“I have no idea,” Cindy said with a sigh.
“I think it’s fairly safe to rule out anyone actually attending the couples’ retreat unless we find out that someone was here for the other retreat as well.”
“It’s a good thing we can rule them out because otherwise there’d be just way too many suspects and people to point fingers at. Besides, some of them I wouldn’t want to have to spend more time around them investigating.”
“Like who?” Jeremiah asked.
Cindy rolled her eyes. “Jill and Kim for sure. I was so uncomfortable talking with them earlier. The two of them were busy obsessing over Dorothea and her pearl necklace. If that thing goes missing I know exactly where to look for it. I felt bad for their husbands. For something that’s supposed to be a couples’ retreat they gave zero focus to the men in their lives.”
“That’s okay, Jack and Levi were already plotting a prison break.”
“How so?”
“They were trying to figure out when they’d have a chance to sneak away and hit the casino just down the road.”
“Aha! Good thing they’re not at the gambling addiction clinic. Although, maybe they should be.”
“Apparently they’re both big poker fans.”
“I bet I could beat them,” she mused.
“You play?”
“Yes, no, sorta.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“I grew up playing with my father and my grandfather.”
Jeremiah smiled. “I bet you took them for every penny.”
Cindy laughed. “We played with poker chips for bragging rights. Although if we had played for pennies I would have gotten them all.”
“I’d love to see you beat Levi and Jack. They seem to have pretty high estimations of their own skill. It’d be amusing to watch you deflate those egos a bit.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, but they play for money. I’ve never done that. It’s a different game when you actually have something to lose.”
“That’s true, but I still would love to see you beat them.”
Cindy allowed herself a moment to picture that. It would be a sweet victory, especially if it upset their wives. She knew she wasn’t being charitable, but both women had really rubbed her the wrong way. Dorothea, on the other hand, had seemed very sweet. Beth, the other woman at their dinner table, had been very quiet. So quiet that Cindy hadn’t been able to get a good impression of her except to think that she must be even more introverted than Cindy could be.
“So, what is the plan for tonight?” she asked.
“I’m going to wait for midnight then slip out and see if I can break into the computer system and find out more about Malcolm, including which bungalow he was staying in.”
“Okay, and what will I be doing?”
“Staying here and covering for me just in case we get any surprise late night visitors.”
She blinked at him. “And just what do you think the odds of that happening are?”
“Late night visitors?”
“No, me staying here and doing nothing while you’re out getting the information.”
“I think the odds are pretty high,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I need you to be safe.”
“Did you learn nothing over the summer?” she countered. “I’m safest when I’m with you.”
“I think you’ll be perfectly safe in this room. I don’t want to put you in danger. I’m going to have to be moving fast and if I get caught I might be able to come up with a good excuse, but if they catch both of us it’s over for sure.”
As much as sneaking around the compound in the middle of the night sounded daunting and a little frightening to her, it was nothing compared to how she felt about waiting behind while he did all the sneaking around.
“I want to go, too.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“I can help act as a lookout or something.”
That made him smile for some reason. “Careful or you’ll be offering to drive the getaway car next,” he said.
She rolled her eyes at him. “We’re breaking into a computer, not a bank vault. Besides, we don’t have a car to drive.”
“Okay, but we might want to rethink our wardrobes for the big caper. Matching black burglar costumes will be a little too suspicious.”
“I think I have the perfect idea,” Cindy said as something came to her. It was either brilliant or insane. Either way, she was running with it.
Mark stared at the image of his dead partner, feeling like he was looking at a ghost. His hands were shaking as he held the file folder. The picture was of Paul when he was younger, probably college-aged, standing with his arm around another guy’s shoulders. They were both smiling for the camera.
“Did you find something?” Melinda asked, walking over to him.
“Paul. Do you know who the other guy in this picture is?” he asked.
“That’s Kent. They both look so young there. It’s hard to believe they’re both gone,” she said, her voice filling with sorrow.
“Tell me about it,” Mark muttered.
He strained to see if he could make out any other details in the picture, but the background was blurry. He saw what were probably a couple of trees, but it could have been taken anywhere. He also wondered who had taken the picture.
“They were friends, I know that much. I always had the impression they met during their undergrad days,” Melinda said.
Mark moved the picture and looked at the first page underneath it. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, then he thought the writing on the page must be in some foreign language. It took him several moments to realize he was staring at a coded message.
He instantly thought about the coded message Paul had had this man give to Georgia. Was it possible the two codes were the same?
“Did Kent ever write his more sensitive notes in code or a personal shorthand or something?”
“Not that I ever saw. Why?” Melinda asked.
He showed her the piece of paper. She took it and stared at it, frowning for a moment before handing it back. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she admitted.
There were at least a dozen pages in the file, all of them covered with the same unintelligible scrawl. Kent had written this in code, labeled the file with only a P and then locked it up in a safe. Whatever it was, he had done his best to keep it safe and hidden.
The hair lifted on the back of Mark’s neck. Whatever it was, it could have gotten Kent killed.
He closed the file back up. “I’m going to take this with me,” he said.
Melinda nodded slowly. “I don’t see why not. The firm doesn’t know the file is here. Kent’s wife doesn’t even know he has a safe in here. I think I was the only one who knew about it.”
He thought of the key that Kent had given to Georgia.
“There aren’t any small boxes in that safe, are there?”
“No, just those files,” she said.
Mark looked at the other files that had come out of the safe. He quickly flipped through the others. They all seemed to be tied to important people, but he didn’t see anything like the code that was in Paul’s file. Reluctantly he handed the other files back to her and she put them away.
“Kent didn’t have any kind of safe deposit box, something a key would have gone to, did he?”
“If he did, he didn’t tell me about it.”
Given that Kent had trusted her with a key to his house and the combination to the safe even his wife didn’t know he had she would have been the one to know something like that.
After she locked the safe back up and re-concealed it she turned to him. “Do you really think that file is going to help you?” she asked.
“I hope so. Are you really just going to leave those other files there? No one else knows they even exist.”
“I know. He didn’t want the firm to have them, so I never mentioned them, even after his death. I don’t know what they are
or what they pertain to, but I always figured if someone needed one of them really bad they’d come looking.”
“Like I did,” Mark said.
She nodded.
“And that’s why you brought me here.”
“Yes. I owe him that much.”
“Someday others might come looking for those other files.”
“I know.”
“All of them might not be as friendly.”
“I know that, too,” she said. “But what else can I do?”
She was right. There was a reason the attorney had wanted those files kept safe. Turning them over to his firm or even to the police could be a huge mistake.
“I’ll give you my card if you ever need help,” he said.
“I appreciate that. And you have my number if there’s anything more I can help with.”
With nothing left to be said they left the house. Melinda set the alarm, locked the door, and moments later they were driving away. Once they got back to her house he’d be able to retrieve his rental car and make it back to the airport and get home in time for nighttime diaper duty. Traci would be pleased. She’d been right to urge him to fly. Had he driven up he would have missed seeing Melinda being escorted from the building and he wouldn’t have the file he did now.
Mark realized he was clutching Paul’s file so hard that the muscles in his hands were beginning to cramp. He’d have to figure out a way to break the code. Maybe he could enlist Jeremiah’s help. Until he knew exactly what those pages said he wanted to be extremely careful who he shared them with. Deep in his gut he felt someone’s life might depend on that.
“This is insane, you know that right?” Jeremiah whispered to Cindy as they let themselves into the building that held the registration desk.
“Or brilliant, it might be brilliant,” she told him.
He wasn’t sure how he’d let her talk him into this. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that he was banking on them not getting caught. Both of them had towels wrapped around them as though they were headed off to the pool for a midnight swim. While Cindy’s logic had been somewhat sound, which was why he had ultimately given in, he felt completely exposed and vulnerable.
There was enough moonlight pouring in through the windows and glass doors that the interior of the building was lit in a soft glow. He positioned Cindy near the door where she could see out to the pathway leading up to the building. He had told her to let him know if she saw anything moving outside. The moon was shining brightly enough that they hadn’t needed a flashlight when walking here which was good for them. It also meant someone else could sneak up on them fairly easily with no tell-tale bobbing light giving them away and that was bad.
With Cindy in position he moved over to the check-in counter and got behind it. He was gratified to see that whoever had last manned the station had simply shut off the monitor and not the entire computer. The screen blipped to life and he clicked on the icon for the reservation system. Fortunately it didn’t ask for a password, a serious security flaw on their end. He spent about a minute figuring out his way around the program before he was able to do a search on past guests.
He typed in the name Malcolm Griffith and zero hits came back. It was possible Malcolm was actually a middle name he went by so he searched for the last name Griffith by itself. Zero hits still. He scowled. Just to make sure the system was actually working he typed in Flynn Castleback. More than a dozen entries instantly popped up. It seemed he and his wife really did spend their anniversary here every year.
He tried a different approach, searching instead by date range. He scrolled quickly through the names that came up but none of them were even similar to Malcolm Griffith.
Either he had been erased from their computer system or he had lied about being here in the first place. A good computer tech might be able to search the computer and find out if the records had been altered, but they didn’t have access to someone like that.
He shut down the reservation program and was about to turn off the monitor when an icon on the desktop caught his eye. It was labeled Schedules.
He clicked on it and it popped up a workbook. There were tabs for different staff members. He clicked on the one for the psychologist, Dr. Carpenter. A spreadsheet with the days and times marked out and several boxes filled in with names came up. One of the boxes had his and Cindy’s aliases filled in. He saw appointments for the others that they had met so far at the retreat.
He scrolled down past a black bar and he was suddenly looking at entries for the previous week. Apparently they kept the old schedules, at least for a while. Holding his breath he did a search for Griffith.
Malcolm Griffith had been scheduled for appointments with Dr. Carpenter on two different days. He had been scheduled to be here which meant he likely had been here. If he’d never shown up at the retreat center his information still should have come up in the reservation program showing whether he was charged a fee or refunded money or something. No, the fact that he was here in this file and missing from the reservation program told Jeremiah that Malcolm had been here and someone from the center had wanted to cover that fact up.
He also knew that given the first appointment with Dr. Carpenter had been scheduled prior to Malcolm’s last phone call to his wife, the psychologist almost certainly had talked with him. Which meant they needed to talk to him.
Jeremiah closed down the program, shut off the monitor and moved over next to Cindy.
“Did you find anything?” she whispered.
“Yes, he was here but someone erased him from the system. They just didn’t do a very thorough job of it,” he said. “Are we all clear?”
“I haven’t seen anyone.”
“Okay, good.”
They slipped out of the building, closing the door softly behind them, then hurried away from the building. They had only gone a dozen feet when Jeremiah heard a step and then a flashlight clicked on, shining right into their eyes.
10
Cindy squealed and grabbed onto Jeremiah’s arm. She had planned to do that if they were caught, but she found that the reaction happened completely naturally. Her heart was pounding and she was so grateful that whoever it was hadn’t come along when they were still inside the building.
“Where are you going?” an accented voice asked.
“The pool,” Cindy said.
“You’re a long ways from it.” The flashlight lowered and she could see the Russian dance instructor staring at them.
“I told you we were going the wrong way to the pool. Would you listen? No!” she said, feigning anger, and hitting Jeremiah on the arm.
“What did you want me to do? Stop and ask for directions? From who? It’s the middle of the freaking night,” Jeremiah snapped.
“Well maybe you’re not as eager to get to the pool as I thought you were.”
“Come on, you know we would have gotten there and you would have chickened out...as usual.”
“I might not have.”
“Right. Then why are you wearing your bathing suit under the towel if you were actually planning on going skinny dipping?”
“In case we ran into anyone on the way there,” she said, actually flushing at the thought of skinny dipping with Jeremiah.
“Okay, cool it you two,” the big Russian said. “The pool’s off limits after ten. And it’s not okay to go skinny dipping at any time. And all this passion, frustration you’re feeling, I suggest you save it for the dance floor. You’re going to be sensational at the tango. Now, how lost are you? Do you need help finding your way back to your bungalow?”
“I think it’s over there,” Jeremiah said pointing in the wrong direction.
The dancer shook his head. “Which number?”
“Fourteen,” Cindy said.
“Then you are all the way at the end, that way,” he said, pointing past Jeremiah and slightly behind him.
“Thank you,” Cindy said, trying to be as sincere as she could. “If it weren’t for you we woul
d have been tromping out here all night.”
“It is my pleasure,” the man said, giving her a slow, sexy grin.
“Let’s go,” Jeremiah said, grabbing Cindy’s hand and pulling her in the direction of their bungalow.
“Goodnight, and thank you again,” she called over her shoulder.
They hurried back to their bungalow and once inside Jeremiah turned to her with a frown. “You were flirting with him, that wasn’t necessary.”
“When a woman’s mad at her boyfriend it’s not unusual for her to flirt with someone else in front of him.”
“To get his attention or punish him?”
“Probably a little of both,” she admitted. “And if we were really lost and it was your fault of course I’d be grateful to him for helping out.”
She paused and looked at him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it just...bothered me is all.”
“You were jealous?” she asked, unable to stop the grin that began to spread across her face.
“Yes,” he admitted.
A little thrill rippled through her being. “How jealous?” she asked, taking a step closer to him.
“Jealous enough to punch his lights out.”
She took two more steps so she was right in front of him and slid her arms up around his neck. “You know that you don’t have to be jealous,” she said, smiling up at him.
He stared at her a moment with a tortured look on his face even as she pressed closer to him.
“Cindy, don’t,” he said, his voice husky.
“Why? What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Because unlike you I actually dressed the part. I’m not wearing swim trunks under this towel.”
“Oh!” she said, letting go and quickly stepping back. For just a moment she thought she caught him smirking.
Jeremiah had no idea what had caused him to say that. It wasn’t true, but the look on her face had been priceless. He was grateful, though, that she had moved away. Ever since they had run into the Russian he had found it impossible not to think about Cindy skinny dipping and it was playing havoc with his restraint. In a few minutes they would be getting ready to be going to sleep and the last thing he needed to be doing was thinking about her naked.
Thou Art With Me Page 9