She thought of Christopher Thomas and of all the promise that once came with being connected to him and of how none of it had panned out. Damn it, she’d played her part and played it well, helped him move the artworks he so carefully pilfered from the museum and sold overseas. She was supposed to have made real money, been living in splendor. Didn’t she deserve better than this?
Haile turned away from the bar and shut her eyes.
She’d fled after Christopher’s murder, had to lie low so she wouldn’t be connected to the thefts she’d helped broker.
And now here she was, up to her old tricks, trying to scratch out a living as a cheap pickpocket, or worse.
She took a deep breath, checked her watch. It was only four o’clock, a little early. As she had expected, few drinkers sat at the small tables and no one was at the bar. Good. She headed toward it, her destination in any case. Behind the crescent-shaped cherrywood bar stood the barkeep in tidy black trousers, a neat short-sleeved, white shirt, and a knowing grin. He had seen it all, but he liked what he saw, so he allowed the grin to stay and deepen into something real as she approached. He was of medium height, about five foot ten, and athletic looking. She watched the muscles on his forearms cord as he grabbed glasses on the bar and efficiently arranged them.
She smiled back and settled onto a barstool and ordered a drink. She needed to steady herself for what lay ahead.
She downed the drink, stood up, and walked lightly away, back to the lobby, through the carefree tourists crowd returning from golf and sailing and shopping in the galleries and antique shops of Half Moon Bay. Must breathe. Breathe.
She laser-locked on the bulge in the front pocket of a man’s pricey white tennis shirt, to her right. Pulling a copy of People magazine from her shoulder bag, she stumbled and fell into him, pressing the magazine flat against his fleshy chest with one hand while under it her other hand performed an expert dip.
“I’m so sorry!” She smiled sweetly, her hips pressed against him longer than necessary.
He grinned, enjoying it. “No problem…”
Still smiling, she let his wallet fall into her shoulder bag and moved on. She dipped a Rolex from an unzippered fanny pack, a stray iPhone from an end table, and another wallet, from a hip pocket. Not bad for a few minutes of work. But then, the scent of wealth was tactile here. The men’s eyes were avaricious. Once she would have reveled in all of this. She had not known any better, and that had given her tremendous power. But not now.
Haile was staying at the El Toro Motel, a two-story, red-tile-roof affair that looked more expensive than it was. She parked under a pepper tree and climbed the outdoor staircase-fake wrought iron that wobbled against the stucco building.
Sighing wearily, she unlocked the door to her room. She longed for a hot bath and her old jeans. Then she would decide what to do next. Cracking open the door, she watched the key-size receiver in her hand. It flashed hot red. She jerked up her head. Someone had been in her room. Maybe still was. Not the maid, because she had put a hold on housekeeping services. The flashing light was triggered by a pressure reader, thin as paper, the size of a dime, she had stuck low on the inside of the door where it would close against the jamb. The first time someone opened the door, there was no flash. There should be no flash now. So this was the second time, or third, or more.
Staying calm, she pocketed the reader and inched open the door, making no noise-she had oiled the hinges when she checked in. The long rays of the afternoon sun painted a golden rectangle into the room, leaving the rest in uneven shadows.
The closet was closest. A glass oval was in the door. She peered through. She had hung no clothes. The closet was empty. The door to the bathroom was closed.
14 Andrew F. Gulli
I knew you were bound to turn up,” the voice of a man said.
Her heart skipped a beat-there was no turning back now. She stood for a moment between the bathroom and the closet.
“Come in, Haile,” the man’s voice went on.
She stepped inside and saw a man seated at the desk. It took her a while to recognize him-Jon Nunn, the detective who’d questioned her years ago about Christopher’s disappearance.
She was actually relieved. Nunn had gone off his rocker; he wasn’t a danger to anyone but himself. “What’re you doing in my room? I’m calling the police.”
Nunn laughed. “Yeah, you do that, sweetheart, and while you’re at it, you might want to tell them about that stolen Rolex in your handbag.”
How would he know? Her mind was working furiously.
“What do you want?” She tried to keep her voice calm.
“Sit down, make yourself comfortable.” He gestured to the bed.
She sat down and said nothing. She looked at his face and noticed how he’d aged since she’d seen him last. His eyes looked tired and puffy, and the lines between his eyebrows had grown deeper.
“I’ve been tracking you for a while,” Nunn said. “Larceny, confidence games, all that good stuff you’ve been up to.”
“What do you want with me?” Haile could hear her voice shaking.
“I still have some questions about your dead lover, Christopher Thomas.”
“Are you crazy, it’s been twelve years, that’s over and done with. He’s dead; she’s dead. You can’t resurrect ghosts, Nunn.” Her mouth was dry with fear.
“It’s not ghosts I’m trying to resurrect. Anyhow, if I were in your position, I’d humor any cop-even a discredited ex-cop-who had questions for me.”
She gestured with her hands for him to continue.
“Listen,” Nunn said. “Thomas was a womanizer, but he didn’t pick just any women. They were always of a certain type-classy, well-educated girls who he could be sure would never blackmail him. Pardon the barb, but you never fit that mold. So why would he get involved with a crooked little tramp like you?”
“Was that a statement or a question?” she asked, opening a bottle of water that had now gone warm in her bag.
“Drugs?”
She didn’t say a word.
“I know enough about you so that if you don’t cooperate with me, I’ll make sure you see prison, and by the time you get out, that pretty face of yours will look like a beaten-up old tire. I may be discredited, but I still have a few friends at the SFPD.”
She tried to calm herself down. He couldn’t do anything to her. He was a washout. The case was closed.
“You know, they probably have closed-circuit cameras at the Ritz…”
“What do want to know?”
15 J. A. Jance
When Nunn left, Haile was standing in the middle of her room and looked up questioningly at her image reflected in a cheap mirror. She didn’t like what she saw. She had walked away from that long-ago life. She had done everything she could to put it behind her, but here was Nunn reopening all of it, using any compromising information he’d been able to glean about her to get her to cooperate with him. She still wasn’t sure how much he had managed to uncover about her life.
Had he been following her, watching what she did at the Ritz?
He must have. Anyhow, she couldn’t be in this room anymore. She knew that he might be waiting for her outside, but she had to get out again.
Shielding herself from view, shoulders up, head down, she hurried along the path until she reached her car.
Once she was settled in the front seat, she started the engine and punched her foot down on the accelerator.
Hang on, she advised herself. She needed to concentrate on her driving as she raced through the neighborhood as if it were a Formula 1 course. She exited the immediate neighborhood with a series of maneuvers designed to smoke out and lose any tails. She couldn’t afford to be followed.