Escaping Vegas (The Inheritance Book 1) (10 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

M
adalina grew wary as a second round of knocking went unanswered. Although she knew where the spare key to the back gate was, she didn’t have a key to the house.

Feeling uneasy about the delay, she knocked again.

“Lianne!” she called out, careful to keep her voice low. Madalina glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one had vaulted the fence and was creeping up on her from behind. It would be a long time, she thought, before the sensation of being stalked went away.

The back door swung open with a sudden scrape of wood on wood that scared the hell out of Madalina. She gasped, which caused Lianne to yelp in surprise.

“What are you doing—”

“Where have you bee—” Madalina, talking over Lianne’s questions, pushed her way inside. She closed the door and engaged the dead bolt.

“You’re soaking wet—Madalina, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Vegas.” Lianne, wrapped in a cream-colored blanket with snowflakes stamped around the edge, sniffled into a tissue. Her voice had a nasally quality attributed to colds or sinuses.

“Has anyone been here but me today? Wow, you look terrible.” Madalina ushered Lianne away from the back door into the tiny kitchen. A theme of green and white ruled in the small space, colors that had been there the day Lianne moved in. If the cabinetry hadn’t been so dated, it might have been quaint and appealing. As it was, the grooved cabinet doors couldn’t be improved with layers of paint, and the checkered linoleum beneath her feet made the area seem like a half-and-half mix of the fifties and seventies.

Lianne, dirty blonde hair tied back in a messy bun, eyes rimmed red, her nose in competition with Rudolph’s, looked confused and lost. She also looked somewhat vampirish with her ultrapale skin. After another sniff she said, “Huh?”

“Anyone. Has anyone been here today? Knocking on your door, asking for me?” Madalina shivered. The dampness of her clothes sent a chill straight to her bones.

“No. No one has been here but you. Madalina, what’s going on?” Lianne frowned, pulling the snowflake blanket closer around her thin body.

“Good. If anyone
does
come to the door asking for me, tell them I’m not here and you haven’t seen me for days. As far as you know, I’m still in Vegas.” Madalina pulled Lianne gently through a short hallway into the living room. The tapestry furniture was quaint, at least, with plump cushions and little accent pillows sporting a whimsical fringe. A television stood against the wall, and a love seat sat adjacent to the sofa, the only two pieces of furniture that would fit in the tight confines.

Madalina released Lianne and went to the front window to peer out. She saw nothing suspicious.
Yet.

“You’re not acting like you,” Lianne stated, standing in the place Madalina had left her.

Turning from the window, Madalina said, “I know. I’ll explain in a minute. First, do you have anything that will fit me? I’ve
got
to get out of these wet clothes.” She didn’t want to consider that she’d been in them for more than a day, a hideous crime in her book.

“I’ve probably got . . . something.” Lianne sniffled and led Madalina down another short hallway. The old home had two bedrooms, one an overflow for Lianne’s clothes, the other the master bedroom. Lianne turned into the converted bedroom and snapped on the light. Clothing racks lined each wall, and two more stood in the middle, stuffed to the gills with shirts, pants, shorts, skirts, dresses, and jumpers. The problem wasn’t the amount of clothes, but the sizes. Lianne was the narrow greyhound type, with little to nothing up top, where Madalina had that damnable fifteen extra pounds loitering around her hips and thighs. She also had an ample bust, which might make some of the shirts a little more snug than she preferred.

Helping herself to the racks, she started pawing through a section of pants, listening for sounds from the front of the house that would alert her to trouble.

“I need something stretchy, probably, because your size-zero jeans won’t even fit one of my legs,” Madalina said. Focusing on something dry to wear didn’t take her mind off of the accident and the agents. Off of Cole. She didn’t know whether he was alive or dead, and couldn’t call even if she wanted to because she still hadn’t exchanged numbers with him.

For the next ten minutes, while hurriedly shuffling through myriad articles of clothing, looking for something that fit, Madalina explained the entire situation. Everything from the near-abduction in Vegas to the minutes before arriving at Lianne’s back door. Sometimes the words seemed incredible, impossible, as if she was describing an event that had happened to someone else. Lianne expressed shock, outrage, horror. All of the emotions Madalina had herself experienced. In the telling, Madalina relived each scenario until, by the end, her fingertips trembled as much as her voice did.

“So, what are you going to do about this Cole guy? Does he know where to find you?” Lianne asked.

“He has no idea where I am. I’m sure he realizes by now—if he’s still alive—that I didn’t leave on my own. But there are no clues to lead him here.”

“You think these men, these agents, might have killed him?”

Madalina felt nauseated by the thought of Cole lying dead in her parents’ house. “I have to at least accept that it’s a possibility. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up trying to find him. He’s tough, and he knows how to fight.”

“I’ll help you look. And you know without me saying so that you’re welcome to crash here as long as you need to.”

“Thanks. We’ll start searching after my shower.” Madalina raided a box of unopened undergarments destined for the boutique and took those, along with her clothes, into the bathroom.

She spent exactly four minutes in the shower. Using a fluffy purple towel, she patted her skin dry afterward and wasted no time donning new clothes. The black riding pants were a little snug, but she got them buttoned and zipped without too much trouble. After sliding into a bra and a burgundy-colored shirt, she hijacked Lianne’s blow-dryer and used it on her hair until her scalp tingled and the strands were dry. Coming down off the adrenaline rush, she felt the effects of the accident more acutely. Mostly aches and soreness, maybe a bruise on her ankle. She’d been luckier in the accident than tackling the fence. The abrasion on her forearm and ribs hurt, but was nothing she couldn’t handle.

Lianne had left a new pair of socks outside the door, on top of Madalina’s knee-high boots. The thick socks felt like heaven on Madalina’s aching feet. She left the boots outside in the hallway and padded into the living room.

Curled on the love seat, Lianne studied the small dragon from different angles, pausing once to blow her nose before resuming her inspection.

“I just don’t see it,” Lianne said. “I don’t know why anyone would want this thing unless it had nostalgia attached to it, like your grandpa passing it down to you.”

Madalina crossed the living room to peer at the dragon. The beady red eye stared back. She’d examined the thing before, after finding it in the safe deposit box, and saw nothing new or exciting to make her think a trove of Chinese men would kill to have it.

“I don’t either, Lianne. I have to be honest—I’m not sure that this dragon is what they’re after at all. What else they could want, I don’t know.” Leaving the dragon in Lianne’s care, Madalina went to look out the window. The rain still fell, as if it might never stop, making it seem a lot later in the afternoon than it actually was.

She didn’t see anything that raised the hair on the back of her neck. Not satisfied, she passed through the kitchen to a back window and scanned the yard.

The gate was closed, the yard empty of skulking bodies.

After a moment Madalina said, “Can I borrow a pair of tennis shoes? I need something I can move quickly in. The boots were good for the weather, but they’re not made for vaulting fences and running long distances.”

“Did you change your mind about searching for Cole?” Lianne asked.

“Not at all. But if I’ve learned anything with all this, it’s that I need to be prepared to move fast at any given second. I don’t want to have to waste time finding sneakers if someone, God forbid, shows up at the door.” After a thoughtful pause, she added, “Actually, I’m not really sure I should be here. I know you’ve offered me shelter and I don’t have anywhere else to go right now, but I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

Lianne made a dismissive motion with her hand. “You’d do the same for me. In fact—you would
insist
that I stay. My name isn’t on the lease at the boutique, so the only way these people would find me is if they can track your cell-phone calls. Or if they’d been watching and following you, and if
that
was the case, they would have already shown up at the door. Check my closet for the tennis shoes. You can have any pair you want.”

“Thanks.” Madalina realized Lianne was right. She
would
offer Lianne shelter, no matter the danger. When Lianne seemed reluctant to set the dragon on the end table, Madalina held out her hand. “Here, I’ll take it.”

“While you’re in there, take some cash out of my jewelry box. Don’t argue,” Lianne said, placing the dragon in Madalina’s palm.

“I can’t—”

“You can, and you will. Just in case.”

“All right. Remember, if anyone knocks, don’t answer. At this point, I think that’s the best way to handle it.” Madalina retreated to Lianne’s bedroom.

She fetched a pair of tennis shoes and two hundred dollars from Lianne’s jewelry box. The rest of the room was all quilts and pretty wallpaper and an ornate headboard attached to a double bed. Madalina remembered picking up the headboard at a flea market with Lianne and spending two entire weekends sanding it down and painting it off-white. Then they’d added some distressed effects for extra character. As she drew the shoes on her feet, she marveled at how complicated her life had seemed then, trying to manage a full-time business and a few employees. It was nothing compared to being on the run from strangers who would do almost anything to pluck you out of your safe, cozy existence into the world of the unknown.

She wondered as she pocketed the money if she would be the same after this. If “regular” life would seem boring and uneventful—and wasn’t that an odd thought. She would do backflips if she never saw the Chinese men again. All she wanted was peace and quiet and her life back to the routine she’d carved out over the last several years. She’d been driven and determined to make a success out of her own business. Meeting Lianne at an old secretarial job, she’d discovered someone as passionate about clothing as she was, and before long, they’d decided to go in on the store together. Success hadn’t come as easy as they’d hoped, but they worked hard and invested back into the company on a regular basis.

Nothing about that life had been boring or uneventful, she reminded herself. She certainly didn’t want to continue to be on the run, being hunted, never feeling safe anywhere again.

Perplexed by her thoughts, she carried the dragon to the living room. Concern for Cole quickened her step. She was determined to find out something—
anything
—regarding his whereabouts and well-being.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

B
athed in the glow of the computer screen, sitting next to Lianne at the small kitchen table, Madalina rubbed her eyelids and exhaled a long breath. An hour of searching for Cole West on the Internet had turned up exactly nothing. She had scoured online directories and every social media site she could think of, all to no avail. Every Cole West she found was in the wrong state, had the wrong picture attached to the profile, or didn’t fit the criteria for the Cole West she knew. Too young, too old, wrong profession. Stumped and frustrated, she and Lianne had turned to the dragon, with equally dismal results. There were alabaster dragons, jade dragons, paper dragons, onyx dragons, and stone dragons. In the thousands of images, nothing remotely resembled the rough-hewn specimen sitting on the table next to Madalina’s elbow. Most of the dragons they viewed were ten times more elaborate or better carved or just plain more attractive.

Madalina, with an empty soup bowl sitting beside her laptop, rubbed her stinging eyelids a final time and dropped her hands to her lap. She glanced at Lianne, who appeared to exist in a twilight state, mouth partly open, head tilted back while she snored. Three hours of relentless searching and a dose of cold medicine had taken their toll.

A short time later, another storm rolled in, bringing fresh booms of thunder, streaks of lightning, and more rain. Flickering lights prompted Madalina to wake Lianne. They unearthed two flashlights and extra batteries, just in case the power went out. Darkness had fallen sometime ago, adding a deeper layer of gloom both inside and outside the house. Gathering the soup bowls from their quick, impromptu dinner, Madalina took them to the sink for a brief wash and rinse. Inevitably, her thoughts turned to Cole. As she meticulously wiped down the counter, she thought about what she would do if her attempts to locate him failed. As she saw it, her options were few: go to the police, go on the run, or confront the Chinese agents. None were especially pleasing. She lacked the skill to maneuver her way around a meeting with people whose true motive and intent were beyond her understanding.

“We should keep looking,” Lianne said. She had returned to the chair at the table, snowflake blanket wrapped around her torso. Curling a leg beneath her, she snatched a tissue from a nearby box and noisily blew her nose.

“I intend to,” Madalina replied. “I’ve been considering my options and thinking about alternate plans.”

“You should just give the agents the dragon. I’m inclined to agree with your Cole friend. I think this is the best explanation. I mean—you don’t have anything that’s come into your possession that someone could want. Unless it’s something else entirely, but then why shred your house to pieces? If all they wanted was information, they wouldn’t need to so thoroughly trash your place. Right?”

“The dragon makes the most sense. But I worry that we’re not looking at the issue from all angles, that we’re missing some critical clue. If I make myself easy to find and it’s
not
the dragon, then I’m in serious trouble.” Madalina folded the towel and laid it on the countertop.

“Honestly, Madalina, you’re in serious trouble now,” Lianne pointed out. “You can’t go home, can’t go to your parents’ house, don’t have the keys to your car, don’t have your credit cards, no phone—”

“My phone!” Madalina said, struck with an epiphany.

“What about your phone? You said Cole still has it.”

“He does—and that’s the point. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. We can use your phone to call my cell. He can’t read texts or call out because it’s password protected, but he
can
receive incoming calls. As long as he’s nearby, he should be able to answer.” Struck by an optimistic surge of hope and excitement, she crossed to the table and snatched up Lianne’s cell phone.

“The cold medicine. That’s why I didn’t think of it before now,” Lianne joked, although her gaze was serious and steady on Madalina.

“He’ll answer. He has to answer.” Madalina refused to consider that Cole had succumbed to an attack. He was alive and well and probably searching as hard for her as she searched for him. The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. It went to voice mail, much to Madalina’s dismay. She left a message anyway. “Cole, it’s me. I’m at—” She paused, suffering through a moment of paranoia. What if the agents had access to her cell phone and were listening in? If she gave Cole her whereabouts, someone other than him might show up first. “I’ve been trying to find you. Call this number back if by some miracle you get this message.”

“Damn,” Lianne said. “You should call back. Maybe he was away from the phone and couldn’t get to it that time.”

Madalina called again. And again. After the fourth try, she hung up and set Lianne’s phone on the table. “I’ll try in an hour.”

“Let’s start cold-calling some of these Cole Wests in the online white pages,” Lianne suggested.

Filled with leftover adrenaline after the failed phone call, Madalina paced to the front window and scanned what she could see of Lianne’s yard. She considered the suggestion of cold calls. “That’s a shot in the dark, for sure.”

“But one of them
might
be him. Then you can hook up, and he can help you figure all of this out.”

“It’s better than doing nothing.” Madalina retraced her steps to the chair. “If we haven’t made any kind of contact by morning, though, I’m going to the police. I don’t see that I have any other choice. Danger or no danger, I can’t do this on my own.”

“I’ll take you to your house in the morning. We’ll drive up and down the street to make sure the agents see us, then you’ll get out, take the dragon to the porch, and leave it there in plain sight. You can point and gesture and shout ‘
dragon, dragon!
’ and then we’ll tear out of there while they’re distracted.”

Madalina laughed. “The Kamikaze Twins. Sure. Because they won’t think to memorize your license plate or follow us after making such a grand show. I’m sure they’d love to come to tea and chat awhile, too.”

Lianne coughed a laugh. “Maybe they’d like a tour of Casa Lianne while they’re at it.”

Madalina’s bubble of mirth fizzled when the lights went out.

Instinctively Madalina’s muscles tightened. The interior of Casa Lianne had been doused into complete darkness without the benefit of the streetlights spilling in through the crevices of the blinds.

Madalina’s eyes adjusted to the change so that she was able to make out the vague shadows of furniture and the shape of Lianne curled in her chair.

“Well, that’s unpleasant.” Lianne snapped on a flashlight. She aimed the beam around the house, as if worried someone had managed to slip inside during the first few seconds of the blackout.

“Of
course
, that would happen tonight. When has it ever rained this much, for this long?” Madalina enjoyed rain—to a point. Now it just wasn’t funny any longer. The deluge hadn’t let up all day.

“It’s been a while. Here.” Lianne turned on the other flashlight and handed it to Madalina.

“Thanks.” Madalina palmed the cold metal handle and directed the beam through the living room, then the kitchen. She wasn’t sure what she expected to see. Rising from the chair, she angled the light down the hallway.

“Want me to get you some pajamas? Looks like we’re going to have to read by candlelight or go to sleep early. Or watch the storm out the front window.”

“I’ll just sleep like this.” Madalina wasn’t just sore from the accident; she was internally jittery. Anxious. Never knowing when she might have unexpected company kept her on edge. She couldn’t really relax, couldn’t get totally comfortable. Sleep was probably out of the question.

“In your clothes? Even the shoes?” Lianne asked, passing by like a ghost in a graveyard. The ends of the blanket trailed on the floor.

“Even the shoes. I can’t help it. I don’t trust that they won’t show up here as suddenly as they did at Mom and Dad’s.” Madalina followed Lianne to the living room and sank down into a corner of the long couch. To conserve battery power, she shut off the flashlight.

“I wish I could tell you that it’ll all be okay and that you’re safe here,” Lianne said in a quiet voice after she’d switched off her own flashlight. “I have no idea what you’re mixed up in, Mad, but it’s got you on edge in ways I’ve never seen. Whatever else happens, I hope it doesn’t have a lasting effect on you.”

In just as quiet a voice, Madalina replied, “I think it’s already too late for that.”