Night of the Living Deb Read online

  “Fine and dandy.”

  “You find the money?”

  I felt the weight of the bag in my hand. “It’s here, only minus a few packs, Stephen, I’m sorry. But if you want those bills, we can come back for them. They’ll just be a little more colorful than they were a few minutes ago,” I confessed, ducking through the back door of the club, eager to get out of the place.

  “Andy, you didn’t?” he said, but I wasn’t about to let him dwell on something like red-stained funny money, not when I felt such a rush of hope.

  “I think I know where Malone is being held,” I told him, “and I want to get him out. Tonight.”

  No more fooling around.

  It was time to end this nightmare, once and for all, and I was willing to do whatever it would take.

  No more Ms. Nice Girl.

  Chapter 21

  In mere minutes, Allie produced the address for Oleksiy Petrenko. Seriously, she pinned down that location faster than Donald Trump could spit out his trademark “You’re fired,” thanks to her work on the alleged money launderer’s defense team.

  Though it was Cissy who quickly gathered enough facts about the man’s digs to do a real estate listing. Okay, sure, she got the scoop from an Ebby Halliday agent-friend of hers, Margie Fenton, whose specialty was handling upscale homes, so a fast cell-phone call did the trick. Mother feigned interest in the property on behalf of a pal moving home from London. The CIA would do well to recruit her, if they had any sense.

  From the sound of things, this Petrenko was no slouch, having scooped up a five-million-dollar-plus French traditional mansion in prestigious Preston Hollow for something in the mid-four-million range. Woo doggie, what a steal! It had eight bedrooms, 6.2 baths, surrounded by a creek and waterfalls, as well as a privacy fence.

  Heck, everyone should have eight bedrooms and a waterfall in their backyard, right?

  I thought of the article I’d read online that called Oleksiy a modern-day Horatio Alger, coming from Ukraine with nothing but the clothes on his back and making his fortune, but I wondered how much of what he had was due to ill-gotten gains.

  And they said that crime didn’t pay.

  Hogwash.

  We used Stephen’s wireless laptop to get online and link to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, or rather, to scoop on the mega-million-dollar art heist from that site in 1990, as I had a gut feeling about that bookmarked article in Malone’s Smithsonian being tied to the painting in the photograph with Trayla.

  And damned if my gut wasn’t right.

  It took a couple page-downs to spot it, but there it was: La Sortie Du Pelage by Degas, 10 1 6 cm. Pencil and watercolour on paper. It depicted a jockey on a horse being led toward the racetrack, people milling about. Lots of deep pinks and browns with a touch of green.

  That was it.

  I had no doubt it was the artwork in Trayla’s pic, the one Lu said her pal had swiped from the expensive condo Petrenko had rented.

  I wondered when Oleksiy had noticed it missing.

  About the same time he got wind that she would testify against him?

  Was the Degas still in her dressing room when Brian had followed her backstage on Saturday? Had he seen it and recognized it from the Smithsonian magazine article about the museum thefts? Had he asked where she’d obtained it, knowing it was stolen?

  If she’d confessed, he must’ve realized that his client, Oleksiy Petrenko, had a hot piece of art on his hands. That was the kind of dirt even a good laundering couldn’t wash off, particularly for a man heading to trial in a few short weeks.

  I had a strong sense my upstanding boyfriend had confronted Petrenko, informing him that, as an attorney, he was obligated to go to the authorities with the information about the black-market Degas.

  Oh, boy, I thought, realizing how that would’ve gone over with a Ukrainian mobster; doubtless much the same way my couture-conscious mother would react should someone insist she wear Lycra.

  It made perfect sense why Petrenko wouldn’t want to let Brian go.

  And why he’d gotten rid of Trayla.

  They were both loose ends for Oleksiy, though he’d obviously deemed one more expendable than the other.

  But he might decide Brian needed taking care of, too.

  How could he risk anyone sniffing around and finding out what Malone had doubtless learned? I imagined Petrenko was already making plans to dispose of my boyfriend soon.

  Which is why my posse and I had to quickly cook up a plan to liberate my dude, and we didn’t have a moment to waste.

  We reconnected at the IHOP, since I needed to retrieve my Jeep from where I’d left it near the Dumpster.

  Over a round of hot coffee—not my favorite, but the caffeine couldn’t hurt—I offered what I thought was the most logical suggestion: to storm the estate. Mother could alert her friends in the media, have them blind Petrenko with flashbulbs and cameras while we tore his mansion apart, looking for Malone.

  Unfortunately, no one else was too keen on the idea.

  In fact, Stephen shot it down ASAP, no more thrilled about that than he’d been when I explained why I’d set off the red dye packs, ruining several bundles of the borrowed counterfeit bills. (“Oh, Andy, you didn’t have to do that, did you? I hope Dan doesn’t kill us both.” I figured Stephen’s pal, the former Treasury agent, wanting to strangle me was the least of my worries.)

  Stephen suggested going back to Mother’s and getting some sleep first, as it was nearly midnight by then; but I wasn’t willing to wait until morning.

  My momentum was rolling forward, and I had no intention of putting a halt to the bulldozer within until we’d freed my boyfriend.

  Oddly enough, Allie felt the same way, nixing rest until Brian was safe. And since she had more insight to Petrenko than anybody, I ventured to guess she was as afraid as I was that Oleksiy might dispose of Malone posthaste.

  What we all could agree upon was the element of surprise, which would be on our side, as what alleged money launderer slash kidnapper slash killer would suspect the ding-dong of the front bell in the middle of the night?

  Although I wasn’t keen on what kind of schedule applied to criminal types; maybe they kept different hours than the rest of us, working at night like vampires rather than during the daylight.

  I found myself wondering if Oleksiy could see his reflection.

  Or if he ate garlic, or slept in a coffin in his wine cellar, which Margie had told Cissy was temperature- and humidity-controlled and capable of housing upward of a thousand bottles.

  Well, heck, there was stuff about blood for wine in the Bible, right? Who says it couldn’t work in reverse?

  Could be Oleksiy satisfied his blood thirst with a fragrant merlot or cabernet sauvignon.

  I heard a buzz in my brain, like a bug fried in a zapper.

  Holy cow.

  Wait a minute.

  Wait a dad-gummed minute.

  Oleksiy’s wine cellar.

  Could that possibly be Malone’s prison?

  I thought back to Brian’s phone call, the way his cell kept going in and out, like he was driving through a tunnel.

  The only time my phone did that was when I was in a concrete-reinforced building, driving beneath an underpass, or using underground parking.

  Maybe my dude had been subterranean when he’d been forced to dial me up and act like we were finito.

  Digging basements beneath existing houses was all the rage for the well-to-do in the Park Cities and Preston Hollow.

  I figured Petrenko’s manse had to have a nice-sized hole in the ground if it housed such a spectacular room for wine storage.

  I’d detected a faint noise, too, before Brian had cut me off.

  The clicking sound of an AC turning on, or so I’d assumed; though I was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t a unit that maintained temp and humidity so the air around the bottles of vino would be perfectly controlled.

&
nbsp; “Andrea, are you listening to me?” Cissy poked my shin with her boot, and I shook off the brain fog, noting that Stephen and Allie also stared at me from across the blue vinyl booth. “I had an idea about how to distract this man, Paprika, so we can get into the house unnoticed.”

  “Paprika?” It took a second to register who she was talking about. “You mean Petrenko, don’t you, Mother?”

  She gave me one of her looks. “Yes, of course I do. Who else?”

  Oh, I don’t know. Mr. Paprika’s good chums, Dr. Pepper and Mrs. Dash?

  I wondered if either one was available for a midnight B&E.

  Hmmm.

  “We should call the police,” my mother continued, which got my full attention.

  Call the police? Was she out of her mind?

  I saw Allie open her mouth, and I was sure she itched to comment as well; but Cissy waved a manicured hand, effectively cutting off any argument.

  “Let me finish, please,” she said, and I acquiesced, no matter how painful. “I could phone on my cell, pretending to be a neighbor, asking those rather unpleasant detectives who interrogated us to check on a domestic disturbance at the Petrenko place.”

  Ah, yes, the infamous Starsky and Hutch.

  I’m sure they’d be a big help, particularly since they wanted to pin Trayla’s murder on Brian. No doubt they’d be overjoyed to aid in his rescue so they could toss him in the slammer and throw away the key.

  Cissy caught the roll of my eyes and frowned. “I’m not done yet, Andrea.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “We could use the delivery entrance in back to slip onto the property,” she went on, ignoring me. “Margie assures me the unmanned back gate isn’t much more than a metal arm, like at any standard parking garage. Mr. Petrenko”—

  she emphasized his name—“hasn’t yet upgraded.”

  “Well, that’s great, except for one thing,” I piped up, as Allie and Stephen both looked unwilling to contradict my mother. “Once we get onto the property, who’s going to let us into the house? I’m sure Mr. Petrenko doesn’t leave a door unlocked for strangers.”

  “I can let you in,” Allie said in a quiet voice that sounded not at all like her, though she’d been unusually silent since we’d left the strip club. I figured she was upset that Stephen had kept her from joining me in exploding red dye packs on Lu and Cricket. “I can let you in,” she repeated.

  “And just how do you plan to do that?” I asked.

  She leaned her forearms on the table, blond hair swaying over her shoulders, as she explained: “I think I should arrive first, before you call the police, Mrs. Kendricks. I could insist on talking to Oleksiy about the witness list and the problem of Brian going AWOL after interviewing the woman who turned up dead, Betsy Wren. I’ll tell him I couldn’t sleep, worrying about it, which is why I ended up on his doorstep when it’s not exactly business hours.”

  “That could be dangerous, honey,” Stephen said, obviously taking her seriously. “But if we’ve got the police en route, maybe it’s worth the risk.”

  Allie leaned forward, over the table, her eyes flickering with excitement. I could tell she enjoyed being in the middle of things, rather than playing second fiddle. “After I’ve been there a few minutes, I’ll ask to use the ladies’ room, only I’ll slip into the back and unlock a door to let y’all in. I’ll be there before he thinks twice, and he’ll never know the difference. That’ll give you a chance to scurry down to the basement and see if Brian’s there. If he is, we’ll have the cops showing up on the premises to take

  care of things, won’t we?”

  That’s assuming Starsky and Hutch believed Mother’s portrayal of a distressed neighbor and showed up at all, versus sending a patrol car; and, if they did, we’d have to hope they listened to our tale of Petrenko as kidnapper as opposed to arresting us for breaking into the millionaire

  businessman’s abode.

  “How many hired guns does Petrenko have watching his back, Allie?” I asked, since no one else had.

  “So far as I’m aware, he has two bodyguards,” she said.

  “Are they really armed?”

  “Oleksiy can’t pack heat, or he’ll have his bail revoked,”

  she told me, which wasn’t what I’d asked.

  “But his goons can?” I squinted at her.

  “They won’t shoot me, Andy,” she insisted, and flipped her blond tresses like a girl in a shampoo ad.

  Yeah, but would they shoot moi?

  “He goes on trial in a couple weeks, Kendricks, with enough charges against him to put him away for the rest of his life, if he’s convicted. He’s not gonna risk murdering people in his own backyard,” Blondezilla assured me.

  Though I wasn’t entirely convinced. The dude had killed Trayla, hadn’t he? (Or ordered a murder-to-go, at any rate.)

  Still, I couldn’t come up with anything better than Allie or Mother had suggested, so I caved.

  “All right.” I sighed. “Let’s do it. And now. I don’t want to sit around talking anymore. We’re wasting precious time.”

  I was already hearing the music from The Sting in my head, imagining Robert Redford and Paul Newman setting Oleksiy up to take a big fall.

  Until I turned to Stephen and read his sour expression.

  For Pete’s sake.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him, almost afraid of what I’d hear.

  “I’m not sure I like any of this,” Cissy’s beau remarked, looking as worried as I’d seen him. “But let me figure a few things out. I’ve got a map on my laptop, and I need to make a call or two before we leave. Can you give me ten minutes, Andy?” He stared straight at me; like he was afraid I’d take off without him and botch the whole thing up.

  “Yeah, okay. Ten minutes.” That was about all I could stand.

  “Y’all stay here, and I’ll be back in a few.”

  He picked up the bill and headed toward the cashier, before disappearing out the door; if I peered through the dark of the window, I could see him heading to his Volvo in the parking lot.

  Mother, Allie, and I finished up our coffee, no one saying much of anything until Stephen returned, smiling tightly. He sat down and set a piece of paper on the table so everyone could get a gander.

  Then, slowly and carefully, he laid out the plan for infiltrating Oleksiy Petrenko’s mansion to search for Brian, with an emphasis on minimal muss and fuss. When he was done and all questions had been asked and answered, he took the page, folded it up, and stowed it in his jacket.

  I realized as I looked around at my posse that we were all dressed in black, rather like a murder of crows, perching on bright blue vinyl benches.

  I felt more than a little like James Bond as we synchronized watches, made sure cell phones were switched to vibrate and 911 was locked into speed dial.

  After which, Stephen clapped his hands, something my father used to do, and said, “What say we get this show on the road?”

  I don’t think I could’ve hopped to my feet any faster had he yelled, “The griddle’s on fire, the barrels of syrup have exploded, and the whole danged pancake house is set to blow!”

  It was time to rock and roll.

  Chapter 22

  The clock struck midnight as we dropped off the extra cars at Mother’s house and began putting

  our plan in motion.

  Allie would go first, driving her shiny red Roadster straight up to Petrenko’s front security gate, while Stephen parked his black Volvo just beyond the delivery entrance in the back. We’d slip past the metal bar on foot; well, Stephen and I would, anyway.

  Cissy had agreed to remain in the car, waiting at least fifteen minutes before she phoned the police pretending to be Petrenko’s neighbor. Stephen would be my scout, making sure the coast was clear before I headed in; like a third base coach, he would signal me in when the time was right.

  I was supposed to speed-dial Cissy on my cell and cry uncle
should anything seem amiss. If that happened, Mother was to contact the cops immediately. Otherwise, once Allie unlocked the back door, I would immediately slip down to the cellar to see if my dude was being held captive.

  If Malone wasn’t there . . . Well, I’d think about that later.

  For now, I’d believe that we’d find Brian before Mother tipped off Detective Swiercynski (aka Starsky) and his partner to the “disturbance” at Petrenko’s place; which meant we’d be ready for them when they arrived, so Malone could spill all. I had a feeling he’d have a lot to share with them about stolen art and murder.

  I could hardly wait.

  Seeing Brian alive and well and Petrenko and his goons in handcuffs would be the best birthday present ever, far better than a dinner party with a menu full of food I didn’t want to eat.

  Mother went over each step of the plan ad infinitum while Stephen guided the Volvo north of Highland Park, to the wide streets of Preston Hollow. Most of the large residences looked like hulking shadows, silhouetted against the faint glimmer of the moon and the dull glow of street lamps. I saw few windows lit up, attesting to the fact that all the good blue bloods and new bloods had long since gone to bed.

  A handful of the mansions were set too far back to glimpse, particularly when hidden by tall brick or wooden fences. Nearly all had metal signs posted with various logos of security firms.

  We didn’t pass a single car en route to Petrenko’s place, though Stephen’s dark Volvo sedan blended well enough into the neighborhood so as not to arouse suspicion. If we’d been driving my Jeep Wrangler, on the other hand, someone might’ve dialed the cops, thinking an underage teen, out past curfew, was looking for a yard to trench.

  As we rolled through a back alley, as per the printed-out map Stephen had located on an outdated Web page with the property listing, I glanced nervously around us, out the windows into the bleak of midnight, the dim shapes of trees and shrubbery standing sentry on our either side. I kept waiting for someone to jump out, one of Oleksiy’s men armed with an AK-47, but we pulled up to the back gate without incident.

  Stephen shut off the engine.

  I dialed Allie’s cell, waited for her to pick up, and announced, “We’re in place.”