License to Lie

by Terry Ambrose

  Further down the list, I found an entry for her old boyfriend, Marty Horvath. That seemed odd. Was it just an old entry or was she still in touch? It was an area code I didn’t recognize. I checked the time. I was down to an hour and a half. Curious, I dialed the number.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Skip

  On the drive home from LAX, Skip realized that he knew exactly how Richard Tanner had felt when he’d started drinking a couple of months ago. Just like Richard, Roxy had disappointed him beyond his wildest expectations.

  He’d driven to LAX in hopes of finding her and talking some sense into her. He’d checked every ticket agent in Terminal 7, where the GPS signal was coming from, and had come up with nothing. He’d walked the terminal several times. If she had been there, she’d either caught an earlier flight or had used a fake ID and had already slipped through security.

  The southbound Friday morning traffic was light, allowing Skip to make it home in less than two hours. On the drive he questioned his sanity over and over again. Why had he spent five hours chasing after a woman he barely knew? Or three days letting her ruin his life? By the time he arrived home his mood was as glum as the skies were cloudy.

  Today was definitely different than most days. Seldom did he notice the grayness. Today, it depressed him. The damp air depressed him. And the time that dragged. Yes, that did, too.

  He skipped his beach walk and sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee. The phone rang and he considered letting it go to his answering machine, then made a quick decision to pick up when he saw that it was the Carlsbad Police.

  “Cosgrove.”

  “Mr. Cosgrove, this is Sergeant Grimes from Carlsbad PD. I thought you’d like to know that we just got a match on the guy who stole your car.”

  There, thought Skip, another reason to be depressed—the Porsche was gone. “Who was he?”

  “Lawrence Eugene Sproutman, aka the Wizard. He’d done some minor time in Arizona, and Texas, but was on his third strike here.”

  “Too bad the Wizard didn’t get that third strike before he stole my car.”

  “Apparently, he’s well known for masterminding scams. He got his start boosting cars. Eventually, he graduated to banks and a little extortion. Looks like this was supposed to be his ticket to the big time.”

  “It’s comforting to know he was getting better at his trade.” Skip tried to retract his sarcasm, “Sorry.”

  “I just thought you’d like to know.”

  “It doesn’t matter, it’s over,” said Skip. And it was. The car was gone. Roxy, too. Knowing that the guy who’d stolen his car was a career criminal didn’t help his crappy mood. At least the bad guy got what he deserved, permanent deletion from Skip’s life.

  “One more thing,” said Grimes. “We’re going to keep this quiet for a few days as part of the Tanner investigation—just as a precaution.”

  “Fine.” Skip hung up and decided to take a shower. After that, maybe he’d visit the Tanners. No, he thought, stay away from them. It would just remind all of them that Roxy had run. Instead, he’d call Wally to see if there was any work to do.

  He logged into the GPS locator service web site and searched for Roxy’s phone. It was gone. She must have caught a flight already. He cursed himself for ever letting himself care about her. What the hell was he thinking? That he could change her? Make her go straight?

  He closed the drapes to the bedroom windows and stripped, then stepped into the shower. He let hot water pummel his face until the physical numbness seemed to match his mental state. He took his time shaving and getting dressed. He checked the time, hoping that he’d been in the bathroom for an hour, but was disappointed. The whole cleanup process had taken just 38 minutes. More depressing news. Today was going to be a long day—the kind of day Richard Tanner hadn’t been able to face. Skip wasn’t sure he could face it either.

  He opened the bedroom window a crack to let in the ocean air and returned to the kitchen. He poured the last of the coffee into his cup. He stared at the pot for a few minutes as he sipped, then decided it was time to call Wally.

  But it wasn’t Wally he called. It was Roxy. The phone immediately went to voice mail.

  “Hi, you’ve reached Roxy. Leave a message.”

  Skip hung up. There was no point in leaving a message, he knew she wouldn’t return his call. She must have forwarded her phone to avoid calls or she was, as he suspected, already in the air and somewhere over the Midwest. He lifted the receiver again and dialed. He waited until Sergeant Grimes answered, then said, “Sergeant, this is Skip Cosgrove. I wondered if you might tell me a bit more about this Lawrence Eugene Sproutman.”

  “I may be able to help, what would you like to know?”

  “You said he did time in Texas, right?”

  “Two years back in 2003.”

  Right about the time that Stella had been arrested. “Can you tell me which prison he was in?”

  “I could find out, but why do you need that?”

  “I think he might have met another criminal named Stella Robbins while he was in jail.”

  “That’s unlikely. Most of their facilities for men and women are separate. Hang on.” A few minutes later, he returned. “Just as I thought, he was in a different facility than Robbins. Same time frame, but different locations altogether. Looks like Robbins only got six months. She also got released early, probably as part of a plea agreement.”

  “Crap.”

  “Not what you expected?”

  “It doesn’t matter, just looks like I was wrong again.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Roxy

  I waited while the number for Marty Horvath rang. It was at least thirty seconds before an older-sounding woman with a strong southern drawl answered the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hi. Could I speak with Marty please?”

  “Why, he’s not here.”

  “When will he be back?”

  The woman laughed. “Honey, I don’t think Marty’s ever coming back. After what they done to him here, he hates Texas.”

  “Are you his mother?”

  “Yes, I am. And who are you?”

  “My name is Lucy, Lucy Kravatz. I’m from the Department of Corrections. We met while I was doing some rehabilitation work with the prisoners. He promised me he was going straight when he got out. I just wanted to check on him.”

  “Well, that’s sweet. I didn’t know the state had a program like that.”

  “It’s still a bit experimental. Say, he didn’t by any chance hook up with Stella again, did he?”

  “Lord knows, I hope not. That girl is nothin’ but trouble.”

  That might be the truth, but I had a hunch trouble had come back around. “At one point, he was talking about moving to California to get a fresh start. Did he do that?”

  “Sure thing. He said he was going to someplace called Carlsbad. He was gonna live real close to the ocean and learn how to surf. I told him he’d best get a job first.”

  “Amen to that.”

  And what kind of job had Marty Horvath gotten? Kidnapper apprentice? I’d never asked Marjorie, but I’d bet money that Stella had taken Jimmy Dane’s apartment almost immediately after he’d been evicted. I still wasn’t sure what had happened to her son, but felt sorry for Mrs. Horvath. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I feared her son might be dead.

  “Do you have a forwarding number for him? I’d like to catch up. You know, see how he’s doing.”

  “Golly, I just can’t believe how nice you are. You just hang on.”

  Papers rustled in the background as I waited, but soon she returned and gave me Marty’s new number—a 760 area code with a prefix sounding like ours in Carlsbad. I didn’t know what I’d do with it, but suspected my call to Texas hadn’t been wasted.

  I went to the monitors to check my flight status. As James had predicted, the New York departure was delayed. A line extended back from the gate. In the midst of the line stood a woman who conveniently ign
ored her three screaming brats while they circled in attack formation and terrorized the rest of us. As someone who wasn’t a parent, it was easy for me to judge her as an insensitive, half-deaf bitch who made a practice of letting her offspring run wild. That assumption was probably highly inaccurate, but my nerves were on edge and I didn’t care who I insulted at this point.

  I got in line behind a young couple. The man held a small girl in his arms. When he tweaked her nose, she giggled. I had flashes of days when my dad had done that same thing to me. The woman gazed at the two of them with adoring eyes. My throat went tight and dry. The woman with the screaming brats finished her business at the counter and took her brood off to the windows, where they continued to run in circles and scream like tortured cats.

  The couple ahead of me finished up and left. As I approached, the United representative nodded in their direction. “What a cutie, huh?”

  I smiled and nodded. The words barely came out of my mouth, “I’m supposed to be on the flight to New York, how long is the delay?”

  “There’s a mechanical problem on the plane. We’re bringing in another one, but it could be a couple of hours.”

  I rolled my eyes. Just my luck. Here I was trying to make a quick exit and I’d picked the flight with a broken plane. Lack of sleep was making me grumpy, but I dared not take a nap for fear that I would sleep through the boarding call. In that case, it was time for coffee. Lots of it.

  As I sat at one of the tables, I thought about Marty Horvath. Was he really Jimmy Dane? Curiosity was eating me up, almost as much as the airport acid mix in my cup. I hated the thought of diluting this stuff with creamer and sugar, but the concoction in my cup was better suited to testing lab rats than drinking.

  I dumped a mound of creamer and a packet of sugar into the cup and stirred the brew. It still stunk. I must have gotten the last of yesterday’s leftovers. A girl dressed in a brown uniform began wiping off the table next to mine. “You don’t look like you’re enjoying that very much,” she said.

  “This is awful.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll bet they gave you the old batch. I’ll get you a fresh cup, okay?” She returned a minute later and gave me a cup that still had steam coming off the top.

  I took a sip. “Much better. Thanks.”

  She smiled and moved on to the next table.

  I pulled my note with Marty Horvath’s number from my purse. The number looked familiar, but I was too tired to remember where I might have seen it before. What did I have to lose? I dialed and on the third ring, the answering machine picked up.

  “You’ve reached the home of Marty and Jimmy. We’re not available right now, but you all can leave a message right after the beep.”

  I recognized the voice, even though the last time I’d heard it the voice had come from behind a Halloween mask—it was Bush. I hung up and smiled. It was one of the oldest tricks around—create a fake voicemail message and tell the mark to leave a call. Jimmy Dane wouldn’t be getting back to anyone right away. Neither would Marty Horvath. They were one and the same and they were both dead. Did that mean all the kidnappers were gone?

  I spotted the couple that had been in line ahead of me. Seeing that little, happy family again reminded me of my mom and dad. I’d been in such a hurry to get away that I hadn’t thought about what my leaving would do to them. They’d miss me. And I missed them already. They’d survive. Or would they?

  The kidnappers had all died or been killed. A chill ran the length of my spine. If Skip was right, these guys were dying for a reason. We didn’t know who’d masterminded the kidnapping plot. And that was the only person left. What if he wanted revenge because I had the money?

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Skip

  Skip stared out the slider window at the ocean while he contemplated his options. The heaviness that had plagued him on the drive home from LAX seemed to be lifting. Clinically speaking, he knew action would help. He could walk the beach or take a ride on the bike. If he simply sat here to sort out his life, the heaviness would probably return. Outside, patches of blue were already starting to show in the sky. Skip hoped that as the fog headed back out to sea, it would bring him a better mood. He needed sunshine, not a gray day. Walk the beach, he told himself. Meet the day.

  The phone rang. He answered without checking Caller ID. It was Evelyn Tanner. “Skip? Is Roxy there?”

  “No. I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

  “Then, can you come see Richard and me? Roxy’s disappeared.”

  Should he tell her that her daughter was on the run? “Evelyn, I don’t know, I’m kind of busy this morning.”

  “The way you feel about her? You should make time for this or you’ll regret it forever.”

  How did she know—how did anyone know—how he felt about Roxy? He started to make an excuse, but decided it was futile. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  He took his time getting ready, not sure he could face the Tanners with the truth. He closed up the condo and donned his jacket and helmet, then rode the bike to the Tanner residence.

  Both Richard and Evelyn greeted him at the door. He shook hands with Richard, but Evelyn gave him a tight hug. He found himself holding her also, wishing it were Roxy. When they pushed away, Evelyn said, “Where is she? You know, don’t you?”

  Richard added, “I’ve explained everything to Evelyn. Why I’ve been so depressed. Why I went on that binge. Roxy’s been embezzling from her company. We want to help her.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Skip said.

  Skip watched Richard’s shoulders move ever so slightly. He was tense, but maintaining his calm. “We know—at least, we’re fairly sure, that she used the money from her business for the ransom. I’ve suspected what she was up to for a couple of months now. She was building a nest egg with other people’s money and planned to run. The kidnapping forced her hand.”

  “She couldn’t let you be killed.” Skip remembered the fear in Roxy’s eyes when they’d first met.

  Richard continued, “Now she thinks she’s got to run because the money’s gone.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Richard, I can’t reach her. She’s forwarded her phone and she’s probably ignoring e-mail. She’s isolated herself from everything.”

  Richard said, “What kind of life is that? If she runs, it will look like she killed that girl.”

  “Stella. Stella Robbins was her name. She worked for Roxy. We think she’s the one who passed along information about how much money Roxy had. Roxy didn’t think Stella was very smart, so she may have gotten sloppy around her—oh, crap.” Skip began rambling. “Stella—Roxy has Stella’s phone. Maybe she figured out the GPS. She didn’t want me finding her so she disabled it by destroying her phone. Or swapping SIMs.”

  Both the Tanners gave him a blank stare.

  He let a smile creep across his lips. That was another reason he found her so attractive. The blonde hair and great body helped, but she was damned smart. She’d figured out the GPS locator and swapped SIMs with Stella’s phone. Her phone thought it was Stella’s.

  “Maybe I do know how to reach her.” Skip pulled out his cell. He checked the call history and the address book. His shoulders slumped as the realization hit him, “I don’t have the number for Stella.”

  Evelyn’s confusion was obvious. “But she’s dead. Why would you call her?”

  “Roxy might be using what’s called the SIM card from Stella’s phone. A SIM card is like a portable memory chip. Or a miniature hard disk. It’s where your personal identity information and phone number are stored.”

  “So if you change that then the phone number changes?” Richard said.

  “Exactly,” Skip said. “Right now, I’ll bet Roxy’s phone will ring if I call Stella’s number. The problem is I don’t have her number.”

  Evelyn turned and rushed away. She called over her shoulder, “Well I do!”

  Richard stared at Skip. “How the hell did she get that?”
<
br />   Skip shook his head.

  From the hallway, Skip heard Evelyn’s voice. “I went to lunch with Stella a couple of times. We always talked on the phone and she thought it would be fun if we could get together. She was always so sweet. It’s hard to believe she was involved in something like this.”

  “Did you know she did time for armed robbery?” Skip said.

  Evelyn paused and glanced down to the right. “Um, no.”

  Richard smirked. “So what did you talk about at your lunch?”

  “Roxy,” she said. “The business. You—she had lots of questions about you. Her father died when she was young. She said she’d never gotten past his death.”

  Skip wondered what else Evelyn knew. “Sounds like you got to know her a bit.”

  “Now that I think about it, she asked more questions than she answered. She did like to talk about Texas though. I guess she liked it there.”

  “That’s where she spent time in prison.”

  “She told me she lived with relatives. I think they were distant relatives, but she stayed with them when she went to college. She was pumping me for information, wasn’t she?”

  Skip nodded. “I think so. Did she ever mention their names?”

  Evelyn shook her head. “Not that I recall. She did mention her old boyfriend. Michael? Manny? No, Marty.”

  Marty again. Again? Of course, Marty Horvath. “I need the number for the Carlsbad police.”

  Evelyn’s face drained of color, her jaw dropped. “You can’t do that!”

  Skip shook his head. “Not about Roxy. Marty Horvath was Stella’s old boyfriend. I’ll bet he was in jail with the guy who masterminded the kidnapping.”

  “The guy who met me in the bar never said her name,” said Richard. “But he kept talking about his girlfriend. I barely remember it, but he kept talking about how his girlfriend was coming into some money. They were talking about having kids. But he figured it would be a big test for his girlfriend—would she choose him or the money? That’s why we got to talking. I knew what Roxy was up to. It resonated with me.”