“I, um …”
“Are you and your friends following him?”
“Well, yes.” There was no way, really, to deny it.
“Dammit, dammit.”
She could practically hear him pacing the floor in his office.
“Look, I’m issuing an order to dispatch State Troopers out to the location. Can you please, please stay out of the way and let them apprehend the suspects. I repeat, do not try to handle this yourselves.”
Pen pictured the man, practically irate, pressing charges for their meddling in a federal case. Worse yet, on a personal level, word of this little incident getting back to Benton. He had trusted her to turn it over to authorities and let them handle everything.
“Yes, sir,” she said to Fresnell.
The connection was lost when she went around a bend in the road. Ahead, she saw Derek Woo’s car crest the next hill. Mr. Fresnell, with his orders and forms and such, could take forever to respond and the situation was happening here and now.
“Screw that, as the youngsters would say.” She pushed her car to its limits and closed the gap with the Lexus.
They came out of the hilly country onto a flatter section and Woo’s car slowed. Pen eased off the gas, dropped slightly behind, saw a sign for Blodgett Basin. When Woo turned at the visitor center, it came as no surprise. A quick glance told her the parking lot was fairly full so she risked following, hoping to blend in.
Blending in, she quickly realized, would not happen here. Wearing the suit and heels she’d chosen for her visit to Fresnell’s office was, at this point, proving to be like wearing a beacon to a star-gazing party. She stood out among the visitors wearing shorts and tank tops, her Gucci bag in sharp contrast with their backpacks and water bottle holders.
There was nothing to be done but play the role her costume dictated. She picked up a folder of manuscript pages she’d meant to leave at home and adopted an officious stride as she headed toward the campground’s business office.
Chapter 65
“Pen!” Gracie whispered sharply and her friend spun around. “Well, I see you dressed for the occasion.”
“Don’t laugh,” Pen said when she walked over to the minivan, noting the others wore suitable casual clothing. “I thought I was attending a business meeting this morning. No idea I would end up out here in the cactus.”
Mary was sitting in the minivan, staring intently beyond the campground’s buildings. “Okay, I’ve caught sight of the attorney,” she said. “He’s heading up the same trail Clint took.”
“They must be in contact by phone,” Gracie said. “Come on, we have to catch up.”
“Mr. Fresnell said he would dispatch State Police,” Pen told them. “Should we wait, just keep an eye on the suspects for now?”
Mary gave her a look. “This wilderness area is huge. Once they get away from the picnicking families, they could go off the trails and disappear.”
“Mary and I will start after them, keep them in sight,” said Gracie. “You can wait here for the police and tell them where we are.”
Without waiting for an answer, Gracie and Mary left the minivan and headed toward the signpost marking the trailhead.
“I’m pretty sure Clint took the first right-hand fork,” Mary said, marching ahead effortlessly while Gracie wished she’d started attending those gym classes. “He won’t go too far.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re already breathing a little hard. He’ll be huffing and puffing in no time.”
Gracie took a deep breath and let it out, pacing herself so she didn’t seem quite so winded.
“Plus, if he’s meeting with the lawyer, I seriously doubt that guy will want to turn this into a full day hike. He’s surely here to collect a fee or something and get back to his office.”
“I don’t know,” Gracie said. “Did you see how he was dressed? He’s ready to spend some time outdoors.”
They walked steadily uphill, side by side, conversing in low tones.
“So, what do you think?” Mary asked. “He’s going to walk Clint way into the desert and do away with him?”
To Gracie, Mary didn’t sound completely unhappy at that prospect. “I guess I hadn't thought that far ahead.”
They came upon a picnic area, a half-dozen small three-sided structures with concrete tables and benches under sloping roofs. Only two were occupied—the nearest one with a family with four rowdy kids and the farthest one up the path, where Gracie spotted Derek Woo’s dark hair and his distinctive checked shirt. She signaled to Mary and they circled to the walled-off side of the shelter. They edged close to the concrete block wall, careful not to dislodge rocks or make a sound.
Gracie wished she’d been able to call to Pen before they got so close, to let her know specifically where they were. The parking lot was only partially in sight now. Hopefully, their friend had watched their progress on the trails.
“Can’t believe it. Do you know how much work and how much cash it cost to set you up?” The voice was Derek Woo’s.
Clint murmured something. The breeze carried his words away.
“That death certificate alone—I had to lay out five grand. The fake ID and new passport … Geez, man, you’re gonna throw it all away by coming back here.”
“I changed my mind,” Clint said. “It was harder than I thought, knowing I didn’t have a home anymore.”
Feet crunched on gravel, Woo pacing. “You damn fool—you already didn’t have a home. We cashed everything out and mortgaged the rest. The loan company is starting foreclosure on the condo this week.”
“But my wife …”
“She’s coping.”
“I want to change the deal,” Clint said.
Mary grimaced at the whine in his voice.
“I don’t even have access to my own money anymore.”
“Yes, because Clint Holbrook is dead. You signed it all over so I could handle it. Don’t worry. You get yourself settled somewhere—I thought we’d agreed it would be in the Far East until you went traipsing off to Barbados last week. Anyway, you get settled and I’ll transfer the cash over to your new account.”
“Leaving Kaycie out in the cold. That’s just not right.”
Mary’s eyes widened and a growl escaped her.
“Shh,” the women heard Derek say.
Mary dashed around to the open side of the structure. “Not right? You pig—let’s talk about what’s right.”
Clint looked as if he’d seen a ghost. His jaw dropped and his face went whiter than ever. “Mary? You look—”
Derek Woo was quicker on the uptake. He glanced toward the parking lot where Gracie spotted two State Police cars with lights flashing. “We gotta get out of here,” Woo said, grabbing Clint by the sleeve. “Now!”
The two men took off, running up the trail.
“Hell no!” screamed Mary, sprinting after them.
Gracie shouted to the family in the other shelter. “Get those policemen and send them up here. Those guys running are wanted by the law.”
The four kids screamed and dove under the concrete table. The father looked as if he wanted to gather information, opening his mouth to ask Gracie a question. The mother took off down the trail, shouting to some hikers to help her get the police.
Clint, his lawyer and Mary were fifty feet up the trail now, and Gracie ran after them. She’d closed the distance and could hear Clint wheezing for breath. He’d fallen behind the lawyer, who turned to grab his client’s arm. When Woo saw the scene in the parking lot below he came to a dead stop. He calmly faced the women and pulled a gun.
“Mary—don’t!” Gracie’s shout was carried away on the wind.
Mary was practically on top of the two men when she saw the gun pointed at her.
Gracie froze in place. Quicker than it could register, she watched Mary adjust her stance and kick out at Derek. Her foot squarely caught his hand and the pistol flew, striking a tall saguaro about ten feet away. It discharged and caugh
t the cactus right in one of its arms.
When Gracie glanced back toward her friend, Mary had the lawyer down in the dirt, her knee in the middle of his back and one arm twisted sharply upward.
Gracie ran toward Clint, determined to be every bit as brave as her self-defense teacher, but her job went far easier. Clint was standing still in the middle of the trail, his hands raised when she approached. For good measure, she grabbed one wrist and turned it behind his back just as the two officers ran up to them.
Chapter 66
“Did you know it’s a crime to shoot a saguaro in this state?” Gracie asked, drawing hearty laughter from the other four.
The Heist Ladies had gathered for a celebratory happy hour at Sandy’s house, a decision made when Pen called to say she’d convinced Dave Fresnell to release Amber. Pen had explained that the young woman was poking about in Mr. Holbrook’s computer to gather information to solve the case and locate the perpetrator of a huge fraud, not to take the money for herself.
Although the U. S. Attorney seemed a tad skeptical of that argument, based on his longtime friendship with Benton and the fact Amber’s findings had, indeed, helped bolster law enforcement’s own case, he was willing to let her go. He issued a stern warning, though, and told her unless the two men admitted their crimes, she would most likely be required to testify at their trials. Since one of the defendants was a lawyer, Amber knew the odds of his confessing to anything were about the same as hell freezing over. But she was here now with a smile on her face.
“The saguaro is considered a protected species,” Sandy said, “although, with tens of thousands of them growing all over the hillsides, I can’t exactly think of them as endangered.” She had her own thoughts on the silliness of certain laws, but she kept them to herself.
“Anyway, it’s one of the many charges against Derek Woo. Along with aiding and abetting Clint on all the stuff he’s charged with,” Mary said.
Sandy poured wine into five glasses, the best bottle of French cabernet in her pantry, and they toasted.
“To the Heist Ladies, and to another successful mission accomplished.”
Amber reached for one of the small plates Sandy had set out and began stacking it with slices of English cheddar, smoked gouda and prosciutto. Both black cats, Heckle and Jeckle, shifted their attention to her.
“Sorry … hungry. They give you one lousy baloney sandwich in that place. I couldn’t even look at it, and some other girl in a spangled bra-thing looked more desperate than I was.”
Mary and Gracie had gone over the story of what they overheard and how the capture happened up on the hillside. Pen’s contribution had been to meet the police in the parking lot and give descriptions, in great writerly detail, of the suspects and their clothing and to send the police charging up the trail after them.
“So, what happens next?” Mary asked.
“As I understand it,” Pen said, “formal charges are being drawn up and the men will be indicted. Trials—most likely separate, as it seems the lawyer will be most willing to throw Clint under the bus if that’s what it takes to get himself off the hook.”
Sandy glanced at Mary, who hadn't eaten anything yet. “What about the money? Our original goal goes unfulfilled if we didn’t get some money out of this for Mary.”
Amber handed a tiny cracker morsel to each cat and set her plate on the coffee table. “I think it’s coming along. When that Dave guy questioned me all afternoon, he had my computer so I showed him some stuff. How Clint and Derek moved money around, and I had lists of the various bank accounts. He wouldn’t admit it to me, but he was impressed with how much we had learned—way more than what his guys found out so far.”
“By the time they piece together their case,” Sandy said, “I think they’ll find, in addition to tax evasion and insurance fraud, that Clint did a lot of stupid moves with his money. If they ever untangle the mess with the Chinese, it will be amazing. I have a feeling Derek Woo’s cousin Rudy and his gang ripped off more money than we can even guess. The price of Clint’s delusions of grandeur.”
“Dave Fresnell told me there would likely be a substantial reward,” Pen said. “The IRS alone offers rewards when information leads to a prosecution for tax evasion. I suggest any and all of that money should go to Mary.”
“But, you all did—”
“There may be more,” Amber said. “I told Dave what our original goal was, to get a divorce judge to reconsider the division of property based on Clint and Mary’s assets at the time. He said that’s not his area of the law, but he admitted he’d had a ‘close friend’ who was cheated in the same way once. He knows people and will help steer the case toward someone who will go over all the evidence in a fair way.”
“It’s all I can ask,” Mary said. “I never wanted to get rich from this.”
“Speaking of getting rich, guess who actually did marry Clint with hopes of getting rich, and guess who isn’t getting her wish?” Amber plucked one more slice of apple from the snack plate. “Yeah, poor little Kaycie has to go back to her dreary little glamour job in television. Until all the assets are liquidated and the debt she and Clint acquired as a couple gets sorted out, she has no access to anything but her walk-in closet.”
“How did you find that out?”
“They put her in an interrogation room next to me. Boy, that girl’s voice can carry when she’s screaming.” Amber showed the cats her empty hands and they turned back to Sandy. “Last I saw, a uniformed guy was leading her out of the building, I assume to go clear out her closet and find new digs. At least that’s what she was screaming at Clint when they passed each other in the hall.”
“Ah, Clint. He’ll never get it, will he?” Gracie said. “He messes up one great marriage to someone who couldn’t be more devoted, then he can’t even treat the trophy wife very well. Did he think hoarding all his money to himself would be a satisfying exchange for all he was giving up?”
Mary’s eyes were sad. “Who knows what Clint thinks? I thought I knew him so well and he turned out to be so different.”
Chapter 67
December twentieth was the first cold day of the season for Phoenix. Christmas lights decorated the palm trees at Fashion Square, and Amber teased Gracie about being bundled up in a down jacket, a heavy scarf and fuzzy mittens.
“You don’t have a clue that fifty-five isn’t actually all that cold. Try growing up in Santa Fe. It’s fourteen degrees there right now.” She mimicked forming a snowball out of the fluffy white stuff in the display outside Romano’s Ristorante. When she tossed it, the flakes drifted back to the ground in a flutter.
Pen arrived, classy as ever in a lavender sweater and winter-white slacks with matching knee-length wool coat, and Sandy came along less than a minute later with hugs for all.
“I’m so glad we decided to get together right before Christmas,” Sandy said. “Two months is too long not to see all of you.”
“I wonder what Mary’s big surprise is,” Gracie said. “Her message sounded so mysterious.”
“There she is now.” Amber nodded toward the front of Macy’s where their friend had stepped off the sidewalk to cross over to them.
Mary seemed positively glowing in a hot pink outfit that accentuated her strawberry blond hair and brought out the roses in her cheeks. She had called the meeting, saying dinner tonight would be her treat. She had good news to share.
“I’m so happy everyone could make it,” she said. “Let’s get inside. I don’t care if the thermometer doesn’t say it’s freezing out here, that wind has a bite to it.”
They were shown to a corner booth and everyone went with the server’s suggestion of a spiced Christmas hot toddy.
“So? What’s the big news?” Gracie asked. “Aside from the fact that you look gorgeous. I’d say you’ve been teaching more exercise classes, judging by the fit of your clothes.”
Mary demurred.
“It’s more than that,” Pen said with a smile. “You are positively glowing
.”
“You got your settlement,” Amber guessed.
Mary nodded. “Do you want details?”
The drinks arrived and they toasted. “Absolutely—details are a must.”
“From the beginning?”
A chorus of yes!
“Well. It seems Clint suddenly became cooperative with the law. As the investigation went on, they discovered some interesting things in Derek Woo’s backpack, including a map of the area, a feathery brush and a collapsible shovel. He had circled a spot well off the trail where few visitors ever go, and they surmise he planned to get Clint to walk out there with him—maybe on a pretense of getting away from the crowds where they could talk, maybe he said he’d actually buried some of the money out there. No one knows because Woo, predictably, lawyered up the moment they read him his rights.”
A plate of appetizers came and they all dug in.
“Clint apparently went on a huge rant against all of us, yelling and screaming about how we had no business investigating him and how dare we follow him out to the wilderness area. Your friend, Dave Fresnell, is pretty cool. He said he calmly pointed out to Clint that we had most likely saved his life. Once they told Clint his own lawyer had planned to leave him out there as coyote food, he caved. They had so much on him, he knew he was going down for tax evasion and the insurance fraud anyway …”
Mary wiped her fingers on a napkin and took another sip of the warm beverage.
“So, a few days went by and I guess Clint did some soul-searching all alone in his cell. Whatever got into him, he admitted he’d been unfair to me.”
“Shall we say it was more like horrible?” Gracie said.
“He didn’t go that far, but as part of the deal, Fresnell’s office agreed to ask for a lesser sentence if Clint would publicly apologize to me and to Kaycie, and he had to make restitution based on the years each of us was married to him. Watching how far Mister Mighty has fallen was actually a pretty cool scene, for a courtroom.”
The Trophy Wife Exchange Page 25
