She had never been so scared. She had never felt so alive.
Sandi threw her arms around her. Martha hugged her back.
“I love you,” Sandi said.
“I love you too.”
“I want you to have the best time in the whole world, you hear me?”
Martha nodded, afraid that she’d cry. The chauffeur knocked on the door. Martha opened it. He introduced himself as Miles and took her suitcase.
“This way, madame.”
Martha followed him out to the car. Sandi came too. The chauffeur put her suitcase in the trunk and opened the door for her. Sandi hugged her again.
“Call me for anything,” Sandi said.
“I will.”
“If it doesn’t feel right or you want to go home . . .”
“I’ll call you, Sandi. I promise.”
“No, you won’t because you’ll be having too much fun.” There were tears in Sandi’s eyes. “You deserve this. You deserve happiness.”
Martha tried very hard not to cry. “I’ll see you in two days.”
She slipped into the back. The driver closed the door. He got into the front seat and drove her toward her new life.
Chapter 27
Chaz drove a Ferrari 458 Italia in a color he insisted on calling fly yellow.
Kat frowned. “Label me unsurprised.”
“I call it the Chick Trawler,” Chaz told her, handing her a Superman key chain.
“A better name might be the Overcompensation.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
Three hours later, when the female GPS voice said, “You have arrived at your destination,” Kat was sure it was some kind of mistake.
She double-checked the address. This was the place—909 Trumbull Road. Northampton, Massachusetts. Home, according to both the web and online yellow pages, of Parsons, Chuback, Mitnick and Bushwell Investments and Securities.
Kat parked on the street between a Subway and a beauty salon called Pam’s Kickin’ Kuts. She had expected the office to be something akin to Lock-Horne Investments and Securities, albeit on a small-town scale, but this place looked more like a weathered Victorian B&B, what with the salmon-pink door and the browning ivy climbing a white lattice.
An old lady in a housedress rocked on the lemonade porch. Her legs had varicose veins that could have doubled as garden hoses.
“Help you?” she said.
“I’m here to see Mr. Chuback.”
“He died fourteen years ago.”
Kat wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Asghar Chuback?”
“Oh, right, Chewie. You say mister, I think of his dad, you know what I mean? To me, he’s just my Chewie.” She had to rock the chair a bit to make her way to a standing position. “Follow me.”
A fleeting wish that she had brought Chaz with her as backup whisked through her. The old lady brought her inside and opened the basement door. Kat didn’t reach for her gun, but she was very aware of where it was and rehearsed in her head, as she often did, how she’d pull it out.
“Chewie?”
“What, Ma? I’m busy down here.”
“Someone here to see you.”
“Who?”
The old lady looked at Kat. Kat shouted, “Detective Donovan, NYPD.”
A big mountain of a man lumbered over to the bottom of the basement stairs. His receding hair was pulled back into a tiny ponytail. His face was wide and sweaty. He wore baggy cargo shorts and a T-shirt that read TWERK TEAM CAPTAIN.
“Oh, right. Come on down.”
The old lady said, “Would you care for an Orangina?”
“I’m good,” Kat said, descending the stairway. Chuback waited for her. He wiped his hands on his shirt before shaking her hand with a meaty paw. “Everyone calls me Chewie.”
He was thirty, maybe thirty-five, with a bowling-ball gut and thick, pale legs like marble pillars. There was a Bluetooth jammed into his ear. The basement looked like Mike Brady’s office with wood paneling and clown paintings and tall filing cabinets. The desk area was made up of work benches, three of them forming a U, all loaded up with a dizzying variety of screens and computers. There were two huge leather chairs on large white pedestals. The arms of the chairs were covered with colorful buttons.
“You’re Asghar Chuback,” Kat said.
“I prefer being called Chewie.”
“Senior partner at Parsons, Chuback, Mitnick and Bushwell?”
“That’s me.”
Kat glanced around. “And who are Parsons, Mitnick, and Bushwell?”
“Three guys I played basketball with in fifth grade. I just use their names for the masthead. Sounds fancy, though, right?”
“So the entire investment firm . . .”
“Is me, yep. Hold on a second.” He tapped the Bluetooth. “Yeah, right, no, Toby, I wouldn’t sell it yet. Have you seen the commodities in Finland? Trust me on this. Okay, I’m with another client. Let me call you back.”
He tapped the Bluetooth to hang up.
“So,” Kat asked, “was your mom the secretary my partner spoke with?”
“No, that was me too. I have a voice changer on the phone. I can also be Parsons, Mitnick, or Bushwell if a client wants a second opinion.”
“That’s not fraud?”
“I don’t think so, but truth? I make my clients so much money they don’t much care.” Chewie pulled joysticks and gaming consoles off the two large chairs. “Have a seat.”
Kat stepped onto the pedestal and sat. “Why does this chair look familiar to me?”
“They’re Captain Kirk’s chairs from Star Trek. Replicas, sadly. I couldn’t buy the original. You like? Truth? I’m not a Star Trek guy. Battlestar Galactica was so my thing, but these chairs are pretty comfy, right?”
Kat ignored the question. “You recently issued a Suspicious Activities Report on a certain Swiss bank account, is that correct?”
“It is, but why are you here?”
“Pardon?”
“You’re NYPD, right? SARs go to the Financial Crime Enforcement Network. That’s the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Treasury, not the city police department.”
Kat used the armrests, careful not to hit any of the buttons. “The account has come up in a case I’m investigating.”
“In what way?” he asked.
“That’s not something I’m willing to discuss.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Chuback rose from his chair and stepped down from the pedestal. “Let me show you out.”
“We aren’t done here, Mr. Chuback.”
“Chewie,” he said. “And yes, I think we are.”
“I could report this whole operation.”
“Go ahead. I’m a licensed financial adviser working in conjunction with an FDIC-insured banking institution behind me. I can call myself whatever I want. I filled out the Suspicious Activity Report because I am law-abiding and had concerns, but I’m not about to betray my clients or their financial confidences blindly.”
“What kind of concerns?”
“I’m sorry, Detective Donovan. I need to know what you’re after here, or I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Kat debated how to play it, but a grown man named Chewie had given her little choice. “I’m investigating another case where someone deposited a large sum of money in a numbered Swiss bank account.”
“And it was the same account I reported?” Chuback asked.
“Yes.”
He sat back down and drummed his fingers over the multicolored Captain Kirk lights. “Hmm.”
“Look, as you pointed out, I’m not with the Department of Treasury. If your client is money laundering or evading taxes, I don’t care.”
“What are you investigating exactly?”
Kat decided to go for it. Maybe it would shock him into some kind of admission. “A missing woman.”
Chuback went slack-jawed. “Are you serious?”
“I am.”
“And you think my client is somehow involved?”
“I don’t have a clue, quite frankly. But that’s what I’m after. I don’t care about financial improprieties. If you’re willing to protect a client who may be involved in some kind of kidnapping—”