The Trophy Wife Exchange

by Connie Shelton

  “I agree,” said Pen. “Let him believe he’s succeeded, that he’s pulled off his shenanigans without being caught.”

  The others nodded.

  “In fact, we all should be careful about meeting with Mary in public places for awhile. If Clint suspects anything at all—and it could come from a casual mention by an acquaintance such as ‘oh, I saw your ex-wife having lunch with Penelope Fitzpatrick the other day.’ The smallest thing could alert him. Let’s gather facts, put together a case and then surprise him with it.”

  “Sandy is right. I’ll consult Benton on this, but I’m fairly certain if you want a judge to reopen your divorce settlement case on the basis of fraud, you’ll need plenty of evidence. It’s too risky to let Clint know what we’re up to.”

  “But, I feel like you girls are doing all the work and I won’t be contributing anything,” Mary protested.

  Sandy set a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “You will be doing plenty, especially behind the scenes. Plus, you’ve done quite a lot already by giving us the information you provided tonight. For the near future, we’ll limit face-to-face visits to your stopping by the bank to see me. We’ll get you a phone so staying in touch will be easy.”

  Gracie looked at her watch. “That’s a beep from hubby, wondering if I’ll be much longer, so I think if we’re set for tonight I’ll take that as my exit cue.” She stood and tucked her notebook into her bag.

  Amber, who had been frowning intently at her iPad for the past ten minutes, tapped a couple of times on it and closed the cover. “Me too. Looks like I’ll have a busy day tomorrow.”

  Sandy and Mary gathered glasses and the remaining chips to carry indoors. Pen had gone to the powder room and Sandy turned to Mary.

  “I have a spare room,” she said, “and I’d really rather you stayed here than going to the—wherever you’ve been staying.”

  Mary’s reluctant demeanor returned. “I can’t ask that—”

  “You didn’t ask. I offered.”

  “I’ll stay at the shelter at least one more night. I have to go back for my clothes and things anyway. And then I’ll let you know tomorrow. I’m going to get a job. If nothing else, you and your friends have given me the hope and confidence to get out there and make something of myself. It’s been two months since Mom died, and it’s ridiculous that I haven’t already taken action.”

  Pen emerged from the bathroom in time to hear Mary’s words.

  “May I offer an idea?” she said. “A small loan—”

  Mary sputtered.

  “Only a loan, dear. Only enough to get you into an apartment of your own and get set up with some basic things.” She made a stop motion with one hand. “It’s only practical. You cannot be conducting this sort of business, having these types of private calls from such a public place as a shelter. You need your own place. You’ll get that job quickly, and the loan will be repaid in no time. Really. I’m only looking out for the interests of the entire group.”

  “In that case, thank you,” Mary said with tears in her eyes. “Thank you so much. I’m going to contact the owner of a gym where I used to be a member. He was always so nice to me, even after the split with Clint. I’d love to teach self-defense or lead workout classes, but if all he offers is for me to mop the floors, I’ll do it.”

  Pen took both of Mary’s hands and squeezed gently. “I do believe there are great things ahead for you.”

  As Pen drove away, Sandy turned to her friend. “Are you sure you don’t want a room here for the night?” Privately, she couldn’t see how on earth Mary would be teacher material for a gym, but Pen’s offer for the apartment was nice and eventually something would come along.

  Mary shook her head. “I’d feel more comfortable going back, if you don’t mind driving me? I’m pretty sure the buses have quit for the night.”

  “Okay. I am going to insist on a stop along the way though.” Sandy picked up her keys and purse.

  Mary gave the address of the women’s shelter and Sandy planned the drive so they could stop at a 24-hour Walmart store along the way. A half-hour later, Mary was equipped with a new cell phone and enough prepaid minutes to keep her in contact with the rest of the team for a couple of weeks.

  “Add this to my loans to repay,” she said when they were back in the car, although she was beaming as she played with the buttons on the phone.

  “It wasn’t much. Consider it a gift.”

  Chapter 6

  Clint Holbrook suppressed his elation as he scrawled his signature on the bottom line of the document in front of him. It was the single largest business deal of his life, the one that put his construction company truly on the global map. A five-hundred-million dollar deal—who’d have thought it? Little old Holbrook Plumbing had come a long way from its fledgling days in Apache Junction, Arizona. He reluctantly credited part of that rise in success to his ex-wife’s suggestion that they move the business to Scottsdale. If you wanted to bring in wealthier clients you needed to be nearby. But Mary hadn’t been involved for more than two years now; his own brilliance had led him to get his contractor’s license and to cultivate the contacts needed to put this mega deal together.

  His lawyer pushed another sheaf of papers toward him, indicating two more places to sign.

  Clint rarely thought of Mary these days, other than to make unfavorable comparisons with his new love. Sad, really. Mary used to be a knockout—trim and fit, she played softball on a team when he met her. She played well on the golf course, and her suggestion that they join a club had paid off big when he got his first contracts with some of the more prestigious Scottsdale builders. Of course, that’s when they handled only the plumbing aspects of jobs, installing bathrooms elegant enough to put Buckingham Palace to shame, and then with the trend toward all-out gourmet kitchens, well, his reputation only spread.

  He penned his signature, his eyes focusing on the dollar figures on those pages, which made him think of the bunch of bills arriving soon and reminded him—the deposit money for today’s deal had better reach his bank account soon.

  Derek Woo gathered the signed pages, took one final look through the stack of documents and seemed satisfied. He nudged Clint; contractor and lawyer stood. Across the table, attorneys for Clint’s customer chattered in their own language, so speedily Clint couldn’t catch a word. Finally, the lead attorney gave a slight head-bow toward Clint.

  “Gentlemen, thank you very much.”

  Clint returned the little motion.

  “Your engineers will be at the job site first thing on Monday?”

  “You bet,” Clint said, realizing his speech pattern made him sound like a hick compared to the formality of those across the table. “I mean, yes. I am personally flying to Shanghai the day after tomorrow.”

  Handshakes, bows, a quiet exit as the foreign men left.

  “Well,” said Derek Woo. “That went smoothly.”

  “I didn’t doubt it would,” Clint said. “Hey, can I get you drink? I think this calls for a celebration.”

  “Thank you, but no. I’ve another meeting across town. I’m certain your wife will be in the mood to celebrate with you.” He gave a grin as he picked up a thick briefcase and walked out.

  For a nano-second, a picture of himself and Mary clicking champagne glasses flashed through Clint’s head. He shook it off. Mary had turned into a sour old frump, and once she’d left him and the business so she could stay with her ailing parents, everything between them went downhill. Dammit, when you were married almost twenty years, Alzheimer’s was no excuse to duck out on all the important things in life.

  Kaycie was his wife now and he liked it that way. Young, gorgeous, locally well-known as the main draw on the Channel 3 evening news. If contacts in business were important, Kaycie could certainly bring him a ton more of them than Mary ever did. And, she was the ultimate arm-candy. He was a lucky guy. He picked up his phone and instructed it to call her.

  “Well, Babycakes, it’s time to put on your best dress
and those high heels that always get me fired up—we’re celebrating tonight with dinner and dancing.”

  “You signed the deal!”

  He pictured those sexy dimples framing her perfect, brilliant-white teeth.

  “I did. And I’ve got a big surprise for you. Tell that boss of yours you need some time off.”

  Her perkiness went down about six notches. “Oh, Honey Bear, I gotta work tonight. I’ve got the six o’clock show and the ten, and Johnson wants a staff meeting in between. I think we’re all supposed to grab some kind of quick dinner at our desks.”

  “Tell him something’s come up. Tell him you got a headache or some female thing. I don’t care—this is important to me.”

  “My career is important to me, honey. The staff meeting is about the new fall lineup and there could be network people here. My chance to hint around at a promotion—”

  “Is some network promotion more valuable than the half-billion I’m making on this overseas project? More important than hobnobbing internationally?”

  He could practically hear her wheels turning. Kaycie was a climber, for sure. “Do your first gig then figure a way to skip the rest. I’ll pick you up outside the studio at seven o’clock.”

  “O-kayyy …” She sounded reluctant but he could hear the excitement in her voice. It was a good thing he’d not told her the surprise was a pair of first-class tickets. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face. Collecting his thank-you gift later in bed would just be the bonus for her gratitude.

  Chapter 7

  Sandy Werner drove her little Mazda past the address Amber had given, the upscale condo where Clint Holbrook and his new little sweetie were living. It was a gated complex, four buildings, each four stories tall, typical Arizona style—tan stucco exteriors with some rock accent trim, large windows to let in maximum view, tinted to minimize the glaring sun. Additional sun protection came from tall palm trees, and it appeared there were inner courtyards with acacia, Desert Museum trees, leafy hibiscus and purple sage. A stately row of royal palms led from the guardhouse at the gate, down a two-lane entry road with oleander bushes groomed within an inch of their lives, to a twenty-foot water feature where impossibly blue water crashed over a series of boulders to a mini-lake.

  Just outside the high fence stood a carved sign with the name: Vandergrift Towers. And in much smaller print: Exclusive Adult Living. As if anyone would allow a child to leave so much as a footprint in the perfectly raked pea-gravel which covered rolling mounds of earth. Amber had told the Heist Ladies the average condo price here was in the neighborhood of 1.5 million dollars. Nice neighborhood.

  So, how did a contractor manage a place like this? Sandy wondered. From what Mary had told them, the home she and Clint had lived in was an average three-bedroom and was what they could comfortably afford. Even so, he’d taken out extra mortgages on it. None of this made sense unless TV weather babes made a lot more money than Sandy would have guessed. She processed enough loan applications at the bank she highly doubted that was the case. Unless the minor celebrity’s bonuses included a place like this, then either the kitchen and bath business had taken off like a rocket to Mars, or Clint was living way beyond his means.

  Then again, Mary had told the group there had been money in the bank, way back when. Clint absconded with it, and this address might be exactly where it all ended up. Sandy turned left at the end of the block, hoping for a better view of the whole complex, but a high fence and tall oleander bushes squelched that idea.

  Two blocks later, she made the turn onto the 101 Loop and headed toward the bank. Sooner or later, they would find out the rest of Clint’s story, and if it meant he had to downgrade his fancy new lifestyle and live in a regular neighborhood again in order to do right by Mary, well that was just too bad for him. At the moment there were too many possibilities for Sandy to know how the story went—and it was exactly why she and her team were looking into it.

  She had hardly set her purse on her desk when her phone pinged with an incoming text message. It was from Amber. Sandy automatically began to compose a reply when it occurred to her the questions would consume a dozen or more back-and-forth messages. She opted for a real call instead.

  “Hey, Sandy. What’s up?” Amber sounded as if she were multi-tasking at least four other things.

  Sandy told her about the condos she’d checked out this morning. “I’m going to request a file and see if my bank handled the loan for Clint and Kaycie Holbrook, but I doubt that’s the case. Once he drained his and Mary’s assets, he seems to have moved on to other institutions.”

  “Yeah, probably. What I found last night was elsewhere. But it’s worth a look.”

  “My main question is where they got the money for such a place. Unless Kaycie’s a much bigger celebrity than she seems, most local television talent don’t make enough to qualify for a million-dollar home. The few I’ve known personally live in average, middle-class neighborhoods.”

  “Yeah, hold on a second,” Amber said.

  Sandy could hear computer keys tapping in the background. Something crackled in her ear, like a sheet of paper being wadded.

  “Let’s see … Kaycie Marlow, meteorologist, Channel 3, Phoenix, Arizona. Her salary is listed in the directory of entertainment professionals as sixty-thou’ a year. Certainly not the low end of the scale, but about average nationally.”

  Okay, thought Sandy. Sixty thousand would qualify you for a smallish house in one of the less-pricey valley cities, not much of anything in Scottsdale and certainly not Vandergrift Towers.

  “So, Clint is taking home a half million a year as a plumber?” Her voice sounded incredulous—she meant for it to. Simple math told her it was close to the range he would need to qualify for that place.

  “Well,” said Amber, “that’s the thing I was texting you about. I visited the state Construction Industries website and looked up mister Clint. Looks like he expanded and became a building contractor just about the time Mary was no longer at the office to keep an eye on the financials.”

  Sandy sensed more was coming.

  “Holbrook Plumbing went under the umbrella of Holbrook Construction Inc. when he got his general contractor’s license, although the plumbing branch of the company stayed at the old location. Apparently, there were still enough kitchen and bath remodels to keep his original, core business going. Holbrook Construction Inc. now operates from a high-rise in downtown Phoenix. He leases the top two floors, but I think he leaves clients with the impression he personally built and owns the whole building.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And this happened during the time he’s crying the blues to the court about not having money to split with Mary?”

  “He’s sneakier than that. He waited until the ink was dry—barely—on the divorce papers before he branched out. Doesn’t look like he waited quite that long to hook up with Kaycie Marlow. They were photographed together at several social events while he and Mary were still a legal couple. The jerk didn’t even have the decency to help out with her parents’ situation or lend emotional support to his wife through all that. I tell you, I hate him already.”

  Sandy smiled at her young friend’s dedication to their cause. Still, something nagged at her.

  “Last night you found several bank accounts,” she said. “I wonder how it’s possible for a brand-new contractor with a brand-new business to get the large jobs and make the profits those balances would seem to indicate.”

  “Dunno,” said Amber. “You want me to keep digging?”

  “Unless he took government contracts, I doubt specifics on his bids and costs will be anywhere in a public record,” Sandy said, “but it’s worth a try. Mary’s going to need hard figures and good data if she hopes to make a court case of this.”

  “Got it. I’ll let you know what I find.” Amber clicked off the call before Sandy thought to ask whether she’d printed copies of those questionable bank transactions she’d found the
previous night.

  A tap on her door, one of the tellers with a question, reminded Sandy she still had her day job. It felt as if she’d barely tackled the day’s emails when her personal phone buzzed. A glance at the readout showed it was Penelope.

  “Yes, Pen?”

  “Oh. I meant to leave you a message rather than interrupt your workday.”

  “It’s all right.” I need to get communications under better control if I hope to have a job by the time this is finished. “What’s happening?”

  “Just a quick report. We’ve found Mary a furnished apartment. She chose it because it’s on the bus line and near the place she hopes to be working soon. I’ve put down the required deposits and first month’s rent, and I gave her a ride from the shelter with her belongings. She wouldn’t accept cash but I left a little anyway, tucked beside a lamp on the nightstand. She’ll need food, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Thank you, Pen. You’ve been most efficient this morning, and it was sweet of you to consider the cash.”

  “Well, I’m off to lunch at the country club. Purely work, you know. I mean to seek out a couple of those golf chums Mary told us about last night.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And I thought I would suggest—perhaps we should each send you a little report at the end of day, then we either confer by phone or email once. It seems better than these little dribs and drabs of information you must be receiving from all of us.”

  “Agreed. And it’s a better way to report to Mary without using up the limited minutes on her new phone.”

  Sandy put her phone away and looked at the dizzying number of bank emails awaiting her attention. She couldn’t think straight and decided it was because she’d skipped breakfast. She went to the break room where she brewed a cup of tea and found a picked-over box of donuts someone had brought. Hardly brain food.