Crash And Burn

by Fern Michaels

  “Well, you certainly look nice. Pretty jacket,” Nikki said, eyeing the designer jacket and mentally calculating the cost, along with the Chanel RED handbag shaped like a pouch. It looked heavy to Nikki, like it was weighing down one shoulder. She put her laptop in her purse. Why?

  “Jeff insisted on taking me shopping earlier this year on my birthday. He bought me the jacket and purse. He insisted. I’m not into designer this and that. I shop at J.Crew or Talbots.”

  This last was said so defensively, Nikki’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything other than “Let’s go. Are all the doors locked?”

  “Yes. I’m ready.”

  “Me too,” Nikki said, heading toward her red Jeep. “I love pancakes. My mother used to make them in different shapes for me when I was little. I always looked forward to weekends because meals were special then. How about you?” Nikki asked, hoping to draw Amy out to admit something, anything. It wasn’t working. Nikki prodded. “So what did your mother make you for breakfast?” There, it was point-blank; Amy had to respond one way or another.

  “My mother wasn’t much for cooking. She was . . . sick a lot. We had a cook. In the winter, it was oatmeal with raisins. In the summer, it was box cereal and milk.”

  “Guess that means you aren’t a pancake aficionado like me then. I could eat pancakes every day. My husband loves them, too. These days we’re both so busy, we just have special dinners and breakfasts on weekends. That’s if we’re not tied up on cases, then it’s like the rest of the week, and we eat on the fly,” Nikki said lightly. She knew she needed to tone down her rhetoric because she was starting to babble.

  “Jeff likes pancakes. I can eat them, but I’m just not a breakfast person,” Amy said flatly.

  “You are raining on my parade here, Amy. Here I thought I was doing a nice thing, something I’ve done for all the new associates, a way to get to know one another at least a little outside the office. Perhaps I should just take you back to the house and apologize for bothering you. Yes, that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll just turn around in the parking lot, since we’re almost there, and head on back.” Well, this certainly throws a monkey wrench into our mugging plan. Unless . . .

  Amy flushed a rosy pink. “I didn’t mean to sound . . . No, it’s all right. If I eat something now, I won’t have to worry about lunch. The few errands I have to do can wait. Let’s just have breakfast. I’m sorry for being such a putz. I have a nasty headache. Maybe I do need to eat something.”

  “That always works for me. Eating something, I mean.” Nikki hoped the relief she was feeling didn’t show in her expression or her tone.

  “Well, I certainly didn’t expect the parking lot to be so full, so early in the day. Then again, it is a strip mall, so other store customers park here, too. I’m going to have to park way in the back. You don’t mind the hike, do you, Amy?”

  “No, not at all. Exercise is exercise. Something I need to do more of.”

  Nikki’s gaze was everywhere as she slid out of the car and waited till Amy closed the door before she pressed the digital key holder attached to her key ring. “I think it’s even windier than it was at your house, and it feels like the temperature is dropping.” Nikki gasped. She looked over her shoulder and immediately spotted her soon-to-be mugger.

  “Ah . . . Amy, listen to me carefully. At your two o’clock, and don’t look now, there’s a strange-looking guy heading toward us. I could be wrong, but I think . . . Shoot, he’s gaining on us. Hurry, dodge between that van and the pickup. I think we’re going to get mugged.”

  “We’ll just see about that. I have a gun in my purse, and I do know how to use it, too! Jeff insisted I get it and learn to shoot,” Amy said fiercely.

  “I have a gun, too, but I do not intend to use it, and neither should you. Law enforcement says to give them whatever they want so you can walk away. Alive. Are you listening to me, Amy? Crouch down, inch forward a step at a time. You go first. He’s behind me. Make a mad dash for the entrance.”

  “Are you kidding me! That distance is half a football field. Look, I can’t . . . I won’t give up my purse.”

  He came out of nowhere, probably from the bed of the pickup truck, Nikki later told the police. The gun was black and ugly, just as ugly as the man himself, who wore a black ski mask. “Nice and easy now, ladies. Just toss me your bags and you walk away to enjoy the rest of the day. Don’t make me say this twice.”

  Nikki worked to make her voice as jittery and frightened as she could. “Do what he says, Amy. Here, mister, take mine.” There, that was a clue to the mugger that weapons could be put into play. She hoped the pretend mugger could tell how wired Amy was.

  The mugger leaned out of the bed of the truck and had Amy’s shoulder bag in his hand before Nikki could blink twice. Amy jackknifed to her feet and lashed out at him. The mugger gave a chop to her shoulder, and she was on the ground, moaning. Nikki screamed at the attacker, “Look what you did! Look what you did! You hurt her! You have our bags! Leave us alone!”

  “Take it easy, lady. All I did was give her a good cuff. You look like smart women and should know better than to mess with me. She messed with me. She ain’t going to die, so stop fretting. Look, see, she’s coming around.”

  “Just take our money and leave our bags. There’s nothing in either bag you can use.”

  “Oh, I can get some heavy-duty money for those two guns. I can sell your identities on the Internet and make a small bundle. Who knows? Some chick might be willing to pay top dollar for these here designer bags. Now turn around and stay down. You move, and it will be your last move of the day, maybe forever. You stay like that for a full ten minutes. Tell me you understand what I just said.” With that, the mugger took off.

  “We understand,” Nikki said as she leaned over Amy, protecting her with her arms. “Amy, don’t even breathe. Let’s just do as he says. Our lives are worth more than ten minutes. I can’t believe this is happening.” Nikki forced herself to cry, making sure some of her tears dripped on Amy’s hand.

  “I am so sorry, Amy. I thought I was doing a nice thing by taking you out to breakfast. How did doing something nice go so horribly wrong? The firm will, of course, reimburse you for the contents of your purse, the purse itself, and any cash you had in your wallet. We have to notify the credit-card companies and motor vehicles. Good Lord, you have no idea how much stuff I have jammed in my wallet,” Nikki moaned. She’s too quiet.

  Amy shrugged Nikki off her back and rolled over. She looked around and thought it weird that there was not another human being in the parking lot. She said so.

  “You know something, Amy, you’re right. Are you . . . Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “What are you thinking, Ms. Quinn?” Amy asked coldly.

  “That someone has been watching us. Probably you, since I’m just a lawyer. Think, why would someone want to watch or set you up? What the hell did you have in your handbag, anyway, that has you so jittery? I get the gun, sure. But you have a license to carry it and can always get another one. Your cell phone? You can get another one in an hour. I told you the firm will replace anything you lost. Is there something else I should know before we go inside to call the police?”

  Amy got to her feet and dusted off the knees of her jeans. “My laptop was in the bag. Some personal papers. Things I will have trouble replacing.” Amy’s tone of voice was so flat and cold, Nikki winced.

  Nikki pointed out toward the boulevard. “That explains why no one is in the parking lot. See the flashing police lights? There’s been an accident.”

  “No one left the pancake place, either.”

  Nikki stared at her new associate. “What am I missing here, Amy? It’s like suddenly you’re someone I don’t even know. Granted, we interviewed three times, but I didn’t see this side of you. I guess you have two personalities.”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Amy shot back. “I’ve never been mugged before, and you certainly are taking this well.”

  �
�I’m alive. That’s all that matters to me. That means I get to go home tonight to my husband and our dog. I get to eat the dinner he’s cooking for me. I get to have him wrap his arms around me when we go to sleep. That’s all I care about. What I don’t get is why you don’t feel the same way. Never mind, I don’t want to know.” Nikki held the door for Amy, then entered the restaurant. She asked the hostess for the manager and explained what had happened. After calling the police, Nikki called Alexis and asked her to bring her go bag, stored in the bottom of her desk drawer. She always kept a spare go bag, complete with cell phone, car keys, credit cards, duplicate driver’s license, and cash. The only thing she didn’t duplicate in the emergency go bag was her handgun.

  Ten minutes later, both Nikki and Amy were back in the parking lot, giving their statements to the officer in charge.

  Just as they were finishing up, Alexis pulled up to the front of the restaurant and got out of her car, a snappy silver BMW. She listened to Nikki’s explanation, then handed over the go bag. She commented that no more than an hour had passed since Nikki walked out of the office to pick up Amy. It was a clue for Nikki that Avery and his people needed more time.

  Nikki squared her shoulders. She thanked Alexis and turned to Amy. “I said I was taking you to breakfast, and I am going to do just that. Turn around and follow me. We are dining on pancakes, like it or not. Do not argue with me. That’s an order, not a request!”

  Resigned to the inevitable, a surly Amy trudged behind Nikki back into the restaurant. “Let’s give our order, then head to the ladies’ room to clean up a bit. Is that okay with you?”

  “Would it make a difference if it wasn’t?”

  “Not one little bit. Not one little bit,” Nikki repeated cheerfully. “Think about this. We are cut off from the cyberworld. I turned off my backup cell phone, so our phones aren’t going to ring. No one can get in touch with us. It’s just us and this place, and we’re going to be dining on pancakes within minutes. How wonderful is that? Think about it, Amy. Peace and quiet. We can sit, eat, and talk and drink coffee and talk about our growing-up years. Or we can talk about our hopes and dreams. Whatever you want to talk about, with no interruptions. I think we should both treasure this little window of time because who knows when we’ll get another chance.” Nikki’s voice dripped cheerfulness. She then noticed the waitress hovering and motioned to her they were ready to order. After placing their order, they headed to the ladies’ room to freshen up.

  Amy stared at herself in the mirror over the long block of sinks. She eyed Nikki, and said, “Are you for real? I’ve never met anyone like you.” She splashed warm water on her face and wiped it with the rough brown paper towels. She did her best to finger comb her hair. Nikki was doing the same thing. Both women straightened their clothing, then looked at one another. Nikki smiled. Amy glared at her new boss.

  “Of course I’m real. I refuse to let what happened get to me. And, of course, you never met anyone like me because there is only one me, and you’re looking at her. We did what we had to do. There is nothing more we can do for now. We have to trust in the police that they will catch that guy. I know the chances of that are slim, but you never know, they might catch a break.”

  Back at their table, Nikki opened the go bag and withdrew one of the firm’s credit cards. She checked the wad of currency and peeled off three hundred dollars. She handed them over. “When I drop you off back at the safe house, you can head out to get a new phone. Here is a spare key to the safe house that you need to return. Motor Vehicles is a mile down the road, on the right. You can get a new license within the hour. You do have a spare set of car keys, don’t you?” Amy nodded. “Use the credit card to get a new laptop. Be sure to keep the receipts for anything you buy.” Amy nodded again. “See, everything is working out. Think of it as hitting a speed bump. Oh, look, here come our pancakes.”

  * * *

  Ten miles away as the crow flies, Avery Snowden was cursing under his breath as he waited for his operative to make an appearance. He’d been through the house with a fine-tooth comb and had come up with absolutely nothing. Bubkes. Ms. Amy Jones Lambert traveled light. Other than two suitcases full of clothing and two boxes of nothing, the safe house was just that, a temporary place to bed down until other accommodations became available.

  Avery ran to the door and thrust it open the moment he heard the three rat-a-tat knocks. “There’s nothing here. I hope what you have is what we’re looking for.”

  The operative shrugged. “Lambert wanted to put up a fight, so my guess is that there’s something in her purse she didn’t want to give up, even to a mugger.”

  Avery was already dumping the contents out on the coffee table. “Why women carry so much junk is beyond me. I’ll take the laptop. You check those two phones. Why does she need two phones? We’ll save the packet of papers till last. How much time do we have, Adam?”

  “At the most, an hour. If that. I guess it depends on how fast they eat. It’s been my experience that women like to dawdle over meals. To answer your question, one of these phones is a burner.” The operative’s fingers swiped at the face of the phone. “She only uses this to call two numbers. She receives calls from the same two numbers she calls on the burner, too, so I’d say the burner is her phone of choice. The other phone has four bars and no calls to amount to anything. Spaced far apart. Days, actually. On some days, no calls come in or go out. There are several over the past ten days to the Quinn Law Firm. A few to take-out restaurants. What do you want me to do, Avery?”

  “This computer is password protected. It’s going to take me a bit of time to crack it. I have to first install Wizard so it can run a check. I can’t download anything until I get in to see what she’s got here. This is just run-of-the-mill protection. It’s not like the CIA or what the FBI uses. Wizard can crack it in twenty minutes, but do I have twenty minutes? Then I have to upload it all and send it on to Nikki. So, to answer your question, common sense is telling me we need to split right after I check out the house for the last time. We can find a parking lot somewhere, and I can let Wizard do its thing while we head back to wherever the ladies want us to go. I’m thinking that young lady is going to gobble her food to get back here, so time is of the essence.

  “I’m going to take a last look-through to make sure I didn’t leave any telltale signs that someone has been here. I’m almost thinking that about now she might even be a little suspicious. Too many years in the field have my antenna flapping in the breeze.”

  “Works for me. There’s a Shell station a mile or so down the road,” Adam said as he gathered up the contents of Amy Lambert’s purse, other than the laptop, and replaced them in the Chanel bag. “I’ll park in the back.”

  Avery finished his check of the house. Satisfied that there wasn’t so much as a thread lying about, he drove to the Shell station, where he installed the Wizard program on Amy Lambert’s computer. Twenty minutes to go. He got out of the car and paced, his thoughts running in several directions. Before he made another move, he needed to check in with Nikki to see if she had changed her mind, yet again.

  His first suggestion to her had been to drop off the handbags at her office. After careful thought, she switched up and said to drop them off at the police station, a Good Samaritan doing his or her duty. Her reasoning, and he was hard-pressed to dispute it, was it might seem too pat for some nameless person to find and return the purses to her firm. This way the police would call her, and she would call Amy Lambert, and together they would go to pick up their respective handbags. She was right in that a police report had been filed, two purses were snatched, and then two purses would be turned in by a Good Samaritan. One plus one equals two. Amy Lambert couldn’t dispute anything. The only thing Avery was uncertain about was whether he was supposed to leave Lambert’s computer in her bag or take it with him. Once he uploaded everything on her computer, there was no reason to take it. But would a mugger leave a pricey laptop and just take phones, money, and credit cards
? Not the kind of muggers he knew. They’d take everything. In the end, it would be Nikki’s call.

  Chapter 16

  “Well, here we are, right where we started from. Got you home safe and sound, even though we were mugged. I wish it hadn’t happened, Amy, but it did, and we have to move on,” Nikki said as she tried to put as much cheerfulness as she could muster into her voice. “Do what you have to do. If I hear anything from the police, I’ll call you when you get your new phone. Or you call me. Stay in touch.”

  “Sure thing,” Amy said, getting out of the car. “Thanks for breakfast.” Her tone of voice stopped just short of being snarly.

  That you didn’t eat. Nikki nodded and looked at her watch. Lizzie should be at the Chessmen’s about now. She shifted into REVERSE, then DRIVE, and was out on the boulevard within minutes and on her way back to the office.

  Nikki parked in her reserved parking space just as she heard a light tap of a horn to her right. In spite of her disheveled appearance and the current situation, with a thoroughly disgruntled Amy, whom Nikki now thought had not been fooled by the phony mugging, Nikki found herself laughing out loud as Avery Snowden emerged from a nondescript-looking van that had seen better days. She shivered as she waited for him to approach. In his hand, he had a small manila envelope. She felt a wave of elation as he handed it over.

  “I didn’t have time to read through anything. Call me when you’re finished. You might give some thought to turning it over to Charles or Maggie, and have Charles call a meeting. My gut is telling me what you’re looking for is in your hand.”

  “Will do. Thanks, Avery.”

  “It’s what I do.” Avery looked at his watch, and said, “Right this minute, my operative is probably turning those two handbags over to the police. When you didn’t respond to my text, I decided to leave the laptop in Ms. Lambert’s bag. You can tell her that the thief probably felt it too cumbersome to run around with, or something along those lines. Also, leaving it in the bag will give her a small measure of relief that her secrets are safe. At least for the moment. It was a judgment call, Nikki.”