The Trophy Wife (19 page)

He sauntered happily toward the stairs. “I'll be back,” he promised her.

“Oh, Jesus,” Emily said out loud. She struggled to fight back her terror and get control of her own breathing. She could no longer calculate her level of risk. There was no hope that Walter would save her. He would be struggling to meet the original ransom demand. Mike was right. How could Walter take the obscene man and his sick threats seriously? Unless he found part of her in an envelope? Somehow, she had to get out of there tonight, before he returned.

Emily worked herself up to a kneeling position and then lifted her arms over her head so that the two shackles cleared the bedpost. She was facing the headboard, with both hands on the crossbar that secured the other end of her chains. She began rocking it back and forth, adding the weight of her body to the rhythm. The joints creaked but still held together, keeping her chained. But she had to keep trying. Her life was going to depend on it.

Mike was leaning against the compact sedan he had borrowed from the long-term parking lot at Newark International Airport, when Rita came down the front steps. He whistled softly. If she had come out of any other doorway, he probably wouldn't have recognized her. Instead of her severe black hair, she had a red pageboy brushing her shoulders. She was wearing a black dress with a low top and a high hem, dark seamed stockings, and spiked heels that nearly punched holes in the concrete. Her only jewelry was a string of pearls that
showed through the embroidered sweater she had hung from her shoulders. She was either an executive wife on her way to a company affair, or a high-priced hooker out trolling for a john. To Mike, she was an irresistible turn-on.

“You know exactly what you have to do,” Mike reminded her while she fussed with her seat belt.

“Mike, I was doing this sort of thing before you broke your first leg.”

“Don't be such a smart-ass. There's a lot riding on how we play this.”

“So you've told me, but I don't like it,” she complained. “It's just too damn risky.”

“You'll like having an extra fifty grand to spend, won't you?”

Rita shook her head. “You can't spend it in prison, Mike. And if we both get caught, who's going to con the judge into keeping you out of jail?”

Walter drove his car into the parking lot, passed slowly by Randy's front door, and turned into a space at the far end. He set the leather briefcase on the passenger seat, got out, and closed the door gently behind him. When he looked back, he realized that the briefcase couldn't be seen below the window line. So he opened the passenger door and stood the case on its end, resting against the seat back. He checked again to make sure that the door was unlocked and walked across the lot and into the dimly lighted bar.

There were two men seated uncomfortably on bar stools, shoulder to shoulder but seemingly ignoring each other. A few feet away, a woman with dead eyes leaned over a dark mixed drink, in whispered conversation with a red-eyed man who had his hand on her knee. No one paid the slightest attention to him.

“Anyone working?” Walter asked, referring to the lack of a bartender. The two men swiveled their heads toward him and looked curiously at his tie and jacket. “Gerry went to the head. He'll be right back,” one of them informed him.

As he waited, the headlights of a pickup truck swung into
the parking lot. Seconds later, two young men in T-shirts walked in and sat at the darkened side of the bar. Walter tried for eye contact, but they seemed completely uninterested in him. Then Gerry returned, fixed a scotch for Walter, and drafts for the two newcomers.

The woman downed her drink and pushed the empty glass toward the taps. Gerry reached for a lower shelf blended whiskey and fired ginger ale into the glass with it. Not a word or even a glance was exchanged.

“Slow night?” Walter asked.

Gerry shrugged. “It'll pick up.”

Walter wondered if any of his fellow patrons was one of the investigators that Hogan had promised would be on the scene.

More headlights swung past the front windows and Walter caught a glimpse of a small sedan parking across from the pickup truck. A minute later, an attractive woman with red hair came through the door, posed long enough to get everyone's attention, and then took a stool on the dark side next to the recently arrived pair. Gerry drifted over, mumbled a greeting, and took her order for a gin martini.

As she waited, the woman's glance drifted to Walter. Her eyes smiled, telling him that he was her kind of man. She seemed to be laughing to herself as she sipped her drink.

Could she be the one? Walter wondered. Why not a woman? It would be logical as hell if they went back to his car and drove away. She wouldn't have to take the briefcase until she was certain that they weren't being followed. But it was up to her to make the move. If she were the contact, she would have no trouble identifying him. His shoes were shined and his trousers were creased. He was the only one in the place wearing a business suit.

Walter looked around. He recalled the sound of the voice on the tape and tried to remember the face that his imagination had put with it. That face was nowhere in the room. In the stained mirror behind the bar, he could see his car parked outside. It stood alone. No one had parked near it. He looked at his watch. Hogan had warned him that the pickup man
would probably let him sit for quite a while, making sure that he was alone. He glanced back at the redhead in the black dress. She had already struck up a conversation with the two young men in the T-shirts. Walter sipped at his drink. It was promising to be a long night.

People came and went. The first woman picked up her purse and left with her boyfriend right at her heels. A slutty-looking woman entered, ordered a drink, and within a few minutes was joined by a male arrival. They left together almost immediately. An older man with a terrible limp pulled himself up onto a stool with great effort. Walter studied him until the man looked back. Then Walter was embarrassed because he seemed to be focusing on the man's handicap.

Two hours went by uneventfully. The man with the limp belted back two shots and left. Walter finished his second scotch. Finally, the redhead pulled her cigarettes and lighter back into her purse, gave Walter a glance that said “last chance,” and sauntered out the door. When she pulled away, Walter saw that there were only two cars in the lot, his and the pickup truck that belonged to the two T-shirted characters, who were still working their way through whatever was on tap. He surmised that the woman had probably been Hogan's agent who had cased the place, checked out her two drinking companions, and then left. He decided that he had missed his rendezvous. When he went outside, the top of the briefcase was still visible through the front window of his car.

As he drove away from the roadhouse, he dialed Andrew Hogan's office on his car phone. Hogan picked up instantly and told Walter he was already aware that the kidnapper had never shown up. “As far as we can tell, he never even tried. No cars were casing the place. No one moving through the woods on foot.”

“What about the two kids at the bar?” Walter asked.

“They were working for us,” Hogan said.

Walter was shocked. “Then who was the woman?”

“A hooker who offered to do both our guys for the price of one.”

“Well, if our man wasn't there, where was he?” Walter wondered.

“Probably at home,” Andrew speculated. “Maybe he's just a nut who gets his kicks out of playing games.”

“We shouldn't be playing games,” Walter snapped bitterly. “We should just pay the guy.”

“It wouldn't have made any difference if the case was chock full of money. He never even took a look.”

“If it's someone real close to me, he wouldn't have to look. He might have known what we were up to without even bothering to show up.”

Andrew's tone became consoling. “I know this is tough on you, Walter. But you and I were the only ones who knew the case was empty. No one else. Not even the people who had the place staked out.”

“And what about tomorrow? When we wire those funds, anyone who's really looking will know that it's only ten thousand. We're going to get Emily killed.”

'Try to sleep on it, Walter. Maybe the best thing we can do is take this to the chairman and let him make the call.”

“It won't take Hollcroft five seconds before he'll be on the phone to the police. We've been through all this, for Christ's sake.”

“Let's both sleep on it. I don't mind telling you that I'm getting uneasy about setting a trap for a courier.”

“Dammit! It's your idea. I was the one who said it wouldn't work.”

“Like I said. We'll sleep on it!”

Walter knew that there was no chance of his sleeping on anything. His whole life was coming to an instant of crisis. His entire future would be decided in the next twenty-four hours. He felt desperately alone. If only Angela were with him. If he could just talk to her.

Angela carried her wine out onto the balcony of the town house and looked at the moonlight sparkling on the water. A wonderful night for a swim, she thought. A romantic night.
Exactly the kind of evening six months ago when Walter Childs had first hit on her.

She had known it was coming ever since she had joined the bank and learned that Walter was her mentor. She had probably overdone it at her interview. But people looking for a high-paying job
had to
impress the hell out of the people who were doing the hiring. Women had the added burden of making sure which of their many attributes was making the impression.

Walter's interest was obvious. He had monitored her work as if it were the most important activity at InterBank. Weekly, she was summoned to his office for a professional conference on her progress. But always the conversation was more about Walter and the loneliness of command than about any achievement of hers. She had recognized all the opportunities to be sympathetic, to display her concern for his burdens, and to offer an opportunity for a more relaxed meeting.

At one of their sessions, after official business hours, he had gestured to the stack of documents on his desk awaiting his attention. “An all-nighter,” he had sighed. “Probably just grab a fast bite and then get back to the desk.” And then, as if the idea had just occurred to him, he had suggested, “Say, if you're not terribly busy, maybe you could join me. We could talk over dinner.” Angela had agreed with a show of enthusiasm. You didn't get ahead by offending the people in power. Skillfully, she had kept the conversation on her work and the demanding chores waiting back in his office. At the end of the meal, he had no entry to anything except to say good night and call her a taxi. But she knew that wouldn't be the end. Walter regarded her as his personal property. She had to find some way to outlast his interest, or she probably had to find another bank.

The moment had come during a three-day business conference at a Caribbean resort. Walter had found her in the cocktail lounge with two of her colleagues at the end of the first day and had moved in. He had out-waited the colleagues, then suggest a moonlight swim. It was while he was toweling her off that he had pulled her close and kissed her. “I hope
you understand the way I feel about you,” he had whispered.

She understood, but knew a truthful answer would be a career-limiting move. “What took you so long,” she answered, and she had kissed him in return.

The second night of the conference, he had joined her on her patio with the requisite bottle of champagne, and alluded to a family that simply didn't understand the pressure he was under. The wife who no longer loved him was the last act of his play.

On the third night, he had joined her in her bed. A very tender and considerate lover, Angela had thought while pretending to unheard-of heights of ecstasy. Better than the hot-shots she had grown up with, more energetic than her fellow MBA students, and certainly more durable than the business ethics professor who began apologizing for his inadequacies the instant their bodies touched. But still, there was no doubt that he was simply taking advantage of their relative positions. It was up to her whether this was the beginning of her career or the end. Right at that moment, she had decided that it would be neither.

She sipped the fine white Bordeaux that Roberto had apparently ordered and that had been waiting in a bucket of fresh ice when she entered the room. Roberto's plane had touched down on Grand Cayman just as the sun was touching the horizon. She stayed aboard while the small turboprop was towed into a private hangar and found only one person waiting when she stepped out onto the plane's swing-down steps. Roberto's agent had been well briefed. His car, with darkened windows, was parked immediately outside the access door of the hangar building. There was no one in the area who could possibly identify her.

She had leaned forward in her seat and asked the driver to take her past the Banca Folonari and then spent the next half hour studying the narrow streets of George Town, capital of the islands, and Grand Cayman's only attempt at even an insignificant city. She was driven by the front door of the bank branch, a two-story structure with an imitation warehouse facade that could just as easily have been a souvenir
shop. Then she had the driver take her down the side streets and around the brick structure. She noted the row of windows on the second floor and the small parking area for the executives behind the building. Angela shook her head in dismay. The entire Folonari branch wasn't much more impressive than a typical American late-night convenience store. It seemed anything but the most profitable branch of a major European money center.

But, of course, banks no longer needed impressive facades. Nor was there any reason for barred teller cages and mammoth vault doors. The Cayman branch was simply a computer center, housing small, inexpensive terminals that were connected to the rest of the world by telephone lines and satellite uplinks. Generally, there wasn't anything in the building worth stealing. Grand Cayman had become a world money center not because of the security of its vaults, but simply because of the generosity of its banking laws. The island government didn't require that depositors report their balances to the tax authorities. Nor did it ever ask depositors about the sources of their wealth. Funds transferred through a Cayman branch simply vanished from the radar screens of police departments and tax collectors all over the world. The tiny island nation, once it freed itself from British rule, had become a rival to Switzerland as the safe haven for thieves of every kind.