Show Me the Money

by Connie Shelton

  Woody drew out the maximum allowed and turned to his son. “What do you say we hit the Meadowlands this afternoon? I gotta bunch of good tips.”

  “Maybe for a little while. My flight’s out of Newark at five.”

  “Ah, plenty of time. C’mon, son. We’ll have us some fun.”

  Cody hoped the old man wouldn’t have too much fun. He had cautioned him that the money needed to rest a while. Especially now that Amber had been caught, there would be a lot of eyes on her and anyone remotely associated with her. He wished he’d made up a better alias to use in Paris.

  Chapter 9

  Pen wheeled the two suitcases along the corridor to Amber’s condo. Her text had been terse but almost cute: Any time now! The door swung open before her second tap.

  “Pen! So great to see you!” It was nearly comical how overjoyed Amber seemed to see her. “Let’s just take these in the bedroom real quick.” Underlying meaning: Sneak them in quietly.

  Pen spotted Amber’s mother in the kitchen, rinsing some cups at the sink. Her father wasn’t in evidence, but he stepped out of the guest bathroom and moved down the short hall, just as Amber closed the bedroom door on the suitcases.

  “… and I had the spinach, mushroom, and Swiss omelet,” Amber said to Pen. “We’ll have to go back there sometime. Oh, Dad, I want you to meet my friend, Pen.”

  “Penelope Fitzpatrick,” she said, extending her hand. They were standing at the counter which divided the kitchen from the dining area, and Marianna stepped closer. Pen saw where Amber got her looks, the perfect combination of her mother’s coffee skin and fine features, and her father’s stature and Mediterranean curls.

  “Penelope Fitzpatrick, the writer? I love your books. So exciting, so much adventure!”

  Pen acknowledged the compliment quietly, with a nod and smile of thanks. She noticed Edward relaxed, a touch, at the revelation that his wife knew and approved of Amber’s friend. “Amber tells me you live in Santa Fe. Such a beautiful and unique city. Have you been there long?”

  Turning the conversation away from Amber’s current problems worked to loosen up the couple.

  “About ten years now,” Edward said. “Before that, we were in Hollywood.”

  “Too big and too crazy, that southern California traffic,” Marianna added. “We love New Mexico, and Santa Fe still gives Eddy the contact he likes with the film crowd he used to work with. Before that, we were in Europe for several years. Paris, in fact, when Amber was born.”

  “We had hoped Amber would stay in New Mexico, get her education locally, and settle near us.”

  “Dad … you know computers are much more my thing than the artsy scene where you are.”

  Edward tilted his head toward Pen, as if to say, Kids, what can you do?

  She gave her enigmatic smile that could mean anything. “I’m so impressed with Amber’s new condo. So, are you enjoying your visit here in the Valley?”

  “The whole Phoenix area—no. Can’t wait to leave. Too hot, too much traffic. The condo, yes, it’s really something.”

  “Our flight leaves early tomorrow,” Marianna added, softening his words. “We weren’t sure, when we came, if we would need to stay a while, but it seems there’s nothing much we can do to help our daughter.”

  “That woman lawyer she’s got—”

  “Was personally recommended by a dear friend who has long ties to the court system here. Ms. Kowzlowski may seem rough around the edges, but she is one of the finest attorneys licensed in the state of Arizona.” Pen said it with a tone that refuted any argument, and she kept her smile in place to let them know the offer had been made with love.

  “Well, then, that’s … that’s good,” Edward said. Clearly, the wind had been taken out of his sails.

  “I shall leave you to your afternoon together, then. Amber, we’ll get together in the next few days? I’m sure the girls will be eager to try that breakfast place you were telling me about.” Pen draped her purse strap over her shoulder and headed for the front door.

  Amber followed, seeing her out, stepping into the hallway as she left. “Thank you. I’m scared, but I can’t admit it to them. They’re convinced I’m young and stupid and overly gullible. Your words helped a lot.”

  Chapter 10

  “They stayed at the Phoenician and insisted on me joining them for dinner there. It’s way more my dad’s scene than mine,” Amber told the Ladies the next morning. “I managed, and I wished them well on the trip home, but I have to say this was the most difficult visit we’ve ever had.”

  True to her promise, Pen had told the rest of them about Sadie’s Place. It was crowded on a Sunday, but they had managed to get in and the five of them were seated around a booth, eager to try the omelets Amber had raved about.

  “Well,” said Gracie, “it’s a whole new experience for all of you.”

  “No one said ‘arrested’ or ‘illicit cash’ during the whole visit, but it was just there, you know.” Amber swallowed hard. “My parents and I were always close, but they’re having a hard time seeing me as a real grownup. Before, I was a student, still a kid. Now they have to realize that I’ll have relationships, my own real home, a job that pays well.”

  “What’s happening there? Do you think anyone has heard about the cash, since it was a company trip?” Gracie asked.

  Amber shrugged, waiting for the server to deliver their plates and walk away. “Tomorrow will be interesting.”

  “It’s always a little strange, coming back to work and routine after being gone, especially to foreign countries,” Pen assured her.

  “Yeah but this is a little different, don’t you think? I was held by the police. There are specific clauses in my employment contract about this type of thing.”

  Gracie looked around the table, eyes wide.

  “I suppose we should have anticipated that,” Sandy said.

  “Well, it just means we have to get busy and find out what really happened, find a way to clear your name,” Gracie said.

  “And it has to be definitively enough that there is no question left on your employment record. We have to find out who was behind this and we have to get that person put away.” Mary was already halfway into her ham and cheese omelet, the one person whose appetite seemed unaffected.

  Amber hadn’t touched her plate. “I’m afraid to say this, but it occurred to me that Cody could have done this. Unless someone at the Louis Vuitton shop is running a smuggling ring, he’s the only other person who touched that new bag. How could I have trusted him?”

  Sandy reached over and touched her hand. “Honey, don’t blame yourself.”

  “That’s right, Amber. Anyone can be taken in.” Mary didn’t say it, but they all knew she was remembering back to the fact that her ex-husband had, at one point, left her penniless.

  “Let’s think this through logically,” Pen said, spreading jam on a slice of toast. “You say he’s the only other person who had access to your bag, but what about someone else? Baggage handlers at the airport or hotel? Tell us about the sequence of events.”

  Amber’s gaze grew faraway. “We’d been together five days. Paris in the autumn is so beautiful. We’d been corresponding online for a few weeks and we had so much in common. He’s a computer nerd too and he works for a big company based on the east coast, but he was assigned to their Paris office so he knows the city really well. We met first just for drinks and dinner. Second day, it was a long walk through the gardens and a visit to the Louvre, another pink rose … By the third day there was a lot of suggestive talk and we went to his apartment near the Seine. I basically stopped in at my hotel for a change of clothes, but we spent all our nights together.”

  Who among them didn’t remember meeting someone special and the magic of new love?

  “On my last day in the city I wanted to do some shopping. He took me to the best shops, and I figured what the heck, I could splurge a little on gifts. And it was at the Vuitton shop where he insisted on buying my new carry-on bag.
He said I would need more space to bring home my purchases. Well, everyone does, right? I would have just found an inexpensive little tote, but he insisted. We’d had all these conversations about how lucky we were to be doing so well in our careers that we had money to spend.”

  “Had he already picked out the bag, or did he let you choose?” Sandy asked.

  “I picked it out, but he did have a certain one in mind. He said it needed to be one I would carry on the plane, which made sense to me at the time. But I don’t know why. So yeah, I guess he did steer me toward that one.”

  Pen seemed thoughtful. “I wonder if there was some way he could have had the bag modified in advance. There was a hidden compartment in it.”

  “And it must have been made of something that would hide the cash from the security cameras at the airport,” Sandy suggested.

  Amber only shrugged.

  “Was he ever alone with the suitcase? I mean, when could he have put the cash inside?” Gracie wondered.

  “I don’t think so … Well, the last night of the trip. I told him we should stay at the hotel because I still had to pack and my flight was somewhat early. My stuff was kind of all over the room, and I needed to organize everything. After we got back from dinner, I pretty much gathered it all and packed it. Then I headed for the shower. He was checking airline flights online, hoping to get himself on the same plane with me, back to Phoenix.”

  “He was coming here?”

  “Yeah. We were having such a great time together and he had all kinds of questions about Arizona and said he’d love to visit. You know, raised in Jersey and all … Apparently he had one more week of vacation coming and he wanted to work it out that he could spend it here.”

  Thoughtful expressions all around the table.

  “So, while you were in the shower, he could have had access to your luggage,” Pen suggested.

  “I suppose. I didn’t think about it, but he was alone in the bedroom for a few minutes. When I stepped out of the shower, he was there … well, undressed … and said he was ready to jump in the shower with me. So …”

  “One thing led to another. It’s okay,” said Gracie with a chuckle.

  “He did tell me he wasn’t able to get on my flight, but he’d found another one later in the day that would route him through London and then into Phoenix. He would get here roughly half a day behind me.”

  “But that never happened? Have you heard from him at all?”

  “I have. By text. There were apparently some delays and rescheduling. And then I lost touch early yesterday. I assumed he was in flight. I was tied up with my parents anyway.”

  Pen shook her head sadly. “Did you tell him you’d been caught at Customs?”

  “Well, yes. That was my first thought. I needed to let him know something had gone wrong and I wouldn’t be meeting his flight.”

  “Oh dear. I’m afraid it looks as though that was news enough for him to abandon you.”

  “It makes sense,” Sandy added. “If he put the cash in your bag and knew it had been seized, he doesn’t want to be anywhere near you.”

  “He’s probably back in his Paris flat, regretting that he trusted me with the money.”

  “Sweetie, he didn’t entrust you with the money,” Mary said. “He used you. I hate to be so blunt, but that’s the bottom line.”

  Amber pushed her barely touched plate aside. “I know. I think I knew it yesterday.”

  Pen put an arm around her shoulders. “Sweetheart, we will get to the bottom of this. No man is going to break the heart of one of our own.”

  Amber leaned into the older woman’s shoulder. A loud sniffle escaped her before she spoke. “What I want to know is, why? And where did the cash come from?”

  “The authorities will try to find the source of the cash, and if they believe it came from an illegal source—say, drug dealing or money laundering—that’s when the real trouble will begin,” Pen pointed out.

  “But that’s dumb,” said Gracie. “For one thing, if she’s guilty of a crime like that, why would she take the money to Paris and then bring it back to this city? No one would do that.”

  “No one has said she obtained the money here in the US. They will be looking abroad too, won’t they? And if there’s criminal activity in Paris that they can connect, you may be looking at international extradition,” Sandy said.

  “So we have two mysteries to solve. The hundred-dollar bills in my bag are one thing, and maybe my so-called boyfriend really is a dirty rat. But the larger question, the one that could potentially land me in bigger trouble than a romance gone wrong, is why do the police believe I had all that cash with me?”

  Chapter 11

  Sandy convinced Amber to box up her uneaten breakfast and take it home. “You’ll be hungry later and you’ll be glad to have this.”

  “Always practical,” Amber said with a laugh. She picked up the Styrofoam box and set out for the short walk to her condo, leaving the others to their own Sunday plans.

  Home alone, at last, she gathered clothing and started a load of laundry. The large blue suitcase got stashed away in the guest room closet, but she’d been thinking about the discussion over breakfast, about how easy or difficult it might have been for Cody, or someone, to place the money in her new Vuitton bag.

  As it turned out, not difficult at all. She laid the empty bag out on her bedroom floor and unzipped it. With the cover folded back, she began to probe the bottom of the section where her clothing and new purchases had been so neatly packed for the trip home. Discreet Velcro tabs let go, allowing her to lift the padded cloth bottom of the suitcase. With three sides peeled back, it was easy to see the spare half-inch of space that had been filled with bundles.

  She devised a test, bringing in a ream of computer paper and dividing it into packets of about the same thickness as the banded money. Set carefully into the extra space, with the cloth bottom neatly Velcroed back in place, she could see how nearly invisible the hidden stash could be. And the padding disguised the shape of the edges of the paper.

  When she closed the bag and lifted it, it was definitely heavier than empty, but would she have noticed that? The bag was new to her and the unfamiliar heft and weight of it hadn’t caught her attention, but it might have been the way the Customs officer knew something was amiss.

  Something had prompted them to search her. She would probably never know what had tipped them off.

  She pulled out the paper packets and closed the bag once again. For an item that had thrilled her when Cody insisted on buying it for her, the bag now only held revulsion. She couldn’t imagine that she would ever use it again, not without resentment over the way she’d been used. Instead of storing the new bag in the closet with her older one, she wheeled it to the front door. Maybe the luggage shop in Fashion Square would take it and sell it on consignment. Or maybe she would leave it in the dumpster for some lucky drifter to find. Determined to have no reminders, she wheeled it to the elevator and down to the garage. It vanished through the lid of the trash receptacle.

  Back in her own kitchen, she was finally feeling hungry for the breakfast she’d never eaten. While it warmed in the microwave, she checked her messages.

  Cody: Sorry, baby, still stuck in London. Horrid weather here. How are you?

  Did he honestly think she couldn’t check the current weather in England? She deleted it without responding.

  Monday morning dawned with a new crispness to the air. October was often the turning point for the weather here in the Valley. After months of triple-digit temperatures, it looked as if the oppressive heat might be letting up. Amber’s mood improved accordingly, as she dressed in her business attire, admittedly somewhat more casual than many of her coworkers who seemed to think pencil skirts and five-inch heels were necessary for everyday wear. She had bought two cute dresses in Paris, but now she could barely look at them. Instead, she put on dark slacks and a vivid blue shell, topped by a black silk jacket. The air conditioning in the corporate hig
h-rise was always set too cold.

  Twenty minutes later, she swiped her employee ID badge at the entrance and steered her Prius into the parking garage. On level three she found a spot, gathered her company computer and purse and headed at a brisk pace toward the elevators. Sometimes she climbed the twenty-three flights of stairs, just for the exercise, but arriving in a lather on her first day back would not necessarily be impressive.

  She found her thoughts drifting to the rest of the Ladies. She’d spoken with Pen, who had phoned right before bedtime, and told her about Cody’s latest blatant lie about being stranded in London. Once she’d told him about being stopped at Customs, it must have pretty well sealed the fate of the relationship. She could see that now. He wouldn’t be coming to see her.

  But why had he texted? She couldn’t figure it out, and Pen had promised to get busy on the question. Somehow, the Heist Ladies would unravel the mystery and figure out how and why Cody got the money and what his motive had been in stashing it with Amber.

  The elevator whirred almost silently to a stop on her floor. It always amazed her how much space the mega tech corporation used and how many employees must have occupied the various office spaces and cubicles. As a fairly newbie programmer, hers was just another in the cube farm, but she had personalized it with a small houseplant and some photos of family and friends.

  Her favorite was of a beach in Bali where the Ladies had made a quick trip last winter when they nabbed a pseudo-religious couple in the process of absconding with a container load of money. She chuckled as she thought of the relatively tiny sum Cody had pawned off on her. Surely it would turn out that her problems were nothing in comparison.

  “Hey, Amber,” said a female voice at her cube opening. Carly Morse was an admin assistant she often ran into in the lunch room. “I thought you weren’t coming back for a few more days—you met someone over there?”