It was dark by the time Sue dropped her off at the car rental agency. Nicole—still wearing her sunglasses and Sue’s hat—waved goodbye and carried her suitcase into the agency. Two people were already waiting in line. There was only one agent, and it took almost twenty minutes before she reached the counter.
She used the time to check email and messages. There was nothing, of course, from Reinhardt. But there was a text message from Josh. “Thinking about you. Call me.”
Nicole started to answer, then stopped. The paparazzi, and maybe others, had hacked this phone. She couldn’t reply without attracting their attention. She and Sue had stopped on the way here to get disposable phones; she’d given one to Sue, and her own was in her purse. But she didn’t want to use it to call Josh. Disposable phone to disposable phone—that was the rule if you didn’t want your number traced.
She’d have to figure out another way to let Josh know she’d be off the grid for a while. She turned off the phone and dropped it into her purse. She couldn’t use it anymore. It was too much of a liability. Even with location services turned off, it still could be used to track her. Her smart phone was essential in her daily life. She was always in touch, aware of the latest headlines. Most of all, she loved the way it gave her access to the web and immediate answers to just about any question. She was going to miss it.
At last Nicole made her way to the counter. More waiting for the paperwork to be filled out, then printed. Finally, she was handed two keys on a ring and the number of the parking space of the car Sue had reserved for her. It was at the back of the lot under a yellow sign that said HERTZ PRESTIGE COLLECTION. Somewhat to her astonishment, it was a sleek silver Mercedes sedan, not exactly the sort of car that would easily blend in. Besides, it occurred to her that the rental agency and others with an interest in her whereabouts would be able to track her through the vehicle’s GPS.
She went back to the office, where three people were now waiting in line. She told the agent she’d changed her mind and put the keys on the counter. He asked her to wait—gesturing toward the line—because she’d have to sign some forms. Remembering how long it had taken for him to process the rental in the first place, she said, “No thanks,” and walked out of the agency, ignoring his shouts of protest.
She headed toward the nearest bus stop, several blocks away. It was starting to get dark. Passing a convenience store, she noticed two pay phones on the wall outside. She had to call Josh, and here was her chance. She went to the first phone and picked up the receiver. It was dead, but the second one had a dial tone. She got out her coin purse, fed in three quarters, and punched in his number.
“Hello?” he said, somewhat uncertainly.
“It’s me,” she said.
“Oh, you!” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Hey, where are you? I don’t recognize the number.”
“I’m at a pay phone.”
“I didn’t know they had those anymore.”
“I didn’t either,” she said. “Listen, I said I’d call, so here I am. I had to turn off my cell because the tabloids hacked it. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be out of touch, without a phone, for a bit.”
“Hey, I read those stories,” he said. “You’re not—”
He was interrupted by a woman’s recorded voice, saying, “To continue with this call, please deposit seventy-five cents.”
“I’m out of quarters,” Nicole said. The phone went silent.
She hung up. It rang almost immediately, and she picked it up.
“I saw the number on caller ID,” Josh said. “As I was saying, I read today’s stories. You aren’t—I mean, are you going off to meet that English guy who was in that photo with you? Is he the one you had a relationship with?”
She could tell he was jealous and trying not to be a jerk about it. “No. I’m not seeing him. A lot of what the tabloids are saying is a distortion of the truth,” she went on, “but I was involved with him, and he did stand me up. He hasn’t contacted me since. I’m done with him.”
“Good,” Josh said. “Come stay with me. Tell me where you are, and I’ll pick you up. Without a cell phone, you’ll be off the grid. You can keep out of sight, and no one would ever guess where you are.”
She was quiet a moment, thinking how nice that would be—if only it were that simple.
“Look,” she answered, “there’s something I have to do.” She was choosing her words carefully. “And—well, it’s complicated. I don’t want to drag anyone else into it.”
“It’s about the guy who was murdered, isn’t it?” he said.
When she didn’t answer, he said, “Hey, that guy was mixed up with some very dangerous people. Nicole, you’re scaring me.”
She tried to think of a way to reassure him. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you any more than that. I promise I won’t put myself in danger. I’m going to say goodbye now. It will just be a day or two. The minute I’m done, I’ll call you. I promise.”
She could hear him protesting as she hung up the phone. She began walking toward the bus stop. Behind her, the phone was ringing again. She walked faster, sorry she’d upset him. But she did have a plan. It wouldn’t take long, and once she’d taken care of it, she’d call him.
As she reached the corner, one of the big blue buses that ran along Pico Boulevard appeared. She climbed on and paid the fare; it hauled her through a slightly seedy area of small storefront shops, some vacant, others occupied with marginal businesses that were so bereft of customers she wondered if they might be money-laundering operations.
Next, the bus entered a strip of more prosperous establishments bordering Beverly Hills. This ran through a residential neighborhood mainly occupied by orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jews. She looked out the window as the bus passed delicatessens, kosher eateries, and markets, mixed with various other businesses that served the area’s thriving population. Onward they moved along the congested street, stopping and starting, toward Santa Monica.
It struck her now, in a way that it never did when she was driving, how empty the sidewalks were. Occasionally, she’d spot an elderly man or woman in a motorized wheelchair, tooling across a street, up the specially-designed curb, and along the sidewalk. But, while auto traffic was dense, pedestrians were few. From her own experience, she knew that walking—even in her own relatively safe neighborhood—was problematic.
Although she did her running on a treadmill at the gym, Nicole had to walk her dog in the neighborhood surrounding her condo. Almost invariably she’d find herself being panhandled by one of the homeless—usually male, but sometimes female—who camped on the sidewalks and in storefront doorways. Sometimes she’d cross the street to avoid an obviously deranged person who was screaming or making menacing gestures at passersby. And there was also the issue of the Westside’s hyper-aggressive drivers who had no intention of stopping for pedestrians.
Spotting the freeway overpass ahead, she pulled the cord for the bus to stop. She knew exactly where she was headed. The Rent-a-Wreck auto agency was now a nationwide franchise. As a girl, she’d been aware of it as the one-of-a-kind brainchild of a freethinking entrepreneur. He’d built a steady business by renting cars that really did look like wrecks—old, dented and dirty but usually perfectly drivable. It was rumored that movie stars and other famous people rented them because of the anonymity they afforded. In the agency’s heyday, Marlon Brando was said to be a regular customer.
Rent-a-Wreck had come a long way since then. It now rented cars that were just a few years old and in pretty good shape. What made the agency attractive to Nicole was that they accepted cash customers, while major brands like Hertz and Avis demanded credit cards. She went in, produced her driver’s license, and put down a $350 deposit and a week’s advance rental in cash. She left in a nondescript three-year-old beige Toyota and drove a mile east to a Best Western motel. It was on Sepulveda, a wide boulevard of commercial ugliness lined with cracked sidewalks and palm trees. The motel or inn, as it was called, occupied several clunky-looking white buildings in the middle of a block of cracker-box apartment houses.
She checked in, again using cash, and was surprised by the hefty room rate—almost $200 a night. But the place was nicer inside than it appeared from the street, with a swimming pool, gym, and free Wi-Fi. Her room was attractive with yellow walls, soft lighting, and a comfy-looking, king-sized bed. The clock on the nightstand said it was 7:30 p.m. She hadn’t had dinner but was too exhausted to feel hungry; she lay down and promptly fell asleep.
Nicole awoke at 7:00 a.m., her stomach growling in protest at the missed dinner. Checking in, she’d noticed a sign in the lobby announcing that a full breakfast, included with the room, was available from 6:30 a.m. until 9:30 a.m. She brushed her teeth, pulled on her clothes, ran her fingers through her hair, and went down to the tiny dining room. The only other people there were an elderly Asian couple who looked up briefly when she walked in, then focused back on their meal. At the breakfast buffet, she served herself scrambled eggs and bacon, then popped a slice of bread into the toaster and poured herself a cup of coffee. The food was lukewarm and tasteless, but she was so hungry she went back for seconds.
Back in her room, Nicole made more coffee in a small automatic coffee maker stationed on a counter outside the bathroom. Then she got out the envelope Freeman had given her and sat down at the desk to go over its contents more carefully. She’d noticed before that Robert’s notes about his house seemed to mainly be an inventory of its furnishings and their cost. His handwriting was small and sketchy, written in pencil, and a bit hard to make out. Robert was a great one for pencils. He was the only person she knew who preferred to write by hand and kept a container of sharp pencils on his desk. On the other hand, he was a whiz with the computer and seemed to know a lot about programming and how to hack into other people’s computers.
As she leafed through the pages, the words safe room jumped out at her. She did a double take, then turned back to the gridded rendering of his floor plan. Sure enough, between the two bedrooms was a room marked SR.
Of course he’d have a safe room, she thought. He had good reason to be paranoid. And he was a secretive person—that was the defining characteristic of his personality. The safe room was probably where he’d keep his computer.
She turned back to the page of descriptions. And there it was: “How to open SR.” The room was behind a wall of bookshelves in the master bedroom. The button that made the wall swing open was hidden behind the molding around the bookcase. It was located on the bottom shelf near the fireplace. The note cautioned that anyone entering the room had to stand back because the bookcase swung outward when it opened. It gave instructions for securing the safe room from inside, so no one else could enter. It also noted that the walls were reinforced with half-inch steel and were bullet proof.
She read the rest of the inventory and instructions for the house’s many features: the garbage compactor (this stopped her for a moment while she considered whether people really used trash compactors in this era of recycling), controls for the home theater, and the password and instructions for the security system. But the safe room was what interested her. If her theory was right, and the computer was in the safe room, neither the police nor the killer could have found it without these instructions.
Originally, her plan had been to drive up to Robert’s cabin and see if his computer was there. But now she realized it might be a lot easier than that. If the computer was in his safe room, all she had to do was go up to his house. She could check it out, copy his computer files, and be back in a single day. More than a week had passed since Robert’s murder, and she was fairly certain his house would no longer be taped off as a crime scene. Even if it was, it wouldn’t be guarded at this point. She had the key, and besides she was—while not quite the owner—heir to it. She’d hardly be trespassing.
First she had to figure out a way to get into the house without attracting notice. She couldn’t enter by the front door because someone might see her. She remembered the broken surveillance camera. Had the police fixed it? Were they keeping an eye on the house? She got out her iPad and opened a map in “earth view” to get a look at the streets surrounding Robert’s house. It appeared that the property could be reached through an empty lot on the street below. She studied the map. There was no indication of how steep the hill might be. She figured it would be possible—though perhaps a bit of a hike, given the area’s hilly terrain—to climb up to Robert’s rear fence. She was fairly certain she’d noticed a gate in that fence the day she went to his house and found his body. She also had to assume that one of the house keys in the envelope would open the gate, which was certain to be locked.
Before she did anything, she had to make herself not just unrecognizable but able to fade into the background, so ordinary-looking that no one would notice her or remember she was there. Putting on Sue’s floppy black hat and sunglasses, she glanced in the mirror. The hat and glasses were completely over the top, certain to draw attention. The disguise Sue had rigged up made her look like a celebrity trying—not very hard—to avoid the paparazzi or at least prevent them from catching her without makeup.
She went down to the parking area, got her car, and drove less than a half mile to a discount store to find a more appropriate outfit. She picked out a long silk scarf, a pair of jeans, and tennis shoes. Then, in the men’s department she found a T-shirt and a beige windbreaker, both large enough to pretty much hide her figure. Finally, she chose a backpack and a gray baseball cap. She made sure the cap was adjustable. In the hardware department, she picked up a small but powerful flashlight with an adjustable beam.
This accomplished, Nicole returned to her car and drove two blocks to a big-box discount store. She bought a couple of flash drives so she’d be able to copy Robert’s files if she did find his computer. Along with these, she chose a connector that would allow her to use the flashdrives on her iPad, since she didn’t have access to a computer. She also bought another disposable phone like the one she’d gotten for Sue and herself.
She arranged for the store to send it—same-day delivery—to Stephanie, checking the box on the delivery form requiring a signature. She didn’t want it falling into the wrong hands. She enclosed a gift card, with her disposable phone’s number, explaining to Stephanie that she’d be gone a couple of days, that the phone was for emergencies only, and no one else should know about it. She paid cash for everything.
By now it was 1:00 p.m. She hadn’t eaten lunch, and she was hungry. But she couldn’t possibly make an appearance in one of the area’s casual eateries in her celebrity headgear. She headed back to the motel to change. Her first step was to wrap the long silk scarf she’d bought around her chest to flatten her figure. Then she put on her new jeans, T-shirt and the windbreaker. As a final touch, she tucked her hair into the baseball cap.
She found a full-length mirror on the back of the closet door and was so surprised by her reflection that she laughed out loud. She looked like a teenage boy, except that she was wearing lipstick. She went into the bathroom and used a washcloth to scrub it off.
She took the pouch with the diamond ring out of Robert’s envelope and put it, along with the cash Sue had given her and her cell phone, in an almost hidden, zippered compartment inside the backpack. Next, she put in her disposable phone, the flashlight, Sue’s gun, her iPad, and Robert’s envelope with the information about his houses. On top of everything else, she put the newly purchased flash drives, and other essentials she carried in her purse. No sense leaving this stuff in a motel room. Then she went down to her car and once more drove a few blocks to a strip mall with several fast-food restaurants. She chose Mexican and ordered fajitas and a Coke. It was 2:00 p.m. by the time she was on her way to Robert’s house.