Prior to slipping the plastic covers on, she placed a perfectly cut strip of cardboard underneath the shoe sole to avoid leaving any markings. Then she secured the plastic with masking tape.
The rain was beginning to fall steadier, each droplet loud as a shotgun blast to Rachel. She’d have to be careful. She checked her wig, then took a large plastic bag from the backpack and stuffed the raincoat inside. Underneath the jacket she had been wearing a too-tight leather jacket, which she unzipped down to her breastbone. The top of a Lily of France leopard-print bra was visible beneath the jacket, the push-up bra doing wonders. It was almost too bad she’d have to incinerate it.
She took out a small makeup mirror and applied a large amount of blush and purple eye shadow and stuck on false eyelashes. Then she slid in blue-colored contact lenses. They irritated her eyes slightly, so she put a few drops of Systane Ultra in each eye then dabbed them with a tissue. She put two sticks of Carefree mint gum in her mouth and chewed until her breath was good and minty.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She was unrecognizable.
Everything else went into the same plastic bag as the raincoat. Before zipping the backpack up, she placed a small device into her pocket.
It was time.
Rachel walked quickly across the street. The weather worked to her advantage; none of Royce’s neighbors were outside. Her heart jackhammered as she climbed the three wood steps to his front door. They creaked, and she paused. A deep breath calmed her nerves.
Then she rang the doorbell.
Rachel took two steps back. She wanted Royce to see her in full. Cleavage, tight jacket, runny makeup, the works.
She waited. Nothing happened. Where was he?
She rang the doorbell again and unzipped her jacket just a little bit more.
Still nothing.
She couldn’t panic. But she could look desperate. It could even work to her advantage.
“Hello?” Rachel said, rapping on the door. She spoke in a voice an octave higher than her own and added a slight southern accent. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but I need to use your phone somethin’ bad. It’s an emergency.”
A crusty voice came from inside.
“So what the hell do you want from me?”
It was Royce. Rachel thought fast.
“Sorry to bother you, Mister. I was seeing a man friend down the street, and, well, he don’t treat me too good. Pulled my hair and pushed me and kicked me out the house. My cell phone is still at his place, so I can’t get it cuz I don’t know what he’d do to me. Why do men have to be so mean? Are you mean, Mister?”
There was a pause, and then Royce replied, “I’m not mean.”
“Oh thank God,” Rachel said. And she meant it. She had him.
Rachel heard footsteps. She placed her hand in her pocket. The eyehole went dark. Rachel pushed her bust forward, pouted her lip.
She heard the door being unlocked. There were several locks. Royce was cautious. When you were as despised as Stanford Royce, you had to be.
The door opened with a gentle creak, revealing the apprehensive man inside. Royce’s eyes went wide when he saw Rachel’s body in full. She could see his tongue flick around inside his mouth.
“I promise I’ll be quick,” Rachel said. “Just need to call a cab.”
Royce nodded. Then he looked down at her feet.
“Why you wearing bags on your—”
Before he could finish the sentence, Rachel jabbed the Taser into his sternum.
Royce’s teeth chattered, and he made a hacking sound as he toppled backward onto the dirty green area rug inside his house. Rachel quickly stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She dropped the backpack on the floor and got out a roll of heavy-duty electrical tape. She had four more rolls just in case. She tore off a nine-inch strip of tape, which she used to cover Royce’s mouth. Then she pulled a strip loose and bent down over him. She picked up his right hand, wound the tape around it, and then went for his left to secure them together.
She didn’t see the knife.
He must have had it tucked into his jeans. Her first thought was That was stupid of me not to check for a weapon. Her second was That stings.
Instinctively, Rachel’s hand went to her chest. There was a clean slice through her coat. She felt inside the jacket; her fingers came away coated with red.
Adrenaline began to course through her. He’d cut her. Deep.
Before she tended to herself, she needed to make sure he was no longer a threat. As Royce tried to sit up, Rachel jolted him again with the Taser. The knife fell from his grasp, and she picked it up. As he lay twitching, she wound the electrical tape around both his wrists, then did the same with his ankles. She wound several strips between his ankles and wrists, creating makeshift prison manacles.
She took another large plastic bag from the backpack and took off her jacket, leaving just a tank top and the bra. Blood was soaking through her top. She pulled off her tank top. The knife had opened a large red gash just below her rib cage. Blood streamed from it. Rachel wound the tape around her midsection several times, tightly, praying the wound would clot. It would require stitches.
Shit. How could she be so stupid?
She tossed her bloody garments into the plastic bag.
Royce was staring at her. His eyes were wide open, terrified. Rachel removed the wig from her head and placed it into the bag as well. He was trying to scream. The Tiger Eye bracelet clinked against the floor as he shivered.
“I don’t know if you remember me,” she said.
Royce shook his head from side to side.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Rachel looked down at the man whimpering at her feet. When she had begun preparing for this task, she’d worried that when it got to this point, she might hesitate. That she would be unable to go through with it. But at that moment, she felt no indecision.
“Now, Mr. Royce, I have a lot of work to do. You have about two minutes to make peace with whatever you’ve done in your life.”
She could see the glimmer from the steel reflected in Royce’s bulging eyes as she brought the blade to his chest.
CHAPTER 33
Louis Magursky refused to wear suits to the office. He had started working on construction sites when he was just fourteen, hauling copper piping and pushing wheelbarrows full of concrete mix onto jobs alongside men eighty pounds heavier than him with twenty more years’ experience. Louis had never considered himself a “suit,” one of those fat cats who sat in trailers puffing on cigars while everyone else did the grunt work. No, Louis was one of the boys.
So even when he took out a $28,000 loan against his row house in the Bronx to start Magursky Construction thirty years ago, which meant spending more time in boardrooms than on construction hoists, Louis had still shown up in loose stonewashed jeans and a flannel shirt, usually red, over a brand-new undershirt. Over the years, that outfit became his calling card. He came to loathe fancy black-tie dinners where he had to squeeze his stout form into a tuxedo, his wife constantly checking his clean white shirt to make sure it hadn’t been sullied by droplets of red wine and cocktail sauce.
Louis Magursky was a short, stocky man, five feet six inches tall and nearly the same width. His shoulders and arms had grown thick and strong due to years of hauling concrete. He had smooth, shiny cheeks and short black hair that was just beginning to recede. Louis walked into every room like he owned the building. And Louis Magursky took every slight personally, swore to carry grudges to the grave, which is why few people crossed him. He had the money and the means to make people’s lives very, very difficult.