Allison Janda - Marian Moyer 02 - Seduction, Deceit & a Slice of Apple Pie

by Allison Janda

  “Marian, is that you?” someone hissed from the kitchen.

  “Yeah,” I hissed back.

  I heard a chair push back and then footsteps padding across the kitchen floor. James peeked around the corner. “We need you in here.”

  “Just a second,” I whispered, shaking out of my heavy winter coat.

  “Now,” he demanded.

  My gaze snapped towards his when I heard the urgency in his voice. Something wasn’t right. I struggled to kick out of my soggy boots. As quickly as I could, I slipped and slid towards the kitchen in my thick, fuzzy socks. At one point, I nearly crash landed into a wall. My mother may not be much of a cook, but she prides herself on a clean home and waxes the floors at least every other week. Addison and I used to take turns pushing each other down the length of the hallway when we were younger. Surprisingly, neither of us broke so much as a nail. “This better be good,” I muttered, rounding the corner with Addison, rubbing my forehead where I’d caught myself on the wall. My outlook brightened considerably when I noticed that Janet was hovering over Mika’s laptop.

  “Hey, girl!” she said, coming over to swoop me into a big hug.

  As tightly as I could, I hugged her back. When we finally pulled away, I gave her my sincerest smile and a squeeze on the arm. I didn’t want to get mushy in front of everyone. I was afraid that if I let my guard down, even for a second, I’d become a total basket case, especially in front of her. I was incredibly grateful that she’d flown so far for a friend in need. “You meet everybody?” I asked, struggling to keep the emotion out of my voice.

  She nodded. “Who is the guy out front running the show?”

  “That’s Frank,” Addison answered.

  “Old friend of my pop,” I added. “They were partners back in the day.”

  “Ah,” Janet responded, wrinkling her nose. “That would explain the third degree.”

  I smiled. “This is the biggest case they’ve had in years. Maybe ever. I’m sure Frank is being careful about who knows what. Plus he probably hopes that his guys can solve the mystery without the help of all us fancy city folks that carry reputations for piecing together these kinds of cases.”

  “Shouldn’t matter so long as we find the girl,” Janet muttered.

  I shrugged. Janet wasn’t from a small town herself. She’d grown up in a suburb of Chicago. It was just a different mentality that you had to come to understand out here. In a case like this, it was easy to unintentionally step on a few toes. The police wanted to appear competent and the more people I brought in from the city to help, the harder it would be to convince Frank and the others that we trusted their abilities. Still, this was my family. No one was going to tell me who I could and couldn’t involve in the search. While there wasn’t a way to express that to Frank, I didn’t have the time nor the patience to stroke egos around here. We had a very small window of opportunity with which to locate my niece. That window was closing with each passing hour. I could only hope that Mika and James were onto something, seeing as how no one else seemed to be.

  “Marian, you need to have a look at this,” Mika said, swiveling his computer screen to face me.

  I quickly scanned the document, but shook my head. It was a large spreadsheet which looked to be plugged with some truly dumbfounding numbers. “Are those John’s accounts?” I asked, confused. “Who has that kind of money?” I paused and looked from James to Mika. “Other than you two.” Both men were self-made millionaires. I’d never actually seen their bank accounts, but based off of something Barry had said to me back before I knew he was crazy, their balances were probably similar to what was on the spreadsheet before me.

  “Those aren’t,” James answered, turning his own laptop to face me. “But these are.”

  Even though it felt incredibly invasive, I scanned James’s screen. It was filled with modest but respectable savings and debt. I nodded my head as I continued down through the spreadsheet. “These look fine,” I mumbled quietly to myself. After I few seconds I moved my gaze back towards Mika’s computer and felt my brow again wrinkle in confusion. “So whose account is this?” The numbers were astronomical and not one of them was debt. James shifted uncomfortably but didn’t make eye contact. Mika coughed and turned to look at Janet. Her cheeks grew red as she glanced down at her lap. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I snapped, moving my hands to my hips. “Just tell me!”

  After a long pause, Janet finally met my gaze. “They’re Rachel’s accounts.”

  I felt my world sway slightly and I reached out to grab the kitchen table for support. Addison quickly snaked an arm around my waist to prop me upright, as well. “What- why- are you sure? Maybe it’s another Rachel Moyer.”

  Mika shook his head. “We’re sure.”

  “A lot of spouses have separate accounts,” I supplied.

  “Like this?” Mika asked, highlighting the last deposit on his screen. “And I don’t mean this in the way it’s probably going to sound but… That’s a lot of money for a waitress to be making.”

  “Maybe she just has another job that we don’t know about.”

  James snorted. “Like what? A call girl?”

  I felt panic rise in my throat. Desperately, I turned to face Addison, hoping for reassurance. “Deep breaths,” Addison whispered. Gently, she grasped my wrists and began flopping my hands around in small circles as Janet came around the table to fan my face with her notebook. “In…2…3…out…5…6…” Addie was saying.

  “Stop it!” I cried, flapping her away.

  “Okay, everybody just calm down,” James cried, raising his hands in a peaceful gesture. Nonetheless, he was looking directly at me.

  I felt myself suck in a breath. Slowly my head began to cock to one side and my eyes narrowed so significantly, I could barely see him. “Calm down?” I asked in a low voice. The air left the room as James shifted uncomfortably again, stood and shuffled a few steps back. I took a long stride towards him to close the gap. “Did you just tell me to calm down?”

  “He did,” Addison said, matter-of-factly.

  “He should know better than to say those words to a woman,” Janet added. “To any woman, really.”

  Mika remained planted in his chair at the kitchen table, barely moving, eyes locked on the fireworks that had been lit all around him. He, wisely, chose not to speak, even when James eyed him in desperation.

  “I just meant we shouldn’t be jumping to any conclusions,” James stuttered. “That’s all.”

  “Shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” I repeated, taking another step to close the shrinking gap between us.

  “She’s repeating herself,” Addison whispered.

  “He’s in trouble,” Janet agreed.

  “Kitten,” James began. I growled menacingly in the back of my throat. James looked pleadingly to Addison and Janet for help but they just smiled and shrugged. Mika remained glued to his chair, unmoving. I continued to stand just inches away from James, curling and uncurling my fists, debating my attack. After a few seconds, James cleared his throat. “It might not be what we think,” he said quietly, taking my furled fists gently in his hands and guiding me back to my chair.

  I paused, blinking at this realization. Suddenly, my brain kicked into gear. “You’re sure that John isn’t listed on a single one of those accounts?” I asked no one in particular.

  Mika shook his head. “Just Rachel. Trust me. We’ve searched every possible way.”

  “I suggested that already,” Janet said quietly from behind me. “That we look for individual accounts. A case I solved a while back gave me the idea. We looked at your parents, too. When there was nothing out of sorts there, I just threw out the idea of Rachel having her own set up.”

  “Why didn’t someone report it?” I asked incredulously, pouring over the numbers again. “Surely the local bank knew. No one keeps a secret around here.” Agnes Thorton was the lead banker at the only bank within about 30 miles. She was older, angry and had a tendency to report on the financial succe
sses and failures of local townsfolk over small talk at the local meat market. It wasn’t legal, but a small town like this ran by a different set of rules.

  “It’s a big name bank in the city,” Mika supplied. “She’s not using the mom and pop shop around the corner like the rest of your family. She’s using an outfit that has been known to partake in some pretty shady business.”

  “Why has no one shut them down, then?” I asked, distressed. “If people know that the bank she’s using is crooked, surely something can be done about it. She can’t be the first person to use it.”

  “No one can prove it yet,” Mika responded with a shrug. “FBI has been on it for a few years. Gathering a case and everything. It’s a fact known among mob bosses that the bank caters-”

  I cut James off with an aghast “mob bosses?”

  “We’re talking the underbelly of society here, Sugar,” Mika told me, standing and coming around the table. James stepped aside so that Mika could squat down in front of me and take my hands in his. I suddenly felt so small and lost, as I searched his eyes for signs of joking. There were none. “Some major criminal players. Killers for hire. Drug cartel. Mob bosses. Money launderers. You name it, they have probably held an account there at one time or another.”

  “But they wire it all to the Cayman Islands just before the FBI can close a case on them,” James said. “Then they disappear for ten years. Don’t ask me how they manage it, I only know that they do. Everyone is suddenly Frank Abagnale.”

  “Sometimes they return under an entirely new identity and get away with it all over again until the government catches on,” Mika added.

  It was all too much. I felt myself sway in my chair as the room around me blurred and spun. At some point, I felt Addison massaging my shoulders as Janet handed me a cold glass of water. I gulped it greedily. “So why would Rachel have- I mean, you don’t think that she-” My mouth grew dry again. My words weren’t making sense — in my mouth or in my head. Suddenly our earlier conversation dawned on me. I whirled around and grabbed Mika’s computer. Reading through Rachel’s accounts again, I began shaking with excitement. “Wait,” I said, pointing to the screen eagerly. “They’re all positive. She doesn’t owe a thing.” I turned to James and Mika. “And if she did, she has plenty of money to cover it. Nothing in here suggests she owes that bizarre ransom amount.” I thrust the laptop at him, hopeful.

  Gently, Mika took it from my hands and set it back on the table. “That’s true,” he said. “But it still doesn’t explain where all of her money came from. Or why she’s holding it at a bank with a bad reputation. These are the questions that we need answered. They could lead us to your niece.”

  “We were looking for one thing but stumbled onto something much larger,” Janet added. “Happens all the time.”

  “Maybe Rachel just doesn’t know about the bank’s reputation,” I supplied. That didn’t sound plausible, though. Even as I said it, the suggestion felt stupid. Of course she was aware of the bank’s reputation. It was over a three-hour drive from where she lived. She’d picked that bank. Had chosen it specifically because it could offer the cover that she needed.

  “Even if that’s true,” James said, “how does a waitress put away over three million dollars?”

  “And if it was legitimate, why wouldn’t she deposit local?” Janet added. “For that matter, why not invest it in stocks and bonds and things that make sense, instead of collecting on some crappy low interest rate? Set some aside for Riley’s college fund?”

  My heart ached at the mention of my niece. “You’re wrong,” I said, stubbornly, feeling the lie slip easily from my lips. “Rachel can’t have had anything to do with this.”

  “Thank you, Marian,” said a frosty voice behind us. Slowly, we turned to see Rachel standing, arms crossed, in the entrance to the kitchen.

  The room suddenly felt significantly smaller than it had a few moments ago. I grew red with embarrassment, knowing full well that I’d defended her because she was family, not because I was sure of her innocence.

  Rachel took a moment to glare at everyone but me, her body language defiant. Her beautiful blond hair spilled in flat sheets over her shoulders, her bright eyes narrowed in accusation. She was slightly skinnier than was probably healthy, but perhaps it was the strain of the situation. Then again, she’d never seemed quite so tiny and bird-like before. My imagination was running away with itself, imagining her on drugs of every kind that were quietly speeding up her metabolism, wasting her away to almost nothing. I shook my head to clear it.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as Rachel continued to scan my small crew, gathered tightly in the kitchen. For as long as I’d known her, which was over ten years, Rachel had always come across as your typical, gorgeous dumb blond. Cunning and deceitful had never actually crossed my mind as words to describe her. Still, standing there was an entirely different person than I had come to know. I found myself wondering if this was a side of her that my brother was familiar with. I’d have to ask him when no one else was nearby.

  “Tell me, Rachel,” James said slowly, breaking the silence, “why do you feel the need to hide over three million dollars in a secret bank account?” His hands were pushed deep into his pockets and he rocked back on his heels, staring her down curiously.

  “I should have you arrested,” Rachel growled. “All of you.” She turned to look down the hallway to make sure that no one else was awake and ready to join our conversation. I felt myself shrink back slightly at her anger. Being a rather passive-aggressive person myself when it came to unhinged emotion, I tended to avoid conflicts whenever possible. I could see that this wouldn’t be one of those instances. The only solution was to make myself small — very, very small.

  James held out his wrists as though he were awaiting handcuffs and smiled. Rachel continued to level him with a glare. “I’m waiting, Peach,” he told her with a wink. “Silver is one of my better colors. Try not to make them too tight, though. I have sensitive wrists.”

  Huffing, Rachel stepped past James and into the kitchen. “Why are you hacking into my bank accounts?” she asked Mika. James smiled to himself and turned, offering me a wink. I was frozen in place, unsure of how I could defuse tensions before they crept any higher.

  “We were looking into Riley’s kidnapping,” Mika began.

  “And you thought you’d find her whereabouts in my savings account?”

  “We thought,” Mika said patiently, “that if she’d been kidnapped as a bargaining chip for a debt you or your family owed, that it would be faster to find it in your financials than it would be to pry it out of you. Especially if the activity that you owed for was illegal,” he finished, lingering on the last word a moment too long.

  Rachel fixed him with a look but said nothing. I swallowed so hard that I could hear the gulp in my ears. My brain was still frozen — my body watching, waiting to see what would happen next.

  “So where did it come from?” Addison asked. She was adding to her story. It was going to be another award nominee, I could tell from the edge in her voice. I was torn between getting answers and smoothing over everyone’s feelings and egos. So torn, in fact, that I was totally unsure of which to do first. I continued to stare dumbly as the conversation unfolded before me.

  “That’s none of your business,” Rachel snapped, whirling towards Addison, who smirked. Rachel was losing her cool and everyone knew it. Losing your cool was the first step towards slipping up.

  “Oh, but it is,” Janet told her, stepping close. Her hair was pulled back in a tight, sensible bun. Her entire demeanor echoed calmness and total control. I tried to channel her energy by closing my eyes and inhaling a few deep breaths. “Something is telling me that your hidden account is crucial to the case,” Janet continued, “and we just want to know why. That’s all.”

  Without warning, Rachel’s face crumpled and she began to cry. My heart ached for her, but as I reached out to take her hand, Addison stepped in front of me.
“Save it,” she snapped at Rachel, whose tears ended as abruptly as they’d begun.

  “Fine,” Rachel hissed.

  “What just happened?” I asked, confused, but no one was listening to me. They were waiting for Rachel to make her next move. It was a game of chess and I’d never learned how to play. Or perhaps, as Addison had mentioned earlier, I was simply too close to the situation.

  Despite the charade of tears, Rachel didn’t seem to be baiting herself any further. In fact, she just seemed to grow more and more closed off towards us. Taking a moment, she stepped around James and went to peek down the hallway, needing to confirm that we were her only captive audience. It worried me to think that she was hiding a piece of herself from my family. How had we missed it all of these years? Finally satisfied, she took a deep breath and turned to look me straight in the eyes. “What if all of that money does have something to do with the case, but I can’t tell you what it is?”

  My stomach dropped into my butt and I contemplated throwing up. She couldn’t be serious. “Why can’t you tell us?” I asked, my voice louder and more shrill than I’d intended. At a young age, my brother had nicknamed me The Teapot. Whenever I lost my cool, my voice would raise several octaves, devastating the eardrums of my offender. Everyone in the room tensed, their faces scrunching in pain, then turned and shushed me. I felt my hands ball into rigid fists but I kept them both locked to my sides, my mouth clamped shut. I’d never punched anyone, but I had a feeling that the milestone was fast approaching if my sister-in-law was to blame after all. John would be devastated and my parents, well, they could very well die from the shock.