“Thank you, Baylor.” Fantasy helped me up. “Your cat tips are invaluable.”
I sat on the Igloo refrigerator, still trying to catch my breath, holding up a finger: Give me a minute. Fantasy opened the bottle of water, which had rolled across the floor, and passed it to me. I took a long pull. I found my voice.
“Baylor, find something to pack up this money in, hide it somewhere out of the building, and get the cat settled down. When you’re finished, get us lunch. Something decent. Do you hear me, Baylor? Edible. Fit for human consumption. Not Taco Bell. Fantasy, take care of Dionne Warwick’s guy.” My temples felt like someone was hammering both sides of my head. “I’ll check on the conference, then nose around Holder Darby’s office. We’ll meet downstairs in an hour and look for the man who brought the money.”
And Holder Darby.
And four million in platinum.
* * *
When I got it together enough to move on with my life, granted, from here on out with post-traumatic cat syndrome, I changed into a different suit. One that hadn’t been in a catfight. I hid behind Chanel sunglasses the size of kiddie pools, then stepped out the front door of Beignet Bungalow and around the crew clearing away the chandelier remains. Multicolor wires dangled from a big black hole in the ceiling. For the next eighteen minutes, I traveled from the Gumbo Garage Sale to the Alabama bankers. Three elevator changes, through the lobby, and all the way through the casino.
As the escalator rose to the convention level, the gambling din faded. When I stepped onto the gold floral carpet, it was as if the casino below me didn’t exist. I walked the length of the room, past Impressionist oils in gilded frames, twenty or more seating areas scattered to my right and left, where gold pendant lights dangled over round settee sofas with recessed buttons forming diamond shapes in the gold upholstery, all the way to the reception desk, gilded too, where a girl was bent over her phone, double tapping Instagram pictures of hedgehogs. I cleared my throat. She finally looked up.
“I’m the new Holder.”
She smiled. Braces. She had to be thirty, with a mouth full of hardware. “Right. I’m Megan.”
“Olivia.”
“Nice to meet you, Olivia.”
Her voice and diction matched that of the girl who’d called me this morning.
“How’s it going?”
“Oh, it’s going,” she said. “They’re all locked up back there.” She tipped her head to the double doors behind her.
I took a step past her desk. “I’ll go check everything out.”
“Wait.” She pushed her phone aside. “You can’t go back there.”
This again.
“Isn’t it my job to make sure everything’s okay?”
“Yes,” she said, “but we can’t wander in and out. There are men right through those doors and if you don’t have a badge, you can’t get past them.”
“Let me borrow your badge.”
“I don’t have one,” Megan said. “We’re supposed to leave them alone.”
“Are all conferences this way?” I asked.
“Never, but this is the first time we’ve had bankers here.”
So weird.
“Did you find that man?” she asked.
“That’s why I’m here,” I said. “Where are the techs who were looking for him?”
“Oh, they’re gone,” she said. “As soon as they set up the game, they took off.”
What? “When?”
“Oh,” she said, “an hour ago?”
An hour ago, the counterfeit money we confiscated was all over my foyer. Which meant the techs weren’t waiting on it. Specifically. But that didn’t change the fact they’d been waiting on the man. The counterfeit money, the man, and this convention are connected. Somehow. (I think Somehow is named after a tree. And that’s not Maple.)
“Thank you, Megan,” I said. “Call me if you need me.”
“Will do.”
She went right back to the hedgehogs and I went right back to wondering what was going on behind the locked doors of the bankers conference.
To do list: Get a banker’s pass.
* * *
My second stop was the Executive Floor, a level above the Bellissimo Spa and Salon on the other side of the property. Sixteen minutes, two elevator changes, four long halls, in heels, to the Special Events office. If the Bellissimo is nothing else, it’s big.
Another girl at another reception desk, but this one a regular office and no braces.
“I’m Olivia Abbott,” I said. “I’m the temporary Holder until we get a new Holder.”
The girl scratched her head.
“Have you heard from her, by any chance?”
The girl shook her head.
“Can you give me a list of everyone at the conference?”
She scratched her neck.
“Today?”
The girl had yet to speak.
“Do you know if she had a cat?”
She tapped her nose thoughtfully.
“Do you mind?” I pointed at Holder’s closed door.
She shrugged a have-at-it.
Holder’s office was dark and dusty. On my way to her desk, I scanned the room for personal pictures—no cats—then sat down in her chair and powered up the computer. Of course, it was password protected. Personal Computer Hacking 101: Start the computer in safe mode, log in as administrator, change the password. Fifteen seconds tops.
The Independent Bankers of Alabama folder was on her desktop, wedged between the Goodman-Ramirez wedding and the Simpson-Wheeler wedding, and it too was password protected.
There’s an easy way and a hard way to open password protected files. Easy: Copy it in a different format that doesn’t recognize the security feature (try converting it to an eBook or a spreadsheet) and boom, you’re in. Hard: Download and install file-hacking software, like NSIS or LMI (Let Me In), send the locked information to it, then let the software try to guess the password, sometimes over a period of weeks. When I got in the easy way (two minutes), I sent the whole file to myself by email.
Just to be nosey, I took a quick peek at the task manager history on Holder’s computer to see what she’d been up to the day she walked off, no different than peeking in the medicine cabinet, and me snooping around her computer was a little after the fact, since I’d already rifled through her panty drawer and I had her cat. Her computer activity just kept on coming. Holder Darby had been all over the Bellissimo system. Why would a wedding coordinator be snooping around cyber Bellissimo—payables, receivables, front desk, human resources—at a level reserved for me? I clicked open the web browser, and found it just as curious. Holder spent a lot of internet time at her bank, moving around large quantities of money. She also rented a car last week. Why? She had a perfectly fine Audi S8 in her garage. All told, it was odd enough computer activity that I’d need to hijack her hard drive. I could copy her files and folders pretty quickly, but I needed her entire operating system.
Take a note: When cyber stealing someone’s computer, steal the whole enchilada. You can’t simply copy the files. You need the drivers and directories too, due to hardware and software differences between the data you’re stealing and your own system. You can send the files to yourself ten times, but if you don’t swipe the whole system, you won’t be able to access ninety percent of them. Either steal the whole kit and caboodle or don’t bother. You’re welcome.
From the web browser, I downloaded CloneMonster. I copied Holder’s complete hard drive to a .zip file and sent it to myself. Then I wiped her computer as clean as my mother’s kitchen, good luck finding anything on this sucker ever again.
“Has Holder been back at all?” I asked the reception girl. “Have you spoken to her? Do you know how I might be able to reach her?”
&nbs
p; The girl shook her head. Didn’t say a word, just shook her head.
To-do list: Call this office. I bet this girl picks up the phone, holds it to her ear, and that’s it.
* * *
My final destination of the morning, our offices on 3B. I swiped myself in. “Baylor, where’s Fantasy?”
“MICHIGAN!” I could see his arms and legs paddling off both ends of the sofa. “I CAN’T SWIM!”
Baylor, who could swim all day long, has a special sleeping talent, in that he can sleep anywhere, anytime, on anything. Floorboard, bathtub, park bench. If he can stretch out, he can sleep. He falls asleep in an instant, and wakes just as quickly, talking about Twinkies or, last week, a girl named Candy Corn, or today, aquatics.
“Wake up, Baylor.” I sat on the coffee table, leaned over, and patted his rosy cheeks. “Wake up.”
“DIVE, MERMAID PIZZA!”
“Hey!” I snapped my fingers. “Get a grip.”
He shook himself awake.
“Make us some coffee, Baylor.”
“I don’t drink coffee.” His head was cocked to one side and he had a knuckle going on one of his ears, trying to get the water out.
“Then make me coffee.”
Of the three rooms that make up our offices, room one is a den of sorts, I call it the bullpen, where Fantasy and I watch “The Price is Right” and Baylor takes cat naps. To the left of the bullpen we have a dressing room, where we camouflage ourselves to wander around the resort and in the casino without being recognized or remembered. And the third room is control central, full of computers, where I regularly go on cyber scavenger hunts when I’m not hijacking hard drives, shooting chandeliers, or being attacked by cats.
I woke up three computers. Baylor placed a cup in front of me. I peered in. Something was floating in it. Cornbread, maybe.
“Baylor, coffee isn’t supposed to be this color or eaten with a spoon.”
We looked at each other. This went on for a minute or four. He blinked first.
“Dammit.”
“Get a large cup, Baylor. The bucket size,” I said to his back.
Five minutes later, he was back with my bucket of coffee. “Guess who’s in the coffee shop.”
I didn’t look up.
“Fantasy,” he said.
I looked up.
“She’s with Diane.”
“I doubt that’s his name, Baylor.”
“That’s what you called him.”
“I called him Dionne Warwick’s guy.”
“Who is Dionne Warwick?”
“Baylor.” I peeled the lid off my gallon of coffee. “Get me a coffee cup, a clean coffee cup, and ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose?’”
“California?”
Someone save me.
I texted Fantasy: Hey, do you mind?
She texted back: Davis. We scared this man to death. I’m doing damage control. Be there in ten.
“Sit down, Baylor. Help me.” I patted Fantasy’s chair. “What did you get us for lunch?” The brown take-out bags on Fantasy’s desk smelled like the Fourth of July.
“Ribs.”
“Have you ever seen me eat a rib?”
His eyebrows drew together. “Come to think of it, no.”
“What do we always want for lunch, Baylor?”
He concentrated really hard. “Not ribs?” He snapped his fingers. “You want strawberries.”
It’s not like I’m addicted to strawberries. I am addicted to Pop Tarts, because they’re easy to eat on the run and they’re a good source of seven vitamins and minerals. Strawberry Pop Tarts just happen to be my favorite; it’s the flavor the supermarket is never out of. In addition, my favorite quick-lunch Bellissimo salad happens to have strawberries in it. It’s a chicken salad—romaine, grilled chicken, strawberry balsamic vinaigrette—and the sliced strawberries are just a bonus. To give it a little pop. But somehow I have a reputation going back to grade school as being strawberry addicted. Which I’m not. But now I was starving. For strawberries.
“Let’s get to work, Baylor. You can have the ribs and I’ll eat later.”
“Done.” He peeled the foil away from a slab of ribs as long as my leg. “I should’ve gotten napkins.”
Eight
I cracked Holder Darby’s conference file while Baylor was out fetching my coffee. I printed a list of attendees while he ate ribs. I printed a list of sponsors and vendors while he took a bubble bath, because he was covered in rib gravy. All that done, and finally, he was ready to work. He sat down beside me smelling like a bar of soap as I was going over the conference schedule, which was unimpressive until the last day, when everything was scheduled on an impossibly tight clock, with the Dionne Warwick concert and the slot machine tournament running neck and neck. Why schedule both events at the same time?
I passed Baylor the list of attendees and a fresh legal pad.
“Start entering these names, Baylor. Dig in their guest portfolios, and write down what room number they’re in and where they work. We’re trying to find the missing counterfeit money supplier, so we need to know if he’s a banker or not. Over here,” I tapped, “write down the ones who work at banks and over here— ” I lost him. Baylor has the attention span of a gnat and can only do one thing at a time. “Just start looking up these people.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I’m going to see what might be going on with this cash game.”
It was just after lunch (Direct Debit Double Cut Pork Chops) and according to the schedule, the bankers were taking their first crack at the tournament game. Of all the questions bouncing around my brain—Where is Fantasy? Why doesn’t my refrigerator work? How will I ever catch Magnolia Thibodeaux?—the question at the front of the line was about the slot machines at the bankers conference. Specifically, what’s in them? I reached for the house phone and dialed Casino Operations. Let’s see what they don’t know about this game.
While the phone rang, I asked Baylor, “Did you take care of the counterfeit money?”
“Check.”
“Did you get it out of the building?”
“Yes.” At the same time, a man answered the phone in my other ear. “Casino Ops.”
“Hi,” I said. “This is Calinda Wilson from Mr. Cole’s office. I need to speak to the techs who set up the convention game.”
“Hold on.” Soon enough, another male voice said, “David Sandoval.”
“David, hi. Are you one of the techs who installed the slot machines for the convention this week?” Dead silence. “Hello?”
“Yeah, I’m thinking.” When he finished thinking he said, “We didn’t install those.”
“Is this Casino Operations?”
“You bet.”
“The department that installs slot machines?”
“That’s us.”
“If you didn’t install them, who did?”
“I don’t have any idea. But I’m looking at our schedule. Our last installation was a bank of Wicked Winnings in section fourteen, and our next installation is four new Downton Abbeys in section twenty-nine next week.”
“How in the world does Downton Abbey translate into a slot machine?”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“I know the conference game is up and running,” he said, “because we threw the switch on it an hour ago, but that was just pushing a button. We didn’t set them up. We haven’t installed a conference machine since the ladybug people were here.”
The Entomology Conference two weeks ago. I knew about it, because some nut in receiving opened a crate marked “CAELIFERA THIS SIDE UP” and let ten thousand crickets loose. Those crickets were still all over the place. I said thanks and hung up.
No one in this building knew a thing about the bankers game.
I turned to Baylor, who looked like he was taking the SAT, chewing on a pencil eraser, pouring over the legal pad plugging in names.
“Baylor, what did you mean when you said you said you took care of the counterfeit money?”
“What I said. I took care of it.”
“How?”
“What do you mean?”
“How did you take care of it?”
“By taking care of it, Davis.”
This is why people pull their hair out. “Let’s start over, Baylor. Where is the counterfeit money?”
“I put it in your car.”
Of course he did.
“Why in hell would you put it in my car?”
“Because I drove your car to get you lunch.”
“But you didn’t get me lunch. And why did you drive my car?”
“Because Fantasy has a flat tire. Two flat tires.”
“Two?”
He held up two fingers.
“Why didn’t you drive your truck?” I asked.
“Because it’s out of gas.” He rolled his eyes, duh. “What is your point?”
He was getting irritated with me.
“I don’t want to drive around with counterfeit money is my point!”
“Where do you need to go?”
“Forget it,” I said. “Let’s get back to work.”
The problem wasn’t Baylor; the problem was summer. We’d sat around since Memorial Day watching Sandra Bullock movies, and now, all of a sudden, we needed to be firing on sixteen cylinders, and Baylor was always the last to load. On the other hand, he’s funny, he’s cute, he’s strong, and he’s a dead-eye. Most days it’s like Fantasy and I have joint custody of Baylor more than anything else, but when things got tight, as they’ve been known to do, he comes through like a champ.
Thirty minutes later and I still hadn’t connected the slot machine dots.
“The bankers slot machines are up and running, but we didn’t install them.” I was thinking out loud. Looking at Baylor, but thinking out loud. “The game is full of money, but not counterfeit money, because the counterfeit money is in my car. So why were the conference people waiting on the man who brought all the counterfeit money, and what’s in the game?”
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