The Trophy Wife Exchange

by Connie Shelton

  “Can we open that wine now?” Amber asked. She couldn’t sit still, and the moment Pen nodded assent she went to the long granite bar to get the bottle.

  Gracie was staring into some blank spot in the distance. “You know … it does make sense in a way. What the man said about how some type of evidence would have shown up. You’d think a bit of clothing or papers from a wallet, or something …”

  “He essentially said the same thing,” Pen said. “It’s extremely rare for a body to be lost in water and never show up without a trace. It’s the type of case they always examine closely, especially when the insurance policy is fairly new and a claim is filed right away.”

  “Did Kaycie file the claim?” Sandy asked.

  Pen thought about it for a moment. “He didn’t say. He has the death certificate the lawyer delivered to her.”

  “If this insurance company is taking a closer look at Kaycie, they must believe she was in on it. Didn’t you say the vanishee—is that a real word?—the one who vanished often has a cohort to collect the money so they can live happily ever after.” Sandy accepted the wineglass Amber handed her.

  “Instead of thinking we’re tracking a murderer maybe we need to direct our efforts toward what little Miss Kaycie is up to,” Amber said. “I mean, wasn’t her scheduled surgery very convenient? She would have been at the clinic, happily getting her new boobs and planning to meet up with Clint the minute she looked good in a bikini again.”

  “Except for this—surely she knew they would come to inform her of his ‘death’ at some point,” Pen said.

  Amber set the empty bottle down. “So, she thought the news would come later. Events at Clint’s end of the line began happening faster than Kaycie anticipated.”

  Pen thought of something. “Yes. When I called the various business operators near the boat docks, one man made a comment about thinking he’d seen Clint get on a different boat, not Tiko Garcia’s.”

  “So, Clint went off with someone who delivered him to some other place …”

  “And Tiko continued with his part in the play, saying the words he was supposed to …”

  “Kaycie, by being in surgery the day of his disappearance, would be above all suspicion,” Gracie said. “Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought it through well enough to realize she would immediately need to go into the role of grieving widow, which would not include continuing with her surgery and enjoying a week or two in the spa.”

  Mary was fidgety, drumming her fingers on her spandex-clad knees. Pen had got up to fetch the platter of cheese and crackers.

  “I don’t know … I’m not sure she’s that good an actress,” Pen said. “The insurance man said he dropped by their condo to see her a few days after she got back from China. She had no idea he was coming, and he said that girl was a wreck. I have to wonder why she would be crying and moping around the house in sloppy clothes if she thought she was on the way to collecting the insurance money and joining Clint somewhere?”

  “Maybe she was expecting the insurance man? Getting into the role for when the doorbell rang?” Amber suggested.

  “I was with her at the clinic when the lawyer showed up,” Gracie said. “Kaycie was so shocked at his words she nearly fainted.”

  “Because the news came a lot earlier than she expected? Disappointment she would have to leave before her surgery was done?” Sandy asked. “Sorry, I know that’s cynical and not kind.”

  “Not that I’m any fan of Kaycie Marlow, but I think he skipped out on her, too,” Mary said.

  No one spoke for a full two minutes.

  “You do know,” Pen said, “if the insurance company, or the law for that matter, is looking closely at Clint’s finances—watching for him to make a move toward his money—they’ll catch us if we take it.”

  “Ooh—not good,” said Amber.

  “No, not good at all,” Pen said.

  They all looked toward Mary.

  “I hate to abandon our mission to get your money back for you,” Sandy said, “but I agree with Pen. It wouldn’t be smart for any of us to have a hand in taking money from Clint’s accounts. In fact, I’m worried they may already have seen traces of Amber’s searches. Can they do that, Amber? See evidence of a specific computer looking at a bank account? Could they possibly trace back to you?”

  Amber dabbed salt from her lips with a napkin. “The technology’s there, yeah. Whether they can identify me and come after me … hm, I just don’t know.”

  “So it’s back to Plan A,” Gracie said. “We know he’s hidden the money out there somewhere. We find out where he’s gone, try to get the case to court—”

  Mary spoke up. “I say we find the jerk and turn him in.”

  She said it with a smile but there was a definite edge to her words.

  Chapter 52

  Performing computer searches for Clint’s money was one thing. Tracking a man who was determined to hide required a whole switch in methods and attitude, the Ladies discovered. Happy hour at Pen’s house had now morphed into a full-fledged dinner with an array of food delivered from a nearby Thai place. Cartons sat on the coffee table and the women had filled their plates and scattered around the living room on couches and cushions.

  For a good ten minutes, hardly a word was spoken as they concentrated on their churning thoughts and the scrumptious Pad Thai and Green Chicken Curry.

  Mary had excused herself to go to the bathroom when Pen brought up a point.

  “You know … there’s another tactic we could take. Do nothing. Wait it out and see if Clint surfaces again, as the insurance man suggested he probably would.”

  “Meanwhile, Mary is living in a dumpy apartment making barely minimum wage,” Sandy said. “Even if Clint is caught, odds are he won’t move right back to Phoenix and take up his business where he left off. His life has changed forever now. There are guys who disappear—not necessarily playing dead—but they go away and turn up in another part of the country where they’ve been living under a different name for decades.”

  “Plus, it just isn’t right. He stole money, cheated on his taxes, left Mary penniless and now he’s most likely doing the same to Kaycie. How many other women are going to fall under his charms and end up the same way?” Gracie stabbed a hunk of tofu from her Pad Thai as she said it. “He could come back, but he might have run through all the money before he does.”

  “You’re right, of course,” said Pen. “I only thought … these next actions will test our resolve. We need to be sure we’re ready for whatever comes up.”

  “I’m ready,” Amber said. “I am so ready.”

  Mary came back at the moment they were all laughing over their youngest colleague’s kick-ass expression.

  “Okay, then. What’s the plan?” Gracie asked.

  Silence for a time, as thoughts raced.

  “I think we need to ask ourselves, who is likely to know where Clint has gone,” Pen suggested. “Unless he did this entirely on his own, someone knows. If nothing else, the man with the boat in the Philippines—not Tiko Garcia, but the one the bait shop guy mentioned—he took Clint somewhere and dropped him off.”

  “And then …”

  “Clint would have needed an identity, some cash, maybe credit cards in a different name.” Pen thought of the checklist the insurance man had described to her. “He has to be ready to hit the ground running, to feed himself and have a place to stay. Someone created those false documents for him.”

  “And which of us wants to go over there, travel to the seedy underbelly of a society we know nothing about, to root out this fake-ID supplier?” Sandy asked.

  Amber looked as if she might jump at the chance but Pen put a quick halt to that idea.

  “None of us,” said Pen. “For one thing, the supplier of the documents is only one link in the chain. He, or she, likely just made up a packet of papers and cards and handed them over to someone. He may have never even met Clint, much less know what he planned to do with the materials.”

&nbs
p; Mary set her plate aside. “So, it’s pretty hopeless, isn’t it?”

  “Well, darlings, I never said that.” Pen gave a cat-like smile. “We have resources.”

  She had everyone’s attention now.

  “The insurance company, for one. Mr. Muggins told me they have investigators who travel the world tracking down people, especially when there’s a lot of money involved.”

  “But didn’t he also say they would just deny the claim and be done with it?”

  “Most likely, yes. But he’s intrigued with this case, especially after what I told him about Clint’s moving so much money around right before his trip.”

  The ladies looked skeptical.

  “I also placed some calls before you arrived. I spoke with Benton. Although he retired from the prosecutor’s office some time ago, he stays in close touch with his old contacts—golf games are apparently where men do their best talking. He agreed to make a call to an old colleague, Dave Fresnell at the U.S. Attorney’s office, and find out whether Clint is on their radar for any of his activities. If he’s not already being watched, they or the IRS might be willing to open a case, based on his offshore accounts and the convenience of his disappearance.”

  “That’s good,” Sandy said. “It’s a start, and it begins locally. They’ll most likely interview his employees. Mary, it’s possible you could get a call from them. It wouldn’t be unusual for a U.S. Attorney to want to know specific office procedures if they feel a business owner has been breaking the law.”

  Mary took a shaky breath. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to tell them much. From the little bit we’ve learned in the past few weeks, obviously Clint changed his business practices drastically since I was there.”

  Pen gave her a reassuring smile. “That’s all right. Simply tell them so.”

  Gracie carried the empty plates to the kitchen. “Among the others who could know something about this would definitely be Derek Woo. I’m betting he’s in this up to his earlobes.”

  “I can track him,” Amber reminded. “With those cloned passwords, I’ll be able to see his moves and watch his emails.”

  “Don’t forget Kaycie. Even though Muggins didn’t seem terribly concerned about her involvement, it’s possible—even just a little bit—that she’s such a great actress she has faked all this grief and knows exactly where to meet up with Clint at a prearranged time and place.”

  A wave of unease went through the room. How on earth would they be able to find Clint with all his connections and resources?

  Chapter 53

  Amber carried her laptop to a shady spot by the pool at her apartment complex. She set a cereal bar and a yogurt smoothie on the small table beside her lounger. A Tuesday morning in early October was the perfect time to have the place to herself since everyone else in the building was a student. The wireless connection wasn’t as strong out here, but who could pass up a balmy eighty-degree day?

  She signed onto Derek Woo’s email account, pleased to see in the background that he was not currently logged on. A scan through today’s messages didn’t bring up any names she knew, nor any subject lines containing something from her list of sensitive words—Clint, Holbrook, Philippine, fishing, drown, or China—terms the lawyer had used regularly before and immediately after Clint’s disappearance. She considered adding a search for simple terms, such as go or travel, but those might return so many results she’d bog down forever.

  Still, doggedness was one of her best traits. She smiled at her reflection in the screen, then looked around to see if anyone was nearby who might have noticed her preening. The pool area was still empty.

  She decided to go back through Woo’s old emails. With the new belief that Clint was not actually dead, clues could abound, little comments that previously had not seemed relevant. She performed a search on Tiko Garcia’s name. Not a single email appeared on the list. In Woo’s Trash folder, same result.

  “Okay … this is weird,” she said to her computer screen. “You were here a few days ago. Where did you go?”

  She clicked over to another folder, one she’d discovered Woo created for correspondence specific to Clint’s trip to China. When she’d first cloned his computer and decoded the password, the folder contained emails back and forth with Tiko Garcia, arrangements for Clint’s fishing trip, as well as notes between Woo and Holbrook about the arrangements. All those had vanished. Checking a similar folder pertaining to Clint’s business with Tong Chen Enterprises, she found the same results.

  “So you’re a tidy man, Mr. Woo. You like to empty your trash regularly.”

  She tried to remember other names from his earlier correspondence. Rudy Tong—no match. Tong Chen—no match. Seriously? A lawyer who deletes all files on a client’s business dealings? Well, bigger people than you have tried to delete emails only to learn someone, somewhere can find them again, Amber thought.

  She grinned, although having to hack into the server and dig around for Woo’s mail was a pain, a chore she would have to go back into her apartment to perform since all her code guides were in there. She closed the lid on the laptop and sighed before downing the last of her smoothie. Her mother nagged constantly to get Amber outdoors. While her parents hiked the mountains around Santa Fe and Pecos, Amber had been a perfectly content kid when algorithms and formulas danced in her head. She gathered her things and went back to her little apartment.

  * * *

  Pen and Sandy stood outside the downtown high-rise Clint Holbrook had once claimed he built. Even though his statement had turned out to be a gross exaggeration—or an outright lie—the man’s construction business had occupied an entire floor, and Pen wondered how things up there were going now. Was the company in complete disarray (as Mary secretly hoped it would be), or was the business ticking along just fine as employees handled the details to finalize the project in Shanghai and whatever other jobs were under contract?

  Pen reminded herself that Clint never had come back asking about the bid for the so-called concert hall project. But that was then and this is now. She remembered the procedure from her first visit and the two women signed in at the security desk in the ground-floor lobby.

  “Holbrook Construction?” the guard said. “Not sure you’ll find anyone there now.”

  He issued visitor badges anyway and Pen led the way to the elevators. When the doors slid open on their floor, a dim and hollow feeling greeted them. Beside the door to Holbrook Construction the narrow side window showed only blackness within.

  Sandy cupped her hands around her face and stared inside. “There’s an empty desk,” she said. “That’s about it.”

  A sound at the end of the hall caught their attention. Two burly men in coveralls stepped out of a freight elevator, pushing a large, wheeled cart ahead of them. The women slid close to the wall to let the men pass, but they halted directly in front of the Holbrook door.

  “These offices appear to be closed,” Sandy offered.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” said the man in the lead. He had pulled a key from his pocket. “We’re just here for the furniture.”

  Pen noticed their coveralls had patches with an embroidered name: Stockwell Business Interiors. The man with the key was Pete; the other was Julio.

  “Holbrook Construction is moving?” she asked, although she was fairly certain she already knew the answer.

  “No idea where the company went, ma’am. We just pick up leased furniture when it’s a case of non-payment. Three months in arrears, so unless you got the money to get this account up to date, we’re takin’ everything.”

  The ladies exchanged a look.

  “I’m a little upset about this,” Sandy said. “My boss is going to flip out. We had this guy preparing a bid for a job. He’s got all our plans and specs. If I don’t go back with our paperwork I’m in big trouble.”

  “I don’t care about no paperwork,” Pete said as the door swung open. “Far as I know these desks and files are empty, but if you find what you need you’re welc
ome to it.”

  The men headed toward the reception desk, where Pen remembered a secretary sitting the morning she had called on Clint Holbrook with her proposal that he bid on a concert hall. They picked up a lamp and a silk potted plant and set them near the door.

  “May I?” She stepped behind the desk and pulled open each drawer. All empty.

  The trash basket under the desk held a few wads of paper. She picked it up and dodged out of the men’s way.

  “We’re startin’ in here and workin’ our way toward the back,” Pete said. “You want papers from the other offices, knock yourself out.”

  He wheeled the secretary’s chair toward his partner and tipped the desk on its side, then began removing the legs.

  Sandy and Pen dashed through the double doors to the inner rooms.

  “What are we looking for?” Sandy whispered as Pen opened the first door on the right.

  “Anything that might be a clue. I don’t even know where to begin.”

  The room she entered held a drafting table with lamp and a high stool. Two rolled sets of plans lay on top of a two-drawer file cabinet. A quick glance showed standard blueprints, nothing pertaining to Shanghai. They left them behind.

  Four other doors along the corridor opened to empty rooms. Pen remembered her first visit, the feeling the place was largely for show. Now, it appeared no one had ever worked in most of this vast shell of a space.

  The conference room where Clint had taken her the first time looked exactly the same. No doubt the table and chairs were rented pieces too. She wondered if that extended to the small fridge and coffee machine. For all the money he made, Clint Holbrook apparently had spent more on renting than owning much of anything.

  Clint’s private office beyond the conference room was lavishly furnished but the impressive pieces didn’t affect the women, knowing now the whole scene was a façade.