by Helen Hanson
At the mention of her name, any remaining courage wilted. He took her umbrella without asking and placed it in a stand by the door. Apparently, she was expected. Maggie stepped forward to bolster her determination and stave off collapse. “Yes, thank you.” Even if these animals threatened her father’s life, she stayed with polite.
But her focus had been on the man, and when she walked inside the room, the view overwhelmed her. She could see the Golden Gate, the Bay Bridge, Pier 39, and damn near Nevada. The expansive sight gave her a slight case of vertigo.
The gentleness of the second voice startled her. “Miss Fender. It is a lovely view, isn’t it? I enjoy watching the faces of my guests when they first enter this room.” It came from a man of about forty-five wearing a tailored smoking jacket over black, satin pajamas. She recognized him instantly. He looked ridiculous. She might have laughed at his absurd attire if he weren’t capable of murder.
“Mr. Penniski. My father has been missing since yesterday. Do you have him?”
She didn’t think her qualms were obvious, but he swept to her side as if she might swoon. Maybe he was always this way around women.
He gestured to a pair of teal club chairs and sat in one of them. He was fit, agile, and moved like a panther sizing up a gazelle. “Please, sit.”
She searched for the man who’d let her in, but he’d been replaced by a slightly larger model. It wasn’t until the first man returned with glasses of ice water that she realized there were two of them. Probably the same two men who came looking for her at the restaurant. What the hell was she thinking coming here? He placed the glasses on the cocktail table between the chairs. Her mouth felt like the Kalahari.
Penniski would never kill her here. He wouldn’t want to stain his platinum wool carpet with her blood. And she was thirsty. Maggie accepted the chair across the watering hole from her predator.
“Now. What makes you think I have anything to do with your father’s disappearance?” His steepled fingers smacked of condescension but aped concern. Friendly in the eyes, a hypocrite in the heart. His attitude pissed her off. Time to step on the dog’s tail.
“You don’t seem surprised that I’m here. How did you know my name?” She steepled her fingers to mirror his actions.
The gesture seemed to frustrate him. “I’m sorry about your father’s situation. I know you must be quite upset. But I had no hand in it.”
“How did you know my name?” Maggie reached for a glass but decided against indulging. Already one person poisoned.
Penniski took the second glass of water and ran a finger around the rim. “Your family has been on every broadcast for the last twenty-four hours. Has there been any news of him?”
“My family has not. Only my father. How do you know him?”
He laid a foot upon his other knee and leaned toward her. “You want answers, I’ll tell you. But first, I’m going to ask some questions. Did your father know Patty O’Mara?”
“My father has Alzheimer’s. At the moment, he doesn’t even know me.” She dialed back the attitude. “I don’t believe they’ve ever met.”
Vladimir Penniski pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and tapped one out. The pack looked imported. He found a silver lighter in the other pocket and lit it without asking her if she might be bothered by the smoke. Apparently, the smoking jacket wasn’t entirely for show.
He drew hard on the first drag. “That mick stole thirty million dollars from me.” Vladimir’s genteel veneer cracked.
Maggie scanned the penthouse. Seemed he still had plenty of money.
“I’m not accustomed to losing anything, lady.” Vladimir’s smile left her chilled. “Maybe your father knows where my money went.”
“My father is not a thief.”
“O’Mara kept his computers at the same place where Martin Fender—” He pointed his cigarette at Maggie. “—your father worked. They must have come into contact. I want the money that bastard stole from me. And you must think your father has it. Otherwise, why would you come looking for me?”
Travis did. She didn’t. “I came looking for you because my father can’t take care of himself, and now he’s missing. Someone tried to kill him earlier this week, and your henchmen have been asking about me at work and in my neighborhood.” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and willed herself not to cry. “I don’t know what happened to O’Mara’s money.”
When she finally opened her eyes, Vladimir Penniski’s gaze swathed her in pity. “I don’t have your father. I did plan to speak with him. By the time my boys arrived, your father was already gone. I have thirty million reasons to wish him well.”
Maggie considered his response. “My father lost the love of his life to a wretched disease, and now—” She tightened her quivering jaw. “And now his mind is crumbling.” But she’d said enough. She rose from her seat. “I won’t take any more of your time, Mr. Penniski. I appreciate your letting me in to speak with you.”
He stood with her. “I’m impressed you made it all the way up here. What kind of story did you give them?”
Heat swarmed her face. “I told them I was working with your mother on a surprise party.”
The boys and he laughed. “That’s a good one. Not likely to work for somebody who looks like one of these mugs.” He jacked a thumb at the bigger man. “Spunky girl. I like that.”
Frightened girl. Stupid girl. Desperate girl.
Maggie used the moment of levity to approach the front door. Vladimir Penniski opened it for her and returned her umbrella. He shook her hand before she left, and in spite of his denial over kidnapping her father, she felt like washing.
She kept her poise in the elevator car because a camera was surely watching. The ride down was mercifully quick. She didn’t want to continue her saga with Calvin, so she hung back some moments to re-con the lobby. He conversed with an attractive, black couple and their two sons. He bent down to the smaller boy and pulled a coin from the child’s ear. As the kid squealed, Maggie made for the exit.
Before she stepped into the rain, she popped out her umbrella. A taxicab pulled up to the curb in front of the building. A man slid out from the rear seat and entered Vladimir Penniski’s exclusive building. Maggie hid behind her umbrella, so she wouldn’t run into Fyodor.
Chapter Fifty-Five
As Kurt promised, the spikey-haired lady brought the list of investors suing Patty O’Mara for recovery of their money to Travis. According to the paperwork, some federal court had recently declared the investors a class, so they could sue the skivvies off O’Mara as a monolithic entity. But the people on the list had to actively join the group. Kurt said he expected that they all would.
Travis pored over the information Dad had buried for him to discover. The amount of financial data was staggering. He’d found bank accounts, numbered accounts, routing numbers, passwords and verified credentials in the name James Hendricks and another dude named Robert Sands.
O’Mara used the alias Robert Sands and still owned active accounts around the globe. Once O’Mara realized the money was missing, he must have left them idle, or Dad controlled them. Either way, O’Mara wasn’t in a hurry to openly complain. Travis used an indirect route to test the accounts, to see if the feds had them on lockdown. No lockdowns anywhere, leading him to believe that the feds didn’t have a pulse on Robert Sands.
Plus, Dad had streamed a copy of all the information O’Mara kept on the investors—names, addresses, account numbers, routing numbers, even birthdays and anniversaries. The dude was shameless. His father, too.
Travis knew that Alzheimer’s was a miserable disease, but did it change the man beneath? Ever since Dad’s diagnosis, everyone felt compelled to share a horror story about a grandma-gone-wrong. Alzheimer’s changed some of these people into foul-mouthed ragers when the person had been peaceful. Or vice versa. But would it change an honest man into a thief? He wasn’t an absent-minded klepto but a genius-level mastermind of Great Train Robbery proportions. If Travis remembered the
story correctly, all those guys eventually got caught.
When was Maggie coming back? He shouldn’t have let her visit Penniski alone. And what the hell was he thinking with his trash talk to Kurt Meyers? Ego wrote that check. The idea of moving that kind of money around the world like poker chips was off the hook. Compared to tapping phone companies, enslaving drone computers, or jacking credit card numbers, this was climbing Mount Everest.
But was it really there?
Travis hadn’t verified that the money was in all those accounts. Right now he needed access to two million. Only two million. Kurt Meyers and the investors could wait.
His muscles tensed as he tried to think. Travis had all the source code to the computer programs his father wrote. Idea after idea swept past him on a riptide. Travis needed to grab a good one and let the half-assed ones float.
The rain let up enough for him to hear Maggie’s car pull into the driveway. His relief at her return culminated in a breathy exhale. He wanted to go with her, but she’d come up with so many lame excuses, he quit asking. The Firm abandoned their rumpled beds to greet her at the door.
He had to tell Maggie about his sweet new computer. He did a quick check for any tracking programs Kurt Meyers might have loaded on it, but it looked factory. A full scan could wait. For now, he’d have to trust the guy. According to AreEff, it was a decent bet.
He wasn’t going to tell her about his quasi-promise to Kurt Meyers. She might not take the news well and want to kill him. That could wait until after they found Dad.
Her heels clicked along the floor in concert with eight sets of toenails. He stared at the opening in the kitchen awaiting her entrance. She looked as if she had been crying.
“Are you all right? What happened?”
“I’m fine.” Her smile was tight. “He said he didn’t kidnap Dad.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know what to believe.” Maggie lowered into the nearest chair. “I saw Fyodor in the city. He entered Penniski’s building as I was leaving.” Her hands dropped to her lap. “I sure can pick them.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.”
She told him all the details about her meeting and faking her way into Penniski’s suite.
“You’re a social engineer, Magpie.”
“A what?”
“It’s the most common form of hacking. You don’t break your way in. You charm your way in. Apparently, you’re a natural.”
“I’m a born liar. Like father like daughter. What in the hell are we going to do?”
Travis knew what she was thinking. “We can call the police if you want.”
“It’s all I thought about on the drive back. The kidnapper didn’t even tell us not to. Why?”
“Because we don’t have two million of our own. The only possible way for us to get it is to tap O’Mara’s stolen money.”
“That’s what I think.” She lifted a foot onto the chair and hugged her knee. “Either way, if the police get involved, we’re screwed.”
“As much as I don’t want the police around for other reasons, I came to the same conclusion. Whoever has Dad isn’t worried about us calling the police. We’re expected to have this money.”
“Do we, Trav?” She bit her lower lip. “Do we really have access to that kind of money?”
“I think we do, but I don’t know yet. Ever since we got the call, I’ve been trying to answer that question. And we don’t have a lot of time to dink around.” He blew air up to his bangs. “We need a plan B, in case. You know?”
“Whatever it is, I’m in.”
“If only we were certain who kidnapped Dad,” Travis said.
“I couldn’t read Penniski. Seeing Fyodor there gave me the creeps. But I don’t have that intuitive thing you’ve got going on.”
No. She didn’t. Maggie let her brain flairs rule. Maybe she looked before she leaped, but the landing spot was all that mattered. She didn’t always assess it before committing. And, yet, he was the one with the prison record. Go figure.
“You know. I’m glad I don’t have it.”
He didn’t like the way her mouth flattened into a line. “What do you mean? Intuition.”
“Yeah. Because I’m not sure it matters what we do. Pay two million or ten, they may still kill Dad.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Kurt Meyers should have gone home, but home was even lonelier than the office. Since his encounter with Travis Fender, Kurt stewed over his next move. The kid projected a confidence that inspired. If he really had access to the O’Mara fund money, Kurt should probably notify Samantha at the SEC, and if he knew for certain, he would be obligated. But he didn’t know for certain, and more importantly, he didn’t want to spook the golden goose. Even Samantha wanted the money returned more than a conviction, and a conviction would be tough now that O’Mara was a corpse.
Still, he had to keep Samantha in play to make good on his promise to the Fender kid. Kurt knew her office forwarded calls to her cell phone. If his news were urgent, he’d call her cell directly. But this wasn’t urgent. Under no circumstances did he want her to think this call was urgent.
He practiced saying ‘Hey Samantha’ in a casual tone, lowering his voice slightly in case the pounding in his chest eked out too much enthusiasm to his vocal chords. Casual. No big deal. Just touching base.
Voice mail answered. “Hey, Sam.” Sam. Good move. Even more laid back than using her full name. “Kurt here. Nothing new. I wanted to hear the official reaction now that O’Mara’s murderer confessed. I guess no one’s surprised it was an investor. Anyway, I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up the phone, convinced that she wouldn’t suspect a thing.
Kurt turned on the contaminated computer at his desk. Thoughts of Vladimir Penniski eddied through his head. Every keystroke was still Vladimir’s for the taking. But Kurt now had a plan for revenge. Not really a plan. It didn’t rank up there with an actual plan. More like a juvenile prank, and he sure as hell wasn’t above those. It was slightly better than surfing for yachts to make Vladimir jealous. Kurt laid the first plank, now it was time to turn the screw.
He considered what he was going to type before committing the key strokes. With Vlad and his thugs monitoring every one, he wanted to make certain this communication looked legit. He edited it on paper until he was satisfied. The terse email he composed contained enough information to convey the threat.
MUST OPT OUT OF THE CLASS FOR THE CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT. Otherwise, the decision will be expen$ive! Trust me. Delete email upon receipt. Do not call me. Details in person ONLY!
Replacing the ‘s’ with the dollar sign made him giggle like a fifth grader. Juvenile indeed. Kurt addressed the email to an obscurely-named Yahoo account that he’d owned since college and hit send. He hadn’t accessed the account since arriving in San Francisco, so he knew it was safe. Kurt only hoped that Vladimir’s keylogger would recognize the screaming capital letters. The sonovabitch.
Kurt browsed through his emails. Vladimir couldn’t read anything in his inbox, only Kurt’s replies. He took great care to leave the bones bare. All the investor inquiries went through Stephanie. Mostly they wanted to know that someone was working to ease their burden.
Responses to O’Mara’s death ranged across the spectrum. Some people figured it for instant karma. Some still felt they’d lost a friend. Others openly rejoiced at news of his death. A few felt that his death left them completely hopeless. No Patty. No money.
Stephanie tried to reassure people that even O’Mara couldn’t take it with him. Like everyone else, he left this side empty-handed and butt-naked. But most of the investors sought justice. If not their money returned, then an honest day in court. They’d be happy to hang his room-temperature cadaver.
The phone’s ring quieted to an echo before Kurt answered. He was glad for the diversion from his now gloomy thoughts. “Kurt Meyers.”
“Hey.”
He’d recognize Samantha’s voice in a din. His spirits kicked into high
gear. “Hey, yourself. I didn’t expect to hear from you tonight. Miss me?”
She laughed in a way that made him think he might have a shot. Someday. Someday when this case wasn’t their primary concern.
“It’s Sunday night, Kurt. You’re not fooling anyone.”
His stomach tightened. She can’t know anything. “What do you mean?”
“I know you don’t know anyone there. I get it. You’re lonely. But c’mon you’re in San Francisco of all places. A successful, good looking, straight guy. The single women ought to be building you a statue by now.”
He slid an elbow across his desk. “You think I’m good looking?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “Sure. In an East Coast, corporate, tight-assed kind of way.”
“Says the woman who works in D.C. You think my ass looks tight?”
This laugh was more like the ones he remembered. “I’ve got the game on here. What do you want?”
Kurt glanced at the ceiling trying to remember his cover story. “What’s the reaction at the SEC to the poisoning?”
“No one’s surprised that it was an investor if that’s what you mean. Any other perp would have been a non sequitur.”
“True. There were plenty of suspects.”
“And the fact that it was a woman was expected.”
“I hadn’t considered that. But you’re right. A guy would have blown his head off.”
“Or used it for batting practice.” He heard rustling in the background. “Still, it leaves us without a man to convict and an angry mob of jilted investors.”
“The reaction on this end has been mixed. But it will eventually level out as anger. You guys worried?”
Other investment fund managers had long doubted the honesty of Patty O’Mara due to the renowned rate of return. They deconstructed various market trade scenarios to determine what might have allowed him to sustain such amazing profits. They decided it wasn’t possible and called upon the SEC to investigate. No one ever did. Not until a low-level investor couldn’t get his money out. Seems the guy’s wife’s cousin was head of the Senate banking committee. Until that moment, Patty O’Mara got a bye every round.
