DOUBLE MINT (7 page)

“Obviously,” I said, “we want the counterfeit money out of here. But why specifically
away from the bankers conference?”

“So there’ll be no confusion.”

Which confused me.

“So the counterfeit money won’t end up in the conference game,” he explained.

“The conference game?
In
the game? How could it end up in the game?”

“The bankers have a cash game, Davis.”

“What?” I’d never seen a cash game. “Cash
in
the game?”

“Yes,” Bradley said, “they’re in the money business. They have a cash game.”

“Bradley, how is that not a security nightmare?”

“It’s Paragon’s problem,” he said. “It’s their money, and their job to safeguard it.
They brought their own security specifically for the game.”

“And they brought their own counterfeit money for it too.”

He shook his head. “No. No they didn’t.”

“The conference people were waiting for the counterfeit money, Bradley.”

“You said they were waiting on the guest. No one said they were waiting on the money.”

Something made me think of prison food, which would be our steady diet for the rest
of our lives if we allowed a game to be played or paid out in counterfeit money. The
Bellissimo would close, and we’d all be in prison.

“There has to be a reasonable explanation,” he said, “because Paragon would no more
deal in counterfeiting than we would.”

“Fake coins. Fake money.” I tipped my head in the direction of the counterfeit production
plant hidden deep in our home. “The only other reasonable explanation is Magnolia
Thibodeaux.”

He threw his hands in the air.

“Okay,” I said, “if you want me to get to the bottom of this, and, as you say, keep
the doors open, get me into the conference and I’ll take it from there.”

“You are in. You’re Holder Darby.”

“I need farther in,” I said, “past the reception desk. All the way in.”

“There’s no way to get you in without setting off alarms. Last week, we could have
worked it out. Now that the conference has started, I don’t think it’s a good idea.
We will not put this conference under a microscope.”

“I need to see the game.”

“You’re not going to.”

“Okay, I
want
to see the game.”

“You’re not going to.”

That quieted things down for a minute.

“It’s odd to me, Bradley, that we’re not allowed access to our own facilities.”

“Of course we are,” he said. “But not the way you’re approaching it, locked and loaded.”
He looked me in the eye. All the way to the back of my head. “Davis?” He was so tall.
Top of my world tall. “Stay away from the conference game. And Magnolia Thibodeaux
has nothing to do with anything. Don’t waste time. Understand?”

I did not understand.

“Find the missing guest and you’ll have your answers.” He kissed my forehead. “I have
to get back to work.”

* * *

We sat as still as church mice in Bradley’s wake until Fantasy reached for the bourbon
and poured us a round of brunch. At some point, Dionne Warwick’s guy, without us noticing,
assumed a sitting position on the magnolia sofa. “Who
are
you people?” He looked around. “Where
am
I?”

Seven

This place was creepy enough without a jumpy cat hiding in it. A cat who, again, I’d
forgotten. It was a simple noise that petrified and produced it.

A mundane task, pulling a bottle of water from my Igloo refrigerator, scared the cat,
who’d been hiding somewhere in the magnolia tree above the cooler, out of its skin.
All I did was reach in and pull out a bottle of water for Dionne Warwick’s guy, causing
ice to collapse around the space, and not in a gentle way, which sent the cat tearing
out of the magnolia tree, landing square on my head, which had hardly healed from
the cat’s last dance on it, then scraping its way down my back with its claws.

When it happened, I didn’t know if Magnolia Thibodeaux was slashing me with a butcher
knife, if I was being sucked into a mulching machine, or if a bomb had gone off and
I was full of shrapnel. I wound up spread eagle on the floor, panting. I could taste
metal, and all I could see were stacks of fake money.

Footsteps pounded behind me. I heard gun safeties click. Fantasy, after some sailor
language, helped me to a sitting position. Baylor, after some kitty kitty baby talk,
cradled the cat, petting long strokes down its back.

The cat’s eyes were closed, its thick tail whipping back and forth, and I asked if
I had any hair left in the back of my head.

“Your jacket’s not going to make it,” Fantasy inspected, “but your hair is fine.”

“You can’t scare cats, Davis. Haven’t you ever heard ‘scaredy cat’?”

“Thank you, Baylor.” Fantasy helped me up. “Your cat tips are invaluable.”

I sat on the Igloo refrigerator, still trying to catch my breath, holding up a finger:
Give me a minute. Fantasy opened the bottle of water, which had rolled across the
floor, and passed it to me. I took a long pull. I found my voice.

“Baylor, find something to pack up this money in, hide it somewhere out of the building,
and get the cat settled down. When you’re finished, get us lunch. Something decent.
Do you hear me, Baylor? Edible. Fit for human consumption. Not Taco Bell. Fantasy,
take care of Dionne Warwick’s guy.” My temples felt like someone was hammering both
sides of my head. “I’ll check on the conference, then nose around Holder Darby’s office.
We’ll meet downstairs in an hour and look for the man who brought the money.”

And Holder Darby.

And four million in platinum.

* * *

When I got it together enough to move on with my life, granted, from here on out with
post-traumatic cat syndrome, I changed into a different suit. One that hadn’t been
in a catfight. I hid behind Chanel sunglasses the size of kiddie pools, then stepped
out the front door of Beignet Bungalow and around the crew clearing away the chandelier
remains. Multicolor wires dangled from a big black hole in the ceiling. For the next
eighteen minutes, I traveled from the Gumbo Garage Sale to the Alabama bankers. Three
elevator changes, through the lobby, and all the way through the casino.

As the escalator rose to the convention level, the gambling din faded. When I stepped
onto the gold floral carpet, it was as if the casino below me didn’t exist. I walked
the length of the room, past Impressionist oils in gilded frames, twenty or more seating
areas scattered to my right and left, where gold pendant lights dangled over round
settee sofas with recessed buttons forming diamond shapes in the gold upholstery,
all the way to the reception desk, gilded too, where a girl was bent over her phone,
double tapping Instagram pictures of hedgehogs. I cleared my throat. She finally looked
up.

“I’m the new Holder.”

She smiled. Braces. She had to be thirty, with a mouth full of hardware. “Right. I’m
Megan.”

“Olivia.”

“Nice to meet you, Olivia.”

Her voice and diction matched that of the girl who’d called me this morning.

“How’s it going?”

“Oh, it’s going,” she said. “They’re all locked up back there.” She tipped her head
to the double doors behind her.

I took a step past her desk. “I’ll go check everything out.”

“Wait.” She pushed her phone aside. “You can’t go back there.”

This again.

“Isn’t it my job to make sure everything’s okay?”

“Yes,” she said, “but we can’t wander in and out. There are men right through those
doors and if you don’t have a badge, you can’t get past them.”

“Let me borrow your badge.”

“I don’t have one,” Megan said. “We’re supposed to leave them alone.”

“Are all conferences this way?” I asked.

“Never, but this is the first time we’ve had bankers here.”

So weird.

“Did you find that man?” she asked.

“That’s why I’m here,” I said. “Where are the techs who were looking for him?”

“Oh, they’re gone,” she said. “As soon as they set up the game, they took off.”

What? “When?”

“Oh,” she said, “an hour ago?”

An hour ago, the counterfeit money we confiscated was all over my foyer. Which meant
the techs weren’t waiting on it. Specifically. But that didn’t change the fact they’d
been waiting on the man. The counterfeit money, the man, and this convention are connected.
Somehow. (I think Somehow is named after a tree. And that’s not Maple.)

“Thank you, Megan,” I said. “Call me if you need me.”

“Will do.”

She went right back to the hedgehogs and I went right back to wondering what was going
on behind the locked doors of the bankers conference.

To do list: Get a banker’s pass.

* * *

My second stop was the Executive Floor, a level above the Bellissimo Spa and Salon
on the other side of the property. Sixteen minutes, two elevator changes, four long
halls, in heels, to the Special Events office. If the Bellissimo is nothing else,
it’s big.

Another girl at another reception desk, but this one a regular office and no braces.

“I’m Olivia Abbott,” I said. “I’m the temporary Holder until we get a new Holder.”

The girl scratched her head.

“Have you heard from her, by any chance?”

The girl shook her head.

“Can you give me a list of everyone at the conference?”

She scratched her neck.

“Today?”

The girl had yet to speak.

“Do you know if she had a cat?”

She tapped her nose thoughtfully.

“Do you mind?” I pointed at Holder’s closed door.

She shrugged a have-at-it.

Holder’s office was dark and dusty. On my way to her desk, I scanned the room for
personal pictures—no cats—then sat down in her chair and powered up the computer.
Of course, it was password protected. Personal Computer Hacking 101: Start the computer
in safe mode, log in as administrator, change the password. Fifteen seconds tops.

The Independent Bankers of Alabama folder was on her desktop, wedged between the Goodman-Ramirez
wedding and the Simpson-Wheeler wedding, and it too was password protected.

There’s an easy way and a hard way to open password protected files. Easy: Copy it
in a different format that doesn’t recognize the security feature (try converting
it to an eBook or a spreadsheet) and boom, you’re in. Hard: Download and install file-hacking
software, like NSIS or LMI (Let Me In), send the locked information to it, then let
the software try to guess the password, sometimes over a period of weeks. When I got
in the easy way (two minutes), I sent the whole file to myself by email.

Just to be nosey, I took a quick peek at the task manager history on Holder’s computer
to see what she’d been up to the day she walked off, no different than peeking in
the medicine cabinet, and me snooping around her computer was a little after the fact,
since I’d already rifled through her panty drawer and I had her cat. Her computer
activity just kept on coming. Holder Darby had been all over the Bellissimo system.
Why would a wedding coordinator be snooping around cyber Bellissimo—payables, receivables,
front desk, human resources—at a level reserved for me? I clicked open the web browser,
and found it just as curious. Holder spent a lot of internet time at her bank, moving
around large quantities of money. She also rented a car last week. Why? She had a
perfectly fine Audi S8 in her garage. All told, it was odd enough computer activity
that I’d need to hijack her hard drive. I could copy her files and folders pretty
quickly, but I needed her entire operating system.

Take a note: When cyber stealing someone’s computer, steal the whole enchilada. You
can’t simply copy the files. You need the drivers and directories too, due to hardware
and software differences between the data you’re stealing and your own system. You
can send the files to yourself ten times, but if you don’t swipe the whole system,
you won’t be able to access ninety percent of them. Either steal the whole kit and
caboodle or don’t bother. You’re welcome.

From the web browser, I downloaded CloneMonster. I copied Holder’s complete hard drive
to a .zip file and sent it to myself. Then I wiped her computer as clean as my mother’s
kitchen, good luck finding anything on this sucker ever again.

“Has Holder been back at all?” I asked the reception girl. “Have you spoken to her?
Do you know how I might be able to reach her?”

The girl shook her head. Didn’t say a word, just shook her head.

To-do list: Call this office. I bet this girl picks up the phone, holds it to her
ear, and that’s it.

* * *

My final destination of the morning, our offices on 3B. I swiped myself in. “Baylor,
where’s Fantasy?”

“MICHIGAN!” I could see his arms and legs paddling off both ends of the sofa. “I CAN’T
SWIM!”

Baylor, who could swim all day long, has a special sleeping talent, in that he can
sleep anywhere, anytime, on anything. Floorboard, bathtub, park bench. If he can stretch
out, he can sleep. He falls asleep in an instant, and wakes just as quickly, talking
about Twinkies or, last week, a girl named Candy Corn, or today, aquatics.

“Wake up, Baylor.” I sat on the coffee table, leaned over, and patted his rosy cheeks.
“Wake up.”

“DIVE, MERMAID PIZZA!”

“Hey!” I snapped my fingers. “Get a grip.”

He shook himself awake.

“Make us some coffee, Baylor.”

“I don’t drink coffee.” His head was cocked to one side and he had a knuckle going
on one of his ears, trying to get the water out.

“Then make me coffee.”

Of the three rooms that make up our offices, room one is a den of sorts, I call it
the bullpen, where Fantasy and I watch “The Price is Right” and Baylor takes cat naps.
To the left of the bullpen we have a dressing room, where we camouflage ourselves
to wander around the resort and in the casino without being recognized or remembered.
And the third room is control central, full of computers, where I regularly go on
cyber scavenger hunts when I’m not hijacking hard drives, shooting chandeliers, or
being attacked by cats.

I woke up three computers. Baylor placed a cup in front of me. I peered in. Something
was floating in it. Cornbread, maybe.

“Baylor, coffee isn’t supposed to be this color or eaten with a spoon.”

We looked at each other. This went on for a minute or four. He blinked first.

“Dammit.”

“Get a large cup, Baylor. The bucket size,” I said to his back.

Five minutes later, he was back with my bucket of coffee. “Guess who’s in the coffee
shop.”

I didn’t look up.

“Fantasy,” he said.

I looked up.

“She’s with Diane.”

“I doubt that’s his name, Baylor.”

“That’s what
you
called him.”

“I called him
Dionne
Warwick’s
guy
.”

“Who is Dionne Warwick?”

“Baylor.” I peeled the lid off my gallon of coffee. “Get me a coffee cup, a clean
coffee cup, and ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose?’”

“California?”

Someone save me.

I texted Fantasy:
Hey, do you mind?

She texted back:
Davis. We scared this man to death. I’m doing damage control. Be there in ten.

“Sit down, Baylor. Help me.” I patted Fantasy’s chair. “What did you get us for lunch?”
The brown take-out bags on Fantasy’s desk smelled like the Fourth of July.

“Ribs.”

“Have you ever seen me eat a rib?”

His eyebrows drew together. “Come to think of it, no.”

“What do we always want for lunch, Baylor?”

He concentrated really hard. “Not ribs?” He snapped his fingers. “You want strawberries.”

It’s not like I’m addicted to strawberries. I am addicted to Pop Tarts, because they’re
easy to eat on the run and they’re a good source of seven vitamins and minerals. Strawberry
Pop Tarts just happen to be my favorite; it’s the flavor the supermarket is never
out of. In addition, my favorite quick-lunch Bellissimo salad happens to have strawberries
in it. It’s a chicken salad—romaine, grilled chicken, strawberry balsamic vinaigrette—and
the sliced strawberries are just a bonus. To give it a little pop. But somehow I have
a reputation going back to grade school as being strawberry addicted. Which I’m not.
But now I was starving. For strawberries.

“Let’s get to work, Baylor. You can have the ribs and I’ll eat later.”

“Done.” He peeled the foil away from a slab of ribs as long as my leg. “I should’ve
gotten napkins.”