Shadow Account

by Stephen Frey

  “You do that.”

  Lucas gazed over Cheetah’s shoulder at the Capitol, thinking about how he’d wanted that bike for Christmas when he was thirteen. How he’d been sure he was going to get it because it was all he asked for and how it had takenforever for Christmas to come. How on Christmas morning there hadn’t been a bike in front of the tree or in the garage. In fact, there hadn’t been much at all. It was the first time he’d understood how poor a provider his father was. The first time he’d been disappointed in his father.

  Brenda better not disappoint him. He was counting on her. Counting on his ability to recognize someone he could depend on.

  He glanced back at Cheetah, searching the man’s expression. Did they think he was that stupid?

  Amy smiled at Conner from across the table. He was being so nice tonight. Like she wanted him to be all the time. She glanced down. She wasn’t going to help Paul Stone anymore. The hell with the money. She’d pick up another waitressing job and live with her mother until she could get back on her feet financially. The point of all of this had been to get back into Conner’s life, and, based on tonight, she was going to get what she wanted.

  “You look really nice tonight, Amy.”

  “Thanks.” Suddenly she felt so guilty for spying on him.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, standing up. “Gotta make a quick pit stop.”

  She reached out as he went by, and he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t be long,” she murmured.

  “I won’t.”

  Amy watched until he disappeared at the back of the place. As she turned around, a waiter passed the table, accidentally knocking Conner’s jacket from the back of the chair. The man didn’t notice what he’d done, so she got up and picked the jacket up, draping the shoulders around the chair again. As she did, the framed picture Conner had taken from the mantel fell from the inside pocket to the floor. Amy knelt down slowly and retrieved it, gazing at herself and her son. Stone’s words of warning echoing in her ears.

  She stared at the photograph a few moments longer, then slipped it back into Conner’s jacket and sat back down. Tonight was an act and nothing more. Stone had been exactly right. Conner was using her. Why or how, she didn’t know. But suddenly, those things didn’t matter.

  Amy glanced up as Conner returned.

  “Ready to order?” he asked cheerfully, sitting down.

  She wanted to tell him what she’d just found. Wanted to confront him with the evidence and understand what he was doing and why he was using her. But she didn’t. That wouldn’t be the best way get back at him. “Yeah,” she said, smiling at him sweetly. “I’m very ready.”

  Conner helped Amy into the cab and waved to her as it headed out into traffic. When they’d hugged good night a few moments ago, he’d had to make certain she didn’t feel the frame in his pocket. He smiled to himself. He had what he needed. Now to confirm the connection.

  Amy pulled the cell phone from her purse after waving to Conner. He was the enemy now.

  19

  Conner tapped on the keyboard, scouring the Internet for more information on Global Components. It was eight thirty Wednesday morning. Gavin and Stone weren’t in the office yet. He’d never called Gavin back yesterday, and he’d stayed at the Hilton Hotel in Midtown last night. So he had no idea if the old man had made the trip out to Easthampton again last night or stayed at his apartment in the city. He hadn’t gone back to Gavin’s place, because he didn’t trust anyone at this point. It was that simple.

  Conner hadn’t returned any of the five messages Jackie had left on his cell phone, either. She was probably angry and hurt, but it couldn’t be helped at this point. There was too much on the line. She’d said it herself. The one thing that still amazed her after thirteen years in the financial world was how far people would go when the walls started collapsing in on them.

  Conner buzzed Rebecca’s desk on the intercom for the third time in the last ten minutes, but there was still no answer. She didn’t usually get in until a little before nine because her important duties didn’t start until lunch. But he was praying that she’d change her routine this morning so he could leave before Gavin or Paul arrived.

  A color picture of the Global Components board of directors flashed onto his computer screen—twelve Saxons and two poster children. Conner focused in on Jim Hatcher, the CFO. One of three Global executives on the board. He enlarged the man’s face as much as possible without distorting the image. Hatcher had made three trips to Miami in a month. The odds were long, but it was worth a shot. Conner sent the image to a color printer, and clicked. Maybe the odds weren’t really that long after all. There were too many arrows pointing in the same direction.

  Conner clicked out of Global Components’ current annual report and went back a few years, whistling softly as the list of directors appeared. Most of the same names appeared, but there were some impressive new ones, too. Like Alan Bryson. Conner peered at the treasury secretary’s name. Gavin really was incredible when it came to business. He’d remembered that Bryson was on this board without any prompting.

  Conner zipped around the annual, looking for any mention of a Minneapolis operation in the older report. But there was nothing. It was just as Jackie had said. He let out a frustrated breath. He’d been scanning reports for days looking for this needle in the Global Components haystack. Maybe Frolling wasn’t kidding. Maybe Global really didn’t have anything out there.

  He picked up the phone and dialed the 202 area code number. There was one person who almost certainly knew if Global had an operation in the Twin Cities.

  “Good morning, Phil Reeves’s office.”

  “Theresa?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is John Bellamy,” Conner said loudly. Trying to sound brusque, older than he was, and important.

  “Yes, Mr. Bellamy.”

  “I’m working on a deal with my old friend Vic Hammond, and Vic tells me there’s a young guy named Rusty who works for him. That’s Phil’s nickname, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “His voice is squeaky or something,” Conner said, adding a detail for credibility. “Whatever.”

  Theresa laughed. “That’s right.”

  “Well, I spoke to Vic a few minutes ago. He’s about to get on a plane in Minneapolis on his way to Miami.”

  “Yes, and Rusty is coming back to the office this—”

  “And what I need is Rusty’shome address,” Conner continued, not allowing Theresa to interrupt. “I’ve got a package I need to get out right away. Vic told me to send it to Rusty at his home since Vic won’t be back to Washington for a few days. I’m in the Washington area, and once my people have everything put together, why, I’ll have one of them drive the package over to him.” Even if Theresa had Caller ID, there’d be no way for her to tell the call was coming from a 212 area code. Gavin had made certain to get the blocking feature. As much as he coveted the ability to watch other people, he hated the thought of people watching him.

  “Rusty is coming into the office this afternoon after he lands at Reagan Airport,” Theresa explained. “Why don’t you send the information here?”

  “Because I won’t have it completed until this evening,” Conner snapped. “And I want to make certain it gets to Rustytonight . What if Rusty gets delayed on the Detroit to D.C. leg?” He had checked Rusty’s flight schedule by talking to a helpful customer service representative at Northwest Airlines. Most flights going in and out of Minneapolis were Northwest, so it didn’t surprise him when the woman found the booking immediately. Rusty was going Minneapolis to Detroit, then Detroit to Reagan. “What if Rusty decides to go straight home when he lands?” Conner asked angrily. “Then where will I be? More important, where willVic be?” He could sense that the young woman was struggling about what to do. She was probably under strict orders not to give out this kind of information. “Vic is going to be damn angry if this package doesn’t get to—”

  “Rusty l
ives in Reston, Virginia, Mr. Bellamy.”

  Thirty seconds later Conner had Rusty’s home address and his home telephone number.

  After hanging up with Theresa, he went to get Jim Hatcher’s picture from the color printer. He nodded as he held it up. “Not bad.” Anybody who knew Hatcher would recognize him from this.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Conner saw Rebecca sit down at her desk. “Thank God,” he whispered, hurrying back to his office. He reached into a desk drawer and grabbed the photograph of Amy and her son he’d lifted from the mantel of her mother’s place last night.

  “What you got there, Conner?”

  Conner stopped short. Paul Stone stood in the corridor, briefcase in hand. Conner pressed the photograph to his body so Stone couldn’t see. “Nothing.”

  “Come on,” Stone said, smirking, “show me.”

  “It’s nothing. Just an old family picture I was going to show Gavin.”

  “Gavin isn’t in yet.”

  “Oh.”

  Stone stepped toward Conner. “Gavin was wondering where you were last night. He couldn’t find you.”

  “I stayed with a friend.”

  “What about yesterday?” Stone demanded. “Where were you?”

  “I had a personal emergency.”

  “We tried to reach you several times. We have comments on your Pharmaco valuation analysis. Things we want to adjust. We lost a lot of time getting back to the company.”

  Conner wondered if Stone knew about the letter from Pharmaco’s CEO. “Well, I’m here now. Why don’t you get settled,” he suggested, making certain to keep the photograph of Amy and her son pressed to his leg as he stepped around the other man, “and I’ll be right in.” He glanced over his shoulder as he reached the end of the corridor, but Stone hadn’t followed him.

  Conner hurried to Rebecca’s desk. She was just taking the lid off a large cup of coffee. “Morning,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  He looked back toward the corridor once more. Still no sign of Stone. “You remember that conversation we had Monday night about Paul.”

  Rebecca put her hand to her face. “I’m so embarrassed about that.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he urged, holding Amy’s photograph out so Rebecca could see. “Is this the woman you saw with Paul?” His heart was racing. Depending on the response, he might be able to confirm the first link in the chain.

  She gazed at it for a few moments, then glanced up. “Yes,” she said firmly. “That’s her.”

  A chill coursed through Conner’s body. Rebecca had seen Paul Stone and Amy Richards together and now things were falling into place. Amy had appeared out of nowhere on Second Avenue after he’d bought the cigarettes Wednesday night so someone could buy time while his apartment was being destroyed. That was why she’d grabbed his arm twice as he’d tried to get past her. It also explained her persistent questions last night at dinner about what he’d been doing in Washington on Monday. She was keeping tabs on him—for Paul Stone.

  Maybe for Gavin Smith, too. That was really the million-dollar question. Did all of this involve Gavin as well?

  “You sure this is her?” Conner asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  He nodded. “Thanks.”

  “How did you get that?” she asked suspiciously.

  Conner searched for an answer—but there wasn’t one. “I’ll see you later.”

  Thirty minutes later, Conner stood at the front desk of the apartment building on Fifty-first Street. “So?”

  “I got what you want,” Andy assured him.

  “Show me.”

  The doorman hesitated, then reached beneath the desk and pulled out two AT&T Wireless bills. “Show me the money. Five hundred bucks. Like we agreed.”

  “All I need is the most recent one,” Conner said, eying the two envelopes. “Just the one for July.”

  “They’re both for July. At least, they’re both postmarked the same day.”

  Conner handed Andy the cash and took both envelopes. It was just as he had said. Both were postmarked the same day. AT&T Wireless must have inadvertently sent a duplicate. “It would really help if you’d let me go up to Tori’s apartment for a few minutes.”

  Andy shook his head. “No way. Giving you those things could get me in enough trouble as it is,” he said, nodding at the envelopes.

  “You can come up with me. I’ll give you more money.”

  “Nope. And nobody better find out I did this,” Andy called, shoving the cash in his pocket.

  Conner was already headed toward the front door. He hesitated in the foyer, spotting a dark sedan parked down the street. It had followed the cab up here. He turned around. “You got a back door to this place?”

  The doorman smiled smugly. “Sure. But it costs a hundred bucks to use.”

  Two hours later, Conner was on a Continental flight headed for Miami. When the plane reached cruising altitude and he had a scotch in front of him, Conner put his seat all the way back and pulled the two cell phone bills out of his briefcase. The first one covered the cell number he was familiar with. The number Liz had given him the night they’d first met. It confirmed that the apartment on Fifty-first Street was hers. That Tori Hayes—the name on the invoice—and Liz Shaw were the same person. That if he could somehow get into her apartment when he got back from Miami, he might find something interesting. Or nothing at all, as he thought about it. They’d probably cleared it out by now.

  Conner scanned the invoice, searching for numbers he recognized. But the only numbers on this invoice were his. His cell number, his office number, and his apartment number.

  He took a quick swallow of scotch, then ripped open the second bill. He pulled out the folded pages and instantly recognized Paul Stone’s office number. Just the last digit of the string different from his own extension. Conner checked the top of the page. This bill was for a different number. Liz had two cell phones. One she had used to communicate solely with Conner, and another she used for all other calls.

  He scanned the pages of the bill. There were at least three calls a day to Paul Stone.

  20

  Middleburg, Virginia, is a tiny, colonial-era town tucked into the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains forty miles west of Washington. Although it’s one of the prettiest and most desirable dots on the commonwealth map, real estate brokers here don’t usually earn the standard 6 percent. They don’t have to. Few properties trade hands for less than a million dollars, and brokers make an excellent living by being reasonable. Technology executives, prominent political figures, movie stars, and venture capitalists mingle at the pricey shops and restaurants of the quaint village—as well as on the private polo fields, steeplechase courses, and foxhunting trails of the sprawling estates outside of town.

  It was in the middle of this Norman Rockwell painting Lucas now found himself.

  No blue-collar strip mall this time. This time the venue was a stately, three-story stone home overlooking the seemingly endless white-wooden fences of a thoroughbred horse farm. Perhaps the change of venue could be explained by Lucas’s unwillingness to relay anything to the low-level West Winger who’d met him at the Vietnam Memorial. Or perhaps it was simply more convenient for Franklin Bennett on this day. Bottom line: Lucas didn’t carewhy the venue had changed, only that it had. Because the existence of the estate and the fact that he and Bennett were meeting here confirmed for him that there was some kind of secret society within the party. There was no way Bennett could afford all of this. Somebody inside had to be making it available to him.

  Which was fine with Lucas. At heart, he was more utilitarian than possessive. He cared more about using assets than he did owning them.

  “Something to drink, sir?”

  A maid held a tray in front of Lucas as he sat in a wicker chair on the wide covered porch. On it were tall glasses of lemonade and iced tea, perspiring in the heavy humidity of the August afternoon.

  “Thank you.” Lucas chose lemonad
e and took a long drink, ice cubes pressed to his upper lip. It was so damn hot and the cold liquid was refreshing. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand as the maid placed the tray on a small glass-top table beside his chair, then disappeared inside the house.

  He’d been waiting for an hour, and he’d happily wait another. Anotherseveral , in fact. He was nervous. Hands-shaking nervous. This was it. High noon. He thought about smoking but didn’t. He didn’t want Bennett knowing that he needed a crutch.

  From the porch Lucas could see the long driveway leading down to the main road, and he checked it constantly to see if Bennett was coming. He despised himself for it, but he could feel the indecision seeping back. He took another long guzzle of lemonade. As confident as he’d been an hour ago on the way out here, he was reconsidering the consequences. Maybe it was wiser to stay quiet and hold on to the life he’d grown accustomed to. Minutes passed like hours more days than he cared to admit, but it was an uncomplicated life. Perhaps most important, it was a safe life, fraught with no critical responsibilities. With increased responsibilities came increased risk. With increased risk came the potential for disaster. He’d lived his entire life trying to avoid disaster. It was terrifying to suddenly fly in the face of it.

  He placed the glass of lemonade down on the table, leaned forward on the edge of the chair, and rubbed his eyes. Be the man Brenda would want, he told himself. Not the coward she’d discarded at Northwestern.

  “Hello, Lucas.”

  His head snapped around. Franklin Bennett stood there, glaring at him.

  “What do you want?” Bennett asked gruffly, easing into the chair on the other side of the table. “This better be important.”

  Lucas’s mouth went dry. Franklin Bennett was chief of staff to the president of the United States of America. Who the hell did he think he was, taking on this kind of power? Bennett could call in favors from people like the ones Cheetah had talked about. People who could easily cause those disasters Lucas had been running from his entire life.