Kiss and Tell

Book 23: Sisterhood

by Fern Michaels

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Putting justice in the bank

Life comes in stages. Even the Sisterhood has been content to let their gold shields gather a little dust while they enjoy their friends and family. But when a string of anonymous emails arrives at Pinewood, suggesting shady dealings at a local assisted-living facility, Myra Rutledge and her best friend Annie de Silva are more than ready to out-hustle a master con-artist at his own game. They'll need to enlist some new and untested allies in order to pull off their brilliant plan, all while Myra faces a personal challenge that will rock the Sisterhood to the core.…

Release date: June 26, 2014

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Annie de Silva blinked, then blinked again at the e-mail she was seeing on her computer screen. Her hand snaked out to the phone to the right of her computer, only to withdraw it a moment later. Another one of those weird e-mails she and Myra had been getting lately. She read it again. Only three lines, it was the most ominous-sounding of all the e-mails to date:


Annie didn’t realize that she had been holding her breath until it exploded from her mouth like a gunshot. She clicked the keys to bring up her saved mail, then scrolled down and read through her past e-mails, not that she really needed to read them. Over the past months, she’d memorized them and talked them to death with Myra and Charles as they collectively tried to figure out what the cryptic messages could possibly mean. All to no avail.

The first e-mail, sent three months ago, had only one line:


Sent by someone named [email protected]. Well, Annie thought to herself, that was true of most things in life. But why did the man or woman who went by the name of Kat send it to her and to Myra? She and Myra had both tried to respond to the e-mail to ask questions, but their replies bounced back.

The second e-mail, like the first, had only one line. But this time there were two sentences, both questions:


They had tried to reply again but had the same result—neither reply went anywhere. Well, yes, they did need a road map. Even as brilliant as Charles was, he couldn’t figure it out. Nor was he able to trace the IP address.

The third e-mail consisted of three insulting sentences, expressing their correspondent’s fury. An insult Myra, Charles, and she took personally:


Again, as with the first two e-mails, their replies did not reach their intended destination.

The fourth e-mail was short and to the point. Again, it had three sentences, breaking the pattern of adding a sentence to each e-mail:


The source of WHAT? They tried to respond once again, to no avail, at which point they were almost pulling their hair out in sheer frustration. What good, they asked themselves, was calling for help, then not allowing the people from whom you seek the help to find out what the problem was?

Annie rubbed at her temples. She felt a headache coming on. Each time she brought up one of the e-mails, she got a headache. Myra said the same thing. Charles, however, more practical, shrugged it off. She should call Myra. It was early, so maybe her friend hadn’t checked her e-mail yet today.

There were six more e-mails, but Annie decided she’d seen enough. She turned off the computer and looked at her watch. It was early, not yet seven. She decided to take a shower, have coffee, then drive over to Myra’s.

As the steaming water pelted her body, Annie let her mind race. What was today? Nothing special as far as she knew, unless Myra had something planned that she hadn’t shared. What was she supposed to see? She wasn’t blind, and she sure as hell wasn’t stupid. So why wasn’t she seeing what Kat at Gmail wanted her to? And, perhaps even more to the point, where was she supposed to be looking for whatever it was?

Annie toweled dry, fluffed at her wet hair, then looked out the bathroom window to see what kind of day it was outside. Her jaw dropped when she saw snow flurries slapping at the window. Whoa! Well, it was the week before Thanksgiving, but the weatherman hadn’t said a word about snow, flurries or otherwise. So much for meteorological science. About as reliable as bets on the roulette wheel in her casino.

Within minutes, Annie was dressed in fleece-lined sweats, heavy wool socks, and ankle boots. Minutes after that, she had a pot of coffee going. While she waited, she sat on a stool at the counter, drumming her fingers on the granite surface. Why couldn’t she figure this out? This, of course, meaning the anonymous e-mails. Anonymous because she knew in her gut that there was no way Kat at Gmail was the real name of the person sending them. So who was Kat? What kind of stake did Kat have in whatever game he or she knew was going on? Annie threw her hands high in the air and let loose with a few choice expletives that only succeeded in turning her ears pink.

Annie doused her coffee with cold milk and gulped at it. She was so anxious to be on her way to Myra’s that she barely tasted it. After setting the cup in the sink, she looked around to see if she was leaving a mess for her day lady, who came to work at nine. Then she was out the door and buttoning her jacket as she ran through the snow flurries to her car.

Ten minutes later, Annie ran through the open door to Myra’s kitchen. “Did you get the e-mail, too?” Myra asked by way of greeting.

“That’s why I’m here. What’s going on today? What are we supposed to see? Do you have something planned you didn’t tell me about? I don’t have a clue what this person is talking about. Do you, Myra?” Annie asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

“Of course I don’t. How could I? Kat refuses to give us anything concrete to go on, and do not say we are stupid, Annie, because we are not stupid. This whole thing could be something as simple as that person jerking our chain. Why, I have no idea. Then the Vigilante part of me kicks in and tells me Kat is afraid and is trying to tell us something without giving himself or herself away. There is also the mention, if you recall, of its being expensive and time-consuming to find us. Assuming that, at least, is true, it pretty much means that Kat is not jerking our chain.”

“I agree,” Annie said, snatching a piece of cold toast off Myra’s plate. “By the way, it’s snowing out. Flurrying, but the weatherman didn’t mention snow at all.”

“And this bothers you . . . why?” Myra asked. Annie grimaced. “Which just goes to prove what Kat said, to wit, nothing is as it seems. Get it?”

“I get it, Annie.” Myra sniffed.

“So today seems important to Kat. Today is the day we’re supposed to see something. But the only thing going on that I know of is our twice-monthly therapy-dog visit out at King’s Ridge. Unless you have other plans. Do you, Myra?”

“No. I gave Lady a bath last night and brushed her out. She smells great, and she just loves going out there. All that ear scratching and those delicious belly rubs. What’s not to like? I like it myself to see how happy those oldsters are when Lady prances in and does her routine. That dog is a real ham. She loves applause.”

Suddenly, Annie pounded both hands on the old oak table so hard that the coffee cups danced with the force of the blow. “Maybe that’s it! Quick, Myra, get out a calendar. Let’s see if those other e-mails came in around the dates we took Lady out to King’s Ridge.”

Excited to finally have a possible clue, Myra raced into the laundry room, where a colorful calendar featuring magnificent golden retrievers marked the months. She ran back to the kitchen and shoved it under Annie’s nose.

“Do you remember the dates those e-mails came in, Myra?”

“No, but it won’t take more than a minute or so to find out.” Myra whirled around and hit a key on her computer. Within a minute her saved-mail folder popped up. Looking at the e-mails from Kat, she rattled off the dates, which Annie scratched on a pad on the counter by the phone.

“Aha! I think we’re onto something, Myra! Look at this!”

Myra leaned over Annie’s shoulder. “Aha is right! They were all sent either the morning of our therapy visit or the night before. Oh Annie, how could we not have seen this? Maybe we are stupid. But what were we supposed to see?”

Annie shrugged and rolled her eyes.

“I can’t think of a thing, but obviously there is something out there that Kat thinks we should see. Having said that, perhaps Kat lives out there in one of the facilities and what she thinks is obvious to her should be obvious to us. I don’t remember seeing anything out of the ordinary, but by the same token, I wasn’t looking for anything. My attention was on Lady and the other animals with their owners. Does anything ring a bell, Annie? Anything at all?”

“One visit we stayed for lunch. It was quite good as I recall. I liked the part where we didn’t have to clean up. The lunch was a thank-you for all the volunteers. Nothing unusual happened. If something did happen, then I missed it.”

“I’m with you. It was just a nice luncheon, and they even had plates for all the animals. I thought that was nice. There was that time when Ellen and Abe Speer sought us out to talk about . . . nothing, as I recall. Do you remember what we talked about, Annie?”

“I don’t. I vaguely remember them, nice couple. Didn’t they say they moved out of Olympic Ridge to King’s Ridge, the assisted-living section? Am I wrong, or did they make a big point of telling us that?”

Myra frowned. “I can’t say that I remember that specifically, but I do remember thinking either then or later on that they were new to King’s Ridge. I guess that means subconsciously it did register on me. The only way to move to King’s Ridge is if you have a disability of some sort and need the help of the trained staff. Didn’t Charles tell us you have to live in Olympic Ridge in order to move into King’s Ridge? Then, if you become more disabled or sick, they move you to Queen’s Ridge, which is the nursing home. From there it’s Angel Ridge, the hospice. Which, by the way, kind of creeps me out.”

“It creeps me out, too. Once you move into that complex, you know where you’re going every step of the way. That would not be for me, that’s for sure. You said you checked out King’s Ridge before you signed up Lady to be a therapy dog. You never told me what you found out. Is there anything you can remember that might shed some light on what we’re facing now?”

Myra shook her head. “Charles checked it out. Olympic Ridge is a 150-home community. You have to be a client of Emanuel Macklin, that financial wizard who has more money than Fort Knox, to buy in there. The houses start in the seven-figure range and go up and up and up. One-of-a-kind custom-built homes. Each applicant is vetted thoroughly. And you can’t sell to just anyone if you want to move. You need to go through a whole, long, drawn-out process to sell. You need to be at least sixty years old to move into Olympic Ridge. You can, however, move to the second tier, King’s Ridge, the assisted-living facility, and so on until you end up in Angel Ridge, the hospice.”

“Sounds like the guy has a lock on everyone who lives out there. Think about it, Myra. He’s got you once you move into the high-end house, then to assisted living, on to a nursing home, and, finally, at the end, into a hospice. And he owns all of them and pretty much controls to whom you can sell what you bought. Like I said, it gives me the creeps.”

“That’s exactly how Charles feels,” Myra said fretfully.

“Maybe we need Charles to do a background check on Mr. Emanuel Macklin. I think it was the fourth e-mail—check it out, Myra—that said we should look to the source. That has to be a reference to Emanuel Macklin.”

Myra clicked the keys. “Yes, Annie, it was the fourth e-mail, the one Kat sent after she said she was disgusted with us. It has to be Macklin. What other source could it be?”

“Maybe I should call Abner Tookus to do a financial hack job on the man. The papers are always saying Macklin has more money than the government and should bail out said government. But don’t be upset, Myra, since I do not think he has as much money as I do, not by a long shot. But even so, I’d kind of like to know where he got it all. Wouldn’t you?”

“I absolutely would love to know that. The money people call him a one-of-a-kind financial wizard. I remember someone saying, or else I read it somewhere, that he owns one of the homes in Olympic Ridge. He also has an apartment in the Trump Tower in New York. And a big spread in Carmel, California, where he is supposedly a neighbor of Clint Eastwood, the guy who has conversations with empty chairs. Don’t look at me like that, Annie. It’s just lazy-Sunday-morning reading in the Life section of the Post. In case you have forgotten, you are the owner and publisher of that paper. Don’t you ever read it?”

“Not really. Why should I? I’ve got good people, including Maggie and Ted, running it. Speaking of whom, let’s kick this up a notch and call in the kids to see what they can come up with. Out of our archives. There’s always stuff that never gets printed for one reason or another. This is made to order for Maggie and Ted. Should I call them, Myra?”

“Before or after you call Abner? Of course you should call them. Make arrangements for them to come out here ASAP. Later, we can all go out to lunch after our therapy session. I’m thinking this is right up their alley, something for them all to sink their teeth into.”

Annie made the calls while Myra brewed a fresh pot of coffee. They then looked at each other across the table. “Are you going to say it, or am I going to have to say it first?” Annie asked.

Myra sighed. “I have to say, Annie, that I am very distraught that there are only two of us now. If we count Charles, three. Marti is off with Peter Ciprani, and it looks like wedding bells. She doesn’t have time for us these days. Pearl is knee deep in her underground railroad, helping women and children. That’s her first love, and we can’t fault her for that. As for Nellie, she’s taking Elias’s advancing Alzheimer’s seriously and won’t leave his side. Even though he has round-the-clock care. She wants to be there, and we can’t fault her for that either. It’s the way it should be. It’s just a shame that all those special gold shields are going to waste.”

Annie sniffed. “If that’s your way of saying we’re chopped liver, I’m not buying it. So our numbers are down by three. We’re still three, counting Charles, and don’t forget the kids. They really came through for us in Baywater. And we still have Abner. I’d say that makes it all okay unless you, Myra, are getting cold feet?”

“I am not getting cold feet. I’m just reminding you that there are only three of us, counting Charles, and I’m not sure how good Charles would be out in the field.”

“For God’s sake, Myra, Charles used to be a spy. He worked in clandestine operations. What makes you think he couldn’t cut the mustard these days?”

“He’s out of practice,” Myra said lamely.

“Then maybe we should put him through his paces.”

“It’s just that he’s so good at what he does behind the scenes. And he worries about us. He would see danger where you and I won’t. He’d try to stop us if he thought we were doing something wrong even though you and I would know it would come out okay. He’d be more of a hindrance, and I say that with all due respect for my husband.”

“You have a point, Myra. Okay, then it’s just you and me and the kids.”

“That works for me,” Myra said smartly as she offered up a sloppy salute. Annie laughed.

“So, when are you going to call Charles to do that background check?”

“Will right now work for you, Annie?” Myra said as she headed for the intercom that would reach Charles in the underground catacombs. Annie shrugged.

Ten minutes later, Charles appeared in the kitchen, a look of concern on his face. “Is something wrong?” he asked, looking at the two women, “or did you call me up here to make breakfast? Good morning, Annie. Nice to see you so bright and early. My word, it’s snowing out!”

“We’re not hungry, dear. We have some orders for you. We’d like you to get right on it. We got another e-mail this morning that we’d like you to see. And to remind you that today is therapy day out at King’s Ridge.”

Charles leaned over Myra’s laptop to read the latest e-mail from Kat at Gmail. “Hmmnn. I’ll get right on it. Anything in particular?”

“Macklin,” Myra and Annie said at the same moment.

“My thoughts exactly. I’ll call you when I have something. By the way, are you two going to wing it on your own or call in the second string?”

“We don’t have a second string, Charles,” Myra snapped.

“I know that, dear,” Charles said as he prepared to beat a hasty retreat. Myra threw a wadded-up dish towel at him.

“No one likes a smartass, Charles,” Annie said as the swinging door to the kitchen closed behind him. Myra rolled her eyes.

“Let’s confirm right now, Myra, that it is just the two of us handling this mission.”

“It’s just the two of us,” Myra said solemnly.

“We can kick ass and take names later. Knowing how squeamish you are, I’ll do the ass kicking and you can take names,” Annie said airily.

Myra fingered the pearls at her neck until she saw Annie glare at her. “I like the way you think,” she said in a strangled voice.

“I knew you’d see it my way,” Annie said sweetly.

Maggie Spitzer parked her car in the underground lot of the Post building. She walked over to the concrete railing and stared out at the world, not that she could see much with the swirling snowflakes. She felt antsy, the fine hairs on the back of her neck warning her that something was up. She could feel it in every bone of her body. Somewhere, something was happening or about to happen that would involve her. A confetti of memories assailed her as she recalled other instances when she had felt the same way. She went still and waited, knowing somehow that her cell phone was going to ring any minute. Every fiber in her body told her it would happen. Her fist shot in the air when her cell phone buzzed to life. Reporter gut instincts, something to never trifle with. She identified herself and listened to Annie’s excited voice. She continued to listen as she walked over to the door that would take her to the elevator and on to the newsroom. Finally, it was her turn to speak. “I’ll get the guys, sign out the van, and we can be out at the farm in an hour, give or take, depending on traffic and the weather. See ya!”

Maggie was walking on air as she breezed into the newsroom, to see Ted, Espinosa, and Dennis West already at their desks. “Get your gear, guys, we’re going out to the farm. Annie and Myra are on to something!”

“Wow! You sounded just like Gibbs on NCIS. He always says that to his team when they find a dead body,” Dennis said, whirling around in his red leather chair, the chair he had to use because he was a newbie and he had to wait until the others told him he could move on. It was a rule he accepted without any fuss even though he already had a Pulitzer to his name.

Jackets were slipped into, backpacks slung on backs, and the four-man team headed for the elevator, everyone talking at once. “You can ask me all the questions you want till the cows come home, and I can’t tell you anything other than it involves that ritzy commune, or whatever you want to call it, that Manny Macklin owns. That plus ten or eleven e-mails Myra and Annie have been getting over the past few months. That is the sum total of what I know, so just shut up and let your minds try to figure out why those two sharp-eyed women with gut instincts that are better than all of ours put together are asking questions.”

“This sounds like it’s right up there with the time they took on the guy who ran the World Bank. Ooh. I gotta say, that took guts,” Ted said dramatically.

“ ‘They’ as in the whole crew,” Espinosa said, a frown building on his face. “There are only two of them left, three if you count Charles. That’s not a comforting number from where I’m standing.”

“Well, gee whiz, Espinosa, there are four of us to take up the slack. That has to count for something. Plus Ted said we’re fearless, but I’m not sure that’s true. What I mean is, I’m not—”

“Shut up, Dennis,” Ted said as he signed out the van.

Dennis shut up. Ted was his idol, and when his idol spoke, he, Dennis, hopped to it.

Behind the wheel, Ted checked the gas, saw that he was good to go, and barreled out of the underground garage.

Maggie, riding shotgun, spoke. “Ted, how many stories has the Post done on Macklin over the last ten years?”

“A boatload. Crazy-ass kind of guy. As far as I know, he’s only ever given two face-to-face interviews, one I did and one Jed Lyons at the Times did. He’s on his third trophy wife. Macklin, that is, not Lyons,” Ted clarified.

“Where’s the original?” Dennis asked. “By that, I mean the first wife, not any of the trophy wives.”

“I don’t know, kid. You said you’re a reporter, so why don’t you find that out for us, along with the other three. Remember what I told you: information translates to power. The more you can garner, the quicker you get to the goal line,” Ted snapped as he maneuvered the van around a slow-moving Toyota.

“Got it,” Dennis said as he worked his phone. The rest of the trip out to Pinewood was made with Maggie discussing the weather and how the weatherman never got it right. “I just hate when he’s so far off the mark. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet, and here it is snowing.”

“It’s just flurrying. It’s not even sticking,” Espinosa said. “Here’s a bit of trivia for you. There’s a guy in Florida whose name is Al Sunshine.”

“And his weather reporting is so accurate he’s won prizes. I researched him, and he said he goes by the Farmers’ Almanac,” Dennis said.

“Should we care about this, Dennis?” Espinosa grinned.

“It’s up to you,” Dennis said, busy clicking away on his new phone, compliments of the Post. “I sure as hell don’t care. And you know why I don’t care? I’ll tell you why. Because there is nothing we can do about it. The weather is the weather. Period.”

“Put a cork in it, Dennis,” Ted said as he steered the van off the highway to a secondary road that would take him to the main entrance of Pinewood.

“I wonder if Charles is cooking breakfast,” Maggie said, more to have something to say than anything else. “I didn’t even have time for coffee this morning. When I saw the snow, I beat feet.”

“Cross your fingers that Myra isn’t the cook this morning. Worse yet: Annie,” Ted said.

“I can cook breakfast. My mother made me learn how to cook. I make a wicked omelet. The trick is to make them fluffy. I can do fluffy to perfection, but I don’t do cleanup. If I cook, you clean up,” Dennis babbled as he kept clicking the keys on his phone.

“That’s going to work for me. Ted and Espinosa love to clean up,” Maggie said as Ted sailed through the open gates at Pinewood.

The greetings were perfunctory as Maggie presented Myra and Annie with Dennis’s offer to make breakfast. Myra showed him where everything was and they all sat down at the table as Dennis went to work. Within minutes, Maggie and Ted had the story and were bouncing ideas off each other. “This reminds me of the time we took on the World Bank and that skunk we took care of.”

Annie was busy setting the table. Myra moved over to her small desk in the kitchen alcove and showed Ted and Espinosa the e-mails that had come in from Kat at Gmail.

“We’re taking Lady out to King’s Ridge today. It’s therapy day for the seniors in the assisted-living section. Why don’t you all come with us and perhaps write up a human-interest story for the paper tomorrow. Ma. . .