“The mission is still for us to get Cody’s phone away from him,” Amber said, admitting she’d failed to do that at lunch.
“Got it. I’ll figure out something.”
“Thanks, Mary.”
Amber ended the call and sat there, staring toward the racetrack entrance, when she remembered the other task she needed to accomplish. Mary would figure out a way to get Cody’s cell phone, but his laptop was still out there somewhere. She thought back to their lunch together and tried to remember whether he’d handled the backpack as if it was heavy enough to contain his computer. She couldn’t say for sure. Laptops were pretty lightweight these days.
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and thought about it. No time like the present, she decided. Surely the men would stay put for at least an hour. She started her car and sped out of the lot. Despite the fairly heavy late afternoon traffic, she was back at the Skyliner Motel within fifteen minutes. She parked out of sight of the office and walked back to it.
“Hi,” she said to the girl behind the desk, putting on her brightest smile. “My brother and our dad checked in here awhile ago, and Cody was supposed to get me a key to the room. I thought they’d still be here but I guess they went out. I hope to bring us all back some dinner. Anyway, it’s room 16. Can you make me another card real quick?”
“Um, I’m not sure … I may need to check with the manager.”
Another guest had walked in behind Amber, a large man who made an impatient sound. “Hey, would you at least get me and my wife checked in first?”
“Excuse me, but I was here first,” Amber said. “It’s a simple enough request.”
The girl seemed torn between not following protocol or having the rude man cause a scene. Her hands dithered over her keyboard.
“Now,” the man said. “We’ve had a long day and just want to get to our room.”
Amber sent a pleading look toward the girl and mouthed, Sorry.
One minute later she held a plastic key card in her hand. One minute after that she was at the door of room 16, slipping inside.
Obviously, the men had done nothing in the way of settling in. The big suitcase she’d seen earlier sat in the middle of one bed. Cody’s backpack was on the other. She unzipped it and rummaged. No laptop.
Rats!
He’d obviously planned on spending the night, however, since there was a change of clothing and a shaving kit in the pack. That was good to know. She looked for anything else that could be of use. No papers of any kind. What had she expected, a rent receipt with his home address all written out? No cell phone, which made perfect sense. He carried it everywhere, and what would a guy like Cody want with a spare?
A glance at the clock told her the races were ending about now. She could only hope the men had stayed to the end.
The suitcase … would Cody have entrusted his father with anything of value to her mission?
She took a moment to open the bag and look through it. There was a checkbook for the First State Bank of New Jersey—she already knew about that account, but she carefully peeled out one of the deposit slips and tucked it into her jeans pocket.
Otherwise, the suitcase only seemed to contain the things an older man would bring on a trip. Enough clothes to last a week, a shaving kit with a couple of prescription pill bottles inside, two magazines—Playboy and Racing Weekly—not subscriptions, so they’d probably been purchased at the airport.
Amber tried to leave the bag as undisturbed as possible. Something told her Woody would be the kind of man who would know if his stuff had been tampered with. On the other hand, the TSA could always take the blame. She had to get out of here.
She scanned the parking lot through a slice of space at the edge of the drapes. No Taurus yet. She slipped out the door, pocketing the spare keycard. No telling when it might come in handy.
She’d made it halfway to her car when the Taurus pulled into the motel driveway. Amber spun toward the closet labeled Ice Machine.
Chapter 67
Cody couldn’t help thinking about his laptop. Why hadn’t he thought to bring it when he left the house this morning? He knew he’d be stuck with his dad’s choice of television for the evening. Sure, he could bring up a movie or some YouTube videos on his phone, but watching the tiny screen would get old.
“Hey, get over here and eat while this is hot,” Woody said. He’d carried their take-out Popeye’s Chicken dinner to the small table in the room.
Oh well, that’s what the visit was all about—spending some quality father/son time together, right? Plus, he loved Pop’s choice in food. He’d just polished off his third piece of chicken when an incoming text sounded. He wiped his greasy fingers and pulled the phone from his pocket.
Pop made a pah sound and created a lot of noise with the food wrappers, but Cody read the text anyway.
Amber: Did your dad get here okay?
Cody: Yeah he’s got me held captive in some motel out near Deer Valley.
Amber: At least you’re having fun. Nice that you got so much time off work.
Cody: Yeah, well….
Amber: What?
Cody: Didn’t want to tell you, I quit that gig. May move on to something else.
Amber: Really?
There was a pause of three or four minutes, during which he tried to imagine what was going through her head. How much of this whole scam had she figured out?
Amber: Sounds like big news. Eager to hear your plans.
Cody released his pent-up breath. Sure. Later.
Amber: Gotta go. Hi to your dad.
He sent her a heart, then wondered if that was the right thing to do. Pop would say no. In fact, Pop would be furious if he knew how Cody was feeling about Amber. He’d already gotten that lecture, so he told Woody this was a girl he’d met in a bar. And he didn’t share anything about the messages.
He didn’t have to say much of anything. The TV began blaring an old western, punctuated with wild bursts of drumbeats at the dangerous plot moments. Cody propped pillows against the headboard of his bed and stretched his legs out before he noticed he was taking up exactly the same position as his father. He shook his head. Ma had probably been right—the two Baker men were too much alike.
He thought ahead to the day tomorrow. If they got out of the motel a little after the rush hour traffic, they could make good time out to Mesa and he could pick up his laptop from the landlady’s house. Another couple of clean shirts and jeans wouldn’t hurt either. Then it would be an afternoon at the races with Pop. Sometimes the betting was kind of fun, and he wouldn’t mind a warm day outdoors with nothing to do but put away a few beers.
They ended up sleeping until nine. Cody wasn’t complaining. He’d hated the months of getting up practically at dawn to catch the bus downtown. Maybe he would follow his father’s example and start to enjoy some of the new money. Pop took the first turn at the shower and by the time Cody finished and dressed, the old man was antsy to get going.
“The racetrack doesn’t open until noon. We got plenty of time,” Cody told him. “We’ll grab some breakfast and do this one errand I’ve got. We’ll get you there.”
Or so he thought, until they walked out the door and saw that two of the tires on the rented Taurus were flat.
Well, crap.
“Grab the jack,” Woody said. “We’ll just put the spare on.”
“And which tire do you propose we leave flat?” Cody already had his phone out. “I’ll just call the rental agency and they’ll send someone out.”
It took another twenty minutes to get the right person on the line, explain the problem, and feel halfway confident that assistance was actually on the way.
“There’s a pancake place a few blocks east of here,” Cody said. “We can get breakfast there.”
“You gotta be here when the repair truck comes, don’t you?”
“The lady said it would be forty-five minutes or so. I’ll give the cute girl at the desk my number and ask her to call if it
shows up.”
The cute girl had been replaced this morning by a fat guy with an attitude who didn’t seem too inclined to keep an eye out the window.
Cody turned to his dad. “Come on. We gotta eat and they’ve already cleared away the stuff they had here. So let’s go up the road.”
Woody shrugged and the two set off walking.
They each wolfed down a plate of pancakes and bacon, then hurried back to the motel. The car still sat there, listing to the starboard side. Woody went into the room and turned on the TV. Cody checked the time, chafing at the waste of a whole hour of their time. They could have driven to Mesa and been halfway back by now.
The truck didn’t show for another sixty-seven minutes, and the guy clearly was being paid by the hour as he dawdled along with the exchange of the tires.
“I don’t see no damage to these,” he told Cody. “Seems like a loose valve stem or something, but the boss says change ’em out. Guess he don’t want me having to come back out if they go flat again.”
No kidding, Sherlock. At this rate I’ll be my dad’s age before we start our day.
He signed the work order and watched the truck make a complicated four-point turn and pull away. In the room he found Woody studying the racing form.
“Okay, Pop, all set. We’ll go pick up my stuff and then it’s off to the track.”
“Can’t do that.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you tell me it’d take an hour, maybe two to make that round trip? Well, the track opens in twenty minutes and the first race is the one I gotta get in on.”
“You’re kidding.”
Woody stood straighter and stuffed the racing form into his shirt pocket. “I am not. What’s this bug you got, this obsession, with getting some spare clothes and stuff from your room? There’s that big Walmart right by the track. Run in there and get you a couple shirts, maybe a pair of jeans … you’re all set.”
Cody opened his mouth to protest but the look on his father’s face told him this was one battle not worth winning. The man could make your life miserable when he didn’t get his way. He let out a sigh and drove to the track.
Chapter 68
Mary sat in her car at Turf Paradise, enjoying the cool breeze that flowed through her open windows, smiling at the satisfying memory of that sound, the hiss of air leaving Cody Baker’s tires. Heh-heh. Definitely worth getting up a little early so she could perform her little task in the dark.
She’d hung nearby long enough to see that the men didn’t find some alternate transportation to get across town. They’d walked to a restaurant, then back to the motel, and from across the road she’d seen Cody talking to the driver of the repair truck. Another few minutes passed, and she had followed them here. The long brown wig was beginning to itch, but she couldn’t take the risk that the men would later remember her short, spiky blonde style.
The parking lot wasn’t terribly crowded this early in the racing day. Spotting Cody’s red t-shirt and baggy denim shorts shouldn’t be that hard. She locked her car, pocketed her keys and sauntered toward the same entrance where the men had gone, five minutes ago.
Not surprisingly, she immediately spotted Woody at the betting window. He seemed to know exactly what he wanted and the transaction took only a minute. Cody was at a concession stand, apparently deciding noon was the perfect time of day to start with a beer or two.
When the men joined up, Mary noted their direction and followed, picking up a racing form along the way. Woody seemed right at home, and he led the way down the sloping bleachers to the front. The front-row seats right at the finish line were all taken—a fact that the father seemed to be pointing out to his son—but they were able to get on the third row in the same area. Mary slipped on her sunglasses while she made sure they settled down, then she edged her way along the fourth row, which wasn’t crowded at all.
The timing was perfect. Horses were lining up at the gate and the smallish crowd seemed excited. She peered over Cody’s shoulder and saw his father’s racing form, marked up with his choices. He’d circled number 21 in this first race. The horse started slow out of the gate but made its way quickly to the middle of the pack. Rounding the second turn he edged forward into third place, then second.
The crowd was screaming and cheering, everyone on their feet, seemingly yelling for a different horse, but Woody maintained a calm shell. The only sign that he’d put money on this longshot was the tension in his knuckles as he gripped his racing form.
Mary let out a yell, “Come on, twenty-one!”
When the horse edged ahead in the final turn and gathered speed to finish by half a length, the crowd went wild. Mary used the excitement of her supposed win to grip both Cody’s and Woody’s shoulders. “Woo-hoo! Oh—sorry.”
“Nice!” Woody shouted as he gave her a high-five.
She played the next two races the same way, cheering madly for one of the horses, watching the two men, noting their little routine moves. Cody got more in the spirit with each beer he finished. When she decided he was sufficiently relaxed, she made her move and unzipped the front pouch on her waist pack.
Just as the horses were rounding the bend in the fourth race and the crowd was on their feet, she leaned forward and pinched the edge of the cell phone that stuck enticingly out of Cody’s pocket. Into the waist pack it went, and Mary was on her way out of the stands by the time the final results were announced. No one noticed as she quickly stepped through the crowd and past the payout windows.
Out in the car, she stuffed the brown wig and sunglasses under the seat, sent a one-word text, and started her engine. Even if Cody realized his phone was missing, there was only a slim chance he would figure out who the woman behind them really was.
Chapter 69
Amber’s heart pounded when she read Mary’s text. It was time. All she could do was hit the button to start the money transfers she had set up—and then hope and pray all their tactics for keeping Cody offline would work.
She hit the button.
Then she called Sandy. “Did you get all the account information and routing numbers I sent?”
“Yep, exactly what I needed. Don’t get your hopes completely set on this, Amber. Internally, I can monitor the cash movement, but I can’t promise that I can speed things up for you. But I’ll try.”
“Anything you can do. Oh—what about that deposit slip I gave you?”
“Woodrow Baker. You said the account belongs to Cody’s father?”
“The checkbook was in his suitcase. Cody told me his dad’s name was Woody.”
“Right. I made an interbank request this morning, for more information on the account holder. Pretended that we’re considering Mr. Baker for a loan.”
“Is he the one behind their dummy corporation?”
“Probably. Technically, the corporation has the name Woodrow Wilson Baker. Cody’s father is Woodrow Harrison Baker. A small difference, but it could be the thing they’ll use if they really get in deep trouble. He could pull the old ‘that’s not me’ argument.”
“I’ll get online and see if I can find more,” Amber said. “Maybe there is a Baker, middle name Wilson, somewhere in the picture too.”
She opened a new browser window and typed a search, mainly so she wouldn’t forget to do it later.
“I’ll start some quiet inquiries,” Sandy said, “and I’ll let you know if I’m able to green-light any of your transfers to make them go faster. But don’t count on it.”
“I know. We need to plan on this taking a few days. What else can we come up with to stall for time? What if their car exploded?”
“With or without them in it?”
“Either.”
“Careful, sweetie, you’ve already got the police watching you pretty closely.”
“I know,” she said as Sandy hung up.
But that just made it more of a challenge. Keep Cody away from his phone, while not letting him suspect her involvement, and make every roadblock she could th
row in his way look and feel like just a bad twist of fate. Sure—no problem.
All this was running through Amber’s head when a string of search results came up for the name Woodrow Wilson Baker. A lot of them were about the former president, with the surname Baker deleted, but she did find one—at a genealogy site. She went there, created a profile for a free trial subscription, and began prowling around.
She had just hit upon a promising list of Woodrow Bakers with different middle initials when Mary called.
“How’s it going? Operation Money Move is underway?”
Amber laughed at the not-so-subtle code name. “Yeah. So far, so good. Sandy is monitoring some of it through the bank, although she has to be careful since her bank technically isn’t at all connected to it. What about at your end? Are you still at the track?”
“No, I left. But I got to thinking it might be smart if we keep watching the two of them. We don’t think Cody can get to his laptop quickly, but what if he can? We have no idea where it is right now.”
“True. That’s been worrying me.”
“So I propose to go back there and spy some more. Those couple hours at the races were actually kind of fun.”
“He’ll be suspicious, won’t he? What if he puts it together that the moment his phone disappeared was right when a certain blonde was sitting behind him?”
“For one thing, she wasn’t blonde when she pulled the dirty deed. And for another, I’m staring in the window of a wig shop in the mall right down the road. I’m thinking with different hair, glasses, and clothing styles I could keep him from spotting me.”
“I don’t know … con men are pretty good with faces.”
“I’ll accessorize. Plus, when I go back, I don’t need to sit close at all. I can be twelve rows above them or twenty seats over. As long as we know they’re at the track he can’t be heading off somewhere to get that computer.”
Show Me the Money Page 20
