The headboard was yielding under Emily’s grip. As she leaned her weight on the crossbar, she could see its ends breaking free from the corner posts. The joints had only a fraction of their grip. If she had a hammer, she could probably knock them free with a single swing.
Not that she wanted to be free right now. Her two guards were still in the house. She could hear them moving around on the floor above. Rita was due to bring down her lunch sometime during the next hour. Mike might come down at any time to record another horror message or just simply to enjoy her terror. She couldn’t let them find her in a broken bed. As soon as she was free, she had to begin her escape through the drop ceiling and that would take time. She had to bide her time until they were both asleep or both out of the house. Otherwise one of them might walk in while her legs were hanging down through the roof.
She stopped forcing the bar and bent to blot up the small traces of wood dust that were on the floor. Then she swung the chain over the corner post and got herself back onto the bed. Within seconds, she heard footsteps padding toward the top of the stairs, and then the bolt snapping open. Rita came down with a small tray.
“Just a sandwich,” she said as she put the tray on the table. “It’s cheese. I hope you like it with mustard.” The woman was almost pleasant. She found the key in her jeans pocket and unfastened the hands that Emily offered. Then she watched sympathetically while Emily tried to massage the blood back into her wrist.
“You’ve been exercising, haven’t you?”
Emily felt a jolt of fear. “What do you mean?”
Rita’s hand brushed up the side of Emily’s face. “You worked up a sweat. What were you doing? Leg lifts?”
“Yes,” Emily lied. She stood up from the bed and went into the bathroom.
“I used to do aerobics,” Rita called after her. “But it was a waste of time. You can’t fight age, can you. Neither of us is getting any younger.”
Flattery can’t hurt, Emily thought. “I wish I were in as good a shape as you. You probably don’t need a lot of exercise.” She washed her hands and splashed water on her face and neck. Then she went to the table where she began to quaff down the sandwich.
“Take your time,” Rita said. “No need to put the bracelets back on you until I have to go out.”
Emily’s face snapped up from her plate. “You’re going out?”
“Just to get a few things. But I can leave you with only one handcuff. Mike will be here, so you’re not going anywhere.”
Emily stood slowly, drawing the gown around her. “Please, don’t go. Don’t leave me alone with him. I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be. That’s to scare your husband. It’s not you he’s after. It’s the money.”
“He’s been all over me. And he told me that he’d be back when you were gone.”
Rita’s quickness caught Emily offguard. She crossed the space between them in two lightning steps, her open hand flying through the air as she came. The blow cracked across Emily’s cheek, sending her reeling back against the wall.
“Mike doesn’t need anything from you,” she said in an angry whisper. “I give him everything he needs … or wants.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Just don’t try to come on to him. It won’t do you any good because he isn’t interested in you. And you don’t want to do anything that makes me mad, because then you’d really be in trouble.”
Andrew Hogan decided not to use the telephone. He wanted to be face-to-face with Walter Childs when he told him. In all his years as a detective, he had never met anyone who could completely hide his reaction to bad news. Walter’s expression would tell him exactly how much he knew about his lover’s activities in Grand Cayman.
He held up a hand to stop Joanne from announcing him, opened the door, and walked directly to the desk. Walter’s eyes showed his amazement when he looked up.
“What?” he stammered. “What happened?”
“Two couriers showed up for the money.” Andrew said. “We caught them and ended up talking to their boss.”
“What did he say?”
Hogan kept focused directly on his eyes. “They’d been told to make a pickup and deliver it directly to a private jet hangar at the airport. The caller was a woman who said she would identify herself by showing them the account number. She paid with a check for five thousand dollars drawn on the account.”
Walter seemed to be digesting the information. Nothing in his expression hinted that he might have known about the arrangements in advance. “The courier service was willing to do that?” he asked in what appeared to be genuine surprise.
“In the Caymans, that isn’t unusual. Or at least that’s what the couriers say. There’s a lot of money laundering by people who don’t want to leave their name and who don’t wait around for the paperwork.”
“Who did you find at the hangar?” Again, Walter seemed honestly eager for information.
“No one,” Andrew admitted with an expression of despair. He fell into a side chair.
“No one!” Walter’s expression turned to anger rather than to relief. If he already knew all the details of the ransom payment, he was doing a wonderful job of playing innocent. “Then you blew it!” He was up on his feet. “You played Russian roulette with Emily’s life and you lost!”
Hogan smiled cynically. “Not quite. My guys found the pickup person before they ever got to the airport. Turns out someone else was following the courier, too.”
Walter backed up a step. “Who in hell was it?”
“Your lady friend. Angela Hilliard.”
The shock that registered in Walter’s eyes looked real. “Angela! That’s ridiculous. She’s with a client.”
“She was with a client,” Andrew corrected. “We followed her down to Boca Raton where she spent most of Thursday with one of the bank’s customers. But she gave our people the slip.”
“You followed her?” Walter interrupted.
“Of course. Her. The other officers. Even you. We’re keeping an eye on everyone. But when we lost her in Florida, we had no idea she was heading for the Caymans. It was just luck that we identified her. The guy who had followed her to Boca Raton was sent down to Grand Cayman after he lost her. He was the only one down there who could have recognized her and even he wasn’t too sure. She was in disguise … dressed very differently.”
“A disguise?” Walter’s mind seemed to be reeling. “What in hell would Angela know about a disguise? This whole thing is crazy.”
“She’s on a plane right now, headed back up here with our investigators. They’re due to land at La Guardia around seven. I think we all ought to gather right here at, let’s say, eight o’clock.”
Walter bristled. “And in the meantime, what do we do about Emily? Just … let her die?”
“No. I think your girlfriend is going to be able to tell us where Emily is. Or, at least, be able to tell us who has her.”
“Damn you! Can’t you get it through your thick skull that Angela isn’t in on this.” Walter’s eyes were flooding with tears of frustration. “She’s been insisting that I do everything possible to get Emily back.”
“Insisting that you pay over the hundred million dollars,” Andrew reminded.
“She’s not involved!” Walter exploded.
“If she’s not involved, then we’ll just have to wait for another message from the people who are involved.”
“There won’t be another message. You remember my orders. Either the money is there or I’ll never hear from anyone again.”
Hogan rose slowly. “Walter, we have our kidnapper. And I think when she understands what she’s up against she’ll lead us to Emily. Now don’t get me wrong. We’re not relaxing for an instant. We’ll still be watching every one who could possibly be involved and we have people running down every shred of information. But I think Miss Hilliard will have all the answers.”
Angela concentrated on the laptop computer on the tray table in front of her, making a point of
ignoring the investigator in the seat next to her. She knew he was alternating between obvious interest in the information scrolling across her screen and sneaked glances down at the generous length of thigh that showed below her pulled-up skirt. The pitiful jerk, she thought for a moment. He’d spend his life looking instead of taking.
They had expected her to crumble the moment she had confronted the couriers, and heard them say that they had been on their way to meet the woman who had hired them. Instead, she had stuck to her story, repeating that she knew nothing about the money that the couriers were collecting, nor any of the details about a kidnapping. Her only crime, Angela had conceded, was playing hooky from her office long enough to allow herself a long weekend in the Caymans and that was a matter between herself and InterBank. It was none of their business.
They had posted a guard outside the window of her apartment while she changed back into her business outfit, warning her that they would be watching her every minute. Angela hadn’t even bothered to pull the shade, enjoying the obvious embarrassment of one of her guards when she began undressing. When she was packed, she had handed one of them her suitcase to carry.
On the way to the airport, she had given them a very clear and formal warning. They were not policemen, nor officers of any court, and had absolutely no right to take her into custody. If this was a citizen’s arrest, then she demanded that she be handed over immediately to the island police. “You’ll look pretty stupid charging me with … what is it? Following you up the street while you were following someone else?” If they insisted on bringing her back to New York, then she fully intended to charge them with assault and kidnapping as soon as she touched down.
Angela offered no resistance when their flight was called, nor did she even glance at the policeman who patrolled the boarding gate. On the plane, she had ordered a martini, while Helen Restivo’s detective had accepted a complimentary soft drink. Then she had set up her computer and begun typing her trip report, detailing all the adjustments to Roberto’s accounts that had been agreed to at the business meeting.
“You’re making this hard on yourself,” the investigator had advised her. “We’re working for the security people at your bank. They’re the ones who want some answers.”
“The New York police will want their names,” Angela had countered. “If they’re really in on this, then they’re guilty of conspiracy.”
As she worked, she noticed the man squirming in his seat and was amused by his uneasiness. She knew exactly what he was thinking. He was no different than her superiors at the bank or most of her businessman clients. Once they knew that they were outgunned by her intelligence, and intimidated by her daring, they harbored secret thoughts of how they would dominate her in bed.
Sassy bitch, she watched them say to themselves, I’d show her who’s boss if I had her between the sheets. I’d knock that smart-ass smirk off her face in one hell of a hurry.
It was the last resort of a man’s ego. She’d kicked their asses all through college and then through b-school. But it just wasn’t in their makeup to admit defeat at the hands of a woman. Instead, they reached back to a primitive past of sexual superiority and comforted themselves with the thought that they could easily dominate her in the only contest that really mattered. On the few occasions when she had taken up the challenge, she had usually left them exhausted and trembling in fear of a heart attack, without so much as raising a sweat.
That’s what the cop next to her was doing right now, Angela assured herself. She could almost hear the rusty, castiron gears turning in his brain. Snotty broad thinks she can frighten me with this bullshit about me getting arrested. She thinks she can just wiggle her ass and walk away from a capital offense. Boy, would I like to show her a thing or two.
Then he’d peek down at the inside of her thigh, imagine her breathless under his weight, and reassure himself that he was still in charge. What a complete, absolute nerd! Running roughshod over guys like him was almost too easy to be called a contest. She turned suddenly in his direction, catching him momentarily with his eyes in her lap.
“Be a good boy and order me another drink,” Angela said. Then she tugged her hem down a bit, just to let him know that she knew exactly what he was thinking.
Walter closed his door and turned his chair to face the computer. He keyed in his password and the machine answered with his clearance. He could look into any file on the InterBank network and execute any transaction that wasn’t in violation of banking laws. Only five people at InterBank had total access and Walter was one of them.
He clicked onto the menu and then onto the first entry, account access. A matrix appeared asking him the number of the account and then for a repeat of his password. He spent the next few minutes checking into each of the accounts he had created and found no surprises in the amounts. They were all exactly as he left them. None of them had any indicated activity—they had not been called up by anyone for any reason. That meant that Mitchell Price’s auditors hadn’t located them yet.
Walter typed in the number of the account that had been set up in the Caymans. As he expected, the words access denied flashed in the center of the screen. It was a private account, one of a list of accounts belonging to drag dealers, dictators, and politicians who didn’t want anyone browsing through their affairs. But the fact that it was still listed meant that no one had yet closed it. It could still accept Emily’s ransom and then make the money disappear.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard. Andrew Hogan’s spooks probably wouldn’t be watching. They already knew the identity of the kidnapper. Or at least, they assumed that the woman they held in custody would provide the link to the kidnapper. As far as they were concerned, the case was closed.
He designated the target account at Folonari’s Cayman Island branch and was about to list the accounts to be transferred, when a new warning flashed across his monitor: Access limited. Account under surveillance. His fingers jumped off the keyboard as if he had touched a hot griddle.
“Son of a bitch!” he snapped softly. Then his fist exploded against the edge of his desk. “Son of a bitch!” Hogan was using his authority to keep a security watch on the account. In theory, Walter could get into it, but couldn’t do anything with it. And with Folonari’s guarantee of secrecy, he couldn’t even look into it. He was dead in the water. “Son of a bitch!”
* * *
Angela Hilliard was relaxed to the point of boredom when she was escorted into Walter Childs’s office. Andrew Hogan led the procession, walking directly in front of her, and the two agents who had escorted her back from the Caymans flanked her. Helen Restivo was holding up the rear.
“Angela,” Walter whispered, coming around his desk to greet her. But none of the men moved aside and Angela, who stood in their midst, seemed completely indifferent to Walter’s affections. Hogan pointed her to one of the chairs in Walter’s lounge area and then sat on the sofa, directly across from her, so that their legs were almost touching. The others arranged themselves around her, leaving Walter to drag one of his side chairs over and take a seat near Angela’s shoulder.
“Walter, do you know these idiots?”
He looked around and realized that he didn’t “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
Hogan started his introductions, beginning with Helen, but Angela rode right over him. “I’m glad you don’t, because they’re all going to be spending the next few years in court, if not in prison.”
“You know why we’re here,” Hogan told her.
Angela ignored him, keeping her attention focused on Walter. “There are two things you can do for me. First, go to your desk and call the police. Tell them that I’m being held against my will. Then call the most expensive tort lawyer you know. You can tell him these bumbling fools are going to be paying me a lot of money and there will be plenty to cover his fees.”
Walter looked uncertainly from Angela to Andrew. “You can’t just … hold her,” he tried.
Andrew kept after Angela
. “Miss Hilliard, what were you doing in the Cayman Islands, across the street from the bank where Mrs. Childs’s ransom was being paid?”
“Walter, will you please make those telephone calls for me?” She wasn’t budging at all from her role as the outraged woman.
“They’re trying to help us find Emily.” He was begging her to understand his predicament.
“And you think I know anything about what happened to her?”
“Oh, Jesus, no. But you may be able to help us. Something you saw, or something you might have heard.”
She turned to Hogan. “I saw nothing, nor did I hear anything relevant to Mrs. Childs’s situation. I hope that concludes this meeting.” She tried to stand, but Hogan leaned forward and blocked her escape.
“You know she’s been kidnapped,” the security officer said.
“Yes. Walter told me. And he knows he has my complete sympathy.”
“And you knew how he was supposed to pay the ransom?”
“He told me. And I urged him, for Emily’s sake, not to let you and your Boy Scouts fuck everything up. Which, apparently, you have already done.”
“You went there to pick up the money,” Hogan pressed on.
She shook her head in exasperation. “I’m going to get up now and I’m going to walk out the door. The only way you’re going to going to stop me is by knocking me down. I think that’s called a felony.” She stood up, but Hogan stood with her so that they were face-to-face. “You better tell him, Walter, what the headlines are going to do to your tenuous grip on the presidency. ‘Banker’s Mistress Assaulted in InterBank Executive Suite.’ ”
“Please, Angela. Answer his question. What were you doing in the Caymans?”
She froze him with a glance. “I feel very sorry for you, Walter. You just made the worst decision of your life.”
She pushed past Hogan and stepped out of the circle toward the office door. Walter jumped to his feet and took command. “Will you all step outside, please. I’d like to have a word alone with Miss Hilliard.”
The Trophy Wife Page 18
