Fully Loaded Thrillers

  Nothing.

  As she opened the closet, Arnold yelled from the shower, “Letty, you up?”

  The briefcase leaned against the wall on the top shelf inside the closet, and she had to rise on the balls of her feet to grasp it.

  “Letty!”

  Pulled the briefcase down, walked over to the bathroom door.

  “Yeah, I’m up,” she said.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like death.”

  She squatted down, fingering the clasps on the briefcase.

  “I didn’t mention it last night,” he said, “but I’ve got this meeting to go to.”

  “This morning?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Is this with the think tank?”

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  Her thumbs depressed two buttons. The clasps released.

  “I wanted to have breakfast with you,” she said and opened the case.

  “We could do dinner.”

  Twenty-five thousand in cash didn’t look all that impressive—just five slim packets of hundos.

  “You staying here tonight?” she asked, lifting one, flipping through the crisp, clean bills, breathing in the ink and the paper.

  “I would,” he said, “if you wanted to get together again.”

  The shower cut off. She heard the curtain whisk back. Tossed the packet into the briefcase, grabbed the manila folder, leafed through the contents: floor plan, house key, one page of typewritten notes, and a black-and-white photograph of a woman who couldn’t have been more than a year or two past thirty. The shot was candid, or trying to be, Daphne in the foreground, in startling focus, surrounded by clusters of blurry rhododendron. Her hair long, black, straight. Skin preternaturally pale. A remote and icy beauty.

  Arnold was toweling off now.

  “We could definitely meet for dinner tonight,” Letty said as she scanned the address on the page of notes: 712 Hamlet Court.

  The tiny motor of an electric razor started up. She closed the briefcase. Her heels lay toppled on the carpet at the foot of the bed, and she stepped into them, slung her duffle bag onto her shoulder.

  “Maybe we could grab dinner downtown,” Arnold said over the whine of his razor. “I’d like to see more of Asheville.”

  “Absolutely,” she said, lifting the briefcase. “I’ll take you barhopping. I know a few good ones. We’ll hit the Westville Pub. Great beer bar.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  Twelve feet to the door. To being done with all of this. Her biggest score.

  She turned back the inner lock, reached down for the handle.

  Arnold said something from the bathroom that she missed. Saw herself slipping out into the corridor, heard the soft click of the door shutting behind her. Felt the tension of waiting for the elevator.

  Letty turned back from the door, returned the briefcase to the closet shelf. Hardest thing she’d ever done.

  She set her bag down and knocked on the bathroom door. “Can I come in, Arnie?”

  “Yeah.”

  He turned off the razor as she opened the door, frowned when he saw her. Steam rising off his shoulders. “You’re dressed.”

  “I want to go back to my apartment, get a shower there.”

  “You can stay here while I go to my meeting.”

  “I need to let my dog out, get some papers graded. I’ll leave my number on the bedside table.”

  He stepped away from the sink, embraced her, the towel damp around his waist, said, “I can’t wait to see you tonight.”

  And she kissed him like she meant it.

  Letty ran through the lobby, past the front desk, out into a cool, fall morning. She forced a twenty into the bellhop’s hand, and he relinquished the car service he’d called for another guest.

  “You know Hamlet Court?” she asked when the Bellhop had shut her into the backseat of the Lincoln Town Car.

  The driver glanced back, a light-skinned Haitian with blue eyes. “I will find. You have street number?”

  “Seven twelve.” As he punched the address into the GPS unit, Letty handed a hundred-dollar bill into the front seat. “I’m sorry, but I need you to speed.”

  Through the streets of the old, southern city, the downtown architecture catching early light—City Hall, the Vance Monument, the Basilica of St. Lawrence, where a few churchgoers straggled in for morning mass—and on the outskirts of Letty’s perception, secondary to her inner frenzy, a spectrum of Appalachian color—copper hillsides, spotless blue, the Black Mountain summits enameled with rime ice. A classic autumn day in the Swannanoa Valley.

  They turned onto an oak-lined boulevard, red and gold leaves plastered to the pavement.

  “We’re going into Montford?” Letty asked.

  “That’s what the computer says to me.”

  Hamlet Court was a secluded dead end off the B&B bustle of Montford Avenue, approximately a half mile long, and home to a dozen Victorian mansions.

  The entrance to 712 stood at the end of the cul-de-sac through a brick archway just spacious enough to accommodate a single car.

  “Stop the car,” Letty said.

  “I take you all the way up.”

  “I don’t want you to take me all the way.”

  She climbed out of the car at 10:04. Hurried to the end of the street and under the archway, glancing at the name on a large, black mailbox: Rochefort.

  The residence sat toward the back of the property, which sloped up across a masterfully landscaped yard shaded with maples and spruce trees, dotted with stone sculptures—fountains, birdbaths, angels—and not a leaf to be seen on the pockets of lush green grass.

  An engine turned over near the house. Letty stepped off the drive and crawled into a thicket of mountain laurel as a boxy Mercedes G-Class rolled past. Through the branches and tinted glass, she glimpsed Chase at the wheel, a young boy in a booster in the backseat. The car ride over had only intensified her nausea, and as the diesel engine faded away, she put her finger down her throat and retched in the leaves.

  She felt instantly better. Weaker. Less drunk. But better.

  Only when the Mercedes had disappeared did she climb out of the bushes. Shivering, shoulders scraped, head pounding not only with a hangover, but a new element of suffering—coffee-deprivation.

  She jogged uphill to where the driveway widened and cut a roomy circle back into itself. Up the brick steps onto the covered porch, where she rang the doorbell twice, struggling to catch her breath.

  10:08 by her BlackBerry as footsteps approached from the other side of the door.

  When it finally opened and Daphne Rochefort stood in the threshold in a lavender terrycloth robe, Letty realized she had given no prior consideration to exactly what she might say to this woman, had thought through and executed getting here, but nothing after.

  “Yes?”

  “Daphne?”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “What can I do for you?” Though at face value the words were all southern hospitality, the delivery carried a distinct northern draft.

  Letty rubbed her bare arms, figured she probably still reeked of alcohol and vomit.

  “There’s a man coming here to kill you.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I know this must sound—”

  “You smell like booze.”

  “You have to listen to me.”

  “I want you off my porch.”

  “Please, just—”

  “I’m calling the police.”

  “Good, call the police.”

  Daphne retreated to slam the door, but Letty darted forward, planting her right heel across the doorframe. “I’m trying to help you. Just give me two minutes.”

  Letty followed Daphne past the staircase, down a hallway into an enormous kitchen full of marble and stainless steel and redolent of chopped onions and cooking eggs. Daphne went to the stove, flipped an omelet, and began to peel a banana. “What’s your name?”

  “It’s not important.”

>   “So talk,” she said.

  Letty stood across the island from her, light flooding in through the large windows behind the sink, the coffeemaker at the end of its brewing cycle, gurgling like it’d had its throat cut.

  “Here’s the Clif Notes,” Letty said, “ because we don’t have much time. I went to the Grove Park Inn yesterday. Someone hooked me up with a master keycard, tipped me off to which rooms might be worth hitting.”

  “You’re a thief.”

  “I was in the last room of the day when the guest came back unexpectedly. I had to hide in the closet.”

  “I’m failing to see—”

  “Chase was with him.” Daphne stopped slicing the banana. “Your husband gave this man, Arnold, a key to your house. A photo of you. A floor plan. And twenty-five thousand dollars to murder you.”

  Daphne looked up from the cutting board, her bright, black eyes leveled upon Letty like a double-barreled shotgun. Her smile exposed a row of exquisite teeth.

  “I want you to leave right now.”

  “You think I’m lying? I didn’t want to come here. I had a chance to steal the twenty-five thousand this morning. Could’ve gone home, had nothing more to do with any of this. You don’t know me, but this isn’t like me, this…selflessness. I’ve been to prison too many times. I can’t take another felony charge. Getting involved in this was a great risk for me.”

  Daphne took up the knife again, continued cutting the banana.

  Letty spotted the clock on the microwave. “I can prove it to you. It’s 10:11. In exactly four minutes, your husband will call you. He’ll tell you he can’t find his wallet. He’ll ask you to go upstairs to your bedroom and check in his bedside table. If he calls, will you believe me?”

  Daphne glanced at the microwave clock, then back at Letty. Honest to God fear in her eyes for the first time. A solemn, crushing focus. She nodded. The eggs burning.

  “How will he reach you?” Letty asked. “Landline? Cell?”

  “My iPhone.”

  “Can we take the Beamer in the driveway?”

  “I’m not leaving with you.”

  “You don’t understand. By the time your husband calls you, it’ll be too late. The point of the phone call is to get you upstairs so Arnold can break in.”

  “You want to leave right now?”

  “This second.”

  Daphne moved the pan to a cold burner and turned off the gas. They walked back down the hall, past a wall adorned with family and individual portraits and a collage of photographs—grinning babies and toddlers.

  In the foyer, Daphne plucked a set of keys from a ceramic bowl beside a coat rack and opened the front door. The yard brilliant with strands of light that passed through the trees and struck the lawn in splashes of green.

  Ten steps from the silver Beamer, Letty grabbed Daphne’s arm and spun her around with a hard jerk.

  “Ouch.”

  “Back inside.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a car parked halfway up your driveway behind the rhododendron.”

  They went back up the steps.

  “You have the house key?” Letty asked.

  Crossed the porch, Daphne struggling with the keys as they arrived at the door, finally sliding the right one into the deadbolt. Back into the house and Daphne shut the wide oak door after them, relocked the deadbolt, the doorknob, the chain.

  “I should check the back door,” Daphne said.

  “It doesn’t matter. He has a key and Chase left a window open. You have a gun in the house?”

  Daphne nodded.

  “Show me.”

  Daphne ran up the staircase, Letty kicking off her heels as she followed. By the top of the stairs, her pulse had become a thumping in her temples—exertion and panic. They turned down a hallway, passed an office, a bright-white studio filled with sunlight and tedious acrylic paintings of mountain scenes, then two children’s bedrooms that emanated the frozen perfection of unlived-in space. At the end of the hall, French doors opened into a master suite built in the shape of an octagon, the walls rising to a vaulted ceiling that was punctured with skylights.

  Chirping crickets stopped them both. Daphne withdrew her iPhone from the pocket of her robe and forced a smile that managed to bleed through into her voice.

  “Hi, Honey… …no, it’s fine… …upstairs… …sure.” Daphne stepped into a walk-in closet, hit the lights. Letty lingered in the doorway, watched her reach through a wall of suits, emerging a moment later with a pump-action shotgun.

  She mouthed, “Loaded?”

  Daphne nodded. “Chase, it’s not in here. Want me to check downstairs?” Letty took the gun from Daphne. “All right,” Daphne said. “You two have fun.”

  Letty whispered, “Call Nine-one-one,” and while Daphne dialed, Letty flicked off the safety and racked a shell into the chamber. She peered around the corner, down the hall. The house stood silent. She moved out of the closet and into a lavish master bath the size of her apartment, the tile cool on her bare feet.

  Garden tub. Immense stone shower with a chrome fixture a foot in diameter. Long countertops cut from Italian granite.

  Letty opened the glass shower door and cranked the handle. Preheated water rained down. The glass steamed. She returned to the bedroom, shutting the door behind her, found Daphne standing just inside the closet.

  “Why’d you run the shower?” she whispered.

  “Are the police coming?”

  “Yes.”

  Letty killed the lights. “Go crouch down in the corner behind those dresses and turn your phone off.” As Daphne retreated into the darkness, Letty pulled the door closed and padded out into the hall, making her way between the easels in the studio to the big windows that overlooked the front yard.

  The car in the driveway hadn’t moved. A black 4Runner. Empty.

  She walked out into the hall, straining to pick out the whine of approaching sirens.

  Had the central heat been running, it would’ve completely escaped her notice, and even in the perfect silence she still nearly missed it—just around the corner and several feet down, the faintest groan of hardwood fibers bowing under the weight of a footstep.

  Letty backpedaled into the studio and stepped behind the open door.

  Through the crack, she eyed the hall.

  Arnold appeared without a sound, wearing blue jeans and a fleece pullover. For a second, she thought there must be something wrong with his hands, their paleness. Latex gloves. Navy socks with strips of rubber gripping kept his footfalls absolutely silent and he moved slowly and with great precision down the hall, a black pistol at his side that had been fitted with a long suppressor.

  Arnold stopped in the doorway of the master suite.

  Waited a full minute.

  Nothing but the white noise of the shower.

  In the time it took Letty to step out from behind the door and peek into the hall, Arnold had disappeared.

  She held the shotgun at waist-level and started toward the master suite. The half-speed fog of her hangover was replaced with a throbbing vigilance and a metal taste in the back of her throat that had come only a handful of times in her life—fights in prison, the three occasions she’d faced a judge to be sentenced, her father’s funeral.

  She entered the master suite again. Steam poured out of the bathroom and Arnold stood in the doorway with his back to her. She felt lightheaded and weak, unable to summon her voice just yet, not fully committed to the idea of being in this moment.

  Arnold walked into the steamy bathroom and Letty edged farther into the room, past the unmade bed and the stair climber, the shotgun trained on Arnold’s back through the open doorway, slightly obscured in the mist.

  “You have a shotgun pointed at your back.”

  He flinched at the sound of her voice. “Don’t turn around. Don’t move. Drop the gun.” Arnold didn’t move, but he didn’t drop the gun either. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’ll tell you again.” It clattered on th
e tile. “Kick it away from you.” The gun slid across the floor, coming to rest against the cabinets under the sink. Letty closed the distance between them, now standing in the bathroom doorway, close enough to smell the remnants of his cologne. “Keep your hands out in front of you and turn around.” When he saw her, his eyes betrayed only a glimmer of surprise. “Sit down, Arnold.” He sat at the base of the shower as Letty stepped into the bathroom, clouds of mist swirling between them.

  He said, “What are you, a cop?”

  “I was in your room yesterday afternoon when you and Chase came in. I hid in the closet. Heard everything you said.”

  “So you’re a thief. That means we can work this out.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Can I get something out of my pocket?”

  “Slowly.”

  He reached into his fleece jacket, withdrew a set of keys, let them jingle. “The 4Runner’s new. There’s a briefcase with twenty-five thousand in cash in the front seat.”

  “I know about the briefcase.”

  “I can just go home. That’s a good score for you Letty. Bet you never had a payday like that.”

  “And you go back to doing what you do?”

  He smiled, shook his head. “The people I work for…if they want someone dead, that person’s going to die. It’s their will that causes it to happen. Not mine. They pull the trigger. I’m just the bullet. The damage. And I’m not the only bullet. So really, Letty. Why get yourself tangled up in this? You’re a thief, a tweaker. You been to prison?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So why not stay out of the affairs of the spoiled rich? Why do you care so much to interfere? To put yourself at risk, which you’ve done?”

  “Late at night, when you’re alone, do you ever feel like somewhere along the way, you crossed this line you didn’t see? Actually sold yourself out?”

  Arnold just stared at her as the shower beat down on the stone.

  “I thought I was completely lost, Arnie. And then I found myself hiding in that closet in your room, and I saw a chance to go back to the other side of the line.”

  Letty heard the closet door swing open. Daphne came and stood beside her.

  “My husband paid you to kill me?”

  Arnold made no response. Daphne walked over to the sinks, bent down, picked up his gun.