Cynthia Hamilton - Madeline Dawkins 01 - Spouse Trap (25 page)

FORTY-SIX

The text came through as the manicurist was finishing her toenails. She had spent almost three hours in the salon, starting with a massage, then a shampoo, a facial and the mani/pedi combo. She had splurged again, but it was worth it. She felt like the semi-Bionic Woman—no new parts, but a full rehab.

She hastened back to her suite, where she set about unwrapping her package. The main problem was finding something sharp to cut through the packing tape. She couldn’t travel with her Swiss Army knife anymore, and she didn’t have any keys because she no longer owned anything that required one. She ended up poking the parcel open with a pen, which took an inordinate amount of time and made her edgy.

When she finally pulled the contraption from its box, she was breathless with anticipation. She messed with the controls for a minute before resorting to the “quick start” guide and instructions. She became frazzled when she discovered the unit had to be charged, but once it was plugged in she was able to use it. Immediately it started beeping, startling her half to death.

She read through the info impatiently and figured out how to stop the beeping. She changed the setting to “flash only.” That solved, she read on, gleaning just enough to understand how the device operated. It could detect bugs at 30 feet. That could be anywhere in the suite.

She picked up her computer and brought it closer. The scanner flashed faster the closer she got. With shaky hands, she opened the laptop. The flashing continued, but she wasn’t sure what she should be looking for. She consulted the brochure again.

She laid the scanner down and flipped her computer over. She carried it over to a window and examined it in the light. Everything was black and there weren’t that many raised surfaces, just the rounded feet that elevated it. On closer inspection, she detected that there were five raised bumps, four on the corners and one placed rather oddly that didn’t really look like the others. It was larger and wasn’t the same depth. And there appeared to be a hole in the center…

She turned off the scanner and switched on the desk lamp. She placed the laptop upside down on the desk in preparation of debugging it. Again she was vexed at the lack of proper tools. She looked at her freshly manicured fingernails and sighed.
They could always be touched up,
she decided as she ran her thumbnail around the edge, looking for a loose spot. Finding none, she took a sharp jab at it and off it flew, breaking her nail in the process. It landed on the rug and rolled under the coffee table.

Madeline suppressed a whoop of triumph, mindful of what she had uncovered. She picked up the black disc and scrutinized it. There was no way she could be sure when it had been attached; it could have been put on while she was still at the Park Lane house or while she was staying at the Westin.

Assuming the former, what conversations could it have picked up? Madeline racked her brain trying to recall everything she had said in the presence of her computer. She watched the events of the last two weeks as they raced through her mind.

She stopped the playback as bits and pieces of her phone conversations with Mike came back to her. What had she said? Had she tipped her hand in any way? She froze as she remembered telling Mike she hired her own private investigator. Had she ever mentioned him by name? She thought hard. It seemed like she had. Damn! And she definitely recalled breaking the news to Mike that “Burt” was dead.

She had also told Mike that she had moved to the Hilton.
Damn, damn, damn!
she cursed herself. But then she realized she had called him from the bedroom, while her computer was on the desk at the other end of the suite. That was a small relief.

She sank to the sofa, hands clasped to her face as she remembered her last conversation with Burt. Whoever had been listening would’ve only heard her speaking, but what had she said? She knocked the sides of her head, trying to shake pieces of their last exchange loose. She rose up like a zombie as snippets came back to her.
“I’m afraid Steven will manage to come up with the money needed to pay off the notes before we have enough evidence of what he’s done.”

A strangled cry escaped her as she staggered toward the French doors
. “If we don’t catch him on this, then we’re not going to catch him on anything…”

She covered her ears in a vain attempt to block out what she had tried so hard to remember. But now that the last conversation came flooding back, she couldn’t stop it. She had tipped off whoever had planted the listening device on her computer. They could’ve easily pieced together everything she and Burt had been up to from her dialog alone.

“Are you worried they know you’re investigating Steven’s company?”
she remembered asking. She wanted to end it right there…but she hadn’t. No, she wanted to get Steven for
some
of the crimes he had committed. She turned ghostly pale as her inner voice replayed the final
coup de gras
:
“Continue as planned. A man like that can’t be allowed to go free and seek other victims.”

She gingerly picked up the tiny microphone, wondering what she should do with it. Could the brief beeping of the scanner and the fall from the back of the computer alerted anyone listening in? The beeping could’ve come from a variety of electronic devices, and the mic had landed on the carpet. She was probably in the clear, but she couldn’t decide if it were better to pitch the bug outside or play dumb.

She set it down on the coffee table and changed out of her swimsuit and tunic. She thought for a moment while she dressed in clean shorts and a T-shirt. She decided to leave the listening device alone and go check out her other hotel room. She wouldn’t have any concrete answers until she knew if Steven had local surveillance on her too.

FORTY-SEVEN

Madeline parked her rental car at the Nikko Hotel and walked through the Aurora grounds to the Westin, her mind churning. There were so many possible scenarios at play here, she could barely keep them all straight. What she really needed was a professional to put the pieces together. But she would have to rely on her new gadget and her own intelligence to determine how far Steven had gone to assure her cooperation.

She spent a few minutes dallying in the lobby of the Westin to make sure no one was following her. There was quite a crowd waiting in front of the bank of elevators, as a new influx of vacationers was shown to their rooms. Fortunately, no one else got off on her floor.

In her absence, the maid had cleaned and tidied her room. Madeline set her bag down on the desk as she made a visual assessment of all the places one might hide a bugging device. In the process, she kicked off her sandals and turned on the television. She used her flashlight app on her iPhone to discreetly look behind the dresser and armoire.

She felt completely out of her depth as she ran her hand under the desk and turned the telephone upside down. She could spend an hour going over the room and never find what she fervently hoped didn’t exist. Someone could’ve placed a video camera or a microphone almost anywhere. Or this could just be an exercise in paranoid futility.

She sat on the edge of the bed and considered the most probable locations to plant a bug. She looked up at the sconces above each bedside table. Both would be an ideal place to hide a voice recorder. But what she wanted to rule out before searching for them was any possible video cameras.

She checked all around the mirror above the dresser and the two framed prints. She shone the flashlight over the A/C vent, but it would be impossible to eliminate it unless she got up there and took the grill off. On second thought, the rushing of air when the A/C was running would hamper the sound quality. She also wrote it off as a poor vantage point for a camera.

She turned on the bathroom light and did a visual inspection. All her toiletries had been lined up in an orderly fashion that showed the care the maid had taken with her things. She checked all sides of the makeup mirror and every other fixture in the room, including the blinds that covered the ocean view window over the bathtub. Nothing out of the ordinary.

She turned up the volume on the TV as she headed for her tote bag. It was time to break out the spyware. If the room was bugged at all, it would probably be with a wireless microphone. What she had to say to someone would be more relevant to Steven’s concerns than images of her walking around in her underwear. She switched the scanner on and it immediately began to flash.

As she walked toward the bed, the flashing increased. She stood on the mattress and peered inside the up-turned glass shade. She couldn’t see anything. She walked across the bed to the other sconce, the tracker flashing faster with each step. She tested the sturdiness of the side table with her foot, then shifted her weight to give her another couple inches in viewing height. She dropped the scanner to the bed and used both hands to probe inside the sconce.

Down toward the base, stuck to the wall, her fingers ran across the uneven texture of the mesh covering a mic about the size of a quarter. She hopped back to the bed, retrieved the scanner and held it up to the sconce. The flashing light became a solid beam of red. She’d found her bug. She turned the scanner off and lowered herself to the bed.

Now that she knew what she was dealing with, it was easier to surmise Steven’s intentions. It wasn’t good enough to know that she was in Guam proceeding with the divorce as agreed. For whatever reason, he felt it necessary to make sure she didn’t have a counter attack in the making. She couldn’t fault him for being stupid, only evil. His goons had used her expectation of privacy to their advantage, which in turn led them straight to Burt.

What troubled her now were the conversations she’d had with Mike. She sat rigidly as the possible consequences of those phone calls filled her with dread. She sprang off the bed and grabbed her phone, her impulse being to warn him of possible danger. She stopped just short of repeating the same mistake that had put both him and Burt in jeopardy.

A murderous rage was building inside her, one that made her want to tear the room apart and throw the furnishings off the balcony. But what she really wanted to do was beat Steven to a bloody, unrecognizable pulp.

She fought back the powerful urge to flee the room with her newfound determination to retaliate. She had awakened one horrible day to a never-ending nightmare. If she ever wanted to be free of it, she’d have to concentrate like she’d never had to do before. She’d have to turn herself into a one-woman defense team and turn the tables on Steven. She prayed she’d have the guts and perseverance to go the distance.

While she had Mike on her mind, she sent him a text:
Just checking in. Nothing new to report. All’s well. Call u tomorrow.
That done, she went through the motions of feigning a conversation with him. It was important to make Steven’s crew think everything was under control now that Burt Latham was out of the picture.

“Hi Mike, it’s me. I just wanted to let you know I’ve moved back to my room at the Westin,” she said to her iPhone. “I guess I over-reacted to the news of Burt’s death. I just got paranoid. Plus, the other place wasn’t nearly as nice as this one. I’ve got a gorgeous view of the ocean from my bed and the bathtub… Oh yeah, it’s amazing. I could definitely get used to it… I know. I was so freaked out. But I got to thinking about what you said, about how Burt probably had any number of vendettas against him. I suppose it comes with the job. But I’m still shaken up by it… Oh, I know, but it seemed too coincidental at the time. I was his last client, so I just assumed I was somehow responsible.”

Madeline paused as she pretended to listen to Mike’s reply. She lay back on the bed and twiddled a strand of hair with her free hand.

“I’m just glad you didn’t hop on a plane to come rescue me,” she said with a laugh. “No, I’m totally okay now. The way I look at it is I’ve got two and a half more days in paradise before I head back to L.A.” She paused, imaging what Mike would say.

“Well, actually, I have given it some thought. Yeah… I’m thinking I should take you up on your offer, if you still want me hanging around,” she said coyly. “Well, I really appreciate it. But you know this is a ‘no-strings’ deal…we’ll take it as it comes, alright?

“Okay, I should let you go,” she said, yawning. “Same here. Bye.” She went through the motions of ending the call and pulled herself off the bed with effort. She ran a bubble bath and stripped out of her clothes. After soaking for about fifteen minutes, she rinsed and dried off. She put on a little makeup, rearranging everything so it would be obvious she’d been there.

She put on a different outfit, pulled back the sheets and rumpled the pillows, then collected her scanner and a few odds and ends she decided not to leave behind. She closed the blinds, turned out the lights and made her way back to the Nikko Hotel along the shore. She easily blended in with the clusters of people trying to draw out the day before submitting to cocktails and dinner.

To make sure no one was on her trail, she lingered in the lobby as though waiting for someone to join her. Once she was convinced she wasn’t being watched, she returned the rental car, then took a cab to the anonymity and obscurity of the Hilton.

FORTY-EIGHT

As soon as she was back in her suite, the tension of the last few days fell away. The panic and devastation she had felt upon learning of Burt’s death had given way to a solid kernel of self-confidence. She had pulled herself together and come up with several strategies for dealing with Steven. She had ordered electronic gizmos and a detective course and several enlightening books. She had done her own sweeping and put a counter-offensive in play. Not bad for a day’s work.

She stared at the listening device she had pried off her computer. Until she had time to read the course material that dealt specifically with this kind of dilemma, she had no plans to destroy it, for fear that would tip her hand in some way. Instead, she wrapped it in a hand towel and slipped it into a shopping bag, which she then stowed in the back of the closet.

She checked the time: ten to seven. Now that the excitement of her mission was behind her, she felt fatigue fill its place. But that was the beauty of having a suite: she could stay in and not feel claustrophobic. She studied her dinner options and dialed room service. Believing she had cause for a mild celebration, she ordered a half bottle of champagne to go with her lobster bisque and diver scallops.

In anticipation of her feast, she slipped into a silk sheath dress she’d picked up at one of the duty-free shops and turned on her computer. She finally felt up to dealing with the hundreds of emails she’d received since her life imploded. Before she got Outlook opened, the Instant Messenger icon flashed on the screen. Jane. The message had been posted several hours earlier. Madeline sat down at the desk as she scrolled up to the beginning of the message thread.

r u there?? Holy shit! u r not going to believe what’s been circulating via email. I’m assuming u don’t know about this…
Madeline read the next message.
I just forwarded the link to u. brace yourself. Oh, girlfriend –i’m so sorry for u. CALL ME!!

Madeline waited impatiently for her email to populate. During the long process of loading the program, dozens upon dozens of emails appeared in her inbox, starting with a few days ago. She hurriedly scrolled through the messages until she came across the one from Jane. On her preview pane, she could see the link and nothing else. The subject line read simply OMG!

She clicked on the link and was taken to a website. Before she activated the arrow, a sinking feeling came over her. It only took a couple of seconds to confirm the video was the parent of the still photographs Steven had used as his excuse to divorce her with impunity.

A strangled cry escaped her throat as she stared in disbelief at the footage of her having sex with whom she assumed was the mystery man from the ball. Tears of shame and disgust streamed down her face, leaving wet trails on her new silk dress. She fumbled with the mouse until she was able to stop the video. She stood up, knocking the chair backwards, as great, painful sobs wracked her entire body.

“NO!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “NO!” Her knees buckled and she sank to the floor. Her cries became incoherent babble that eventually ceased altogether.

She sat in stunned silence as she assimilated this latest affront. As the minutes ticked by, the look of anguish in her eyes gave way to steely resolve. She got herself and the chair off the floor and sat back down at her computer.

She stared at the freeze-frame shot of herself, her head lolling awkwardly as her assailant had his way with her. As much as it wounded her, she knew that Steven had gone too far this time. He might have several layers between him and this videotaped rape, but those layers could be peeled back, one by one, until the mastermind of her ultimate humiliation would be revealed.

Putting this out for public consumption was the cruel move that would become his undoing. No matter what she had to do, she wouldn’t stop until Steven Ambrose Ridley paid for his crimes, in spades.

Madeline lifted the silver dome covering the seared scallops and nearly gagged. She quickly recovered the dish and called room service to come and get the tray. She was so distraught, she could barely function. She wandered out to the patio and perched on one of the chairs. She was a physical and emotional wreck, but she didn’t care anymore.

She snorted contemptuously as she thought of what she used to hold so dear: money, prestige, connections. What did those things really matter in the larger scheme of things? She had lost something a lot more valuable—her dignity—and she could see no way to redeem it.

What galled her most was the way Steven had disposed of her. It wasn’t like she had been a shrew; they had always more or less been on the same page. She believed they actually had quite a successful marriage.
Hah! What a joke that is,
she thought bitterly, using her fingers to wipe away the tears.

“What did I do wrong?” she asked out loud. The sound of her voice startled her; it was the raspy, brittle voice of a much older woman, one who felt herself victimized by life. Madeline cleared her throat and tested it again. “I won’t let him do this to me,” she said adamantly, her inner strength and fire returning. “Whatever it takes, I’m going to set the record straight,” she pledged, her mind already conjuring up a viable game plan.