Elusive (On The Run Book #1)

An On The Run Travel Thriller

Sara Rosett

http://www.SaraRosett.com

Copyright © 2012 by Sara Rosett

All rights are reserved. Without limiting the rights under
copyright reserved above, no part of this work may be used, stored, transmitted,
or reproduced in any manner or form whatsoever without express written
permission from the author and publisher.

This is a work of fiction and names, characters, incidents,
and places are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to persons, living or dead, incidents, and places is coincidental.

––––––––

To Glenn,

who told me to go for it

––––––––

“Thoroughly entertaining. The
author’s smooth, succinct writing style enables the plot to flow effortlessly
until its captivating conclusion.”

—Romantic Times Book Review (four stars)

––––––––

“Sparkling...”

—Publishers Weekly

––––––––

“...keeps readers moving down some
surprising paths—and on the edge of their chairs—until the very end.”

—Cozy Library

––––––––

“Tightly constructed with many
well-fitted, suspenseful turns...”

—Shine

––––––––

Dallas

Tuesday, Noon

––––––––

IT was supposed to be an easy job.

“Cake,” Rick had said.

Sammy Dovitz tossed his
binoculars onto the passenger seat then shifted restlessly within the confines
of the black KIA. It
should
have been an easy job—no dog and no sign of an alarm installed. The large
cottonwood in the front yard hid some of the two-story house and made it
difficult to see what was going on upstairs, but that situation also worked to
his advantage—he’d take mature landscaping over barren new lots any day. High
hedges, shrubs, and towering trees made it possible to move around unnoticed.

But for it to be an easy job, the
woman had to leave.

Sammy pulled a small hand towel
from below the binoculars and wiped his sweaty forehead. He’d been sitting in
the car for five and a half hours. It hadn’t been too bad at six-thirty in the
morning, but now the windshield acted as a magnifying glass for the sun. The
dark clouds of the approaching early spring thunderstorm were sliding across
the sky, but they were still far enough away that they didn’t block the sun.
He’d moved the car three times already, to stay in the shade—and he didn’t want
to remain in one place too long.

He threw the soaked towel onto the
passenger seat. Rick hadn’t told him the woman worked from home. Sammy hated work-from-home
people. His line of work depended on empty houses, not that this was business
as usual. This job was some sort of special case. Sammy usually worked alone,
but when Rick offered to let him in on this job, the payoff had been too big to
pass up.

Sammy’s phone vibrated. Rick
didn’t bother to say hello. “He’s left the office. You got it yet?”

“No. The woman’s still there. Is
he coming here?”

There was a muttered curse, then
Rick’s scratchy voice, pitched higher than usual and with a layer of nervousness
vibrating through his words, came back on the line. “Doesn’t look like it. He
was still in his suit. He’s driving to the Tollway. Sammy, man, you’ve got to
make this happen. Get on it, right now. Did you hear me? Right now.”

“Yeah, I got you.” Thunder
rumbled, and Sammy looked at the approaching mass of clouds. Another half hour
and they would be directly overhead. The bottom of the cloudbank was dark,
nearly black, and flat as if sliced with a knife, but the top was bumpy with
bloated white columns. Not good. A downpour would only complicate things.

“Do it now,” Rick said. “My part
is done. I’m out of here.”

“Half an hour,” Sammy said and
turned off his phone.

Looking at the house again, he
sighed. It was going to be the hard way. Instead of a quick and dirty, in and
out, he’d have to do the job with the woman in the house—not impossible, but
time consuming and riskier. He wasn’t worried about a confrontation with her.
He knew he could take care of her, but it would be better if she never knew he
was there, which meant slow and careful and quiet.

Sammy pulled a gray shirt over his
white T-shirt. He fastened the buttons, making sure the collar covered the
chain link tattoo on his neck. He removed his diamond earring, dropped it in
the console, and then picked up a small clipboard and black baseball cap. The
name of the game was blending in—that was key. You couldn’t stand out. Tattoos
and diamonds were memorable. Sammy wanted to be practically invisible. Both the
shirt and the cap had the logo of a local cable company, a multi-colored
starburst. He pulled the baseball cap low over his eyes and strolled across the
street to the gate that opened into the backyard of the two-story house.
Despite the large tree in the front, he couldn’t risk being seen picking the
lock on the front door. It would be too chancy in this neighborhood of
occasional walkers and joggers. He could leave through the front door, but he
wasn’t going inside that way.

The gate was unlocked, so he
slipped inside the fence after a quick glance up and down the empty street. He
moved to the back of the house and eased up to the small window placed high on
the wall over the kitchen sink. His hand tightened on the rough brick. She was
still there, all right, motionless except for the movement of her fingers as
she bent over a laptop, which was a useless piece of trash. He’d hoped to do a
little business on the side during this job—something Rick didn’t need to know
about—but if that was the type of merchandise in the house, he wouldn’t even bother.
It wasn’t worth his time.

Sammy inched his head away from
the window. No sudden movements. When he was clear, he went to one of the
windows on the opposite side of the house, an extra bedroom filled with boxes.
He sighed with satisfaction. Finally, something was breaking his way. Sammy
tucked the clipboard into his waistband at the small of his back then slipped
his knife out of his pants pocket. After examining the screen and window for an
alarm, he used the knife to pry the screen out of its track.

He set it on the ground then slid
the knife into the thin space where the upper and lower window casement met.
With a flick, the thumb lock released, and he pushed the window up. A cool,
air-conditioned breeze from inside the house engulfed him.

––––––––

––––––––

––––––––

ZOE stopped typing and stared at
the exposed rafter of her kitchen ceiling, listening.

It was too quiet.

The air conditioner whirred and
there was the faint plink from the leaky faucet in the hall bath, but there
should have been noise from upstairs. A quick glance at the digital clock on
the oven confirmed that it was almost twelve-thirty. Jack should have finished
his daily run and be in the shower by now. She had heard him come inside,
hadn’t she? She must have. He moved through his schedule with a precise, unwavering
regularity. Despite their best efforts to steer clear of each other, their
daily lives crossed at certain points. They couldn’t completely avoid each
other. Even divorced, non-communicative ex-spouses tended to run into each
other when they shared a house.

It wasn’t an ideal situation, but
because the bottom fell out of the housing market right about the time they
divorced, they didn’t have a choice. The house was underwater, meaning they
owed more on it than they could sell it for, so they were stuck—with the house
and with each other.

To keep their sanity and prevent a
shouting match that would have the neighbors calling 911, Jack and Zoe kept to
their carefully defined regions. Jack used the front door and the stairs to
reach his half of the house, the upstairs. Zoe used the back door, which opened
into the kitchen. The first floor was hers. The stairs were a sort of No Man’s
Land, a 38th Parallel. The first floor had more living space, but Zoe really
only cared about the kitchen. She’d gladly ceded the master bedroom because she
couldn’t live without a kitchen. The guest bedroom downstairs was fine with
her. She didn’t understand how Jack made due with a hotplate and a mini-fridge,
but apparently he lived on cereal and sandwiches.

Zoe swiveled on her barstool, legs
dangling, as she considered checking the driveway for his car. Then she heard
the distinctive creak of the floorboard in the hall, followed seconds later by
the far-off squeak of the upstairs bedroom door. Zoe gritted her teeth and turned
back to the keyboard. She couldn’t remember how many times she’d asked him to
spray some WD-40 on those hinges, but did he ever get around to it? No. He
could make time in his schedule for anything related to his small business, but
minor household repairs never showed up on his to-do list.

When the knock sounded on the back
door five minutes later, Zoe looked up from the spreadsheet to check the time
and cringed. Helen wouldn’t be happy.

“It’s open,” she shouted, as she
leaned over to flick on the overhead lights, since the light in the kitchen had
taken on a golden cast as if the sun were setting.

“I knew it,” Helen said as she
opened the door and plunked down two brown bags dotted with grease stains.

“You stood me up again. And for
your laptop, no less. Why did I even bother to go to Chez Madeline? I should
skip that step and go straight to a drive-thru instead. It would save me at
least fifteen minutes.” She tossed her long golden brown bangs out of her eyes
and put her hands on her hips. “Did you even remember we had a lunch date?”

The aromas of grilled hamburger
and French fries filled the kitchen. “Sorry. I forgot to call you to cancel,”
Zoe said squirming, but she knew that Helen wasn’t seriously mad at her. Helen
was never seriously mad about anything. “I’m a terrible friend. I got two short
notice assignments this morning. They were urgent. Since I finished the
copy-edit on the Italy book, things have been a little slow.” Zoe reached
around the laptop for a French fry so hot she could barely touch it. “I don’t
know why you put up with me.”

Helen dropped her combative stance
and rolled her eyes as she climbed on the barstool beside Zoe. She began to
unload food from the bags, careful not to get grease on the cuffs of her silk
Michael Kors blouse. “It’s probably because you taught me how to fold a dollar
bill into a ring in seventh grade and passed all my notes to Ned Billings in
history.”

“I did dissect your frog for you
in biology, too, so you wouldn’t fail. Don’t forget that.”

“Please—we’re about to eat!” Helen
shuddered, causing the topaz pendent on the thick gold chain at her neck to
wink.

“I’m just saying...I do know all
your secrets.”

“That’s definitely part of it,”
Helen said as she unwrapped her burger and inhaled deeply. “And I know you need
the money.”

Zoe licked her fingers, gave them
a brisk wipe on her shorts, typed a final entry, then attached the document to
an e-mail, and sent it off. She pushed the laptop back and picked up her
burger. “That I do.”

“When will you get the next travel
book?” Helen asked.

Copy editing books for a small but
popular independent travel company, Smart Travel, was the main reason Zoe’s
checking account stayed just barely in the black—most of the time. “Should be
in a week or so,” Zoe said. “England and Ireland this time.”

“That will be a nice change from
gladiators and gondolas.”

“Are you saying you don’t like to
hear interesting trivia that I pick up when I’m copy-editing?”

“Oh, no. I think it’s fascinating
to learn about the construction of the Colosseum and how archeologists
excavated Pompeii. I’m invincible at Trivial Pursuit now.”

“Right. I forgot history was your
least favorite subject, next to biology, of course.”

Helen shrugged. “I can’t help it
if all those dates mash together. Anyway, you like it and that’s all that
matters.” Helen changed the subject. “Want to go to the club with me tonight?
It’s Yoga night.”

Zoe shook her head. “Can’t. I have
a spreadsheet to finish and then I’m walking my neighbor’s dog.” Normally, she
had several dog walking appointments around North Dallas, but the last few
weeks had been slow and she only had her neighbor’s dog on her schedule today.

Helen put her burger down and took
a long sip of her soda as she glanced at Zoe out of the corner of her eye.
Casually, she said, “Gary’s quitting.”

Zoe frowned. “Who?”

“Gary. Gary Wilson. In the clerk’s
office. You know, he’s got the third cube on the left.”

Zoe closed her eyes briefly, but
it wasn’t because she was enjoying her food. She knew what was coming. “I don’t
want to work at the County Clerk’s Office,” she said quickly.

“Why not?” Helen pounced. “It’s a
good job. Benefits. Steady pay. You wouldn’t have to take all these different
jobs to scrape along, and you might be able to save enough money to actually
visit some of the places you’d like to see instead of reading and dreaming
about them,” Helen said as she pointed a French fry at a mason jar half filled
with coins that sat on the window sill. A curling and faded sticky note with
the words, “Passport Fund,” was stuck to the outside. “You could finish this,”
she added, looking up at the exposed wood and pipes that ran overhead.

Water damage from a leaky pipe had
forced Zoe to rip out the drywall a few months ago and she didn’t have the
money to hire a contractor to put up new drywall after she paid the plumber.

Zoe plunged her fry into ketchup.
“I’ll travel someday and I’ve decided I like it this way.”

“You do not. You just say that to
make it seem better.”

“No, I do like it,” Zoe replied
firmly. “Those exposed pipes and wires might drive you crazy, but you don’t
live here. I do. They give the place character, a uniqueness. I know exposed
beams would never go over in your corner of suburbia, but here in Vinewood,
it’s okay.

“They’re not exposed beams,” Helen
said, exasperation lacing her tone. “They’re two by fours.”

Zoe shrugged. “So? Who says you
have to have drywall on your ceiling?” Helen took a deep breath and Zoe
wrinkled her nose. “I’m frustrating you, aren’t I?”

“Yes!” Helen swiveled on the
barstool and touched Zoe’s arm. “I worry about you—living here in this old
house. You know it will need more repairs. How will you pay for them? And your
car, it’s already got what—a hundred thousand miles on it?”

“Two, actually,” Zoe said,
placidly.

Helen threw up her hands at Zoe’s
tone. “What will you do if your car breaks down? How will you get to your dog
walking clients to make twenty bucks?”

“Fifty bucks—for an hour’s work.
Even you have to admit, that isn’t bad,” Zoe said as she finished off her
burger. “That’s more than you make an hour, isn’t it?”

“But you don’t make fifty dollars
every hour. You make fifty here, ten there, and it’s not steady work. You don’t
know if you’ll have anything tomorrow.”

“Yes, I do know that I’ll have
something tomorrow. Tomorrow is April first, and Jack’s rent is due.”