Skip watched Richard’s face as he spoke, caught the pained expression as he recalled the mistake that had nearly cost him and his daughter their lives. “If he hadn’t suckered you in that way, they would have done something else.”
Skip noticed the color rise in Evelyn’s face. She stormed away.
Richard said, “Yeah, but I went along willingly. It was just two guys commiserating over women.”
Evelyn returned, carrying the phone book. She glared at him. “You could have told me, Richard.”
He nodded. “I should have.”
Skip interrupted. “It’s too late for that. Besides, this was a well-planned operation. They were performing reconnaissance on every level. Even Roxy was taken in. But, I think we’re a step closer to knowing who set this plan in motion.” Skip dialed the number for the police. He prayed that he was right.
Evelyn asked, “Do you have to call the police?”
“It might be the only way to prevent her from making the biggest mistake of her life.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Roxy
I wasn’t so bored that I was counting, but I was starting to wonder how many people Terminal 7 could hold. The domino effect was in play. The mechanical problem with my plane impacted the flight behind us. They moved that flight, but the move delayed two others. Now, there were five flights on the board that had a delayed arrival or departure. Unless this got straightened out, by my math, the entire airport would be shut down by late afternoon. My eighth-grade math teacher always said my math stunk, but I had five million in the bank and he was stuck with a lousy pension.
The longer I sat, the more irritated I became. It wasn’t so much that my flight was delayed. The thing that irritated me most was that I was here at all. If I hadn’t have been forced to leave in the middle of the frigging night, I would have slipped down to San Diego and used the smaller airport. I could have hopped a cheap Southwest flight to anywhere in the country and quietly escaped to the Caribbean at my leisure.
The wait, in addition to giving me seething time, also gave me time to analyze what I knew. And what I knew gave me time to worry. It was a hopeless, endless cycle that might haunt me like the one from my childhood. That’s when I realized that my childhood kidnapping no longer ruled my thoughts. Since the moment I’d thrown myself at Clinton to keep him from shooting Skip, that memory seemed to hold no more power. How long would I be free from that terror?
I considered calling Mom and Dad to warn them. But what would I say? That I’d gotten away with the money? That someone might want to kill Dad for revenge? What good would that do? As much as it hurt me to say it, if someone wanted to kill my dad, being careful would only delay the inevitable. The fact that I’d sunk so low that I couldn’t, worse yet, wouldn’t, save him had me wondering if I was still part of the human race.
My mind was in rerun state as it played back the episodes of the past few days. It was the episode from Stella’s apartment that triggered one of those fabulous “aha” moments—the kind that seems so simple when it hits and makes you wonder why the hell it took so long to surface. The secret to who was behind the kidnapping lay somewhere in Stella’s past. And there was a source of information about Stella’s past that I hadn’t even considered before, her rental application.
I remembered seeing Marjorie’s number in Stella’s address book. It only took a moment to find the entry and dial.
“Hello?”
“Hi Marjorie, it’s Roxy Tanner.”
I heard a rumble and knew what was coming next. I held the phone away from my ear and waited. A loud cough erupted from the speaker. “Sorry about that. How are you, honey? I was stiff for a day, but I’m good as new today.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Hey, I have a favor to ask.”
“Anything. You name it.”
“Can you pull Stella’s rental application? Then maybe read it to me?”
Hough! Hough. “Let me guess. You didn’t sleep last night and need something really boring to put you out?”
“No, no. I think there’s something in her background that will help this all make sense.”
A few minutes later, Marjorie had read me about half of Stella’s application. Marjorie had been correct, this was boring. Much of the information sounded almost identical to her resume, which I now realized was bogus. For references, she’d listed Jimmy Dane in Carlsbad and Marty Horvath in Texas. If I’d have called, I could have gotten two references and never realized that I’d gotten them from one guy.
Marjorie said, “There’s another reference. A Sonny, uh, Panaman.”
“What!” My voice was so loud that it caused a pall of silence to fall over everyone around me. “Sonny Panaman? Are you sure?”
“It’s clear as day. His address is local, here in Carlsbad.”
“That son of a bitch. He ruined everything.”
“You know this guy?”
“He’s a client—no, he was almost a client. That no good, lying, piece of—” I stopped cold when I realized that the little girl next to me was gawking like I was a freak in a circus. Her mother gave me a glare that made me cringe. “I’m—sorry about that. I just got really bad news.”
The woman’s stare darkened. Obviously, she was completely unimpressed by my apology.
I heard Marjorie in my ear. “Where are you anyway? Sounds like a train station.”
“What was the date of that application?”
“Back in July. Hey, you know what? Stella took that apartment two days after I evicted Jimmy. You think there’s a connection?”
“Oh, there’s a connection alright. That was two months before she started working for me.” Three months before she ever supposedly met Sonny Panaman. “What else is on that application?”
“Investments, right? That’s what you do?”
Did. Whatever. “Correct.”
“Looking at this reminds me. She was unemployed when she got the apartment. But she said she was going to be getting a job with an investment firm. Does that help any?”
“Yeah, it does. Thanks, Marjorie, I’ll see you soon.”
“Let’s have lunch. That is, if you don’t mind being seen in public with an old woman.”
I smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”
As I disconnected the call, I heard an announcement in the background. Boarding would begin in thirty minutes. The plane had arrived. Inside, I was madder than ever. I’d been played not only by Stella, but also by goddamn Sonny Panaman. I wondered if Bruno knew what his son was up to. Right now, I was mad enough to kill Sonny. The only downside I could see to that was that I’d miss my flight and have to drive back to Carlsbad.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Skip
Skip waited while the operator connected him to Sergeant Grimes. A few seconds later, he heard, “Investigations. Grimes.”
“Sergeant, this is Skip Cosgrove. I have one more name I wondered if you could check for me.”
“What, exactly, are you trying to find out, Mr. Cosgrove?”
“I believe I’ve found the connection between all of the kidnappers. We might be able to provide a lead to the person behind the Tanner kidnapping.”
“This will have to be the last one. What’s the name?”
Skip closed his eyes. “Marty or Martin Horvath.”
Grimes put Skip on hold, then returned a minute later. “You’re right. He and Sproutman were incarcerated together. What’s the connection?”
“Horvath was using the name James Dane. He was Stella Robbins boyfriend. Their connection goes back to when Horvath and Sproutman did time in Texas.”
“So you think someone hired them to kidnap Richard Tanner? Why wouldn’t they just cook up this scheme all on their own?”
Skip grimaced. “At this point, I guess it’s just a hunch.”
“Who would have hired them? I’ll pass this along to the detectives. Given that all three kidnappers are dead, I think they’re closing the case. I’ll let them know your concerns, though.�
�
When they were done, Skip said to Richard, “It sounds as if they might close the investigation. If anyone’s going to find the person responsible for this, it’s going to have to be me. I’ve got a friend—guy’s a computer genius—who might be able to help. I’m going to visit him. I want you two to sit tight in case Roxy calls. If she does, get her to come home. We’ve got to stop her from doing something stupid.”
“What about the money?” Richard said.
“I’ll help her find a way to get the money back to her clients.”
Evelyn wrapped her arms around Skip’s neck. “Thank you. I have a good feeling about this.”
As Skip pulled away, he wished he had that kind of feeling. He left the Tanner residence and called Baldorf. When Baldorf gave him the usual “speak to me” introduction, Skip did. “I need you to check that key log thing again to see if there were any e-mails sent from that computer.”
“You coming over?”
“I’m on my way now.”
“On it, dude.”
Skip gunned the engine on the bike and headed for Baldorf’s. Traffic was light on the way and he made the trip to Oceanside in fifteen minutes. As he approached the door, a mechanical voice said, “Enter.”
Baldorf was dressed in a black T-shirt with “162” in bold, white lettering. He wore raggedy jeans and flip flops and his hair stuck out in every direction possible.
“You look like you didn’t sleep,” Skip said.
Baldorf shook his head. “Dude. I got a good four hours last night. I’m ready for the day. How’d you like my door sentry?”
“I thought maybe you used a synthesizer on your voice or something.”
“Nothing so mundane. I’m tinkering with some facial recognition and text-to-speech software for Baldorf’s Revenge. The security involved just a little recoding. I got your photo last night. My system does a comparison against the database and if it finds a match, it lets you in. Otherwise, it challenges you. For now I’m still monitoring the results, but it’s got 100% reliability so far.”
“Wow. No errors?”
Baldorf’s shoulders shook as he laughed. ”The system’s only checked one so far, man. You. Hey, I found a couple of e-mail messages.”
“And?”
Baldorf smiled like an overexcited child. His skin had a healthy glow—to describe him as pleased with himself would have been an understatement. “And I got two messages that were captured after the remote monitoring logs were initialized at 0617 on Wednesday and before session termination this afternoon.”
“English, please.”
“The key logger was added just a couple of days ago. I picked up two messages before I lost the connection. Somebody pulled the plug on the machine, dude.”
“Today? Someone pulled the plug today?”
Baldorf nodded. “Looked like a maintenance guy to me.”
“You saw him?”
“Dude, don’t get excited. The guy’s setup included a webcam.” Baldorf flushed.
Skip started to ask why that embarrassed Baldorf when the monitor behind him went to a screensaver. The image on the screen was definitely Stella. He felt his own color rising. The negligee Stella wore left nothing to the imagination. Without realizing it, he muttered, “Holy shit.”
Baldorf seemed to sense what had happened behind his back. He winced and said, “Went to screensaver, huh?”
Skip nodded. “Goddamn, she’s hot.”
“You have no idea.” Baldorf turned around and jiggled the mouse. The Stella screensaver disappeared and was replaced by the image of a man in overalls followed by a woman who might be his supervisor. She pointed around the room, then directly at the computer.
Baldorf cleared his throat. “This looks a lot like the manager telling the maintenance guy to clear everything out. I captured the e-mails before he took the machine down, though. Look.” He brought up details of an e-mail message on his screen. “I’m not sure what this means, but I have the address it went to.”
Skip had questions about the video that must have been on Dane’s computer, but he forgot them the moment he read the screen.
“Package picked up. Will have payment shortly.”
Skip said, “That means they grabbed Roxy. You said you have an address?”
“Yeah, this one was sent to a Gmail account. The user is sp5445.”
“So who’s this sp5445?”
“That’s the thing. I could try to hack Google’s servers, but for what? If your guy was using this account to insulate himself, he’d give them fake information.”
So far, it didn’t sound like Baldorf had much to offer. “What was the other message?”
“It was a reply. It just said to confirm when the transaction was complete.”
Skip began to pace. Baldorf had so much computer gear scattered about that there was little room to work off his excess anxiety. He needed to clear his head. “I’d like to send this guy a message, but it’s not going to look like it came from that same computer, is it?”
Baldorf said, “Oh, dude, I’m disappointed in you. You underestimate me.”
Skip stared at Baldorf, not knowing what to say.
Baldorf’s smile grew. “So?”
Skip hadn’t planned that far ahead. What should he say? “I—I don’t know. Wait! I want to tell him the money is safe and I’ll turn over a disk with the access information today at 3:00 p.m. He’s to meet me in front of Starbucks at the Carlsbad Outlet Mall.”
Baldorf positioned his hands over the keyboard, looked toward the ceiling and let out a cry, “Wahoooo! Field trip!” He began to type furiously.
“It’s me. Alone.”
Baldorf shook his head. “You owe me, man! This is my payback. Besides, don’t you want this transaction on video?”
The mention of video reminded Skip about the webcam photos. “So did Dane’s computer have, um, videos?”
When Baldorf ignored the question, Skip had his answer. He chuckled. “Call it a bonus. You deserve it.”
In between keystrokes, Baldorf said, “Focus, man, focus.”
“If things go bad, you stay out of it.”
“Hey, man, I’m half programmer, half chicken. And this chicken don’t want nothing to do with getting fried. You’re on your own out there. But I’m very inquisitive—from a distance.”
“Before we take down the bad guy, there’s someone I have to call.” Skip pulled out his cell and prayed that the call went the way he wanted it to.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Roxy
Sonny Panaman’s name alone was enough to enrage me. And now, scare me to death.
I thought of our conversations about our parents. About what Stella might have overheard or learned from me in casual conversations. Christ, he probably knew everything about me. Killing him might not be the best option—then I’d have two reasons to run from the law. And the way my luck had been going, I’d probably get caught in the act before I finished the job. Still, it might be the only solution.
Boarding was scheduled to start in fifteen minutes and I still couldn’t make up my mind—get on the plane, or not? People milled everywhere in this madhouse terminal. My anger burned. I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting still on an airplane for a few hours while Sonny planned his next move.
The phone rang. I stared stupidly at the display. How did Skip get this number? My blood had nearly reached the boiling point as I considered an even stranger option. Had Skip been involved in this too? Had he played me just like the others? That thought sent a pang into my gut. No way. No.
I felt tears welling in my eyes. I didn’t want to know the answer to that question. Didn’t want to, but couldn’t help myself. I punched the answer button and said, “Hello?”
“Thank God I caught you. Where are you?”
”Same place I was last night.”
“I thought you might have been there. You have to come back.” Skip’s voice sounded desperate. “I’ve got an e-mail address for the guy behind t
he kidnapping. A friend of mine is going to help me catch him. But if you leave—you’ll look guilty.”
I bit at my lower lip. “I have to go. I can’t stay here.”
Determination built in his voice as he spoke. “I know about the money. It can all be reversed. We’ll get it back to the people it belongs to. I’ll help you fight this.”
I dodged a kid running through the terminal. Two seconds later, his father nearly knocked me over. “Sorry!” he called out as he ran after his son.
“Sonny Panaman,” I said. “He’s the one behind this whole thing.”
“Who’s he?”
“Someone who said he wanted to be a client, but never came through with the cash. He got Stella to take a job with me so she could be his spy.” I stopped and laughed. It was a laugh filled with embarrassment brought on by another of those “aha” moments, but this one was sickening in its perversity.
“What’s wrong?”
“I financed Sonny’s operation. I paid Stella to spy on me. That sick bastard, I’d love to get him.”
“We can. If you leave, you’ll lose. If you help me out, we can beat this.”
In the background I heard the announcement, boarding had started. “What’s your plan? Make it quick, my flight’s leaving soon.” I walked slowly toward the gate.
“My friend faked an e-mail back to this Sonny Panaman. We’re telling him to meet me this afternoon. I’ll get the evidence to prove he arranged the kidnapping.”
Overhead, I heard, “Now boarding rows 40 and above.”
I snorted. “That’s the most idiotic plan I’ve ever heard!”
“We’ll work on that. We’ll find a way. There is one thing. You’ll have to give the money back.”
Skip’s idea wasn’t a plan—it was a capitulation. From my perspective, it was also a time bomb waiting to go off. No, I was in this alone and had no one to trust.
I hoisted my bag on my shoulder and pulled out my ticket. I stood in line with the others. “Good luck. I hope you get him.” I hit the disconnect button and shoved the phone back into my purse.
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