Furious (13 page)

Faith opened the door wide enough so Beth could step inside and take a look around. Faith was relieved to see that Beast had slid the bags of money behind the couch. Gesturing at her friends, Faith thought about changing their names to something like Jane and Bob, but then she sighed and said, “Beth, this is Beast and Rage. We met in anger management class . . . sort of a long story, but there you have it. Beast, Rage,” she went on, “this is my next-door neighbor, Beth.”

Beth looked visibly relieved. “I just saw you and your young friend,” she said, pointing at Rage, “on the news. Good job putting that silly reporter in her place.”

That got a half smile out of Rage.

“I’ll go now,” Beth said, “and let you all finish with whatever you’re doing.” She stopped to look at the painting on the wall. “Nice work.”

“Thanks for keeping an eye out,” Faith said as she walked her out to the walkway leading to her door. “I appreciate it.”

Beth was halfway down the walkway, the moonlight adding a silver shimmer to her hair, when she turned back around. “Oh, one more thing. On Thanksgiving Day when you paid me a visit . . . you didn’t happen to see anyone walking around Mr. Hawkins’s property, did you?”

Faith shook her head.

“Mr. Hawkins said he thought maybe someone had been inside his house when he returned home, but whoever it was ran out the back door.”

“Did he call the police?”

“No. He was afraid he might have been the one to leave the door open in the first place and didn’t want to look like an old fool.” Even in the semidarkness Faith sensed that Beth Tanner knew exactly who had been inside Mr. Hawkins’s house, but she said, “Oh, well. Thought I would ask. You take care.”

Relieved by Beth’s apparent willingness to let it go, Faith headed back inside and locked the door behind her. “I need to check on something.” She walked down the hallway and went into the office, where she turned on the computer and waited for it to load.

Where did that money come from?
she wondered. Panic fell over her in waves. The search bar flashed. She typed in her password and then logged into her bank account. There was close to $5,000 in the checking account.

Nothing unusual there.

She’d checked the accounts and paid a few bills right before she’d gone to the police station and ended up being thrown in jail. She scrolled through their accounts. Everything looked fine . . . except the fact that a payment from her husband’s company, H&M Investments, should have been made on Friday. It was too late to give Joe Henderson, Craig’s partner, a call, but she would visit him first thing in the morning.

Thinking back to her conversation with Joe after she’d returned from the hospital, it did seem as if he’d had acted a little strange. After offering his sympathies, telling her to let him know if there was anything she needed, she’d asked him whether the police had been by, and he’d scoffed at the notion. Too quickly, she realized now. He’d seemed a bit defensive as if there would be no reason for the police to talk to him. When she’d asked him about the possibility of H&M having any disgruntled clients, he’d said he had to go, but he would call again when he had more than a minute to talk. But she had yet to hear from him. She should have gone to visit him that first day she was back on her feet.

She shut everything down and made her way back into the family room.

“There’s two million dollars here,” Rage told her.

Faith walked over to where they stood over the bags of money. “I have no idea how this money got here,” she said, “but I think it’s time to call the police.”

Beast grunted. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“I can’t keep it,” she said, “if that’s what you’re thinking. Those men were looking for something, and now I think it’s safe to say we all know what that something was.” She pointed at the plastic bags. “Those men killed Craig for money . . . 
that
money. It’s blood money, and I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“But what if it could help you get your kids back?” Rage asked.

Faith raked a hand through her hair. “What are you suggesting?”

“You’ve already offered a twenty-thousand-dollar reward. I don’t know anything about your finances, but you could use these assholes’ money to buy advertisements in every magazine across the country. Hell, we could have a billboard made with this kind of cash.”

“We?” Faith asked. “Does this mean you two are going to help me?”

Rage rolled her eyes. “What do you think we’re doing here?”

“Thank you,” Faith said.

“The way I see it,” Rage went on, “either you trade the money for your kids, or we use the cash to find them. It’s your call.”

Offer the money in exchange for her children? It sounded so simple. But how? She couldn’t think, didn’t know what to do. She looked at Beast with his meaty fists and Rage with her badass attitude and wondered how it had come to this. The three of them now shared a secret, a secret that could very well be the key to getting her kids back.

They couldn’t leave the money here, she decided. That much was clear. And if she handed the money over to the police, they might simply throw millions of dollars into an evidence room to collect dust. And what good would that do?

“If I’m keeping this money for now, I don’t want anyone to know about it, including my family. If I go down, I’m going down alone.”

Beast and Rage both nodded their agreement.

Faith walked to the sliding door and peeked through the curtains. From the start she’d thought she was being watched, but she’d swept the notion aside because she worried she was being paranoid. But the truth was she’d felt eyes watching her every time she and Mom climbed into the car and drove to the police station, and then again at the end of the driveway on Thanksgiving Day. And what about when she sat in the parking lot before anger management class?

“They’ve been watching me,” she stated firmly. She leaned over and picked up the bags of money, which weighed about twenty pounds each. “I know where to hide it.”

T
WENTY
-T
HREE

Miranda ordered a big juicy hamburger with a side of onion rings, French fries, and a chocolate milk shake. Unless Jasper pointed a gun at her and demanded she give the money back, she was keeping it—all of it. She could eat whatever she wanted. She’d never once before sat in a restaurant and ordered whatever she wanted from the menu. Not before or after being taken to the farmhouse. The truth was, she’d wanted every item on the menu: the pastrami sandwich, the roast beef dip, the stack of pancakes with a side of bacon. But for now, she would stick with the hamburger. She shoved an onion ring into her mouth while she dipped a French fry into the pile of ketchup on her plate.

Jasper had ordered a tuna sandwich.
Gross.
She would never eat tuna again. Mother had made a big deal out of it every time she served them tuna sandwiches at the farmhouse, acting as if she they were dining on steak and potatoes.

“I’m not giving you the money back,” Miranda said between bites.

“I don’t want it back.”

“Hmph.”

“I am sorry for leaving you there . . . at the hotel.”

“You said that already.”

“Because I am. And I’m glad you got away before anything happened.”

Eyes downcast, she kept eating.

He angled his head as if to take a better look. “I’m not blind. I can see you took a beating, but the bruised eye and the split lip must have happened when you ran away, right?”

A bite of hamburger. Another onion ring followed by a greasy fry.
Delicious,
she thought, although she could hardly taste a thing. As she chewed and swallowed, she brought her gaze back to his. “It’s none of your business,” she finally answered. “You dropped me off and left me there. I begged you not to do it, but you did—just drove off without a word, and you can never take that back. What I experienced in that hotel room is something I will never talk about . . . ever . . . not to you or anyone else. So don’t ever bring it up again. Do you hear me?”

“You seem different.”

She was different. She was stronger and smarter, too. And she knew exactly how she needed to handle Jasper. For more than a year she’d watched him cower whenever Mother bossed him around. If Miranda wanted to stay in control—keep the upper hand—she would need to make him believe she was in charge. “From the moment I stepped off that train,” she told him, “I felt free. In here,” she said, touching her head. “And in here.” She put a hand over her heart. “I will never again depend on anyone but myself.”

“I hope that’s not true,” he said. “I hope that over time you’ll learn to trust others, especially me because you were right . . . I do care about you.”

His words made her feel absolutely nothing. Not a stirring of happiness or even a flicker of hope. If he’d said those same words forty-eight hours ago, she probably would have melted into a gooey pile of helpless girlishness.

He pushed his plate to the side. “We need to stick together because sooner or later they’re going to come looking for me and you . . . for us.”

She lifted her chin a notch. “I’m not afraid. If they ever do find me, whoever they are, I’ll fight them to the end.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

She wiped her mouth. “First I need to find my mom.”

“It’ll be dark soon. Why don’t we find a place to rest, and then set out in the morning?”

She pulled out the envelope and flipped through the bills as she counted. There was a little more than $2,000. It was a lot of money, more money than she’d ever seen in her lifetime, but the idea of being sold to that man for $2,000 made her want to barf. For the first time since escaping, she thought about revenge, too. If she ever saw that ugly old man again, she would find a way to make him pay for what he did. “How much is a room?”

“We can probably get a cheap motel room for forty bucks.”

“I don’t want to spend seventy-eight dollars for two rooms.”

“I’ll sleep on the floor.”

She shook her head. “You can sleep in your car.”

T
WENTY
-F
OUR

The next morning Faith was peering out the bedroom window at the backyard, looking for one particular tree, when she heard the doorbell and then Rage talking to Mom downstairs. Rage had insisted on picking her up in the morning so they could visit Joe Henderson at work.

There it was—the tree fort. She could barely make out the wood shingles on the roof of the fort in the distance. After Beast and Rage had dropped her off last night, with a bag of money in each arm, she’d hurried to the backyard, trudged through tall dead grass until she came to the enormous oak set on the back of the property. The crisscross of branches had made it difficult to see the tree fort last night, a place where Colton, Jana, and Faith had spent many hours when they were kids. As she’d done when she was small, she’d used the pieces of wood nailed to the trunk to make her way to the top, then used the rope as a pulley to get the money up the tree and into the fort. It had taken some muscle, but she’d gotten the job done and with time to spare before her parents returned home.

Turning away from the window, she grabbed her things and headed downstairs. She found Mom and Rage in the kitchen. “These eggs taste delicious,” Rage told her mom. “What did you put in them?”

Mom beamed. She was in her element. “Eggs, a dash of milk, scallions, mozzarella, real bacon—not any of that fake stuff they try to pawn off on people these days, and a pinch of oregano.”

Faith had never seen Rage look so relaxed . . . so normal. It was nice to see.

After eating, they decided to take Faith’s car, since she had a full tank of gas.

Faith turned on the engine, and they buckled up.

“You’re lucky to have such a warm, caring mom,” Rage told her as Faith pulled out of the driveway and onto the main road.

“You’re right,” Faith said. “It’s easy to take that sort of thing for granted. You know . . . since she’s always been there for me. I’m sorry about your mom. Do you know if she ever got the help she needed?”

Rage shook her head. “I have no idea. I can’t lie and say I haven’t wondered, because I have. I don’t think I can handle the truth. What if she asked me to come home—you know, told me she needed me. She used to be very persuasive. Despite everything my mom has done, I love her. But it has to end there.”

Faith nodded.

The drive was short. As soon as Faith pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine, she could see that something wasn’t right.

“Is your husband’s business still open?” Rage asked. “The place looks deserted.”

Faith said nothing. She had no idea what was going on. One lone car was parked in front of the main entrance. They climbed out. Rage followed Faith inside.

Loretta Scott, Craig and Joe’s longtime administrative assistant, stood in front of a row of file cabinets and transferred files to cardboard boxes. Usually dressed in slacks and silk blouse, today Loretta wore jeans and a T-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a plastic clip. Loretta let out a long sigh as she greeted Faith with open arms. After they embraced, Faith introduced Loretta to Rage and then looked around the room and asked, “What’s going on?”

“Didn’t Joe tell you?”

“After I returned from the hospital,” Faith said, “Joe called to see how I was doing and let me know all was well with the business.”

“Don’t know about that,” Loretta said sourly. “As you can see, it’s been nothing but chaos around here for the last few days. First it was the police and then the FBI.”

“Joe told me the police never contacted him.”

“Joe has lost his mind. The police and the FBI showed up within days of Craig’s death.”

“Why would Joe lie to me?” Baffled by what she was seeing and hearing, Faith looked around the office.

Rage pulled a paper cup from a dispenser next to the watercooler, filled it up, then took a seat at one of the empty desks.

“Where’s Joe?” Faith asked.

“Joe is missing,” Loretta said matter-of-factly. “He’s been missing for three days now. It was obvious after the attack that he was having a difficult time coping. He was devastated when he learned about Craig’s murder, we all were, but looking back, there was something very odd about Joe’s demeanor—the way he paced his office all day, coming and going without telling anyone where he was going or when he would be back.”

Faith fingered some of the files. “Craig told me that Joe’s wife left him. Maybe that’s why he was acting strange.”

“It’s true,” Loretta said. “Joe’s wife took the kids and moved back to Texas where her family lives, but that happened three or four months ago. If anything, Joe appeared relieved after she took the kids and left.”

“I still don’t understand. Where is everyone?” Faith asked. “Why does it look like the business has been shut down?”

“Because that’s exactly what happened,” Loretta said. “If you had come here a few days ago, this place was crawling with FBI agents. It reminded me of the internal audits that were done in the past, only on a much larger scale. I gave them everything they asked for—and the next thing you know, they told us to pack up and go home because they were shutting the place down. A few others stayed and helped me get the word out to our clients. I was told not to discuss the investigation with anyone.” Loretta exhaled. “It’s been a very stressful time.”

“So what did they find?”

Loretta lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me. They took most of the computers and files, too. I’ve been instructed to box everything else and have it put into storage. I wish someone would tell me what was going on. I know they are very interested in talking to Joe.”

Loretta walked to her desk, then handed Faith a business card. “Matt Jensen. He was the agent in charge. Give him a call. Maybe he can tell you more.”

Faith slipped the card into her bag. “Do you have any idea at all where Joe might be?”

Loretta shook her head. “If I knew, I would tell you. Hell, I would have told the FBI, too. Joe never should have left me alone to deal with this. I haven’t been paid in weeks.”

Guilt rolled through her in waves as she thought of the money she’d found. “Do you think Joe knew the FBI was here?”

“You bet I do. The very first day the FBI showed up flashing their badges, I swear I saw Joe drive by. I kept thinking eventually he would grow a pair and join me in the fun, but that never happened.”

Faith was abruptly struck with the realization that not only had Joe lied to her, he’d lied to her for a reason. He knew something. That’s why he disappeared. He must know about the money hidden in her pool equipment, too. Faith turned back to Loretta. “Exactly how long has it been since you received a paycheck?”

She thought about it for a moment. “I haven’t been paid in at least six weeks.”

“That means H&M Investments was having problems prior to the attack.”

“Definitely. Joe took over accounts payable after giving me a long, convoluted story about an internal audit coming up. He’s the boss—what was I supposed to do?”

Rage looked at Faith and asked, “Can we get our hands on a client list?”

Loretta lifted her arms. “They took everything, computers, spreadsheets, files—you name it. The only thing left is this file cabinet filled with eight years’ worth of pamphlets and brochures.”

“Do you remember Craig or Joe working with any notable clients?” Faith asked.

“What do you mean—like a celebrity?”

“Not exactly. More like a mafia type . . . extremely wealthy.”

Loretta put the lid on a box, then picked it up with a grunt. “Most of their clients had money, enough to retire on.” She frowned. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been here since they opened for business and nobody has ever stood out.”

“Here, let me help you.” Faith took the box out of her hand.

“I’m just taking these to the car. I’ll store them in my garage until we get word from the FBI.” Loretta grabbed her keys, and when she did so, her mouth fell open.

“What is it?” Faith asked.

Loretta jingled her keys. “Look at this. I forget all about the flash drive on my keychain. It has everything . . . spreadsheets with a list of our clients, payroll—you name it.”

Faith’s pulse accelerated. She had to stop herself from getting overly excited. No need to get her hopes up too soon . . . but still, it was something. “Can I borrow that?”

“Hell, you can have it. Just don’t tell anyone you got it from me.”