Return of the Dixie Deb (16 page)

“What’s going on?” He knelt down beside the liquor cabinet and opened the door. The storage space under the cabinet seemed unusually shallow. He moved out some bottles of non-vintage wine and sparkling cider. Evidently, Albertine didn’t believe in wasting money on the good stuff. He ran his hand along the back panel.

“I found this shoved in a garment bag with my name on it in the back. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Looks like someone did a number on my gown. Pammy, probably. Like taking Tim wasn’t enough for her. Not that I was ever going to be using it, but I did pay for it so I do think it was my property. So much for selling it on E-bay.”

“What do you mean?”

The rear panel moved under his fingers. It had been custom-engineered. For no good purpose, probably. And not to hide the good booze he’d wager. He held his breath as he pushed the panel to one side, his fingertips touching manila folders. He pulled out half a dozen and reached back for the others.

She sat down behind him on the edge of Albertine’s desk holding up the gown.

“Look. This bodice has been ripped and the skirt is still plain after I paid good money for it to be hand embroidered.”

He half-listened, sorting through the files on his lap.

“It was only a couple weeks before the wedding when the whole thing collapsed. My dress should have been finished by then. Look at this, Mac. It isn’t anything like the crystals Albertine let me pick from.”

He glanced up as she held out a crystal disc on a fraying thread from the edge of a sleeve, freezing for an instant. He reached out to take what she was offering, holding it up in the moonlight. The files on his lap slid to the floor.

He stood.

“This was on your dress,” he said when he found his voice again.

“It looks like it was torn off along with a bunch more. But it’s not the right kind. It’s not anything like what I choose. It looks like…”

“Like a silicon chip. Oh, Jan.” He caught his breath. “Tell me about your dress. What was it supposed to be like?”

“Well.” She stood and held the dress up to her, letting the skirt fall to the floor. “The top has these cap sleeves and was going to have hand-sewn crystals on it. Then the skirt was going to be embroidered with a short train. That’s what I finally decided on.”

“With Albertine’s guidance.”

“Yes. She thought it would suit me since I’m tall. My mother is down in Florida and because Dad has emphysema, they don’t travel much. So, I was kind of on my own.”

“And your dress had to be back when?”

“Four weeks before the wedding so the final fittings could be done.”

“Which would be mid-January. So did you go in for the fittings?”

“Um, no. I didn’t.” She made a face. “There was some kind of delay. Albertine called and said they were backed up with work.”

“I thought this was supposed to be the slow season for weddings.”

“Yeah. Well, it was something like that. And then, of course, Tim left. With everything going on, I forget what it was exactly that she did say.”

“If it came back wrong, all hell would break loose.” The last week in December had been when the cryptic messages in Albertine’s day planner had begun.

He picked up the folders. “Here’s your client folder and your friend, Miss Zerkle’s. I assume your dress was similar to hers.”

“Kind of. She brought her wedding pictures into the gym one day when I was there and I saw them. What’s that got to do with it?”

He ignored her question. “They don’t do the beadwork, the extra stuff here you said. They send it away. Somewhere overseas?”

“Right. Albertine said they send it away because the seamstresses in Asia are better and cheaper than here.”

She wrinkled her forehead. “One time when I was in here she said they’d found a better workshop in Hong Kong.” Her voice slowed.

Hong Kong. H. K.

“Before that, they’d been using another place in the Philippines.”

Call Philip.

“When I called here trying to reach Tim with some questions about the business, they said he was away on a business trip over there.”

Mac held up Jan’s file folder on his lap. On the first page the word Gators had been written in scented floral ink.

“Well, my dear, I think your wedding consultants are into some very, very nasty, not to mention illegal, stuff. Catch.”

He tossed her the microchip.

****

Mac gripped the steering wheel, leaning forward to peer through the raindrops that were beginning to spatter the windshield. The wind was starting to pick up.

“There should be a shopping area around here where we can find a pay phone.”

“And you’re going to call the I.R.S.?”

“I want to try to get hold of Gordon Andrews, the auditor who had you in his office back in Atlanta. He’s familiar with your case. He also knows Whittaker and has F.B.I. experience himself. If I can convince him we have something to trade, he may be able to get the Bureau to calm down, back off, and give us a chance to explain things.”

“It looks like there’s a convenience store up ahead.” She pointed to a neon sign beyond the intersection.

“Yeah, I see it. I’m going to give it a try.” He waited on the light to change before pulling into the parking lot.

“I should have his card.” He shifted and got his wallet from his back pocket. “I stuck it in here. Hey!” He held up a business card. “I’ll just leave a message on his voice mail explaining as much as I can and letting him know how to contact us. You wait here. It’s really starting to come down now.”

She watched as he made a dash. Low growls of thunder were moving in. They were lucky it hadn’t started to rain while they were jimmying the window or trying to read things by moonlight back in Albertine’s office. At the pay phone outside the store entrance, Mac sheltered himself while he used the phone. She thought he must have made a connection from the time he spent on the phone.

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest and allowed her mind to drift. So Albertine had gotten her bank password and been able to move money in and out of her account even before Tim had broken up with her. And it had to do with the chip she’d found still attached to her dress. She opened her eyes as Mac got in again.

“Mission accomplished.” He ran his hands through his damp hair, combing it back. “It’s really starting to come down out there.”

She waited as he started the car, backed up, and turned out onto the street again.

“So what did you say? I’m lost about what’s going on here, Mac. It’s over my head.”

He reached over to squeeze her hand with his cold one.

“Warm hands.” He interlaced her fingers with his and lifted her hand to brush it with his lips. “We may have found our bargaining chip in more ways than one, darlin’. I asked Andrews to meet with us. I hope I can convince him.”

He released her hand.

“The doohickey you found on your dress is actually a high-speed micro-processing chip used in classified defense work and illegal for export to a number of countries. Evidently, the chips had been sewn to the top of your dress at one time, then removed except for the one that was overlooked in haste. Or anger, I’m guessing.”

“So they were being smuggled?”

“Oh, yeah. There’s a huge market for them. I don’t know how they were obtained, but evidently, they were being sent out of the U.S. attached to certain wedding gowns. The microchips were stripped off when they got to their destination and replaced with the crystals and handwork Albertine’s clients had selected. Except there was a mix-up and your dress was returned unaltered with at least one chip still attached.”

“Albertine’s son was a tech person. I was there once when he came in to work on their computer system. Would he have something to do with it?”

“Possibly. He might be part of the pipeline. Anyway wedding gowns being shipped out of the country wouldn’t merit much of an inspection. There are notations in Albertine’s day planner about calls to H.K. and Philip. I’m guessing that it was her shorthand for Hong Kong and the Philippines. She was probably trying to figure out what was going on. There was an empty envelope in her desk with a Philippines stamp, and I bet if we can pull her phone records, we’ll find a lot of traffic between Rome and the Far East.”

“All the handwork was done overseas because of the savings. I remember she said something about switching from a company in the Philippines to one in Hong Kong. Or, maybe it was the other way around. I didn’t pay much attention.”

“The authorities somewhere may have been getting suspicious. I think there was some mix-up around the end of the year. Your dress was returned with the chips still on. Someone on this end probably pulled the microchips off in anger when they saw it except they overlooked the one you found tonight. Albertine knew it couldn’t be finished in time so Princess Pam turned up the heat with Turncoat Timmy. They started moving money in and out of your accounts and tipped off the I.R.S. With a broken engagement and a business that was collapsing along with financial troubles, you weren’t going to ask questions about your dress and if investigators came calling, the dirty money wasn’t in Wedding Belles’ accounts.”

“Wow.”

“I expect they’re all lying low now, waiting for everything to blow over, covering their tracks. It’s hard to do a complete scrub though. The I.R.S. and the Bureau have forensic accountants that should be able to reconstruct a paper trail. If the son is involved in obtaining the chips, they can pressure him, too.”

“Do you think Tim knew what was going on?”

“I don’t know, Jan.” He shrugged. “He could just be a dumb sap being used by Pammy and her mother to set you up.”

“So what’s going to happen now?”

“I left a pretty detailed message for Andrews. Tomorrow is Sunday. Hopefully, he’ll call in for his messages. Who knows? Maybe this week will wrap up this mess.”

He squeezed her thigh letting his hand linger as lightning ripped the sky ahead.

Chapter Thirteen

She reached the door first, pushing it open and holding it for Mac as he ran in behind her.

“Wow.” She laughed, running her hands through her hair and shaking off the water drops as he closed the door and fastened the latch. “I don’t think I have a dry stitch on.”

“I can tell.” Lightning forked somewhere outside the window, making the room as bright as day for an instant. “You’d be a runaway winner in a wet T-shirt contest.”

“Thanks.” She plucked at the top pulling it away from her. “I’m going to find something dry.”

“Go ahead. I want to start a fire. I think we could use one tonight.”

While she slipped into the bedroom, he ripped pieces of newspaper, balling them up and sticking them in the stove. He added twigs and splintered pieces of kindling. Striking a match, he lit the paper. Orange and yellow flames were dancing upward when he heard the bedroom door creak open. He pushed in some bigger pieces of wood and shut the stove door.

“Looks wonderful. I’m going to hang my wet stuff out here. Maybe it’ll dry by morning.”

He watched as she draped her things over the back of a chair. She had slipped on the thin cotton, apricot-colored dress from their last robbery. Her rain-wet hair held the fragrance of her shampoo.

“Sure.” He cleared his throat.

She boosted herself up on the wooden table, dangling her bare legs.

He unbuttoned his soaking shirt, letting it hang open, and straddled a chair to sit across from her.

The stove’s fire provided their only light. In its glow, she was bareness and clinging cotton, soft curves outlined against her dress. Her eyes were half-closed enjoying the warmth, her generous mouth smiling as if to herself. Outside a torrent of rain hit the roof and washed down the windows.

She opened her eyes to look at him. He knew she was aware he’d been watching her.

“We should celebrate,” she said.

“We don’t have any champagne. Maybe we should have appropriated one of Albertine’s bottles when we had the chance. But then I still remember what happened the last time you got hold of some liquor.”

“What do you mean?” She kicked her feet. “Just because I got a little tipsy and maybe loose-lipped doesn’t mean I can’t drink. There’s no one here to worry about spilling secrets to.”

“Just us.” Was it his imagination or did she seem to shiver? “The last time you drank you came on to me and I ended up sleeping on the floor.”

“I did not!” She made a face.

“Excuse me, I was there to witness it. You were giving me the full body press on the stairs. I had to carry you up, Miss Scarlett, while you were doing some interesting, inadvisable things to my neck and ear. When I finally got you over to the bed, you decided you wanted company.”

“You lie!” Jan pushed herself off the table to stand in front of the stove, hands on hips, facing him.

“You know, of course, what the light is doing to your dress. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination.”

“Like the other day?”

“Oh?”

He caught her slender fingers in his and pulled her toward him.

“You could tell, couldn’t you?”

“By the way you were staring?” Her voice trembled as he captured her against the chair. “I didn’t have to be an F.B.I. agent to figure that one out.”

“Shame on you, you tease.” He got up, kicking the chair aside and sliding his hands up her back. He pressed her soft abdomen against his hips as his hands massaged her bare legs and ass.

“Mac, this is…It’s probably not the best, the safest thing, we could be doing right now, you know.”

He kneaded her butt kissing his way up to the side of her neck. Under the thin shield of her dress, she was trembling. He found the clasp at the top of her dress, unhooking it as he lowered the zipper. He stepped back and shoved the sleeves down, letting her dress crumple to the ground.

She was all rose and shadowed darkness, softness, strength and bare femininity.

“You don’t think I was interested in going to the drug store just to buy shampoo, do you? I can only play the gentleman once.”

Her fingers spread through the dark hair on his chest pushing against him to find their way around his neck. He stooped over to catch her legs up with an arm and carry her naked into the bedroom.