Chapter 69

 

 

Amber’s heart pounded when she read Mary’s text. It was time. All she could do was hit the button to start the money transfers she had set up—and then hope and pray all their tactics for keeping Cody offline would work.

She hit the button.

Then she called Sandy. “Did you get all the account information and routing numbers I sent?”

“Yep, exactly what I needed. Don’t get your hopes completely set on this, Amber. Internally, I can monitor the cash movement, but I can’t promise that I can speed things up for you. But I’ll try.”

“Anything you can do. Oh—what about that deposit slip I gave you?”

“Woodrow Baker. You said the account belongs to Cody’s father?”

“The checkbook was in his suitcase. Cody told me his dad’s name was Woody.”

“Right. I made an interbank request this morning, for more information on the account holder. Pretended that we’re considering Mr. Baker for a loan.”

“Is he the one behind their dummy corporation?”

“Probably. Technically, the corporation has the name Woodrow Wilson Baker. Cody’s father is Woodrow Harrison Baker. A small difference, but it could be the thing they’ll use if they really get in deep trouble. He could pull the old ‘that’s not me’ argument.”

“I’ll get online and see if I can find more,” Amber said. “Maybe there is a Baker, middle name Wilson, somewhere in the picture too.”

She opened a new browser window and typed a search, mainly so she wouldn’t forget to do it later.

“I’ll start some quiet inquiries,” Sandy said, “and I’ll let you know if I’m able to green-light any of your transfers to make them go faster. But don’t count on it.”

“I know. We need to plan on this taking a few days. What else can we come up with to stall for time? What if their car exploded?”

“With or without them in it?”

“Either.”

“Careful, sweetie, you’ve already got the police watching you pretty closely.”

“I know,” she said as Sandy hung up.

But that just made it more of a challenge. Keep Cody away from his phone, while not letting him suspect her involvement, and make every roadblock she could throw in his way look and feel like just a bad twist of fate. Sure—no problem.

All this was running through Amber’s head when a string of search results came up for the name Woodrow Wilson Baker. A lot of them were about the former president, with the surname Baker deleted, but she did find one—at a genealogy site. She went there, created a profile for a free trial subscription, and began prowling around.

She had just hit upon a promising list of Woodrow Bakers with different middle initials when Mary called.

“How’s it going? Operation Money Move is underway?”

Amber laughed at the not-so-subtle code name. “Yeah. So far, so good. Sandy is monitoring some of it through the bank, although she has to be careful since her bank technically isn’t at all connected to it. What about at your end? Are you still at the track?”

“No, I left. But I got to thinking it might be smart if we keep watching the two of them. We don’t think Cody can get to his laptop quickly, but what if he can? We have no idea where it is right now.”

“True. That’s been worrying me.”

“So I propose to go back there and spy some more. Those couple hours at the races were actually kind of fun.”

“He’ll be suspicious, won’t he? What if he puts it together that the moment his phone disappeared was right when a certain blonde was sitting behind him?”

“For one thing, she wasn’t blonde when she pulled the dirty deed. And for another, I’m staring in the window of a wig shop in the mall right down the road. I’m thinking with different hair, glasses, and clothing styles I could keep him from spotting me.”

“I don’t know … con men are pretty good with faces.”

“I’ll accessorize. Plus, when I go back, I don’t need to sit close at all. I can be twelve rows above them or twenty seats over. As long as we know they’re at the track he can’t be heading off somewhere to get that computer.”

“Actually, I like it.”

“I’m looking at a gray, feathery style that’s very cool. I’m thinking it goes with something from the country-club-chic department at Macy’s. And tomorrow I can have long blonde dreadlocks.”

“Just don’t stand out too much. Better to blend in as a housewife from the neighborhood than to let them notice you.”

“You take all the fun out of it.” But Mary laughed as she hung up.