California Schemin' (14 page)

“I didn’t say you should do it. Pretend. Go
along with him so I can find out what I need to know. I can’t be
spending all my time chasing you down. I don’t want to have to
handcuff you to the bed, but I will if that’s what it takes to keep
you in one place.”

I could understand his dilemma, but I wasn’t
telling him that. I didn’t want to be another Patty Hearst, no
matter how attractive and sympathetic I found Hammie. And Moose was
just like a big teddy bear. How these guys got mixed up with a
slimeball like Wallace, I didn’t know. I did know I’d have to keep
my wits about me not to get pulled into their drama. I had my own
life to worry about.

“Yeah, I know. I kidnapped you, drugged you,
flew you three thousand miles from home. All bad stuff. But I
promise, I’ll help you get home if you’ll just give me some time.
Tell Wallace you’ll do what he asked. Just keep him focused on you,
and I’ll get you home.”

“And if I don’t?” I got up and walked to the
little desk by the window, keeping my back to Hammie.

“I’ll chain you to the shower curtain rod in
your bathroom.”

“Nice.” I dropped my gaze to examine the top
of the desk. Note paper, stapler, pens, paper clips. Paper
clips?

“Not nice. Desperate enough to do whatever it
takes.”

I closed my eyes. What choice did I have? My
best bet was to remain unchained. I realized I was going about this
the wrong way, I should be agreeing to anything and everything
Hammie or Wallace wanted. Sooner or later that would involve
telling the cops a lie, unless I told them the truth. Bait and
switch, wasn’t that what it was called? I opened my eyes.

“Okay. I’ll cooperate, but if anything bad
happens to my animals while I’m away, I’m holding you responsible.
I will hunt you down.” I turned and looked him in the eye, palming
a paper clip.

Hammie snorted, and a flash of humor animated
his face before he closed back down again. He was amused by my
threats. Good. I didn’t want him to take me too seriously.

Hambecker took me back down the hall to my
room. I turned, moving toward the little desk on the other side of
the room, thinking I had plans to make, but I came to a dead stop.
I wasn’t alone.

Senator Wallace was lying spread-eagled on my
bed. He opened his eyes as the lock clicked. I backed against the
wall and pretended that I wasn’t scared out of my wits.

“Ah, there you are. Did Richard take you for
a tour of the house?”

My stomach started to churn, and I had the
uncomfortable feeling he was testing me. Every muscle was tense,
and I fought the urge to throw up.

“No.”

“Good girl. I’m glad you didn’t lie. Of
course he caught you trying to leave. Silly Paris forgot to lock
your door, didn’t she?”

I wondered if he had asked Paris to leave the
door unlocked. The paper clip that I had hidden between two of my
fingers was poking into my hand. I fought the urge to drop it.

“Not that I blame you for trying to leave.
Richard tells me you aren’t exactly a willing guest. Not his fault,
I told him to do whatever it took to get you here. Richard is very
good at doing what I tell him.” Wallace pushed himself up and sat
on the edge of the bed.

“I’m going to San Francisco to visit my
daughter for a couple of days. I’m leaving you here with Richard
and my driver. They’ll make sure you are fed and watered while I’m
gone. Be nice to them, and they’ll be nice to you. I’ve given them
permission to lock you in with no meals if you give them trouble.
Understand?”

I nodded again. I wasn’t unhappy that he was
going to be away.

Wallace stood and walked over to me. He
placed his hands on my shoulders, and I resisted the urge to
shudder and shove him away from me.

“I want you to think hard about what I asked
you to do and the good you would be doing for society as a whole.
I’ll talk to you when I come back.”

I nodded. He released me and walked to the
door.

“Feel free to enjoy the pool while I’m gone.
You can go anywhere you’d like as long as it’s not out the front
door.” The door closed behind him, and I waited for the lock to
click, but it didn’t. He was giving me free rein of the house. That
was interesting. Trying to soften me up, make me comfortable. Make
me like him. The knot in my gut made me pretty sure I was never
going to like him. I don’t know what he was trying to accomplish by
putting his hands on me unless it was a subtle form of
intimidation. I placed the paper clip in the toe of one of the blue
shoes. You never knew when you might need a paper clip.

I left my room and made my way through the
foyer into the kitchen. I stood at the sink where I could pretend
to be getting a drink of water while I waited for the limo to
disappear down the street. I wondered if Moose was driving or if
he’d been left here. I knew Wallace had more than one driver. What
I didn’t know is which one he had left to guard me. Moose, I could
handle.

I gave Wallace time to get out the main gate
before I started to snoop. Hammie was going to be a problem, so I
crept along quietly going from room to room looking for something
of interest. The ground floor was dedicated to entertaining and
bedrooms. I wandered in and out of the living room, a TV room with
a giant flat screen on the wall and theatre seating for twenty. A
game room was situated across from the garage; there was a door at
the end, which led to a cabana house with changing room and sauna.
Nothing of interest.

I was back in the game room. I’d racked the
balls and taken a couple of shots at the pool table when Hammie
came in. Perfect timing. I kept my smile to myself and raised my
eyebrows at him.

“Want to play pool or foosball? Wallace knows
how to throw a party.”

“What are you doing?” Hammie was frowning at
me.

“The senator gave me free rein of the house.
I was looking for something to do. It’s pretty quiet around here.
Where’s Paris? Maybe she’d play foosball with me.”

“Paris is Wendy’s best friend. She went with
him to San Francisco.”

Better and better. That meant fewer people to
keep an eye on me. I looked up into Hammie's scowl with my eyes
wide.

“Is the pool heated?”

“Yes.” His tone was guarded.

“Do you think Paris has a bathing suit that
would fit me? I’d love to go for a swim.”

“Not sure. You can’t swim now anyway. I need
to do some errands. I’m locking you in while I’m away.”

“Senator Wallace said I could have the run of
the house. Can’t you just lock the house up?”

“No. I’m leaving Moose here with you. You’ll
be locked in until I get back.”

He wasn’t going to tell me that I could
convince Moose to do just about anything, but I knew that was why
he was going to lock me in. He didn’t trust Moose not to take me to
the shopping center for a swimsuit and lose me there.

I followed Hammie down the hall and stepped
into my room.

“Don’t be long,” I said, and smiled my
sweetest at him.

He shook his head as he closed the door. The
lock snapped, and I got the feeling he didn’t trust himself to say
anything. I felt sorry for Hammie. It seemed like he was in a tight
spot, but I had to remember that he was one of the enemy camp. As
far as I knew, he and Moose were feeding me a line of crap about
Hambecker’s father to keep me in line.

I waited until I imagined I heard an engine
start in the garage, and then I pulled the paper clip out of the
shoe and straightened it. Ten seconds of wiggling the clip in the
tiny hole in the door handle, and the lock clicked open.

I cracked the door, stuck my head out, and
looked up and down the hall. All clear. Good. I reached around the
door and pushed the little button in the outer handle and locked
myself back in the room. I might as well sleep now, as my plan was
to search the house at night, while Hammie and Moose were
sleeping.

It was dusk when the door opened, and Moose
brought in a tray of food. I thought of refusing it out of
principle, but it smelled good. Somehow I’d missed breakfast and
lunch, and the sight of food reminded me I was hungry.

“Richard says I can’t let you out to eat.
Thinks I’m a soft touch or something.” He rolled his eyes. “Like it
would hurt anything for you to go swimming. Anywho, here’s your
dinner. Hope you like it.”

It was a burger and fries, Caesar salad and
chocolate chip cookies.

“Looks fabulous,” I said. I stuffed a couple
of French fries in my mouth. “Yum. Why don’t you sit down and keep
me company?”

“Can’t.” Moose looked uncomfortable. “He made
me promise not to stay with you too long.”

“He who? Wallace or Hammie?”

“Ham, er, Richard.” He dropped his head and
looked at his feet, looking for all the world like a five-year-old
who’d been caught with his grandma’s cigarettes, which was pretty
amazing when you considered how big this guy was.

“I’ll go get you something to drink. You can
have soda, water or juice. We have beer, but Richard said you can’t
have any.”

“That’s okay, Moose. Something with caffeine
would be nice.”

Moose left, and I noticed that he forgot to
lock the door. I was too busy eating to bother with getting out.
Besides, I had plans for later. He was back in a minute anyway with
a glass of ice and a couple of sodas, “In case you get thirsty
later,” and he left, remembering to lock the door this time.

The room was dark when I opened my eyes.
There wasn’t a clock in the room, my cell phone was on the opposite
side of the country, and I didn’t wear a watch. I rolled out of bed
and looked out the window. Light from the direction of the living
room was reflecting on the pool. I pressed my ear to the window.
Faint sounds of TV? I went to the door and tried the handle. Still
locked. I pressed my ear to the wood, definite TV sounds. Hammie,
Moose or both were still awake. I plopped back down on the bed to
wait them out.

My neck hurt, not as bad as it had been, but
I wasn’t in the best shape ever. Better remember to ask Hammie for
some pain killer, ib-whatever. Why they couldn’t make medicines
pronounceable, I had no idea. Or he could hit me with more of that
knockout drug, whatever that was. That took care of the pain really
well.

I woke to the vague feeling that something
wasn’t right. A faint light filled the room. “Damn!” I sat bolt
upright. I’d slept the night in the blue dress on top of the bed,
and I’d missed my opportunity to search the house. Probably. The
light from the window was pretty faint. Maybe there was enough time
for a preliminary search of the upper floors.

The blue shoes were sitting next to the bed
where I’d abandoned them the day before. I grabbed them and dumped
the paper clip into my hand. Carrying my shoes with my left hand, I
stuck the straight end into the hole in the door handle. A minute
later the lock clicked and I was free. Cracking the door, I stuck
my head into the hall and listened. Nothing. I slid out of the door
and locked it behind me. If anyone walked by, they would assume I
was still in there.

The stairs at the end of the hall felt
uncomfortably open, but if I wanted to search the upper floors I’d
have no choice but to go up them. The polished wood was smooth and
cool under my feet. I stepped lightly, but there weren’t any creaky
stairs. This house was built like a rock.

Halfway up I heard a toilet flush. Sweat
prickled on my scalp, and I stood frozen against the wall. There
were footsteps in the hall, and a door closed. I moved as quickly
and quietly as I could past the second floor and on up to the
third. I turned to the right, my thinking being that most people
preferred the right, and if Wallace’s office was up here it would
be that direction.

The first three doors revealed nothing but
beds and storage rooms. This guy could host the Sacramento Kings
and have room left over. The other side of the hall wasn’t any
better, except that from the windows I could see out onto the road.
Wallace had the tallest house in the area so the neighborhood
unfolded in front of me. Nothing and no one in sight except for a
car parked around the corner to the left. The only car left on the
street overnight. Someone’s girlfriend?

I searched the rest of the rooms on the third
floor without finding anything remotely interesting. There was an
office of sorts, but it was dusty and unused. The late Lily
Wallace’s? It looked like a woman’s office, colorful prints on the
wall, small desk and chair, a painted tile for a coaster. I
searched through the drawers without finding anything. The senator
had probably been cleaning it out while someone was tossing her off
the bridge.

The only place left was the second floor.
Creeping down the stairs I considered leaving it for the night, but
it was quiet. My main problem was figuring out which rooms were
occupied so I didn’t wake anyone up by mistake.

The first door was easy. I could hear the
snores from the top of the stairs. Moose. I’d heard him snoring in
the hotel. I did my best imitation of a ghost past his door, the
carpet doing a good job of muffling my footsteps. My heart started
thumping at the second door. My hand was on the knob, ready to
crack the door open, when a faint rustling and a creak sent me down
the hall and into the next room. It was a gamble, but I won. The
room was empty.

I stood at the door, listening until the door
to the room next to me opened and shut and I heard footsteps on the
stairway. I waited for what seemed like forever, but it was
probably less than five minutes before I ventured out into the hall
again. I had a hunch about the layout and hurried past the stairs
to a door at the end of the hall. I hit the jackpot. A mahogany
desk, file cabinets, bookshelves signaled that I’d found the
senator’s office.