Chapter 2

Rogue Kendall pushed her cart into the maintenance elevator of the Chicago condo, her cap pulled low over her face, her non-descript blondish-brown hair hidden under it, her athletic but slim build hidden by the bulk she’d strategically placed under the blue coveralls she wore. To anyone further than five or six feet away from her, she would look like a man. But if they got closer, she could be in a bit of trouble, since she’d worn no facial hair or tried in any way to disguise that she was really a woman. Even in the new millennium, not too many women were working maintenance and wearing coveralls.

She pressed the button for the fifth floor and settled back against the wall as the doors to the stinky elevator closed jerkily and the thing lurched upward. She’d disguised herself as a man many times before, successfully. With her height, she could pull it off, wearing a fake goatee and oversized ball cap, unless someone wanted to talk to her. No matter how often she practiced, her man’s voice was always lacking, and pretending to be mute attracted more attention than it dissuaded. Acting pissed off and dangerous worked better, but people paid attention to pissed off people. Remembered them. Which was the exact opposite of what she was going for.

She shifted her eyes to the corner of the elevator and fixed her face with a neutral expression. Bored employee, counting the hours until work was over. Women would leave her alone, but men almost always tried to talk to her. Not that she thought she would run into any tenants, and she knew she wouldn’t run into any other maintenance employees. She had their schedules memorized.

The elevator reached the floor she wanted without stopping, and, when the doors dinged open, the way was clear. It was the middle of the day, and most people would be at work, even the silly, spoiled mistress she was going to pay a visit to had a spa to visit and a massage to get on Tuesdays.

That morning, Rogue had reached into her bag of tricks to ensure the day security guard to this condo building would not make it in. The night guard who’d been forced to work overtime was currently snoring behind the desk on the first floor. She expected no interruptions, and if there was one, she would handle it. Handling shit was her specialty. One of her specialties.

She pushed her cart to the end of the hallway, eyes swiveling, ears straining to identify every sound. All was normal. When she reached the heavy metal door that led out to the roof, she parked her cart to one side and eyed the control pad there. The standard emergency code would probably get her through the door, but there was no challenge in that, so she would do things the hard way. Maybe someone would almost catch her and she’d have to run, fight, break a sweat, use her brain.

Maybe some cops would show up. Maybe one in particular. Tall, muscles for days, a sharp tongue, not scared of anything…

Rogue came back to herself with a jerk, the sounds and sights of the hallway rushing instantly into her consciousness, along with blistering self-recrimination. What was wrong with her? She listened to the hallway closely before turning her head and confirming what she already knew. It was still empty. She’d been doing that… fugue thing more often lately. Too often. Drifting off into some private recess of her mind, some private fantasy world where a big-

Rogue cut the thought off relentlessly and bent over her work. She’d figured out what the trigger was two or three times ago, now if she could just keep herself from thinking about it again she could finish this job. She’d wanted a challenge? Try being a cat burglar and paid spy who couldn’t think the word cop without losing a few minutes of her life.

That wasn’t entirely true. She could think the word, she just couldn’t allow herself to feel the emotions and connections that the word brought to her. The strange fantasy that always-

Rogue jerked again, returning to her conscious mind with a small, startled cry this time. She set her tongue between her teeth and bit down, whipped her head around to ensure the hallway was still empty, refused to contemplate how long she’d been out, and faced front to study the keypad on the wall in front of her, pulling off one of her too-big work gloves to reveal the slim, thin gloves underneath. She always covered her hands. Her fingers were too long and thin. Artist’s fingers that marked her almost as much as her height did. They would be remembered, especially by anyone with an artistic bent.

Three days before, she’d been up here in a different maintenance outfit, and dusted the pad. Now she leaned in, looking for the numbers that the dust had been wiped from by repeated use. 2, 3, 6, and 8.

24 permutations. She’d be on the roof in minutes. She started with the most likely one. 2368- but, as soon as she pressed the 2 in 2368, the box beeped and the door buzzed open. What in the hell? She looked around, stared hard at the box, then pushed the door open before it decided to lock again. Shit. That hadn’t made any sense at all. Was someone messing with her? No. Some instinct told her no, no one was messing with her. The security box must be… malfunctioning. She always was lucky with shit like that.

Rogue maneuvered her cart through the door, the slight chill of the March morning biting at her cheeks. She pushed her cart across the flat, open, roof area, to the northeast corner of the building, distracted by the view for only a moment. The condo was a red-brick building, very typical Chicago, located in an up-and-coming neighborhood, but since it was only five stories high, the view from the roof barely stirred any excitement in her. She needed at least fourteen floors before her heart beat faster. The higher the better.

She parked her cart against the three-foot wall that ran around the roof, corralling it to keep people and crap from falling off the edge, then knelt and dug through the cargo area under her cart, pulling out her Bosun’s chair and rigging, working hard and fast. Just the way she liked it, ha ha. Her lips curled into a bitter line. Yeah, right. She wished she could find someone to give it to her hard and fast, slow and gentle, any way at all. Just one man who wasn’t a weenie, that’s all she needed. Just one who wouldn’t look at her height and her muscles, her sharp tongue, her tendency to throw elbows first and ask questions later, if then. If she could just find that one guy who wouldn’t take all of that in and suddenly remember a very pressing appointment to get his dog washed or his tires retreaded. Just one guy who maybe was bigger than her, stronger than her, not scared of her, who could handle her at her worst, because she didn’t have a best. She could almost see him, The One from her dreams, knew what his profession would be. And wouldn’t that be a bona fide hoot, if he really were a cop? How would that even work? She wasn’t giving up her profession, what she was best at, even if the dick game was strong, even if he called her beautiful…

Rogue jerked and looked up into the streaming almost-spring sunlight, blinking and wondering how much time she had lost. She shook her head sharply and bent back over her work, tongue clamped between her teeth so hard the pain kept her grounded.

Fourteen minutes later, she had it all set up. She threw the Bosun’s chair over the side, donned her work belt and harness, tested her rigging, then leaned long ways along the wall, and recklessly dropped her feet into the chair. She grabbed her bucket and squeegee from the top of her cart, attached them to her belt, then wiggled her way into the chair, until her butt was sitting on the canvas seat. She clamped her safety gear on, then lowered herself to the first window, making a good show of cleaning it. Someone was watching her. Make that two someones. She could feel them, both from the building across the street, both on floors lower than her. The eyes on her felt like beacons, pointing out their owners with uncanny precision. Weird, yes; she’d discovered as a child that no one else seemed to have the ability to know when someone was watching them in the way she did, but she certainly appreciated it, weird or not. Growing up in the way she had, it had been a boon, a blessing, a way to survive.

She moved to the next window, cleaning it slower than needed, then dropped down to another. Within just a few minutes, the eyes lost interest, and went about their day. She moved back up the wall, back to the top floor, then decisively went over the side of the balcony there, pulling her chair with her, dropping it onto the floor behind the privacy wall. Anyone looking now would see only her ropes. She would be in and out before any looky-loos thought to call somebody.

Crouching, she scanned the balcony and just inside the door for cameras. Finding none, she quickly stripped off her harness, coveralls, and cap, revealing her black yoga pants and black long-sleeve shirt underneath, loose around the belly and forearms, the better to hide what she had there. Her slim gloves stayed on. She stood and headed for the sliding glass doors, fingering her lock-picking instruments through the leather of the slim black pouch around her waist that looked like a belt. Sometimes she wore it under her shirt, sometimes over, but she almost always wore it. No purses for her.

She didn’t need her tools. The door was unlocked, the alarm not even set. Stupid woman. Rogue knew her target would never have left the door unlocked, but when men chose their mistresses for her honey hams and candied yams, sometimes things like brains and the ability to follow simple instructions that didn’t have to do with mascara or lip liner got left out of the equation.

Rogue pulled the door open and prowled inside, getting a feel for the place as a whole. She knew exactly where the bag she wanted would be, if it were here, but simple human curiosity occasionally got the better of even her. Pictures lined one wall. Rogue snorted when she realized most of them were selfies of Miss Candy Yam herself, with Rogue’s target, Lorenzo Dotti, The Chief of the Chicago PD’s Organized Crime Bureau. Her mouth pursed distastefully as she studied them, their brashness. What would Mrs. Dotti think if she saw these pictures? Rogue refereed a brief internal struggle about sending them to her, then decided against it. Mrs. Dotti knew Lorenzo had an outside snuggle bunny. Rogue had discovered, over the last six weeks of surveillance of him, that he spent more nights in this condo than he did at home.

She’d read it in the paper a few times, too, never wanting to believe that someone in such a high position of authority in the city got away with such frequent and public intimations that he was unfaithful to his wife. That may have been why she’d taken this job. Ordinarily, she would never take a job that had to do with the cops, or even someone who wasn’t a criminal, but she was pissed at Chief Lorenzo. Had been for a long time. That shit wasn’t right.

Rogue headed straight for the tiny alcove off the bedroom that Chief Lorenzo kept as a third office. The words Chief Lorenzo tasted bad to her, even in her head. He was good at his job, but crappy at his personal affairs. Why get married if you weren’t going to stay faithful? What was even the point? She shook her head and entered the tiny room, more of a closet than an office. When Lorenzo had left work the night before, he’d had the black messenger bag over his shoulder, and when he’d left the condo this morning, he hadn’t. Simple logic said that she would find it in here, and if she did, she could put a six-week job to rest.

She grinned as she visually swept the room. When she found that folder, it would make her a quarter of a million dollars richer.