Reforming Jane

by Maggie Carpenter

  “Did you have to wear one of those hats with the light on the top?” Susan asked, sounding genuinely interested.

  “I did, everyone does, but tell me what happened here. What was this blizzard I saw on the news? Was it that bad?” Jane asked, wanting to get the girls talked out before they reached the restaurant.

  “It was terrible,” Sylvia declared, “you wouldn’t have believed it. You were so lucky to be gone while it was happening. I had no electricity for a whole ten hours.”

  The conversation took flight, each of them sharing their stories about what had happened to them during the three-day snowstorm that had paralyzed London. By the time the limousine stopped in front of Wetherby’s, as Jane suspected they would be, Amanda, Sylvia, and Susan were out of things to say and began pushing her for details about her trip. They entered the eatery and were shown to a table, and as they removed their coats and settled in, all eyes turned attentively to Jane.

  “So, tell us absolutely everything,” Amanda said eagerly.

  “What’s the special something you brought us back?” Sylvia piped up.

  “I want to know about the shares,” Susan remarked. “I’d love to have my own stash, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Amanda declared. “Money no one else knows about.”

  “And your wish just might come true,” Jane said quietly.

  Anxious to hear the news, the three girls leaned in across the table. Jane smiled. It was all so wonderfully predictable.

  “I have two surprises for you, but you can’t tell a soul. Do you promise?”

  “We promise, we promise,” Sylvia said excitedly. “Tell us, show us!”

  “Okay, so first,” Jane began, lifting her bag onto the table. “I have these.”

  Pulling the Qantas boarding pass out first, she casually laid it on the table, then withdrew a small black velvet drawstring sack.

  “Ooh, I can hardly stand it,” Amanda whispered.

  “Are you ready to see a real gold nugget from a real goldmine?” Jane asked, her voice almost a whisper.

  “So ready,” Sylvia exclaimed.

  Opening the top of the sack, Jane tipped the three nuggets into her hand.

  “There they are, one for each of you.”

  “Wow, these are amazing, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Susan mumbled. “What’s that white stuff around the gold?”

  “That’s quartz; these nuggets are straight from the mine.”

  “Are they worth much?” Sylvia asked. “I mean, as they are. Is it better to leave them like this, or have the gold extracted?”

  “If it were me, I’d leave it as is. I’m going to have mine made into a pendant.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Amanda said eagerly.

  “They’re all about the same size and weight, so just grab one.”

  With murmurings of gratitude and exclamations of excitement, they each took their nugget, and as they ooh’d and aah’d, Jane picked up the boarding pass and tore it up.

  “I guess I won’t need this anymore,” she muttered.

  “I want to go to Sydney so bad,” Amanda proclaimed. “What are the men like?”

  “Wait,” Susan interjected. “She said she has something else for us.”

  “I can’t give you these, I can only show them to you,” Jane said mysteriously, pulling the three envelopes from her bag and handing them around the table. “Open them up and take a look.”

  Each of the girls pulled out the stock certificates, and watching their eyes light up, Jane knew she’d have no trouble collecting their lovely crisp cash.

  “How will this work?” Susan asked.

  Jane could see the avarice, and she was just about to launch into what Bernie referred to as the close, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around, she looked up and saw two serious-looking men dressed in dark suits.

  “Jane Campbell, or is it Jane Goldberg? Perhaps Jane Sullivan? You’ve used all those names, haven’t you, Jane?”

  Jane felt her heart come to a screeching halt, and panic swept through her like a lightning bolt. She couldn’t think or talk, and watched, speechless, as the younger of the two men reached across the table and took the stock certificates, then asked for the gold nuggets.

  “Just hold on,” Sylvia scowled. “Who are you? You have no right—”

  “Miss Sylvia Parker, I believe,” said the man who still had his hand on Jane’s shoulder. “We are from Scotland Yard. Bruce, show the young ladies your identification.”

  The man called Bruce pulled out a small leather wallet and opened it up, and as he showed it to the group, in horrified silence, the girls produced their nuggets and handed them over.

  “Will you please tell us what this is all about?” Amanda asked timidly.

  “I am Detective Inspector Willis, and Jane is coming with us. Best not to make a fuss. Come along, Jane. We have a lot of talking to do.”

  Completely mortified and quaking in her skin, Jane picked her bag and rose from the table.

  “What about your luggage, Jane?” Sylvia asked, her eyes wide in total disbelief.

  “Already taken care of,” the inspector declared, gripping Jane’s elbow. “Good evening, ladies.”

  Feeling as if she was living some ghastly nightmare, Jane walked unsteadily out of the restaurant, and as the cold air bit her skin she realized she’d left her coat behind.

  “My coat,” she managed. “It’s on my chair.”

  “Bruce?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll be right back.”

  Opening the back door of a dark sedan, the inspector guided her inside, then climbed in next to her, while the man called Bruce disappeared into the restaurant.

  “Where are we going?” Jane muttered.

  “We’re going to your house. We have a search warrant.”

  “To search for what?” she asked, trying to gather her wits.

  “Stolen goods, large amounts of cash, jewelry, fake documents. Need I go on?”

  “You’re making a mistake,” she said quickly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I saw you hand those phony stock certificates to your friends, Miss Campbell, or whatever your name is.”

  “It was a joke; I was just having a laugh.”

  “I hope you have a good solicitor. You’ll be needing one, but you’re going down. You’re looking at several years.”

  “Whaaat?”

  “We’ve been watching you for a while. We never did get Bernie, he was as slippery as black ice, but you, you’re not quite so slick, or as careful.”

  A sick feeling was rising up from her belly, and she leaned back her head and closed her eyes, but as she did her brain started to come back to life. Questions began dawning on her. How did they know where she was? Were they tailing her? If they had a warrant, they could have gone directly to her house. Why didn’t they, and why hadn’t the detective given her the speech about her rights?

  “Here’s your coat.”

  The younger man’s voice broke into her thoughts. He was standing at the car door, and after handing it to her, he moved to the front of the car, settled behind the wheel, and pulled away from the curb.

  “Am I under arrest?” Jane asked, grateful for the warmth as she pulled her jacket around her shoulders.

  “Not yet, but you will be,” the inspector replied.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It will,” he assured her. “Why don’t you just tell me about this latest hustle? Was there anyone else involved? The chap you’ve been seeing, Henry Gibson, is he part of a new crew you’re putting together?”

  “Henry? No, of course not, and I’m not putting together any crew.”

  “Hustlers work with other hustlers. We know you’ve been operating alone, but we figured you’d start down this road sooner or later. He’s a brainiac. Is he going to be the one masterminding your schemes now?”

  “No! Henry has nothing to do with any of this,”
she exclaimed. “He’s completely straight.”

  “You’d be doing yourself a big favor if you just came clean. If you give us Henry and your other cohorts, we could make things go easier for you.”

  “Henry is not a cohort.”

  “I find that very hard to believe,” he said, looking at her skeptically. “Ah, good, we’re here. I’d rather not bust down your door. Would you give me your keys, please?”

  “No, I’ll let you in myself,” she grunted, fishing them out of her bag, “and the minute I get inside I’m calling my solicitor, in private!”

  “That would be an excellent idea, not that it will do you much good.”

  Leading them up the short path, she unlocked the door, marched inside, and pulled her phone from her purse.

  “Look around all you want. You won’t find anything. Every piece of art, every statue, absolutely everything in here has a legitimate receipt attached to it, and I have copies of them all, so if you steal anything—”

  “We’re here to catch a thief, not become thieves ourselves,” the inspector said sternly.

  “I’m going into my bedroom to make my call,” she exclaimed. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Turning around, she hurried away, and once inside her bedroom she closed the door but didn’t lock it, raced to the windows, opened them wide, then darted into her closet. Heart pounding, she entered her secret room, making sure her clothes were back in front of the hidden panel, then put the emergency lock in place. It prevented the door from being opened from the closet. As she turned on the monitors and began to watch the two men walking around her living room, with trembling hands she called Henry.

  “Hi, Jane, how great to hear from you.”

  “Henry, did you mean what you said last night?”

  “I meant everything I said last night. Why?”

  “Because I’m in terrible trouble and, Henry, I’m really, really scared.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was an exit from the secret room, but Jane was loath to use it. The house was built over one of the many subterranean structures riddled throughout the city, and Bernie had taken her on the arduous trip only once. He’d led her through the trap door under the rug, down a ladder into a basement, through another trap door, then descended a long ladder into the black, dank, stinky tunnel. It had been a gruesome, disgusting journey, and they had popped out in the most unlikely of places—in a thicket of trees in a park.

  “Please, please, I don’t want to go through that horrible tunnel by myself,” she prayed, her eyes squeezed shut. “I don’t want to go through it at all. Please, Henry, please get me out of this mess.”

  Jane had made it clear to Henry that he was also a suspect, but it hadn’t seemed to faze him. She’d also told him she was in a hidden room in the house, but she wouldn’t tell him where, not yet. If he didn’t know, the two officers wouldn’t be able to get the information out of him. She didn’t trust the authorities, not one bit, and if there was any kind of negotiation she’d insist that Henry’s solicitor be called to the house so he could get it on paper.

  Safe in the concealed room, able to watch the detectives on the monitors, and with Henry on his way, she was beginning to feel that she had a modicum of control. Opening the mini-refrigerator, she gulped down a mouthful of vodka to help settle her nerves, took a long deep breath, then sat down in front of the small screens to study the two men.

  “What the hell are they doing?” she mumbled, seeing them aimlessly wander around her living room.

  If they were executing a search warrant, they weren’t going about it very effectively, though she’d never been subject to a search before, so she didn’t know exactly how it worked. From the police dramas on television, it appeared the police pulled out drawers, opened cupboards, looked under sofa cushions, and in some cases, tore things apart, but the two men were doing nothing like that.

  “She’s taking a long time,” Bruce remarked. “I’m going to go and check on her.”

  “We shouldn’t have left her out of our sight,” Inspector Willis grunted.

  Jane watched Bruce wander down the hall calling her name, opening the doors of the various rooms. When he reached her bedroom, he walked in and immediately saw the open window.

  “She’s gone!” he shouted. “Come quick.”

  Jane smiled a satisfied smile as she watched the inspector race through the house. Entering her bedroom, he joined Bruce at the window and gazed out at the empty backyard.

  “How the hell did she get over that wall?” he exclaimed. “It’s covered in that horrible prickly bush.”

  “Maybe there’s a gate somewhere,” Bruce suggested.

  “Well, don’t just stand there, go and check.”

  Jane let out a relieved breath. Her ruse had worked, but it was one for which she could take no credit. Bernie had made her practice the drill on a regular basis.

  “You can’t think about what you’re doing,” he’d told her. “It has to be automatic. If you have to think about it, you’ll make a mistake.”

  Once again, Bernie’s cleverness had come to her rescue.

  Watching the hapless Bruce run out the kitchen door and into the yard, she was plagued by a strong feeling that something didn’t add up. Where was their backup? Didn’t the police send more than two men when conducting a search? Why did they let her leave to make a phone call? That in itself suddenly seemed highly questionable.

  “Have I been completely stupid?” she muttered. “People believe what you tell them. Have I just fallen into the trap? I didn’t even ask to see the bloody search warrant.”

  The sound of the doorbell broke into her thoughts, and staring at the monitor she saw Henry standing at the front door. Grabbing her phone, she sent him a text.

  Might not be cops. Check IDs. Ask to see warrant. Beware.

  She watched him pull his phone from his pocket and see the text. Her phone chimed, and she read his response.

  Got it.

  Eyes glued to the monitors, she saw Bruce leave the backyard and the inspector answer the door.

  “Until you can show me a valid search warrant and I can confirm your identification, I must ask you to leave these premises,” Henry said, his voice confident and authoritative. “There is a solicitor on his way here, and I have contacted the local police station as well. From what Miss Campbell has told me, I have questions about the way you removed her from the restaurant and are now conducting this search. I’ll let my solicitor handle the verification aspects, but until he arrives, I must insist you refrain from doing anything further.”

  Jane wanted to climb through the monitors and kiss him. He was a hero, a total and complete hero.

  “Miss Campbell?” the inspector retorted. “Is that the name she used with you?”

  “Yeah,” Bruce added, walking up to join them. “I don’t understand why she never changes her first name, but we’ll find out. I’m sure she has some reasoning to it.”

  “You’re trying to distract me and change the subject,” Henry declared. “Show me the search warrant and your IDs, or I will call the police, and I believe,” he added, looking down the street at a Mercedes driving toward them, “that’s my solicitor now.”

  To Jane’s amazement the two men suddenly pushed past Henry, jumped into their car, and peeled rubber as they sped off. Henry watched them drive away, and as the Mercedes continued toward him, he walked into the house and locked the door. It had been a stroke of luck that the car had appeared when it did, and he wondered if a little bit of Jane had rubbed off on him. Claiming the car was his solicitor had come to him in a flash.

  “Wherever you are, Jane, you can come out now. They’ve gone.”

  But Jane was already in the hallway, and bursting into the living room, she flew into his waiting arms.

  “Oh, my God, Henry, I’ve never been so scared in my life,” she cried. “I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t stop shaking. Thank you for coming, thank you for rescuing me, thank you for everythi
ng.”

  Her words had tumbled out of her as she’d clung to him, and feeling her tremble, Henry held her tightly and softly stroked her back.

  “It’s over, it’s all over,” he crooned.

  “Please just hold me and never let me go,” she mumbled. “I’m feeling totally weak. I don’t think my legs would support me if I tried to walk.”

  “You’ve had a very nasty fright, and that’s what happens. Your adrenalin spiked and now it’s crashing. Come and sit down.”

  Holding her around the waist, he helped her to the sofa. She sank into the comfortable cushions and curled up in his lap.

  “I’m sorry,” she whimpered as unexpected tears began to flow. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why am I crying?”

  “Tears of relief, I expect, and fright. You held it together under enormous pressure, and had the presence of mind to hide, and then to get in touch with me.”

  “I have Bernie to thank,” she sniffled. “It was a drill he taught me. It kicked in. My hands were shaking so bad when I rang you, I could barely hold the phone.”

  “Do you have any idea who those chaps were?”

  “No, none, but I’ll ask around. I’m sure I’ll be able to find out. My world has two degrees of separation, not six, like regular people. Everyone knows someone who knows someone.”

  “If they had been from Scotland Yard, I’d be visiting you in a very nasty little room somewhere.”

  “Ooh, it would have been terrible,” she bleated. “I shudder to think, I truly shudder to think.”

  “Your life would be radically changed.”

  “It would be over. Henry, it would be over,” she repeated, raising her head and staring at him.

  “But it’s not, and you’re safe.”

  “I don’t feel safe. What if they come back? They’ve seen everything that’s in here.”

  “It’s strange they didn’t take anything,” Henry muttered, “or did they?”

  “No, I was watching the whole time. I wonder who they were. Maybe they were casing this place.”