Vision Impossible (26 page)

“Shortly after this video surveillance was taken, our operative in Dubai reported that Des Vries backed out on an arms deal he had with the sheikh. He left him high and dry and the Arab was furious. Not a smart move on Des Vries’s part, because this guy has a long memory, and he will find a way to get even.”

I felt a cold chill along my spine and I worried anew for Dutch’s safety. “What if he comes to the auction?”

“We’ll have to hope that Sheikh Omar thinks Dutch is Des Vries and doesn’t scrutinize him too closely, and then we’ll have to hope that Boklovich maintains the peace and prevents the sheikh from killing Rivers long enough for you guys to steal back the drone and get the hell out of there.”

I watched the video in silence for a while. The audio was both terrible in quality and in a foreign language, so I couldn’t follow what the men were saying, but it was obvious they were negotiating something and not just trading small talk. The cameraman shifted the angle slightly near the end, and I noticed someone sitting behind Des Vries.

Moving my finger over the mouse pad, I said, “Hold on a second . . . ,” and rewound the section.

“What’s up?” Frost asked me.

I squinted at the screen, then stood up straight and swiveled toward the living room. Mandy was sitting on the couch, twirling her hair and watching Nickelodeon . . . which I seriously considered might be over her head. “Mandy,” I said.

“What?” she replied, never taking her eyes off
SpongeBob Square-Pants
.

“Come here a second.”

“I’m busy.”

I could feel my jaw clench. “I wasn’t asking,” I said through gritted teeth.

Mandy sighed dramatically, took her time getting up, smoothed out her hoochie skirt, and clomped her skinny butt over to us. “What?” she asked again.

I pointed to the screen, which I’d paused so that I could show it to her. “Is that you?”

Mandy made a face at me and bent over to squint at the screen. Frost was watching her with renewed interest. “Oh, yeah!” she said. “I remember that. Rick took me to Dubai three years ago for my birthday; only we didn’t do much celebratin’ ’cause he had some business or something. It was really hot there.”

Frost pointed to the Arab man on-screen. “Do you remember him?”

Mandy snickered. “Yeah. He offered Rick five thousand bucks for me. He wanted to add me to his harem or something. Rick almost took it, but I talked him out of it. I’m worth
way
more than five thousand.”

I opened my mouth to tell her exactly how much
I
thought she was worth, but Frost placed a hand on my wrist, silently warning me not to. Reluctantly I let the moment pass.

“Do you know if Rick and this man met again after this time in Dubai?” Frost asked next.

Mandy shook her head. “No. It was a onetime thing. Rick didn’t like him so much ’cause he said he was cheap. I guess he tried to low-ball Rick or something, you know, like he did when he made an offer on me, and Rick didn’t want to close a deal with him ’cause he didn’t trust him.”

Frost let go of my wrist and closed his laptop to consider Mandy before asking his next question. “I need you to give me your honest answer on this next question,” he said.

“I’ve been honest!” Mandy replied defensively.

“I know, Mandy, and I appreciate it,” Frost told her carefully. “But we’re worried about your safety—as well as Cooper and Rivers. If we send the three of you to B.C. and someone there recognizes that Rivers isn’t Des Vries, it could go bad for everybody, including you.”

“I know,” Mandy said; again she sounded defensive.

“So, what I need to know is, do you think that the Arab sheikh Rick met with in Dubai would recognize Rivers as an impostor?”

To add to my irritation with her, Mandy shrugged like she didn’t know and didn’t care. “Maybe,” she said. “I mean,
I
can totally tell it’s not Rick, but Rivers’s face is all beat up. I guess he could pass for him.”

Frost didn’t seem to like her answer either, but he let it go. “Thanks, Mandy. You can go back to your TV show.”

Mandy shuffled her way to the couch and did just that. I turned back to Frost and said, “Can I watch that video again?”

“Sure,” Frost said, opening the laptop and hitting the PLAY button.

Something else about the video had caught my attention. I noticed that it was well after dusk, but everyone, save Mandy, was wearing sunglasses. Even Des Vries had on a pair. I remembered something my father once told me—he’d worked for one of the big three automakers in the international arena for most of his career, and he’d done a lot of traveling abroad and made a lot of deals in his day. He’d told me a story about meeting with a large group of Arab sheikhs in his London office on a rainy day, and all the men seated there had worn sunglasses, never taking them off, through the meeting. He’d told me it was a common practice, because the sheikhs believed you could actually give away a lot at the negotiation table by allowing the other person to see your eyes.

It was also the same reason why many poker players wore mirrored shades when they gambled, and it gave me an idea. “I gotta go out,” I said.

Frost’s attention snapped to me. “Why?”

“I need to run an errand.”

“Where?”

“The nearest department store.” Frost eyed me skeptically. “I won’t be gone long,” I told him impatiently.

“Fine,” he said, “but check in with me every half hour—and that’s a direct order.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, grabbing my coat, purse, and keys.

“Can I come?” Mandy asked, jumping off the couch and following me into the front hall.

“No,” I told her firmly.

“Oh, come on!” she yelled. “I’ve been cooped up here for days!”

“Not my problem,” I said, hitting the button for the elevator.

“Fine,” she snapped. “But don’t count on me to back up your boyfriend when he needs it.”

I paused. Frost and Dutch were both insisting that Mandy come with us to the auction, as it would help back up the story that Dutch was Des Vries. Mandy had been with Des Vries for three years, and had met a lot of the nefarious folk that Des Vries hung out with. Frost and Dutch argued that she could be a valuable tool to help Dutch avoid direct contact with someone who might recognize him for an impostor.

Still, she was a total pain in my butt and I disliked the woman intensely. There was no way I wanted to spend even one more second with her than I had to. “Whatever, Mandy. The answer’s still no,” I repeated, and pressed the button for the elevator again.

“Hey, Cooper?” Frost said, and my shoulders sagged.

“What?” I already knew what he was going to say.

“If it’s a quick errand, would you mind taking her, just to keep her happy?”

I sighed and let my head knock against the steel doors. Stupid men. “Fine. But I’ll need the company credit card.”

Frost had taken away the credit card we’d been given when he saw my tab from the shopping spree. I heard him push back the chair and walk up behind me. “Here,” he said, handing it to me over my shoulder. “And please, try to keep it reasonable this time, okay?”

I took the card without promising him shih tzu. “Mandy!” I snapped.

“Yeah?”

“Get your coat. We’re going shopping.”

She was next to me in a hot second. “You’ll need to find me a nail place,” she told me like I was her servant or something. “I gotta get a manicure and a pedicure.”

I turned my head and glared at Frost, who did his best to look guilty. He failed. “Every half hour,” he reminded me when the doors opened. “And if she doesn’t behave, call for backup, or use your stun gun.”

Mandy’s sharp intake of breath was audible, and I smiled evilly at her while directing my comment back to Frost. “Yes, sir,” I said, stepping inside the elevator. I patted the wall next to me and added, “Come on in, Mandy. There’s plenty of room for you, me, and my stun gun.”

 

 

E
ven with the threat of electrocution, Mandy still spent most of her time with me in the car picking a fight. She was looking forward to a long day of shopping, getting her nails done, more shopping, and doing her best to annoy me.

I was looking to make one quick stop at a department store, find an opportunity to stun her, then get back to the condo, so as you can already tell, our agendas didn’t match.

“You are such a bitch,” she told me when I parked the car but refused to let her out of it until she promised to stick close to me and do as I say.

“Sticks and stones, honey,” I told her mildly. “Sticks and stones.”

“Look at my nails!” she screeched, shoving both hands right under my nose.

I swatted them away. “They look fine.”

“No they don’t! The cuticles are all screwed up and this one has a chip in it!” Mandy held up her middle finger to show me just how messed up it was.

I leveled my eyes at her. “That one-finger salute is really getting old.”

“It’ll only take an hour,” she begged. “Come on, Cooper!”

I sighed and wished my best friend, Candice, were with me. She’d know exactly how to deal with someone like Mandy.
“Fine!”
I said, giving in and hating myself for it. “But if you do
anything
to jeopardize our mission, I’ll make sure they take away your conjungle visit with Des Vries.”

She clapped her hands and stuck her tongue out at me all at the same time. God help me, I wanted to zap her but good. Instead I got out of the car just as my cell went off. Digging it out of my purse, I noticed the caller ID said it was Rick Des Vries. “Hey there, cowboy. Did you enjoy your shower?”

“Where are you?” Dutch said, his voice tense.

“I had to run an errand at the Eaton Centre.”

“Why?”

My brow furrowed. I didn’t much care for his tone. “I had to pick up something. Is there a problem?”

Intuitively I could tell that Dutch was working to pull in his horns. “I don’t like you going off alone,” he said to me. “Not after what happened at the office the other day.”

I looked sideways at Mandy, who was eagerly clomping along next to me like a kid on her way to meet Santa. “I’m not alone. I’ve got Mandy.”

“I’m gonna kill Frost,” Dutch muttered. “Can I convince you to come back to the condo right now?”

I pulled on the door of the department store entrance and motioned for Mandy to go first. “Honey,” I said soberly, “I’m in a public place with tons of people around, and we’re only going to pick up one small item and get Mandy a manicure. We’ll be back in an hour and a half at most.”

I could tell Dutch wasn’t at all happy with the idea that I was insisting on running my errand, but he didn’t push it any further with me, which was a relief. “Okay,” he said. “But send me a text every half hour, okay?”

“Yes, Mom,” I told him.

“Abs,” he warned.

“I got it, I got it. Listen, I’m gonna let you go. Love you and see you soon.”

With that, I clicked off and hurried after Mandy, who was moving down the aisles much faster than I’d ever be able to manage in heels that high. I grabbed her by the arm near the entrance to stop her from getting away from me. “Hold on there, sister,” I said. “I have to go over there.” I pointed to a row of cases lined with sunglasses.

“But the nail salon is right there!” Mandy protested, and I followed her finger to the salon, which was the first shop visible at the shopping center entrance, right next to the department store. I considered just letting her go on her own, but my intuition warned me to keep her in my sights.

“We’ll head there right after I get what I came here for,” I told her. Mandy did the unexpected. She started throwing a fit. A very
loud
fit. She began shrieking at me, and I could tell that the several days we’d had her cooped up and under our thumb had frayed her nerves to the breaking point. Midway through her tirade, aimed mostly at me and how unfair I was being, a store manager approached and asked if there was a problem.

Mandy’s face was by now bright red, and there were tears dribbling down her cheeks. “She won’t let me get my nails done!” she shrieked. “She’s a mean, mean lady!”

The situation was so ridiculous I hardly knew how to react. My hand had gone immediately for the inside of my purse and the stun gun, just in case she tried to make a run for it, but with so many witnesses now openly staring at us, I thought twice about using it.

“Ma’am!” said the store manager. “Please lower your voice!” Mandy dissolved into a puddle of tears and I could tell from the faces of everyone staring at us that most of the crowd thought I was the bad guy. “Mandy,” I said through clenched teeth. She continued to wail.
“Mandy!”

“Stop . . . yelling . . . at . . . me!” she blubbered.

I sighed and looked to the store manager as if to say, “See what I have to put up with?”

He, however, was looking at me reproachfully. “Perhaps you should take her to get her nails done?” he said.

I gave him a tight smile and grabbed Mandy again by the elbow. “Come on,” I growled. “Let’s get you a manicure.”

The tears and drama vanished immediately, replaced once again by an eager smile. I could feel my free hand clench into a fist. God, I hated this woman and her theatrics!

We got to the salon and Mandy approached the counter nearly dancing with happiness. How Rick Des Vries could have put up with her for three full years was beyond me. “I’d like a mani and pedi,” she told the woman behind the counter. “The deluxe package on both.”

“I know you,” said the woman suspiciously, squinting at Mandy like she’d just picked someone out of a lineup. “The last time you were here, your credit card didn’t go through and you said you didn’t have any cash. You still owe us for last time. If you want service today, you’ll have to pay us for last time and this time up front.”

Mandy turned to me expectantly.