“Las Vegas …” Mary said. “He’s had friends there over the years.”
“But,” Gracie reminded, “he can’t go where he has friends. Clint Holbrook is no longer alive. He needs a place where he won’t be recognized.”
“So, who is he contacting? Someone out there knows what he’s done and has either given him some contact names for his fresh start, or he’s still in touch with an old friend.”
All three looked at each other. “Derek Woo.” Mary was the one who said it. “He’s hiding behind the cloak of attorney-client privilege.”
“We need to get back on his trail, see if—”
A loud knock at the door interrupted Gracie. The Ladies exchanged a puzzled look. Sandy was at work and Pen wouldn’t knock so forcefully. Amber nodded, distracted by another ding from her computer. While she stared at her screen, Gracie looked out the peephole.
“A guy in a suit,” she whispered. “He’s holding up some kind of badge.”
Amber got up and opened the door.
“Amber Zeckis?”
When she nodded, he stepped forward. “FBI. You’ll need to come downtown with us.”
Amber’s eyes grew wide as the man took her arm. Two more agents pushed their way into the room, forcing Gracie and Mary to step to the side near Amber’s futon bed. The agents swarmed Amber’s desk, picking up her computer and all her notes. The items went into evidence bags.
“What the hell is going on here?” Mary demanded.
“Sorry ma’am, I can’t say. Your friend will be at our office, answering a few questions.” He already had handcuffs on Amber and had turned toward the door.
“Wait!” Gracie shouted, but the man kept walking.
The other two agents had simply scooped up everything in sight, short of the paperclips, from Amber’s desk, bagged it all, and were also on their way out the door.
Amber turned toward her friends, her dark eyes wide with fear. “Get my dad—he’s heading for Sedona. He’s the only one who can solve this.”
Of course she meant Clint. Mary and Gracie both understood. The tough question was, how would they get him?
Chapter 62
Pen liked Dave Fresnell almost immediately when she met him. In addition to being young and handsome in his well-made suit and trim haircut, as they spoke she saw many of the same qualities that appealed to her in Benton Case. Honesty and a forthright manner, along with a winning smile, told her he would perform his job with integrity, do the legal thing—and he would do the right thing.
Along with outlining the reasons they believed Clint had hidden his income and stashed money in offshore accounts, she was open with him about the original reason for their mission: that Clint had cheated Mary all the way to homelessness and they wanted justice done.
“Right now we think Clint Holbrook is making his final maneuvers to gather all this money he has accumulated and disappear forever. Once he gets away, he’ll leave two wives and numerous employees abandoned.”
“My heart goes out to your friend, Ms. Fitzpatrick, but I’m afraid spouse-abandonment doesn’t fall under our office’s mission,” Fresnell said. “What you’ve said about his attempting to cheat the insurance company out of a million dollars, setting up unreported offshore accounts, and using false documents to avoid his legal obligation to pay taxes—those are things we can go after. We’ll work together with the FBI and Internal Revenue.”
Pen felt a surge of irritation. Stand up for the IRS or a mega insurance firm, but think nothing about the struggling woman who is barely surviving every day? But she tamped down the emotion. At this moment, she was after results and Fresnell at least had a kindly manner. If he managed to get his agency moving and they caught Clint, the bottom-line result would be the same.
Her phone rang before she could think what to say next to Fresnell. The name on the screen showed it was Gracie.
“I’m in a meeting, Gracie. Can you make this quick?”
“The FBI just showed up at Amber’s apartment and took her away. She was tracking Clint.”
“Hold on a moment,” Pen said. Looking across the desk at Fresnell she aimed her words at him. “Very fast work. The FBI came for one of my friends, apparently because she was making progress toward finding Clint Holbrook.”
He flinched slightly at her accusatory tone.
“I’m afraid I had nothing to do with that,” he said. “You’ve been sitting right here. I haven’t made any calls.”
It was true.
She turned back to Gracie, who said, “Clint is traveling along the I-40 corridor, and we think he’s in touch with Derek Woo. But we’re not sure about that part. He’s contacting someone, though, at each stop along the way.”
Names flew through Pen’s head. Maybe Woo, maybe Kaycie? It could even be someone at the offices of Holbrook Plumbing. Just because the women had debunked the image of his huge office suite downtown, the other shop was still up and running. Of course, Clint could only trust someone who knew the story of his death wasn’t true.
Gracie was talking to her left ear while Dave Fresnell was saying something else.
“Gracie, let me call you back in a moment. Dave, can you find out who at the local FBI office has Amber Zeckis in custody? For that matter, I’d love to know who ordered her taken in and on what grounds.”
He nodded and picked up his phone. After a good ten minutes of noncommittal um-hmms and silent nods as Fresnell jotted notes on a pad, he hung up and faced her.
“Three agents were sent to Ms. Zeckis’s apartment with a warrant issued by Homeland Security when they discovered she had recently traveled to China and hacked the computer of an American citizen working there. The whole thing came on their radar because the Chinese were also keeping tabs on this man and our government was watching both of them. Sort of the spy watching the spy, watching the other spy.”
Pen felt her face go pale. “Is Amber in serious trouble?”
“Depends on what she learned. If there are matters of national security at stake, you bet. She’s in deep.”
“But it wasn’t that at all. She’s been watching Clint Holbrook to keep track of his movement of money.” She fidgeted slightly in her chair. “We had hoped to make a case on behalf of his ex-wife, to get some of his money given to her.”
“In China? Seriously?”
“Well, it’s where he went.” She sat up straighter and squared her shoulders. “We managed to ferret out valuable information, if you’ll just give us a chance.”
“At this point, I think you ladies have done enough. With all due respect to you, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and to Benton Case as a longtime friend, this is where you need to step back and let the authorities handle the matter.” He stood and extended his hand over the desk.
Pen shook it, steaming at the brush-off.
All right, she thought as she left the building and walked to her car. You go through your little bureaucratic procedures and get your paperwork all lined up and assemble teams. You’ll discover Clint Holbrook supposedly died, and then you can go through all the steps to confront and arrest him. Meanwhile, we Heist Ladies aren’t waiting around.
She climbed into her Mercedes and called Gracie’s number.
“Now, Gracie, tell me everything you know.”
Gracie went into a story about how Amber had figured out Clint’s moves from the Philippines back to the U.S.
“He’s here in Arizona right now,” Gracie said with urgency in her voice. “But according to Amber, he could easily head for California or Nevada, maybe the Grand Canyon.”
Mary said something in the background.
“Oh—that’s right,” Gracie said. “Amber shouted out just before they took her away, something about Sedona. It must be where he’s headed now. Amber thought he was most likely in contact with Derek Woo. We don’t know what Clint is driving, though, and all of Amber’s fancy little trackers are gone with her computer and phone. How can we find him?”
Pen thought for a moment. “If the tw
o are planning to meet up, maybe I can follow Mr. Woo. His office isn’t far from here. Do we know what type of vehicle he drives?”
Mary spoke up. “The day Amber and I went into his office, I saw car keys on the credenza behind his desk. The emblem on the fancy keyring was … let me think … I’m pretty sure it was the Lexus emblem.”
“I’m on my way,” Pen said, starting her car.
Chapter 63
Pen’s pulse picked up as she pulled into the parking lot outside the building that housed the law firm. The obvious, easy way to locate Woo’s car would be if he had a reserved space with his name on it, but she had no such luck. Perhaps attorneys these days had such seedy reputations they didn’t want their vehicles too easy to find. She cruised through the lot as if she was looking for a prime parking space for herself, scanning cars for a Lexus. There were no fewer than six in the lot. Four of them were parked on the same row, perhaps a sort of attorney privilege area.
She parked her Mercedes where she could keep an eye on them. Now what? Should she go upstairs and confront Derek Woo in his office? Or wait here until he came out? She was tempted toward the former, considering he might not come out of the office all day, but something told her to wait.
The U.S. Attorney’s office was beginning to move on this situation. The FBI had Amber in custody. Clint Holbrook was on the move and was in contact with someone. As far as she could tell, the only person in Clint’s circle who could possibly know he faked his death would be the attorney. Something told her she was on the right track. She phoned Gracie.
“Mary and I are driving toward Sedona, but we’re still more than an hour away,” Gracie said. “We couldn’t stand to sit around doing nothing, and that’s the location Amber believes he’s heading toward.”
“I was at the U.S. Attorney’s office when you called, so he’s stepping in as well. If you see anything resembling a law enforcement operation, step back and let them handle it. We don’t know Clint’s state of mind these days. Things could become ugly.”
“I wish we knew what type of vehicle he’s driving. At least we could bring the police in on this and have them watching for him.”
Pen saw movement at a side door to the building. “I see Derek Woo. Must go. Be careful.”
“You too,” Gracie said as they ended the call.
Woo glanced in both directions as he stepped off the sidewalk. He wore outdoor clothing—khaki cargo pants, a checked shirt and hiking boots—and had his cell phone to his ear. He walked straight to the row of vehicles Pen had been watching. The lights blinked on a black one as he unlocked it, then he slid inside.
Pen wished she could listen in on that phone call. He didn’t look like a lawyer heading out to meet a client. This could be his afternoon off and the Ladies could be entirely on the wrong track. But at this point she had no other leads. There was no choice but to follow and see where this led her.
He took a roundabout path through the downtown area, stopping at a convenience store once, which put Pen in the awkward position of having to make a U-turn and park in a neighboring pet shop parking lot. If he glanced in her direction, the move would catch his attention. She pulled between two other cars and sat, her engine idling, until he came out with a covered white coffee cup and a small bag. Again, he was talking on his phone. She hoped the call and his snack would distract him from paying attention to the cars around him.
When he joined the traffic on Adams Street, she pulled out of her spot and settled in two cars behind him. She’d written these scenes often enough in her books, had watched a million of them in the movies, but had no clue whether her surveillance technique was any good. He might have spotted her ages ago.
Woo cruised west and got in the lane for the I-17 onramp. If he stayed on the freeway for ninety minutes or so and got off at the exit for Oak Creek Canyon, it would appear Amber’s assessment was right. The man was heading toward Sedona.
After thirty minutes on the road, Woo seemed settled on his way and there was no reason he would be suspicious of another car a mile behind. After all, it was the well-traveled route to Flagstaff and points beyond. Pen pressed the hands-free button on her dash and called Gracie again.
“We’re getting close to Sedona,” Gracie said. “Another fifteen minutes or so. We must have gotten on the road quite a bit ahead of you.”
Or you’re driving as if that minivan were a Formula-one racer. She smiled at the image.
Pen described Woo’s car. “Once you get there, find a spot where you can park and watch the road leading into town. If Derek stays on course, he’ll be a bit ahead of me. Watch for the black Lexus sedan and get into traffic near him. It’s going to be harder for me to remain out of sight in a small town.”
“And if he does something radical?”
“I shall be on the phone instantly.”
“Got it.”
An eighteen-wheeler had gotten between Pen and her quarry so she switched lanes to pass it. When she passed the truck, Woo’s car was nowhere in sight. She almost panicked. Had she become so distracted by the call with Gracie that she’d passed an exit and not noticed?
Her phone rang while she was scanning the road ahead and she almost ignored it, but it was Gracie again.
“What’s happening?” Pen asked
“We think we just saw Clint. We pulled off at Camp Verde to get sodas. Mary spotted him at the gas station.”
“Stick with him. I’ve lost Derek Woo.”
Chapter 64
Pen hit the gas pedal, roaring past three large trucks and a U-Haul trailer pulled by a small pickup, heavily loaded and driven by a small white-haired man. The steep grade as the road climbed toward three-thousand feet had slowed most of the traffic. Apparently, Derek Woo had spotted the slowdown and made his move quickly to avoid being tied up with them.
Pen saw a black dot in the right-hand lane more than two miles ahead, then lost him again as the road curved. Her Mercedes swung into the curve and hugged the road beautifully as she passed more vehicles. The Lexus stayed well ahead of her, but the good news was there were no exits along this stretch. She would have ample time to catch up once they bypassed the slower traffic.
She tried to imagine a map in her head. If Gracie and Mary had, indeed, spotted Clint in Camp Verde, it could mean he had another destination in mind. It made sense. If he felt law enforcement was after him, he would want to stay away from crowds. But, she reasoned, he obviously felt secure enough to have come back to his home country, his home state. What was the man thinking?
Ahead, the black car was in a clear stretch and Pen tucked in ahead of the freight truck she had just passed. An aggressive driver in a dark gray pickup truck with huge tires and darkened windows roared by her, obscuring her view of Woo’s vehicle once again. It became a game—her sleek little Mercedes would gain a space, the gray truck would block her. She might worry it was a government agency that somehow knew she was on this quest and was determined to stop her, but the truck’s bed was filled with off-road bikes and the driver looked about nineteen.
“I don’t have time for these games,” she said, flooring her accelerator and putting more than a mile between them before she slowed.
The gray truck seemed determined to even the score, but the sight of a state trooper’s car in a small pullout in the median changed his mind. Pen held her breath a moment, praying the officer didn’t have his eye on her own movements. She certainly didn’t have fifteen minutes to waste with a traffic stop. The cruiser didn’t move.
Pen was once again within a mile of Woo’s car when her phone rang.
“It is Clint,” Gracie said breathlessly. “Mary spotted him coming out of the Shell station. He’s dressed like he’s going hiking and he’s getting into a white Toyota sedan. I wish we had binoculars—we’d try to get the plate number.”
“Where are you?”
“Far side of the parking lot from him. I’ll follow. Here, Mary, take the phone.”
Pen heard a shuffle as the women sw
itched things around.
“He’s pulling out of the parking lot. I can’t read the number on his license but it’s not Arizona. It’s a New Mexico plate—that bright yellow really stands out.”
Which made sense with what they knew of Clint’s moves. He’d flown to Albuquerque and most likely rented a car with his new identification.
“We’re following him through town. Um, wait. Looks like we’re stopping for McDonald’s.” A little muffled movement. “Yeah, I could eat. Pen, we’re getting in line behind him.”
“It’s a great ploy for following him, but you’ll lose him when he leaves the line and you wait for food. Don’t do it.”
Mary relayed the order, sounding slightly chastened. Pen, meanwhile, saw Derek Woo’s car edge toward an exit ramp. The sign said Camp Verde.
“Looks like we’re getting close to you,” Pen told them. “In case we lose phone signal out here, stick with Clint, no matter what.”
Pen hung behind Woo, who breezed past the businesses near the interchange and took a road that meandered south and eastward.
Mary’s voice came through, breaking up slightly over the sketchy connection. “Blodgett Basin,” she said. “Looks like a campground or hiking area. Clint’s driving in.”
Pen thought back to her meeting with Dave Fresnell. The U.S. Attorney would not be happy that she and her friends had gone against his orders. But they were so close—unless Clint and Woo got away completely, Pen knew Fresnell would discover what she’d done. Best to ’fess up now. Plus, even with three women against the two men, she knew better than to try to apprehend the crooks on their own.
She looked at her phone. Three bars and she was heading into mountainous terrain. She brought up Fresnell’s number and dialed.
“Clint Holbrook and his attorney are heading toward a campground called Blodgett Basin,” she blurted when he picked up.
“And how do you know this, Mrs. Fitzpatrick?”
The Trophy Wife Exchange Page 24
