossed the space between them in one long stride, took her in his arms. “You have saved my life twice in two days.”
Jess clung to him for a long minute, until her heartbeat slowed to somewhere approaching normal. With shaking fingers, she pulled his phone out of his pocket and disengaged the recording software. Then she looked down at Helen’s prone figure. “What should we do with her?”
“Let’s tie her to the bed and get out of here,” Adam said. “The cops will be here any minute and we need to be gone.”
Jess verified that Helen was breathing normally and her pulse was strong. Her eyelashes even fluttered open a little as Adam took her arms, Jess took her feet, and they hoisted her on the bed. “I probably gave her a concussion, but I think she’s mostly okay.”
“Which is a lot better than she deserves,” Adam muttered. He found a basket of fitness gear in the closet and used a jump rope to tie Helen’s wrists to the bed’s headboard. “Let’s go.”
Jess was examining the replica of the Red Scarlet. “It’s too bad she didn’t actually give you the real one. I feel like we’re owed it after the past couple days of disaster.”
Adam chuckled. “I know. I got a little excited there for a minute when she handed it to me.” He shrugged. “But there was nothing else in the safe she opened and we don’t have time to do a full search. Let’s go.”
Jess’s mind latched onto his last statement. There was nothing else in the safe. As elegant and beautiful and smart as Helen was...at the heart of it all, she was still a thief.
“I’m remembering something you once told me,” she said slowly.
Adam tried pushing her toward the door. “Tell me in the car.”
Jess sidestepped him and headed back to Helen. “You said that you never know when you might have to run. If you can do it easily, you carry the take.”
“No way,” Adam whispered.
Jess pulled down the high cowl of Helen’s turtleneck sweater, revealing a thick trail of rubies and diamonds. “You carry the take,” she confirmed. Then she undid the clasp and pulled the necklace off.
Turning, she said, “Now, let’s go.” She tossed the Scarlet across the room.
Adam caught it easily, never taking his hot eyes from her face. “I ever tell you I dig your wits, Blondie?”
Grinning, she grabbed his elbow and pulled him out the door. “Not often enough.”
* * * * *
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Keep reading for an excerpt from WICKED STAGE, coming soon from Michelle Dayton and Carina Press.