Nicole was confident that no one would recognize her or the Rent-a-Wreck car. Even so, she kept a careful watch to be sure she wasn’t being followed. Traffic was light, and she reached the street below Robert’s in twenty minutes. There was no activity, no one in sight but a couple of gardeners tending a house on the corner. She parked at the empty lot below Robert’s and got out. The gardeners, intent on their work, weren’t looking in her direction. The hill was fairly steep, covered with tall, dry grass. She started up the hill and was soon sweating with the effort. Although she was fit from her morning runs, she wasn’t used to negotiating this much of an incline. It wasn’t long before the backs of her thighs ached with every step.
By the time she reached the fence behind Robert’s yard, her hair was drenched under her cap, sweat running down her face. She walked over to the gate and stared at it. There was no latch on the outside, but it did have a keyhole. She got out the keys and tried them. The third one fit; she turned it and heard the lock click open. She pulled, then pushed the gate, but nothing happened. She pressed her face to the bars of the fence to get a look at what was on the other side. There was a simple latch holding the gate closed, but it was almost at the top of the gate, perhaps six feet from the ground. She stepped up on the horizontal bar at the bottom of the fence and stretched out her arm. She still couldn’t reach it. She got down, foraged through her backpack, and pulled out the flashlight. After a few tries, she was able to use it to push the latch up until it disengaged, and the gate swung open.
Nicole found herself on a path leading around the reinforced terrace that supported the swimming pool. She used the house key to get in the back door. Finding herself in the laundry room, she stopped when she saw the kitchen. Pots, pans, broken dishes, and glassware were scattered all over the floor. As she made her way through, she had to be careful not to step on broken shards of china and glass.
Beneath the mess, she could see that the kitchen was beautifully designed, the floor and backsplashes in tiny turquoise tiles. There were white marble countertops and light wood cabinets with frosted glass panes. The Sub-Zero appliances included a refrigerator that looked big enough to walk around in. She opened the door, and the smell hit her. Food, spilled from containers, was rotting on the bottom of the refrigerator. The killer had overlooked nothing in his search. She quickly closed the door.
She continued through the house, picking her way through discarded objects and overturned furniture. Sometimes she had to stop and clear a path. But the mess couldn’t hide the fact that the house was truly gorgeous. The living room was gigantic, and the side of the house with a view had floor-to-ceiling windows. Wrapped around the exterior was a redwood deck. The late afternoon light, streaming in from the west, made the house seem to float above the city.
Just past the living room, she found the hall leading to Robert’s bedroom. Here, as in the rest of the house, everything had been turned upside down and tossed on the floor. Nicole immediately spotted the fireplace and bookcase he’d described in his notes. She went over and cleared furniture and books from the floor near the bookcase.
She got the envelope out of her backpack and reread the instructions for opening the safe room. She located the button behind the molding at the bottom of the bookcase, then pressed it and stepped back. Silently, the bookcase moved toward her, providing entry to the dark space beyond. She went in: The safe room was warm and smelled musty.
She felt around on the wall for a light switch but couldn’t locate it. Stepping back into the bedroom, she picked up her backpack and pulled out the flashlight. She waved the beam around the safe room until she located the light switch and turned it on. Once the light was on, the room was a disappointment: an ordinary twelve-by-twelve office with a couch, a desk and chair, some cabinets, and bookshelves. But, yes, here was Robert’s missing computer. It looked new. Next to it was a CCTV console that showed eight different views of the house fed by security cameras inside and out. One of the screens was blank, and she realized it must be connected to the camera on the carport, the broken one she’d seen when she first came looking for Robert.
With a start, she noticed the pictures on the wall. They were large, perhaps four-by-six feet, printed on canvas and framed, and they were of her. Five photos in all. There she was in her wedding dress, beaming with happiness. Brad, her ex, had been in that photo, but all traces of him were now gone. Another showed her in her late teens, looking down from the branches of a tree that stood in her parents’ backyard. It was where she used to go when she wanted to get away from the noise of her parents’ house, always overflowing with extended family and friends. That photo was in her high-school scrapbook, which she now kept in a box in the closet of her spare bedroom. Her wedding pictures were there, too. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to throw them away.
The next two pictures were more recent, and these were unfamiliar. One was of her sitting at her desk; another of her outside, walking near the office. When her gaze fell on the last one, she recoiled. It showed her standing at her bedroom mirror, trying on the filmy nightgown she’d bought for her trip to Majorca with Reinhardt, the very gown Robert had stolen. The photo was taken from behind, so it showed the back view of her, as well as the front, reflected in the mirror. She might as well have been naked.
Her face burning with outrage, she yanked it from the wall, threw it face down on the floor and stamped on it. Along with everything else, he was a peeping tom. Wait, she thought, how on earth had he taken this picture? Her condo was on the second floor, and her bedroom wasn’t positioned near the wall the paparazzi had climbed to get a view of her bathroom. Had Robert hidden a camera in her bedroom? Had he actually been there? Hiding in her closet, watching? The thought of it made her feel sick. She grabbed the remaining pictures and threw them on the floor face down.
All at once she was aware of noise outside. She went back into the living room and looked out the window. The sound was just a neighbor coming home, but it made her realize how vulnerable she was. She consulted Robert’s directions again.
She got her backpack and took it into the safe room. Then she closed and secured the door by turning three deadbolt locks, evenly spaced up the edge of the moving wall. She noticed there were four brackets on the moving wall—one on either side of the opening and two in the center—for a locking bar. She found the bar leaning against the wall. It was heavy, but she managed to lift it into place.
Consulting the instructions again, she went to the control panel next to the light switch and disabled the mechanism that opened the door. Then she turned on the air conditioner and took a look around. Aside from the other furniture, the room held a water cooler, and, on top of a small cabinet next to it, a bowl with a large assortment of energy bars.
Sitting in one corner was a square, white piece of furniture she couldn’t identify. She went over to take a closer look. It was sealed in its original plastic wrapper and bore a label reading, “Porta Potti Portable Toilet.” Clearly Robert had prepared this room in case he had to hole up in here a while.
Next, Nicole went through the desk drawers. They were empty except for the center top drawer, where she found another Swiss Army knife. He did like those, didn’t he? There were the usual office supplies: pencils, paper clips, rubber bands, a few pens. She turned on the computer and plugged in one of her flash drives. The computer asked for a password. She took another look at Robert’s instructions. He’d told her to delete his files, but hadn’t given her the password to log on to the computer. It occurred to her that perhaps he’d made it easy, something he knew she’d figure out. After a moment’s thought, she typed in Nicole. She had to enter it twice because he’d used all lowercase letters, no capital N. The computer instantly logged her in. When it was fully loaded, she could see he had quite a few files in his documents folder. She began copying them onto one of the flash drives. She didn’t bother reading them. Her goal was to copy everything, get out as quickly as possible, and read them later.
Nicole was so intent on what she was doing that she jumped when she heard a noise. It sounded like someone was walking around inside the house. She couldn’t tell because the sound was muffled by the safe room’s thick walls. Heart thumping wildly, she went to the CCTV console. One camera view showed two figures moving around. They must have closed the blinds because the room they were in was almost dark, and it was hard to make out their faces. After studying the view for a moment, she realized they were in the master bedroom, the room she’d just gone through to get into the safe room.
She looked more closely at the console itself. There was a knob under each monitor that looked like the kind used to adjust sound on old-fashioned TV sets. She turned the knob under the bedroom view. There was a click, and all at once she could hear their voices. She quickly lowered the volume. “Where do you think it is?” said a man. With a shock, she recognized the voice: It was Rick Sargosian.
A second voice, this one unfamiliar, answered, “According to the floor plan, there were originally three bedrooms. Now there are only two, so we figure he converted one of them into a safe room. It should be on the other side of this wall.”
She held her breath as they started pounding on the wall. She could hear the noise from the security console as well as the muffled sound through the wall itself.
“Does that sound hollow to you?” the second man said. “Not really,” Sargosian said. “They would have used a pretty thick wall, and a good safe room is usually reinforced with steel. I doubt it would sound hollow.
“Listen,” he went on, “about Nicole. I don’t think she knows anything. It was stupid trying to intimidate her and planting those stories about her.”
“Well, guess what?” said the other man. “He doesn’t want to take any chances. He’s put out a hit on her.”
“Holy Christ,” said Sargosian. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. The paparazzi are riveted by this story. Nicole has become a celebrity. What do you think would happen if she got murdered, too?”
“It’s not going to look like murder,” the other man said. “It’ll be arranged to look like an accident.”
“An accident? Who’s going to believe that? It’s too much of a coincidence. Think of the conspiracy theories it’ll inspire. Not just the cops, but every journalist in America will be looking into this case. Leave her alone; she’s harmless.”
“Why? You got a thing for her? It doesn’t matter. It’s all been arranged.”
“When we’re done with this,” Sargosian said, “I’m going to call Rice. I can’t believe he’d be party to this. I’m telling you—it would be a terrible mistake if anything happened to her. In fact, he should hire a bodyguard to protect her.”
“Very funny,” the other guy said. “I doubt you’re going to change his mind. The chief assigned it to one of his buddies—those guys who smoke cigars with him in the special yard he had fenced off behind headquarters. It’s probably too late already.”
Inside the safe room, Nicole had begun pacing around. Hearing them discuss the hit on her made her knees go weak, but she was too jittery to sit down. If only they’d leave, she could sneak away. But what if they somehow managed to get into the safe room? She couldn’t bring herself to imagine what would happen.
“Just tell me this,” the man was saying. “Why are you here? Things would have been a lot easier if I’d just brought my partner.”
“Because my boss doesn’t want another screw-up,” Rick said. “The media coverage of Blair’s murder is getting the firm a lot of negative publicity. And the big guy is worried it might stick to him. It was really stupid to make Robert’s death look like a mob hit. That’s what set everything off. If anyone had been thinking, they would have made that killing look like an accident. Whose idea was it?”
“How the hell do I know?” the man said. “Let’s get down to business. The button that’s supposed to open the safe room. It should be on this wall somewhere, right?”
The two disappeared from the monitor. She realized they were leaning down, inspecting the lower part of the wall and bookshelf.
“Hey, I think I found it,” said Sargosian. “So push it.”
“I am, but nothing’s happening. Maybe it’s stuck.”
She could hear them banging against the wall. The banging went on for perhaps five minutes.
“For Christ’s sake,” the unknown man finally said. “I’m going to use my gun on it. That ought to break something loose.”
“Wait,” Sargosian said. “If the wall is lined with steel, that might not—” He was interrupted by a loud bang.
“Goddamn it!” the other man shouted. “The fucking bullet bounced off. It just missed me, and it broke the button clean off. Wait! There’s a little lever inside.” He was quiet a moment, then said, “I can flip it, but nothing happens.”
Sargosian pointed his flashlight downward. “We’re going to have to get something to break through the wall,” he said.
“Yeah,” said the second man. “Pickaxes, something like that. We’ll go to the police equipment warehouse over in Van Nuys. They’ll have what we need.”
“They open at this hour?”
“Twenty-four seven.”
Nicole couldn’t see them actually leave, since the camera in the front yard was broken. Even though she wanted to get out of the safe room and run for her life, she knew she had to wait a little while before she did anything. They still might be in front, talking about what they were going to do. She decided to give it ten minutes. With shaking hands, she used the time to copy the rest of the files from the computer onto the second flash drive. When she was done, she popped both drives into her backpack, slung it over her shoulder, and went to work unlocking the door. She had to look at Robert’s instructions again to find out how to open it from inside the room. His directions told her to release the locks and then push the button under the light switch twice.
She did as instructed. The mechanism made a grinding sound, but nothing happened. She pushed it again and again. Nothing but that sound. She had a sickening realization. The bullet that hit the button on the other side of the wall must have jammed it closed. She got out Robert’s instructions again, hoping there’d be some hint about how to handle a situation like this—another exit, perhaps. But there was nothing. This was one contingency that Robert hadn’t anticipated.
Nicole thought of one last option—calling the police. She pulled the burner phone out of her purse, then hesitated. If Sargosian’s companion had access to the police equipment warehouse, did that mean he was on the force? Would he be able to hear an alert directing officers to the house?
Whatever happened she couldn’t let the two men find her when their boss wanted her dead. She tapped 911 into the cell’s keypad but nothing happened. She looked at the little screen on the phone. At the top, in tiny letters, it said “no service.” She remembered the two men discussing the steel reinforcement that usually lined safe rooms. Was the steel blocking the telephone signal, or was this part of the house a cell-phone dead zone?
Whatever the case, there was nothing more she could do. She was trapped.