The officer shook her head.
“But I—”
“You certainly have some friends in high places.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve never seen someone facing charges like yours get the strings pulled and get sprung so fast.”
I’d been sprung? “I was here all night.”
She clicked open the door. “Believe me, should have been a lot longer.”
“Thank you,” I said, unsure how to process what was going on.
“You got someone to thank, but it sure ain’t me.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
FRANK WASN’T STANDING IN the lobby awaiting my release or even perched on the edge of one of the gray plastic chairs avoiding eye contact with any and all, but instead waiting in the car with the engine running. I was certain the only thing preventing him from peeling out of the parking lot before I could close the passenger door was the fact he was parked in front of a police station.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a hoarse croak.
“You’re sorry?” he repeated, gunning it toward home the moment the coast was clear of law enforcement personnel. “Is that what you expect me to say to Jim Jarvis and Michael Perkins when they learn their new syndicated financial guru’s wife is a—”
“Frank, I didn’t do anything.”
“I’m not sure how you can say that with a straight face.”
“I can say I’m innocent because I went into Eternally 21 to use a few coupons and the next thing I knew I was tangled up in something much bigger than I could have ever—”
“I told the boys your car broke down on the way home from the gym.” His voice choked with anger. “That I had to run out to come get you. I don’t want them to know that you’ve been …” He waggled his hand in the air as though he couldn’t even describe what had happened.
“You have to believe me.”
Frank didn’t respond.
My worn-out tear ducts overflowed once more with my husband’s silent vote of no confidence. I cried harder with the view of the Front Range in the distance. How many more times would I be able to take in that majestic mountain vista unfettered by bars? Without imagining the life I should rightfully have been living on the outside?
“Have you heard how Tara Hu and Andy Oliver are doing?” I finally managed.
“She’s still in a coma.”
“That’s awful.”
“Doesn’t begin to describe it.”
“This is the most horrible of mistakes.”
Frank pressed roughly on the brake as the yellow light he should have already slowed for turned red. “Who was driving your car, Maddie?”
“All I can think is that someone took your keys at the taping and—”
“And tucked them into the couch cushion in my dressing room?”
“That’s where you found them?”
“They’d slipped out of my pocket,” he said, accelerating a second short of the light changing back to green.
I watched the keys clink back and forth in the ignition. “Frank, your key to my car is missing.”
“I gave it to the police when they impounded the SUV,” he said.
“Right,” I said, turning toward the passenger window. I ached for my old existence, broke or not, as we passed by the commonplace sights of what was so recently my world—the sprinklers running at the odd numbered addresses per the water restriction schedule, the morning joggers lining the green belts, and the predictable shades of beige trim accenting the homes. “I just can’t understand how any of this is happening. I—”
“Save it,” Frank said.
“But—”
“I’ve already heard it all.”
Heard it all? How could he have heard it all when he hadn’t given me a chance to finish a single sentence of explanation? “How could you have?”
“Stasia,” he simply said.
I squeezed my eyes shut with the sound of her nickname on his lips. “Do you have to call her that in front of me?”
“She’s a good friend,” he said with even less hesitation than he’d had about my keys.
I was already more than a few circles into hell. Wasn’t it way past time to get the whole ugly truth out there? “How good?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—”
“She got you sprung, didn’t she?
“She got me sprung?”
“I thought we should leave you where you couldn’t get into any more trouble until the network deal was signed. It was Stasia who insisted we get you out ASAP.” Frank gave a nonchalant wave to the guard at the entrance to our development. “We were up all night pulling strings.”
My husband wanted to leave me rotting in jail while he and his ostensible paramour were up all night together? “Why would Stasia do that?”
“She thought we’d have a better chance of keeping the bombshell news that Frank Michaels’s wife is wanted for a hit and run and who knows what else quiet by getting you out of that jail cell.”
“And you wanted to leave me there?”
“I want to get the deal done,” Frank said. “Luckily Anastasia wants it as badly as I do.”
“I suppose I owe her a big thank you,” I managed.
“I don’t know of anyone else with the connections to wrangle what should have been an impossible get out of jail free card.”
“So I hear.”
He emitted what could only be called an angry chuckle. “I have to assume that along with being pretty and smart as a whip, that young lady is quite the pillow talker.”
He assumed? “Pillow talker?”
“Her boyfriend is the acting police chief.”
The wind felt knocked out of me, like I’d landed flat on my back. “Stasia’s boyfriend?”
“From what she tells me, he’s her almost fiancé.”
Anastasia was whispering sweet nothings into her almost fiancé, the acting police chief’s ear? “She’s engaged to the police chief?”
“Acting,” Frank said. “Why?”
“It’s just that … ”
“What?”
I fought to get my breath back. “With all the time you’ve spent together and everything else, I’ve been wondering if something’s going on.”
“Between Stasia and me?”
“She’s smart, beautiful, and just your type.”
“The almost fiancée of an acting police chief is hardly my type.” Frank pushed the garage door clicker and steered the car into the driveway. “And the idea that I’d compromise the future of Frank Finance by mixing business with pleasure … ”
“I didn’t want to think it,” I said. “It’s just—”
“Ridiculous, Maddie,” Frank said. “Utterly ridiculous.”
Ridiculous didn’t begin to cover how I felt after Frank handed me a tissue and hairbrush and left me alone to collect myself while he went inside to reconfirm with the boys just how hunky-dory everything was.
So hunky-dory, that in the few minutes it took me to pull myself together, get out of the car, and make my way into the house, Frank was already locked in his office trying to find a lawyer who, in his words, would make even O.J. Simpson’s attorneys look incompetent.
Thankfully, the boys were too absorbed in some post-apocalyptic Xbox battle to notice me tiptoe past them toward the front hall or I might have enveloped both of them in a teary, soon we’ll have to touch hands separated by a thick wall of Plexiglas instead of hugging, hug.
Until the last two weeks, I’d considered Frank’s obsession with keeping up appearances a quirk to be indulged as part of the marital give and take. Where the boys were concerned, however, I couldn’t agree with his sense of caution more. I didn’t want them to see how bedraggled I looked, much less find out their silly mother had made every mistake in the book, including but not limited to, accusing her husband of the most farfetched of extramarital affairs. Oh yeah, and getting arrested.
I was about to sneak upstairs for a shower I needed even more
than yesterday’s ill-fated scrub down (and possibly one of the last I’d take without the company of my cellblock and an armed guard) when I spotted a green light emanating from my otherwise dark office.
Frank hadn’t mentioned any variation on the word frugal but after yesterday’s revelations, it was no stretch to presume he might well have been snooping while I was languishing in the slammer.
I veered into my office and logged onto Mrs. Frugalicious to see the last time anyone had been on the site.
“Hey, Mom,” FJ, from the slightly deeper timbre of his voice, said from behind me just before the admin screen popped up.
“Hey,” I responded with as much nonchalance as I could muster and switched quickly to my personal email account, back turned to avoid any telltale (red) eye contact. “Sorry you boys had to forage for breakfast this morning.”
“No big,” FJ said. “Dad said your car’s all jacked up.”
The last thing I wanted to do was lie, so I was grateful for his word choice. “For sure.”
“So it’s in the shop?”
“Uh-huh,” I said watching my regular email account load.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Not sure yet.”
“What a hassle.”
“Tell me about it.”
He seemed to linger in the doorway. “I bet it couldn’t have helped that you left your purse here.”
“What?” I forgot I was trying to keep my back to him and spun around to FJ, holding my handbag.
“It was in the kitchen,” he said.
“I know,” I said, thinking quickly. “I didn’t expect I’d need it for the gym.”
“Gotcha,” he said.
I didn’t dare make eye contact as I walked over to him and collected the bag. “But I sure could use it now. Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said.
More like problems, plural. If my purse had given FJ cause for suspicion, there was little chance Frank hadn’t already rifled through it. I took a deep, silent breath and unzipped the bag, expecting everything to be pulled apart inside. To my surprise, not only did the contents look untouched, but my cell phone was tucked in the side pouch where I’d left it.
Dead.
If nothing else, I’d have proof of the call that had come in from the mall and the outgoing messages and calls I’d made while I was there.
“Dad said you called him from the road.”
“He did?”
“Uh-huh.”
I stepped over to the wall charger and plugged in my cell. “He must have meant the gym phone.”
“Weird,” FJ said.
Weirder were the answers I’d be forced to give if I didn’t get him off my automotive troubles and soon. “Speaking of which, do you happen to know if anyone was using my computer this morning?”
He nodded.
My phone came to life and began to ping and beep message alerts.
“Hold that thought,” I said, trying not to lunge toward the shelf where I’d left it to charge.
Two texts and a missed call appeared on the display. The first, a text, had come in yesterday evening at just about the same time as I was being led out to the police car:
MADDIE, IT’S GRIFF. I HAVE SOME INFO.
I felt sick for Griff, wherever he was, finally getting back to me, unaware of all that had happened since he’d left Friday morning.
The next text was sent thirty minutes later.
PLEASE CALL ME ASAP.
If only I’d had his number, I would have called him before I’d gone running over to the mall in the first place.
“Is everything okay?” FJ asked.
“Fine.” I forced a smile. “Just some messages I need to deal with.”
I was about to listen to the voice message when Trent joined his brother in the doorway.
“Did she admit it yet?” he asked.
There was no missing the fierce ixnay look FJ flashed him.
“Admit what?” I asked, not knowing whether I should be more concerned about what I hadn’t had a chance to listen to, or what I was about to hear from my boys.
Neither said a word.
“FJ?”
He looked down at his size-twelve feet. “I … ”
“FJ … ” Trent interjected. “He—I mean, we—we think … ”
“Think what?”
FJ looked up at me. “Where did you take your car in this morning?”
“The dealership. Why?”
Another subtle yet pointed look passed between the boys.
“Did you have a coupon?” Trent asked.
“A coupon?”
They nodded in unison.
Blood begin to pulse in my ears. “No, actually.”
“That’s a surprise,” FJ said.
“Why’s that?”
“At first we just thought you were going cuckoo,” Trent said. “With all the bargain shopping and stuff.”
FJ looked directly into my eyes. “And then we figured out you’re Mrs. Frugalicious.”
Their pronouncement felt like the governor calling, not to stay my execution but to switch methods of offing me. My heart began to pound at a pace it could never have sustained were it not for all the cardio I’d been doing. My mouth began to run even faster. “I’ve definitely gotten into the coupon clipping and bargain shopping craze, I mean, everyone has, but, me, Mrs. Frugalicious?” I stopped short of a complete denial, copying Frank’s denial instead. “Ridiculous.”
“Please tell us the truth,” Trent said.
“The truth?” That was certainly the question of the hour.
“I saw you messing around on the website the other day,” FJ said. “Answering emails and comments.”
“So we decided to try an experiment,” Trent said.
“An experiment?”
“We’ve been sending you messages,” Trent continued.
“Shopping questions and stuff,” FJ said. “Like, I clip coupons, but it doesn’t seem to make much of a dent in my grocery bill. Can you help?”
It took all my concentration to maintain what couldn’t possibly be a neutral expression.
“We tried to find out where you were going shopping, but you didn’t take the bait.”
“Our attempts to get discount ski stuff didn’t go so great either.”
“Which was why I went on your computer while you were gone this morning,” FJ said.
“It was you?”
“I was trying to log on to your account to prove it.”
Considering how blindsided I felt, I could only imagine how dumbfounded I looked. “Passwords … My computer is password pro—”
“FJTRENT is a pretty easy one to figure out.” FJ smiled. “I thought maybe NIAGRAB or something else about saving money spelled backward like LAGURF would work for Mrs. Frugalicious, but I couldn’t quite crack it.”
The actual password, MSAGURF, frugasm spelled backwards, was so close I didn’t know whether to be furious or impressed.
“We’re right aren’t we?” Trent asked.
And more insightful than either Frank or I had given them credit. Little as I wanted to admit it, there was no point in denying what we all three knew to be this particular truth. Especially since there were a few others for which I still needed answers. “Did you also send a message from a Wendy K. about frozen pizza?”
The boys looked at each other as much acknowledging my admission as checking to see if one or the other had been involved.
“Nope,” FJ said.
“So you are Mrs. Frugalicious,” Trent said. “Right?”
I had no choice but to admit the obvious.
The boys high-fived each other.
“What about an interview request from Here’s the Deal magazine?” I asked. “Was that you guys as well?”
“No,” FJ said emphatically. “Why?”
“With the possible exception of someone named Wendy, who I think might also be a reporter, no one but you two know I’m Mrs. Frugalicious.”
“And Dad,” Trent said.
Another wave of what was now a constant sick feeling washed over me. “Your dad knows?”
“He doesn’t?” FJ asked.
“I haven’t told him.” I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“Why not?” Trent asked.
Both boys folded their arms across their chests in a unified gesture of settling in for answers they expected me to provide.
I looked at the phone in my hand, prayed whatever it was Griff needed to tell me would somehow resolve this whole mess, then looked back up at my boys and tried not to imagine how distorted I’d appear to them through that thick Plexiglas. With all they didn’t know, I had to come clean on the details about Mrs. Frugalicious.
“This is entirely confidential.” I took a deep breath. “Not to be discussed or otherwise mentioned to anyone outside of this room.
The boys nodded their assent.
“Swear?”
“We promise,” FJ said.
I took a deep breath. “Your father, thinking he was making a smart move, invested some money with a man who turned out to be a crook. It left us in a bit of a tight spot, so, to help make ends meet until everything righted itself, I began to bargain shop and started the Mrs. Frugalicious blog.”
I laid out the whole story, from the website taking off, to the care I’d taken to protect both Frank’s pride and his status as Denver’s financial guru with a pending national deal. When I was done, I leaned on the edge of my desk and waited for their questions.
“So basically Mrs. Frugalicious was your Hail Mary pass?” Trent asked.
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“A big, last-minute play to save our family.”
“More like I’m playing tough defense until our team, meaning your dad, scores a touchdown tomorrow,” I said, impressed with my ability to pull a football reference out of nowhere. “When everything will be fine again.”
Assuming a few miracles happened.
Both boys nodded.
“Cool,” FJ said.
“Cooler that you’re Mrs. Frugalicious,” Trent said.
Without another word, they turned on their heels and headed back toward the family room.
Eternally 21: A Mrs. Frugalicious Shopping Mystery Page 23