Green-Eyed Monster (8 page)

“Smurfing?”

“Transferring it in small parcels, say several hundred thou at a time, so as not to tip off her host country’s financial authorities that something stinks. She’s opened several false accounts I can identify, but all the funds aren’t there yet. There are still large amounts to be siphoned off from most of your major offshore facilities, but basically, she’s sliding through your own laundering services like an oily snake.”

Victoria scanned the details Mickey pulled up on the screen.

“Yes, you’re right. I recognize these. They’re my…bonus accounts sitting in my…mmm, hobby companies.” Mickey snorted. “Hobbies.”

“Hey. Luxury yachts, fine art, and diamonds happen to be my hobbies, okay? We’ve all got our interests. You have your computer games. I don’t pooh-pooh those.” Another snort. “I don’t need to hide my computer games in Belize, or Uzbekistan, or—”

“Oh, quit preaching and help. So how do I stop her from emptying what’s left in my accounts? And more importantly, how do I get the money out of her Monegasque accounts and back into mine?”

“You can’t. All I can do is show you where it went. It’s all under her control now. I mean, you can’t really go complaining that your tax evasion funds have been stolen. She’s also managed to cover her ass with several of your bogus companies, so if you go sniffing around, you’ll blow your own cover. Seems you taught her well, even if it was by osmosis.”

Victoria sighed. This seemed as far as she could go for the meantime. The next step required a little more thought and a possible confrontation with her ex-girlfriend somewhere, somehow. Some hope! They sat in contemplative silence until a deep belly growl drew her into the present. Mickey glanced down at Victoria’s stomach. She had the grace to blush at its gurgling protests. Mickey looked up. “Time for dinner, it seems. Please let me cook this time.”

“Maybe. But you’re having a shower first. You stink.” Victoria placed a cuff on Mickey’s wrist.

“Hey, I thought we had a deal?” Mickey rattled the cuff.

“Yes, and we’re halfway through it, and things don’t look too good. Last thing I need is you bailing on me, Mickey. You’re my Plan B. If things go really wrong, I can always hand you over to the police as my kidnapper and watch my whore of an ex explain where the million for the ransom went. It might be all I recover, but it’s better than nothing.” Her logic was cold and bitter. Mickey looked at her in dismay as Victoria gently guided her away from the desk. “Did you really think I had no Plan B?

Tell me, Mickey, what’s yours?”

❖

Victoria sat on the toilet seat filing her nails as Mickey clumsily tried to wash the shampoo out of her hair.

“This is impossible with just one hand.” Victoria scanned Mickey’s lean body, water cascading pornographically down its length.
Now I understand why those men’s magazines make millions. She’s so goddamn goofy and gorgeous, and she has absolutely no idea. Note to self: start porn empire.

“If I don’t rinse out all the shampoo, my hair goes frizzy.” Mickey’s left wrist had been cuffed to the shower rail above, severely inhibiting her movements.

“So what? Maybe your mother won’t recognize your mug shots on the front pages. I mean that’s a good thing, right?”

“You know
I
was kind to you. I could have made your past few days miserable, but I didn’t, I—”

“Yes, it was peachy,” Victoria bit back. “Drugged, kidnapped, and raped. It’s all going into my biography, you know. Along with your frizzy mug shot.”

“I did not drug you. It was not rape. We were together. We made lo—had sex. It was consensual. Victoria, please don’t call it something else.” Mickey was anxious and upset now. The cuffs rattled hard against the rail.

“Yes, let’s talk about it. Because let me assure you I was most definitely drugged.”

Mickey stood silent and stiff as the water continued to stream down her body. Victoria slowly rose and approached, producing a key from her pocket. She looked Mickey square on as she released her hand from the rail.

“You drugged me. And you abducted me. It was premeditated and it was cruel. And yes, we had sex, but I was blindfolded, scared, and alone. You fucked me over on so many levels, Mickey, and for what? Your money? Your dues? Your million bucks? If you’d done your homework, you’d have found two hundred and fifty thousand is the set bonus for the patent of an employee’s work, not one million. Two hundred and fifty thousand,
that’s
the amount someone else stole from you, along with your precious code. Believe me, I
will
find out who it was, but you’ll be incarcerated long before then for this joke of a kidnap. No wonder you’re such a loser. You’re greedy and you’re lazy.” She snapped both arms behind Mickey, turned off the water, wrapped Mickey in a huge towel, and then led her back to the bedroom.

“Why the hell didn’t you turn to me with a complaint instead of rohypnol?”

❖

Now in a big terry robe, Mickey sat tied to the bedroom chair. Victoria hummed tunelessly, as usual, fussing around her as she braided and played with the long, damp hair.

“But I don’t want braids! Ow, that hurts. Stop tugging,” she said, trying to twist her head away.

“Can it, Heidi. It’s braids for you and your rat’s nest.” Victoria continued working with the hairbrush. “As a little girl I always wanted a Barbie, and you know what Santa brought me? A toy supermarket. So much for lesbian feminist parenting.” She wagged her hairbrush in Mickey’s face. “But let me tell you, that was the best run play supermarket on my street. All the neighborhood kids dropped in to fill their little toy wheelie carts with the mixed candy I bought for a dollar and sold at thirty percent mark-up!”

Mickey rolled her eyes. It was easy to see where the Business Woman of the Year—several times over—had learned her trade.

“So you’re saying if Santa had gotten you a Barbie doll you might be Hairdresser of the Year now? How good would that be?  Ow. Be careful.”

“Have you got a sensitive scalp or something? I’m barely touching you,” she said. “This is great fun. I’ve always wanted to do this, just never had the right sort of girlfriends.” Mickey almost felt a twinge of pity for her, until her braids were clipped in a pretzel shape to the top of her head. Victoria grinned mischievously. “Oh Princess Leia, you look so cute.”

“Enough with the stupid edelweiss hair! You really are one evil little bitch.”

Victoria dangled the cuff keys suggestively. “Okay, new Plan B, Mickey. Whether we recover the money or not, you’ll go free. But if you help claw most of it back, then that bonus you’re owed? Let’s call it double or nothing.”

“Then you need to give me the security details for
all
the shell accounts you hold.” Mickey got down to the real business.

“Especially the ones Ginette hasn’t gotten to yet. Best bet is to empty whatever’s left into a new account we’ll set up. At least that money will be safe and she’ll have no idea where it is or how to find it.”

As she stood to unbraid her hair, Mickey’s short terry robe rode up, revealing the curve of her bottom where it met the gentle swell of her hamstrings. Victoria stilled as she drank in the rounded sweep of tanned flesh. Her throat closed, causing her to swallow hard. She was a little surprised at how caught out she felt at such a simple thing as the flash of this woman’s thigh. It made her completely lose focus on her plans for life, never mind the next five minutes.

“As for Ginette’s new accounts,” Mickey said, gathering enthusiasm for her subject, “I can try to hack them, but I’ll need as much information as possible. Dates, names, places, phone numbers, lucky numbers. Anything she might use to set up account security for herself.” Mickey stopped talking as she realized Victoria was ogling her rather than paying attention. Her eyes darkened and an unsettled look flitted over her face.

Victoria felt her own face flush in an abashed mixture of blatant longing and stinging embarrassment at being caught staring.

“Don’t worry. I’m not into sexual molestation,” she snapped, surprised at the aggression that crept into her voice.

“I didn’t think you were.” Mickey came back just as sharp.

She was tired of the never-ending implications that last night had not been mutual. That she had forced herself on Victoria, that her kisses and caresses had not been welcomed. It was not her cross to bear that Victoria Gresham had problems processing her own sexual needs and behavior.

“There’s still not a lot of money in her new accounts yet,” Victoria said, shifting things back to the task at hand. She brought out a bottle of cognac and poured them each a glass. “We need to somehow figure out how to get into them and get my money back out.” Victoria was anxious to understand everything about Ginette’s actions. “Why is she moving so slowly?”

“I told you. She’s smurfing. It’s a slow but sure way to sneak money around. Next time you look, you could be cleaned out.” Mickey shrugged. “So think about those numbers. I need to break her security. And remember, even though she set up several accounts, the cognitive processes should be recognizable. Once I crack one, the rest will be easier to break.”

“God, it’s such a unique science.”

“Part psychology, part geek, but for the most part, human error. People are lazy when it comes to online security. They don’t want to do anything that taxes them too much.” She shook her head. “Look at how easy your ex located all your security details the moment your back was turned.”

“Oh yes, well, there were dozens and dozens of them,” Victoria said. “She had to burrow deep into my laptop to find that index, let me tell you. I still can’t believe she managed it. I’m
very
well organized when it comes to money.”
I’d love to burrow in your laptop.
Mickey’s gaze dropped to Victoria’s denimed thighs curled up on the seat with her feet tucked under.
God, the cognac’s greased my wits
.
Concentrate on the business at hand. You already know her opinion of you. She’s sexually hung up and thinks you molested her, for God’s sake.

Don’t let her catch you looking at her like a moonstruck cow.

Mickey took another small sip and felt the glow run all the way down to her belly. She sneaked another peek across at Victoria snuggled up in the massive armchair, her blond head haloed with soft lamplight. She felt the warm glow slip a little farther south. The mellow amber swirled in the depths of her glass, Mickey went back to scrying its contents, unaccountably sad that when the purest passion finally entered her life, it was for a woman who thought so little of her. And rightly so.

“Are you sure you can do this?” Victoria looked deep into Mickey’s eyes, trying to calculate the odds. But she found their blue intensity behind the glass lenses almost too distracting. “It seems like a long shot. What are the actual chances?” She pulled her mind back into focus. Her confidence was wavering. This was the worst run of luck she’d ever endured in her life. Kidnapped, embezzled, powerless…she hated it. It also didn’t help that she’d been stupid enough to go gooey over her abductor; to sleep with her, and watch her out of the corner of her eye at every opportunity like some silly schoolgirl. Her cold, clinical life was completely out of balance. She felt she was losing her grip on everything, her mojo, her money, her mind!

“It’s up to you.” Mickey shrugged. “Even as we speak, your money is hemorrhaging out of your offshore accounts. Our only advantage is we know the depository, and the identity of the accounts she holds in it.” She took Victoria’s hand in hers.

“Look, I have a program that permutates all this information into the most favorable output.” She waggled the sheet of paper. “It’s worth a try. What have you got to lose, except millions?” Two hours later, and the permutation program was still running. Mickey glowered at Victoria, who either paced around her small office or sat wriggling on the chair next to hers, poking at her lucky troll doll collection, playing with her pencils, snapping her glasses case open and shut, and generally messing with her neat desktop. Finally, she lost patience.

“Look, go away and make a sandwich or something, would you? You’re annoying the hell out of me with all your squirming and sighing.”

“Well, how much longer is it going to be?” Victoria snipped back at her.

“As long as it takes. Now go away and stop bugging me.  You’re ruining my concentration.”

“What? The concentration it takes to look at a blank screen?

Why can’t we have some more music? It breaks the monotony.”

“No, you’ll only sing along again. Go make some coffee.”

❖

The coffee failed to keep Victoria awake. Eventually, the sheer dullness of Mickey’s enterprise had her drifting off to sleep in an overstuffed armchair. What seemed like seconds later, a warm hand was gently shaking her shoulder.

“Victoria, Victoria. C’mon, time to wake up.” She snorted herself awake, then paused as she realized she was still free. The tables had not been turned, and she was not attached to some immovable object by cuffs on her wrists. It seemed Mickey and she were indeed in partnership, sharing a new level of trust and understanding.

“Did you know you snore…just a little?”

“I do not.” Groggily, she tried to sit upright. “Is it finished?  Let me see.” She looked up to find her face inches from a bent over Mickey’s. Their gazes locked.

“It’s cold in here,” she murmured, shivering slightly, but not just from the chill.

Mickey swallowed hard but didn’t move away. “The other room’s warmer.” She offered a hand. “Come on.” Heat raced through Victoria’s body as their hands touched.

No matter the low temperature of the room, it suddenly seemed irrelevant to her body’s internal thermometer. Mickey’s throat and cheeks turned rose with that flush Victoria knew meant she was responding to her physically. She gave silent thanks to any god listening that she was not cursed with such a telltale sign.

She stood at Mickey’s insistence. But Mickey did not step back; instead they stood inches apart. Victoria looked questioningly into Mickey’s eyes, and the iris changed from sky to midnight in a blink. Leaning in until their lips barely touched, she closed her eyes and melted into Mickey like heated honey.