by Sara Rosett
“Yeah?” Sato said impatiently.
Mort considered making Sato wait until after he left a message—tormenting Sato did make the time go by faster—but he decided he better not push it. For the year they’d been partners, Mort had pretty much let Sato lead their investigations. He was clearly annoyed that Mort wasn’t playing his usual backseat role. “It was made from a cell number—looks like a burner. In any case, it’s no longer in service.”
“What about the name of the good Samaritan who called it in?”
“Didn’t have time to give it—connection was lost before dispatch was able to get it.”
“That’s a little too convenient, isn’t it?”
For once, Mort agreed with his partner.
Chapter Five
Dallas
Wednesday, 5:10 p.m.
ZOE stood uncertainly in the kitchen. She had six new phone messages, thirteen e-mails, and a stack of mail to open. She put the snail mail down on the island and picked up Jack’s phone. Nothing. No messages. Zoe sat down on the barstool with a thump.
She had moved through the rest of her day as if nothing had happened. She’d shut off her mind, ignoring the questions that were playing in a never-ending loop, and set about taking care of the things that had to be done. She’d made the changes to the spreadsheet that her client requested. A quick trip around the block with her neighbor’s dog had completed her dog-walking gig for the week. All her jobs were finished, and she had nothing on her schedule except the new travel book, which wouldn’t arrive until next week. She was reluctant to come out of her Zen-like focus, but she knew she had to. She cut open the envelopes with her butterfly letter opener and separated the junk.
She paused over the last letter, which had a check enclosed in the envelope. It was from Kiki Compton, the accountant who rented the other office. Kiki never paid her rent by check. She always sent an electronic transfer. Zoe realized she hadn’t seen Kiki today then remembered she was away on her annual spring vacation.
The typed paragraph was formal notice that Kiki wouldn’t be renewing her lease when it expired at the end of next month. A note scrawled in blue felt-tip marker at the bottom read, “Sorry to drop this on you, but Joe got a new job in Houston, and we’re moving as soon as school is out. You’ve been a wonderful landlady, and I hate to go, but it’s an opportunity we can’t pass up.”
Zoe leaned against the counter as it dawned on her that she would have two empty offices to rent in the next few weeks. The rent was a large chunk of her income, and a hefty portion of it went to make her half of the house payment. And Jack wasn’t around to make the other half of that payment, either. What would she do? Apply for that job at the county? She frowned at the thought.
She shook her head and straightened up, mentally scolding herself for even thinking of her finances at a time like this. Connor was dead and Jack...she forced herself to think about what she’d been avoiding for the last several hours. Jack was gone, too, she thought, remembering the solemn faces of the Highway Patrol officers who’d brought her the news about Jack.
There had been no news from the search team, and she’d heard on the radio on the way home that afternoon that cadaver dogs were now part of the search. She knew what that meant—the chance of finding him alive was very slim.
She cleared her throat and blinked rapidly. Stay busy, she lectured herself. Keep moving. She cleared away the mail then poured herself a glass of ginger ale. The fizzy bubbles tickled her nose, and she debated adding a splash of something stronger to the drink, but instead she turned away from the kitchen. She was already sad enough.
She paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking up thoughtfully, going back over what the FBI guy had asked. If they’d called in cadaver dogs, then why had that guy, Sato, asked her where Jack would go if he were in trouble? That suave FBI guy had been jerking me around, Zoe thought. She watched enough police shows to know that investigators sometimes manipulated suspects and witnesses.
And why hadn’t they asked more questions about Connor? Not that Zoe would have been able to help them. She wouldn’t have been able to tell them who to call to notify of his death. She knew he wasn’t married, but beyond that info, she didn’t know anything about his personal life. Once she’d discovered what a jerk he was, she’d pretty much steered clear of him.
The words “notify them of his death,” so formal and dismal, seemed to ring in her ears. She supposed she really should call her mom and tell her what had happened. No, she decided, definitely not. Her mom would be on a plane in hours, the travel schedule conveniently sent to any and all bottom-feeding paparazzi who might be interested in snagging some camera time with her at the airport. No, something like this would bring out the absolute worst in Donna. Good thing she was closed away at that spa for her serenity treatment.
At least, Jack’s parents had already passed on. How awful would that be—to get a call with the news that your son had died? She shuddered at the thought.
Then she remembered Eddie. She rubbed her hand over her eyes. Jack’s cousin Eddie was the lone family member who Jack kept in touch with. She supposed Jack had other distant relatives, but he’d only ever mentioned Eddie. She should call him. Not should, she had to. Eddie should know. Her mom was optional, but Eddie was all the family that Jack had. She really wished Jack had introduced her to him when they were in Vegas. Of course, they’d been a little busy getting married on the spur of the moment.
Zoe set down her glass on the hall table and pulled Jack’s phone from her back pocket and scrolled through the names in the contact list. She didn’t find an entry for Eddie. After picking up her glass, Zoe walked up the stairs slowly, feeling odd. It had been months—a year maybe?—since she’d been on the second floor of the house. She went in the master bedroom and looked around. It looked plainer, more streamlined, without the gauzy mosquito netting she’d had draped over the brass four-poster bed. She’d taken the comforter, a patchwork of rich fabrics in ruby, caramel, amethyst, and turquoise that had covered their bed.
During one of their arguments, Jack had declared that he hated it. It was now on the bed downstairs in her room. She shook her head. Why had they been arguing about the comforter? Now there was a dark blue comforter trimmed in chocolate brown on the bed. It looked good in a masculine, understated way, and she wondered when he’d bought it. The rest of the room was unchanged—black contemporary dresser and treadmill angled toward the small TV in the corner. The only additions Zoe could see were a small black desk and a mini-refrigerator that was humming away in one corner.
Through the two windows that looked out over the front of the house, the leaves of the large cottonwood tree, vibrantly green with new growth, swayed in the faint breeze. Zoe had always loved the view—it was the one thing she missed about the room. She walked to one window and pushed the curtain to one side so she could see better. She looked out at the dancing leaves and smiled faintly, thinking of all the times she had fallen asleep listening to the wind whistle through the leaves. She missed that sound. The only thing that lulled her to sleep downstairs was the clatter of the loose screen on her window.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that brown car she’d noticed earlier, pulling away from the curb. It moved down the street, slowed in front of her house, then sped up again once it passed her house. That was odd, Zoe thought. She looked back to the house where the brown car had been parked. A young couple lived there. They both drove tiny compacts. Maybe they had company? She didn’t know her neighbors intimately, but she did know that no one else in the neighborhood drove that kind of car. She moved to the desk, feeling uneasy.
“Let it go,” she muttered. She set her ginger ale on a coaster, plopped into the rolling desk chair, and slid over to the refrigerator. It contained small cartons of orange juice and milk and a few white take-out boxes. A box of Raisin Bran Crunch sat on top of the refrigerator beside a stack of plastic bowls and cups. A four-cup coffee pot was wedged on top of the fridge next to a hot p
late.
She swiveled the chair back and forth, contemplating the clean desktop. Jack’s laptop and a desk lamp were the only two things on the desk. The laptop was in hibernation mode. A few clicks brought it to life. His mail program wasn’t password protected and she logged into it and ran a search for Eddie. A few e-mails popped up with the address “[email protected].”
Feeling a bit weird and intrusive, she clicked on the most recent e-mail, which was over a year old. It was short, only one line. Eddie confirmed that he would meet Jack in the lobby of The Venetian. GRS business had taken Jack to Vegas a few times, and she supposed he and Eddie had gotten together then.
Eddie’s contact information, including a phone number and store location—inside the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas—was listed in an automatic signature at the bottom of the e-mail. Zoe printed it out, absently folding it and sticking it in her back pocket with the phone as she looked at the e-mail that had arrived since yesterday. Most of them were junk e-mails announcing sales. She’d been hoping there would be something from Connor that would help explain what had happened, so she went back through the e-mail, but found nothing except the normal day-to-day communication of people running a business.
She sighed and hit the button to check for new mail, more out of frustration than anything else. A new message popped up from Star Bank. Zoe clicked on it. It was from the local bank manager. They were urgently trying to reach Jack regarding a transaction that took place yesterday. The phone number they had on file was out-of-service, and they wanted Jack to contact them right away.
Zoe hoped he wasn’t overdrawn because there was no way she could cover his account and hers, too. She chewed her bottom lip for a moment, undecided. Then she opened a web browser page. She’d just check his bank account and see what had happened. There were a couple of places she knew Jack jotted down login information for his online accounts. She checked his desk drawer. No helpful scraps of paper. She lifted the lamp with her left hand.
“Bingo.” She tilted the lamp so she could read the sticky note attached to the bottom and typed in the numbers.
She was lowering the lamp back to the desk when Jack’s bank account loaded and the screen filled with numbers. She lost her grip, and the lamp banged down to the desk with a crack. She hardly noticed because all her attention was focused on the computer. The bank balance was huge. Enormous, in fact. So many zeros.
Where did Jack get that much money? And if he had that much money, why did he make his portion of the mortgage payment five days late last month? Heck, with that balance he could pay off the house. The majority of the money had been deposited yesterday. Before the deposit, the account balance was six hundred dollars and ninety-two cents. Now that looked more normal, Zoe thought. What was going on? She clicked on the deposit to get the details on where it came from, but she only got an error.
She swiveled the chair back and forth, lost in thought. Had Jack been lying to her about money? She stared at the bank balance, counting the zeros to make sure she was actually seeing what she thought she was seeing. Yep, she was. Twelve million dollars. Twelve million dollars.
What would it be like to have that much money? There would be no worries about paying the bills—any bills—that was for sure. For just a second, she thought about transferring a couple hundred dollars into her checking account, but almost instantly, she shook her head—she couldn’t do it. It would be a stupid thing to do and flat out wrong. Besides, it had to be a mistake—one of those crazy computer things that happen once in a blue moon. There was no way Jack had twelve million dollars.
She quickly closed the lid of the laptop and stood up. Another thing to add to her list—call the bank. Too late to do it today. Would they even talk to her? It wasn’t her account, after all. Even though she also banked there, she doubted they would give her any information about Jack’s account.
She reached for the lamp that was now in two pieces. The base had completely broken off from the stand. There was no way to fix it, she realized, as she examined the break. There was something in the base, some sort of paper.
She could just see the edge of it through the hole where the stand attached to the base. She put down the stand and tried to work the paper out of the base with her finger, but the hole was too small. She flipped the base over and examined the bottom. Jack’s login paper was attached to the thick felt glued on the base. She pried a corner away and a fat roll of twenties encircled with a rubber band fell into her hand and another thumped onto the desk. She stared at them for moment, then ran her finger over the edge of the bills.
They were all twenties. She had no idea how much money she was holding, but it had to be several hundred dollars.
“Whoa,” Zoe whispered. Had she ever actually touched this much money? She rubbed her finger across the edge of the bills again and slowly turned in a circle, trying to take in the room with a different perspective. Had she known Jack at all? He had never been one to hide money—at least, she didn’t think he’d been like that. As her gaze ran over the master bath, she stopped, and focused on the shiny silver towel rack, just visible through the doorway.
Slowly, she put the lamp base down on the desk with the two rolls of money beside it. She walked to the bath doorway, her head tilted to the side. The towel racks were bare. She flipped the hamper open. Empty. No used towel tossed casually over the shower door either. Zoe thought back to yesterday. Jack had dumped his load of dirty towels in the laundry room on his way to work. She’d seen them. They’d sat there all day, unwashed. The only towels in this bathroom were neatly folded and put away in the cabinet under the sink.
The hairs on her arms prickled as she remembered the footsteps she’d heard yesterday. Jack hadn’t been upstairs showering—no one had showered here yesterday afternoon.
But she knew she’d heard someone upstairs.
This was too weird.
And scary.
Zoe liked to live life on the fly, so to speak, but this was too far over her comfort line. A quick circuit of the upstairs—the other bedroom, bath, and hall closet—revealed nothing out of place. Of course Zoe hadn’t been upstairs in a long time, but nothing looked disturbed or was obviously missing. There wasn’t that much upstairs to attract someone—a thief?—aside from rolls of money and they had been well hidden.
Zoe returned to the master bedroom and stared at the fat cylinders of money lined up side by side on the desk, thinking fleetingly of calling the police. She quickly shook her head at herself. None of the windows were unlocked, and she couldn’t name anything specific that was missing—except for her ex-husband, of course. And, oh yeah, his business partner had been murdered. Nope. Definitely not calling the police to report hearing someone upstairs yesterday.
Back in the bathroom, she took another look around, but didn’t find anything except soap, deodorant, razors, shaving cream, and Jack’s citrusy cologne. As she leaned against the bathroom counter and crossed her arms, the paper in her back pocket crinkled, reminding her she should call Eddie. She fished the paper out of her pocket along with Jack’s phone and dialed.
A masculine voice answered, “Murano Glassworks, how may I help you?”
She took a deep breath, already dreading breaking the news of Jack’s situation to his only relative. “May I speak to Eddie, please?”
“She’s not available. Can I take a message?”
Chapter Six
Dallas
Wednesday, 6:04 p.m.
THERE were a few beats of silence, then Zoe said, “Ah—did you say she?”
“Yes. Eddie is out, but she will call you back...your name?”
“She ...” Zoe muttered under her breath. Jack’s cousin was a guy. At least Zoe thought he was a guy. Had Jack ever actually said Eddie was a guy?
“Pardon?”
“Oh, sorry. Yes, I’ll leave a message,” Zoe said. She gave her first name and cell phone number, then stood there for a few moments in bewilderment after she hung up. A rhythmic pounding sounded fr
om downstairs, Helen’s distinctive knock. Zoe glanced at her watch and hurried downstairs. It was a little after six. Helen must have stopped by on her way home from work to check on her, Zoe thought.
“Meals on Wheels,” Helen announced as she stepped in the door, a takeout bag from La Cuisina in her hands.
“Is that their spaghetti?” Zoe asked. She hadn’t even thought about food all day, but with the scents of garlic, oregano, and warm bread wafting through the kitchen, she realized she was starving.
“Yes, it is,” Helen said as she unloaded large cartons, a long loaf of bread, and a bottle of wine.
“You really should start charging for delivery, you know.” Zoe gave her friend a quick hug on her way to get glasses and plates.
“Don’t worry; I’ll take my fee in cupcakes.”
Zoe paused with her hands on the stack of plates. “What about Tucker?”
“Working late. He’s got a big case,” Helen said, then pointed to another bag. “There’s more for him.” She pulled open the silverware drawer and asked, “Any word?”
“No. Nothing. The radio news said they are using cadaver dogs.”
“Oh. That’s...” she trailed off, a look of sympathy in her eyes.
“I know. Not good.”
“And Connor. That’s unbelievable,” Helen said.
“Well, not really. He wasn’t a nice guy.”
Helen handed silverware to Zoe. “So you think the two things are unrelated?”
Zoe broke off a piece of the crusty bread then spoke slowly, “I don’t know. Connor was such a jerk that I could see him pushing someone to the brink and then getting himself shot, but Jack...I don’t think I really knew Jack at all.”
By the time they’d consumed the last noodle and all that remained of the bread were crumbs, Zoe had told Helen everything that happened.
Helen took a gulp of the wine, then said, “So you’re saying Jack was a secret millionaire?”