Taken (37 page)

Nick sat down in a nearby chair, his expression turning somber. “Okay, let’s say Evan has the three watches.

Either he’s waiting for us to lead him to Frankie’s watch, he already has it, or he’s floundering in the dark like we are.”

“But he’s not working alone,” Kayla said. “We know there’s at least one other man involved. Who could he be?”

“Someone related to the Alcatraz guys,” Nick said.

Kayla glanced over at her grandmother. “Any ideas?”

“Dana has three sons. Anne Marie had a son and a daughter. Her son had Nate’s watch.”

“And passed it on to Lisa,” Kayla muttered. “So it doesn’t seem like anyone else in Anne Marie’s family would be involved. That leaves your friend Dana, and her
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boys. We don’t know anything about Frankie. Do you, Grandma?”

“Frankie dated lots of girls. I don’t remember anyone special. He had no siblings. There was another girl at the club who used to date both Nate and Frankie. Her name was Elizabeth. She’s married to a fine, upstanding man and has left her past behind, but she does have two sons.

I spoke to her earlier. She didn’t seem to know anything.”

“That doesn’t mean much,” Kayla said somewhat glumly.

“Let’s not forget Dominic,” Nick interjected. “Someone figured out you had his watch. Someone also attacked Delores, Dominic’s daughter.”

“They must have been looking for Dominic’s watch,”

Kayla said. “And we thought we triggered it, because we stopped by the store asking her to look up the records.

But maybe that wasn’t it at all. Or else maybe Evan followed us there and realized Delores might have Dominic’s watch.” As she finished speaking, Kayla realized they’d done little to narrow down their choices. “Is there anyone else we’re missing, someone who might have had an interest in the treasure besides the descendants of the robbers?” She glanced over at Charlotte.

Her grandmother gave a shrug. “I don’t think so.

Johnny and his friends did brag about their exploits. But it was a long time ago. Most of my generation is gone now.”

“Actually, there seem to be quite a few of you left,”

Nick said dryly. “What do you think about introducing us to your friend Dana?”

Charlotte hesitated. “I guess it’s pointless to keep trying to kick that door to the past shut again, isn’t it? All right. I’ll take you to Dana’s place, and you can see the
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club where I ruined my reputation. Dana owns it now, you know. It’s still a strip club. Or maybe more . . . I’m not sure what goes on in the club nowadays. Dana also owns two other nightclubs. Apparently she bought one for each of her sons to run. She wasn’t afraid to be who she was to her family,” Charlotte added. “Just to give you a heads-up, she doesn’t like me much for turning my back on her. I doubt she’ll be warm and welcoming.”

“Actually, I’m more interested in checking out that secret room in the basement,” Nick said. “I know you said the men didn’t put their coins there, but maybe they didn’t tell you everything.”

“You don’t think the money has been there all along?”

Kayla asked. “That would be too easy. And Dana could have taken it at any time, it seems.”

“Or just used the money as she needed it,” Nick suggested. “She certainly turned her life around in a prof-itable manner, and it would have been easier to sell off single coins to collectors over a period of fifty years than to try to sell a whole stash of coins at one time.”

“I don’t think so,” Charlotte said. “I know Johnny moved the money. He told me so. He wouldn’t have had any reason to lie to me.” Charlotte stopped abruptly. “Oh, I can see by your faces that you think he could have lied to me.”

“It’s just that he was a crook, Grandma,” Kayla said gently. “If he could rob and kill, I think he could probably lie. And I know better than most that it’s pretty easy to believe a lie when a good-looking guy tells you just what you want to hear.”

“Johnny didn’t lie to me,” Charlotte said firmly. “But that’s all right. You don’t have to believe in him.” She
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stood up. “Let me just change my clothes and get my purse and then we’ll go.”

“Are you sure it’s not too much for you?” Kayla asked.

“Nick and I can go on our own.”

“You won’t get anywhere without me,” Charlotte said.

“I’ll be fine. I’m stronger than I look.”

“Should we call your friend first?” Kayla asked.

“Where Dana is concerned, surprise is always a good thing,” Charlotte said.

“This is the place,” Charlotte said, as they stood in front of Deception, the nightclub located in the heart of the Broadway strip. “I never thought I’d be bringing my granddaughter here.”

“If it makes you feel better, I never thought I’d be coming to a strip club with my grandmother,” Kayla returned.

Nick opened the door, and Kayla entered first, pausing inside to let her eyes adjust to the dim lighting. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and the club shows wouldn’t start until later in the evening. A burly man approached them, looking like some type of bouncer.

“We’re not open yet,” he said.

“We just want to talk to Dana,” Charlotte told him. “Is she in?”

“She’s got someone in her office,” he replied. “You can wait if you want. What’s your name? I’ll tell her you’re here.”

“Charlotte Cunningham.”

“Does it look the same as when you used to dance here?” Kayla asked, glancing around at the bar, the tables, the stage area, the shiny gold poles. She couldn’t begin to imagine her grandmother dancing around that
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pole. In fact, she couldn’t imagine her grandmother doing any of it.

“It’s changed a lot. The stage is bigger. We didn’t have the private booths or the poles.” She paused. “I can show you some photos. They’re down here.”

Kayla followed her grandmother into the back hall, which was decorated with black-and-white framed photos tracing the history of the club.

“That’s me,” Charlotte said, pointing to a photograph.

Kayla leaned forward, seeing her grandmother seated on some guy’s lap, a cigarette in her hand, a smile on her face. “Smoking, too, Grandma?”

“We didn’t know any better in those days.”

“Are Johnny and his buddies in any of these photos?”

Nick asked, coming up next to Kayla.

“Let’s see,” Charlotte said, moving slowly down the wall. “Here they are, all three of them. And that’s Dana; she’s the redhead sitting next to Nate. The blonde on the other side of her is a girl who danced under the name Lola. Her real name was Elizabeth Hutchinson. She’s the one I told you about. She dated both Frankie and Nate.”

Kayla didn’t want to ask what the term
dated
actually meant. She suspected it had more to do with sex and less to do with dinner at a nice restaurant followed by a movie. These were the bad girls, she realized, the ones who seduced men away from their wives and their “good girl” girlfriends. And her grandmother had been one of them. She looked so young in the photos, so full of life, so happy.

“Where do the stairs go?” Nick asked. “Down to the basement maybe?”

“Yes, but I don’t think Dana will appreciate our sneak-ing around.”

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“You’re just giving your family a little tour of your old stomping grounds. How bad could that be?” Nick asked.

“I’ll let you tell her that,” Charlotte said as she led them down the stairs.

The basement appeared to be part wine cellar, part storage area. There was also a large refrigerator and freezer. Charlotte moved to the far end of the room quickly, as if she had no problem remembering exactly where she was going. “We’ll have to move these boxes.”

“Let me,” Nick said, shoving three large boxes to one side. “There’s nothing there,” he added, running his hands over the wood paneling.

“Third panel from the right — you push it in. There’s a release.”

Sure enough, one push and the panel separated as a door swung open to reveal a dark space.

“There used to be a light, a string hanging down. . . .”

Charlotte stepped forward, reaching inside the blackness.

A moment later a light came on.

The room was small, about four by six feet. It was cold and damp and completely empty.

“I knew it wasn’t here,” Charlotte breathed. “How could it be after fifty years?”

Kayla looked over at Nick, who was examining every inch of the room. He seemed to be looking for something, but she didn’t know what. “So this is where Johnny and his friends hid their loot?” she asked.

Charlotte nodded. “They kept the liquor here during Prohibition. That’s why the panel is secret. Dana’s father worked for the city. He knew a lot about old buildings, and he mentioned to her once that she wouldn’t believe what kind of underground network ran through the city.

He told us the club used to be a speakeasy and probably
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had some sort of hidden room in the basement. We thought it was very exciting and dangerous, so we came looking for it, and we found it.”

“Telling all our secrets, Charlie?”

Kayla whirled around. A tall woman with bright red hair faced them. Behind her was the man who’d let them into the club earlier. Neither one looked happy to see them.

“It’s all right, Stephen,” she said to the man behind her. “You can go.”

The man looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment he walked away, leaving them alone together.

“This is Dana,” Charlotte said. “My old friend. This is my granddaughter, Kayla, and her friend, Nick.”

“What are you doing down here, Charlie?” Dana asked.

“Checking to see if you were still hiding the money,”

Charlotte said bluntly.

Kayla watched the two women face off against each other and sensed that there was as much hate between them as love. She wondered why.

“I never thought you were that stupid,” Dana said.

“You really think I had the money all these years?”

“No, but I started to wonder if you knew more than you were saying when you came by my house the other day.”

“I came by to tell you to shut up, but obviously that didn’t work.”

“Someone has three of the four watches,” Charlotte said.

“The only one missing is the one belonging to Frankie. I feel fairly certain that whoever is tracking down the watches must feel they know where the money is.”

“You found Nate’s watch? He gave it to Anne Marie?”

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Charlotte nodded. “Who gave it to her son, who gave it to his daughter.”

“I see. So he trusted her more than me. Shocking.”

Kayla couldn’t quite read Dana’s tone. She seemed to be both furious and hurt.

“I told Kayla and Nick everything, Dana, just so you know,” Charlotte added. “I told them that you and I used to hide the money and jewelry here in this room, that we stashed the money from the mint here right after the robbery. We were accessories to the crime. We didn’t turn them in even though we knew what they’d done to those guards. We kept quiet.”

“You can’t prove any of that,” Dana said. “It’s your word against mine.”

“We’re not trying to prove it,” Nick interrupted. “We just want to find the watches and the money. The person running this game is a con artist and a thief in his own right, and we want to catch him.”

“No one is going to find the treasure now,” Dana said.

“It’s been missing for fifty years, and people have looked before.”

“No one had the watches before,” Charlotte said. “I feel sure someone knows something — perhaps more than one someone. Maybe you or your sons. They haven’t been out of town recently, have they? No trips to Reno?”

“Leave my boys alone.”

“As long as they leave my granddaughter alone.

Someone tried to kill her.”

“It wasn’t one of my kids,” Dana said quickly.

“They’re good men. They have wives, children, lives of their own. Don’t try to mess with me now, Charlie. You turned your back on this life and this place a long time ago. You have no right to come back here now. I want you
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to leave, and I want you to keep on walking. Don’t come back again. We’re done. We’ve been done forever. Whatever friendship we had ended when you left without a good-bye, without a thank you. I saved you from having to live on the street. But you never acknowledged that.

You acted like I was the one who took you down.”

“I never said that. I never told anyone that.”

“Not even me,” Kayla interrupted. “She said you were her friend, and you helped her.”

Dana looked surprised by this piece of information.

“You told her that?”

“I gave her the truth, all of it. I didn’t say it was your idea to help Johnny or Nate, because it wasn’t. We were both involved, and I was the one who was madly in love.

You always kept your heart out of it.”

“Not always,” Dana admitted. “Not with Nate. He was special. I just wished he would have left me with a baby, the way Johnny did with you. Then I would have had something of his forever. Well, you’d still best be on your way. There’s nothing down here you want. I don’t use this room anymore. I keep it empty to remind me to stay on the right side of the road, so to speak. Nate died because of his greed, his recklessness. He never thought anything could happen to him. He was invincible. They thought no one would ever find them, but they were wrong. A week later they were in jail. And five years later they were dead.”

“I don’t know if they’re dead,” Charlotte said. “I think I saw Johnny last night. I believe he came by my house, but I passed out from the shock and wound up in the hospital. I don’t know if it was a dream, but it sure didn’t seem like it.” She paused. “Are you sure there’s nothing you can tell us, Dana? Nothing more you know about the
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coins or the watches or who would be looking for any of it?”

Dana took a long moment to answer. “There was that man who wrote that book about Alcatraz and the escape.