“I just told you,” I said. “Mindy Manuel owns this house. She called me an hour ago saying there was a couple at her door she didn’t want to see. When Sam and I got here, no one answered the door.”
“So you broke in,” Burrows said.
“The back doors were unlocked so we came in to take a look.”
“And we found the message in the bathroom,” Sam said.
“We don’t know if Ms. Manuel wrote it,” said Constable Pinson, the female officer.
“It says help,” I pointed out. “Help usually means someone’s in trouble.”
Burrows shrugged. “You’ll get a call from your friend in an hour saying everything’s fine.”
“Mindy wouldn’t have left the house,” I said. “She knew I was driving over here.”
“Any idea who this couple were?” Pinson asked.
I wondered how I should answer that. I decided to give the facts, nothing more.
“Mindy said the woman called herself Rebecca,” I replied as Pinson scribbled in her notebook. “She didn’t know the man.” I didn’t say Rebecca Reiss, because I didn’t want to get Sam into any more hot water with the police.
“Anything else?” Pinson asked.
“No.”
“You can go,” Burrows said, after Pinson had written down our names. “We’ll lock up for Ms. Manuel.”
“There’s nothing more you can do?” I asked.
He shook his head.
Pinson locked the patio doors. Burrows set the lock on the front door, and let it close behind us.
I watched the officers get into the cruiser. Mindy had been taken from her home against her will. I had no idea where she was, or how to help her.
A white-haired woman hurried over as we came down the front walk. “I’m Carrie Jacobs. That’s my house.” She pointed to the home beside Mindy’s. “The police were here. Is there something wrong?”
“Your neighbor, Mindy Manuel, was expecting me,” I said. “But no one was home when we got here.”
Carrie said, “She left about 40 minutes ago with a man and a woman. She didn’t answer when I called out to her, which has me worried.”
“Did the woman Mindy left with have blond hair?” I asked.
“Yes, an attractive gal, with fair, wavy hair.”
“What kind of car were they driving?” Sam asked.
“A blue car, but I don’t know one make from another.”
Sam looked at me. “Becca has a blue Toyota.”
“You didn’t happen to get the plate number?” I asked Carrie.
She shook her head. “Never thought of that.”
“I’m worried something might have happened to Mindy. D’you mind if I ask the police to speak to you?”
“Not at all,” Carrie said. “Mindy helps clear my walk in the winter. She’s a nice girl.”
I thanked her and headed for my car.
“Becca and Gabe wouldn’t take Mindy back to their condo. They know I have the address,” I said, when Sam and I were inside the Volvo. “Anywhere else they may have gone?”
“My parents’ place?”
“Maybe, if your mom and dad were out of town. Otherwise why involve two more people?”
I was deep in thought as I turned on the ignition. Dean must have told the Quincys that Mindy had asked him about borrowing money against her home. She told Becca she’d changed her mind about that, but Becca wasn’t taking no for an answer. How far would the Quincys go to get their hands on the money from Mindy’s home?
And Riza had asked Mindy not to tell Dean that she’d sent her to him. I hoped the Quincys didn’t know that Mindy had been gathering information for another scamster.
And I’d just shown my hand by letting Mindy tell Becca that I was her financial advisor.
My cell phone chimed. The caller was Hardy.
Chapter Thirty-seven
My ears were still ringing from Hardy’s rant as I drove down Sam’s street in the Annex. He had seemed more concerned that I’d looked up Mindy, than by her disappearance. I’d told him that Mindy was interested in becoming my client, but all he seemed to grasp was that I’d met with a person who might be pivotal to a murder investigation—and met with her behind his back.
“Kidnapped?” he’d said. “The woman left her home with two people. That doesn’t mean she’s been kidnapped.”
“The message in her bathroom? Mindy was screaming out for help. And Mrs. Jacobs next door thought it strange that she didn’t say hello to her.”
“You’ve brought it to our attention,” he’d barked, then disconnected.
But would he do anything? Mindy was in trouble. Couldn’t he understand that?
“Do you think he’ll find Mindy?” Sam asked as she got out of the car.
“Wouldn’t count on it.”
At home, Laura had returned from a four-hour shift at Marilyn Winter’s boutique, and was deep into a book in the sunroom. I joined Tommy at the kitchen table where he was working on a book report.
“How did you like Chocolate Fever?” I asked. The book looked like an easy read for him.
Tommy fixed solemn brown eyes on me. “Henry loves chocolate,” he said, “but it’s kinda weird that’s all he wants to eat. I like chocolate, but I like hot dogs and ice cream and chips, too.”
The telephone cut short my next question. I picked up the cordless phone.
“Pat, it’s Mindy.”
She was using a phone, so I figured she was okay. “Where are you?” I asked.
“An Esso station at Lawrence and Leslie. The manager let me use his phone.”
“What happened?”
“They took me from my home. Rebecca and the man forced me into their car, then drove to a house near here. They locked me in the basement.”
“How did you get out?”
“A window. I climbed out.”
“Can you stay where you are until I get there?”
“Hurry. Please!”
***
I found Mindy standing in her stocking feet inside the service station. “They took my shoes,” she said when I pointed to her feet.
She looked up and down the street before she followed me outside. “Thank you,” she said when she was seated beside me in the car. She was shaking. “They took my handbag, my phone and my shoes,” she said through chattering teeth.
I pulled a blanket off the back seat. “Wrap yourself in this.”
“Thanks,” she said, draping the blanket over her shoulders.
“I saw the message in your bathroom.”
“I hoped you’d try the back doors.” She rested her head on the back of the seat and closed her eyes. “My God! I didn’t think I’d get out of that place alive.”
I was impressed that she’d managed to escape—and without shoes. “You broke the window?”
“When I heard them leave, I smashed the window and tore the screen with my belt buckle. I used the buckle to scrape away the broken glass.”
“What did Rebecca and the man want?”
“As soon as they got in the door, they started in about freeing up money from my house. I told them that you were on your way over. ‘Let’s get her out of here,’ the guy—Rebecca called him Gabe—said, and they hustled me out. He had a gun.”
“A gun!”
“He was pointing it at my back as we left my house.”
He must have hidden it behind a jacket or a briefcase, because Carrie Jacobs hadn’t mentioned seeing it.
“Did they blindfold you?”
“No.”
“You have the address of the house where you were taken?” I asked as I started up the car.
The address she gave me was Ben Cordova’s. I was stunned. Then I remembered that Becca was Ben’s real-estate agent, and she would have a key to his house.
I turned onto Lawrence Avenue, and headed west. When I saw Ben’s street sign, I turned right.
“The house they took me to is on this street!” Mindy cried.
“Get down on
the floor.”
“You’re crazy!” she said, sliding down in the seat.
Becca’s For Sale sign was on the front lawn close to the curb.
Behind it, Ben’s home looked exactly like its real-estate listing photo: a large cream-colored stucco house on an acre or so of land, one of the nouveau-riche mansions that had sprung up in Toronto in recent decades. Its front porch was framed by Ionic columns, and a Juliet balcony was perched outside one of the second-floor rooms. There were no vehicles on the circular driveway.
“You were alone in the house when Rebecca and Gabe left?” I asked Mindy when I had turned around and was driving back east on Lawrence.
“As far as I know I was. But once I got out that window, I didn’t go back to find out.”
Before I turned south onto Leslie, I glanced at the Esso station where I’d picked Mindy up. She’d had a long walk from Ben’s home in her stocking feet.
***
Laura had retreated to her bedroom, and Tommy was watching television in the sunroom with Maxie when we arrived at my house. I sat Mindy down at the kitchen table and made her a mug of strong tea. I stirred in plenty of milk and sugar.
“You can’t go back to your house,” I said. “Can you stay with your parents?”
“Rebecca would find me there. My parents and I have the same surname.”
“Anyone else?”
“My girlfriend’s condo is awfully small; I’d go crazy cooped up in there. I’ll try my sister. She uses her husband’s name.”
I handed Mindy our cordless phone. She spoke to her sister and gave me a thumbs-up.
“I’ll drive you to your sister’s home,” I said when she was off the phone, “after you talk to Detective Hardy.”
***
Hardy took a chair beside Mindy and had her go over the day’s events. He shook his head when she told him that Gabe—she’d started to call him that—had been carrying a gun.
“What was on your phone?” he asked her.
“Numbers of family, friends, and my business contacts. And their e-mail addresses.”
“Call your service provider and have them block your number. And change all your passwords. All of them. Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, everything.”
Mindy let out an anguished cry. “I was minding my own business, and these people barged into my life. Now I can’t go home. I can’t contact my clients.”
She sat up straight in the chair. “Rebecca and Gabe have my phone. They’ll see the messages from Riza, and they’ll really have it in for me.”
“Stay indoors for the next few days,” Hardy said. He had Mindy write down her sister’s address and telephone number. I copied them into my notebook.
“You must have enough to arrest the Quincys,” I said to Hardy.
“We’re looking for them.”
“The house they took Mindy to is owned by my client, Ben Cordova,” I said. “It’s up for sale, and Becca Quincy is his real-estate agent.”
That got his attention. “Cordova’s part of this racket?”
“I don’t know. His house may have just been a convenient place for the Quincys to take Mindy.” I reached for the phone. “I’ll find out where he is.”
I didn’t want to encourage Ben with a phone call, but it was either the telephone or an e-mail. I thought a phone call might be quicker.
“I won’t tell him that Mindy was taken to his house,” I said before I punched in Ben’s cell number.
Hardy nodded. “We’ll handle that.”
Ben picked up on the second ring.
“Pat Tierney here,” I said. “Is your home still on the market?”
“It is. Someone interested in buying it?”
“I have a friend who’d like to know more about it.”
“I’m at my place in Muskoka right now, but e-mail me the name and the contacts.” He paused. “Sounds like you have some time on your hands. Why don’t you drive up here, and stay a few days? The fall colors are at their peak.”
“Where exactly is ‘up here’?”
“Lake Muskoka. A five-minute boat ride from the public dock in Bala.”
“Lovely part of the world. My daughter used to visit friends near Bala,” I said.
“I’ll meet you at the dock.”
“I wish I could, Ben, but I have back-to-back appointments this week.”
“Reschedule them. You’re your own boss.”
“If only it were that easy,” I said. “I’ll tell my friend your house is available.”
Hardy was smiling when I put down the phone. “Sounded like you wanted to visit Cordova.”
“He’s at his cottage on Lake Muskoka.”
“It’s near Bala? We’ll find it.”
***
“Your neighbor, Carrie Jacobs, is worried about you,” I said to Mindy when I pulled up outside her sister’s home in Markham, north of Toronto. “She saw you leaving the house with Becca and Gabe. Let her know you’re okay.”
“I’ll call her tonight,” Mindy said as she opened the passenger door. “Thanks for everything, Pat.”
“Stay inside the house.”
She gave me a nod and got out of the car.
I reached Sam on my cell and told her where Mindy had been taken. And how she’d escaped.
“Becca and Gabe did that?” Sam sounded stunned. “Mindy talked to the police?”
“Yes. The police are looking for Becca and Gabe.”
Sam was worried sick about her sister, but there was nothing I could say to put her at ease. Becca was in a whole lot of trouble.
“Mindy called you when she got out of Ben’s house?” Sam asked.
“She walked over to a service station and called from there. They’d taken her phone.”
“Don’t you find it funny that she called you?” Sam asked. “You’d met her, like, twice? And suddenly you’re her new best friend.”
I didn’t reply.
“She’s with you now?” Sam asked.
“No. I just dropped her at her sister’s home. She’ll be staying there for a while.”
“Be careful, Pat.”
I sat in the car, thinking about what Sam had said about being Mindy’s new best friend. But Mindy had called me because she knew I’d gone to her house, and that I’d wonder why she wasn’t there.
Sam didn’t want to face the fact that her sister and her husband had kidnapped a woman.
I was about to turn the key in the ignition, when my cell phone chimed. “Two OPP officers went out to Cordova Island,” Hardy said.
I had to laugh at the name. “That’s what the island is called?” Ben had named an island after himself.
“That’s its name. The officers told Cordova about Mindy being taken to his home in Toronto. He seemed surprised, claimed he knew nothing about it. He’s driving to Toronto for questioning.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Sam looked up from her computer screen when I arrived at the office the next morning. The welt on her face looked better, probably because she’d covered it with makeup. “Any news?” she asked.
She wanted to know whether her sister had been arrested. I shook my head.
“Ben was part of it?”
“I don’t think so. Becca and Gabe needed a place to take Mindy. Becca had a key to Ben’s house, and she knew he was in Muskoka.”
“Assuming that Mindy was really forced from her home,” Sam said with a sly smile, “what would they have done with her?”
“They’d probably make her take out a home-equity loan.” I didn’t add that Mindy wouldn’t have fared well after that. She knew too much.
But Sam could read my mind. She shrank into her chair and swivelled around to face her computer.
At my desk, I called Mindy at her sister’s home. She told me that her boyfriend had brought over her laptop and some clothes. And that she’d had her cell number blocked.
It was a busy morning. I saw Raymond Saunders at 10 a.m., and a man who had been referred to me by Stéphane at 11:30. After
he’d left, I looked out my office window. It was a miserable, rainy day, and I didn’t feel like braving the elements in search of lunch.
The door phone rang. I heard Sam tell our visitor that she’d buzz him in. Feet pounded up the stairs, then Ben was standing in my doorway, his umbrella dripping on the floor.
“Had to come back to the city last night,” he said. “Have lunch with me, please. I need cheering up.”
“Okay.” I wanted to hear his version of what had gone on at his home the day before.
Sam’s eyebrows hit her hairline as we headed for the stairs.
Ben’s Lincoln was parked in front of a meter down the street. He held his umbrella over me, and we raced toward the car.
“That should sharpen our appetites,” he said when we were seated inside it.
We made small talk on the drive to the York Valley Golf Club. I didn’t know how to bring up Mindy’s kidnapping.
A fire was blazing in the clubhouse’s stone fireplace, and Frank Sinatra was singing “Summer Wind.” Ben found us a table close to the fire, and ordered drinks and pastrami sandwiches.
“My house is off the market,” he said after our drinks arrived.
I gave him an inquiring look and took a sip of chardonnay.
“As you know, I was up north yesterday. My agent and her husband brought someone to the house. Not a prospective buyer. A woman they locked in the basement.”
“Locked in the basement?” It was too late to tell him that I knew all about this.
“Yes, and I have no idea why. All I can say is that Becca knew I was away for a few days.”
“How did you find out about it?”
“The police came to my home in Muskoka. Told me the woman had broken a window and got out. And that the Toronto police wanted to talk to me.”
“Have Becca and her husband been arrested?”
“I don’t know.” He sipped his beer. “Becca Quincy was responsible for my property, and she used it for unlawful purposes. I’ve terminated our contract.”
“Under the circumstances, you should have no problem listing with another agent. Talk to your lawyer.”
Our sandwiches arrived, and we turned our attention to our plates.
“You know someone who’s interested in my house,” he said when we’d finished eating. “Maybe we can work out a private sale.”
Uncharted Waters Page 20
