The Chocolate Falcon Fraud (2 page)

I wished them all sorts of happiness. But that part of my life was over. I didn't want to see them ever again. However, I could hardly refuse to meet with Jeff. He and I had watched a lot of Humphrey Bogart and Alan Ladd.

But why had Jeff invited us all to dinner, then failed to show?

I went to bed that night puzzled by Jeff's nonappearance, but trying not to worry about him. Unfortunately the scrabbling of my thoughts was echoed by some darn animal making noises in the attic (a chronic problem of semirural living) and I had trouble falling asleep. I insisted to myself that Joe was right; Jeff had simply found someone more interesting to have dinner with. I shouldn't be wringing my hands over him.

•   •   •

I was still sleeping when the phone rang at seven the next morning. Joe was already awake, and he answered it.

“Oh, hi.” He sounded wary. “Sure. She's here.”

Where else would I be at that time of day? I took the phone and mumbled my greeting. “It's Lee.”

“Lee, it's Alicia.”

“Alicia?” I sat up in bed. I had recognized the Texas accent immediately. “Alicia Richardson!”

“Oh yeah. The same old gal. How you doin'?”

“Fine! It's good to hear from you.”

And it was good. Alicia was a part of my life in Dallas I remembered with pleasure. At one time she'd helped me out a lot.

Alicia was office manager and head of accounting for Rich's company. I guess every business has one key person, and at Godfrey Development, Alicia was it. She had worked for Rich for at least fifteen years. She knew where all the bodies were buried, where all the money was socked away, who couldn't stand whom, and how to Get Things Done.

On a day-to-day basis, Alicia ran the company. Rich made the deals, and Alicia made them happen. Rich didn't admit this out loud, but the salary he paid Alicia proved he appreciated her abilities. Their relationship was strictly professional. Alicia was married to a terrific guy named Tom who was a surveyor, and they had two great kids. She was perfectly capable of telling Rich she couldn't stay late because it was her daughter's birthday, and Rich would say, “Yes, ma'am.”

Back when I was married to Rich, Alicia had saved my fanny
lots of times. If Rich and I were going to a party, for example, she'd give me tips on what was really going on in the world of property development, and which subjects to avoid with whom. She kept my foot out of my mouth most of the time.

If I had a role model in my job as business manager for TenHuis Chocolade, it was Alicia. I was glad to hear from her, though I knew she hadn't called simply to chat.

Sure enough, she went right to the point. “I don't suppose you've heard from Jeff,” she said. “That little booger seems to have misplaced hisself.”

“Misplaced himself? Alicia, I thought he finally grew up enough to be allowed out of the house alone.”

“As a general rule he does pretty well. But his parents are in South America until the end of the week, and something has come up. He mentioned you before he got away.”

“Actually Jeff did drop by yesterday.”

Alicia gave a dramatic sigh of relief. “Thank the Lord! Is he there with you?”

“No, he said he had a motel room in Holland.”

“Was he okay?”

“Sure. He looked great and seemed to be in good spirits.” My mind was racing, and fear was settling in the pit of my stomach. It was stupid, but I'd always had a terrible fear that something would happen to Jeff and that it would happen on my watch.

But what should I say to Alicia? Jeff had made a date with us, then had failed to show up. Should I tell her that? I stalled.

“I guess he told you he was common—I mean, coming! He must have told you he was coming to Warner Pier.”

“No, he didn't tell me! He's living at home this summer. He gave up his apartment, because he's going to move to Austin in August. Rich and Dina are skiing, of all things, in Peru, of all places. Jeff was supposed to mind his mama's store.”

Dina owned a high-end antiques business, and Jeff had worked part-time for her since he was fourteen or so.

Alicia was still talking. “He found someone to fill in at the store, then went off—I guess to Michigan—and apparently didn't tell anybody where he was going. Not even that sweet little Tess. I finally found a message from him on my line at the office. It said something about seeing you. And he's not answering his cell phone. Do you know what motel he's in?”

“I'm afraid not. All he gave me was his cell number.”

“Dadgum it!”

“Alicia, is there some emergency?”

“I honestly don't know, Lee. The girl who's at Dina's shop called me to say Jeff was getting these strange phone calls. I went over there and listened to a couple of messages, and, Lee, they sound a lot like threats! Like ‘If you miss this opportunity, you'll be sorry forever, because the black bird may come after you.'”

“Who on earth would threaten Jeff?”

“I can't imagine. I don't know what's going on. But I need to talk to him about it. If anything happens to Jeff . . .” She left the sentence incomplete.

I decided that I wouldn't tell Alicia about Jeff being a no-show for dinner. She was worried already, and that wouldn't help.

“Listen,” I said, “as soon as I'm a little more up-and-at-'em, I'll get on the phone and call a few Holland motels. Maybe I can track him down.”

“Oh, would you? I'd really appreciate it.”

Alicia gave me her cell number, and I promised to call back by noon, even if I didn't find Jeff.

I hung up, then slumped down in bed and looked at Joe. Darn, he was fun to look at. Dark hair, brilliant blue eyes. Definitely the best-looking guy in west Michigan. With the best shoulders. Also smart.

“Good morning,” I said.

Joe rolled his eyes. “Why do your friends and relatives call so early?”

“They forget we're in the eastern time zone.”

“But that would make them call later, Lee. Not earlier.”

“Then I don't know. But you were already up. Why did the phone bother you?”

“I guess I just don't like to see you get mixed up with those people.”

“What's wrong with Alicia and Jeff? At least
Rich
didn't call.”

“He doesn't bother me. You're not friendly with Rich. It's other people who want favors.”

“I haven't heard from any of them since Jeff got in all that trouble on his last visit. Three years ago. Three and a half.”

“But yesterday, when he showed up, you said Jeff knew we were married.”

“Yes, and he knew Aunt Nettie and Hogan were married. So what? Oh, it's odd, because he didn't get it from me.”

“He's been keeping track of you, Lee. It's creepy. Plus, last night you and Aunt Nettie were talking about meeting with that architect today. You don't have time to look all over Holland for Jeff.”

TenHuis Chocolade (“luxury chocolates in the Dutch tradition”) had recently acquired the building next door. We were in the early stages of expanding into the additional space. Even the early stages were taking a lot of time.

I sighed. “Joe, I can't refuse to help Alicia find Jeff. She's obviously worried about him. And Alicia is one of those people I owe.”

I sat up and rested my chin on my knees. “This is one of those recurring nightmares.”

“Why? I'm sure nothing's happened to Jeff.”

“It's a holdover from when I was first married to Rich. I admit we hadn't dated nearly long enough. He hadn't bothered to mention that he had a twelve-year-old son.”

“What a jerk!”

“True, but . . . Anyway, a month after I met Jeff, Rich asked me to pick him up for weekend visitation and bring him out to the club and drop him off to have dinner with Rich. I had to go someplace else. So I took Jeff to the club and dropped him off at the front door. I had barely gotten where I was going when Rich called and asked where Jeff was. He'd never gotten inside the club.”

“That was scary!”

I blinked away a tear. “Actually he'd just gone out to the driving range, but it frightened the something or other out of me. All I could think was that he'd been kidnapped. And it would all be my fault!”

Joe sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand. “Jeff's a grown-up now!”

“Is he?”

“Legally he is. You didn't ask him to come to Michigan. He's responsible for himself.”

“Thanks, but this is a topic I'm not always rational about.”

Joe gave me a kiss and another dose of reassurance. Then I got up, hoisted myself onto my crutch, and limped through my morning routine. As soon as Joe left for work, I started calling motels in Holland, thirty miles away, looking for Jeff. It only took four calls. He was registered at the Holiday Inn Express.

But when the front desk rang his room, Jeff didn't answer. I left a voice mail, telling him Alicia was trying to find him. And I added a sentence. “We were sorry that we missed you last night, Jeff. Don't leave the area without calling, guy!”

I began to dress for the office, telling myself I'd hear from Jeff within a few minutes. He had probably been in the shower.

But I didn't hear from him. By the time I left for the office, thumping my crutch irately at every step, there had been no word from Jeff.

After Joe left, the only sound I heard was the animal in the attic.

Anyone who's ever lived in the country knows about the animal in the attic. And if Joe and I didn't live in the country in a legal sense, we did in a physical one. Our house was inside the city limits of Warner Pier. We had city water and sewer, plus all the police and fire protection available in a town of twenty-five hundred souls. But our neighborhood was semirural and heavily wooded. It looked and felt like country. We were surrounded by country things like bushes and trees and animals.

Deer, turkeys, raccoons, rabbits—even the occasional badger and fox—hung out in our neighborhood. And they considered our house part of their territory. A squirrel had come down our chimney. We'd had chipmunks move into our basement. Every
fall the mice invaded, trying to avoid cold weather. Don't ask me how they found cracks and holes to get in; we tried to plug 'em up.

We were experts on amateur extermination, and we also knew whom to call if professional action was required. In fact, we'd had the exterminator the previous week, and he thought he had de-animaled the house completely. But I was already hearing noises from the attic.

This situation, of course, was not found only in Michigan. My dad had the same problem in north Texas. It's just part of country living, so we tried not to pay too much attention to stray scratchings and thumpings.

But I wrote a note to Joe with a big, fat Magic Marker. “Please check attic for annie-mule!” Then I taped it to the window over the kitchen sink before I left for the office.

I made sure my phone was on; I didn't want to miss Jeff's call. But by noon I still hadn't heard from him. When I talked to Alicia, she hadn't heard from him either.

“Listen,” I said, “I'll go to the Holiday Inn and see what I can find out.”

“If that kid is lounging around the pool and letting us worry, I'll have his hide.”

“I'll hold him while you kick him.”

I told Aunt Nettie I was making an emergency trip to Holland and would be back to meet with the architect. I worried the whole thirty miles to Holland. But I was on the outskirts of town before I gave in, stopped the car in a parking lot, and called Hogan for a little informal advice from law enforcement. Luckily it was a slow day for crime in Warner Pier, and I caught him in his office.

I quickly sketched the situation for him. “We can't make a missing person report on Jeff yet, can we?”

“Not unless you find something scary.”

“Scary?”

“Yeah. Like his car with a pool of blood in the front seat.”

I shuddered. “I don't even want to think such a thing!”

“Then don't. But if he's simply not there, the cops can't do much. He's over twenty-one, isn't he?”

“Oh yes. He's supposedly a grown-up.”

“And the motel isn't likely to give you much information.”

“That's what I thought.”

“The only way you could get a look in his room, for example, is if there was a possibility he's sick.”

“Sick?”

“Some chronic condition. The possibility of a diabetic coma maybe. He's a little bit young for you to tell them he might have had a stroke. And you don't want to say he'd threatened suicide. The motel might toss him out. Motels don't like dead guests.” Hogan laughed. “But don't make it too elaborate, Lee. You don't look old enough to be Jeff's mother.”

“Even though I was. Sort of.”

When I got to the Holiday Inn I cruised the parking lot, looking for Texas license plates. Nary a one. So I parked and went to the desk, where the clerk tried calling Jeff's room. No answer.

I took a deep breath and pulled the stunt Hogan had hinted might work.

My stepson, I told the clerk, was diabetic. “We really didn't want him to tackle this trip, because his blood sugar has been up and down, but you know kids! We couldn't talk him out of it.”

The clerk nodded sympathetically.

“Is there any way a staff member could check the room? Make sure he's all right?”

“I'll ask the manager.”

The manager wasn't happy, but he got a special key card from a drawer. I didn't ask if I could go along. I just went.

The room was on the third floor. I tried to follow the manager inside, but he gestured at me. “Please stay here.”

So I stood in the doorway, though I did manage to edge inside far enough to see into the bathroom and most of the bedroom. By then I had talked myself into real concern about Jeff's disappearance, and I was holding my breath as the manager made a circuit of the room, checking behind the shower curtain, between the beds, in the closet. I felt a genuine sense of relief when he spoke. “No sign of him.”

“Thank goodness.” From my place two steps inside the room I could see Jeff's luggage—a medium-sized wheeled duffel bag—on the foot of the bed. I could peek inside the bathroom and see his shaving kit on the counter. But neither bag looked as if it had been opened.

Jeff had apparently checked in the previous day, dropped off his luggage, then left. There was no sign that he had ever come back to the room.

The manager relocked the door, and I followed him downstairs. He seemed even more relieved than I was, and I could understand why. As Hogan had said, motels don't like dead guests.

When we returned to the front desk, I tried one more thing. “Do I need to give you a credit card? To make sure Jeff's room is paid for?”

Then the manager
did
look relieved. To learn that some
family member was willing to pick up Jeff's bill—he practically clicked his heels. But he assured me that Jeff had a credit card on file. All was well.

“I'll just call his mother,” I said.

The manager frowned. “I thought you were his mother.”

I chuckled. “No, his stepmother. We're a blended family.” I ended with another chuckle.

That reassured him, and he didn't make any objection when I helped myself to a cup of their free coffee, then took a seat in the empty breakfast area. I took out my phone.

And Tess walked in the front door of the motel.