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You’d have thought I’d offered her an audience with Sarah Jessica Parker from the way she reacted. “You need me to help sneak a celebrity out of the hotel?” she gasped. “Oh, wow! I’ve always dreamed of something like this. I started coming up with plans as soon as I came to work here. Just go back up to the room and leave this to me.”

I glanced over my shoulder and noticed that the men were still watching me. “Can you think of a way I could get up there without them following me?”Advertisement

“Which guys are you worried about?” I pointed them out by location, since I didn’t know what they might be doing magically to change their appearance. She nodded. “Okay, got it.” Then she picked up the phone and punched a button. “Hi, Javier, it’s Nita at the front desk. We’ve got an Operation Smile in progress. Phase one, you know what to do.”

It was like watching a room full of undercover CIA operatives spring into action. An overburdened bellboy hurrying across the lobby tripped and dropped several suitcases—including one that fell open and spilled a cascade of lacy lingerie—right at the feet of one of the men. Meanwhile, one of the front desk clerks coming back from a coffee break bumped into the other guy and spilled his drink. I took advantage of the diversions and ran for the elevators.

I found an anxious Owen pacing in the room. “What took you so long?” he asked.

“They’re here in the lobby. Nita’s coming up with a way to sneak us out.”

“You got Nita into this?”

“Remember, she thinks you’re a celebrity traveling incognito.” I chewed on my lower lip and looked at him. “I don’t suppose you could do a Bruce Springsteen illusion.”

“I’m not sure what he looks like.”

“You don’t know what Bruce Springsteen looks like?”

“I’m not really into music. I could probably pick him out of a lineup if you showed me pictures, but I couldn’t begin to describe him, and I can’t do an illusion without having a specific mental picture of what I want to look like.”

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Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure I could describe Bruce Springsteen well enough to create an illusion. “Well, then, just do something that makes you not obviously Owen, in case Nita gets involved personally. You don’t need to fool the enforcers, just Nita.”

“What is she doing?”

“I have no idea, but apparently she had contingency plans.”

There was a knock at the door, then a voice called, “Housekeeping. Nita at the front desk sent me.” I opened the door to find a hotel maid and a large laundry cart. She gestured at the cart. “Hop in and cover yourselves.”

Owen and I exchanged glances, then he shrugged. “After you.” He gave me a boost into the cart and then swung himself over the side. We pulled a layer of sheets on top of ourselves as the maid got the cart rolling.

I heard elevator doors open and close, and then had a sinking feeling as we went down. The cart was a bit cramped with the two of us in there, but there were enough towels at the bottom to cushion us. “I had no idea celebrity life was so glamorous,” I whispered to Owen.

The elevator came to a stop, then the doors opened and the cart moved again. A moment later, it stopped and the maid’s voice said, “You can come out now.”

We threw off the sheets and climbed out of the cart to find ourselves in the hotel’s laundry room. The laundry staff applauded us, and I hoped Owen had thought to put up some kind of illusion because Nita was there, too. “Yay! It worked!” she said. “Now, we’ll go out through the kitchen. There’s a service entrance there.”

She guided us out of the laundry area and down a dark, narrow hallway. “I don’t think they’re on to us,” she said as we ran. Then we crossed another corridor, and I saw men in black at the other end.

“They’re on to us now,” I said, and we picked up speed.

We hit the swinging doors into the kitchen at a full run, Nita shouting, “Code red!”

The people nearest us immediately threw white chef’s coats over our clothes and bustled us deeper into the kitchen. I eyed a rack of knives and wondered if it would come to that, but Nita’s plan apparently covered this sort of situation. When the men in black entered the kitchen, an angry chef was on them in an instant, berating them for violating his inner sanctum. Meanwhile, the kitchen erupted into chaos, with people running back and forth carrying knives, pans of hot food, and dirty pots. Under cover of this mayhem, Nita hustled us out another door and into a small alley. pqdm.com