Jace’s motionless body still lies stretched out on the couch.
“He’s still sleeping,” I whisper with a sigh of relief.
Still breathing.
It isn’t until I’m three steps from the exit that I look up and notice the small white security camera above the front door.
CHAPTER 24
Maggie
“Does everyone have a fucking security system these days?” I snap, watching Doug’s eyes on the camera hiding in the corner of the overhang.
Jace, Zac . . . even Celine, though hers was stuffed in a drawer. Sure, we had cameras on the perimeter of our property in La Jolla, but given our money and valuables and high-profile lives, we had good reason.
“Puts a damper on your criminal activities, doesn’t it?” Doug has barely said two words to me since I jumped into his sedan outside of Jace’s building, and the few he has said have been laced with annoyance.
I grip my scarf tighter around my neck as we stand by the side entrance of an unimpressive bungalow in Queens, concealed by an untamed cedar hedge and lit by a motion-detector spotlight. “This is where your high-priced hacker lives?”
“Research expert,” Doug corrects.
Seconds later, footfalls sound from inside, like someone’s running up a set of stairs. The plain beige curtain shielding the small window in the door shifts and eyes peer out at me from the darkness. Then the dead bolt clicks and the footfalls sound again. Someone heading back down the stairs.
“Come on.” Doug opens the door and gestures me in. He locks it behind us as I force myself down the narrow set of stairs, through another heavy door decorated with numerous dead bolts, and into a dim basement that smells of greasy fries and dirty socks and is stuffed with industrial shelves of computer equipment. Ahead of us, eight black screens with continuous scrolls of code form a wall. A low buzz of voices and beeps come from a row of police scanners in the corner.
My chest begins to tighten. I close my eyes and remind myself why we’re here, hoping that’s enough to distract me from the impending panic attack.
“Zac, this is Maggie. Maggie, Zac.”
Zac is as average-looking as one could imagine. Mid-thirties, medium-brown hair, maybe two inches taller than me, arms lacking any significant muscle tone, and the beginnings of a belly protruding from his ensemble of T-shirt and sweatpants.
He throws a lazy salute at me before dropping into his computer chair, a can of Coke in hand. “Should I guard my drink?” His voice is deep and gravelly, reminding me of a slovenly version of Philip Seymour Hoffman.
I offer Zac a sour smile in return. Since when did these two take the moral high road? Though, I’d feel a lot better about what I did had I found Celine’s vase tonight.
“How bad is it?” Doug mutters.
Zac hits a key, and the inside of Jace’s apartment shows up. “Basic security measures, from the looks of it. There’s only one feed.”
“But look at that line of sight.” I heave a sigh. Right into the living room, a narrow sliver that captures the couch area perfectly.
Where Jace still sleeps soundly.
“Okay, so . . .” With a few keystrokes, he’s suddenly gone from the couch. “Here’s J-Man, answering the door . . .” Zac commentates as Jace appears from the left, likely coming from his office. I realize that this is a replay. “And here’s Ms. Evil,” he adds as I stroll in.
“What?” He shrugs when I shoot a glare at him. “You did drug him.”
I’m not sure that Doug’s “research expert” and I are going to get along.
He fast-forwards through the video feed—catching us moving past the camera several times—until the part where I wander over to a waiting Jace to, first, swap out our glasses with his back turned, and then covertly dump the Ambien into his wine while looking over my shoulder.
Oh, the irony.
Doug rubs both hands over his forehead.
“That’s not going to look good in court,” Zac announces through a mouthful of fries.
“No, it’s not,” Doug agrees.
“Thanks, guys, for trying to make me feel better.”
Shaking his head, Doug shoots a glare my way. “Anything useful in Celine’s apartment building video feed yet?”
“Yup.” He wipes his greasy fingers on his sweatpants, adding to the dark stains already on his lap, before punching in a few keys. The lobby of Celine’s building suddenly appears on one of the screens, frozen on pause, and I see the top of Jace’s head as he passes through. It may not be a clear view of his face, but, to me, it’s so very obviously him.
Suddenly my anxiety over the close quarters of this basement surveillance lab doesn’t matter.
That fucking bastard. My teeth grit together. “He knew her, and he lied. Not ‘Maggie’ the call girl who shows up at hotels. Celine. Now we have proof.” There’s no longer any doubt in my mind.
“No, we don’t. There’s no police investigation and we have no warrant for this surveillance and we have the top of a man’s head,” Doug reminds me. “Even with a positive ID, this at most puts him in the building. But we’d still have to prove that he was coming to visit her. Chester can’t do anything with this. You can’t say a word to him about it because we’ve acquired this through illegal means. And I can almost guarantee that if the cops show up on this guy’s doorstep, that little movie you just starred in will surface. That, Chester can use.”
“The door system they’re using is ancient. I can’t get anything from it,” Zac drawls in this low, bored tone, fast-forwarding through the feed. “But let’s assume this is J-Man. He was there for about an hour.”
Plenty of time to lace someone’s drink with a handful of crushed pills.
Jace appears on the screen again, this time on his way out.
With a cardboard box tucked under his arm.
“Freeze it!” I lean over Zac’s shoulder to get a better look at the box. It’s sizeable and brown and stamped on one side with blue arrows pointing up, and on another side with the word “FRAGILE.” The box in Jace’s office tonight was stamped the exact same way.
I’m pretty sure it’s the same box.
“The vase could be in there! Just because it’s not in there now doesn’t mean it wasn’t here.” I jab the screen.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Zac’s eyes dipping down the top of my blouse. I stand, pulling my coat shut.