Copyright 2013 All Rights Reserved
Hustle By Claire Chilton
4
The Getaway
Ellie forced herself not to fidget as she stood in line for the security check at Manchester Airport. She watched Jimmy put his laptop on the conveyer belt in front of her. The only worry he displayed was concern over what the X-ray machine would do to his precious baby, but Jimmy wasn't currently wanted by the police.
Even with her hair lightened to a soft chestnut with blonde highlights and the quick spray tan she'd given herself, she worried that she would be recognized
Just chill. It'll be fine. You know people only see what they want to.
She glanced down at her passport. It was the first one she'd owned with her real name in it. It was a fake—Jimmy had taken the new photo after her transformation—but she was using her real name for once. The name 'Ellie Phillips' had never been connected with any illegal activity. Since what she was about to do wasn't a crime, it was the safest name to use. It was only her face that could be a problem. She was looking forward to getting through security, so she could put her sunglasses back on.
Her pulse raced as Jimmy stepped through the metal detector. Once he got through security without a hitch and collected his things, he shot a glance back at her. She glimpsed a note of worry in his eyes.
Great, we both think I'm screwed.
She dropped her duffle bag onto the conveyer without glancing at it. Then she walked to the metal detector. Under the gaze of airport security, she hurried through the frame, feeling like an animal at the zoo. She had no concerns about the metal detector, but the scrutiny was making her insides curl up.
What if they recognize me?
It took her a few seconds to realize the metal detector was bleeping.
What the hell?
She had been careful to avoid wearing anything metal because she wanted to get through security as quickly as possible.
I didn't even put on earrings!
A male security guard pointed her towards a female colleague. He seemed bored. Ellie was mildly relieved.
"Lift your arms, please." Ellie lifted her arms as the woman swept a metal-detecting wand over her body. It crackled near her left boob. She peered down at the tiny pocket in her checked shirt.
"Could you empty that pocket, please."
Ellie frowned and pulled a pack of chewing gum out of her breast pocket, offering it to the woman.
The woman shook her head. "Open it."
"Are you kidding? It's chewing gum."
The woman remained resolute and silent, glaring at her.
"Okay then." Ellie pulled out the sticks of gum, and then unwrapped the foil wrappers around them. She showed the woman a handful of Juicy Fruit.
The woman nodded. "Okay, that's fine."
"I can go?"
The woman scowled at her.
Ellie took that as a 'yes' and hurried towards her bag, which had already passed through the X-ray machine.
Jesus, nearly caught because of some gum, what else is going to happen?
She stuffed the gum into the first trashcan she passed.
She walked towards passport control, noticing Jimmy hovering on the other side of the checkout desk. He was shifting from one foot to the other with a look of concern on his face. Not surprising really, since he was outside of the UK, and she was still inside it.
She was a bit worried herself. This was the moment of truth. Would she be recognized when someone was studying her face? The man behind the counter looked mean, certainly not someone she'd want to mess with. She dropped her passport and ticket on the desk, offering him a polite smile. He picked up the passport and barely gave it a glance before waving her through.
She grabbed the documents and hurried over to Jimmy, breathing a sigh as she stepped into the terminal.
We did it. I'm out of the UK in one piece.
"Let's get to the gate." Jimmy hurriedly guided her through the food court.
"What's the rush? We don't fly for another hour."
He shot her a dark look. "Better safe than sorry."
"Cheer up. We're on our way to Florida!" She grinned at him, the rush of relief and adrenaline fueling a burst of optimism inside her.
"Yeah, but this was the easy part," he muttered.
***
Jacob Hawkins stared down at the prepaid phone in his hands.
Who is Jemma Jenkins?
He had his best security team hunting her down, but even his most adept staff couldn't find any trace of her. She was a ghost. A ghost who'd snuck into his world and evaporated out of it, taking his future with her.
He flipped open the dossier waiting on his desk, narrowing his eyes at the photograph on the first page. She was pretty, with wide hazel eyes and long, dark hair. Her lips had a natural pout, which he was certain got her anything she wanted. She looked like any innocent girl. The file said she was twenty, but she looked even younger than that.
I bet that helps her rip people off.
He clenched the phone in his fist. The screen cracked. Jemma Jenkins was apparently a fake name. So was everything he had thought he knew about her. The only thing that was real was this picture. It matched his memory of her face.
Why did she break the tablet?
Jacob knew very little about the Incan tablet. What he did know was that it was his last link to his father. Douglas Hawkins had been the original 'Hawk'. He had run the Hawkins Shipping empire, but he had also been a treasure hunter. That was before he disappeared.
Jacob had been a boy when it happened. The last time he had heard from his father, the Hawk had been in Peru. The tablet was the last thing he had brought home.
Jacob picked up a piece of the broken tablet. It could be restored, but there was clearly a machine-drilled hole in the fragment in his hand. The tablet had to be fake.
My father knew enough to spot a fake. Why did he bring this home? Why did he guard it like a treasure?
Jacob rubbed his finger along the smooth cavity inside it. He felt sick as he realized what had happened.
She knew it was a fake. That's why she broke it. She knew there was something inside it.
That tablet had been his only hope of convincing the board to keep him on as CEO of Hawkins Shipping. The directors thought that he wasn't serious about the company, that he spent too much time treasure hunting and not enough time focusing on the business. He had planned to donate the Incan tablet—his father's final find—to Hawkins Shipping and make it the first piece in a new museum inside the corporate headquarters. He wanted to prove that honoring the connection between modern shipping and its romantic, swashbuckling past would be good for the company. He wanted to pay tribute to his father's love of adventure while burnishing the image of the company Douglas Hawkins had built. Most of all, Jacob wanted the board to see that he could run the business and take the occasional treasure-hunting jaunt. His father had done it. Why couldn't Jacob?
He scowled. He was the Hawk now. And the Hawk would never let a slip of a girl in a party dress rob him. He needed to find this 'Jemma'.
His office door burst open and Bill rushed in. Out of breath and gasping, he held up his hand for a moment's silence.
"You seriously need to start doing some cardio," Jacob told the bulky security chief.
"Had to run from the village," Bill gasped. "Got a lead. Not much time."
"What? Tell me."
Bill held up his hand again while slowly inhaling.
Jacob impatiently tapped his fingers on the desk, wanting to shake the information out of Bill.
"She's not Jemma Jenkins."
"I know that." Jacob waved the cracked phone at him. "That's not news."
"She's called Ellie Phillips. An old woman in Bakerston saw her get into a car late last night. She said the woman was acting suspicious, so she took down the plates of the car. We traced her back to Manchester, and you're not going to like it." Bill wiped his brow with his sleeve.
"What aren't I going to like?"
"She's Stewart Phillips's daughter."
Jacob flopped back in his chair in silent shock, his pulse racing. Stewart Phillips had been in business with his father and was rumored to have been responsible for his father going missing. Although nothing had ever been proven, a lot of people blamed his father's disappearance on the hustler. "You're telling me that this is a job by the Stewart Phillips?"
"Well, that's unlikely. He's past tense these days."
"What?"
"Phillips died on the job a year ago. He was running a con and got blown to smithereens in the middle of it. There's no way he pulled this job."
"So who's his daughter working for now?" Jacob frowned. Having lost his father at an early age, he felt a moment of sympathy for this girl, but it quickly passed. She hadn't looked too heartbroken when she was grinning at him through a taxi window and absconding with his future.
"Joseph Meyer's name came up, but word on the street is that he's looking for her, too. I think she's working on her own, following in her father's footsteps." Bill handed over a file.
"This is the last time a Phillips hurts this family." Jacob scowled as he flipped open the file and encountered her face again. Her hair was lighter, but he recognized her face. His eyes trailed down her neck to her dainty shoulders. He recognized those too.
He mentally shook off the sultry images that his mind was conjuring from the night before, trying to focus on his anger instead. This photograph was of her leaving an apartment with a geeky-looking kid. They were both carrying a luggage. "Where is she now?"
"That's the problem." Bill took the seat opposite Jacob's desk. "She's just skipped the country. They flew out of Manchester airport an hour ago. Our guys were tracking her, but they lost her at the airport check-in."
"Why didn't they stop her before then?" Jacob rubbed a hand across his brow.
I'm only twenty-four. I shouldn't have this much stress in my life.
"They were just on surveillance duty."
"And who's the guy she's with?"
"The guy is..." Bill leaned over the desk and flipped open the file to a photograph of a blond-haired kid. "...Jimmy Carroll. He went off the grid after being arrested when he was eleven for hacking into a bank. He's presumed dead, but he doesn't look very dead to me."
Jacob peered at the file. "Jesus, he's only seventeen. She's working with kids. Did we at least find out where they were going?"
Bill nodded. "Two flights booked consecutively. Both of them flying to Florida, and then the girl is heading for Costa Rica on her own a day later. Carlo found out that she's booked passage on a fishing trawler near Espadilla Beach to Cocos Island."
Jacob felt a smile growing on his face. He knew Cocos Island well. It was paradise for treasure hunters. Idiots, more like. He'd spent much of his childhood there, exploring the region with his father. She may not know it, but Ellie Phillips was heading straight into his world. She didn't stand a chance.
"Get the plane ready. I want to dock in Cocos before she does. Call the rangers and ask for a pass."
"Yes, sir." Bill nodded.
"And Bill, pack a bag. You're coming this time."
Bill turned and stared at him. "I am fucking not. You know I don't fly."
"I need you on this one. I don't know shit about hustlers. You used to be one. You're coming with me. No arguments."
Bill looked as if he wanted to argue, but he shook his head instead. "You totally suck."
"It'll be fun. You'll get a tan on that pasty white skin of yours." Jacob grinned. Bill lived in his small local world. It was about time he embraced some global culture.
"What, so I can be a pretty boy like you? No thanks. By the way, real men don't wear shirts like that." Bill offered him a sweet smile before leaving the office and stomping down the hall.
Jacob peered down at the brown T-shirt he wore, which had a picture of Animal from the Muppets emblazoned across it. "Sure they do," he told himself.