For the first time in his life, Logan Kelly felt uncertain about what he was about to do. His thoughts turned to Danela. Was it even remotely possible that he had underestimated the voluptuous woman? He started to shake inside his heavy wool coat as he racked his brain for a mistake he’d made along the way. He needed both hands to hold the heavy coffee mug, the briefcase with his laptop clutched between his knees. What was she doing?
Danela peeled off her khaki jumpsuit, dropping it on the bedroom floor. All she wanted was a hot shower and to wash her hair. Afterward, she wanted a hot gardenia-scented bath with a glass of wine. Perhaps two glasses, maybe even the whole damn bottle, after which she would dress in a skintight minidress for the drive to the airport with her safari group. “Logan, are you here!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. Where the hell was he? “Logan,” she called a second time. Where were the servants? Why was it so quiet? Her naked shoulders stiffened when she saw the empty vanity. Then her eyes narrowed until they resembled gun slits.
Naked, she ran back to the bedroom, where she opened drawers and closets. She knew to an item what should be where. Underwear, socks, tee shirts, and the winter clothing kept in garment bags were gone. She raced through the rest of the house, shouting and cursing, her heavy breasts bouncing against her rib cage.
In the kitchen she opened the refrigerator. Empty. The room was spotless. There was no mail on the kitchen counter. She picked up the phone to find it was disconnected. Not caring if anyone saw her or not, she went out to the car in the garage to use her cell phone. She dialed the office and waited, her bare foot kicking at the tires of her car. “Answer the phone, Logan,” she hissed. “Damn you! Damn you to hell!” she spit. Then she heard Logan’s recorded message. “Jambo! Due to circumstances beyond our control, Eberhart Safaris is now officially closed. Danela and I want to thank all our loyal customers for eight wonderful years. Kwaheri!”
“You son of a bitch!” Danela screamed as she stomped her way back to the bathroom, where she showered and washed her hair. Thirty minutes later, dressed in a khaki sundress, her wet hair piled into a knot on top of her head, she drove to the offices of Eberhart Safaris. She sucked in her breath when she saw that Logan’s laptop was gone. The bottom desk drawer that was always locked was open but empty—the drawer where Logan kept things he didn’t want her to see, things she’d always wondered about but had been afraid to tamper with.
Danela sat down with a thump in Logan’s customized swivel chair. Everything Logan owned was either one of a kind or custom-made. She picked up the phone and listened for the dial tone. She called the bank, rattled off the number of her checking account. She held her breath while she listened to the response. She had $25,010 in her account. Her airline ticket to London stared up at her from the desk blotter. She cried then. Eight years gone. Her five million dollars was gone. All she had to show for her time with Logan Kilpatrick was $25,010, an airline ticket, and the clothes in her closet. “You fucking son of a bitch!” she screamed. “How could you do this to me? How?”
She needed to get hold of herself. She still had one thing left to do. In the bathroom off the main office, Danela washed her face with cool water, soaking her eyes with a cool cloth so the CPAs wouldn’t see she had been crying. If nothing else, she had some pride left. She was never going to see them again once she dropped them off at the airport. Like Logan said, who gives a good rat’s ass! She plastered on makeup and spritzed perfume all over her body.
She needed a stiff drink. Her gaze went to the portable bar with the crystal decanters. An inch of scotch remained in one decanter. Not bothering to use a glass, Danela swigged from the ornate bottle until her eyes watered. “You stinking, lousy, prick! If I ever find you, I swear to God, I will personally carve off your balls!” she screamed to the empty room. She proceeded to rant and rave until she was too tired to open her mouth.
When the phone rang, Danela thought twice before she picked it up. Her voice was husky-sounding from all the crying she’d done. “Jambo, ” she said.
“Danela, this is Stephen Douglas. We’re ready to leave for the airport. Not that we want to leave, but duty calls. That safari, thanks to you, is something none of us will ever forget. You sound funny, is anything wrong?”
“Everything you can possibly imagine is wrong. My partner skipped out on me and left me holding the bag while we were gone. It’s not your problem, Stephen. Give me twenty minutes, and I’ll be there. Be sure all your baggage is properly tagged and have your airport tax money ready. I’m going to leave now, but I have to stop for gas.”
Danela wiped at her tears. It was going to be so hard to say good-bye to all the accountants. They’d all been gentlemen and while they had flirted with her openly, none had crossed the line, and for that she was grateful. Now they were going to return to their homes and pick up their lives while she did what? How long was twenty-five thousand dollars going to last her? Should she stay here, hire on to one of the other companies, or leave Africa completely? At her age, her party-girl skills wouldn’t be much of an asset to her. If she went to England, would she get a job as a shopgirl and live in a mean little flat with no hot water? Tears burned her eyes. “If I ever find you, Logan, I swear, I will kill you and then hack your body to pieces.”
“Merry Christmas, Danela,” she whispered.
Thirty minutes later, Danela slowed the safari bus to a smooth stop. She could see that the men were chattering like magpies. They were probably discussing her and feeling sorry for her.
Her head high, a forced smile on her lips, Danela climbed from the bus, the soft khaki dress swirling about her ankles as she walked around to the back of the bus to open the door. She tried for a cheerful tone when she said, “Pile in, gentlemen.” They did as instructed, now strangely quiet.
“Danela, can we talk to you a minute?”
Still working on her light tone, she queried, “Okay, which one of you forgot your souvenirs?”
“That’s not it. We want to delay our return for a day or so. If we pay the difference in our tickets, can it be arranged? A bribe ...” Douglas let his words hang in the air.
“I suppose it can be arranged. What is it you want to do?”
“Help you.”
“That’s very kind of you, but it isn’t necessary. I’ll be all right.”
“Do you have any money? Do you own anything? You said you’re from Italy but hold dual citizenship. Do you have family there, here or in the States?”
“No to everything. I had five million dollars once. My partner managed to lose it all in the business.”
“That’s what we’re talking about. We’re number crunchers. It’s what we do for a living. You must have a set of books. We want to go through them. Let us help you. It’s the least we can do. You’ve given us a memory for a lifetime. We talked it over, and we’re all in agreement. There’s twenty-four of us. That means twenty-four sets of eyes. Let us do this for you.”
“I’ll manage. I’m not afraid to work. Penye nai ipo nija. That’s Swahili for where there’s a will there is a way. Seriously, you don’t need to do this. I appreciate your offer, and I know your hearts are in the right place. Logan’s gone, and so is the money. We’ll never find him. He did it once before, but I was too stupid at the time to figure it out until it was too late. I loved him, so I wanted to believe in him. I had a premonition this was going to happen.”
Douglas ignored her words. “We can camp out in your offices and leave tomorrow or the next day. You handle the plane reservations and all of us will go through your partner’s books. There are books, aren’t there?”
“Of a sort. Logan kept everything on the computer. I’m sure he wiped out the hard drive and has it all on disk. His laptop is gone. He never went anywhere without that damn thing. That should have been my first clue.”
“Sometimes people think they’re too smart for their own good. They think if they erase their files they’re gone. There are ways to get them back, and Brian here is just the guy to g
o after them. He did a stint with the FBI for four years before going out on his own. If there are files to be found, he’ll find them.”
For the first time since returning to find Logan gone, Danela felt a sense of hope. Stephen was a nice man, the leader of the pack so to speak. All the others, young as well as the middle-aged accountants, seemed to defer to him. He was soft-spoken, with dark brown eyes and sandy hair. He was one of those rare people who looked better in glasses than without. He settled his safari hat more firmly on his head. “So, do we give it a go or what?”
Danela shrugged. “Logan is clever. He set this all up before we even left. I guess he had been planning it for a while. I would like to get my money back if that’s possible. I’d settle for half. Okay, let’s go for it.”
“Let’s get one thing straight. You never settle for half when you can get it all. Just so you know, we aren’t a bunch of schmucks. We do the taxes for just about every important government official inside the Beltway. All of us are at a point in our business careers where we aren’t taking on any new clients. You are the exception. We aren’t even going to charge you.” He laughed, and Danela grinned.
“Get in the bus! I’ll show you where everything is and then I’ll get us some food and drinks. It might be better if I go to the airport to change your reservations, so I’ll need your tickets and passports.”
Stephen looked at her closely. “Do you still love that guy?”
“I haven’t loved him for a long time. Why do you ask?”
“I just like to have the whole picture. Your situation is going to be important when we find the money. Make no mistake. We will find it. However,” he said, holding up a warning hand, “finding it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get to it. At that point we’ll switch to Plan B. Don’t ask me what that is at this moment, because I don’t know.”
Danela blushed when Stephen winked at her. She couldn’t remember ever blushing in her entire life. “All right, here we are. I’ll show you where everything is, and I’ll leave you to do whatever you have to do. It’s been a long time since anyone has done anything for me. If I don’t seem grateful, forgive me. I have to be honest with you. When Logan told me I had to go on safari with your group, I fought him. I didn’t want to go. I think even then, in my heart, I knew he was planning this. For whatever it’s worth, I just wanted you to know that.”
“You were kind of cranky the first day out,” Stephen grinned. “From here on in, it’s slow and steady wins the race. How do you say that in Swahili?”
Danela laughed so hard she doubled over, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Pole pole ndio mwendo.”
“Pretty pricey digs you have here.”
“Don’t be impressed. They aren’t paid for. They’ll probably repossess everything in the next week or so. Same thing goes for the house and cars. Everything was on paper.”
“And you never questioned it?”
“I did, but it didn’t do me any good. I’m in a third-world country with no money. I had no choice once the money was gone.”
The next hour was spent setting up shop and rearranging furniture. Old dusty ledgers and boxes of bills and receipts were pulled from a storage closet. Yellow legal pads and sharpened pencils found their way to the center of Logan’s desk. The two computers were turned on. From that point on Danela became invisible to the accountants. She backed quietly out of the office. No one noticed.
In the van she had a bad moment when she thought about the twenty-five thousand dollars and the airline ticket. Should she have confessed? Of course she should have, but she didn’t, so she would live with it. What would they find, if anything? And what good would it do her? Logan was gone. Banks in Switzerland didn’t give out information. She should know, she’d tried often enough. She wasn’t going to get her hopes up. These men, nice as they were, were no match for Logan. In all these years, Kristine had never been able to find him. In the end she would be no different. Still, it was nice to know there were some good people in the world, people willing to help others.
Tears dripped down Danela’s cheeks as she drove along. She needed to go to the airport to see about changing the plane reservations. When that was done she would go to the grocer’s so she could prepare food. While it was cooking she would ransack the house to look for clues. In her heart she knew she wouldn’t find any. Logan was too smart to leave clues. There wouldn’t be so much as a matchstick lying around. She suddenly felt sorry for the faceless Kristine.
So many lies.
It was past sundown when Danela loaded the safari bus with all the food she’d prepared. The beer was an extravagance, but she didn’t care. Her personal checking account now carried a zero balance. She didn’t care. She still had the $25,010 in her savings account. Plus she had the water jug full of quarters. She’d been surprised that Logan hadn’t emptied it. Silver was heavy, and Logan liked to travel light.
“He should have left me a note,” Danela muttered as she shifted gears in the bus. “What goes around comes around, Logan,” she continued to mutter.
No one paid the slightest attention to her as she set up the folding table with the food. They continued to ignore her when she said, “You need to eat this while it’s warm.” She filled her own plate and walked outside with it to sit on a bench in the cool evening air. With nothing else to occupy her, she thought about her life and how she’d ended up here in this third-world country with a man who’d robbed her blind. A man she’d been a fool to trust. Love is blind, she told herself. Especially one-sided love. She’d known in her heart that Logan didn’t love her the way she’d loved him. She’d been stupid and naive to think she had enough love for the both of them. Love just didn’t work that way.
In the beginning it had just been sexual romps. Logan’s sexual appetites were as insatiable as her own. The day he found out about her five million dollars, things changed. He’d dogged her then, buying her flowers, candy, taking her to dinner and concerts and always the lovemaking afterward. The wild lust had tamed to sweet, gentle lovemaking. He’d started to talk about marriage and going into business. Partners for life, he’d said. Togetherness twenty-four hours a day. She’d been so delirious she didn’t think twice about handing over her money. The only thing she’d truly homed in on were the words, partners for life.
It was everything Logan said it would be for the first few years. It had soured gradually, so gradually, she hadn’t been able to pinpoint the time or the place when she knew it was all going bad. She would have gotten out then, but they were so far in debt, according to Logan, she couldn’t bail out. Third-world countries weren’t fond of people who didn’t live up to their promises. He’d scared the wits out of her when he spoke about African prisons and what they did to white women. He’d never said what they did to white American men, and she hadn’t asked. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And yet she’d been willing to marry Logan. Of course it was a lie. Had she seen through it? Did she just want to believe it so the rest would be more palatable? It was Logan’s way of getting her to go on the safari so he could pack up and leave. The twenty-five thousand dollars was the kiss-off, an expression Logan had used when he left Kristine. Now she felt even more empathy for the faceless Kristine.
The watch on Danela’s wrist chirped. She looked down. Eleven o’clock. She debated about going back indoors to hand out the airline tickets and passports. She looked through the window to see the accountants working industriously. Maybe she should just curl up into a ball and go to sleep. When and if they finished, they would wake her. Or, she could sit here, smoke, and plot Logan’s death a hundred different ways, each more painful than the last.
Danela fumbled in the dark for her package of cigarettes. Smoking was relatively new for her and a nasty habit at that. She’d taken up the habit when the stress Logan caused her became unbearable. She blew a luscious smoke ring. “Kiss me off with twenty-five grand, will you? Somehow, some way, I’m going to see your ass fry in hell, Logan. It might take me a while, but I’m
going to do it,” she mumbled.
The door behind her opened. “Danela, could you come inside for a minute? By the way, thanks for all the food. It was delicious. We need to ask you some questions.”
“I need to talk to you, too. Logan left me twenty-five thousand dollars. I guess it was my kiss-off present. I should have told you that earlier. I guess I was so rattled with what went on it slipped my mind. I suppose it’s Logan’s contribution to my old-age fund.” There, she’d confessed, and she felt better already.
“I know about that. In this day and age it won’t take you very far. Who set up all these ledgers?”
“I did. I didn’t know anything about computers back then, and Logan didn’t want to teach me. I tried to be as accurate as possible. I even set up folders with receipts and filed them by date.”
“The safari business is very lucrative, according to your files.”
“It’s a five-million-dollar-a-year business. But it’s only as good as the people you have working for you. You also need to pay your bills. Your reputation is paramount. It was really good in the beginning. Money came in faster than we could count it.”
“Where is it? Do you have any idea?”
“Switzerland at the moment. The only monies are from your safari. Logan didn’t trust the banks here. He was banking in Zurich when I met him. He could wire money in and out in minutes. He had everthing set up on his computer. As far as I know he never called the banks directly from the offices or the house. I handled the phone bills and would have seen the toll calls. He did everything by computer. He was a wizard when it came to things like that.”
“If he didn’t want you to know your true financial situation, why did he allow you to keep books?”
“To give me something to do. I liked seeing how well we were doing. We made back our investment at the end of the second year. As you said, the safari business was very lucrative.”
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