Trading Places

by Fern Michaels

  Lizzie nodded, her eyes on the piles of money. “If you stop to think about it, Nathan, what good is all this? The guys can’t spend it. If they did, it would arouse suspicion. With the exception of Zack, no one is due to retire anytime soon. It makes you wonder if they keep their money in their basements, and every so often, look at it and count it. What good is that? They’ll be too old to really enjoy it if they have to wait for retirement.”

  “Unless they have some kind of plan,” Nathan said. “Remember that deal that went sour eighteen months ago that I was telling you about? Where are those drugs if my theory is right? That might be the big score they’re all waiting for. If they can trade whatever they confiscated for big cash, that’s when they’ll bail out. It’s a crapshoot, Lizzie.”

  “You’re right. Let’s put this money in these suitcases and find a place to hide it temporarily.” She tossed two packets of money on the coffee table. “For Pippy, in case we decide we need him. Don’t forget, we have to stop by the house so I can pick up my clothes. When we’re done here, make sure you wash your hands real good. Handling money can make you really sick. Don’t look at me like that, Nathan. It’s true. It happens all the time in Vegas. The counters wear gloves. Germs!”

  The minute the suitcases were zipped and locked, both Nathan and Lizzie ran to the bathroom, colliding in the doorway. Nathan looked hopeful. “Do we have time for…?”

  Lizzie stood on her toes and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Nope. We have the whole night ahead of us, though. You know what they say about wild anticipation.” Nathan groaned. Lizzie laughed. And laughed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Detective Aggie Jade held her face up to the sun. It felt warm and comforting. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Alex turning over the dirt by the back porch. Boxes and boxes of scarlet geraniums sat on the steps waiting to be planted. She clenched her hands into tight fists. They felt cold even though the sun was beating down on her.

  Aggie dropped to her knees as she unclenched her hands to reach for the bucket at the end of one of the neat rows of carrots. The weeds were growing faster than the organic carrots. Gus prowled the perimeter of the garden. From somewhere off in the distance, she heard a low rumble of sound. She looked up, but the sky was blue, with a fluffy white cloud directly overhead. Not thunder. Alex either hadn’t heard the sound or he was ignoring it. Gus was next to her in the time it took her heart to beat twice. She clutched at him. He whimpered.

  And then the sound was all around her. She dived forward, screaming at the same time. Gus was underneath her, shaking. Another heartbeat later, Alex was on his knees beside her. “Easy, Aggie, easy. It was a jet breaking the sound barrier. Are you okay?”

  Aggie’s face was whiter than the tee shirt she was wearing. Her voice trembled when she said, “It sounded like…I thought…” She sat up and hugged her knees, Gus crowding next to her. He was shaking as badly as she was.

  “Oh, Aggie, jeez, are you all right? What the hell kind of question is that? Of course you aren’t all right,” Alex said, putting his arms around both her and Gus. He talked soothingly of the plane, the warm sun, the puffy white clouds. “You’re safe, Aggie. It was just a bad moment there. You’re okay, Gus is okay, and I’m here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  “I…know…it was just the sound. I wasn’t expecting it. It was like that night when I half expected something to happen. It was so loud. I guess I’m not over it, no matter how much I say I am. Maybe I’ll never be over it. I don’t have any business being a cop.

  “All I’ve been doing since Lizzie called is thinking. I need to resign. Lizzie needs to go back to Vegas where she belongs. Let the department handle the investigation. I don’t know what I was thinking when I hatched this scheme. Lizzie’s going to get hurt or, worse, get killed, and it will be all my fault. God, Alex, why didn’t you stop me?” She cried bitterly against Alex’s chest.

  Alex was so out of his depth, all he could do was hold the emotionally fragile woman in his arms and croon softly. “It’s all going to work out, Aggie.” He wondered if what he was saying was true.

  “You’re such a good friend, Alex. I couldn’t have done this on my own. Even I know that. Right now, I have such a bad feeling I don’t know what to do about it. Do you think I’m having a nervous breakdown, Alex?”

  “No, of course not. You’re worried about your sister. That’s natural. Look, the weeding and the geraniums can wait till later. Let’s go in the house and look at all that stuff Lizzie faxed to you. We can match it up against the pages from Tom’s notebook that you copied. Two heads are better than one. Who knows, maybe we’ll come up with something we missed the first time.”

  Aggie was still trembling, but not as badly, as she followed Alex into the old farmhouse, Gus pressing against her leg.

  Alex turned on the little radio sitting on the kitchen counter. Soft music filled the kitchen. Dance music, Golden Oldies, according to the announcer. While Aggie gathered up the papers she needed, he made a fresh pot of coffee. Before he settled himself at the table with Aggie, he offered Gus his choice of a Milk-Bone biscuit or a rawhide chew. The dog opted for both before he settled himself at Aggie’s feet.

  For two hours they made columns and lists and tried to cross-match the numbers and the initials with no luck. “It’s probably Will’s homemade code, something he figured only he would understand. It could be license plates, house numbers, birth dates, business addresses. Damn, it could be anything. For all I know it could be tied into his butterfly collection. I just don’t know, Alex.”

  “Maybe we’re too anxious. Tell you what, let’s go into the living room and lie on the floor. I’ll give you a back massage, then you can give me one. Maybe if we relax and shift into neutral, something will come to us.”

  “Now that’s an idea. I’m okay, Alex. Obviously loud noises are going to spook me for a while. It’s so peaceful here with only the sounds of birds or a rabbit in the brush that when I heard that jet, it brought it all back. Okay, who goes first?”

  “I’ll do you first. Lie down flat, arms at your sides, face to the side on a little pillow and these old fingers will work some magic. Just don’t go to sleep.”

  “Oooh, that sounds…interesting. Why shouldn’t I go to sleep?”

  “Because I have great things planned for us, and you need to be awake.” He leered at her, wiggling his eyebrows at the same time. Aggie giggled. Gus looked up from his rawhide chew and barked. He looked from one to the other, satisfied that all was right with his beloved mistress.

  Ten minutes into the massage, Alex flipped Aggie over and straddled her. He bent low, cupping her face in his hands before he kissed her gently on the lips.

  “Hmmmm, for some reason, I thought you could do better than that, Alex.”

  “That was a teaser to see if you…”

  “No, no, no. No teasers. I want the real thing.”

  “You do, huh?”

  “Hmmm.”

  He kissed her then, both of them moving into uncharted territory.

  A long time later, Alex rolled over on his stomach, his chin leaning into the palm of his hand, his eyes glazed. “I just want to know one thing. What was that?”

  “That was me telling you I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time,” Aggie murmured.

  “I liked it. We wasted a lot of years, Aggie.”

  Aggie smiled. “Maybe it wasn’t meant to be back then. You know what they say, everything happens for a reason. We’re older, wiser, that kind of thing.”

  Alex flopped over on his back. “I used to fantasize about this moment. In my fantasy, it was never this good. I wonder why that was?”

  Aggie rolled over to prop her chin in her hands. “I fantasized about you, too. On nights when I couldn’t sleep, I’d think about you, then I could fall asleep.”

  “That was a compliment, right?”

  Aggie moved closer, dropped her elbows and snuggled closer. “The absolute highest compliment I ca
n give. Don’t go getting carried away now.”

  “God forbid! You wanna get married? Your dog loves me.”

  Aggie squirmed around so she could stare into Alex’s eyes to see if he was serious or joking. He looked serious to her. “Well, sure.”

  “When?”

  When? “When we meet up with Lizzie. She’s, among other things, a notary public. That means she can marry us. I told you she was a wild card.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay that she’s a wild card or okay that she can marry us?”

  “Both,” Alex said smartly. “I think I always loved you. I know I felt something the first time we met eons ago, and whatever that was, it never went away. I think we were meant to be with one another. Forever and ever, right?”

  Forever and ever couldn’t possibly work if she and Lizzie had to resort to Plan B. Without missing a beat, Aggie responded. “I know exactly what you mean. Forever is a long time, Alex. Are you sure?”

  “Do I need to breathe to stay alive? Of course, I’m sure. How about you?”

  Forget Plan B. “I’m sure.”

  Alex’s voice was wistful when he said, “I bet making love in a real bed with you would be wonderful.”

  Aggie threw her head back and laughed. A sound of genuine happiness. “Don’t go there right now. Anticipate this evening. Let’s go into town to dinner. We can share a bottle of wine and come home and…”

  “Yeah, yeah, and what?”

  “You’ll see. Let your imagination run wild. I’ll let mine run wild. When you do that, anything can happen. Time to get dressed. You have geraniums to plant, and I have weeds to pull. Gus here has a rawhide to chew. What could be better?”

  Both of them shrugged into their clothes and walked hand in hand out to the kitchen, where they drank glasses of ice-cold lemonade. Life suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

  The glass to her lips, Aggie looked over the rim at Alex. “Do you have good instincts? You know, gut instincts?”

  “Sometimes. Why?”

  “I always run with my gut instincts. Something is telling me the code to all this stuff wasn’t just here or in Will’s head. He was a cop. There’s a record. I know there is. You know what my gut is telling me?”

  Alex sat down and stared up at his newest best friend. “Tell me.”

  “When people are collectors of anything, they tend to want to know everything about what it is they’re collecting. That means researching it, buying books on the subject, talking to people, that kind of thing. I will bet you my retirement fund that Will Fargo has a collection of butterfly books and everything we ever wanted to know about this deal is in there somewhere. What do you think?”

  “Honey, I think you might be on to something. Go on, what else?”

  “For instance. Butterflies come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. And there are butterflies all over the world. Take Holland for instance. Besides tulips, I bet they have butterflies. Dutch Davis. Dutch. Get it?

  “Zack is retiring to Florida. For sure there are butterflies in Florida. Everyone in the department knows that’s where Zack is going. It’s all he ever talked about. Page numbers on the butterflies might coincide with the guy’s addresses or birth dates. You still with me, Alex?”

  “Yeah. Pretty clever.”

  Aggie finished the lemonade in her glass. “Lizzie is going to have to get into Will’s apartment. I remember Lizzie telling me that Will’s brother told her the rent was paid through the end of next month. It’s not likely he, meaning the brother, told the management people they could rent it out ahead of time. Lizzie also said there was a key ring in the bag of money. Car keys, apartment keys. Could we be that lucky?”

  “Sometimes you catch a break. If Lizzie does have the keys, she could walk right in, and nobody could say a thing. It wasn’t a crime scene. My God, what if you’re right?”

  Aggie tucked the mint green tee shirt into her jeans. She looked down at her sneakers, tears springing to her eyes. Then Plan B will go into effect sooner rather than later. She blinked away her tears. “If I’m right, and remember, this is just my gut instinct, then it’s over. I, or Lizzie, blow the whistle, and the rats scurry for cover.

  “Think about this, Alex. Tonight is Zack’s retirement party. All the guys will be there. Maybe tonight would be a good time for Nathan to visit Will’s apartment. No one will be paying any attention to him. They’ll be watching Lizzie. He could slip out, and no one would be the wiser. Those parties get pretty wild and rowdy. What do you think?”

  Alex nodded excitedly. “Call Lizzie. If I didn’t tell you I love you, I do.”

  Aggie’s eyes misted up again. This time she didn’t blink the wetness away. “Really, Alex.”

  “Really, Aggie. You’re supposed to say something.”

  Aggie’s smile rivaled the sun outside. “I love you, too. I really do.”

  “Wow!”

  Gurgling with laughter, and feeling better than she had in months, Aggie said, “Yeah, wow!”

  Shortly before six, Nathan stopped his car on the avenue so Lizzie could run into a grocery store for some cream for their morning coffee. While inside, she picked up the cream, a melon, some blueberry muffins, and a scented candle. The candle was for later. Much later.

  In the car, she said, “Our last stop is Aggie’s house so I can pick up my clothes from the front porch. We’ll have just enough time to shower and get changed and head for the restaurant. By the way, is your cell phone on or off?”

  Nathan reached inside his pants pocket. “Damn, it was off, Lizzie. Sorry about that. Oh, oh, there’s a message. Maybe my boss is firing me.” Aggie made a face as he pressed a series of numbers that would identify the caller and the message he or she had left.

  “It’s for you, Lizzie. It’s Aggie.”

  Lizzie reached for the phone and brought it up to her ear. She listened, her eyes widening at the message her sister had left for her. “I’ll be damned,” she muttered. “No wonder she’s a cop. Listen to this.” She rattled off Aggie’s message for Nathan’s benefit. “What do you think?”

  “You know what, Lizzie, it makes sense. A whole lot of sense. I’m an investigative reporter, and I don’t think I would ever have come up with that scenario. I’ll slip out of the party when it starts to get noisy. Now we have to go back to the storage locker at Paramater Mall so I can get the keys out of the bag. We have time, don’t panic. I promise to get you to the party on time. It’s fashionable to be late, you know.”

  Forty-five minutes later, they were back in Nathan’s sterile-looking condo. Lizzie put the cream and melon in the refrigerator and headed for the bathroom. “Takes me longer, so I’ll go first, or do you want me to use the other bathroom, the one with the tub?”

  “I have a better idea. Let’s take a shower together. That way we’ll be right on schedule. While you primp and preen, I’ll shave and comb my hair. Deal?”

  Lizzie held out her hand, palm up. Nathan whacked it. “No tomfoolery now. We don’t have time.”

  Nathan looked at her and nodded agreeably. Too agreeably. The minute she turned her back, Lizzie grinned from ear to ear. She really didn’t care if they were late for Zack’s party or not. Some things were more important.

  The fine hairs on the back of Nathan’s neck stood on end when he heard Lizzie screaming from the bedroom. He raced from the kitchen, skidding on the tile floor, almost breaking his neck. “What the hell, Lizzie!”

  “Look! Look at this! This is what the girls packed for me to wear to the party! This is Las Vegas attire. If I wear this and bend over, everyone will see my tattoo. Oh, God, what am I going to do?”

  Nathan looked at the skimpy attire. “Looks kind of interesting to me. Are you sure you can get into it?”

  Lizzie clenched her teeth. “It stretches. Furthermore, you do not wear red shoes in Atlanta. They’ll call me a floozy or a tart. I should go over there right now and shoot those girls one by one. They did this on purpose. A coat. I’ll wear a coat. Or a raincoat.”r />
  Nathan was enjoying his companion’s discomfort. He could hardly wait to see her in the sparkling red dress that matched the shoes she was holding in her hands. “It isn’t raining, Lizzie, and it’s too warm for a coat.”

  “Shut up, Nathan. I’m wearing a coat. Oh, God, it’s Vegas nighttime makeup! I could just cry. Why are you still standing there, Nathan? See if you can find me a coat.”

  “Lizzie, my overcoat and my raincoat will be ten sizes too big for you. You have to wear the dress. Now, get cracking and let’s go. You’ll be the hit of the party. Fully recovered. A new you! Run with it. You can do it.”

  “Bite me, Nathan!” Lizzie fumed as she stomped her way to the bathroom, where she emerged fifteen minutes later. She felt better when Nathan whistled approvingly.