Show Me the Money

by Connie Shelton

  A twentysomething blonde girl sat at the reception desk outside the manager’s office. She spoke up. “It’s not far at all. Would you like me to point the way for ye?”

  She was immediately on her feet, circling the desk, and taking Sandy’s arm.

  “Erm, yes, thanks,” Pen said.

  Together, the three walked to the bank’s main entrance on Princes Street. “If we step out here, I can show you what you’re looking for,” the girl offered.

  She pointed toward the west. “I heard what you were asking my manager in there,” she said, keeping her voice low, continuing to gesture with her hands. Anyone watching would believe she was giving directions. “That Cody Brennan you were asking about, he was here the moment the bank opened this morning. But you’re wrong about the type of transaction. He brought cash, a whole lot of it, and deposited it in an account with the company name Blandishment.”

  “Your manager said the account was closed,” Sandy said.

  “Technically, that’s true. But there are some other transactions, and it’s what I was working on when you came in.”

  “Go on,” Pen encouraged.

  “The money is to be split and transferred to several other accounts.”

  “Also in the name of this Blandishment?”

  The girl shook her head. “I really shouldn’t say.”

  Sandy gave her a pleading look, and the girl named two American banks.

  “That’s not actually what I wanted to tell you,” the girl said. “I’m to finalize these transfers and close the Blandishment account, and Mr. Brennan said he would come back this afternoon to verify it all and sign the documents.”

  “He’ll be back?”

  She nodded. “Hearing what you said to my manager, I took it that you were most interested in speaking with Mr. Brennan, more so than wanting his personal banking information.”

  “What time will he be here?” Pen asked.

  “Two o’clock.” The girl glanced anxiously over her shoulder. “Sorry, I really must get back inside. The castle is directly up this road, and just follow the pathway. Enjoy your day!” She uttered this last a bit more loudly as she pulled open the door to return to her work.

  Pen and Sandy walked a block before they spoke.

  “This is exciting,” Pen said with gleaming eyes. “We are very close to catching up.”

  “And then what? We confront him, although we have no power to arrest or detain? Or do we try to get local law enforcement involved?”

  Pen sighed. “You’re right. I’d hoped we could catch up with the money, find evidence that leads to his being responsible for Amber’s predicament. But to deal with Cody himself … I’m not quite certain where to turn.”

  “True, but if we can get our hands on him, we can drag him to the authorities. This is where it would have been good to have Mary along on this trip.”

  At least that picture drew a smile from Pen.

  They walked five minutes in silence, making their way up the narrow lane that led to the imposing castle on the hill. At the sturdy iron portcullis was a ticket booth.

  “Before we go inside, let’s think of the best ways we could be spending our time,” Pen suggested. “Maybe we can set a trap? I suggest we call Amber.”

  “It’s the middle of the night at home.”

  “She won’t mind. This is important. We should see if she can lure Cody into thinking he’s meeting her.”

  Chapter 38

  Cody bought his ticket and stood with the group he’d been assigned for the 10:30 tour of the castle. Twenty or so people, milling around the upper parapet that looked out over the sprawling city below as they waited for their tour guide. With a few hours to kill, this was at least more interesting than hanging out in a hotel room.

  He was feeling lighthearted, relieved, after his meeting at the bank today. The manager had been a gruff old coot, but his secretary was a cutie and she’d smiled when he flirted at her desk. She assured him she could take care of the details—depositing the cash he’d brought into the various accounts he’d already set up.

  She was the one who suggested he come back later in the day; he was the one who proposed that he take her out for a drink afterward. He couldn’t remember whether she actually agreed. The main thing was that he would see her again. And this time he didn’t even need to recruit her to move any cash for him.

  Pop would just have to live with the fact that the money was not the green sort.

  A woman in a straight skirt and blue blazer stepped out to the wide overlook and called out, “Blue tickets! The 10:30 tour group! Please assemble here with me.”

  Cody meandered over, fitting himself instinctively into the middle of the group. They moved toward a doorway in the thick stone wall, and he was determined to relax and enjoy a few sights of the ancient city. The good news was that he hadn’t caught sight of those two American women for more than a day now. If they were tailing him, he’d shaken them off at last.

  “Follow me, please, as we enter the castle, which has been a military fort, a royal residence, and a prison during its history.”

  They passed through the Great Hall, a cavernous room that could serve a whole stag to thirty knights, most likely, when his phone dinged with an incoming text message that echoed through the huge space. The tour guide shot him a look. She had requested that everyone turn off their cell phones for the duration of the tour.

  He glanced at the screen. Amber? She hadn’t responded to a message from him in nearly two weeks.

  “Sir?”

  “Sorry.” He made a show of switching off the phone and putting it away. “Sorry.”

  Amber’s message: Miss you. Can we get together?

  His mind spun with possibilities. And it looked like he would have another forty minutes to figure out how to answer.

  Chapter 39

  Sandy listened, enthralled, to the tall young tour guide who called them onward toward the Great Hall. The tours were well organized, with small groups, well-informed guides, and a ton of information about the history, which dated back to the Iron Age, and the enticing bit that this was where Mary Queen of Scots had been imprisoned for a short while.

  A previous group was exiting the great hall at the other end as the Red Group entered.

  Pen seemed a little distracted. Of course, she had grown up amid the history of the United Kingdom and had probably visited this very castle a dozen times. In the shuffle of movement from the rest of the group, Sandy murmured her thoughts.

  “No, it’s not that. I’m just eager to hear back from Amber, to know whether Cody is responding.”

  “Do you think he’ll buy the idea that she’s now here in Scotland?”

  It seemed farfetched, now that they’d had time to consider the plan. But there was only one way to find out. They trusted Amber to figure out what to say.

  The large hall seemed dim and cold to Sandy and she wasn’t particularly interested in the displays of suits of armor, but the guide entertained them with fun bits of trivia.

  “We’ll shortly make our way to see the Honours of Scotland, otherwise known as the crown jewels,” he said as they made their way out the door at the far end of the large hall. “It may be a bit more crowded in there, as the room isn’t large, and our visitors tend to want to stay longer there. But never fear, everyone will have a chance to see the lovely crown and the scepter and sword. And you’ll marvel at the story behind the Stone of Destiny.”

  The guide was right, the room with the crown jewels was more crowded, with visitors clustered around the display behind glass. And although the room itself was dimly lit, to showcase the priceless items, Sandy’s pulse jumped when she looked ahead and spotted a familiar face. She reached back and touched Pen’s hand.

  Cody Brennan stood at the glass, staring at the sword in the display.

  “It’s him,” Sandy whispered. “What now?”

  Pen didn’t have time to answer. Cody looked back and spotted them. Now there was no doubt he kne
w they were tailing him. He bumped a woman in front of him and edged his way roughly toward the exit door.

  Chapter 40

  What. The. Hell? Cody had no time to think. The two women knew he’d seen them, and a glance over his shoulder told him they were pushing their way through the crowd and coming after him. He didn’t even bother to apologize as he elbowed through a cluster of teenage girls and ran along a corridor that looked as though it might lead outside. Why didn’t I pick up one of the tour brochures and memorize the layout?

  A little late for that regret now.

  He heard a female voice behind him, around a curve. “He went this way.” American accent. It had to be one of them. He tried an ancient-looking handle on a door, but it was firmly locked. Same with the next, on his left. Crap, where did this hallway come out? He should have followed the tour path when he first got out of the crown jewels room, but he’d assumed that would lead to more crowds.

  Ahead, he spotted a green Exit sign above a door that looked more modern. He ran full-out for it, rammed it open, and immediately faced a wall. More signs directed him to the left, and in a few seconds he felt the rush of cool air and caught the scent of rain. He rushed in that direction, but he could hear the two women behind him. They’d just come through the same exit door.

  Outside now, he realized he was in an enclosed courtyard. There was a small scrap of lawn and a pathway running along the edge of the stone building on his right. He didn’t even know if that was still the castle itself or some other edifice. The guide had said the grounds contained military barracks, an armory, and a prison. Not to mention there had to be modern day offices and facilities.

  He dashed along the skinny path and came out in a larger space with a stone floor—at home, he might have called it a deck—surrounded by a low parapet. Several heavy black cannons sat there, large muzzles facing out through cutaways in the rock. It had begun to rain and people were milling about, bringing out their umbrellas, staring around as if unsure what to do next.

  Cody spotted a sign for a men’s room and knew he could duck out of sight there. But he saw the two women emerge from the same archway where he’d been. They would see him go into the restroom and although they wouldn’t follow, they could simply wait outside. He would have to come out at some point.

  Instead, he eyed the low wall. In jeans and a light jacket, he could leap it. The women weren’t dressed for wall-jumping. He ran toward it, hoping none of the castle guards would try to stop him. He had his hands on top of the three-foot wall, ready to vault over, when he gave a good look on the other side.

  It was a straight drop, hundreds of feet, to treacherous rocks below.

  Chapter 41

  Sandy watched in dismay as Cody ran for the parapet on the far side of the large overlook. Pen was gripping her arm. “Don’t follow. It’s a deadly drop from there.” She had pulled out an umbrella and was holding it above the two of them.

  Cody’s body was nearly on top of the low wall when he realized his mistake. Before the women could react, he’d pivoted and dropped back on this side of it and had taken off running again. His feet slid a little on the stone flooring but he was away.

  “My shoes will have no traction on this,” Pen said. “Go!”

  Sandy wasn’t in a much better position to follow someone fifteen years younger while wearing ballet flats, but she ran anyway. Cody had headed back toward the main entrance of the castle, and by the time she rounded the turn he was out of sight. She kept going. Behind her, Pen had folded the umbrella and was doing her best to keep up.

  The rain was coming down harder now, making the surroundings gray and blurry, and people were dashing for cover everywhere. There was no way to pick out one person on the run among all the others. Sandy stood there, drawing the hood of her jacket over her head, but having no luck at spotting their quarry.

  Pen caught up and raised the umbrella again. “Did you see where he went?”

  There were gift shops and a pub or two lining the narrow roadway leading down the hill toward the city. He could have ducked into any of them.

  “Or he may not have left the castle at all,” Sandy said, finishing Pen’s thought. “There’s a little path that says it goes to the dog cemetery, and that sign points to bathrooms …”

  “And there are dozens of doors, any of which might happen to be unlocked.”

  They felt discouraged, having been this close.

  “At least we know where he’ll be at two o’clock,” Pen reminded.

  “We do. Meanwhile, how about if we find a warm spot to dry off and get a cup of tea?”

  Chapter 42

  Cody couldn’t take the chance of going back to the bank, he realized. He’d taken a taxi to another part of the city, desperate to put more distance between himself and those women. He still had no idea who they were, and cursed himself for not having the presence of mind to snap a photo on one of the occasions he’d seen them. He might have been able to identify them through social media or something, and figure out why the hell they were right behind him everywhere he went.

  The taxi dropped him at a big mall where he could calm down and think about his next moves. If these were cops on his tail, he would abandon the things he’d left at the hotel—although losing his computer would be a major setback. But if cops had gotten his computer with all the data it contained, he was toast anyway. Best to stow away on a ship and lose himself on an island somewhere if that were the case.

  But these weren’t cops. They didn’t have the look. Their whole method of chasing him was too disorganized. Real cops would have called in local law enforcement in each country where they’d spotted him.

  He could abandon the few thousand dollars he’d left in the Blandishment bank account here. Most of it was now moved to other accounts, but he didn’t like the idea that he would be fresh in the mind of the girl at the bank. It couldn’t be every day that an American walked into their bank with stacks of cash to deposit. And it had been plain dumb of him to let her handle the movement of that cash through the Blandishment account and out to the others. She knew too much. He had to do something about that.

  But what? He felt stumped, and being without answers wasn’t something Cody Baker ever did.

  He made his way to the mall’s public toilets and used the air hand dryer to get his jacket, shirt and hair dry. The jeans were clammy feeling, even after several rounds under the hot air, and his shoes were hopeless. He dug into his pockets and came up with enough cash to buy a new pair. With dry clothing and a plan, his mood brightened. Hey, you could get anything you needed in a mall.

  But when the shoe clerk explained that they didn’t accept American cash, his mood fell again. A trip to an ATM gave him what he needed for the replacement shoes and a meal. It also left a paper trail, which he wasn’t happy about. But there was no way around it. It wasn’t as if authorities couldn’t figure out he’d been to Scotland—there were plane tickets and passport scans.

  He cast off his worries, along with the soggy shoes, and went to the nearest restaurant. The pastry and coffee he’d had early this morning had long since worn off. Over lunch, he thought about his dilemma. He needed to stay out of sight, finalize the banking transactions, and get on his flight back to Jersey.

  Shepherd’s pie and a big glass of ale helped clarify his thinking. He had to get to the girl from the bank. By the time he finished his meal and walked the length of the mall, to an exit door, the rain had stopped, the sun was peeping through the clouds, and he knew what he would do.

  He hung around the mall, checking his phone. There had been Amber’s message to him, but nothing more, even though he’d responded. Quick math told him it was the middle of the night in Arizona, and he felt a moment’s hope that she was sleepless and thinking of him.

  But no such luck. He went back and asked for another ale, nursing it and waiting until he heard the boom of the One O’Clock Gun, a cannon-fire tradition the tour guide had mentioned, one that had been in place every day
except Sunday since 1861. He didn’t want to call the bank too early and give the girl a chance to turn him down, or too late when she would already be pissed at him.

  Her name was Aileen MacPherson. In the tradition of Woody Baker, Cody never let a pretty one get away without getting her name first. He called the bank at 1:53 and said he couldn’t make his appointment. Would she be able to break away and bring the close-out documents and cash he’d requested? She agreed.

  He had already missed the checkout time at his hotel and since he was paying for another night anyway, he suggested the lobby as a meeting place. It was near the bank, a public space that wasn’t right out on the street, and who knew—if he thanked her with a sincere and winning smile, he might get lucky.

  Aileen showed up at exactly 2:05 with a slim portfolio tucked under her arm. She was every bit as pretty as he remembered, and he led the way to a quiet alcove beside the hotel bar, a grouping of chairs and small tables.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” he said. “I’m afraid I ran into a time crunch between two other meetings. My colleagues from New York insisted on my being here at 1:30 and that meeting ran over.”

  “It’s no problem,” she assured him in her delightful accent. “I was due a break anyway.” She reached into the portfolio and pulled out the forms he needed to sign. “Were those the ladies who inquired at the bank earlier? Your meeting?”

  Cody froze. “What?”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t have said. It’s none of my concern.”

  “No, the meeting was with someone else.” His mind was churning. Those women were doing more than tracking his movements between countries. They knew something about the money.

  Aileen spread the papers out and prattled on about what each form was for, indicating where he should sign. He scrawled an unreadable signature on each line, not paying attention to any of it. How was he going to handle this with the banker? Say something, making it memorable in her mind? Or say nothing and hope for the best?