The Nosy Neighbor (10 page)

“Right now I see the federales as your immediate problem.”

As if on cue the phone rang. Lucy jerked to attention. Was it the feds or Jonathan? She didn’t know which she feared more.

When the phone rang for the seventh time, Jake asked, “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

Lucy grabbed the phone. A moment later she growled into it, “One-thirty is fine, Mr. Lawrence. Of course I’ll be here.” Lucy hung up the phone and looked across at the two men. “It was Agent Lawrence. They’ll be here at one-thirty.”

“If I might, I’d like to make a suggestion,” Jake said. He reached for the recorder and removed the small cassette to replace it with a fresh one. “Tape the agents while they’re here. Meet with them in your family room so you can keep the recorder between the cushions. This is way too serious for you not to have proof of what’s been said and by whom. I don’t think it will be to your advantage for us to stay here for the meeting. I think the agents and Lucy will be more relaxed, more open with each other if we aren’t hovering. Those guys get pissy when you tread on their turf. They know we’re here as backup, and that’s a good thing. The tape recorder will do the rest. Do you agree, Wylie?”

“What are you saying, Jake? Hell no, it is not a good idea. No, no, no, we are not going to leave Lucy here with those agents.”

“Get real, Wylie. They are not going to harm Lucy. All they’re going to do is talk to her, question her. Everything will be recorded. Will you please trust me on this?”

“Are you sure, Jake? I mean
really
sure? I don’t like leaving Lucy alone, period.”

“I think your little lady can handle things. She does have this new ability to
hear
things. She also has a cell phone and a killer dog to protect her. She doesn’t need either one of us.”

Wylie looked like he still wasn’t convinced, but he gave in at the mention of the killer dog. “Okay, I’m going to go home now so I can mix up some meat loaf for Coop. I gotta settle Jake in, Lucy. We’ll be back for lunch if you invite us. Noon is good for us.”

Some nice hot soup with crusty bread would be a really good lunch, especially on a day like this.
Lucy whirled around. “I’m not excited. I’m relatively calm. Both of you appear to be calm. So, how come I know you would like some nice hot soup with crusty bread?”

Jake turned, his jaw slack. “I was just thinking…I don’t have the answer, Lucy. I wish I did. The only thing I can think of is you got upset when Agent Lawrence called you just now. You look…
twitchy.
Are you feeling nervous?”

“Yes, I am. I dread meeting and talking with them because I know they think I’m lying. If they can’t get Jonathan…Leo, whatever his name is, they’re going to get me.”

“When the roads clear a little more, maybe we should check out that multimillion-dollar house the FBI says you own. There might be something in the house that will help us figure out exactly what is going on,” Wylie said.

Lucy nodded.

Wylie whistled for Coop, who came on the run, Sadie and Miss Lulu alongside. All three skidded to a stop as they tried to figure out if they were going out, staying, or what. Coop galloped to the door when he saw Wylie slip into his jacket. Miss Lulu pawed her owner’s leg to be picked up, while Sadie hugged Lucy’s leg.

At the last second, after Jake marched ahead of him, Wylie turned, his face a mixture of emotions. He leaned forward, smacked Lucy on the lips, and squeezed her arms. “Call if you need me!” He kissed her again when Jake bellowed for him to hurry up.

When the door closed behind her guests, Lucy felt a little dazed, but in a good way. Smiling, she took Sadie into the kitchen and offered her a treat. Sadie turned her head, walked over to the sliding door leading to the deck, and lay down, her head between her paws.

Ten minutes later, as Lucy was emptying the dishwasher, she heard Sadie slam herself against the sliding door, her bark loud and shrill. She went into the family room in time to see Coop bound through the snow with Miss Lulu’s pink sweater clutched between his teeth, Miss Lulu attached to the sweater. Miss Lulu looked happy as a lark, her pink bow bouncing every which way.

“Guess your boyfriend can’t stand to be without you, Sadie,” Lucy said as she opened the door. Sadie almost turned herself inside out as she romped and barked with her buddy. Miss Lulu sat on the sidelines watching, her dark eyes sad and forlorn. This time Sadie was the one who nuzzled the little dog until she had a firm hold on the pink sweater. A second later, Miss Lulu perky as ever, went along for the ride. All three dogs trotted through the room, then down the hall to Sadie’s lair.

If only life were that simple,
Lucy thought as she sat down at the table. Was it a good idea to go to the mansion in the Watchung Mountains? If there was as much security as the agents said there was, how would she ever get in? Since she was the owner, according to the FBI, she could call the police, give them some story about losing the code or something to that effect so they wouldn’t investigate and arrest her when she set off the alarm.
Where there’s a will there’s a way,
she thought grimly.

Lucy pondered the more immediate problem that was Jonathan. How could she have been so stupid where he was concerned? Why wasn’t her heart broken? Why wasn’t she feeling anything other than fear?

Her gaze swept to the portable phone on the kitchen counter. She should have called Steven days ago. Her brother, razor-sharp, might have some ideas on how to deal with the feds. If she told him, he’d worry about her and become a pest. Steven had always felt the need to play the role of big brother even though he was her little brother. Wylie was a good stand-in. Why cause Steven grief?

Steven had never liked Jonathan. The truth was, Steven had never liked anyone she dated more than three times. He’d said Jonathan was a phony. At the time she’d thought of it as a “guy thing” and didn’t pay attention. Another time, Steven had said Jonathan was a gutter fighter. Just feelings I have, he’d explained. Well, how right he was. Maybe the reason she’d never told him what was going on was because she didn’t want to hear him say, I told you so.

Lucy bolted out of her comfortable chair when the phone shrilled behind her. Sucking in her breath she reached for it, her greeting cautious. “Steven!” she said in relief when she heard her brother’s voice.

“I’m just calling to check on you,” a deep voice said. “How’s the weather in Jersey?”

“Pretty much the same as in New York, little brother. Did you open the office?”

“I’m here but that’s about it. Listen, sis, I’m calling to ask if you mind if I don’t make it for Thanksgiving. A couple of the guys want to go skiing. Your fiancé isn’t one of my favorite people as you know. You two won’t miss me at all.”

“Actually, Jonathan can’t make it, so I’m having dinner with a neighbor. It’s fine, Steven, don’t give it another thought. Don’t go breaking your legs. I’d make a lousy nurse, and you’d make a worse patient.”

“I’ll be careful. I’ll call you when I get back. Give Sadie a hug for me.”

“Will do. ’Bye, Steven.”

Lucy walked back into the living room to get the manila folder lying on the coffee table. Earlier she’d been too panicked to go through the material the agents had left her. Now, though, she needed to look at everything carefully, using her legal brain, not the paranoid brain she’d used thus far.

At twenty minutes to twelve, Lucy stuffed the deeds, the copies of insurance policies, the brokerage statements, her tax forms, and the titles to boats and cars back into the envelope. She closed it securely. She hoped she never had to look at it again.

How in the hell could anyone with a brain believe she was capable of money laundering? How? Angry beyond words, Lucy stomped her way to the family room. On the count of three she was going to toss the whole mess into the fire. Suddenly, she was angrier than she’d ever been in her life. In the end she dropped the envelope behind the wide-screen television set. Since the monster set sat catercorner, it was doubtful anyone would look behind it to the tangled mess of wires from the VCR, the cables, and the new DVD player she’d installed just last week. She didn’t know why she felt the need to hide the envelope.

Her eye fell on the stolen library book,
The Frontier of the Mind.
Unfortunately, both Wylie and she had closed the book in disgust, with Wylie saying, “Between us, we have two fine, legal minds, and neither one of us can make sense of this brain stuff. You know what I think, Lucy? I think you got it, and you’re stuck with it.” And she was…stuck with it.

Back in the kitchen, Lucy picked up the phone to call her neighbor. Her message was short and curt, “I’m making lunch now.”

Lucy’s anger stayed with her as she banged pots and pans and slammed the refrigerator door. Anger was better than tears, she thought, as she slapped cheese between slices of bread.

The dogs didn’t bother to investigate when Wylie and Jake came through the front door.

Lucy forced a smile as she opened soup cans. She turned back to the business at hand and strained to see if she could
hear
either man’s thoughts. Her head felt clogged up the way it did when she had a sinus infection.
She’s never going to agree to go to Watchung. She’s too pissed. I never saw such a rigid back. She’s no match for those FBI stooges. She won’t know what hit her by the time they get done with her. If I ever get my hands on that schmuck who set her up like this, I’ll strangle him.
The words were crystal clear, but she couldn’t tell which man she should attribute the thoughts to. Possibly both of them. It must be Wylie, she decided. She felt pleased that he cared enough to want to strangle Jonathan. Not that he would. Still, the thought was nice.

My mother always served those little white soda crackers with tomato soup. Tomato soup isn’t the same unless you have those little crackers.
Lucy reached up into the cabinet for a package of the crackers Wylie was thinking about. She turned and plopped them in the middle of the table. He looked at her in awe. She nodded.

Jake stared up at her. “If you can harness that anger you’re feeling right now, you just might be able to figure out what the agents have in mind. That’s another way of saying work yourself into a frenzy before they get here. Can you do that?”

Lucy threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know. This is all new to me. I tried the other day to…to do it, but it didn’t work. I was upset, but I wasn’t angry at the time. All I can do is play it by ear and hope for the best. You’re right about something else, too. They might
look
like the Three Stooges, but they aren’t that stupid.”

Jake toyed with the silverware in front of him. “You read my mind. I am totally amazed. This is the first direct contact I’ve had with a person who could actually do it. Reading case histories is not the same thing.” Subdued excitement rang in his voice, and it did not go unnoticed by Lucy. She felt herself shivering at the realization that she’d become a freak.

“By the way, we were watching the Weather Channel at Wylie’s. The worst of the storm is over, and the roads have been sanded and salted. We can make a try for that house in the mountains after the agents leave if you’re up for it. The bad news is there is another worse storm riding on the tail of this one. They’ve been using the word
blizzard
a lot.”

Lucy ladled soup into bright yellow cups. “I’m up for anything at this point” she said curtly.

Jonathan St. Clair eyed his expensive crocodile luggage with a jaundiced eye. He was getting damn sick and tired of packing and repacking his pricey luggage. He was also damn sick and tired of airplanes and hotel rooms. It didn’t matter if the airplane was his own private Gulfstream V or that the rooms were suites in five-star hotels. The truth was he was damn sick and tired of just about everything in his life. And today he hated Chile in particular.

Stepping back, cutting back, whatever you wanted to call it, wasn’t working for him. He told himself the bottom line was his own greed, but that wasn’t really true. What he was experiencing, and what he refused to acknowledge, was panic. With Congress’s passage of the Patriot Act, he was now on the FBI’s radar screen, and he wasn’t just a little blip. He knew he was a very big blip, which meant that travel back to the States was a gamble. He wasn’t sure he was ready to take that particular gamble. Not yet, anyway. The bottom line was he wanted out of the business that was driving him ragged. When you were the best in your field, and people were comfortable with the results you got for them, why would they want to see you retire? They didn’t. Instead, they offered to pay you more and more until you couldn’t refuse the high-seven-figure commissions. It was that simple. Besides, you couldn’t spend money in a federal prison.

A threat was a threat no matter how nicely worded it was. He’d been in the business far too long not to recognize the subtle threats that his clients tossed his way after they upped his percentages to obscene amounts of money. More than he could ever spend in his lifetime.

Those same clients had their lifestyles in place, their money secured, their very lives shielded by layers and layers of protection while he was front and center as he scrambled twenty-four hours a day to make sure he kept both feet two steps ahead of the law. They were just waiting for him to make a mistake, and in his present frame of mind, it was just a matter of time before he slipped.

He knew he had been on the FBI’s radar screen for some time, knew it was just a matter of time before they made a move on him. He’d tried to warn his greedy clients, but they’d refused to listen. Because they refused to listen, he’d canceled his trip to the States. If his situation didn’t improve quickly, he would probably have to cancel his Christmas trip, too.

He realized that he was sweating even though the air-conditioning was turned to the coolest setting. Now he was going to have to change his shirt again. He thought he could smell his own fear as he ripped at the shirt he was wearing, a simple, fine linen, round-necked shirt that cost four hundred dollars. He was addicted to fine, costly things. It was the reason he worked on the wrong side of the law.

His diamond-studded Rolex watch told him he had just enough time to change his shirt, repack his bag, attach the manacled briefcase that his clients demanded he use to his wrist, and go downstairs to wait for the chauffeured car that would take him to the airport and his Gulfstream.

He was an attractive man, one men envied and women fawned over. Tall and lean, with sharp-chiseled features, penetrating gray eyes that could turn steely as flint, perfect ruler-straight teeth, and a crop of slightly wavy hair that was all his own. He tipped the scales at 180 and was perfectly proportioned for his six-foot height. He wore a year-round bronzed tan that flirted with his graying temples. More than one person told him he could have posed for
Town & Country
or
GQ,
a compliment so pleasing to him that he traded on it when necessary.

Jonathan gazed at his reflection in the mirror as his mind continued to race. Satisfied that he looked his impeccable self, he snapped the cuff onto his wrist, picked up his case, and started for the door. There was no time to wait for a bellhop. He’d cut it a shade too close this time around. He wondered why that was. Maybe because he was jittery, his nerves twanging for some reason. He’d been fine until the last few phone calls to Lucy. His stomach had protested by tightening up after their conversations because he’d heard something in his fiancée’s voice he’d never heard before. That was when he’d started to feel uneasy, and the feeling remained with him.

As he rode down in the elevator, Jonathan thought about his fiancée. It wasn’t like Lucy to be so careless that she’d fall and sprain her ankle. She was a runner, a true athlete. She was like a gazelle in motion. No, it was unlike Lucy to fall. Her voice had been so cool. On second thought,
cool
was the wrong word. The right word was
strained.
Now why would Lucy’s voice be strained? Unless…unless someone was around asking questions or somehow she had gotten some notion of the real reason he’d had her sign all those papers a year ago. He needed to call Lucy again to see if he was being paranoid or his survival instincts were on the money.

Jonathan stepped out of the elevator into the marble-and-tile lobby of the hotel. His gaze raked the interior of the lobby until he found the chauffeur standing near the wide double doors. He held up his hand. Within seconds the driver had his bag in his hand and was striding toward a luxurious Mercedes-Benz. A Mercedes-Benz and an experienced chauffeur were always at Jonathan’s disposal.

Outside, Chile’s humidity slapped Jonathan in the face. Perspiration beaded on his brow as he stepped into the icy-cold air-conditioning of the car. His destination, Zurich, Switzerland, for a nine-hour stay, then on to Mexico, where he would meet with his new client, back to Zurich for six hours, then on to Cairo. Within a week he’d probably have pneumonia. He constantly amazed himself at how he managed to stay hale and hearty with all the traveling from one intense climate to another. Hot to cold. Cold to hot. A good way to get sick. Maybe it was all the airtime or the rich food or…something else, but the past week he’d felt unlike himself. Almost as if a bug were creeping up on him in slow motion. He’d been popping aspirin by the handful to ward off whatever it was. Like aspirin could ward off fear.

Five minutes later, his baggage was stowed, his briefcase on his lap. He leaned back and closed his eyes for the 25-km ride from Santiago to Rudahauel, where the Gulfstream was waiting for him. His mind wandered back to his fiancée.

There was no way in hell she could know
anything.
His organization had so many firewalls installed that even he had trouble sometimes understanding the scope of his many operations. He definitely needed to call Lucy again just to satisfy himself that their relationship was on firm ground and it was only his imagination working overtime. The minute the Gulfstream reached its cruising altitude, he would call Lucy, regardless of the time difference.

Fifty minutes later the Gulfstream reached its cruising altitude. Jonathan undid his seat belt and motioned to the lone steward that he’d like a drink and a sandwich. While he drank and chewed his way through roast beef with mustard on fresh-baked bread, he thought about his fiancée and their upcoming wedding. Being married would make him more human in his clients’ eyes. He also knew if he wasn’t careful, being married could be dangerous. For Lucy more so than himself. Disgruntled, aggressive clients tended to get nasty and from time to time threatened to take out that nastiness on family members. Jonathan shrugged. Life was full of nasty surprises. Getting married probably wasn’t one of his better decisions, but once he’d made up his mind, all his future plans quickly fell into place. The fact that Lucy was a top-notch attorney was a plus he couldn’t deny. It wasn’t written in stone that he had to be in love to get married. He needed Lucy, needed her respectability, her background. And for a while he’d have a woman in his bed. When it was time for her to go, she would go. It was that simple. Would he shed any tears when that happened? Perhaps in public.

Jonathan shook his head to clear his thoughts, but somehow Lucy stayed right there with him. What really surprised him about Lucy was as smart as she was, she hadn’t picked up on anything. He chuckled to himself. Maybe when the lovebug bites a woman she doesn’t think about anything else.

At best, life with sweet Lucy would be boring, but that was what he needed. For a while, at least. But there was no way in hell he was going to live in that saltbox of a house she had bought in Edison, New Jersey. He’d go out of his mind in twenty-four hours if he had to live in a two-thousand-square-foot house. If the timing was right, and if things progressed the way he wanted them to, he might give serious thought to opening the house in Watchung.

Jonathan thought about his parents, who’d lived in a small house much like the one Lucy now lived in. His father had worked his whole life in the Firestone rubber factory in Akron. His parents had struggled to pay their mortgage, make car payments, meet other household expenses, while still trying to donate 10 percent of their salary to the church. The first chance he got, he moved them to the other side of the world, where they lived in the lap of luxury. He was a good son. He called regularly and tried to visit at least once every two months for a few days.

His fiancée had simple tastes: she wasn’t into designer clothing, jewelry, or fancy cars. She considered it all a waste of money, preferring to sock her money into a pension fund.

The dog was going to have to go, though. He would never live in a house that had a dog. That might pose a problem, with Lucy being such a dog lover. He could take care of that.

He’d told Lucy he wanted children, but he had lied. He’d been stunned when she said children were not in her immediate plans. That had clinched the engagement. It didn’t hurt that Lucy was a lawyer, one of the best in Manhattan, according to his sources—sources who knew about such things. Her brother Steven was almost as good as Lucy in the courtroom. He remembered how angry he’d been when Lucy had said she was chucking the law. He’d called her stupid that day, and she hadn’t really gotten angry. He was going to need her legal expertise at some point. How she could turn down representing some of his clients on the shady side of the law for big bucks boggled his mind. Her knowledge of the law was one of the reasons he’d chosen her. The day he’d met her on the tennis court had been planned in great detail, and she’d never even suspected. Maybe he gave her too much credit for being smart. Maybe his original assessment that she was stupid was spot on.

Jonathan could feel his stomach muscles start to tighten up. Something, somewhere, was amiss. Had he made a mistake? More to the point, had one of his clients made a mistake that could lead back to him? In the twenty years since he’d started JSC Enterprises, he had never before been fearful. He could feel the fear, smell it; it was starting to choke him.

Jonathan unlocked the cuff on his wrist, massaged it gently, then opened his briefcase on the tray in front of him. He withdrew a digitally encrypted satellite phone and speed-dialed Lucy’s home number. He listened to the phone ring eight times before her voice mail clicked on. His brows knitted together as he tried to imagine where she was and what she was doing. If she had the flu, she might be sleeping. He grimaced at the thought. The phone was a lifeline to Lucy just the way it was to him. If she was there, she would have answered the phone. It was a long flight, he could always call later.

Jonathan pulled out his laptop, flexed his fingers. While he was by no means a bean counter or number cruncher, he did know what his assets were, down to the penny. He smiled as a blizzard of numbers raced across the screen. It would take him a lifetime to spend all the money he’d accumulated even if he spent a million dollars a day. He might be exaggerating but if so, it wasn’t by much.

He hoped he lived long enough to spend it all.

•   •   •

Lucy sat in front of the fire hugging her knees, tears dripping down her cheeks. She needed to get a grip on her life, figure out what she was going to do and stop relying on other people, well-meaning or not, to help her. When the agents arrived, she needed to act like the lawyer she was instead of this wishy-washy person she’d turned into in less than a week. A sob escaped her throat. A second later, the three dogs were circling her, Lulu leaping into her lap. Sadie pressed against her side, Coop’s big paws circled her neck. They whined, their bodies shaking at the strange sounds coming from her mouth. She spread her arms to encircle all three dogs, then laughed as she wiped at her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt. “I’m okay. Just a bad moment there. The bridal shop called to tell me my wedding gown is ready for my final fitting. If you stop and think about it, that’s pretty damn funny from where I’m sitting.”

Fear was for other people, not a savvy, high-priced lawyer like her. In the blink of an eye, she disengaged herself from the dogs and went up the steps, landing with a painful thump on her tender ankle. She ignored the pain as she limped into her bedroom, stripped down, and decked herself out in a long, paisley skirt with a delicious thigh-high slit up the side. She stepped into suede boots, mindful of her ankle, and donned a pumpkin-colored cashmere sweater. A lustrous set of pearls found their way to her neck, as did matching earrings.

In the bathroom she undid the ponytail and brushed her hair till it framed her face like a nimbus. Reaching for the atomizer, she spritzed the air and stood under the fragrant spray.
Now
she was ready for the federal agents.

The dogs followed her down the steps just as the doorbell rang. Lucy made one stop at the sofa to turn on the small cassette player, then placed it between the cushions where she planned to sit.

Through the beveled glass at the side of the front door, Lucy could see the same trio who had grilled her on Friday. They looked like they were freezing. Good.