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Monday, May 30
Austin, Texas
After Jose left, Pilar slept a couple of hours. When the alarm clock on the bedside table went off, she awoke somewhat refreshed and headed for the shower.
José had left a duffel filled with toiletries along with the tuxedo and shoes she was to wear this evening.
She showered, applied minimal makeup, and styled her hair into a tight bun at the base of her neck to keep it out of the way.
The tuxedo fit perfectly. It was a bit too large, which enabled her to conceal her balisong in the right pocket and the gun tucked into the waistband at the small of her back.
The surgical gloves rested in her jacket pocket along with the fresh white gloves she would wear over the latex.
She examined herself in the mirror from all angles to be sure she looked presentable and unarmed. Pilar wasn’t worried about getting past security at the event. José had assured her he’d already taken care of that.
As instructed, she collected everything they’d brought into the motel room and stuffed it into José’s duffel. She picked up both bags, hers and the one José had left, and carried them to the car, allowing the door to lock behind her.
The small silver sedan was parked at the curb in front of her doorway. It was a late model foreign something manufactured somewhere in Asia. Virtually indistinguishable from the thousands of economy vehicles just like it on the roads in and around Austin.
She opened the passenger door and grabbed the keys from under the floor mat, as José instructed. She unlocked the trunk. Inside was a small cooler. She opened the lid to confirm that the serving tray and the weapon were present and secure.
Then she tossed both duffel bags inside before slamming the trunk closed.
So far, so good.
She settled into the driver’s seat and adjusted the mirrors and spent a moment scanning the dashboard features.
She was pleased to find icons instead of words on all the knobs and buttons.
Some of the symbols were confusing. Pilar was a native Spanish speaker. She spoke English reasonably well and she could read the language. But anything remotely Asian was beyond her abilities. She’d make her best guess and hope it worked out okay.
Pilar inserted the key into the ignition and started the engine.
The little sedan fired up immediately, its engine purring quietly in the background. Darkness had fallen while she’d been inside. She found the switch to activate the headlights.
A moment later, she located and punched the GPS button.
Two routes had been saved in the memory. The second was the meetup location for later, after the job was completed.
The first was the route to the fancy estate located out in the middle of nowhere. The fundraiser would be held there. Estimated travel time to the Lake Archer home was forty-five minutes.
José told her that everything had been carefully choreographed. He’d warned her to stay within the planned times for things like travel to and from the estate.
She drove the speed limit. The last thing she needed was to get stopped by some cop seeking a date for the night.
Pilar left the outskirts of Austin and drove into dry, hilly land. If there were homes and shops and people out here, they were well hidden from her view. Texas was a big state and there was lots of unoccupied land between the cities and towns.
Briefly she wondered what she’d do if she had car trouble. She could be stuck out here indefinitely waiting for rescue.
Fifty minutes later, Pilar arrived at the long driveway in front of a fenced and gated estate. Before yesterday, she had never entered a gated property in her life. She shook her head in wonder.
“Pilar Inez Mendoza,” she whispered aloud. “You are one lucky woman.”
The Double C Ranch might have been a working ranch at one time, but not anymore. Now, it was a luxury estate, complete with all the attributes of quality and wealth.
The house itself was set back half a mile from the road. Pilar couldn’t see it yet.
Manicured lawns were enclosed by a decorative wrought iron fence running a couple of miles in all directions. The ornate iron work surrounding the iron gate was impressive.
More problematic were the cameras mounted to secure constant CCTV footage of all vehicles passing through the entrance and the exit.
Pilar pulled up to the well-lit gatehouse, which was manned by a single security guard. He stepped out of the guard shack and approached the sedan. Pilar lowered the window.
“Show me your ID please,” he said in one of those drawls that could have come right out of an old Western film.
“Sure,” Pilar said, handing over the name badge José provided.
He took a quick glance at the badge and ducked to take a look inside the vehicle. “Drive straight up to the house. Park around back.”
“Understood,” she said.
He nodded, handed her badge back, and returned to the guard shack. A moment later, the big iron gates moved slowly. José had warned her about the guard and the gate. She’d need to pass through here after her work was completed.
As the gates swept open, Pilar counted the seconds. At the full ten-second mark, the gates reached a point where she could easily drive the sedan through the gap on the way out. But ten seconds seemed like an eternity.
Any competent guard should be able to stop her in ten seconds or less. Unless she stopped him first.
Pilar patted the pistol resting in her pocket. Nothing she could do about the setup. One way in, one way out. She’d escape, one way or another.
She waited another ten seconds until the gates were open wide and the guard waved her past. She lifted her foot from the brake and accelerated slowly along the drive.
As she rounded the first big curve, the residence came into full view. The videos José had shown her of the twenty-five-acre waterfront estate proved totally inadequate. The sight took her breath away.
For a moment, she panicked. How would she ever find Emily Brandon inside this overwhelmingly huge mansion? Her breath came in rapid gasps. The edges of her vision blackened.
“Don’t hyperventilate. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe,” she coached herself until she regained control. “It’ll be okay. You’ll find her. She’ll be right where José said she’d be. He hasn’t been wrong yet, has he?”
When her hands stopped shaking, Pilar drove the sedan around to the back of the house where the catering trucks had dropped off supplies. Catering staff had set up the event hours ago.
As planned, Pilar was late. The gala was already in full swing.
She reversed the sedan into her assigned parking space and parked the car. She took a few deep breaths.
“Here we go,” she said quietly.
When she opened the car door, she heard music from a live orchestra traveling from the wide back verandah where guests were mingling in the pleasantly warm evening.
She walked around to the trunk and used the key to open it. She returned to the front seat and replaced the key in the ignition, where it would be ready. The last thing she needed was to waste time searching for the key when she rushed back here after the job was done.
Pilar reached into her pocket and pulled out the surgical gloves. She pulled them onto her slender fingers. Next, she reached into the trunk, opened the cooler, and pulled the tray and the stuffed date from inside.
Both the tray and the appetizer were enclosed in plastic bags. “José wasn’t kidding about not touching this thing,” she murmured.
She closed the trunk. The parking lot was full, but there were no people out here. Still, she didn’t want to drop the damned fruit onto the ground.
“Just carry both to the back door and put the fruit on the tray when you get inside,” she said, impatient with herself.
Pilar made her way to the entrance and slipped inside.