Lucy opened the second door just as easily, then the third. She stared down inside the square compartments that made up the three safes. Things looked tidy, and everything was neatly bundled. She started with the first one and gave the contents a cursory inspection. Deed to the house, no mortgage; titles to the two cars, the wrecked Mercedes and the Range Rover. Both paid in cash. Insurance papers, homeowners’, car, and life insurance. Two policies for ten million dollars each with the beneficiary either her mother or her father, and if both were deceased, then she became the beneficiary. Two wills in blue covers, the same as the insurance policies: if both died, she was the sole beneficiary. There were bequests to people she didn’t know and had not ever heard of. The dates on the wills, as well as the insurance policies, were the year she turned ten and was sent off to boarding school.
Lucy frowned at the thought. Her parents had sent her off to a boarding school and out of their lives, then had taken out enormous insurance policies and made a will. Why? It didn’t make sense. A yellow folder held brokerage statements from Wells Fargo, current as of the last quarter. Lucy blinked. She had no idea being a doctor could yield the kind of money she was looking at. Astute investing? An itch settled between her shoulder blades and worked its way up to her neck. There was something wrong here. She could feel it. A small check register, the kind you could carry in your purse, was current for the year, with the entries clearly legible. Household expenses, utilities, and entries she didn’t understand. Later, she could try to figure that out. The current balance was $17,866.03. January’s balance had started with $67,000.00, with a check written to a name she didn’t recognize for $50,000.00. Other than that one check, there were just ordinary expenditures.
Lucy replaced everything the way she’d found it and moved on to the second compartment of the safe. Three ordinary cigar boxes were nestled inside. Not exactly ordinary. They were Cuban cigar boxes. She could smell the faint scent of tobacco. She opened the first box and stared down at what seemed to be dozens of passports. Mostly blue, but some were other colors. She looked through them. Different names on each of them, but all the pictures were of her mother and father. All the passports were heavily stamped from all their travels. Why did her parents need other identities? She started to feel sick to her stomach, and it wasn’t from lack of food.
Lucy opened the second cigar box and saw credit cards, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and at least a dozen different driver’s licenses, with names that matched the names on the passports. Aliases. Most of the licenses were international; only four were American. The names matched the passports and credit cards. Were they all forgeries?
Getting sicker by the moment, Lucy reached for the third box. This one had two thick rubber bands around it. She removed them and gasped. She looked down at stacks of thousand-dollar bills. A hundred to a pack. Rainy-day money?
“My ass!” The words exploded from her mouth like gunshots. Getaway money? Take-it-on-the-lam money? At the bottom of the box was a small envelope, the kind a party invitation might come in. Inside was a slip of paper with nothing but rows of numbers. You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know these were numerals for numbered bank accounts somewhere in the world, thanks again to her movie knowledge.
Lucy rocked back on her heels as she tried to fathom what she was seeing. She packed up the money and put the rubber bands back on the cigar box. She eyed the third compartment of the safe and cringed, but she knew she had to open it. Steeling herself for what was to come, she gingerly opened the door of the safe, almost expecting a bomb to go off. She looked down into the depths of the compartment and wanted to scream. Six guns. Two Glocks. Two SIG Sauers. Two Berettas. This time, her movie knowledge didn’t help her. She could clearly identify the makes of the guns because they were carved into the handles. Boxes of magazines—bullets were her words—completed the contents. Dear God, were her parents terrorists, mercenaries? She slammed the door shut and scooted back to the wall.
She had to think. Think! her mind screamed. She felt numb, unable to think. All she could do was test the safe doors to make sure they were locked. And then she pressed the button on the umbrella. She watched, her eyes as big as saucers, as the floor slid back into place. She started to hyperventilate then. She dropped her head between her knees and struggled for air. That was when she realized there were no income-tax records in the safe. She bolted upright and ran from the room, down the stairs to the kitchen, where she grabbed her purse off the counter and ran out to the garage, where she raised the garage door and backed her car out. She had to get out of there right now.
She drove through the pouring rain until she saw the garish lights of a steak house on the right, an eighth of a mile in the distance. She put on her blinker and drove into the lot, where she sat in the car and cried.
Lucy had no idea how long she sat there; a long time, she was sure. Finally, she dried her eyes, blew her nose, smoothed down her hair, and got out of the car. She ran through puddles up to her ankles. She was soaked. People were staring at her. She stared back. A hostess offered a towel. She realized she couldn’t sit and eat in soaking-wet clothes with the air conditioner going full blast. For sure, this was no time to catch cold or, worse, pneumonia. She ordered a steak, a baked potato, and a garden salad to go. She stood dripping by the front door, hoping against hope that she didn’t look as deranged as she felt.
She shoved bills into the waiter’s hands, knowing she was paying too much for the food she had ordered, but she didn’t care. Minutes later, after she’d slogged her way through the parking lot, she was back in her rental car and headed back to her parents’ house.
Her parents’ house!
Chapter Four
Lucy chomped her way through her dinner, barely tasting it, her head buzzing with her newfound discovery. Her head felt like an overactive beehive, her thoughts buzzing every which way as she finished her meal. She reached into a fresh doughnut bag. Knowing what a terrible sweet tooth she had, on her way home from the steak house she had gone past the drive-through and stocked up on chocolate-covered doughnuts, some for that evening and some for the morning.
When she finished eating, she tidied up and carried the take-out containers to the trash can, which she had finally noticed beside the garage. She took a moment to wonder what day the trash pickup was. Back in the house, Lucy started to pace. She always paced when she couldn’t make sense of something that was troubling her. Her thoughts kept taking her back to the strange-looking safe in the floor of the walk-in closet. Where were her parents’ birth certificates, their IRS records? Another thing that bothered her was the lack of a calendar anywhere in the house. Everyone had a calendar. She herself had three back in New Jersey. A person needed a calendar. Had her parents spent the last five years of their lives living in a bubble, a cocoon of some sort, where dates and times had no meaning? God, she was getting a headache just thinking about all the odd and disconcerting things she had learned since she had arrived in Florida.
“How could you do this to me? How?” she wailed. “I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. This is above my pay grade. This isn’t fair!” she screeched at the top of her lungs. This is good, she thought. Let it out. Don’t bottle it up. Scream till you’re hoarse, if it will make you feel better.
Which was precisely what she did. But it didn’t help; she didn’t feel any better than before. Then she cried. Not for the death of her parents, but for the ugly position she found herself in.
Satisfied that the kitchen was tidy and the doughnut bag closed tight, Lucy turned off the lights and made her way upstairs. Sometime during the past hour, her chaotic thoughts had led her to a decision to go on the Internet and see if she could take care of matters that way. She remembered the name of the lawyer who had drawn up her parents’ wills, so she could Google them, then e-mail and fax them copies of the wills, although she was sure they had copies of their own. If she could get all of that out of the way that evening, she would be able to pack up her p
arents’ belongings and head for home at some point the next day. The rest of whatever she had to do she could do from New Jersey. She could get boxes from The UPS Store, load up everything, and, with any luck, be on the road by noon. First, though, she’d have to open the damn safe again to get out all the papers.
But that left a great big question: What should she tell the lawyer about the contents of the second and third compartments? Maybe that was something she should keep to herself. As to the arsenal in the compartment . . . was it actually legal to transport six guns, plus ammunition, across state lines? Maybe she could pack them in the clothes in the boxes she got from UPS. The ammunition could go in another box. When she got back home, she could decide what to do with the guns and ammunition. Just the thought made her shiver.
Lucy opened the safe, took out the papers she needed, then made her way to the room her parents had used as an office. Since she still couldn’t use the desktops, she flipped open her own laptop and went to work. First, she Googled the law firm of Schwager, Schwager, and Schwager. Robert Schwager, Stuart Schwager, and Sara Schwager. A family firm. That was good. All three looked like serious, no-nonsense lawyers. Between them they had a lot of years of experience, and Robert, also known as Bob, had taken a case all the way to the Supreme Court and won it. Another plus. At six hundred dollars an hour, they had better be good, she thought.
She scrolled down until she found an e-mail address. She fired off a message, short and to the point. Her bottom line was for the firm to get in touch with her after she returned to New Jersey. She looked for a fax number and immediately faxed copies of her parents’ wills, along with a copy of her own driver’s license and voter registration card, and a copy of one of her credit cards, together with her address and phone number back in New Jersey. Death certificates. She sent off another e-mail to the law firm, saying she would fax them copies in the morning, after she picked the certificates up from the funeral home.
Her third e-mail went to the Dial Funeral Home, asking them to have a dozen copies of both parents’ death certificates ready for her first thing in the morning.
The next thing Lucy did was Google the insurance companies that had written the astronomical policies her parents had taken out years and years ago. She photocopied the benefits page, sent her pertinent personal information, and promised them copies of the death certificates in the morning. She informed them in the same e-mail that she would be leaving Florida the next day and to contact her in New Jersey.
Lucy decided she could wait until she returned home to deal with the wrecked car and the Department of Motor Vehicles. Dealing with the DMV was a pain in the neck, as she knew from personal experience, so why put herself through more stress any earlier than she had to? The cars were undoubtedly part of her parents’ estate, so maybe the law firm could handle that end of things. She made a mental note to ask that very question when she e-mailed and faxed the certificates in the morning.
Finally, she was left with the big question, What should she do with the money, the forged passports, and all those forged credit cards and driver’s licenses? Let sleeping dogs lie, at least for the moment, she decided. Obviously, no one knew about them, so for the present, lying low was likely the best course of action. Why look for trouble when it might be avoidable?
Lucy turned off her laptop, returned all the papers to the safe, then pressed the button on the crazy-looking umbrella. She couldn’t help but wonder what genius had come up with that. Pure James Bond.
It was too early to go to sleep, but Lucy decided to take a nice hot shower, crawl into bed, and watch some television until she fell asleep. But before she did that, she had to call her best friend, Angie, and tell her what was going on. She’d first met Angie in college, where they were roommates. She was from New Jersey, too, lived in Ridgewood, twenty-five miles from where Lucy lived. They spoke daily, e-mailed and sent each other text messages, and tried to meet up every other weekend for girl time. Of late, though, Angie had been spending more and more time with her on-again, off-again boyfriend when she was not traveling on her job. At last word, they were on, or at least they had been before Lucy had made the trip down to Florida. Lucy hauled out her cell phone, only to find that the battery was dead. No bars. And she had forgotten to bring the charger. At least there was a landline she could use. She thought about going back downstairs and getting her parents’ cell phones, but she remembered that when she had tried to turn on the strange-looking phones, she’d had no luck. They had just looked at her, as if to say, “Who are you kidding?” Probably more James Bond gizmos.
Angie picked up on the third ring. She didn’t even give Lucy time to say anything other than hi. “Where are you? I’ve been calling you for days. I even drove down there, and you were gone. You had a ton of mail, and I took it into the studio. There was a bunch of FedEx stuff in your box, so I took that in, too. Why haven’t you called me? I was worried sick. You always tell me when you’re going out of town. We agreed, Lucy, that we would always tell each other when we would be out of touch. Well? Say something!”
“My parents died, Angie. I’m down here in Palm Royal. I’m sorry I didn’t call. It was such a shock, you know. And my cell phone is dead, and I forgot to bring the charger. I have been . . . busy. God, have I been busy.” Suddenly, Lucy stiffened. What if this phone was bugged? She told herself to stop being so overly dramatic. Still . . .
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Do you need me to come down there? I can get a flight out first thing in the morning. Oh, Lucy, I am so sorry. What can I do? I feel so bad about not being there for you. And all I’m doing is bitching at you. . . .”
“I know. It’s okay. I think I’m still in shock. I can’t believe it. They’re gone, Angie. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m going to drive my father’s Range Rover home. I can’t leave it here. I think I have just about everything under control. All I have to do is pack up their clothes and personal items first thing in the morning. Then I can start out.”
“That has to be at least a fifteen-hour trip, and you won’t have a cell phone. Don’t try to do it all in one day, okay? Can’t you pick up one of those throwaways and charge it in the cigarette lighter?”
“Good thinking, Angie. I will do that before I start out, and I’ll call you with the number and we can talk while I drive. So, how’s things?”
“Well, that’s one of the reasons why I was trying to call you. I finally took your advice and kicked Brad out. He went kicking and screaming, but he went. I caught him with another girl at Starbucks day before yesterday. They were all kitchy koo. When my blood started to boil, I just booted him and all his designer clothes out of my place. My job sucks, and they’re talking layoffs. I’m low man on the totem pole, so I’m getting my résumé together. I don’t fancy myself standing in an unemployment line, I can tell you that.”
“Stop right there! I have the perfect job for you. I want to hire you. Or, rather, IBL wants to hire you. Pack up and leave all that behind you. I would have made the offer to you sooner, but you were so wrapped up in that go-nowhere guy, I knew you wouldn’t take me up on it. We can be partners in all but name. Officially, you will be my director of graphic arts. I’ll pay you three times what you were making at your company, and with me, you will get to use your talents. Naturally, your compensation package will have generous stock options.
“The board of directors wants me to expand IBL. You know, coloring books for kids, stickers, storybooks, a whole bunch of stuff. I know you like the cartoons, so you could head up that part of the operation. You’re a great graphic artist. I’ve also got something in the works, but I don’t want to talk about it just yet so I don’t jinx myself. We’ll have to hire a few assistants if you sign on with me. So, what do you say?”
“I’m throwing stuff in my suitcase as we speak. I’ll head out first thing in the morning and be there before you get home. Shoot! I have four more months to go on my apartment lease. I don’t have eight grand to pay it off.”
“I’ll pay it. Sto
p worrying. We can take care of that when we get together. Just give them notice in the morning. What about your furniture?”
“It’s all secondhand IKEA, so, no, I don’t want it. I’ll tell the property management company. Maybe they know someone who will want it, or they can rent it furnished. Lucy, I don’t know what to say. This is so beyond generous. I will pay you back if you pay off my lease. That’s a promise.”
“Would you do the same for me?”
“Well, yeah, I would, but still. . . .”
“Do we have a deal, then?”
“Lucy, we do indeed have a deal. Thanks. Question. Am I going to live with you in the big house, or should I start looking for an apartment?”
“I’d like it if you moved in with me, Angie. You know how I hate that house. I was thinking today that I’m going to donate all the furnishings and redo the house to the way I would like it to look. The first thing I’m going to do is go out to the farmer’s market and buy a boatload of pumpkins and stuff and decorate the front porch for Halloween. How about it?”
“I’m in. We can recapture our youth.”
“What youth?” Lucy asked, bitterness ringing in her voice.
Without missing a beat, Angie responded, “The childhood you missed. We’ll make up for it. Hey, let’s dress up in costume and stand on the porch when the kids come trick-or-treating!”
“Sterling idea. That’s a plan. Okay, listen, I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Brad.”
“Liar!”
Lucy laughed as she replaced the phone in the case. She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the phone. If anyone was listening, she hadn’t said a word to give anything away. God, I am paranoid. Yeah, well, false identities, guns, and ammunition in a crazy-ass safe the likes of which I’ve never seen would make anyone paranoid, not to mention that equally crazy James Bond umbrella, plus the weird cell phones.
Forget Me Not Page 4
