The Body of David Hayes (35 page)

“When was this?”

Charlotte heard the concern in Liz’s voice and reflected it. “Just before we got going. A few minutes before eight. Why?”

Liz backpedaled, sorry she’d suggested there was any
problem. “Oh, no reason.” She forced her face to soften. “It’s just in time. Thanks.” She glanced to her right, where the end of the room was sectioned off by polished steel beams and thick, unbreakable glass, and looked right at one of the twin AS/400s, a black, solid block of computer the size of a washing machine. Behind the server and out of view was a small desk holding a large flat-panel screen and a keyboard. The placement of this workstation intentionally screened the operator in order to prevent any eavesdropping or spying from without. The machine’s twin sister sat to the right in a small office of its own. This more private room was where most of the heavy lifting was done by programmers and maintenance. This was Liz’s destination. To reach it, she would have to pass through a palm-scanner, as well as an ID reader. She would be under the glare of the overhead lighting, visible to all. She would stick out, given that there was no activity at that far end of the large room. Her entrance to the space would alert security and, in turn, the surveillance team.

The cake had been Lou’s idea, his solution to part of this dilemma, and only then did she think to follow up with it, asking Charlotte about its readiness.

“It’s here,” Charlotte replied. “But we’re saving it for
after
the switchover, right?”

That had been Liz’s original instruction, but now that had to change for the sake of timing. She could feel Special Ops close on her heels. “The switchover is actually just ceremonial. Phillip…Mr. Crenshaw, will throw a switch, yes. But the final exchange of data won’t occur until after midnight. Then our servers are off-line for good.”

“Right…” Charlotte clearly wondered why Liz would explain what she already knew.

“So what can it possibly matter when we serve the cake? The point being that once the switch is thrown, the party peaks, and maybe folks don’t stick around for the cake.”

“Just admit it, Mrs. Boldt,” Charlotte said, nearly stopping Liz’s heart. “I know your real reason for changing plans.”

Liz felt the color drain out of her face and her hands go cold.

“Choc-o-holic, anyone?” Charlotte cracked up. “Confess your sins, Mrs. Boldt!”

Liz felt nervous laughter escape from her throat. “Caught!” she said, her knees weak and actually trembling. “Me and chocolate! You got me. Let them eat cake.”

“How soon?”

“Let’s give the hors d’oeuvres another few minutes, and then surprise everyone.” Liz kept one eye on the end of the room, and the brightly lit secure office. “And don’t forget the candles and the room lights. Phillip wants this to be dramatic.”

Charlotte beamed. “I’ll tell the caterers.”

“I’ll do it,” Liz said, wanting both the excuse and the opportunity to avoid circulating as much as possible. “If anybody’s getting an advance taste of that cake, it’s me.”

Charlotte grinned, and Liz left before her mouth got her in real trouble. She’d never been a good liar, even through the months of the affair with David. Had Lou not been so consumed at the time, he would have caught on sooner.

The caterers from Wild Ginger had usurped both the galley kitchen and a small conference room across from it, down a hall near the stairs that Liz had climbed only minutes before. Asian odors of pickled ginger and plum
and cinnamon thickened with her approach. It took her a minute to locate the woman in charge, a woman with whom she’d had dealings. Their meeting in person was cordial and businesslike. Liz asked that the cake be brought out earlier than originally planned, and the caterer saw no problem with that, asking for five to ten minutes to clear the hors d’oeuvres and to orchestrate the change. Liz said Charlotte would dim the lights when signaled, knowing full well there was no dimming the overhead fluorescents. The entire floor would be briefly dark, the guests’ attention fixed on the candles and the cake. This would be the moment Liz needed.

Halfway back down the hall, she stepped into an empty office and pulled out her cell phone. Lou answered right away.

“I’m in. Watch for the lights. Five minutes, maybe ten.”

“They’re searching the theater. Riz is going to have this figured out soon if he doesn’t already. They’ll think you were pressured into this, but they’ll still expect one of those two passwords from you.”
Miles6. Sarah4
. She didn’t intend to use either; there would be no alerting Pahwan Riz to the actual transfer. “I’ve got Bobbie inside as a waitress,” Lou continued. “When you’re done in there, you need to call me.”

He’d stressed this need to call him about a dozen times and it annoyed her that he’d repeat it yet again. “I got that, Lou.” She regretted the tone, not knowing herself, hoping that whatever woman she’d become over the past few weeks would not stick.

“Okay.” Boldt ended the call.

Liz slipped the mobile phone back into Daphne’s purse and spun in the chair, preparing to leave.

“I thought that was you.” A deep male voice she recognized before looking up. Danny Foreman blocked the doorway.

“Wouldn’t miss my own party,” she said.

“Who were you talking to just now?” he asked. “Lou?”

How much did he hear?
She couldn’t remember what she’d said on her end of the conversation. The manila envelope that contained a disk remained inside the purse.
How much does he know?
“I don’t remember your name being on the invitation list,” she said.

“Half of Special Ops is looking for you in a movie theater at this very moment.”

“Not you.”

“Not me. I wanted to make sure we still had our understanding. Protect the state’s investment in this investigation.”

If the money went anywhere but the Svengrad account, her children weren’t safe. She thought that by now Danny Foreman probably understood this as well. She said, “I wonder what Pahwan Riz would think of your being up here. Lou, for that matter. Couldn’t just your presence here blow this?”

“I’m here to make sure you get out safely.”

That gave her chills. Lou had warned her no one would want her remembering the account numbers. Her thoughts poured out of her before she could stop her mouth. “It’s not a government account,
is
it, Danny? Never was. This is about Darlene for you. Injustice. This is something between you and David and this guy Svengrad.”

“You’re at serious risk once this transfer is made.”

“From whom? What’s your plan, Danny? How safe am I?”

“You’re mistaken, Liz. Horribly mistaken. It
is
a government account. I told you before: We need that money as evidence if we’re going to get a conviction. It’s as simple as that.”

“Simple?” she asked. “Can you actually say that?” She didn’t know how to read him. Half in shadow, Danny Foreman wore an intractable expression. “Should I call Lou or Special Ops and thank them for sending you? Should I ask security to call someone to let them know you’re here at the reception? How do you want to play this?” She felt the seconds passing by, and her chance to sneak inside the AS/ 400 room escaping along with it.

“I’m going in with you,” he said. “I’ll input the account number myself. We wouldn’t want your nerves causing you to mistype a number.”

This was completely unplanned for. “Wiring the funds requires an account number, an ABA routing number, and a name for the account. It’s foolproof, Danny. I won’t mistype it.”

“I’m going in with you. Look at it this way: In the event of a trial it will protect us all if I witness your actions.”

“I’ll be lucky to get in there myself, alone. Two of us? No offense, Danny, you’re not exactly dressed for the occasion.” Of the guests assembled in the room not twenty feet away, half wore tuxedos. Foreman looked as if he’d slept in his clothes for the past week.

“I’m going in there with you.”

She looked for some way to circumvent him. It dawned on her then—a possible way to lose Foreman, but she would need a head start. She would also need an alternate plan, the answer to which lay with Lou—Lou, and Bobbie Gaynes, a wild card whose presence here remained unknown
to Foreman because it remained unknown to Special Ops as well. “Okay,” she said, “you win.”

Foreman first looked surprised, then satisfied with himself, until she spoke again.

“Do you know how to tie a bow tie, Danny?”

He frowned, then caught on to the suggestion.

“We’ve got to get you looking right,” she said. “Let me see what I can work out with the caterer. I’m the one who hired her in the first place.” She had him cornered and they both knew it.

“I’ll come with you,” he said.

She wanted to object but didn’t feel confident lying to him, fearing he’d see through the lie. She nodded acceptance, her mind working to see a way out of this, Danny Foreman an albatross she could ill afford.

Thinking more clearly than she, he said, “I’ll take your cell phone.”

She reached into her purse and took hold of the phone, offering it but not yet passing it to him. “Will you? And what will you say to Svengrad when he calls? You need his wire information or you don’t have a case against him.

Isn’t that right?”

“You must have that information by now.”

“I do not,” she told him, wondering as his face tightened further if she’d given him too much information. This was Lou’s world, Danny Foreman’s world, not hers. She started her phone back toward her purse but Foreman took it from her.

“All the more reason you need me,” he said, pocketing it. She needed the phone. Special Ops would be watching all calls from and to the bank’s phones; she didn’t want to
be “caught” dialing Lou’s cell phone number. She also still expected the call from Svengrad. Not to mention Lou.

“There are security cameras
inside
this room with the servers,” Foreman said. “Riz has cameras aimed at both keyboards in case the key-tracking software fails.”

Liz realized he was just talking this through. He was right; she’d been briefed on the locations of these cameras as well.

“Lou worked it out, didn’t he?” She waited to see what he was getting at.

“LaRossa gave Hayes a way to monitor your security cameras,” he said, theorizing. “Svengrad hasn’t called you because he knows you’re not in the restricted room yet. He’s waiting for your move.” He paused. “You did or did not use your own ID when you entered tonight?”

Liz had thought her use of Tony LaRossa’s ID had been to hide her from Special Ops, not from Svengrad. Only now did she sense that Lou had this second motive in mind as well. She clutched her purse, as Foreman reached for it. She felt an urgent need to protect Lou’s plan, whatever it was. “There
is
a security camera in this hall. I
do
know that. You’ll be on camera if you come with me. This may take me a minute.” She tore herself free from Foreman’s grip.

She turned and stepped out, and Foreman followed. Together they walked down the hall to its dead-end fire-stairs door. Liz’s mind raced to find a way around this. Foreman remained a half step behind her and to her left. She couldn’t turn and outrun him. She needed a break, a way to put even a few seconds between them, seconds in which he would not miss her.

At the galley she introduced Foreman to the caterer as
“a law enforcement officer.” Liz explained he needed a cover, and that she’d thought of his taking the place of one of the waiters for just a few minutes.

“He’d need a white shirt and tie,” the woman replied.

“I’m aware of that,” Liz said. “That’s why we’re speaking to you.”

The woman sized up Foreman like a fashion designer. She said, “Let me talk to Michael. He’s about your size.”

A few agonizing minutes later Foreman faced a young man carrying a white shirt and bow tie. “We’ll use the office,” Foreman said, indicating the door down the hall. “Wait here,” he said to Liz.

Foreman and the waiter moved down the hall and entered the office to exchange shirts and let Foreman tie the tie. He left the office door ajar to prevent her from slipping past.

Liz winced a smile. The mouse had walked willingly into the trap, all of his own accord.

Liz drew the caterer close and whispered, “When he asks, you tell him you had your back turned and didn’t see which way I went.”

Before surprise had a chance to fade from the caterer’s expression, Liz gently pushed against the stairway door’s panic bar, then threw her hip into pushing it open and slipped out. Cool air slapped her face. Her limbs and chest went feverish with adrenaline. At the bottom of these stairs was freedom, and for a moment that temptation weighed on her like gravity.

Before she reached the first landing, she heard a flurry of footsteps from below. Someone—security, probably—was coming up. Coincidence? she wondered. A random security check? Or had LaRossa’s ID triggered a full-scale
search? If a search, they wouldn’t be busting through the front doors of a formal party but using the stairs, as she now heard so clearly. She debated returning to the relative safety of the twenty-fifth floor behind her. The footfalls continued to climb toward her, and at a pace that indicated someone in shape, reinforcing her belief it was a security guard. At last, with nowhere to turn, she stiffened her posture, took hold of the railing, and descended—
walked—
one hand on the rail. She was one of the five most powerful people at WestCorp, and this building belonged to WestCorp—at least for a few more minutes.

Bobbie Gaynes rounded the landing in the black-and-white uniform of the caterers. “Mrs. B.,” she said, clearly surprised. “What’s wrong?”

“Danny Foreman’s up there.” She explained her predicament and what she needed from Gaynes, speaking quickly and in a hushed voice.

“Okay then,” Gaynes said, when Liz had finished.

“You can’t get onto twenty-five without an ID card—from this side, the stairs. It’s restricted access.”

“So I’ll pound until someone opens up,” Gaynes said.

“If that doesn’t work….” Liz fished into Daphne’s purse and passed Gaynes the LaRossa ID, telling her to use it, “But only if no one opens the door for you. And if Danny asks if you saw me…”