Free The Lady Is a Thief by Heather Long Page B

her.” She closed her
eyes a half second and glanced down during her answer.
          “Really?” He didn't
know her well enough to assume the deflection a lie, but the guilt trailing
through her gaze told him to hang onto this thread.
          “Okay, maybe I circled the block a couple of
times to make sure she wasn't screwing me over.”
          “She just gave you a thousand dollars in
cash. She didn't have time to screw you over.” And Georgia
only a pawn in the game. No need to sacrifice her or make her task
unnecessarily hard.
          The woman flushed a faint shade of crimson
and guilt worried the lines around her mouth. “True. But that's one hell of an
expensive car and a lot of cash. No one's that nice just to ask you to drive
around and not be up to no good. So—maybe I watched
where she went and maybe I made sure there wasn't a body in the trunk before I
hit a highway.”
          He didn't smile, but he couldn't fault her
logic. “So where did she go?”
          “Bus station. Crazy chick. She has that kind of cash and this car, and she
heads to the bus station? Why would anyone do that?”
          Because
a bus has less security and no one would look for the heiress to the Hardwicke
fortunes aboard one. Jarod pulled a hundred out of his wallet and handed it
to her. “I want her things from the car.”
          “Hey, all yours. Do
you want the car?” Concern and uncertainty flickered in her expression.
          “Nope. You can keep
it.” He waited for the telltale beep that she unlocked it. He grabbed her bags
and her jacket. “And I need her phone.”
          If Louis tracked her with any of this—he
paused and studied the car. “Tell you what. Take the car to 44th and Lex downtown, talk to Mitch. Tell him you need an
exterminator. He'll take care of cleaning the car.”
          Georgia's eyes rounded and she blinked at
him owlishly. “Is there something wrong with my car?”
          The proprietary note in her voice amused
him. “Probably not, but it never hurts.” He handed her another hundred.
“Consider it on me.”
          She traded the phone for the hundred and he
carried all of it with him. He hoped Georgia listened, because Louis had time
to put a tracking device on the car since he arrived at the airport first—but
his arrival so soon as they departed suggested he'd just gotten there himself. Dropping her gear on the passenger seat,
Jarod started his own car and kept an eye on Georgia. He sorted through
everything in the bag—files, her digital tablet, a change of clothes, and a
slim pack of tampons. Nothing to go on.
          Her purse revealed even less. Her wallet was
there, but she stripped the credit cards' magnetic stripes. No I.D. card or
passport—she either took them with her or left them on her plane. She planned
to go into the wind the minute she arrived in Los Angeles. But…she'd taken the
time to fly to L.A.
          So why Los Angeles? The bus he understood. But had she planned to use a bus from the beginning?
No—the car.
          Georgia talked on her own cell phone now,
sitting in the car across from him. She hadn't backed out of her parking space.
The car waited in the private hanger for Kit's arrival. She planned to drive
away from her plane, her security, and any other observers; in all likelihood,
to another destination to pick up another car.
          His phone rang. He recognized the number, so
he hit the answer button. “Yes?”
          “I'm at the Malibu estate. She's not here.
She hasn't been here in some time. One of the field workers said that she
rarely stays at the estate, even when she is in town, though.”
          “Did he say why?”
          “No, just mentioned that she attended
parties and social functions, but they always saw her leave as soon as the
parties ended and she didn't always return. His sister is one of the house maids
and Lady Hardwicke's things are often packed by them