Curveball (26 page)

“What are you working on?” His voice was flat and void of actual interest, which struck
her as strange considering he had only yesterday accused her of being a con artist.
There’s a reason action movies became blockbusters: bad guys were fascinating. If
he truly thought she was a charlatan, he should’ve been craning his neck to see what
was on her computer screen.

Maybe
Chance is a rom-com kind of guy
.

“Just a piece for the website about Marcelo Santiago, you heard of him?”

Or
maybe he doesn’t like scene-stealers. There’s only room for one swindler in this town
.

“Of course. He’s got a curveball that’d make Robinson Cano’s knees buckle.”

The bathroom door swung open. Paige stepped out, her hands clasped behind her back
in an attempt to look coy. “I’m sorry.”

Chance stood up and greeted her with a closed kiss on the lips. When he pulled away,
he appraised her from top to bottom. “You are beautiful.”

She was. The one-shouldered dress snaked around her body, squeezing each curve. Its
ivory silk shimmered against the contrast of her dark skin. The dress hit well above
her knees, providing a yard of glowing legs before her gold gladiator stilettos strapped
up to her ankles. The chunky blond highlights were braided back on each side of her
head, rounding her brunette head like a halo. The rest of her hair was straightened
and cascaded down her head as a shiny frame to her perfect face.

Paige dropped the demure act and stuck one leg in front of her. Tossing her chin in
the air, she put her hands on her hips like she was posing for the nonexistent paparazzi.

“I know, right?”

She sauntered over to the couch and grabbed her purse. Cat watched her carefully through
the reflection in the laptop, tapping her fingers nervously on the keyboard.

Sure enough, Paige opened the designer bag and peeked inside. “Hold on a minute.”

Cat flinched but kept her gaze on her laptop.

“My cell phone’s gone.”

Chance cast his eyes around the room. When he didn’t see it in plain sight, he shrugged.
“Can you look for it later, babe? Curtain’s going up in an hour.”

Paige grabbed the orange Soldiers’ throw and shook it out, tossing it on the couch
when it didn’t produce the phone. She moved over to the bed and flipped the comforter
up, before kneeling down to look under the bed.

“No, Chance, I can’t. I have to have it. It’s my freaking cell phone.”

It was all Cat could do not to pat herself on the back. Instead, she nodded at Chance.
“It’s like a security blanket. She’s still waiting for them to design a waterproof
case so she can take it in the shower.”

He rolled his eyes and stood up, heading over to the beds to help Paige ransack the
hotel room.

Cat waited for both their backs to be turned, watching their every movement as nonchalantly
as possible. Chance opened up the closet door while Paige pulled out each dresser
drawer, rooting through the clothes inside.

Cat kept her eyes glued to Chance in the closet. If they were playing elementary-school
rules, she’d be required to tell him he was hot. Fortunately, adult rules were much
more lenient. As he bent over to move around some shoes on the closet floor, Cat slipped
her arm around the back of his chair and snaked her hand inside his tuxedo pocket.
Nothing.

“Cat!”

Cat jerked her hand out. She spit out the first lie that popped in her head. “I was
just looking for some gum.”

“Gum?” Paige wasn’t even looking at her. Her head was buried under the nightstand.
“Who cares about gum? Help us look for my purse, please?”

Cat let out an exaggerated sigh as though utterly inconvenienced.

“Fine.”

She pretended to shuffle through the papers on the table and leaned over the other
side of Chance’s chair. She snuck her hand down to the opposite pocket and felt the
hard metal of a key ring. Slipping it up the sleeve of her Lincoln State sweatshirt,
she double-checked to make sure neither Chance nor Paige had noticed the slight jingle
of the keys.

“Not over here on the table. I’ll go check the bathroom just in case.”

Paige sat on her knees and ran her hand over her hair, slightly mussing the perfect
’do. “Good idea.”

Cat closed the thin door behind her and locked it for good measure. Once in the secured
privacy of the bathroom, she flipped through Chance’s keys. One was an older tarnished
silver with a cursive Iso logo, obviously the key to his vintage baby. Two other keys
weren’t as easy to match. They were both thick brass and engraved with a
No Duplicado
inscription. There was no way of telling which opened a bachelor pad and which opened
a downtown office. She’d have to take them both. She slipped them off the key ring
and reached into her other pocket, pulling out her own key ring. She might’ve gotten
away with one key missing from his ring, but two would have to be replaced with decoys
to keep Chance from noticing when he reached for them in the hotel parking lot. Since
her apartment key and the spare to Benji’s were both brass
Do Not Duplicates
, she was willing to take the chance that he wouldn’t find himself in Las Vegas any
time soon.

The rustling outside the door continued. A few feet away, Paige grunted.

The tight metal ring bent back her fingernail as she tried to wedge the keys on. Cat
whimpered at the pain and frantically scanned the vanity for a tool. Next to a hairbrush
and bottle of Hi-Shine was a bag of bobby pins.

If
I was really good, I could just use those instead of keys
.

But she wasn’t
really
good, so she used the bobby pin to pry open the key ring and slip the dummy keys
on his ring.

“Cat! Anything?”

The doorknob jiggled.

“Why is the door locked?”

“Uh, just a sec.”

Cat scanned the bathroom, panicked. The toilet caught her eye and she reached over
and gave it a flush. She let the faucet run for a few seconds and unlocked the door.

She stepped out from behind the bathroom, the key ring clasped in her fist.

Paige was already across the room. “Chance even called it but we didn’t hear anything.
Maybe the battery died.”

“Not in the bathroom either. Sorry, I looked everywhere.”

She and Chance were still rummaging about the room. He stopped and put his hands on
his hips. “Paige, we really need to go. I have my phone; you can use it if you need
to”

Paige stomped her heel in the carpet. “I don’t understand where it could be.”

Cat no longer needed to stall them; in fact, the sooner they got out of the hotel,
the more time she had with the
Do Not Duplicates
. She crossed her arms to conceal her closed fist. “Maybe you left it in the car.”

“No, I didn’t. I know I had it when we got home because I was playing Plants vs. Zombies
right on the couch, remember? I told you one of the zombies looked just like you when
you first get up and you gave me this freaky look with your eyes bulging out like
… well, like a zombie. I thought you were going to eat my brains or something.”

I
’d starve on that meal
.

Cat glared at her for a second, biting her lip and trying not to say what she was
thinking. She didn’t have time for a fight. “Tell you what, guys. I’m going to be
here all night. I can look for it. It’s gotta be around somewhere.”

Paige took one more look around the room and shrugged helplessly. “I guess.”

Cat noticed the cushions of the couch were still intact, unlike the rest of the room.
She pointed to them. “Did you look over there?”

While they were both turned toward the couch, Cat slipped the keys back into Chance’s
jacket pocket. She cringed when they settled in with a soft clink. Chance pivoted
around.

Paige flipped up each cushion, tossing them on Cat’s bed. “Nope.”

Chance picked the handbag up off the floor and handed it to Paige. “It’ll turn up.”

Cat smiled, grateful to have her finish line in sight. “Yeah.”

Paige double-checked the contents and frowned. “I guess.”

Chance took the jacket off the chair and draped it over his arm. The keys jangled
without triggering any reaction. “Come on, babe. You don’t need a phone tonight anyway.”

Cat breathed a sigh of relief when the hotel door clicked behind them. Her tranquility
didn’t last long; this charade had been the easiest part of the night’s plan.

Cat pulled into the back row of the complex’s parking lot. It was empty, save for
a dented, rusty compact car that looked as if it had chosen the corner of the lot
as its gravesite.

Junior’s eyes darted around the mini mall. “A red convertible. I don’t know that it’s
possible to get more conspicuous.”

“Maybe a silver Maserati.”

He smiled, despite his tense face. “Good point.”

“Unless you’ve got your pilot’s license and an ‘in’ with Wonder Woman, this is as
inconspicuous as it gets.”

Junior didn’t react. Had she made that nerdy reference to Benji, he probably would’ve
proposed to her right there on bended knee.

She opened her door and nodded at his. “Let’s go.”

“Go? We’re just going to
go
?”

“Yup.” She closed her door quietly and tried to keep her tennis shoes from crunching
on the gravel.

He hurried to catch up; she was already halfway across the parking lot. “Don’t we
need a plan?”

“Nope.”

When a couple came out of a restaurant across the street, he elbowed her with a hard
jab.

She frowned at the spot on her arm where his elbow had struck and then directed that
frown where she was sure he could see it. “Quit acting so suspicious. For all anyone
knows, we work here.”

He dropped his chin a little, embarrassed. “Give me a break. I’ve never done this
before.”

She gave him a good-natured pat on the shoulder. “Not being a smooth criminal is nothing
to be ashamed of. Some people might even consider it a positive attribute.”

She’d thought his chosen outfit of a black hooded sweatshirt and indigo jeans seemed
unusual for the seventy degree night. Now she realized that the black duds must’ve
been the stealthiest clothes he owned. Her own navy blue velour tracksuit provide
little camouflage—not with her pale skin and red hair shining like beacons in the
night.

Junior surveyed the glass door and looked around behind them, scanning all the way
to the restaurant. He brought his gaze back to the agency. “This door opens inward.
I think I could kick it open. The hinges look pretty old; they’re probably weak. I
bet they’d give, but it might break the glass.” He studied the door’s hinges so intently
that he didn’t notice her amusement.

“Or …” she pulled the keys out of her pocket and clinked them together. “We could
just unlock it.”

“How did you get … ah, Paige.”

“Paige.” She smiled. “Diversion in a red dress—well, white dress.”

“She doesn’t—”

“No. She was an oblivious accomplice, which for the record, are usually the best ones.”

The keys were identical, so she chose the one in her right hand first. Junior shadowed
her from the passing traffic as she unlocked the door. They both held their breath
as they stepped across the threshold. Cat was half-expecting alarms to sound but they
were only greeted by the soft blowing of the air conditioner.

With great care, Junior shut the door behind them, reading her thoughts as he watched
her peek at the windows.

“He wouldn’t have an alarm. He doesn’t take any cash in, so why would anyone break
in here?” He spoke in a low voice, which she figured was a good idea in case any employees
lingered in the neighboring businesses. Plus, his breathy whisper was incredibly sexy
and she was too nervous to feel guilty about enjoying it.

Cat stopped checking for lasers and cameras and met his eyes in the moonlit lobby.
“Maybe for reasons just like this.”

“Well then, if he is dirty, he wouldn’t have one either, for the same reason drug
dealers don’t call the cops when their stash is stolen.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Hey, I wasn’t always a good guy baseball coach.”

She couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from rising.

He hung his head adorably. “Okay, fine. I get HBO down here.”

She whirled around the lobby. The assistant’s desk didn’t even have drawers to root
through, and there wasn’t much that could be hidden between the three chairs, a coffee
table, a ficus and a water cooler in the waiting area.

“Let’s go to his office, there’s nothing to see here.”

As she started to embark toward the office, Junior grabbed her arm.

“Let me go first.”

“Oh, uh, okay.” His touch sent a tingling rush through her body. She stepped back
and let him lead the way. It was chivalrous, though she doubted Chance kept hungry
pit bulls waiting behind his door.

It creaked open and Junior crept inside.

She followed him in and flipped on the light.

“Hey!” He jumped in front of her and slammed the light switch down. “Are you crazy?”

Cat put her hands on her hips and hissed back, “How do you expect to find anything
with no light?”

His face was only inches away from hers and now his low voice was a sultry whisper.

“I don’t know. Didn’t you bring a flashlight?”

Again
with the flashlight
.

“If I had, I’d smack you over the head with it.” She brought her hand up to playfully
bonk him on the head. “Chance is at the theater right now so we don’t have to worry
about him driving by. What do you think would draw more attention to the cops, a light
on in a busy businessman’s office at seven p.m. or a single beam of a flashlight circling
through a window of a closed office?”

Junior meekly flipped the light switch back on and stepped out of her way. “Carry
on.”