Show Me the Money

by Connie Shelton

  “Change of plans.”

  Carly looked like she wanted to dish some more, but Amber ignored the eager look.

  “And how was Europe? Dave seemed pretty excited about closing the Amsterdam deal.”

  “Yeah, he was.”

  “Come on—you’ve gotta tell me about Paris! I’ve never been. It had to be so exciting.”

  Amber sent her a polite smile. “Maybe over lunch later this week. I feel like I have to get back up to speed this morning.”

  “Oh, speaking of being up to speed. The latest around here is that the quarterly audit turned up some kind of discrepancy. They’re being pretty hush-hush about—” Carly stopped in mid sentence as Vicky Salazar, a customer service rep, walked by.

  Someone a row or two over called out to Carly and she hurried away, her heels clipping along on the tile floor. Amber set her computer bag down and took the machine out, glancing over the papers on her desk and remembering what she’d been working on when she left.

  Two other programmers walked by and she caught, “… HR yet?” followed by “No, but they’re talking to everyone.”

  A buzz ran through her, but she stifled it. Office gossip was always floating through the air. What Carly had told her and the random comments of a few others didn’t have to be related. She needed to tune out the general noise and concentrate on the set of algorithms she’d been writing. She probably should have done more work during the trip, not so much R&R—romance and reading. It was going to take a day or more to get her head back into programming.

  The morning flew by, and she managed to avoid Carly by eating a sandwich at her desk instead of going to the lunch room.

  Chapter 12

  Cody sat in traffic, gloomily mulling over the past few days. The con with Amber hadn’t gone as planned. She was supposed to have breezed through Customs with the money in her bag and he would have met her a day later, figuring out a way into her home so he could find the bright purple bag and retrieve the cash. Now he had Pop pissed off at him, and Amber not answering his texts for the first time ever.

  He would deal with all that. Somehow. Pop would be pacified once he saw how much more money there was. It just couldn’t all be moved into the US right now. That needed to be a gradual thing, and one thing his father didn’t understand was playing it low-key. He seemed to have this idea that money taken by computer transfer somehow just vanished into the ether, and since no one could find it, you just helped yourself and went out and spent it. Cody had to remind himself that although his father was a long-time grifter, he hadn’t necessarily been a super successful one.

  Pop’s latest suggestion, made during the last few minutes Cody had spent at the track with him, was that Cody just show up in front of Amber, make nice, and get her to replace the cash. Well, that wasn’t happening. Agents had taken the money. Plus, how was he supposed to admit to Amber he’d put the money in her bag, and secondly, to ask her to come up with it out of her own pocket. That wouldn’t happen, and he wasn’t about to call up some Jersey muscle to threaten her.

  For now, he just wanted to get back to his job and see what was going on. Con games were interesting and, yeah, they could be lucrative, but he didn’t quite have Pop’s tolerance for being dead broke when they failed. He liked his electronic gadgets, his independence, and having some fun with cute girls. His wasn’t a lifestyle that worked if you got down to your last few hundred and had to worry about where the next paycheck was coming from.

  What he wanted was one big, final score, hopefully while he was still in his thirties, and he’d take off for someplace where you didn’t have to do anything more ambitious all day than stretch out on a lounger under a palm tree. One with internet access so he could tinker with his latest programming brainstorm. When that succeeded, he could provide Pop with enough betting money to keep him happy (Woody Baker had a good enough eye for the horses that his habit was pretty close to self-supporting), and if Cody wanted to zip around the world and hang with the jet set he’d have plenty for that.

  The cars ahead of his bus began to crawl along once again. He should have gotten an earlier start. His sleep patterns were still all messed up from the quick trip to Paris.

  Now that had been fun. While Amber was in Amsterdam with those sales dudes, Cody had been watching the good neighborhoods in Paris, alert for a posh apartment with nobody home. A talkative doorman, an unattended door key, and he was suddenly the new ‘owner’ of a very cool place where he could take an American girl to impress her. By the time his little honey had arrived, he was all set up—his clothes in the closet, some wine in the rack, and a working knowledge of the nearby cafés, shops, and restaurants. It was as if he actually had lived there for two years, exactly as he’d told her.

  He almost regretted some of the lies, especially when it became obvious cute little Amber was actually falling for him. Well, for his urbane, Euro-persona. He covered for his Jersey accent by telling her that’s where he’d grown up (no lie there), and he’d changed his appearance by combing his hair straight back and wearing green contact lenses. If she ever ran into him somewhere else, it would take a minute to put it together that this was Cody Brennan from Paris. She would never know who Cody Baker from Newark really was.

  The bus stopped a block from the office and he got out, knowing he was running late, not bothering to sprint the distance. Let old lady Spitz have a conniption if she wanted to. He didn’t see himself long for this job anyway, since it was a short-term contract for only a few months. Spitz needed him more than he needed the job at this point. His skills were destined for bigger and better things. He pulled out his ID badge and put his glasses on before passing the downstairs security desk.

  Chapter 13

  Gracie was halfway to the supermarket when her phone rang and she saw that it was Mary. She pressed the button for hands-free talk. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Just a heads-up,” Mary said, keeping her voice low, as though she didn’t want to be overheard in a crowded place. “That Detective Howard just came by the gym and questioned me.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, he’s asking about Amber, her friends and connections, what kinds of things she might be mixed up in.”

  “So, what did you say?”

  “The truth. I hadn’t seen Amber in several months but as far as I knew she was just a young woman fresh out of school, who did her job and didn’t have a huge social life. When he asked how she might have access to large amounts of cash, I said I have absolutely no idea.”

  Except that Amber did know how to move money around and track it. She’d done so before. But, she had never siphoned off any that didn’t belong to her, and she’d always been right there to help the Ladies take down the bad guys.

  “So, if this detective came to your work, he’s probably looking for me, too,” Gracie said, pulling into the parking lot at Fry’s.

  “And Pen, and Sandy. I was surprised he knew all our names.”

  “Okay, thanks for the warning.”

  Gracie ended the call and stared toward the large market, thinking about her options. Her kids would be home from school in a couple of hours and she didn’t really want the police showing up to question her in front of them. She fished around in her purse until she came up with the card Mark Howard had given her the night he’d taken Amber downtown.

  Wait for him or be proactive? She dialed his cell number.

  “I understand you may be looking for me. What can I do for you?”

  She’d caught him slightly off guard but he recovered nicely. “I’m just working the case, tying up loose ends, and that includes speaking in person with friends and associates of Amber Zeckis.”

  “Well, if you’ve dropped by my house you’ve already figured out I’m not home. I’ve got some other business downtown in about an hour. I can come by the station first, if that works for you.” Better to meet the lion head-on in his own den than to invite him into mine.

  “I’ll be there in twenty. If you get th
ere first, you can speak with my partner, Detective Marsh.”

  She timed her arrival twenty-five minutes later. No point in learning to read another cop or in going over the details Howard already knew. She inquired at the front desk and was escorted to a desk in a wide-open squad room. No privacy here.

  Mark Howard was removing his jacket. He slipped it over the back of his chair, indicated that she should take the chair across the desk, and sat down with a sigh.

  “Let’s get right to it,” she said, startling him. “What evidence do you have that Ms. Zeckis even knew that cash was in her bag?”

  “I’m not going to discuss details like that with potential witnesses,” he informed her, sitting straighter and aiming a penetrating gaze her way. “And I’ll ask the questions, thanks.”

  He went into the same things he’d apparently asked Mary, and Gracie gave him a similar answer. “I’ve known Amber since she was eighteen. She babysat my kids, for heaven’s sake. I just can’t imagine—”

  “Have you ever known Ms. Zeckis to use drugs?”

  “No! No way we’d be friends if I learned something like that, and absolutely no way she’d spend any time with my kids.”

  He jotted something in a small spiral notebook. “Any mob connections, trafficking of contraband?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Look, I’ll be frank with you. That kind of cash isn’t something any honest person just happens to have in their possession. It usually comes from an illegal activity of some kind—dealing drugs, trafficking weapons or humans.”

  “Seriously? You’ve seen Amber. She’s like a lamb and you’re sending her to the slaughter.”

  Again, he fixed that penetrating stare on her. “You’d be surprised. The innocent looking ones can be guilty as sin.”

  “But you need to have evidence. What is pointing you that direction?”

  His desk phone rang and he flashed an irritated glance at it. “No comment,” he said to Grace as he reached for the handset. She sat back in the chair while he went into something that sounded like a paperwork issue with whoever was on the phone.

  The squad room buzzed with conversations and movement. Two plainclothes cops walked past her and paused beside the desk nearest Howard’s.

  “We’ll need to get over to Blackwell-Gorse before the day is out,” said the female cop, a no-nonsense type with dark hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck.

  “Yeah, sounds like this could be something fairly big,” the man in the brown suit said. He held a file folder open to some kind of report.

  Gracie quickly shifted her gaze away when the woman looked directly at her. With a nod at her partner, the two moved away and Gracie saw them walk through a doorway at the far end of the room.

  Howard seemed distracted after his phone call, so Gracie used the moment to excuse herself. “If you have any other questions, you have my cell number,” she said, standing and heading toward the exit.

  Blackwell-Gorse Tech was Amber’s employer. Gracie felt her heart rate pick up. Something was going on and she had a bad feeling about this.

  In the privacy of her minivan, Gracie picked up her phone with shaky hands and tapped Amber’s number.

  “If you’re at work right now, give me a call when you leave.”

  “Uh, okay,” Amber said, clearly puzzled.

  “The sooner the better.”

  “I have a break coming up soon. I think I’ll go out and grab a coffee at the corner.”

  Chapter 14

  Gracie’s call had freaked her out, so it wasn’t a far stretch for Amber to tell her supervisor that she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to leave early.

  “The creampuff I ate on my coffee break must have been off,” she said, completely sure that the sickly look on her face would match her story.

  All the way back to her condo, the conversation ran through her head. “If there’s anything incriminating on your computer or phone …”

  Amber couldn’t think what that might possibly be, but the idea of having her emails and files searched felt so invasive. She’d seen enough movies to know they could construe anything to mean what they wanted it to, and her recent texts from Cody could easily have double meanings.

  She whipped the Prius into her assigned parking slot in the building’s secure, residents’ area, grabbed her computer bag and purse from the passenger seat, and practically raced up the stairs to the sixth floor. Her phone rang just as she reached the top step, showing one of the B-G extensions on the screen. She let it go to voicemail while she unlocked her front door.

  Inside, she listened to the voicemail message: “Hey, Amber, it’s Sadie. Sorry I didn’t get the word before you left for the day … Someone from HR is trying pretty urgently to get hold of you, and she was kinda upset when I said you’d left. No idea what it’s about, but don’t be surprised if you hear from her. The woman’s name is Greta something-or-other. There’s all this rumor stuff about something in the quarterly audit and they’re looking at peoples’ computers, so maybe she just has some questions. Um, hope you get to feeling better soon.”

  Sadie Uphurst was her supervisor, a woman only a few years older than Amber and not someone who would normally call her when she was sick. There must be something to the office buzz.

  She set her computer bag on the dining table, took the laptop out, and stared at it for a good, long minute. They were looking at the employees’ computers. What would they find on hers?

  Her intercom buzzer sounded, causing her to jump, sending her heartbeat zooming. Could she ignore it? Most people would think she was at work right now. Then her company cell phone rang. An unfamiliar number with a familiar prefix.

  “Amber Zeckis.” She forced her voice to remain steady.

  “Ms. Zeckis, it’s Greta Sash from HR. We’re conducting a random check and I need to take your company computer and phone. It’s probably only for a day or so.”

  “Uh, okay. But I came home sick this afternoon. I’ll bring them to your office tomorrow.”

  “Actually, that’s no problem. I’m here at your condo to pick them up. I just need you to buzz me in.” The intercom buzzer punctuated her words.

  Oh no.

  “Oh. Uh, one second. I was just getting undressed.” She ran into the spare room where she’d never quite unpacked all her computer gear. Somewhere, she had a portable hard drive. She rummaged into a box and got her hand on it. “Ms., uh, Greta, um, just let me get some clothes on. Can you give me two minutes?”

  “Certainly.”

  Amber ended the call and raced back to the dining table. Her fingerprint scan brought the laptop to life, and with practiced hands she plugged the external hard drive into a USB port and started the process to copy the laptop’s hard drive to it.

  Two excruciating minutes went by, while the message on the screen said: Approximately five minutes remaining …

  The door buzzer screeched insistently.

  Amber ran to her bedroom and whipped off her work clothes, tossing a nightgown over her head. Back at the table, the screen said: Approximately two minutes remaining …

  Buzzzz, Buuzzzzzzz

  She walked to the intercom panel beside the front door and pressed the speaker. “Sorry, I had an emergency in the bathroom. Here you go.”

  She pressed the release button to allow the elevator to admit the visitor.

  Approximately one minute remaining …

  She messed up her hair and rubbed off her remaining makeup. The backup countdown kept going: 10 seconds remaining …, 9 seconds, 8 seconds …

  There was no time to do anything about texts or calls on her phone. She could only hope for the best.

  1 second … Backup complete. You may now remove the external drive.

  She did. In one smooth move she unplugged the USB cord, closed the lid on the laptop, and dashed into her spare room to stash the portable drive at the bottom of a box of miscellaneous office supplies. She had provided her own computer bag, and she tossed it to the
top shelf of the closet.

  A sharp knock came at the front door. Amber took two deep breaths, hoping the flush on her face and uneven breathing could be explained by her so-called illness.

  Greta Sash had an unfamiliar face, but that wouldn’t be unusual in a company the size of B-G. She was in her fifties, with iron-gray hair in a severe bob and hard lines around her mouth.

  “Sorry,” Amber said, rubbing her temples. “I’ve really been feeling like crap this afternoon.”

  “I’ll only take a minute,” Ms. Sash assured her. “Here is a receipt, already filled out, for the company property in your possession. If you can just sign here and give me the items?”

  “What’s this about?” Amber asked as she signed the slip in duplicate.

  “I’m not at liberty to say. There have been some irregularities and we’re just following procedure.”

  Amber led the way and pointed out the computer and phone on the dining table.

  “This laptop is warm,” Sash commented.

  “I told Sadie I’d try to get some work done from home. But I think I’d better just go to bed.”

  The HR woman gave her an appraising look. “That’s probably a good idea. You don’t look well.”

  Amber was never so happy to close the door on someone. She watched through the peephole to be sure Greta Sash actually walked away. Satisfied, she looked at herself in the mirror beside the door. Wild hair, glistening eyes, and a flush to her normally deep brown skin all gave credence to the story that she was ill, but there was no way she could tuck into bed and rest.

  She paced through the condo for five minutes to calm herself down. She needed to talk to someone, but who? This wasn’t the sort of news to share with the parents, and it seemed the rest of the Heist Ladies already knew of the heightened investigation. Eventually, she settled on calling Mariah Kowzlowski. Her lawyer really should know about this latest potential development. She picked up her personal cell phone and found the number.