Michael Connelly - Void Moon

Cassie went through the open door and stepped into the blue glow of the bedroom. She saw that she had been right, the television had reverted to the blue menu screen after the movie Hernandez had been watching had ended. It cast enough light into the room that she decided she would not need to use the goggles.

Cassie could see the shape of Hernandez's great, round body slowly rising and falling in the blue light. His snoring was deep and resonant. Cassie wondered if he was married and if his wife could even sleep in the same room with him.

Beyond him on the bed table the numbers of the clock glowed red. She had plenty of time. Next to the clock she saw Hernandez's watch and wallet – and the gun. Hernandez had apparently removed it from the jacket in the closet to keep it at the ready. She moved around the bed to approach the bed table. Hernandez groaned and started to move. She froze.

Hernandez lifted his head and dropped it, opened his mouth and closed it, and then adjusted the position of his body. He was lying on his back, covered to the neck with the bedspread. The bedsprings protested under the redistribution of his weight but then he finally found comfort and stopped moving.

After a long moment of remaining still, Cassie took the last three steps to the bed table and reached for the gun. She slowly unfolded the pillowcase and put it inside. She put the wallet in next and picked up the watch. She turned it over in her hand, careful to prevent its metal band from chinking. She ran her thumb over the wrist plate and found it to be smooth stainless steel. There was no variation in the feel as there should have been from the Rolex seal stamped on the plate. The watch was a counterfeit. She silently put it back down on the bed table and slowly backed away from the bed.

She had to fight the urge to immediately go to the safe, grab the cash and run. But she knew she had to retrieve the cameras. The equipment was proprietary. It could be traced to Hooten L amp;S. If it could be traced there it could possibly be traced to Jersey Paltz. From him the trail could lead back to her and Leo.

She pulled the chair away from the desk, positioned it under the smoke detector camera and slowly stepped up onto it. She opened the casing and with a small pair of wire snips taken from the pack on her belt she cut the connection to the Conduct-O tape. She then carefully closed the cover and pulled the smoke detector off the wall, its adhesive strip making a snick sound as it came free. She turned on the chair and looked down at the bed. Hernandez didn't move.

Climbing down, Cassie almost shouted when she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror on the back of one of the doors and mistook it for someone else in the room. She shoved the smoke detector into the pillowcase and put the chair back in its place. Turning her back to the bed she brought her wrist in close to her chest and pressed the illumination button on her watch. It was now 3:11 and she had only the closet and safe remaining.

From the fanny pack she removed the painter's putty knife. She clicked on the night-vision glasses and pulled them up in front of her eyes. She spotted the pencil mark on the door frame and slid the blade of the tool into the crack. Following the same procedure as before, she opened the closet without the interior light being activated. Once she was inside and the doors were closed, she carefully and silently slid Hernandez's clothes to one side, then stepped up onto the safe and reached to the bulb overhead. She unscrewed it and left it on the shelf next to the extra pillow.

She crouched on the floor and used a screwdriver to remove the electric socket plate containing the second camera. She snipped the tape as well. Last came the transmitter. She reached behind the safe, grasped the antenna and pulled it out of its hiding place. She cut the tape connections and secured it in the pillowcase with the rest of the equipment.

Now the safe. She took a deep breath, reached to the keypad and carefully typed in the combination of 4-3-5-1-2 she had committed to memory. The safe came open, making a soft phump sound like that of a can of fresh tennis balls being opened. She froze and waited, her left ear next to the door slats. Hernandez's snoring continued uninterrupted.

Cassie carefully pulled the safe's door open all the way, then shifted her position so that her body mass was between the opening and the bedroom behind her. She pulled the goggles down around her neck and took the small penlight from the pack. She reached it into the safe before turning it on.

The light illuminated the thick stack of currency she had watched Hernandez put together. Next to the money was a keychain with four keys on it. And nothing else.

Cassie flicked the light out and sat still for a moment thinking about this. Where were the contents of the briefcase? Where was the half million dollars in cash Leo's partners had promised?

She reached back into the safe and grabbed the stack of money, bringing it out and spreading it on her lap. She flicked the light on for a second and saw the currency appeared to be all one-hundred-dollar bills. Her rough estimate was that she had close to a hundred thousand dollars in her lap. A lot of money to be sure – more than she had ever had or stolen. But it wasn't as much as she expected and had been told to expect. Something was wrong. Where was the briefcase?

She realized she had not seen it while moving through the other rooms. She would now have to go back into the suite and find it. Perhaps Hernandez had grown lazy and decided not to open the case and transfer its contents to the closet safe. Perhaps, with his gun and his door alarm, he believed he and the case were safe.

Cassie put the stack of cash into the pillowcase, closed the safe and stood up. She carefully wrapped the loose end of the pillowcase around her right hand, drawing it tight so that the contents would not rustle against each other. She pushed open the right door and was stepping out of the closet and into the blue glow of the room when the phone on the bed table rang.

Cassie jerked herself back into the closet and silently pulled the door closed.

The phone rang a second time and she heard Hernandez stirring. She realized she had made a mistake. Rather than having retreated to the closet she should have moved, gotten out of there with what she had, and retreated to the room across the hall.

Now she was stuck. It was probably going to be security on the phone – they had discovered that someone had entered the room across the hall!

The bedsprings sighed as Hernandez moved on the bed. He answered the phone on the fourth ring.

"Hello?" he said in a scratchy voice.

Cassie just closed her eyes and listened. She was helpless.

"The fuck you doing?" Hernandez said angrily. "What time is it?"

Cassie opened her eyes. She remembered the gun and wallet. If Hernandez put on the light he would surely see them missing and then come directly to the closet to check the safe.

"Three hours' difference, you moron."

Cassie reached into the pack and wrapped her fingers around the stun gun. While it was still inside the pack she switched it on, then carefully and quietly pulled it out. She realized as soon as she had it out that the red light indicating that the device was on was not on. She flicked the switch off and on again but didn't get the light. The device was dead. She realized she hadn't turned it off after hiding it in her backpack for her meeting with Jersey Paltz. Leaving it on and the jolt that had been delivered to Paltz had sapped the stored charge. It was useless.

She looked through the door slats and in the blue light saw the hulking form of Hernandez sitting on the side of the bed. She then lowered the pillowcase to the floor and reached inside it.