Green-Eyed Monster (7 page)

She turned and left the room, returning to the office with this new information. She needed to know what Ginette had or hadn’t been up to. Why the ransom demands were being ignored.

Something was not adding up.

❖

Mickey ruefully watched Victoria leave.
Oh my God, what a monster! I can’t believe she pulled my hair…that’s…that’s torture.

She’s a bitch, pure and simple.
She dropped her head onto the pillow. She was flummoxed and worried. This whole crappy, out-of-control escapade had just taken a turn for the absolute worst.

How could she rein it back in and turn her luck around? What were her actual chances of survival?

Mickey spent the rest of the morning blindfolded and tied to the bed, listening to a perpetual loop of Swiss cowbells that Victoria had especially downloaded for her.

“It’s esoteric.” She had smiled cheerfully. “You can meditate.”

Drained of all hope, Mickey lay wondering at the type of mind that could so casually conjure up such torment. Victoria Gresham was a grade-A little bastard if ever there was one. A monstrous aberration of Frankensteinian proportions! Despite her musings, she couldn’t stop the smile at the memory of last night.

Mickey found it hard to equate the small woman passionately trembling in her arms with the little bitch so casually torturing her now.

Mickey knew that last night the tables had been turned on her long before she was clubbed with a replica gun. She’d ambushed herself with the unexpected emotions she’d felt for her prisoner. No matter where she stood, as captor or captive, she couldn’t escape her growing attraction for Victoria. The true torture was that Victoria would never see her as anything more than an opportunistic thief.

Sighing heavily through the thirtieth rendition of melodious cowbells, she finally admitted she had been sucker punched. A full roundhouse to the head and the heart. She was seriously attracted to her tormentor. She had dropped her guard, lost her senses, momentarily set aside her plan, and was paying dearly for it now. Victoria Gresham was a witch, an evil, spellbinding sorceress, and Mickey was as witless as a newt around her. The nature of her need alarmed her, dulling her senses and fuzzing her brain. But the real question was how smart would she be when the opportunity came to run? Because it would come and come soon.The ringing of cowbells was mercifully and abruptly cut off and the blindfold was whipped away. Mickey looked blearily up into Victoria’s alarmed face.

“She took it all!” Victoria blurted, eyes wild with disbelief.

“What?”

“She cleared the account. Accounts.”

“What?”

“Ginette has cleared all the money out of my bank accounts.”

“What?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, any more watts and you’d be a lightbulb.” Victoria flumped heavily down onto the mattress so that Mickey bounced slightly.

“You’re telling me she cleared
all
the money out of your bank accounts when she should have been paying me my
ransom
?”

“Ransom?
Your
ransom? Who’s the one chained to the bed, doofus? You know something? I wouldn’t leave you in charge of a church collection plate, never mind a ransom note. ‘Please, can I have some of your money?’ Was that the best you could do?”

“Well, it’s not like I write them every day,” Mickey shot back. “And I didn’t want to sound threatening because I’m not a threatening person.”

“You drugged me, you maniac. And tied me up in a cellar.  And had a gun. And a bomb. You’re telling me that’s not threatening?”

“I did
not
drug you. And it was a pretend gun, and anyway, you hit me with it. Hard. And the bomb was a vibrator. And I don’t even have a cellar. It was a garage.”

“You raped me.”

Silence, then, “I never.” Mickey’s eyes darkened with distress.

“I never Gin—Vict—I never. Don’t say that,” she finished softly, hurt and shame pulsing from her face in waves of scarlet.

Victoria shifted uncomfortably. Her accusation didn’t fit well with her either. But she would never admit that to Mickey.

“Well, I was blindfolded and tied up and…” she muttered, feeling suddenly very cheap and dishonest.

Mickey sighed. “How do you know she took your money?  Did you check online?”

“No, I sent a carrier pigeon to my bank manager. Of course I checked online. I wanted to know why she was ignoring your pathetic bleats for money. And now I do. The bitch took the opportunity to clean me out while you had me conveniently tucked out of the way.”

As Mickey wisely digested this in silence, Victoria continued vehemently, “And the real charm is she’ll tell the authorities she took it all to pay the ransom demands
you
so kindly supplied. Not that you’ll see a penny of it.”

“And she’s cleared
all
the money out of your bank accounts?” Mickey seemed stuck in a perpetual loop at Ginette’s blatant abuse of kidnapping rules. Victoria glared and waited for Mickey to catch up.

“The bitch.” Finally, Mickey managed to break out of her circling pattern with suitable outrage. “We’ve gotta stop her!”

“And how do we do that, Daisy Duke, when you have us stuck out here in the rectum of Moonshine County? The money is already gone. Besides, some of the accounts she’s plundered…  well, I can’t exactly go to the police, let’s put it that way.” Victoria sighed bitterly. “She knows exactly what she’s doing, taking advantage of my absence to get away with millions.”

“Millions?” Mickey squeaked. “We’ve got to trace it. She has to put it somewhere traceable. I mean, it sure ain’t in the glove compartment of her car!”

“The whole idea is that it
can’t
be traced. The accounts she’s tampering with belong to intermediary organizations. Shell companies I created to hold my…bonuses.”

“You mean offshore laundering accounts.” Mickey had her voice back under control. “Somewhere FinCEN can’t find it, right?” Victoria winced at the mention of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, as if she had heard the most disgusting expletive ever.  Another upset immediately surfaced. Something Mickey had mentioned earlier came back into Victoria’s mind with a vengeance. “Hey. What do you mean, you didn’t drug me?”

“I mean I didn’t drug you. You were drunk on the kitchen floor. That’s why I thought you were Ginette.” Victoria frowned. It was true Ginette could be a real boozer when the mood took.

“For your information, I was most definitely drugged. Are you trying to tell me you just happened along, presumed I was my lush of an ex, picked me up, and brought me here? Charming. I suppose that’s the only way you can get women into this hovel.”

“What do you mean?” Mickey asked hotly.

“I mean I’ve been looking around while you were snoring.  This shack is in the middle of hillbilly country. There’s probably not a sane person between here and the nearest fishing hole, gator farm, or trailer park.”

“It’s picturesque,” Mickey said.

“It’s Redneck Central is what it is. You sit here all day long, dreaming of big money, playing with your computer… and your vibrator.” Mickey’s face flamed. Victoria switched straight into business mode now that she had suitably unsettled her adversary.

“Why did you want to kidnap Ginette in the first place? What has any of it to do with intellectual copyright?”

“You stole my idea.”

“Your idea? You’re a software engineer, so I
stole
your code, right? Did I do this as your employer, or did I climb in through your window one night?”

“Yes. No. I was working for you.”

“As your employer, all your ideas concerning
my
business operation are mine. You, as the developer, get credited and handsomely recompensed through our bonus scheme, but the code belongs to the company. It’s perfectly legal.”

“Well, if I say you stole it then you stole it. I got no compensation or credit. I got fired. You burned me, Victoria Gresham, and I wanted to get my own back.”

“A million bucks’ worth of compensation? That’s what your ransom note asked for. Must have been a really awesome idea for you to deserve that much. What was it?”

“Code FX90.”

Victoria stilled. That little bit of programming had proved invaluable and given her company a real edge over their competitors. It ran a calibration that gave out predictive statistics, plus damn good trend factoring and forecasting. All in all, a little honey of a tool, awesome indeed. Still, it never merited a million bucks, not in anybody’s money.

“I was never made aware that FX90 was the work of one employee. Who did you submit it to?”

“My supervisor, and then I was told it went straight to your office. They said you loved it and I was gonna get a big fat bonus, then bam! I was out. Turned up one morning and couldn’t even get in the door. You conspired against me.”

“Look, I have no idea who you are. I’d never even heard of a Michaela Rapowski until you swooped into my kitchen and snatched me. FX90 was good, but it’s just a little in-house tool, likes dozens of others we developed over the years.” Victoria spelled it out. “I think
someone
stole your idea, and with it your bonus money, too, and got you kicked out before you knew what was happening. But be assured it wasn’t me. I would have kept talent like yours onboard. Did any of your former colleagues know what you were working on?”

“No. Didn’t mix much. We were a quiet bunch.” Victoria rolled her eyes. Geeks
.
“So you have no witnesses.  And I bet your machine has been rebuilt. Any other evidence the code’s yours?” She picked up her old discarded blindfold and tied it around Mickey’s eyes.

“Only on my own home machine. Hey, what’s with the blindfold? I already know what you look like.”

“You’ll see soon enough. Come on. Let’s go get lunch.” She led her toward the door. Three feet out into the hallway she let go, and Mickey walked straight into a wall.

“Ow. Hey, what did you do that for?”

Victoria sighed. “I could walk the entire floor plan of this place in a blindfold and bump into nothing. You can’t even find your own kitchen. Remember that if you ever decide to wander off.”

“I’ve never had to walk around the damn house blindfolded before, now have I?”

“And whose fault is it you’re doing it now, hmm? Let’s ask ourselves why you are in this predicament, Mickey.”

“Is this why you did it? So I’d knock myself stupid if I tried to run?”

“There’s no way you’ll ever knock yourself smart.” She grabbed her arm and redirected her toward the kitchen. “Not even with a ten-pound hammer.”

❖

Victoria watched Mickey slowly chew her sandwich. Her face was a mask of concentration and then she suddenly turned to Victoria, a plan obviously fixed in her mind.

“I think I know how to retrieve your money. You’re the one who knows where to start. Free me and I’ll find your lost funds.” She announced her cunning deal. “Bet you one ransom and a head start I can.”

Victoria smiled; she had been prepared for this offer. “No ransom. You get your original owed bonus and your freedom.  Take it or leave it.”

“What? Two hundred and fifty thou? But you’re losing millions even as we speak. And here you are trying to bargain me down.” Mickey looked insulted.

“This is your chance to break even. You get the money you claim you were always owed, and you get to make things right with me. I think it’s pretty damned generous of the universe to give you a second chance. I mean, out of the two of us you’re the Little Buddha, Mickey. What do you think? What’s it to be, cops or robbers?”

The dry swallow working along Mickey’s throat told her she’d hit a nerve. But she also knew Mickey would be calculating the odds of squeezing more out of her.

“I’m not a Buddhist. Meditating to pan pipes doesn’t make you a Buddhist.” Mickey tried to deflect. Victoria’s eyes hardened to flint at the delaying strategy. There was no time to spare.

“In or out? If you can’t cope, get off the boat, Mickey.” The little dig broke the impasse. It earned Victoria a hot glare and a sullen pout that made the dimple pop. Victoria felt a strange corresponding pop in her heart.
She’s doing it again. She’s doing that crack candy thing again. She is such a manipulator and she isn’t even aware of it.

“In.” Mickey had no other option. It was a fair but totally ruthless offer, considering her alternative was to lie tied to a bed waiting for cowbells to eventually change to police sirens.

❖

A few hours later Mickey had finally pinpointed Ginette’s e-signature. It traced across several dubious offshore companies Victoria had highlighted as her own creations, to a bank in Monaco. This particular financial house dealt primarily in currency exchange in a country with extremely high financial caps and soft tax legislation. It was an ideal resting place after the complex network of layering accounts Ginette had been moving the stolen money through.

“My God,” Victoria said as she leaned over Mickey’s shoulder and glared at the myriad of pages she was pulling up to mark the transfers. “I’d never have believed she had it in her. I knew she was cooking the books, but I never suspected she could manage finance at this level. Boy, was I ever wrong.”

“She can’t be that dumb. She works for you.” Mickey’s comment was heavily loaded. She removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. Victoria shot her a sharp glance.

“How did you know that?”

“I worked for you, too, remember? It was open gossip your lesbian lover was an employee.”

“She had a good job in a trusted position, but as we were breaking up she started lining her nest.” Victoria grudgingly revealed a personal problem. “Just a few grand here and there out of our private accounts. Nothing corporate.” She shrugged awkwardly. “I suppose she was anxious at not managing without me, and by ‘me’ I mean my money. Ginette always did love the good life. But I never expected this. God, such opportunism. You gotta admire it.”

“Well, admire away. There’s your money either sitting in or well on its way to Monte Carlo.” Mickey casually waved a hand at the screen. “Her entry point was easy since you’d already set up bogus shell companies in several tax havens. You had so many laundering networks it was simple for her to move large amounts of new money through. When it reached the outer edge, it simply dropped off into her own newly created accounts. It’s like a game, sort of like Shove Penny at the fairground. Lucky for you, her accounts are all with the same bank. She’s basically slowly smurfing all your dollars through your own illegal company accounts, scooping up more and more of your assets on the way.”