He dressed in clean jeans, a black turtleneck, and his favorite leather jacket, hoping his mood would improve with the fresh clothing. He tried to remember whether he’d eaten anything last night, but the strain of thinking brought the headache back.
He’d barely noticed his surroundings when he got home. Now, he saw the signs of his hasty packing for the trip to France. Had it really been two weeks ago? The villa, the real estate agent, the woman walking her small white dog—it all seemed ages away from the police, handcuffs, jail, and the courtroom. Everything in between was still a blur. Hell, last night was a blur. He needed food.
A neighborhood pub was an easy ten-minute walk from his bungalow, but Rob couldn’t quite imagine putting one foot in front of the other enough times to cover the distance. He found his car keys on the table near the front door, his phone and wallet nearby. Even wasted, apparently some actions came automatically to him.
The Land Rover didn’t want to start on the first try, but he nudged it gently and got it to turn over. The dashboard clock said it was after ten. He thought of his regular life and wondered if whatshername was at the office, answering phones. If the phones were even ringing. He glanced at his cell phone on the seat beside him and nearly missed a stop sign, earning a blare of horns from two other drivers.
“Okay, okay.” He set the phone down and concentrated on getting himself to the pub.
He’d never been inside before, preferring the higher-toned establishments downtown where he was likely to spot a star and grab a selfie now and then, but this little joint had a banner, which he’d noticed in the past, announcing breakfast. He parked on the street and went inside.
This time of day, the clientele consisted of two elderly couples chatting in overly loud voices, comparing medical conditions. He got a table as far from them as possible and immediately asked the waitress for a Bloody Mary. When she brought the drink, he declined the menu.
“Just bring me a couple eggs, scrambled, a bunch of bacon and about four pieces of wheat toast. Oh, and coffee—biggest one you got.” He set his phone on the table beside the napkin-wrapped flatware she’d placed in front of him.
She didn’t write any of it down, but it was a simple enough order. He downed half his spicy drink as she walked away. He glanced at his phone again. Not a single text or missed call. What happened to the buzz, the busy thrill of his daily life?
He thumbed through his emails. Nothing personal, nothing exciting unless you called a twenty-percent-off sale at The Gap a biggie. He sighed and turned to his plate of eggs as the waitress set them down.
“Another of these,” he told her, tapping his empty glass.
“Sure. Anything else?”
What else would I need? He hadn’t taken a bite yet. But he kept the sarcasm to himself. Apparently, he had few friends anymore. He chomped down a slice of bacon and a big forkful of the eggs. Wiped his hands on the paper napkin and checked his phone again. Still nothing. There’d been that one quick text to Sandy yesterday. He barely remembered what she’d said. Something not informative, he knew that much.
His second drink showed up. It didn’t taste as good as the first one had. He switched to the coffee and wolfed down more eggs. His mood went up a notch as his head stopped pounding. He should check in with Sandy. In fact … what if she had followed through and done the presentation at Scottsdale? There was a chance.
He typed a text to her: Scottsdale—how’d it go?
Chapter 39
Sandy heard the text message ping and looked at her phone. “Seriously? He’s asking how the Scottsdale gala went?”
She was sitting at her desk at Desert Trust Bank where she’d been catching up after being in California for two days.
“Knock-knock,” came Gracie’s voice as the door swung open. “I just came in to make a deposit and saw you sitting here.”
Sandy smiled and invited her in. “Want a good laugh?” She showed Gracie the text message from Rob Williams.
“What!”
“Yeah, obviously he doesn’t remember anything at all about that night. We really put him out with that drink.”
“Do you think he really doesn’t remember what we did? Maybe he’s just testing you.” Gracie dropped her purse on one of the chairs in front of Sandy’s desk.
“One way to find out,” Sandy said. She dialed his number.
“Rob, it’s Sandy. Um, you are aware that the investor meeting here in Arizona never happened, right? I’m sorry—I thought you knew that.” She put on the speaker and set the phone on her desk.
“Shit—yeah, I suppose. I was hoping you might have taken over for me and done the presentation yourself.” He sounded dejected and she almost felt sorry for him.
“I wish I could have,” Sandy said, rolling her eyes toward Gracie. “But it was my first time. I wouldn’t have had any idea what to say.”
“Were the people disappointed? Were you able to rebook anything? We could still do it, maybe right after the first of the year?”
Such grasping for straws. Gracie covered her laugh.
Sandy aimed to sound noncommittal. “Well, I suppose that might be a possibility.”
Gracie had picked up a pen and scribbled on Sandy’s notepad—Get $$. Sandy’s brow wrinkled. Gracie wrote again—Venue bill, he should pay.
Sandy brightened at the idea. “You do know there’s still the matter of the invoice from the Royale. Someone from the billing department handed it to me that night, and she didn’t care one whit that you didn’t show up. They’d prepared the food and decorated the ballroom. I didn’t know what to tell her, other than I would get it to you.” She strived to make herself sound worried at this last bit.
“Oh, god,” he moaned. “I’d forgotten about that part of it. Didn’t we put down hefty deposits ahead of time?”
“No … remember they did us a favor on that part.” She mouthed to Gracie, What if he calls them?
“Rob, I’d be happy to handle it for you,” Sandy said, putting strength back in her voice. “I can just draft the company checking account, and it’ll be all taken care of.”
“How much is it?”
Gracie was scribbling numbers on the notepad, turning it to face Sandy.
“Let’s see … With the tax it comes to $25,486.51—that includes everything, as far as I can see.” Sandy sent a puzzled look toward her companion, and Gracie shrugged. “Last time I balanced the account there was plenty to cover that.”
“Wait until Monday,” he said. “I’ve had some other expenses and I want to review it.”
Rats! “Okay. Will do. Let me know if you need anything else, boss.”
“Now what?” Sandy said, the moment she’d shut off her phone. “He’ll try to worm out of this, I know he will.”
“Well, it’s kind of found money anyway, isn’t it? But it’ll be a great way to start reimbursing his victims.”
“We shouldn’t wait until Monday,” Sandy said.
From her briefcase she pulled the folder of notes she’d been keeping on Intrepid Dog Pictures. The bank account information was right at her fingertips. She paused. “I can’t do this from here. It’s beyond iffy, and I am the manager of this bank.”
Gracie reached for the page. “I need to get going now,” she said coyly, “but I’ll be seeing our friend Amber this afternoon. I think she can manage to handle this little item.”
It took a good forty-five minutes to reach Amber’s off-campus apartment and another ten for Amber to get home from her Pilates class, although she swore she’d left the moment she received Gracie’s call.
“Here’s the banking information Sandy had, the business account for Intrepid Dog Pictures. Her login info and password is here … And this is the amount she quoted Rob for the room at the Royale.”
Amber’s eyes widened at the dollar amount. “Nice dinner.”
“It would have been.”
They both laughed.
Amber sat at her keyboard and logged into her virtual private network,
setting the location at Los Angeles. “Just in case there’s a question about why the transaction would be happening in Arizona.”
Gracie helped herself to a handful of M&Ms from the coffee table bowl while Amber keyed her way into Rob’s business account.
“Nuh-uh, not going to work,” Amber said. “Look at his balance.”
“Ninety-seven dollars?” Gracie called Sandy at the bank and told her.
“He’s beat us to it,” she said. “I wasn’t fudging when I said I knew he had enough. That account had more than thirty grand in it last time I looked.”
Chapter 40
Close call, Rob thought as he watched his checking account balance transfer to another, secret account. He’d forgotten he’d given Sandy authorization to make payments from his account for the venue deposits. Lucky she hadn’t actually done so. And really lucky she hadn’t gotten to his last ten grand. Tyler Chisholm was pretty clear that he expected payment on Rob’s legal bill now.
He pushed away his breakfast plate and swigged the last of the coffee. The conversation with Sandy had put him in a foul mood, despite the fact he’d saved the money. He slapped a twenty on the table and got up, preferring to leave the waitress a generous tip rather than have to smile and converse his way through receiving and paying the check.
Why did life have to be so damned unfair? Adrenaline pumping, he started to walk home then remembered he’d driven to the pub. He strode back and got into the Land Rover. The Scottsdale event was a total bust, the villa in France was now gone and everything else in that region way out of his league. He squealed the tires leaving the parking lot. A cop on the corner gave him a look and he backed off the gas.
Keeping an eye on the police car and restraining himself at the wheel only served to darken his mood further. What he needed was to get to an open stretch of road and take the Rover up to a hundred—blow out the cobwebs, both in the car and in his head. But it seemed like too much effort to navigate the jam-packed freeways and get out to open space. He found himself cruising his neighborhood, hating the row after row of old houses like the rental he lived in, overpriced little pieces of crap where people thought by adding granite countertops and stainless steel appliances they had actually taken them out of the Depression Era. His landlord was a prime example.
Rob tried to think of somewhere to go, someone to call and make plans, but nothing came to mind. Abby was gone; the other office girl—well, he couldn’t even remember her name; Sandy was in Arizona but he couldn’t socialize with her anyway. She would soon discover his account couldn’t cover the Scottsdale bill and she would have to bring that up.
He thought of all the celebrities he’d met over the years, the ones whose pictures graced his mantel and dotted the walls at the office. Not one of them would call him a friend; most wouldn’t even recognize his name if he called and said, “Hey, this is Rob Williams.”
It was pitiful. He was pitiful.
He missed his villa in France. Okay, the idea of his villa.
He found himself parked in the driveway at his house, staring at the skimpy front yard and cracked red tiles on the roof. Couldn’t spend a day looking at that. He went inside and switched on his widescreen TV, drawing all the drapes shut. Maybe if he found a tennis match or football game he could get wrapped up in it, could find himself cheering for a team or a player. He needed something to cheer for, and at this moment it certainly wasn’t himself. He stretched out on the couch and let the sports announcer’s patter lull him to sleep.
He found himself standing on the courthouse steps beside Tyler Chisholm, knowing as their conversation took place that he was dreaming.
“Hey, man, you got lucky in there,” Tyler said. “You got away with it.”
“I did, didn’t I? I got away with it. Fat chance of any of those other dupes putting together enough of a case to come after me, right?” His heart soared and he felt light as a feather.
Tyler held out his hand and Rob put a stack of banded hundred-dollar bills in it. The lawyer thanked him and walked away. Rob watched him go and felt his mouth form a huge grin. Ha ha! The judge had done him a huge favor and no one was after him. No more running scared!
You know you can’t keep this up. His lawyer’s voice came back to him. You can’t keep taking money or someone will hunt you down.
Rob’s eyes popped open. The sports announcer was in a frenzy over some fantastic play. But the words from the dream echoed through his head. Someone will hunt you down.
He sat up, fighting off a dizzy spell. The dream held a warning and Rob knew he’d better heed it.
Chapter 41
“So,” Gracie said, looking around the small space in Amber’s apartment at the others, “what are we going to do now?”
Mary had paced the length of the short living room at least six times. “I’m so angry I could just shoot the guy’s balls off.”
Sandy laughed. “Tempting—but not very practical.”
Gracie piped up. “Yeah, guns are dangerous. I could bake some poisoned cookies.”
“Yeah … no. That just has to backfire somehow.”
“I believe we’re on the right track with the money,” Pen said. She was looking over Amber’s shoulder, where the details of Rob’s bank account showed on the computer screen. “Look at the amounts of money he moved in recent weeks.”
“Twenty thousand two weeks ago, ten thousand today,” Amber said. “But that’s not even close to the amount we know he’s brought in. He took a couple hundred thousand from Gracie’s mother alone. And that doesn’t even count all those people we saw in Newport, signing up for his scheme right and left.”
“There must be other accounts,” Sandy said. “If we can get details about where some of these transfers went, I can help you decipher them.”
“Let’s also consider who else Rob might have paid money to,” Pen said. “His lawyer most likely got paid—they always do. That could account for those two transactions you just mentioned. What about prior to those? Do you suppose he actually did sign contracts with a few film stars? He might have paid handsomely to associate their names with his projects.”
“How we would ever find out?” Sandy wondered.
Pen was quiet, thinking. “The book I had optioned for film … nothing ever came of it, but I still have contact information for the agent who represented me on the contract. He’s a chum of my literary agent. Perhaps one of them would know what’s churning in the Hollywood rumor mill. I’ll give a call when I get home.”
“That sounds good,” Sandy said. “Meanwhile, Amber and I can see what we come up with on the banking angle. Gracie, I heard your phone ding at least three times, so I’m guessing your kids need something—go to them. And Mary, you most likely need to get back to the gym and find a punching bag in need of a good beating.”
Mary stopped pacing and grinned. “I think you’re right. Call me when you’ve got something for me to do.”
Once the others had left, Sandy pulled up a chair beside Amber’s and watched as their youngest member scrolled through the pages of transactions.
“Okay, money, money, money … Where did you go?” Amber stared at the skimpy balance in the Intrepid Dog Pictures account.
“Click that transfer,” Sandy said, “the one where the twenty thousand left the account.”
A smaller box appeared, three lines of gibberish text and numbers.
“Those are codes for the type of transfer it was and the bank it went to,” Sandy explained.
“I think I recognize some of those digits. I was in Rob’s personal account earlier.” Amber opened a new window and backtracked through a few screens of information, consulted her notes and entered a password.
“Okay, here it shows the twenty thousand coming from his business account. But now here …” She pointed to the screen. “Here it shows the twenty thousand being drawn out in cash at a branch bank near his office.”
“How did he do that?” Amber asked. “Wasn’t that the day we turned him ove
r to the police?”
“Yeah, it was …” Sandy studied the transaction and asked Amber to click a small link. “Okay, it looks like he did a teller authorization to pay the cash to someone. Most likely he knows someone at the branch bank well enough that he could do this over the phone. Looks like the money went to a Tyler Chisholm. Do we know—?”
“His lawyer! The guy who got his case dismissed.”
“Ah, yes. That’s who it is. Funny, I can’t imagine a lawyer requiring payment in cash.”
Amber sat back in her chair, quietly staring at the computer screen. “Who would Rob need to get that much cash to, right at that moment? You don’t suppose—I mean, it would be crazy—but what if he bribed the judge?”
Sandy turned toward her, her face drained of color. “That’s a serious allegation.”
Amber held both hands up. “I’m not alleging anything. Not yet. Just wondering …”
“My god, it could explain so much. The push to get the case heard right before the holiday break, the fact it would certainly go to Judge Alderston, the way he barely listened to any of the evidence before blatantly dismissing it …”
“The way neither Rob nor his attorney seemed very surprised at the outcome …”
“How would we ever prove it? All we know is that the attorney received the money. He’ll just claim it was for his fee.” Sandy couldn’t sit still. She was up, pacing the same track Mary had done earlier. “There’s no way to go back now and catch pictures of the lawyer and the judge in some secret conversation. It’s done.”
“We’ll have to set a trap.” Amber had that familiar gleam in her eye.
“Right, and how do we do that?”
Amber’s fingers drummed lightly on her keyboard. “I’ll think of something.”
Chapter 42
Gracie called the next meeting, and it came sooner than anyone had anticipated—four hours after they’d been at Amber’s place. They met in Gracie’s kitchen. Scott had taken the kids to a pizza place because, as Gracie put it, “I’ll kill the first person who crosses me tonight.”
Movie Mogul Mama Page 16
