Gina Cresse - Devonie Lace 01 - A Deadly Change of Course--Plan B (4 page)

“I have two hundred and seventy-five dollars.  Do I hear three hundred?”

I looked at the man in green.  He smiled smugly and
stuck his tongue out
at me.
  He could’ve been a shill, planted by the complex owner to purposely raise the bidding amounts at the auction.  I didn’t care at the
moment.  He’d made me mad.
  I raised my hand with determination and called out, “Three hundred dollars!”

The auctioneer was growing impatient.  “I have three hundred going once, going twice. 
Sold to the little lady in the front for three hundred dollars.
  You can pay in the main office.  When we’re done with all the lots, you can bring your vehicle in and load it up.”

Wonderful, except that I was fifty dollars shy of my bid.  Where was I going to get the extra cash to pay for
it
?

“Hey, Dev.
  Congratulations,” a voice from behind me said.

“Jason.  Thanks.  Want to buy a safe for fifty bucks?”

“You need fifty dollars to cover your bid?”

“How’d you guess?”

“I know you too well, Dev.  Sure, I’ll give you fifty bucks-but not for a safe.  I’ll take that computer, though.”

“Are you kidding?  You’d rather spend fifty on what’s probably some old dog of a computer
—
if there’s a computer in there at all?  Think about it.  There must be something pretty valuable in there if it’s important enough to lock up in a safe.”

“You want the computer, don’t you?”

“Yeah.
  I could keep my records on it instead of in that
ratty old
binder
I have to deal with.  Besides, you’ve already got a nice desktop PC.”

“Okay.  I’ll take that safe there in the front, the one with the eagle picture on the door.  Here’s the money,” Jason said as he handed me two twenties and a ten.

“Thanks, Jason.  I take back what I said about you being a jerk.”

“Any
time, Dev.
  You know I’d do anything for you, like the fool that I am.”

“Did you get your washer and dryer?”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t believe what I had to give for it.  Some crazy lady kept bidding against me.  She just wouldn’t let it go
—
sort of like a female pit bull.  I wanted to muzzle her.”

Visions of Beth and Jason
duking
it out over a washer and dryer amused me for a brief moment.

“I’ll help you load your stuff in your van if you’ll help me with this stuff.”

“Sure thing, Dev, but they won’t be done for a while.  Want to go have a hot chocolate or something while we wait?”

“Sure.  Just let me go pay up and I’ll meet you in the coffee shop.  Oh, can I keep this stuff in your warehouse?  No room on the boat.”

“Yeah, but I’m going to have to charge you storage.”

“Storage?
 
How much?”
I asked.

“I’m just kidding, Dev.  Jeez.  Can’t you take a joke?”

I could take a joke, but I’d had a stressful morning and my nerves were on edge.  Chocolate was just what I needed.

The safes were heavier than I expected.  The two of us struggled to get them in the back of my Jeep.  “I’ll have to get a locksmith to open these for me,” I said.

“I have a friend who can open them.  He’s one of San Diego’s finest, but in his spare time, he likes to fool
around with locks and stuff.  He’s out of town today, but first thing in the morning I’ll give him a call.”

“Great.  I think I’ll take those brief cases home with me.  I
bet I can pick the locks
.  If I can’t, I’ll bring them over and see if your friend can open them, too.”

“Sure thing.
  Let’s get this stuff over to the shop.  I’ve got to open up for business before I lose all my customers.”

We unloaded everything in the
warehouse behind Jason’s shop—
where he stored all kinds of parts and machines that he was working on.  I had a small corner marked off with tape on the floor.  That was where I kept most of the larger items—the ones I hadn’t sold yet.  Also, I’d stored just a few things I couldn’t part with when I sold my house.  A cedar chest my grandma had given me when I was a little girl was stored there.  It had become affectionately known as my “hopeless”
chest.  We placed the locked file cabinet next to it.  My safe sat next to the chest, and if I brought any more in there, I’d have to move the tape to give myself more real estate.

I unzipped the case around the laptop. 
Pay dirt.
  It was a Gateway Pentium laptop.  Those things sold for around five thousand bucks.  I tried to power it up, but the battery was dead.  No surprise.  No telling how long it had been sitting in that storage unit.  I rummaged through the case
, but t
here was no electrical c
ord
.  I put it in the front seat of the Jeep with the brief cases.

“Thanks for all your help, Jason,” I said.  “I’m going to get this stuff home.  I’ve got to work for Carla at the
Grille tonight.  She’s got some party or something she has to go to, so I said I’d cover for her today.”

“Okay.  I’ll give you a call in the morning after I talk to Mark.  I can hardly wait to see what’s in
those safes
.”

“I know.  Isn’t it exciting?  I just love this business.”

It really was an exciting way to earn a living.  Any day, I could end up with a chest filled with jewels or a collection of Norman Rockwell Originals.

I carried the computer and printer down the dock on my first trip.  Mr. Cartwright was polishing some brass.  “Afternoon, Miss Lace.  Successful day, I hope?” he
asked
.

“A great day.”

I unlocked the hatch door and stepped down into my little galley.  I set the cases on the table and gla
nced over at Marty’s bowl.  “Dar
n,” I said under by breath.  There he
was,
belly up.  “That’s it.  I give up.”

I gave him a brief burial at sea and washed out the fish bowl.  No more pets
—
I just couldn’t take it.

I brought the brief cases to the boat and got ready for work.  I’d be late if I didn’t get going soon.  I’d have to try to open the cases after I got home.  I locked the boat up and jogged down the dock to the Grille.  All I could think about was what could be in those cases.

Chapter Four

I
t was just past midnight when I finally finished up at the Grille and I was beat.  The place was much busier than usual.  I spent the whole shift racing from table to table, then back to the bar.  The clientele were more demanding than usual
—
I bit my tongue on several occasions to keep from giving some rude drunk a piece of my mind.  I’d learned that the ill-mannered ones tended to be the best tippers
—
I guess it eased their consciences.  I really wasn’t cut out for that kind of work, but I could put up with almost any idiot if I knew I had to in order to pay my slip rent that month.  I staggered down the dock to my boat.  I had been up since five that morning.

I removed a collection of small tools from my purse. Gary, the bartender from the Grille, gave them to me earlier, along with some brief instruction
s
on the fine art of lock-picking.  I’d practiced on an olive and a maraschino cherry.  Somehow, I didn’t think it was quite the same as a real lock.  I sat down with the first case
—
a
very nice brown leather job with the initials RAK embossed on the side.  I played with the lock for ten minutes, with no luck. 

Growing tired and impatient, I set the case down and
went below to get into my tool
box and returned with the Wonder Bar.  I strategically placed it under the latch and gave it a good yank.  Bingo.  The container was unlocked
—and now
completely useless as a brief case. 

I lifted the lid.  My mouth fell open, and I began to hyperventilate.  I expected to find business papers, brochures, and if I was lucky, a cell phone or a really nice calculator.  What I didn’t expect to find was cash
—
lots of cash. 
Row after row of bundled hundred-dollar bills.
  My knees went weak and I collapsed in the chair.

“My
God.
  How much money is that?”  I couldn’t bring myself to touch it.  I just stared in amazement.  Why would someone put that much money in a self-storage unit?  And why, for God’s sake, would they let it be auctioned off for lack of payment?  Slowly, I reached for the case and picked up one of the bundles.  I started counting.  I had to start over four times and finally concluded that the bundle contained five hundred bills, each of them being of the one-hundred-dollar denomination.  That one bundle amounted to fifty thousand dollars.  I looked back at the case.  There were nine more bundles identical to that one.  My heart raced
and I felt faint.  That was
a half-million dollars sitting there on my kitchen table.  I pinched myself and started looking around for
Tom
Selleck
—it
had to be a dream.

“Okay.  Calm down,
Devonie
,” I told myself.  I got my breathing under control and replaced the bundle of bills.  I checked the pockets
in the lid of the case.  There was something tucked in the pouch
—a year-old airline ticket to Geneva.  The storage unit account had to be delinquent for at least a year before they would auction it off
—
according to the manager of the complex.  Whoever the money belonged to must have come to some horrible demise at about the time
that
ticket was purchased.  No one still breathing would let a half-million dollars go.  Maybe the person was in prison and couldn’t get to the money before he was
locked up
.  No.  He would have arranged for someone to get the money before he’d lose it.  He must
have been
dead
—
that was the only logical explanation.

I checked the pockets for more information.  I found a passport for a Robert Allen
Kephart
.  He appeared in the photo to be in his mid-forties.  His sandy blonde hair and mustache complimented a pair of deep hazel-blue eyes.  He had that younger Robert Redford look
—
the rugged outdoorsy type.  I removed the only other thing I could find in the case
—
a small notepad.  I tried to decipher a name scribbled on the first page, but the writing proved to be illegible.  It looked like Carl Hobbs or
Hebbs
, but I couldn’t be sure.  Below that, in clear print, the words PAID IN FULL were underlined in bold ink.  A hundred scenarios passed through my mind as to where
that
money
had come
from, and none of them even slightly resembled anything legal.  I doubted
it
was anyone’s bingo winnings, or the proceeds from the sale of a car.  I
glanced suspiciously at the other two brief cases
—
afraid to think what might be in them.

I didn’t even bother trying to pick the lock on the next case.  I just applied the Wonder Bar and opened it.  Any slight hope I might have had that
the
money was not part of some illegal activity was shattered when I lifted the lid.  The case was specifically designed to hold a gun, a very large gun, with several attachments.  I was not familiar with firearms or their related paraphernalia, but from what I’d seen in the movies, I was looking at a pretty high tech scope and a silencer.  Also in the case, I found ammunition and a pair of gloves.

What have I gotten myself into?
I thought.  I had a feeling life as I knew it would not be the same after
that day
.

The third case was not locked.  It contained a toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, a shaving kit, a new light blue polo shirt, and
a clean pair of boxers
.  I found a small address book tucked into the side pocket. 
The book, like new, contained only one entry
—
Kerstin
Weibel
.
  Her address was in Geneva.  Next to her name was a number,
written
in a strange format.  It must have been a
European phone number
.  Inside the front cover were two sets of numbers penciled in: 10-42-58 and 11-29-47.  I stared at the page for a minute and processed the information, then reached for my phone and dialed.

“Jason?”

“
Devonie
?
  Is that you?  Why are you calling me at
…
  What time is it anyway?”  I heard him fumble with
something,
then
he came back on the line.  “It’s two
in the morning.
  What’s going on?”

“Jason.  Don’t call your friend to open those safes.  I think I found the combina
tions
,” I said, my voice quivering.

“You called and
woke me up
to tell me that?  What’s going on, Dev?”

“I can’t tell you now.  Just don’t tell anyone about those safes
—
or anything else I picked up at the auction today.  Do you hear me, Jason?  Are you awake enough to understand what I’m telling you?”

“Yeah, Dev.
  I hear you.  What’d you find in those cases, anyway? 
Secret spy stuff or something?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“That’s it, Dev.  I’m coming over.  You’re in some sort of trouble,” Jason said, in the most gallant voice he could muster
at that hour.

“No, Jason.  Don’t worry about me.  I’m fine.”

“How do you know you’re fine, Dev?”

“Because if anyone else knew about what was in that storage unit, they’d have outbid me for sure.”

After hanging up, I tore out the two relevant pages from the address book and slipped them into my purse, then replaced the address book and closed the case.  I put all three cases in my closet and shut the door.  For the first time since I bought the boat, it occurred to me that I didn’t have a very secure place to lock anything up.  I slipped out of my clothes and into an oversized T-shirt then climbed into my bunk.  I lay there for what seemed like hours, but when I looked at the clock, only ten
minutes had passed.  I heard footsteps on the dock and voices just outside my boat.  My heart began racing.  I held
my breath.  The voices stopped
—then I heard laughter. 
Just a couple of fishermen out for an early start.
  Relieved, I slowly let out my breath and closed my eyes.  I needed to relax and get some sleep so I could think straight.  At some point, exhaustion finally took over and I fell asleep. 

As daylight peeked through my easterly porthole, I reluctantly woke from another dream.  This time, the sweet aroma of
Tom
’s café mocha and the mouthwatering taste of his ham, cheese and avocado omelet mingled with the usual smells of morning sea air. 
That
Tom
, he’s such a sweetheart.