Death Angel

Even if Rafael had hired someone to track her, he might not have wanted to go to the expense of hiring him. The assassin was expensive-very expensive. Rafael had to be aware he wasn’t going to get his two million back; he’d know the difficulties she faced, and he’d know that, once the money was credited to her account, he couldn’t get to it. Would he be willing to add the cost of the assassin to the two million he’d already lost?

Yes. She was almost positive the answer was yes. Rafael would be in a rage and capable of anything. And considering his profession, the assassin would be well aware of the ins and outs of moving money around and converting it to cash.

That was the one thing she hadn’t researched properly, the one weakness in her plan. She had acted hastily, pushed by emotion, and now she was paying the price. Was she never going to learn? she wondered bitterly. All emotion did was cloud the issue and make things more difficult. She should have shrugged off what Rafael had done, steeled herself to endure, and planned better. She could have waited until she had something set up offshore, away from the prying of the IRS, then made her move.

She still had the bag of jewelry that she could liquidate, but probably her best bet would be selling it on eBay or something, and that would take time. Yet now that she had the laptop, she could get started on that. She wasn’t broke and helpless, not like the first time. She had options.

What she didn’t have was time. Days had passed since she’d left New York, plenty of time for him to track her. Unless she was willing to walk away from the two million, at least for a while. And how long would it be before she felt safe to access it? A year? Two years? Five? She had to move fast.

She didn’t even have the eighty-five thousand now, at least not in her hand. Accessing it came with the same risks as accessing the two million. She had some more cash, and she had the jewelry, but while she could probably live off that she wouldn’t be able to get that new ID so she could disappear. There wouldn’t be a house, a home just for her. She’d have to work at a job that paid her under the table, probably waitressing in some dump. She’d lived that life before, and she didn’t intend to do it again.

The way she saw it, risky or not, she had to act.

Finally, with everything in place, she called Mrs. Pearson. "I’m set," she said. "I have a laptop, and I have wireless service."

"Good! I have the application ready. I get off work at five o’clock; I can meet you at…where’s a good place?"

"I don’t know. Let me think." In a town the size of Grissom, there was no good place. The cafe wouldn’t work; Drea didn’t want to be caught in a small place, on foot, with the only exit through the kitchen. She’d been in the cafe, and plates were handed out of a large pass-through to the waitress. There was a door at the back of the cafe that led to the restrooms and maybe to the kitchen, but she hadn’t checked it out when she was there so she didn’t know for certain. Unless she wanted to clamber through the pass-through, which she didn’t because the grill might be right there under it, the cafe was a trap.

This was another example of not being thorough in her planning. She should have checked out everything, because her life might depend on it. From now on, she’d assume he was just one step behind her, and act accordingly. She wasn’t safe until she’d broken the paper trail, and that would take time.

"How about the parking lot of the dollar store," she finally suggested. There was more than one entrance; even better, it was on a corner, so she had more than one street to choose. No one who knew anything about her would ever look for her at a dollar store.

THIS WAS LIKE a chess game, Simon thought with relish. He enjoyed matching wits with someone like Drea. Most of the time, his prey was clueless, even people who should know better. Most of his targets took security measures, but then they felt very secure and relaxed their guards. Big mistake. Fatal mistake. The way to stay alive was to never relax, never assume you were safe.

He’d taken a flight out the previous afternoon, rented a pickup truck so he’d blend in with the population in the rural area, and driven the rest of the way. He was dressed in jeans, black work boots, and a short-sleeve, dark blue work shirt like mechanics wore. His shirt even had a name, Jack, embroidered above the left pocket. Everyone knew a Jack. Jacks were everywhere, and it was such a common name no one paid any attention to it. A stained ball cap, sunglasses, and beard stubble completed his disguise.

He was somewhat limited in his disguise choices, because he couldn’t pull off the wheelchair routine in a town this small. People would be stopping to help him, they’d ask where he lived, wonder why they hadn’t met before. Still, he was satisfied with his appearance; he blended in, which was exactly what he wanted.

If Drea hadn’t realized before how difficult it was to get a large amount of cash, by now she did. She might be like the majority of his targets and assume she was safe here in this backwater because she hadn’t used a credit card anywhere, and she’d driven instead of flying, but he expected she would be sharper than that.

She had so far played it smart, but by now she’d have figured out the weakness in her plan, and realized how she could be traced. Would she expect him to be the one on her trail? It was possible. She knew Rafael well enough to play him, which meant she was damn accurate in predicting what he’d do.

She’d have to have Internet service to move the money electronically, and she’d have to fill out paperwork to set up the process. That meant the Internet service would have to come first. Last night he’d surfed through the systems of the companies serving this area, and she wasn’t listed. Until she was able to get a new ID she’d have to use her real name, and all new paperwork cost more cash than he figured she had. Until she could change identities, she wouldn’t be able to shake him.