Page 7 of Hero & Villain
I pulled five drones out of my enormous pocket with the golf balls and directed them to move around her. In this setup, sound was essential. I dropped a small remote vehicle on the wet ground and then steered it closer to her.
When she played the first string, the sound cut through the air, drawing the attention of everyone who was hurrying to warmth and safety. The music vibrated through the air like an electric current, demanding attention, warning of danger, while the woman herself looked like a goddess of death come to claim our souls in her high-collar beige coat.
For a moment, I forgot what I was doing, but then my drone hit a building and I went back to work. I’d always been good with gadgets and tech and had spent the last few years really working to capture complicated footage during off-road races. This wouldn’t be a difficult recording in spite of the weather because she wasn’t moving.
The small bot on the ground stopped behind her cello, close enough to pick up the sound beautifully. I put in an earbud and set the drones in a steady pattern while I fiddled with the audio. The bot broke into three pieces, and I moved them to different positions to get better sound.
I had to focus on what I was doing, because if I looked directly at Daniela, I forgot everything else, pulled into her raw emotions, emotions she hadn’t shown for the past two years. I’d seen her at functions where she played the role of icy socialite, without a crack in her perfectly controlled demeanor however much the other debutantes tried to push her buttons, but here she was unravelling for the world to see. I would make sure that they saw it, that the videography would be worthy of her performance.
The song came to a trembling conclusion while the gathering crowd held their breaths, waiting to see if she would continue.She looked up, saw the people and then smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile. Then she took off her coat.
The pale cream satin lining of her coat matched her skin as it pooled around her. The snow swirled, melting on her bare shoulders, blowing her hair back from her slender throat and her black leather spiked corset. I couldn’t have choreographed this better if I’d planned for weeks. She was the goddess of death, but no one would object to her taking whatever she demanded.
She began the next song, this time sorrow and pain that made my eyes prick with tears. She stirred emotions with her bow like a witch would stir a cauldron. I’d heard that she was good, but this was far beyond that, into the realm of unearthly. Britten. She was playing Britten, but not like I’d ever heard him play before. My sister had been a cellist, but nothing like this. Daniela made it her own, compelled and commanded the music like she did the audience.
She was brilliant, drawing emotion from me with every caress of the strings. Stunning. She raised her head at the end of the song, and tears glittered on her dark lashes. I got a perfect close-up shot of that expression— the vulnerability, the anguish, the emotions that a truly psychotic person couldn’t feel. Like the first time I’d seen her on that cursed elevator. And then it stopped. Time had also stopped when I was kissing her. When she was kissing me. Clinging to me like she couldn’t exist without me.
In other words, she was an exceptional liar, both then and now.
The rest of the concert was a storm that made me feel things I hadn’t allowed myself to feel, not for a long time. It was almost a desecration to capture her essence, her music, her soul, to expose her to the world, but she had chosen to lay bare her soul in this audience. I wasn’t the only one recording the performance. Of course, I was the only one who would have anyusable copies at the end. Their files would all be corrupt by the time they went a block away from her. Clint was right about my being a tech geek. Of course, I was also a billionaire with extremely good lawyers.
When she played the last song, she sat for a moment, bow held limply in her hand, eyes terrifyingly empty.
A smattering of applause broke the silence, and then the audience roared, cheering and clapping interspersed with ‘bravo’ and sharp whistles. How many people had her concert stopped? I picked up one hundred seventy-four cell phones, a third of which had recorded parts of her performance. I’d already run each phone through a search engine, checking to make sure that none of them were on Haversham’s payroll.
She carefully wiped her cello down with her coat and then tucked it into the case, only then pulling the coat over her exquisite body. Living in Las Vegas, I saw more than my share of beautiful women in very little clothing, but Daniela was in a category all her own, maybe because she was unconscious of it, maybe because she was untouchable however much you wanted to touch her. Once she’d buttoned her coat, she pulled her cello strap over her shoulder and started off towards Toni’s basement apartment. I wasn’t the only one who followed, but it was easy enough to grab the ones who would bother her and bother them instead.
My phone rang, and I answered it, holding the man with a record for rape and assault in a chokehold. Cell phone records could be so illuminating.
“Dirk Prescott speaking,” I said in my snottiest Boston accent.
“Haversham knows that she’s missing,” Jimmy said in his toughest.
“She’s almost at Toni’s. Is everyone in place?”
“Sure. Is that gagging I hear?”
I glanced down at the bulging eyes of the guy who was still struggling in my grip, but more feebly. I released him, letting him slump to the ground, then picked up my pace after Daniela. Sometimes I forgot my strength, particularly after I’d agreed to ally with Horse. “The weather will help keep things quiet. I’ve got to get back to Vegas tonight. I’m trusting you to keep them safe.”
“I’ve got it, Mr. Prescott.”
I sighed and hung up. I was Mr. Prescott when I had to make sure that business went according to plan. In the last five years, I’d spent a lot of time as Mr. Prescott. I couldn’t afford to be Dirk Dagger, the wildcard who didn’t care about anything. I cared very much about one thing: revenge. And Daniela Delavigne was going to help me get it.
Chapter Four
VILLAIN
Ispent three days in the evil lair, or Toni’s basement apartment, eating ice cream and trying to unravel the identity of Geocorp. My work was subpar at best, my emotions all over the place. I’d actually played Straw, my father’s cello, in the snow? That was not okay. The spiked leather bustier wasn’t a sign of my spiraling insanity, but that I’d potentially damaged my precious instrument. Although whathadI been thinking, wearing a corset in public?
I took a big scoop of ice cream—bubble gum and pink mint, with chunks of gum that I chewed, blew bubbles and then swallowed while I tapped half-heartedly on the keys. I’d never felt like this before, just done, like the last two years had sucked my life out of me, the fight out of me, leaving me as hollow as a cello but not nearly as pretty. And Mr. Maples was going to die.
Toni’s face appeared on the monitor that showed the door to the basement apartment as she twisted the key in the lock and came in, shaking snow off her neon yellow and orange hair. She was bringing snow-cone vibes along with this storm that was never going to end.
She gave me a look, the fierce, jubilant smile she got when she had a lead. “You are not going to believe what I have for you. It must be your birthday it’s so good.”
Yeah. I hadn’t had a good birthday since Las Vegas, and even that had been partially a horror movie when I, the agoraphobic, had been trapped in an elevator. “In a few weeks. It’s phenomenal. I can’t believe I haven’t eaten ice cream in two years. What kind of life have I been living?” Stupid, pointless, nothing life. I noticed a big smear of vanilla on Toni’s pink pj bottoms I was borrowing since I wasn’t ever going back to the apartment again and rubbed it off with my thumb.
She threw herself onto the couch and kicked off her snowy boots. “Don’t say that villainy doesn’t pay. You’re my hero.”
