Carol Higgins Clark Boxed Set - Volume 1: This eBook collection contains Zapped, Cursed, and Wrecked. (3 page)

S
itting in the back of the cab as it sped toward Manhattan, Lorraine Lily was at her wit’s end. Hot, tired, jet-lagged, and fearful, she’d left a message for Clay Nardellini, her fellow actor, on his cell phone. She hoped he hadn’t gotten a part that had taken him out of town. That would be awful.

Lorraine didn’t know what to do next. She hadn’t even told the driver yet that her destination had changed. There was no way she was going to give Conrad the satisfaction of showing up in Connecticut looking for shelter. How could he have sold the loft behind my back? she thought furiously. She quivered at the thought of what she’d left in the safe.

I wish I could just turn around and get on the next plane back to England. All her joy at being praised by the British critics as a “sexy, interesting actress to keep an eye on,” had evaporated. On the plane, she’d been thinking up witty things she’d say, little stories she could tell when she finally was asked to be a guest on the late-night talk shows. She was imagining all the things she would do when she was famous. Now, just a few hours later, she was without her luggage and wondering where she was going to spend the night.

I’m going to have to get a hotel room, she thought. I need to take a shower and I need to be in the city. I’m not leaving until I clear out that safe. If Clay doesn’t call back, I’ll have to figure out another plan. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, thinking regretfully about the loft that she loved. Now those Reillys had their mitts on it. This couldn’t be worse, she thought. It just couldn’t. As the cab rumbled along, she pondered which hotel she should grace her presence with.

“Holy Toledo!” the cab driver blurted.

Lorraine opened her eyes, looked ahead, then lunged forward. They were approaching the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. The silhouette of Manhattan was black and spooky. “Oh, my God!” she cried.

“I saw the whole thing!” the driver crowed as he fumbled to switch on the radio. “It’s like someone flipped a switch. I hope it’s nothing bad—”

An announcer’s excited voice came through the rear speaker, loud and clear. Lorraine felt as if he were shouting in her ear. “The lights have just gone out all over the city—we will keep you updated with all the latest news…”

“I have to get a hotel room!” Lorraine cried.

“What?” the driver asked, begrudgingly lowering the volume.

“I have to check into a hotel!”

“A hotel?”

“Yes. It’s a long and sad story.”

“We’ve all got problems, lady. Let me tell you something, you’re not going to have much luck getting a hotel room now. The city is packed with tourists and business people attending conventions. Some of them are probably stuck on elevators as we speak. Others won’t be able to get up to their rooms. Finding a room at all, never mind one on a low floor, will be like finding a needle in a haystack.”

“But I have to!”

“Just tell me where you want me to drop you off. I’m not a travel agent.”

Lorraine pulled out her cell phone. She tried to dial information but all the circuits were busy. “Ohhh. My life is falling apart.”

“Lady, we’re getting close to the other side of this bridge. You gotta tell me where to go. Driving through town in the dark with no traffic lights is not my idea of fun.” He paused. “But who knows? Maybe I’ll make some extra bucks tonight. People will be desperate for cabs. So where to?”

“The Sapphire”

“Fancy shmancy,” the driver muttered under his breath.

They slowly crossed into a darkened Manhattan. Cars were hesitantly crawling through the streets. People were pouring out of restaurants. Headlights from the cars provided the only source of light. It was like they were in a movie, but Lorraine wasn’t paying much attention. She was busy reapplying her lipstick and carefully touching up her face, aided only by the light of her compact. It was something she could have done in her sleep.

The driver had turned up the volume of the radio again and listened to the reports. “Can you imagine that?” he asked Lorraine, not expecting an answer. “A lightning strike leads to this mess.”

When they finally pulled up to the Sapphire, the doorman waved them on. “I wouldn’t bother. They’re all booked up. It’s chaos in there,” he said with a bored expression.

Lorraine squealed in despair.

“Shhhhh,” the driver said, as he cocked his head toward the radio. “Listen—”

“…yes, that’s right, folks. We just got word that the Treetops Hotel on Central Park South, which was scheduled for a grand opening in two days, is opening its doors tonight. Employees were there making final preparations for its first guests. Now you could be one of them! The manager claims they want to come to the aid of the citizens of New York. Those citizens who can cough up at least a thousand dollars a room. But they have a state-of-the-art generator that is sure to cool your jets…”

“Take me there!” Lorraine cried.

“You’re going to pay that much for a room?” the driver asked incredulously.

“My soon-to-be-ex-husband will foot the bill.”

“I better get a good tip.”

Fifteen minutes later the cab pulled up to the marbled entrance of the Treetops. There was already a line at the registration desk in the lobby. A local TV reporter with a camera crew was covering the story of the luxury hotel welcoming hot and tired victims of the blackout. Lorraine was only too happy to be interviewed. The sight of a camera temporarily took her mind off her problems.

“I just returned from doing a play in London,” she cooed. “I feel as if I’m in a play right now. The airlines lost my luggage—”

“They lost your luggage?” the young reporter asked with great interest.

Lorraine laughed and tossed her head back. “Can you imagine? I’m telling you, it’s all just too much…”

By the time Lorraine finished talking about her luggage and her exciting life as an actress, there were no rooms left. Just two suites. At four thousand dollars a pop.

“What?” she gulped to the clerk.

“If you hadn’t posed for the camera I would have had a nice cozy room for you for twelve hundred. But look at it on the bright side. The suite faces the park. The room faces an alley.”

“You can’t see anything out there no matter which direction you face.”

“Take it or leave it.”

Lorraine slapped Conrad’s credit card onto the granite counter just as her cell phone began to ring. Clay Nardellini was calling back. And he was only three blocks away.

R
egan and Jack retrieved a second flashlight from their kitchen drawer and methodically started to look around the apartment. Their bedroom, the place where most thieves would head immediately, seemed untouched. The safe that was bolted to the floor of their closet was still locked. Jack quickly opened it and saw that the contents were undisturbed. Regan’s jewelry, their passports, papers, and extra cash seemed to all be the way they had left them.

“He couldn’t have been here long if he didn’t touch this,” Jack observed.

The second bedroom was also undisturbed. Aside from some construction materials, nothing in their original loft looked out of place.

They walked back down the hall to their new apartment, which they sometimes referred to as “Lorraine’s Lair” or simply “the Lair.” Over the past two years, Jack had noticed that it was only she who seemed to spend any time there. Different guys had come in and out, and she always introduced them as fellow students in her acting class. There was never any sign of Conrad, but when he sold the loft to them, there was no sign of Lorraine.

The construction crew had started their renovation on the Lair, and just last week had broken down the wall between the two apartments. There was no sign of forced entry at either front door. There was also no sign of forced entry at the door to the roof.

“When we left here Thursday night everything was locked up tight,” Jack said. “Rod and his guys weren’t supposed to come in when we were gone, were they?”

“He told me if they got in supplies they might drop them off,” Regan said as she shone her flashlight around, then walked over and opened the large front closet. Last time she looked, the closet had been empty. Now several boxes of expensive Italian tile were piled high against the wall. “I guess Rod was here. The good news is that the tile they told us would take six months for delivery has arrived. The bad news is that they might have accidentally left the door unlocked. I know when they’re hauling stuff out to the service elevator they push in the button of the door so it doesn’t lock. Either that or someone who has a key came in here tonight.”

“His crew knew we were going away,” Jack commented. “Why would any of them wait until the night we’re due back to wander in? That doesn’t make sense. But who else would?” Jack shook his head. “Of course we never had the locks changed when we bought the apartment because it didn’t matter yet. There was nothing to steal and the wall to our place hadn’t been knocked down. The construction people would be coming in and out anyway.” He sighed. “Who knows how many people who worked for Conrad and Lorraine had keys to this place? Tomorrow morning we’ve got to get a locksmith in here.”

The two of them stood in the dark, their flashlights facing the floor. “The intruder could have just run away when I was on the roof,” Regan said. “After he locked me out, he must have been looking around to make sure he didn’t forget anything he brought in with him.”

“He was probably also afraid that the lights would come back on and you’d get a look at him.”

They carefully shone their flashlights around the room. “That tile is nice with the hand-painted pictures of jugs of wine, loaves of bread, and scenes from Tuscany, but I don’t think it’s worth risking jail time for,” Regan said sardonically. “There’s nothing else back here. Conrad might have given us a good price, but he made sure this place was stripped. There wasn’t a picture hook left on the walls—” She stopped talking when her flashlight revealed a small dark object on the floor, slightly hidden by a piece of wood. It was just a few steps from the front door. Jack saw it, too. He walked over, leaned down, picked it up, and held it out in front of them.

They both were silent as they realized what they were looking at.

A lightning-rod stun gun that resembled a pen. With a built-in flashlight.

Regan swallowed. “He’s really going to be mad he lost it, now that we’re in a blackout…”

Jack didn’t laugh. “If he’d zapped you with this, you could have been badly hurt. Come on. I want to put this in a plastic bag.”

They headed to the kitchen where Regan’s purse was sitting on the counter next to their Imus mugs. Her cell phone started to ring.

“There’s a message from me on there,” Jack said as he pulled open a drawer. “I have to go back to the office but I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“Is it Bring Your Wife to Work night?” Regan asked lightly as she retrieved the phone. It was Kit.

“Regan, you’re not going to believe what happened.”

Regan smiled. “Oh, yes, I would.”

“No, really. This is a first—a woman I met at the convention left me stranded at a comedy club. I’m stuck here in Midtown and, as you know, I’m on crutches. My hotel room is on the thirty-eighth floor. It’s impossible to get a cab. Luckily I’m with this nice comedian who is looking after me. Could you come and get me and bring me to your place?”

“Our apartment isn’t so appealing these days, either,” Regan said. “For a lot of reasons. But of course I’ll come and get you. It might take a few minutes with the traffic lights all out.”

“I’m not going anywhere. My new friend, Billy, and I are sitting here on someone’s front stoop on Fifty-fourth Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. People are coming out of their apartments with folding chairs and bottles of beer and wine. One guy said it’s about time they had a block party.”

“Save me a seat,” Regan joked as she took down the exact address. When she hung up, Jack turned to her. He’d been examining the stun gun through a plastic bag.

“You’re picking up Kit?”

“At least you don’t have to worry about me being alone.”

“She’s on crutches. Our intruder wouldn’t need a stun gun to fight her off.”

“You never know with Kit. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

“I wish I didn’t have to go back to the office. But on a night like tonight…”

Now it was Jack’s cell phone that rang. Keith Waters, his top assistant, was calling.

“Jack, a new gallery in SoHo has been burglarized. They broke in the back door and stole glass sculptures worth several hundred thousand dollars. With the power out, the alarm didn’t work. The owners ran over from their apartment as soon as the blackout struck. It was too late—”

“What’s the address?” Jack asked quickly. When he hung up, he took Regan’s hand. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take you down to your car. Promise me that no matter what happens you won’t come back here alone.”

“Jack, don’t worry, I won’t. Even if the lights go back on, I’ll bring Kit back here.”

“We should be so lucky,” Jack said. “I have the feeling this is going to be a long night.”