Whiplash (Large Print)

Whiplash

 

Riverfield, Connecticut

Late Sunday Night

Erin used her third generation lock picks. She knew each one intimately, having successfully, and in excellent time, learned to unlock whatever her father hid under her pillow by the age of six and a half. Her hands didn’t shake, though her heart felt like it would pound out of her chest. Crouching in a dark maintenance closet for three hours with two bottles of water and a PayDay candy bar hadn’t been fun, but surely it wasn’t all that illegal. What she was doing now, though, it was the real deal. She wasn’t just twisting the law, she stomping on it. She was breaking and entering. She could go to jail for the rest of her youth, which would be a real shame since she hadn’t yet produced the fourth generation of lock pickers.

It wasn’t the first time she’d gone through the back door to make things right for a client, but she prayed with all her heart it would be the last. Maybe if she’d been able to speak to the CEO, Caskie Royal, if only she could have tried to reason with him--no, that was a load of bull.

The lock snicked open. She slid her grandfather’s picks back into the pocket of her black jacket, checked the corridor both ways, and opened the door just enough so she could slip inside the CEO’s office. She turned on her penlight to get the lay of the land. It was a large square room, business-opulent, she’d call it, with a rich dark burgundy leather sofa, a loveseat, and a huge matching chair with ottoman. A fine antique mahogany desk dominated the office. She flicked off the penlight, locked the door, and walked to the wall-wide window behind the desk, to make sure no one was out there. Mr. Royal had a lovely view of a large park-like lawn, now moonlit, lined with plants, still bursting with blooms at the very end of summer. The maple and oak woods behind the lawn stretched a good quarter of a mile into Van Wie Park. Since she didn’t see a single soul out there, she didn’t close the draperies. She stepped to the computer sitting on the big desk and turned it on.

Of course it was pass-coded, but she was prepared for that. Her list had failed her only once, but that was years ago, and she started in on it now. Number 3 on her list -- his third wife’s birthday, that was the one she was betting on, but it was Number 4-the family dog Wolfram, named after Schiffer Hartwin’s director, Wolfram Dieffendorf. She was fairly certain Caskie Royal’s boss wasn’t aware of this honor-that his namesake was a happy brainless Dalmatian she’d seen belly up, legs waving, on Jane Ann Royal’s web site. Maybe it meant Mr. Royal had something of a sense of humor, since Herr Doctor Wolfram Dieffendorf’s photo in Schiffer Hartwin’s glossy annual report showed an older man with a lovely head of white hair, a thin patrician nose, and intelligent gray eyes.

She was in. Thanks, Wolfram.

Copyright © 2009 by Catherine Coulter