by Dana Dratch
“That’s politics,” I said, wishing I’d been quicker on the draw with that cake.
“Why would he help her? She was stealing from the building.”
“Well, first of all, I’m guessing he’s a sociopath. And second, it’s possible he didn’t know about the money stuff. Or maybe he sensed a kindred spirit.”
“I wonder what he does for a living?” my sister pondered.
“Advertising or marketing would be my guess, based on the terms he used. Possibly campaign management. These days it’s all the same thing.”
We headed through the door and, as we started to turn to go up, I glanced down. Several floors beneath us, I spotted a woman jogging jauntily up the stairs. Huge, wide-brimmed hat. Big dark sunglasses. A white pool cover-up with a rich tan and sky-high espadrilles.
It hit me like a thunderbolt.
“Gabby!” I screamed.
She stuck her head over the railing, looked up and grinned. “Sister girl? Oh my gosh, it is you!”
Gabby DuBois, Nick’s ex-fiancée, came running up the stairs and threw her arms around me. “I can’t believe you’re here! What are the odds?”
Annie had heard about Gabby, but she’d never actually met her. I figured I’d better make the introductions. “Gabby, this is my sister Annie. Annie, this is my friend Gabby.”
My brother’s most recent ex- gave us each the once-over. “Wow, Nicky was right. You two really do look alike.”
“Thank you!” we both said in unison.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “What happened with Rick?”
After a whirlwind Vegas courtship, Gabby had left my brother to go back to the love of her life, a pro wrestler named Rick, who promptly proposed. It was the right move for everyone. But Nick had taken it hard for a while.
“Oh, sugar, he’s joining me here next weekend,” she said, flashing a big smile. “He and the boys are doing a big tour down the East Coast. All the guys on one of those super-cool buses, a different city every night. But he loves it! So I popped over here for a little vacay, and we’re going to meet up when he gets to town.”
With Gabby, things were never exactly what they seemed.
The first time we’d met—when she was engaged to my brother—she was picking pockets and operating an online boutique funded with stolen credit cards. Like Robin Hood, she only stole from the rich. Gabby was also the one who’d discovered Lucy eating out of a garbage can, coaxed her into her arms and carried her home.
The second time we met, Gabby was involved in a conspiracy to steal, forge, and switch art treasures. But since the art had been looted by the Nazis—and Gabby and her merry band were returning the pieces to their rightful owners—I actually wanted to help.
My almost-sister-in-law may have skirted the law, but she had a moral code. Of some kind.
The question was, surrounded by sun, fun, and the super rich, what was she really doing in South Beach? And, more specifically, at Oceanside?
“I’ve heard of that junket,” Annie said, snapping her well-manicured fingers. “A couple of the guys were talking about it at one of the fashion houses the other day. The Total Testosterone Tour!”
Gabby nodded, grinning. “A bunch of big, smelly men packed into a tricked-out tour bus. Honestly, it’s a man cave on wheels.”
“So how is Rodeo Rick?” I asked, remembering the photos she’d shared of the hunk in a cowboy hat, tiny trunks, and a pair of six-guns.
His wrestling alter-ego was a cowboy hero dubbed “Rodeo Rick Steed.” His real name was Richard Stumpelfig. But with a granite jaw and muscles to match, he looked more like a Rodeo Rick.
Gabby shook her head. “He’s one of the bad guys now. Evil Edvard, the Mad Duke of Destruction. This one has a crown and a scepter and a little red velvet cape. I know it sounds silly, but he’s their most popular villain, and I’m so proud of him. And he’s having the time of his life.”
She paused. “So how’s Nicky?”
“Nick’s good,” I said. “Really good. His bakery’s taking off. He’s still running it from the inn, but we’re trying to retrofit my place. And he’s dating again. He’s happy.”
Her face relaxed. “I’m glad. High time he got back in the saddle. So how are things between you and the English stud muffin?”
“Complicated.”
“Honey, I know complicated. But if there’s something there, give it a chance. I did. And it’s been worth it.”
Was there something there? Ian and I had shared precisely one kiss. OK, a great kiss. But then life intervened.
And there was the business of that pesky little microphone. Plus whatever he was really running out of that inn.
“Listen to the lady,” Annie said, poking me in the ribs with an elbow.
“Oh, and Harkins and Daisy got married,” I said, hoping to change the subject. “And you should see Alistair—he’s growing like a little weed.”
To Annie, I explained, “Gabby was helping Harkins and his family when they thought they were going to have to make a run for it.”
“Gabby, we’re going upstairs for a very late lunch,” my sister said. “Why don’t you join us? You two can catch up, and we can fill you in on what’s been going on in the building for the past couple of months.”
“Yeah, I heard that real estate lady fell down the elevator shaft,” Gabby said, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t think that could happen in a classy place like this.”
“You have no idea,” I said.
Something finally clicked.
“You’re the duchess!” I exclaimed.
“What?” Gabby asked.
“Annie and I went to a cocktail party. And a couple of the neighbors were gossiping about a duchess who was staying in the building—an American woman who’d married a European duke. I’d bet money they were talking about you.”
“Well,” Gabby drawled, looking very pleased with herself, “who’d have thunk it?”
CHAPTER 37
Lucy spent the first few minutes of our return trying to jump into Gabby’s arms. Or lap.
“My little girl’s all grown up now,” Gabby said. And I swear she was tearing up.
“That’s what Nick calls her, ‘the little dog,’” I said. “But the vet says she’ll probably top out at forty-five or fifty pounds.”
“She looks good,” Gabby said, giving Lucy a double-handed, double-ear scratch.
“She plays in the yard, gets lots of walks around the neighborhood, and has a regular circle of doggie friends she visits,” I said. “They even put in an agility course at our dog park.”
Lucy being Lucy, she’d adopted an à la carte approach to that one. Some of the agility stations she’d hit twice, some she skipped entirely. But she loved the place.
Even after half an hour of dedicated Lucy time, including a quick “break” on the front lawn of Oceanside, the pup remained steadfastly glued to Gabby’s side.
As my sister buzzed around the kitchen throwing pasta into a pot and chopping vegetables, Gabby and I sat at the white marble breakfast bar watching the show.
“Your kitchen is like something out of one of those fancy TV home makeover thingies,” Gabby said, looking around in wonder.
Annie smiled. “Thank you! Whoever designed these places did an amazing job—everything you need and all in just the right spot.”
“So how come you’re here in Miami?” Gabby asked me, reaching down to stroke Lucy. “Are you on vacation too?”
“Kind of,” I said. “That was part of it. Also, there was something weird going on with the condo board election here at Oceanside. And Annie wanted a second opinion.”
“So what’s weird about it?”
While Annie minced garlic, I filled in Gabby about why I’d first come to town—and what we’d discovered this morning.
“You mean she staged the whole thing?” Gabby asked, eyes wide.
I hoped we weren’t giving her any ideas.
“Lock, stock, and fake competition,” I sa
id.
“That’s awful.”
“Exactly what I said,” my sister added. “But the worst part is that she hung poor Dennis and Geoffrey out to dry.”
“Yeah, and neither of them would do too well in prison,” I said.
“Why would they go to jail?” Gabby asked. “Your friend Leslie is the one who faked an election. And they can’t exactly arrest her.”
“It’s not the fake election,” I explained. “It’s why she faked it. Apparently, Leslie had taken over managing the association’s money. The other two just signed off on whatever she gave them. But she wasn’t paying the bills, and now the association account has about fourteen bucks in it.”
“Shoot, sugar, are you sure no one pushed her down that elevator shaft?”
She had a point. But the police were treating Leslie’s death as an accident, and who was I to quibble?
“The problem is, we have to find the money,” Annie said. “If Leslie hasn’t already spent it.”
Gabby’s face took on a crafty expression I knew all too well.
“What?” I asked.
“Well, I’m no expert, but it sounds like what you all need is a little reconnaissance mission.”
CHAPTER 38
Annie’s spaghetti was great. Gabby’s idea gave me heartburn.
In a nutshell, we would go into Leslie McQueen’s apartment and nose around a little.
Or, “have a little look-see,” as my never-quite-sister-in-law phrased it.
The only thing I could see happening was the three of us joining Dennis and Geoffrey in a holding cell. But at least Gabby and Annie would look great in their mug shots.
The phone rang. When Nick’s number popped up, the heartburn went into overdrive.
“I have to . . . uh . . . take this in my room,” I said, scurrying down the hall. “It’s my editor.”
“What’s wrong now?” I hissed into the phone, firmly closing the bedroom door behind me. “Termites? Rats? A family of mimes living in my crawl space?”
“The place is totally solid,” my brother said. “Not a thing wrong with it.”
“No black mold?”
“Nope.”
“What about the wiring?”
“You could host one of those electric-light events next Christmas. Your original home inspector knew what he was doing. And we know this because a second inspector—one who doesn’t even know the first guy—confirmed it this morning.”
“But what about what the contractor said? The extra tests? And the specialists? And the second mortgage?”
“BS, no, no, and we don’t need it,” Nick said. “Look, this one was my fault—totally. I made a bad hire. The contractor may have had skills and great reviews, but he was not a good guy. When I first spoke with him, I explained that I was doing the necessary stuff now with the money I had in hand. But I wanted to leave the door open to taking a little from the next payment to do a couple of really cool upgrades in a few months. Unfortunately, he heard ‘second payment’ and decided to double his money while halving his workload. Hence the ever-expanding budget.”
“Oh geez,” I said.
“Yup.”
“So what happens now?” I asked, feeling like I’d just woken up from a nightmare.
“Now we start over with a new contractor. But, honestly? I’m taking a breather for a while. I’ve kinda had it.”
“No lie,” I agreed. “So how much do we owe him?”
“Zip.”
“He came out and did tests,” I said. “Even if we didn’t really need them, he’s still going to charge us.”
The last thing I wanted was some angry contractor filing a lien on my home. My snug, wonderful little home.
“Yeah, I don’t think so. Instead we played Let’s Make a Deal. The deal is I don’t report him to the police and the local building association, and he calls it even. I’m looking at a receipt with his signature that says, “Paid in full.”
My brother would have made a great lawyer. Or possibly a crime boss.
“You’re kidding.”
“Guess who paid for the second home inspection? Hint—it wasn’t yours truly.”
“Nicholas Edward Vlodnachek, you are the man,” I said.
“Don’t I know it.”
CHAPTER 39
That night was the first time I’d ever taken an elevator to a break-in.
Apparently, with no Leslie McQueen to get in the way, the elevators were now working perfectly. I wish I could say the same about the condo board.
Dennis was doing a pretty decent job of glad-handing the residents and the bill collectors. Despite that, he remained stubbornly convinced that he was going to prison.
Geoffrey was a wreck. But he’d managed to track down a lot of the services and vendors Leslie had stiffed during her grand experiment—even with time out for panic attacks. Unfortunately, he’d had zero luck in following the money. And spending hours with Dennis Chu wasn’t exactly decreasing his anxiety levels.
At this rate, I didn’t think either of them would make it through the weekend without running screaming to the cops.
So we decided to spare them the knowledge of tonight’s little excursion. Besides, if we did it right, no one would be any the wiser.
Gabby was magic. She twirled some little silver gadget in the lock, depressed the handle, and opened the door. In less time than it had taken Annie to open her own door with her own key.
“Girl, you’ve got skills,” my sister said.
Gabby beamed.
To be on the safe side, we’d each chosen a pair of gloves from my sister’s collection. So as not to look too suspicious, Annie and I donned ours only after we were inside Leslie’s apartment.
Gabby had picked a practical pair of black leather driving gloves. Annie had selected some little blue flannel ones—for gardening, I think. And for some reason, I’d gone with elbow-length white silk opera gloves.
What can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time.
We’d even brought a couple of large shoulder satchels, in case there was anything we needed to pack out with us. At this point, all we needed were black eye-masks and empty sacks with big dollar signs on the side.
Leslie hadn’t been seen since the night of the party. Now I noticed that her blinds were closed, and the lights in her place were all on. So it looked like she’d probably died sometime that night.
Plus, the elevators weren’t working the next morning.
Oddly, champagne campaign rally or not, everything was perfectly neat and tidy. Not a balloon, not an election T-shirt, not an inch of red-white-and-blue bunting. Not even the little step-stool where she’d made her stump speech.
“It’s a little like your home only smaller, and the stuff isn’t as nice,” Gabby noted. “But the layout is like the place where I’m staying.”
“Airbnb?” my sister asked.
“Pretty much,” Gabby said breezily.
Ahead of time, we’d decided to give the whole place the once-over together; then we’d divide and conquer.
I’d seen the kitchen and the living room the night of the party. And I was pretty sure that Leslie wasn’t keeping bank books on the balcony.
“Let’s hit the bedrooms first,” I said.
Leslie’s room was like the rest of the house—expensive but cold. All color-coordinated, in varying shades of gray and lavender.
“This looks like a mid-level room at one of the big-bucks Vegas hotels,” Gabby said.
“I was thinking model home, but yeah,” I agreed.
There wasn’t a book or piece of paper in sight. At my house, you couldn’t go three feet without stumbling over a stack of paperbacks. And notebooks, pens, and magazines pretty much were my décor.
I opened a shallow white cabinet mounted on the far wall, revealing a huge TV screen. Five feet, at least. The matching deep cabinet beneath it housed a DVR and a DVD player, along with a couple of gizmos I didn’t recognize.
“Wow,” Annie said. “She didn
’t skimp on the electronics.”
It reminded me of something. But I couldn’t quite place it.
“Damn, girls, you should see this closet,” Gabby called from across the room. “It looks like a boutique.”
She wasn’t wrong. In shades of pink and chocolate brown, it did look like one of those chichi little clothing shops in the mall. The floors were dark brown marble, the wooden shelves a rich espresso, and the walls and ceiling were covered in pink satin. Except for the one wall that was completely mirrored. In the middle of the ceiling hung a large crystal chandelier.
“Is that a chaise?” I asked, pointing to a pink velveteen thing jutting out from one corner.
“Fainting couch,” Annie said. “All the rage in the eighteenth century.”
Surrounding us on shelves and racks, Leslie’s wardrobe and shoes were organized by color.
“I could live in here,” Gabby whispered reverentially.
“I want to go home,” I muttered.
“OK, probably nothing here,” my sister concluded. “So we keep this in mind, and we can always double back later.”
Leslie’s office turned out to be much more utilitarian. The desk was a modernist contraption of glass floating on metal. Like her bedroom, not a stray sheet of paper or a random ballpoint pen. But there was a computer monitor.
“I’ll take this,” Annie said, settling into the chair. “Hmm? Password protected? Who on earth puts a password on their home computer? Especially when they live alone?”
“Maybe she’s got a nosy cleaning lady,” I said. “Or maybe she doesn’t always live alone.”
If someone else had keys to this place, I prayed they wouldn’t be home anytime soon.
I opened the closet door. No bordello chic this time. A printer, a shredder, and two polished oak file cabinets. The cabinets got my attention. Especially the brass locks.
I’d worked in offices. So I was used to secured cabinets. The ones I’d seen had dinky locks you could open with a paper clip.
Not that I’d know.
But these were different. Thick amber wood with heavy-duty brass fittings and substantial locks. Custom-made, I’d guess.