Chapter 53

 

Amber carried her laptop to a shady spot by the pool at her apartment complex. She set a cereal bar and a yogurt smoothie on the small table beside her lounger. A Tuesday morning in early October was the perfect time to have the place to herself since everyone else in the building was a student. The wireless connection wasn’t as strong out here, but who could pass up a balmy eighty-degree day?

She signed onto Derek Woo’s email account, pleased to see in the background that he was not currently logged on. A scan through today’s messages didn’t bring up any names she knew, nor any subject lines containing something from her list of sensitive words—Clint, Holbrook, Philippine, fishing, drown, or China—terms the lawyer had used regularly before and immediately after Clint’s disappearance. She considered adding a search for simple terms, such as go or travel, but those might return so many results she’d bog down forever.

Still, doggedness was one of her best traits. She smiled at her reflection in the screen, then looked around to see if anyone was nearby who might have noticed her preening. The pool area was still empty.

She decided to go back through Woo’s old emails. With the new belief that Clint was not actually dead, clues could abound, little comments that previously had not seemed relevant. She performed a search on Tiko Garcia’s name. Not a single email appeared on the list. In Woo’s Trash folder, same result.

“Okay … this is weird,” she said to her computer screen. “You were here a few days ago. Where did you go?”

She clicked over to another folder, one she’d discovered Woo created for correspondence specific to Clint’s trip to China. When she’d first cloned his computer and decoded the password, the folder contained emails back and forth with Tiko Garcia, arrangements for Clint’s fishing trip, as well as notes between Woo and Holbrook about the arrangements. All those had vanished. Checking a similar folder pertaining to Clint’s business with Tong Chen Enterprises, she found the same results.

“So you’re a tidy man, Mr. Woo. You like to empty your trash regularly.”

She tried to remember other names from his earlier correspondence. Rudy Tong—no match. Tong Chen—no match. Seriously? A lawyer who deletes all files on a client’s business dealings? Well, bigger people than you have tried to delete emails only to learn someone, somewhere can find them again, Amber thought.

She grinned, although having to hack into the server and dig around for Woo’s mail was a pain, a chore she would have to go back into her apartment to perform since all her code guides were in there. She closed the lid on the laptop and sighed before downing the last of her smoothie. Her mother nagged constantly to get Amber outdoors. While her parents hiked the mountains around Santa Fe and Pecos, Amber had been a perfectly content kid when algorithms and formulas danced in her head. She gathered her things and went back to her little apartment.

 

* * *

 

Pen and Sandy stood outside the downtown high-rise Clint Holbrook had once claimed he built. Even though his statement had turned out to be a gross exaggeration—or an outright lie—the man’s construction business had occupied an entire floor, and Pen wondered how things up there were going now. Was the company in complete disarray (as Mary secretly hoped it would be), or was the business ticking along just fine as employees handled the details to finalize the project in Shanghai and whatever other jobs were under contract?

Pen reminded herself that Clint never had come back asking about the bid for the so-called concert hall project. But that was then and this is now. She remembered the procedure from her first visit and the two women signed in at the security desk in the ground-floor lobby.

“Holbrook Construction?” the guard said. “Not sure you’ll find anyone there now.”

He issued visitor badges anyway and Pen led the way to the elevators. When the doors slid open on their floor, a dim and hollow feeling greeted them. Beside the door to Holbrook Construction the narrow side window showed only blackness within.

Sandy cupped her hands around her face and stared inside. “There’s an empty desk,” she said. “That’s about it.”

A sound at the end of the hall caught their attention. Two burly men in coveralls stepped out of a freight elevator, pushing a large, wheeled cart ahead of them. The women slid close to the wall to let the men pass, but they halted directly in front of the Holbrook door.

“These offices appear to be closed,” Sandy offered.

“Yeah, no kidding,” said the man in the lead. He had pulled a key from his pocket. “We’re just here for the furniture.”

Pen noticed their coveralls had patches with an embroidered name: Stockwell Business Interiors. The man with the key was Pete; the other was Julio.

“Holbrook Construction is moving?” she asked, although she was fairly certain she already knew the answer.

“No idea where the company went, ma’am. We just pick up leased furniture when it’s a case of non-payment. Three months in arrears, so unless you got the money to get this account up to date, we’re takin’ everything.”

The ladies exchanged a look.

“I’m a little upset about this,” Sandy said. “My boss is going to flip out. We had this guy preparing a bid for a job. He’s got all our plans and specs. If I don’t go back with our paperwork I’m in big trouble.”

“I don’t care about no paperwork,” Pete said as the door swung open. “Far as I know these desks and files are empty, but if you find what you need you’re welcome to it.”

The men headed toward the reception desk, where Pen remembered a secretary sitting the morning she had called on Clint Holbrook with her proposal that he bid on a concert hall. They picked up a lamp and a silk potted plant and set them near the door.

“May I?” She stepped behind the desk and pulled open each drawer. All empty.

The trash basket under the desk held a few wads of paper. She picked it up and dodged out of the men’s way.

“We’re startin’ in here and workin’ our way toward the back,” Pete said. “You want papers from the other offices, knock yourself out.”

He wheeled the secretary’s chair toward his partner and tipped the desk on its side, then began removing the legs.

Sandy and Pen dashed through the double doors to the inner rooms.

“What are we looking for?” Sandy whispered as Pen opened the first door on the right.

“Anything that might be a clue. I don’t even know where to begin.”

The room she entered held a drafting table with lamp and a high stool. Two rolled sets of plans lay on top of a two-drawer file cabinet. A quick glance showed standard blueprints, nothing pertaining to Shanghai. They left them behind.

Four other doors along the corridor opened to empty rooms. Pen remembered her first visit, the feeling the place was largely for show. Now, it appeared no one had ever worked in most of this vast shell of a space.

The conference room where Clint had taken her the first time looked exactly the same. No doubt the table and chairs were rented pieces too. She wondered if that extended to the small fridge and coffee machine. For all the money he made, Clint Holbrook apparently had spent more on renting than owning much of anything.

Clint’s private office beyond the conference room was lavishly furnished but the impressive pieces didn’t affect the women, knowing now the whole scene was a façade.

“He must have squirreled away nearly all the cash that passed through his hands,” Sandy said. “Three months past due—that goes back way before he left for China. Do you think Clint had been planning his disappearance for quite some time?”

“I don’t know. He talked about other projects and certainly seemed to take my concert hall bid seriously. It’s possible he simply spotted a quick way out.”

Sandy took the desk and Pen opened a door in the paneled walls, revealing a bank of file cabinets and a safe. The door to the latter was not locked.

“Go through everything,” Sandy said. “I think we have a little time before the repo men reach this room.”

“Or not. When you add it up, there isn’t a lot of furniture in this whole suite.”

Sure enough, they heard sounds of the men hauling the drafting table onto their wheeled cart. The women yanked open drawers and stepped up their pace.

For the most part the search was an easy one—nearly every file drawer was empty. The safe held two empty checkbooks, an expired passport in Clint’s name and a roll of old silver dollars. Only the coins might be of value, if a person took the time to take them to a dealer and have them appraised. It hardly seemed worth the effort, but Pen put the items in her purse to give to Mary. Better she have them than the moving men.

Similarly, Sandy discovered the desk held only a few personal tidbits. A tacky keyring from Las Vegas, four pads of Post-it notes, a scattering of paperclips and a couple business cards.

“It’s as if the whole office has been cleared of paperwork,” Sandy said, picking up the business cards on the chance they might provide leads.

“My thought exactly. It doesn’t seem possible a man was actually conducting business here and there’s no trace of it now.”

“So, did Clint take everything away before he left for China, knowing he wasn’t coming back? Or do you suppose someone else came in here after his so-called death and wiped the place clean?”

Pen thought of the description Amber had given of Clint’s borrowed office in Shanghai, the space empty only days after he vanished. “I’ve no idea.”