by Debbie Burke
“Good thinking. The bad news is I don’t handle criminal cases.”
“But I’m not a criminal.”
“What counts is the feds think you are and, sad to say, they’re the ones in charge here. You’ve got to prove your innocence.”
The cash in the safe jabbed Tawny’s conscience. “Kit, there’s one more thing. When I couldn’t get the bank to help, I withdrew the amount of the first deposit, forty-one-thousand-five-hundred in cash, and put it in Dwight’s gun safe. I thought that might get their attention.”
His lips creased into a line. “Frankly, Tawny, that wasn’t the best idea you’ve ever had. In law, there’s the doctrine of clean hands. You knew and freely acknowledged that money wasn’t yours, so once you took it, your hands weren’t clean anymore.” He rocked back in his chair and stared at the ornate tin ceiling for several minutes.
Tawny hoped he believed she hadn’t done anything wrong…except withdraw the cash. She knew now that had been stupid but couldn’t undo her mistake. Massaging her aching ring finger, she prayed Kit could find a way to help her.
Finally, he leaned forward and accessed a new screen on his monitor. It looked like a list of names and contact information. “Let me make some calls. As I said, we’re not a criminal firm. Estates, real property, business, those are our areas. But I’ll see if I can find someone specializing in government seizures. I don’t know anyone locally but maybe in Great Falls, Helena, or Billings. I’ll let you know.”
“Kit, I’m sorry I took the money. I never intended to keep it. I just wanted them to find out what was going on.” She licked her lips. “But, now, that’s all I have. My checks are bouncing all over town. I have to make it right to the people I owe. And I need something to live on. They’ve cut me off at the knees. I have to use that cash.”
Kit heaved a weary sigh. The mischief in his blue eyes had vanished during their conversation, replaced by concern. “Tawny, I can’t advise you to do something illegal. You have to use your best judgment.” He handed her the thumb drive, letter, and Grosvenor’s card, then added his own business card. “If Homeland Security or anyone from law enforcement contacts you, refer them to me. Whatever you do, don’t talk to them without legal counsel present, either me or someone else. OK?”
She nodded as he rose to walk her out.
At the office door, she grasped his sleeve. “I’m not a thief, Kit. This morning, a woman I barely know handed me her baby while she used the restroom. She trusted me, a stranger, with the most precious thing in the world to her. And she was right. I would never have betrayed her trust. Why is someone doing this to me?”
Kit gave her a smile that looked oddly sad. “Maybe that’s exactly why they chose you. You’re the last person anyone would suspect of wrongdoing. The perfect cover.”
As she padded down the stairs, she wondered about his parting words. What did he mean? The perfect cover. Cover for what?
She sat in the Jeep, thinking. Normally she’d go to the gym, sweat off the stress and worry, but she couldn’t now. Not unless she paid the rest of her dues in cash.
What about Virgie? Had she talked to her FBI patient? Tawny called her. The receptionist put her on hold and came back a minute later. “Dr. Belmonte’s with patients the rest of the day but she said to tell you the person she spoke about is out of town on an extended vacation. She’ll call you tonight.”
Tawny thanked her and hung up. Another dead end.
Lucifer rang, startling her so much that she fumbled the phone, which dropped to the floor under the steering wheel. She picked it up and saw Kahlil’s name on the screen. “Hello, Kahlil.”
“Tawny!” His voice sounded eager with excitement. “I am so sorry I have not been able to call. The meetings go late into the night and I did not want to wake you. But my heart is singing to hear your voice. I miss you.”
She looked out the Jeep window at passing traffic, wondering how to answer. He wanted her to say she missed him but he had not even crossed her mind in the day’s chaos. “How are you?”
“Tired but we accomplished a great deal. How are you, my treasure?”
His treasure. The endearment made her realize how long ago their lovemaking seemed. She struggled to move her focus away from the present ugly reality to the sweet, caring man on the phone. “I’ve had better days.”
“What is it? Is your son all right?” Concern colored his tone. She could almost feel him leaning forward to comfort her.
“I haven’t heard any more. Did your friend know how to track him?”
A silent hesitation. Had he forgotten to ask the tracking expert? Or was it bad news? “She was not able to help. I am sorry.”
Well, if that wasn’t the icing on a perfect day.
“Tawny, your voice sounds very sad. I am worried about you.”
“Just a bad day. I’m all right.” Yeah, sure. “When are you coming back?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.” A long pause. “Are you really OK? I want to help you if you will allow me.”
What could he do? But she didn’t want to sound ungrateful for his offer.
Voices mumbled in the background. Kahlil spoke to someone away from the phone, then came back. “Tawny, please be safe. I will see you tomorrow.”
After talking with him, she felt even more out of sorts than before, though that hardly seemed possible. Kahlil was a temporary interlude, full of passion and ecstasy. They came together in a beautiful, impossible fantasy, a fleeting romantic escape.
But in real life, dire problems threatened to crush her. She had to concentrate on defending herself from Homeland Security, clearing her name, and getting her money back.
Or else she might wind up in prison, unable to save her son.
And Lucifer was the only tool available to help her locate Neal.
* * *
Tawny parked the Jeep in the garage and slid her key into the deadbolt on the back door. When she turned the key, she realized the bolt wasn’t latched. Strange, she thought, did I forget to lock it? Another damn memory lapse.
Inside the mud room, something felt odd, a different smell, like a faint hint of perfume hanging in the air. She passed through the kitchen, dining area, and living room. Nothing appeared out of place. In Neal’s old bedroom, her laptop was open, as she’d left it.
But the mouse appeared to have been moved.
She woke the computer from sleep mode and the screen lit up. Before she’d left for the appointment with Kit, she’d been playing the video Lupe had given her. When she removed the thumb drive, she hadn’t closed out the video player. But now the screen instead showed the desktop opening mode.
A chill gripped her. Someone had been inside her home, inside her computer.
She backed away, as if the laptop now harbored a contagious disease. A burn started in her stomach. She raced to her bedroom. The closet door was cracked a couple of inches. She always closed it.
She yanked open the drawer in the bedside table. Her revolver lay in its place in a soft oiled cloth. Grabbing it, she found the cloth folded differently from the way she normally wrapped it. She opened the cylinder and checked the cartridges. Someone had handled the revolver but left it loaded. Thank goodness. She clicked it closed.
She gripped the gun in both hands. From now on, she would keep it on her at all times.
Her stomach felt on fire, acid creeping up to her throat. Was the intruder still in the house?
Should she leave? Call 911? No, dammit, she was armed and this was her home. Anger galvanized her.
She swept aside the clothes in the closet, looked under the bed, checked behind the shower curtain across the tub in the master bath. When she left her bedroom, she closed the door. She searched Neal’s and Emma’s rooms, the second bath in the hallway, the guest closet, securing each door after verifying the rooms were empty. The main floor was clear.
At the top of the stairs leading to the basement, Tawny hesitated, listening. If the intruder was down there, he was trapped without egres
s windows. But a search of the downstairs laundry room, pantry, and Dwight’s man cave yielded nothing.
Slightly relieved, she climbed the stairs and closed the door at the top, locking it.
Back in her bedroom, she poked inside the closet for further signs of disturbance. The intruder had rearranged her shoes, maybe to reach the gun safe. She tested the handle. Still locked. With fumbling fingers, she tried to dial in the combination. It took three attempts before she finally succeeded and swung the door open.
Dwight’s rifles and shotguns stood in their notched rack as they were supposed to. On the top shelf, the diamond pendant from Dwight, her grandmother’s pearls, and a few other pieces of nice jewelry sat neatly in their boxes. The second shelf held three pistols, apparently untouched, beside the paper sack of cash. Hands trembling, she removed the sack and spread the bundles of bills on the bed to count. Still $41,500. She repacked the bag and replaced it on the shelf.
They, whoever they were, didn’t get inside the safe, thank goodness.
Who had broken into her house? The feds? Or the people hell-bent on setting her up?
When she opened the dresser drawers, her underwear and folded clothes appeared rearranged. The searcher had not been a ransacker but careless enough that Tawny knew, without a doubt, that he, or she, did a thorough job of snooping.
Tawny almost wished they had ransacked the house. For some reason, this sneaky surveillance felt like more of an intrusion than a regular burglary. At least normal thieves grabbed what they wanted and got the hell out with the loot. The lack of disturbance made her afraid that they meant to come back. She fingered the smooth grip of the revolver.
Should she call the cops to report the break-in? If they’d stolen something, she wouldn’t hesitate. But this…no forced entry, nothing missing, only a faint scent of cologne. 911, what is your emergency? I want to report someone moved my mouse and rumpled my underwear. The operator would fall on the floor laughing.
Besides, the intruders might have been the feds. After all, they’d seized her money, and that had to be against the law. What prevented them from entering her home? Maybe they wanted to set up surveillance.
New fear twisted her insides. She started to search for hidden cameras and microphones but soon gave up. With the government’s tiny, sophisticated equipment, she could tear the house down to the foundation and never find the bugs. From now on, she had to assume they watched and heard everything she did in her home.
Her roiling stomach rebelled this final insult, forcing her to race into the bathroom to throw up in the toilet. When she finished heaving, she rinsed her mouth and squeezed her pounding head.
She wandered through the house, lost, torn between a desire to flee and an angry determination to defend her home, her property, her life from the intruders. In the kitchen, she glanced out the window and noticed her next-door neighbor, Starshine, in her backyard, tending her marijuana plants.
Dwight always said Starshine must have dropped acid one too many times in the Sixties. If he ever saw her heading for their house, he usually ducked downstairs to the den, whistling, “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.”
Starshine didn’t believe in money. When her old beater car broke down, she used to come over, begging Dwight to fix it, offering to barter with oral sex. He politely declined and worked on her car anyway, while she hung over the fender instructing him what to do. When he came in the house afterward, he ran a greasy hand across his sweaty forehead and cursed. “That woman never shuts up. She thinks she knows all about engines and gave me a long lecture about what I was doing wrong. Hell, I only own a repair shop! What do I know? I finally asked her, if she’s such an expert, why doesn’t she fix her own damn car?”
Tawny had giggled. “Maybe you should have let her pay you. She can’t talk with her mouth full.”
Dwight lost his frown and broke into a grin. “I’d rather cut it off.”
“Please don’t.”
He hugged her.
She tried to push away. “You’re covered with oil.”
“Since we’re both greasy now, let’s go slip and slide around in the tub.” And they had.
Why did that dear silly memory come back to her at this moment?
Tawny watched Starshine, on her hands and knees cultivating the young plants, her frizzy cloud of gray hair held out of her eyes with an Indian-style headband. A long, tie-dyed smock puddled on the ground around her.
Could she have seen the intruders?
Tawny put the revolver out of sight in a kitchen drawer. She clipped down the back steps and approached the fence between their properties. “Starshine, can I ask you a question?”
“Oh hi, Tawny.” She heaved herself up, wiping dirt-covered hands on her dress. “I just made some new earrings for you. Out of bottle caps and can tabs with little seed pearls. And they don’t match, each one is different. They’ll look great on you—”
“No, thank you. I already have more earrings than I’ll ever wear.” Besides, I’m not accepting any more “gifts” that you expect a “donation” for. “Did you see anyone going in or out of my house today?”
“Just you. And weren’t you a busy girl, coming and going, coming and going? What have you been up to?”
Tawny steeled herself. “It’s important, Starshine. I think someone’s been in my house.”
“Well, I didn’t see anyone. Who do you think it is? Couldn’t it be the people who work on your water softener? You know, drinking soft water is very bad for your health, all those chemicals. That poison water is what gave Dwight cancer, you know—”
“Never mind, thanks.” Tawny turned away and headed for her door.
Starshine added, “What did you forget? When you left the first time, you weren’t gone five minutes, then you came back. I’m always doing that, starting out for someplace and having to backtrack—”
Tawny froze mid-step. “What do you mean, I came back?”
Starshine puffed her cheeks out at regaining Tawny’s attention. “You went out, drove away in the Jeep. Then you were back just a few minutes later, left the Jeep in the alley, and went inside. But why on earth were you wearing a coat on such a warm day?” She flapped her loose smock. “I’m roasting. Aren’t you feeling well? I can make you rose hip and kale tea that will mend your immune system. It’s high in vitamin C and the kale binds with bile acids.”
The imposter driving the twin Jeep, wearing the leather coat. That’s who’d broken into her home.
She hurried inside, leaving Starshine babbling to thin air.
In front of the laptop, Tawny studied the screen. She knew experts could track where users had been in a computer but the technology mystified her as much as the damn smartphone did.
The phone chirped in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw a text from Virgie. Stuck at hospital. Patient emergency. Call U tomorrow.
Damn. She longed to confide in her friend, seek advice, figure out what to do. Should she stay home, try to defend her space? Or run? But where to? If she were gone, what kept the intruder from coming back, next time, maybe to crack the safe?
At least if she needed to make a break for it, over forty-thousand dollars meant a running start. Thank goodness she had the cash, even if it gave her what Kit called unclean hands. Better to beg forgiveness.
She retrieved the gun from the kitchen drawer and noticed the light on the answering machine flashing. Another three calls about her checks bouncing at the supermarket, the pharmacy, and the cable company. Shame burned inside. Never in her life had she tried to cheat anyone.
In her office, she scanned the check register and added up how much money she owed so far. Five-hundred-thirty-nine dollars, not including bounced check penalties. Thank goodness the dentist visit had only been a cleaning, not a crown.
She leaned back in the desk chair and tried to fight down the swelling powerlessness from circumstances she couldn’t control or understand. The imposter who looked just like her had broken into the house. Why?
To plant evidence to incriminate her with Homeland Security or the IRS?
To steal something? What did Tawny have to steal? With her bank accounts and credit card frozen, they couldn’t make her more helpless than they already had.
Why impersonate her? Why set her up to take a fall?
What should she do to save herself?
When an insurmountable problem faced them, Dwight always used to say, “If you have to eat an elephant, do it bite by bite.”
Bite by bite.
She went to the safe and removed the sack of cash. She counted out enough to make good on the bounced checks then locked up the rest. Tucking the cash and gun in her bag, she headed toward the garage, intending to go to the post office to buy money orders. Almost five p.m. She might just make it before they closed.
The front doorbell rang.
Tawny’s heart leapt to her throat. She clutched the revolver and dropped her bag on the breakfast bar.
She tiptoed to Emma’s bedroom, hugging the wall beside the window that looked out on the front porch. The mirror on the dresser faced the window at an angle. In its reflection, Tawny saw two men standing at the door.
Brush-cut hair, dark suits, white shirts, regimental ties, the posture of importance, authority, and power. They had to be feds.
Power over her fate.
One man turned toward Emma’s window. Tawny shrank and dropped to the floor behind the bed, praying it blocked his view.
The bell rang again several times.
From her cowering position, she heard footsteps approach the window. He must be peering inside. Could he see her? She hoped she was hidden far enough out of sight that he couldn’t use the mirror to spot her the same way she had watched him. She didn’t dare look up.
More ringing then a fist hammered the door.
Would they break it down? Arrest her and haul her to jail?
She remembered Kit’s advice. Don’t talk to them without a lawyer present.
In her pocket, the phone trilled. Dammit! She snatched it to silence the ringer. Had the feds heard?
Caller ID said Kit. Exactly who she needed to talk to.
