The Billionaire's Passion (4 page)

It stings. Like I’m the kitchen help or something, and not the woman he made love to just a few hours ago.

WHY am I putting my neck on the line for this guy?
I ask myself again, in a darker echo of my thoughts last night.

And then his tone softens, as though he realizes he’s stepped over the line. “I need you to help me do this.
Please.
”

I can hear the pain and frustration in his voice. I sigh. “This is a bad, bad idea.”

“Can you do it without them tracing our location?”

“Probably… but it’s still a bad, bad idea.”

“Do it anyway. Please.”

I nod, and boot up the house computer in the den.

Grant stands over me nervously. “What are you doing, again?”

“I’m going through a deep web connection and filtering it through a – nevermind. I’m making it look like we’re in Mexico. That’s all you need to know.”

“You sure it’s foolproof?”

“Nothing’s foolproof, because fools are so ingenious.”

He looks at me like
Quit fooling around
.

“Hey, I don’t have to do this,” I say. “In fact, I don’t
want
to do this.”

“Just go ahead and do whatever you’ve got to do.”

“Then quit hovering over me like a helicopter parent.”

“Fine.” He starts pacing behind me, which is only marginally better.

“What happened to that ice water in your veins, dude?” I say as I put the finishing touches on the reroute.

“It’s there when I have control over the situation. I don’t have any control over the situation here.”

“I don’t know that being chased by Dobermans is ‘control over the situation.’”

“It is when I’m in the moment. It comes down to what
I
do. Here… I can’t do anything. I’m totally reliant on you.”

For some reason, that kind of makes me feel good.

“Well… leave the digital Doberman evasion to me,” I say, and hit ENTER.

A long series of numbers unspool onscreen, and then we get a black window with a blinking cursor.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“It means we’re in.”

“‘In’ where?”

“Your security system back at the penthouse.”

He stares at the screen. “Really?”

“Really.”

“It was that easy?”

“Nooo… I’m just that
good,”
I say, slightly offended.

“Of course,” he demurs, then says, “So what now?”

“Now we access the phone lines, and hopefully we get Jim or somebody else on – ”

Suddenly the cursor starts moving, leaving letters in its wake.

My heart jumps into my throat.

Grant can see I’m not typing. “Are you doing that?” he asks, alarmed.

I don’t need to answer, because the message onscreen does that for me.

Eve, you naughty, naughty girl. Caught you sneaking in the back door.

Grant sucks in his breath sharply. “Epicurus?”

I nod mutely.

“Pull the plug!” Grant hisses.

“He can’t trace us. There’s no point in bailing now.”

As if to corroborate my words, the cursor flashes onscreen:

Nice job erasing your trail. How’s Guadalajaro?

“He really thinks we’re in Mexico?” Grant asks.

“I doubt it. But as far as he can tell from our internet footprint, that’s where we are.”

With almost eerie prescience, the cursor types again.

Or Brooklyn? Or Long Island? Or Newark? Or D.C.? Shall I keep guessing?

“Shit,” Grant whispers. “He knows we’re local.”

“It’s a reasonable assumption. He knows we couldn’t have gone too far.”

“We could have been in New Zealand by now,” Grant mutters.

“Okay, then he’s
assuming
we didn’t go too far.”

“How?”

I shrug. “Fifty-fifty chance. We either stayed or went.”

“…okay…”

“Seriously, you weren’t this jumpy when you threw us out of a skyscraper yesterday.”

“Control over the situation,” Grant reminds me. “How did he find us?”

“He must have hacked your system yesterday when his fake FBI crew invaded, so he could talk over the speakers. Then he set up some kind of a monitor program to let him know if we tried to get into the system, too.”

Letters appear onscreen.

Why so laconic?

I type back,
You seem to enjoy hearing yourself talk, so I thought I would indulge you.

When I’m behind a computer, I’m in my element. My happy place. I have a sense of unshakable power.

I’m only giving it free reign now because I’m as careful as I am powerful. There’s no way he can find us here, which is why I can be a smartass.

Not everybody realizes that, though.

“You really want to antagonize him?” Grant asks.

“You mean, because I’m afraid he might do something worse than torture and kill me?”

Grant just sighs.

Epicurus types,
You have quite the sharp tongue, Eve. I shall enjoy removing it.

Whatever floats your boat, sicko,
I reply.

I’m not sick, Eve, though someone of your limited intellect might see it that way. I merely have very rarefied appetites –

Yeah, yeah, untamable, unquenchable, undeniable, yadda yadda.
I heard your spiel yesterday, and it was boring then too.

“Seriously?” Grant says.

“Maybe I can goad him into making a mistake.”

Grant shakes his head. “Just… see what you can find out.”

“Oh, and here I thought I’d just chat with him all day,” I say sarcastically.

I type,
Grant was impressed by you sending in a fake FBI squad.

Clever, wasn’t it? I –

I interrupt him again.
I said GRANT was impressed. I wasn’t. Obviously you haven’t seen any Hollywood movies from the last 20 years, or you’d know you’re as derivate and lame as you think you are brilliant. Which means you’re INCREDIBLY derivative and lame.

“Jesus, Eve…”

“What?”

“He’s not the one on the lam, you know.”

I’M not the one on the run, now am I?
the cursor types out.

Grant said exactly the same thing,
I type.
Which means Grant is either as smart as you, or you’re just as dumb as Grant.

“Hey!” Grant snaps.

“Kidding.”

You’re both fools. You’ll be begging me for your deaths very shortly.

Right, right,
I type.
Were you the short, fat, fake FBI agent we saw, or the tall, ugly one?

Cute, Eve. Cute.

You were the cute one? Now I know you’re delusional.

You fish for information like a blind man setting up a string of dominoes.

Very carefully?

No – with no success, and all your efforts fall in shambles around you. You’ll get no information from me.

Grant said that there was no way you were in the penthouse, because you’re a coward who kills women. Guess he was right,
I typed.
Especially now that I know you hacked his security system.

“Ohhhh God,” Grant mutters.

“What?” I ask.

“You really
are
trying to make this harder on us, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m trying to get under his skin.”

You little bitch,
the cursor typed.
You’re going to suffer more than any of the others ever did.

“Mission accomplished,” I tell Grant.

Epicurus keeps typing.
I’m going to do such horrible things to you that you have no –

BORED now,
I type.
YAWN.

You insufferable little –

Hey, Epi-pen? Fuck off.

Then I pull the computer’s plug out of the wall, instantly shutting it off.

Grant stares at me in wonder.

“We can go now,” I say brightly.

Grant parts the Venetian blinds and looks out at the street. “There’s an old Chrysler out there I can hotwire pretty easily.”

“You can hotwire cars, too?” I ask, incredulous, as I root in a closet and find a baseball cap for him and a hoodie for me.

“We rappelled down a skyscraper. You think hotwiring cars is complicated?”

“Okay, okay. How fast can you do it?”

“30 seconds and we’re on our way.”

“Why not a taxi? Is it really worth taking that risk?”

“Considering our pictures are plastered all over every newspaper and television broadcast in the state right now, yeah, I’d say it’s worth the risk.”

I sigh. “Alright, let’s go.”

“By the way, that was really hot how you handled Epicurus on the computer,” Grant says, giving me a mischievous look. “Stupid, but hot.”

“Funny, I’ve been thinking the same about YOU since I found out your ‘hobby’ yesterday. ‘Hot, but definitely stupid.’”

He grins. “Are you ready?”

“No. Does that matter?”

“Not really. Let’s go.”

And then we’re out the door.

The hotwiring goes off without a hitch. No one spots us, or at least no one makes a commotion. It probably helps that he looks like an overgrown frat boy in his baseball cap, and I’m barely recognizable with my hoodie cinched tight around my eyes and chin.

It’s only 6:30AM and traffic is light, so twenty minutes later we’re back in the same neighborhood we fled from yesterday – skyscrapers and luxury buildings surrounding Central Park.

“Please tell me we are not breaking back into your place,” I plead with him.

“We’re not – although that’s a great counterintuitive move.”

“NO.”

“Don’t worry, I have something different planned.”

“You seem a lot more confident than you were back when I was on the computer.”

“Like I said, I’m back in control of the situation.”

“Most psychologists say that feeling like you’re in control is a delusion. You know that, right?”

“Eh, what do they know?”

“About cognition and human nature and shit like that?
Probably a fair amount.
”

He grins. “It was a joke. Relax, I got it handled.”

“Why do those sound like famous last words?”

“Because they usually are.”

“Don’t say stuff like that… seriously, don’t say stuff like that.”

“Trust me.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really, no.”

“Greeeeaaaat,” I mutter.

We park down the alley from one of the most expensive buildings around. It’s about the same age as Grant’s skyscraper, and just as luxurious.

Before we leave the car, Grant stuffs a thousand dollars in the glove compartment.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked.

“We stole it.”

“So why aren’t you leaving more?”

“They’ll get it back. It’s mostly for the inconvenience. It’s good karma.”

“A cat burglar is telling me about good karma,” I mutter to myself as I open the car door and get out.

And so begins one of the strangest journeys I’ve ever taken. I will never look at a building the same way ever again.

Grant picks a lock at a service entrance. Then we find a service elevator. From there we climb through a trapdoor in the top of the elevator (he has to boost me up). Once we get into the elevator shaft, we climb a ladder for what seems like an eternity until we enter what he says is an air conditioning duct. From there we somehow wind up in a maintenance crawlspace in a wall.

“How did you know this was here?” I ask, then immediately answer my own question. “Because you designed the building.”

“Nope,” he says cheerfully. “I just did some redesign work for the owner, so I know the blueprints. Photographic memory, remember?”

“We’re breaking into this person’s apartment, and you think he’s going to
help
you?”

“Well, he kind of owes me one.”

“I hope his definition of ‘owing you one’ is the same as your definition.”

“That makes two of us.’

“What did you do for him?”

“I convinced my father to be one of his first investors when his own father disowned him.”

“Wait – so he’s not a criminal?” I ask, surprised.

“No,” he says, offended. “Why would I go get help from a criminal?”

“Because we’re… never mind. Did that help him a lot?”

“Helped make him a billionaire.”

“Oh…”

“Plus I dropped some other clients and designed a building for him back in LA, too, a while back.”

“I would lead with the whole ‘helped make you a billionaire’ thing rather than the ‘I designed a building for  you.’”

Grant grins. “Yeah, I think he’ll remember that part.”

After a half hour crawling around in the bowels of the building, we finally reach our destination.

“We’re here,” he announces.

Except it’s a dead end.

Just a blank wall of sheetrock.

“What?” I ask, surprised.

“Start kickin’.”

“What?!”

He suddenly slams his foot against the sheetrock.

I want to scream, but I figure that’s probably not the wisest thing when breaking and entering.

Not that kicking in a bunch of sheetrock is, either.

Thirty seconds later, there’s a person-sized hole torn in the wall.

We crawl through on our hands and knees, covered in white dust like a bakery just exploded.

A few feet in, I lift my head and freeze. “Uh… Grant?”

“What?” he asks, then looks up to see what I’m staring at. “Oh.”

There’s a very surprised woman, probably mid-twenties, staring at us with wide eyes. She’s a cute brunette, fairly short, and dressed in a designer skirt suit. She looks fairly familiar… like I’ve seen her before…

In front of her is an Asian guy in a black suit with a gun pointed at Grant’s head.

“Facedown on the floor and spread your arms and legs out
now,
” the guy commands us.

I’m spread-eagled with my nose in the carpet in 1.2 seconds flat.

Grant? Not so much.

“Uh… I know this looks bad, but I can explain,” Grant says, still on his hands and knees.