Too Far Under (34 page)

I was startled out of my deliberations by my
phone ringing. The ID said Faye calling. Wow—like somehow she
tapped into my thoughts. Or maybe Tyler somehow got her to call.
“Hey, Cleo,” she said when I picked up, “I had some new ideas about
how to raise money for your grandmother. Can you take a break and
come over to the gallery for a few minutes?”

Perfect. It was 4:30. I closed up my office
and walked over to the gallery. I would listen to her ideas, which
would hopefully be good ones. But I’d also be watching for any
signs that she wasn’t being honest. If I needed to I could always
confront her with Shane’s email evidence and see what she had to
say.

When I got to the gallery, Faye was with a
customer, so I wandered over to Pablo’s exhibit to see whether he’d
sold any more pieces. In addition to the four I already knew about,
I was excited to find another three red “sold” stickers. I was
thinking to myself that there was no way Faye could lie about the
prices these works had sold for, which meant Pablo would definitely
get his fair share of the money from these sales.

Whoa! Why was I even thinking Faye would rip
Pablo off? I realized that I was accepting Shane’s view of Faye
without giving her a chance to defend herself. Since I’d known Faye
forever, and I’d only recently met Shane, why would I take his word
as the truth?

I noticed Faye and her customer heading for
the front door. As soon as the woman left, Faye locked the door
behind her and put up the “closed” sign. I felt a wave of
apprehension. Did I really want to have this discussion with Faye
about Gramma’s money right here with just the two of us locked in
to her gallery? But I took a deep breath and told myself I was way
over-generalizing from yesterday’s encounter with Brian. Why would
I be nervous about talking to Faye?

As if to further quell my doubts, Faye
approached me with a big smile. She looked stunning as usual. Today
she wore a chic short grey cashmere dress over lacy black tights
and high-heeled suede boots. Her jewelry—silver and turquoise
necklace and earrings—looked to be handcrafted and expensive. I
mused that for someone who was having financial problems, she was
certainly keeping up appearances.

“Here’s something to be happy about,” she
said. “Pablo’s work is selling well. Look at all those red
stickers.” Then she lost the smile and sighed as she looked around
the gallery. “It’s been a hard day. Let’s go to the back room and
have a glass of wine while we talk.” She beckoned me to follow
her.

As I walked behind her, my new phone rang.
Only Lacey and Pablo had that number, which meant the call was
important. “I’ll be right there,” I said, stopping and pulling out
my phone. “Just let me quickly get this call.”

It was Pablo. I walked back over to his
exhibit as I answered. “Hey, I’m standing here in Faye’s gallery
looking at all your red stickers,” I said. “Very exciting.”

There was a long silence. Then he began to
speak slowly and carefully. “Cleo, I’m hoping you haven’t talked to
Faye about the eBay fraud. Just answer yes or no whether you have
or not. Don’t say anything else.”

“No,” I said.

“Good,” he said quietly. “Now I need to give
you some information and you need to listen carefully. It’s very
important that you stay calm and don’t react to anything I say. Got
that?”

“Okay,” I said in my very calmest therapist
voice, as I walked away from his exhibit to get where Faye couldn’t
hear me so easily.

“I found out more about the eBay fraud after
I left you that message earlier,” he said. “Now remember not to
react when I tell you this. It looks very likely that the eBay
seller TheBestArt4U is Faye Whitton.”

Omigod! I stifled a huge gasp by turning it
into a deep breath. My head was spinning. “How do you know?” I
asked in a whispery voice.

“I can’t go into that now,” he said. “You
need to leave the gallery right away.”

I had worked my way into a corner at the
front of the gallery by then, where I was looking at a large oil
painting of a brown and white cow. I didn’t notice Faye come up
behind me until she put her hand on my shoulder. I jumped about a
foot and pulled away from her touch.

“Hey,” she said, laughingly. “I didn’t mean
to scare you. Who’s the important call that’s keeping you away from
that wine?”

“It’s Pablo,” I said. “I’ll be done in a
minute.”

She grabbed the phone out of my hand. “Pablo,
Cleo has to go now,” she said. “We have some wine to drink. She’ll
call you later.” Then she disconnected my call and danced off to
the back of the gallery with my phone in her hand. I heard it start
to ring again as she went.

“Wait a minute, Faye. I need to go now and I
need my phone.” I dashed after her as she disappeared into the back
room. My phone was still ringing. “I need to meet Pablo. That’s
probably him now, so I’ll have to pass on the wine and the talk,” I
said as I pushed aside the curtain that covered the doorway into
the back room.

“No problem. There isn’t any wine anyway,”
Faye said. I looked in and gasped in horror. Faye stood facing me
with a gun in her hand and next to her was Angelica tied to a chair
with a gag in her mouth. Impossible! Tied up and threatened with a
gun two days in a row! This was way too much for a ten-year-old,
even if she is an Indigo child. Angelica had been at her breaking
point yesterday. What must she be feeling now? I wanted to rush
over and wrap my arms around her, but Faye’s gun kept me rooted
where I stood.

Panic shot through me like a lightening bolt.
Sure we’d gotten away lucky yesterday, but what are the odds of
escaping armed capture two days in a row?

“What’s going on Faye? You can’t keep us
prisoner. Pablo knows I’m with you and he’ll probably head right
over to find me since you hung up on his call and I haven’t
answered since. You know he can be here in about thirty
minutes.”

“He won’t find us here,” she said sharply,
“because we’re leaving right now. Go untie and ungag Angelica.
We’re going somewhere private where we can talk without
interference from Pablo or anyone else.”

I was shaking so hard that I could barely
walk over to where Angelica sat, and when I did get there my
trembly fingers could not untie the knots.

“Quit stalling, Cleo,” Faye barked. “If you
waste any more time, I’ll have to shoot you both right now.”

She must be crazy. Would she really risk
shooting one or both of us right here where someone would be sure
to hear? If I had been her only prisoner, I probably would have
called her bluff and tried to make a break for it. But I couldn’t
take that chance with Angelica. I pulled myself together enough to
get the knots undone and give her arms little soothing pats.
Angelica sat quietly even after her gag was out. I wondered whether
she was in shock.

“Walk to the back door, Angelica,” Faye said.
“I’ll be right behind you with the gun, so don’t even think about
trying anything. Faye picked up a black jacket and threw it over
her right arm to cover the gun as she walked over to stand behind
Angelica. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said. “My car is in
the underground parking behind the building. Angelica will open the
door and we’ll all walk out. “Cleo, you will close the door behind
us and lock it.” She tossed me a set of keys. “It’s the key with
the red thing at the top.”

“Faye, think about what you’re doing,” I
said. “What do you want from us?”

“You don’t need to know the details now,” she
snapped. “Open the door, Angelica. And if we see anyone, both of
you better act normal. I have my gun pointed right at Angelica’s
back.”

Angelica opened the door and walked through.
Faye followed close behind her. I walked through, closing and
locking the door behind me as instructed.

“Now hand me the keys,” Faye said, reaching
back with her left hand. I put the keys in her hand, then
remembered my phone.

“Wait. My phone. We left it in there. Give me
back the keys so I can get it.”

Faye laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Cleo. Do
you really think I want you to have your phone?”

Duh. What was I thinking? I shut up and
followed along behind her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a
couple on the sidewalk at the end of the alley. I turned my head in
their direction and made silent faces. Please let them notice and
come over. But no such luck. They disappeared from view and we
continued across the alley into the underground parking. When Faye
clicked the remote door opener on her keys, a black SUV in the
front row blinked its lights and beeped in response.

“Get in the back, Cleo,” Faye said. Once I
was in, she opened the driver’s side front door and pushed Angelia
in and over to the passenger seat. Then Faye got in, slammed the
door, and pulled out into the alley, driving with her left hand and
keeping the gun in her right.

Angelica and I sat in silence. I had no idea
what was going on in her mind, but I was frantically racking my
brain for some way to get us both free. Hitting Faye while she was
driving could get us all killed. Way too risky. I couldn’t abandon
Angelica by opening the door and jumping out. Suddenly I realized
that my other cell phone—the one that Brian had tapped into—was in
my purse. Faye probably hadn’t thought I had two cell phones. I
carefully and quietly reached into my purse and grabbed that phone.
Of course I couldn’t make a call, but I might be able to get away
with sending a text message to Pablo.

I had no idea how much time I had before Faye
stopped, but I figured it wasn’t long. She had been driving north
on Broadway for several miles. I started typing:
911 hostage
w/faye gun her SUV
. The thumb typing was slow and awkward for
me, because I’m not a frequent texter. I silently cursed the
cell-phone keyboard. If Faye turned around, I was cooked. I could
barely think over the pounding of my heart as I typed on:
n on
bdwy help asap
.

I sent off the message, turned off my phone,
and jammed it back into my purse just as Faye pulled in to a small
strip mall, where she drove around back and parked. Now I could
only hope Pablo would be checking messages and that Angelica and I
could somehow hang on until the police found us.

Faye stepped out of the car, keeping her gun
trained on Angelica. “Get out,” she snapped, motioning Angelica out
through the driver’s side door. “You too, Cleo. Come over here.
Right now! Move!” She stepped up to a door in the middle of a squat
building and handed me a key. “Unlock the door.”

She shoved us into a long dimly lit room
lined with modular cabinets fitted with mesh panels and racks that
stored artwork. The cabinets were open on both sides to allow the
art to slide out easily and I could see scads of paintings in them.
It looked like the holdings of a much larger gallery than Faye’s.
Maybe this was where she stored the illegal copies she sold on
eBay.

Faye noticed me scoping out the space. “I
rent this building to keep paintings that I don’t have room for in
the gallery,” she said as if she were having a normal everyday
conversation with a visitor. “Rents are a lot lower out here, and
the building is climate controlled.” Suddenly Faye had swung from
kidnapper to tour guide. She sounded so much like her usual self
that for a minute I almost thought this whole thing was a joke.

But she waved her gun at me again and
reverted to her sharp authoritarian tone. “Don’t just stand there
staring, Cleo. Lock the door and give me back my keys.” My goal at
that point was to stall as much as possible, hoping a delay would
give Pablo time to find us while we were both still alive. But I
didn’t want to drag my feet so obviously that Faye would notice. So
I locked up as slowly as I thought I could get away with and handed
her the keys. Once that was done, Faye pointed to a corner of the
room. “See those chairs there. Bring three of them over. I’ll stand
here with Angelica.”

Again, I cooperated like a kindergarten kid
hoping for a sticker. I didn’t see what else I could do. I couldn’t
risk Angelica’s life by refusing to obey Faye’s orders. Plus I had
a naïve hope that if I followed her instructions without making a
fuss, she’d eventually let us go the way Brian had the day
before.

Before we sat down, Faye had me arrange the
chairs so that we sat side-by-side and she faced the two of us, gun
in hand. Once we were seated, Angelica looked Faye in the eyes and
spoke. “You are surrounded by muddy blue energy, Faye,” she said
quietly. “It tells me that you’re scared and worried, and not
facing the truth about your future. I’ve seen that negative energy
around you before, but not always. When I saw it I thought you were
having a bad day or not feeling well, but now I know that you are
seriously troubled. I’ve tried to give you positive energy, but all
you can see is your fear.”

Seriously troubled? That’s the way Angelica
describes a woman who is holding us at gunpoint and threatening to
shoot us? This brave sweet child had guts enough to try to help a
madwoman regardless of danger to herself, but I was terrified that
her candor might get her shot.

I wanted to distract Faye and I wanted to
keep her talking to buy more time for Pablo to show up. “We’ve
followed your instructions. You’ve gotten us out here. Now I need
to know what this is all about,” I said firmly.

Faye’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t have to tell
you anything,” she barked.

I didn’t answer or react, letting my silence
exert a subtle pressure on Faye to fill the space. Sure enough, in
about a minute Faye spoke up, her face contorted in anger.
“Angelica came to the gallery this afternoon to let me know that
Mirabel—my former friend and partner—made a new will that leaves me
hanging out to dry. I’m furious that she would do that. Her
expectations were ridiculous.” Faye leaned forward menacingly, gun
front and center, voice shaking. “Mirabel never understood gallery
finances. Every time we hit a low point, she accused me of
mismanagement. Apparently she took her revenge by not leaving me
the gallery I’ve devoted all these years to building. But I’m not
going to let her get away with that.”