She didn’t have a lot of cash left, though, so she’d have to get
The account manager came out of the office, her brow furrowed in a way that told Drea there was no way she could get the entire hundred thou in cash. “I’m sorry,” she began, but Drea shook her head.
“It’s all right. How about twenty thousand in cash, or even fifteen, and the remainder in a cashier’s check. That would be plenty. I don’t know what I was thinking; I sure don’t want to be traveling with that much cash.”
The woman’s expression cleared. “I know we can do fifteen in cash, but let me see about twenty-”
Time was getting too short. “I’ve taken up too much of your time,” Drea said. “Fifteen would be great.”
“Are you sure? It won’t take a minute to check-”
“Thank you, but don’t go to the trouble.”
Finally she had her fifteen thousand in cash, one hundred and fifty hundred-dollar bills, and a cashier’s check for the remainder. The cash was surprisingly bulky, which made her glad she hadn’t been able to get the entire amount in cash. She’d have had to buy a small suitcase just to hold the money, which would be a tad conspicuous. At least the fifteen thousand would fit in her bag.
She had to sign a couple of forms, then at last the transaction was finished. “Thank you so much,” she said, then looked at her watch and hurried from the bank.
She was almost twenty minutes late getting to the salon, and the stylist was in a pissy mood because of it, but he cheered up when she indicated her mass of long corkscrew curls and said, “Cut it off, and I want to go smoother and darker.” Like most stylists, he loved cutting long hair and going for a drastic change.
An hour and a half later, she walked out of the salon a brunette, her hair in a shaggy cut that was a little spiky on top. It looked sharp as hell, and she loved it. Her entire face looked different, stronger, the bone structure more evident. She wasn’t Drea Rousseau now, she was someone else, a woman who didn’t take any crap from anyone.
She’d have to think of a new name, a name that would fit her new self. Somewhere along the line she’d have to get a new driver’s license, but she’d worry about that later. Right now, she needed wheels.
A little over five hours later, she crossed into Pennsylvania, heading west. Her car was a maroon Camry, a little the worse for wear with some rust eating at the metal and a collection of dents and dings on the fenders, but the tires were good and the engine ran okay.
Soon, she thought, she’d be driving a Cadillac. Or maybe a Mercedes. In a couple of days she’d be in Kansas, and from there, who knew? She could pick anywhere she wanted, and Rafael Salinas could kiss her ass.
9
RAFAEL ALMOST DIDN’T TAKE THE CALL WHEN HE SAW IT was from his bank. He’d been awake all night, fueled by coffee and anxiety, but hour after hour had passed with no word from whoever had taken Drea and he’d lost whatever faint hope he’d had, which had never been much, that she might somehow be ransomed or exchanged.
“ Salinas,” he said curtly. “What is it?”
“Mr. Salinas, this is Manuel Flores, with-”
“Yeah, I know who you’re with, I saw the Caller ID.” He just wanted the guy to get to the point and get off the phone. He didn’t have the patience today to deal with penny-ante shit, not when he knew Drea was probably dead somewhere and he couldn’t even grieve without looking like a pussy in front of his men.
“Ah…yes, well. The bank did send an e-mail yesterday alerting you to the transfer that was made, but I wanted to follow up and-”
“Transfer?” Rafael was exhausted, but not so exhausted his attention wasn’t caught. He sat up straight and snapped his fingers at Orlando, pointing to the phone and then his bedroom. “What transfer?”
Orlando strode into the bedroom and a second later there was a click as he picked up on the call.
“Ah…the transfer of funds from your account into Ms. Butts’s account. The, ah, account that was listed as Drea Rousseau.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Like he didn’t know Drea’s real name? He didn’t have a problem with her using Rousseau as her last name instead of Butts. Hell, who would? He sure as hell hadn’t wanted to introduce her as Drea Butts. “I didn’t make any transfer yesterday.”
A distinctly worried note entered Flores ’s voice. “A sizable transfer was made yesterday afternoon, and even though the transfer was verified as coming from your IP address, with your password, the amount was unusual so as a matter of policy an e-mail notification was generated alerting you to this transaction. Then, this morning, when I became aware that all of the funds were transferred from Ms. Butts’s account late yesterday afternoon, I thought a personal phone call was in order-”
“I didn’t transfer anything into her account yesterday!” Rafael bellowed, getting up and walking into his bedroom where Orlando was already sitting in front of Rafael’s laptop, checking his e-mail account. With everything going on yesterday, Rafael hadn’t bothered with crap like that.
Orlando scrolled quickly through the messages, then looked up at Rafael and shook his head. “There’s no message from the bank here,” he said.
“I didn’t get any e-mail,” Rafael snapped. “If I had, I’d have called, because I didn’t transfer any money yesterday. How much we talking about?”
“Ah…two million, one hundred thousand dollars.”
Rafael felt as if his head was going to explode. “What?” What the hell was going on? Had whoever snatched Drea forced her to give them the money in her account? But who in hell had transferred it from his account into hers in the first place? Drea didn’t have his password, and it wasn’t like he had it written down anywhere for her to get, not that she’d have recognized it as anything other than his cell phone number anyway.
“Ah-”
“If you say ‘ah’ one more time I’m going to reach through this phone and rip your fucking throat out,” Rafael said harshly. “I didn’t transfer anything yesterday, I sure as hell didn’t transfer any two million bucks, and I didn’t get a fucking e-mail. So put the money back in my account!”
“I-I can’t,” Flores stammered. Rafael could almost hear the “ah” he’d barely stifled. “The transfer was made from your IP address using your password, and in any case, as I told you, the entire amount was transferred out late yesterday afternoon. Our bank no longer has control of these funds.”
“Somebody ripped me off, and I don’t give a fuck what the bank controls and what it doesn’t. You people let somebody get my money, so you can damn well get it back.”
“We can’t do that, Mr. Salinas. Legally, the bank’s hands are tied-”
“There’s no way in hell the transfer was made from my computer, because I didn’t do it, so don’t tell me about legal!”
Orlando got a very peculiar look on his face. Abruptly he got up and left the bedroom, leaving Rafael shouting into the phone. He was back in less than a minute, carrying Drea’s laptop. He placed it beside Rafael’s laptop on the desk, disconnected Rafael’s machine, and connected Drea’s. Then he opened her e-mail program and began scrolling. She had about twenty messages, most of them junk from various stores where she’d done some online shopping, so going through them didn’t take long. Orlando stopped scrolling and pointed at the screen.
“Hold on,” Rafael said into the phone, bending down to look at where Orlando was pointing. Orlando opened the message and there it was, the e-mail the bank had sent. What was his e-mail doing on Drea’s computer?
“We found your e-mail,” he snarled. “It didn’t come to me, it went to my girlfriend. You couldn’t even get that right, so-”
“I assure you, Mr. Salinas, the e-mail went to the address that’s specified in your account information.”
“I set it up myself, and I sure as hell didn’t use my girlfriend’s e-mail address, I used my own.”
“Nevertheless, that’s the address that’s on our records now, and any change came from you using your password, so we have to assume you knew what you wanted to do.”
