Plot counterplot, p.6
Plot/Counterplot, page 6
“I want you to be just like her. Do you hear me? Just. Like. Her. Twelve hours from now—well, it won’t matter. I wish you all the best, Leilani.”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“All right, Dylan. Whatever you say.”
“Thank you. It’s been great. Really. Great.”
“Be careful, Dylan.”
“I will. Bye now.”
He hung up the phone. She would understand. But Xavier and his murderous monsters would be clueless. They’d think he’d just given her the big heave-ho.
She’d be safe before they knew she was missing.
He looked around the bedroom. Someone had cleaned up the mess—including Kane Fielding’s corpse. Leilani, he’d be willing to bet. She was sturdy enough to get the job done.
He put on some clothes, making his selections carefully, but without appearing to do anything out of the ordinary. He counted all the cash in his wallet—about a hundred dollars. Better bring credit cards. And a checkbook. Then he went to the bathroom to clean up, casually shoving a few key items into his pockets.
From the closet in the living room, he grabbed a lightweight windbreaker. It was Hawaii, after all—you never knew when it might rain. Then he left the condo.
He could not know exactly where they might have hidden cameras. But he was certain he knew one place they would not have a camera.
The elevator. Because there was already one there. And for people at Xavier’s tech level, it would be much simpler to hack into the existing closed circuit TV signal than to install a new camera.
Dylan pushed the elevator button and waited. The doors opened and he stepped inside.
His penthouse condo was on the forty-second floor. That gave him about thirty seconds before he reached the parking garage.
As soon as the doors closed, he jumped up on the metal handrail, using it as a platform to spring even higher. While balanced precariously on the rail, he reached behind the security camera and pulled out the power cord. The red light at the base of the camera faded.
He checked the declining floor number readout. 38, 37, 36.
He pulled a battery-powered hair clipper out of his pocket, a remnant of the brief pre-Leilani period when he decided he was going to save himself a trip downtown by cutting his own hair—with disastrous results. Now he didn’t care if it looked pretty. Watching his blurry reflection in the silver metal doors, he sheared off his hair, starting at the top, right through the center.
31, 30, 29.
Black curly locks tumbled to the floor, leaving only the thinnest layer of stubble behind. First the top, then the sides. When he was done, his hair was shorter than Xavier’s. He knew he probably missed a few spots in the back. But it would do. He’d entered the elevator with long wavy hair. He would leave buzzed to the scalp.
22, 21, 20.
He tore off his jacket, then his shirt, then his undershirt. He’d chosen a dress shirt, still stiff from dry-cleaner starch. He wadded the shirt up, then wrapped the undershirt around it like a balloon, then tucked the open end under his belt so the bulk hung just above his belt. He reversed the jacket and zipped it up. He’d entered the elevator wearing red. He would leave wearing black. And he looked as if he had a pot belly, especially when he slouched.
15, 14, 13.
He shoved cotton balls into his mouth, just under his cheekbones, to change the shape of his face. He put on a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses he used to wear after his first book was published, primarily to make himself look smart and literary. Leilani had convinced him he didn’t need a disguise to be what he already was—but fortunately, he still had the glasses.
He checked his reflection in the doors. He looked like a different person.
8, 7, 6.
He’d bought these khakis for his trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro, where it was cold in the morning but hot by midday. They were called convertible pants. A zipper in the middle of the pant leg allowed you to remove the bottom half, which he did.
He’d entered the elevator wearing long pants. He would leave wearing shorts.
5, 4, 3.
He stopped the elevator on 2—because they would expect him to ride all the way to the parking garage where he kept his Bentley. He hurried out of the elevator to the rear stairs, which took him to the opposite side of the building. They’d be watching the parking garage for a slender writer with unruly curly hair, a red jacket, and slacks. They would not notice the shaved head guy on the other side of the building with a black jacket, a pot belly, a pudgy face, eyeglasses, and shorts.
He walked along the cars parked on the street, scanning for an unlocked door. The first one he saw was a Corvette. He passed it by—too flashy, too much what they would expect him to drive. And so new it might have a LoJack system—a GPS tracker to reveal its location if it was stolen. He kept looking. A few moments later he found an unlocked door on an old brown pickup—something he would never drive. It wouldn’t have a LoJack. Probably had an 8-track tape player.
He slid into the driver’s seat, reached under the console and hot-wired the ignition, a skill he’d acquired because Fargo Cody had to do it in his third book. Thirty seconds later, the engine fired.
He pulled onto Kalakaua, looking all around, checking his rear view mirror. No one was watching him. No one was following him.
He allowed himself a small smile. He’d given them the slip.
Mr. X had said he would have no chance to tell anyone about their plans. But Leilani was already safe, and once he knew Dobie was protected, he would prove just how wrong that psychotic witch really was.
Fargo Cody was rolling into action again. But this time, for real.
Chapter 8
12:20 p.m.
Eleven hours, forty minutes left
Leilani sat at the kitchen table, her cellphone still in her hand, trying to decide what she should do next.
The last few hours had been the most challenging of her life—and that was saying quite a bit, given that she’d been a paramedic for eleven years. Someone with less fortitude might already be shell-shocked. And now she got a call from Dylan, free but inexplicably breaking up with her after professing his love and making future commitments the night before. A lesser woman might be spinning in circles.
But not Leilani. She was fortified by two facts she could not forget.
First, Dylan Taggart loved her. What she saw when she looked into his gray eyes could not be faked.
Second, she knew Dylan was not a quitter. He was one of the precious few who knew tenacity was the secret to life, the secret of creating a life worth living. Despite coming from a military environment and a father who never offered encouragement, he’d made himself into one of the handful of people in the world who could support themselves writing fiction. That accomplishment required a special kind of resilience. It was not on the resume of a quitter.
Dylan had said these people wanted him to do something. Leilani didn’t know what it was, but she knew this: it had to be illegal. Dylan would never do that willingly. She doubted he would do it at all.
So when he told her he was giving in to them, he was lying. The whole brief conversation was riddled with obfuscation and cryptic references. Why?
Only one possible answer. Someone was listening. And Dylan wanted them to believe he was joining them.
Because that was the exact opposite of what he planned to do.
He wasn’t breaking up with her. He was protecting her. He was convincing the eavesdroppers she was out of the picture, so hurting her would not hurt him. When he said he didn’t think they should talk anymore, he was saying, Don’t call me. Don’t talk to anyone else, either.
And when Dylan said he wanted her to be “just like StaCy,” he was giving her an action plan. Only three words. But they told her everything she needed to know.
The reference to StaCy was something the eavesdroppers couldn’t possibly understand, even if they had the condo under surveillance. Even if they’d researched Dylan’s background extensively. Even if they’d read every book he ever wrote.
Because StaCy was a fictional character. In a book that had not been published. In the book he was writing now.
No one had read the manuscript except Dylan and Leilani. Not his publisher, not his editor, not his agent. It was still in the rough-draft stage. They did not discuss it in the condo. They never talked business at home. Anytime she had suggestions, she gave them to him while they took their power walks. Even if Xavier had mirrored his computer’s hard drive, he wouldn’t get it. Maybe Dylan was paranoid, but he knew other writers who’d been burned when their work-in-progress leaked prematurely. He took no chances. He wrote it on his iPad, and he locked it every night in a safe that could not be opened—even with the combination—without triggering an alarm.
No one on earth knew about StaCy. No one else could know that when Dylan told her to be strong like StaCy, he was telling her to do what StaCy, the girlfriend of Fargo Cody in his new thriller, did. Which was first, ditch the people tailing her, and second, get to a safe place.
In the manuscript, StaCy fled to a cabin in the wilds of Oahu. Dylan was telling Leilani to go to the real-life equivalent. The cabin Dylan kept on the North Shore. The cabin that was almost as secret as the manuscript.
Dylan wanted a place out of the city, a retreat, a place to gather his thoughts and write. He didn’t want to be followed by fans, critics, interviewers, or anyone else. When he was writing, he didn’t want to be disturbed by anyone. Except her, of course—and there were limits to that. Dylan’s lawyer had bought the place in the name of a shell corporation created just for this purpose. Dylan was careful that no one saw him in the area. The Realtor had no contact with anyone but the lawyer. The money filtered through two offshore banks after it left the dummy corp’s bank account. The title was not in Dylan’s name.
No one knew about the cabin and no one, no matter how good they were, could find it. Dylan and Leilani hadn’t been there for months, so even if these people had been following him for weeks, they wouldn’t have seen the cabin. It was his sanctum sanctorum, he called it. His fortress of solitude.
And now he wanted her to go there. So she would.
She’d rather be with him. She didn’t know how he would foil these people, but they were a team, and she knew they were stronger together than apart. But she respected his wishes. He knew much more about the situation than she did. So if he wanted her to disappear, she would disappear.
Twelve hours, he’d said. She hoped that meant he would join her at the cabin in twelve hours. She’d be waiting for him.
She grabbed her purse and headed for the door. Before she went anywhere near the cabin, she’d have to lose anyone who might be following her. She didn’t kid herself that her driving skills were up to the job. Her paramedic team wouldn’t even let her drive the ambulance. She needed help.
She had a few thoughts on how she might pull that off. But in the meantime, she had to act as if she were doing nothing suspicious. She had to play her part—the jilted girlfriend, distressed, injured, scared, but nonetheless going to work on time. Doing what was expected of her.
And then, just when they thought they had Dylan and Leilani trapped, she would disappear.
She didn’t know who these people were. She didn’t know what kind of monsters would employ a sleazebag like Pock-Face. But she knew this.
If they thought they could screw with Dylan Taggart and Leilani Kahale and get away with it, they had another think coming.
Chapter 9
2:50 p.m.
Eleven hours, ten minutes left
Dylan parked the pickup, constantly scanning in all directions. It was just remotely possible Mr. X had planted one of her minions on the staff, or at least had someone watching the place. Dylan’s change of appearance had been sufficient to escape the condo, but he knew it wouldn’t fool anyone who took a close look.
The attending nurse at the receiving desk of the Mahoe Assisted Living Center blinked twice, her eyes squinting, before she recognized him. “Mr. Taggart?”
He lifted the glasses so she could see his face more clearly. “It’s me. And please call me Dylan.”
“I’ll try. But it’s hard! I was reading your books even before Dobie came to stay with us. To me, you’ll always be that handsome man on the dust jacket with the piercing grey eyes.”
“Oh, I put my pants on in the morning one leg at a time, just like everyone else.”
The nurse’s eyes widened slightly. Her pupils dilated. Dylan got the distinct impression that putting his pants on in the morning was something she might like to observe first-hand. “I need to meet with your boss. And you, and any other staff members who have contact with Dobie.”
As she gathered everyone, Dylan considered how best to approach this. How could he explain why he thought Dobie might be in danger? Even if he told them the whole story, they wouldn’t believe it—and there was always a chance that one of Xavier’s friends might be listening. How could he persuade them to institute new security protocols if he couldn’t tell them what the threat was?
By the time everyone gathered in the manager’s office, he had a plan.
“I’ll pay for it.”
The manager, Joe Bendis, a balding man with poor posture, did not appear to welcome any interruption to the normal course of business. “But—why?”
“Have you read the papers lately? Honolulu is becoming a dangerous place.”
“But we have twenty-four-hour security.”
“I want you to double your security staff. In fact, I want you to triple it. Effective today. I’ll give you a five-thousand-dollar bonus if you can get started immediately.”
Bendis brightened. “Well, yes then, of course. But—”
“I want Dobie watched at all times. And I mean all times. Even when he’s sleeping. You don’t have to hover over him, he won’t like that. Just make sure he’s watched. At least four guards, specifically assigned to protect him. And I want those four guards chosen randomly. No one who shows any interest. No one you’ve used in the past.”
“Do you have some reason to think—”
“I’m the only family he has.”
“Yes, but—”
“There’s nothing more important than family. I have to take care of him. So I want you to go into lockdown mode. All doors secured. Everyone inside. No strangers admitted. Until I say otherwise.”
“How will I explain this to the other residents?”
“I don’t care how you explain it. Tell them a hurricane’s coming. Tell them you had a bad horoscope. Just do it.”
“Well...”
Dylan took out his checkbook. “I’m making a five-thousand-dollar donation, right now. As a way of showing my appreciation for these extra efforts.”
Bendis snapped up the check. That was easy enough. Dylan was glad to see he’d read the character correctly.
“How long will these heightened measures last?” Bendis asked.
“I’m not sure. I hope it will be over soon, but I can’t make any guarantees. Surely that check covers the inconvenience.”
Bendis gazed at it as if it were his long-lost son. “I suppose it does.”
“Let me ask you a question. Have you added any new staff recently? Have you noticed anyone watching the facility? Has anyone shown a particular interest in Dobie?”
The attending nurse shook her head. “We haven’t had any new hires for more than six months. I certainly haven’t had any indication we’re being watched. I would’ve reported it if I had. And the only outsider who seems to have any interest in Dobie is you.”
Dylan nodded. “Mr. Bendis, I’m only going to be here about ten minutes. I’d like you to have those guards on Dobie before I leave.”
“But that’s impossible!”
“And if you can make it happen, I’ll write another five-thousand-dollar check on my way out.”
Bendis grabbed his phone. “I’ll make the arrangements immediately.”
“Excellent. Now, can someone show me where Dobie is?”
* * *
“You’re late,” Dr. Iaukea said as Leilani entered the front office of the paramedics station at Kekekolio Hospital.
“I’ve had kind of a rough night,” Leilani replied.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Iaukea said, raising a hand. “Just get to work. You’re behind on your paperwork and I’m sure we’ll get a call any minute. How long can this town go without a knifing or a shooting or a tourist falling off a surfboard into shark-infested waters?”
Leilani leaned across her superior’s desk. “Liane, I need help.”
Dr. Iaukea peered through her reading glasses. “Is this about that guy you’re seeing?” She did not appear sympathetic. Leilani wondered if this was because she’d never been interested in seeing a guy, but Iaukea’s personal life was her own business. “You’re still with the writer, right? The one with the ridiculously expensive foreign car?”
“We’re having...troubles,” Leilani said.
Dr. Iaukea fell back into her chair. “Do I look like Dr. Phil?” She was in her mid-to-late forties and wore her crusty exterior like a raincoat. Despite the curmudgeonly attitude, most of which Leilani suspected was feigned, Leilani trusted her. She was intelligent—you didn’t get through medical school if you weren’t. And she was flinty. Wimps did not go into emergenCy medicine, easily the most stressful field in the healing arts. She had not only chosen this practice, she’d excelled in it. That spoke to a level of competence that was exactly what Leilani needed right now. “I’m here to save lives, not to mend broken hearts.”
“It’s nothing like that. It’s much more complicated.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s going on?”
“We’re in danger.”
“You and your writer? What, you’re being stalked by a psychotic book critic?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“That’s the trouble. I don’t know much about it. And the less you know the better.”
Dr. Iaukea removed her glasses and tossed them down on the desk. “Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”
