Death, Taxes, and Peach Sangria (35 page)

“I’m not here about a tax problem per se,” I said. “It’s about your money services
business registration.”

“My money business … my … what was that you said, dear?”

The woman seemed to have no idea what I was talking about.

I pointed to the Western Union logo. “I see you offer wire transfer services here.”

She nodded. “We do. Have for years. Not many takers anymore, though. With online banking
it’s easy for people to transfer funds themselves these days.”

“Did you realize that your business is supposed to be registered with the Treasury
Department? That the registration for Strike-it-Rich lapsed last year?”

She looked taken aback and instinctively put a hand to her chest. “I had no idea.
My husband always took care of those things.” Her brows drew together and she began
to look worried. “I always read through the mail. I know I sent in the forms to register
our shop with the state, but I don’t recall receiving any forms from the Treasury
Department. I suppose it’s possible I could have missed them somehow.”

“Your husband registered electronically in the past,” I told her. “The renewal notice
would have been sent to his e-mail address.”

Now the woman appeared equal parts worried and angry. “That darn man. He’s caused
me no end of grief, running out on me like he did, leaving me to try to run this shop
on my own. Now I’m the one left holding the bag, aren’t I?”

I held up a palm, hoping to calm her. “The registration can be sorted out,” I said,
“but what I really need to know is whether you recognize any of these men.”

I removed the photos of Algafari, Nasser, and Homsi from the file and laid them on
the glass countertop.

Margie pushed her glasses back again and looked down at the photos. “Well, sure,”
she said, picking up Nasser’s photo. “I know this man.”

My heart began to pound in my chest, so loud I could barely hear. I felt warm as the
increased blood supply raced through my veins. “You do?”

“If I recall correctly, his name’s Nassau. No, wait. That’s the place in the Bahamas,
isn’t it? Anyway, it’s something that sounds like ‘Nassau.’ Nasher, maybe? At any
rate, he’s come in here several times. He’s one of the few people I mentioned who
have used our Western Union service.” She set the photo back down on the glass. “Nice
man. Did you know his family runs an orphanage overseas? He’s sent thousands of dollars
over to help out, sometimes fifteen or twenty thousand at a time. Isn’t it wonderful?
He’s like that man, what’s his name, the
Three Cups of Cocoa
guy who started the schools for girls?”

She was referring to Greg Mortenson, the famous coauthor of the book
Three Cups of Tea,
a man whose veracity had also come under question.

I shook my head. “No, Margie. The man’s name is Hani Nasser. If he claimed to be running
an orphanage, he lied to you. This man doesn’t take care of orphans. He
creates
orphans.”

She stiffened and her eyes grew wary. “What are you talking about, Miss Holloway?
I’m not following you.”

I pulled the remaining photos from the file and spread them across the countertop.
“This. This is what I’m talking about. Buildings destroyed. People executed. Families
torn apart. Children killed on their way to school.”

She looked down at the photographs, tears forming in her eyes. “This is … this is
horrible.” Her voice shook. “But why are you showing this to me? I don’t understand.”

“The man in this photo,” I said, pointing to Nasser’s picture, “is a convicted terrorist.
He and his cohorts have been linked to a number of bombings and other violent acts
in and around Syria.”

Her eyes grew wide.

“The money you helped Nasser send overseas wasn’t used to fund an orphanage. It was
used to buy weapons and bomb-making supplies.”

Margie stepped back, as if losing her balance. She reached a hand out to the wall
behind her to steady herself. “Oh, my goodness. Oh, my.” She looked at me and shook
her head. “I had no idea.” She seemed to have trouble catching her breath. “I … I
thought I was helping him do something good.”

That was precisely the problem.

In many cases, the so-called bad guys were actually nice people who wanted to do good,
who wanted to help those who came to them seeking assistance. Unfortunately, they
were unable to see past the person in front of them, unable to see the bigger picture,
unable to realize the potentially devastating consequences of their seemingly benign
actions.

“I understand your motives were innocent,” I told Margie. “But you still broke the
law. You aided and abetted terrorism and violated banking laws by failing to report
the wire transfers as required. I’m going to have to take you in.”

“Are you saying you’re going to arrest me?” Margie’s eyes went wide and wild with
fear.

“Yes, Ms. Bainbridge. But given the circumstances—”

I’d been about to tell her I believed the prosecutors would go easy on her. I’d been
about to tell her she’d likely walk away with nothing more than a fine and probation.
I’d been about to tell her I was sorry she’d been duped.

But she didn’t give me a chance to finish.

Margie reached above her, seized the official Major League Baseball bat autographed
by Josh Hamilton, and swung the bat with all her might.

CONK!

A shooting pain raced through my head and the world went black.

chapter thirty-seven

Grand Slam

Damn, my head hurt.

I heard voices. A woman’s soft voice telling my parents that there was no way yet
to know the extent of my brain injuries, that only time would tell.

I heard my mother sob and I wanted to tell her that it would be okay, that I’d be
fine, that I just needed … to sleep … a little longer.

*   *   *

Damn, my head still hurt.

Why did my scalp feel so tight? It felt as if my skin were trying to strangle my skull.

Eyes closed, I reached up a hand to touch my pounding head. My fingers didn’t meet
hair as I’d expected, though. Instead, they came in contact with a gauze bandage.

“She’s awake!” I heard Alicia cry.

I tried to force my heavy eyelids open. I caught a glimpse of sunlight between the
miniblinds on the window before they closed again. Corralling my will, I tried a second
time. This time I managed to keep them partially open for three seconds or so, long
enough to catch a glimpse of my mother’s grief-stricken, tearstained face.

I felt my mother take my hand. “Tara,” she said. “Tara, can you hear me?”

I tried to answer her, but the words in my head couldn’t seem to make it to my mouth.
I settled for giving her hand a soft squeeze instead.

“Get the doctor, Harlan!” my mother cried. “Now!”

I heard a scuffling sound as my father apparently left the room in search of the doctor.

He returned a moment later.

“Tara?” said a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. “Tara, this is Dr. Ling. Can you
hear me?”

My brain said,
Yes,
but my mouth just opened and closed again.

“This is a good sign,” I heard the doctor tell my parents. “She’s responding. But
it may take some time before she completely comes around.”

I must have lapsed back into unconsciousness, because the next time I was able to
force my eyes open my parents and Alicia were gone, the world outside the window was
dark, and Nick, Lu, and Eddie were in the room.

Eddie and Lu sat in chairs at the end of the bed. Lu was watching a
Golden Girls
rerun on the wall-mounted television and nervously sucking on a Slim Jim while Eddie
fooled with his cell phone, probably checking e-mails. Though his movements were routine
and casual, the way he gnawed his lip told me he was worried.

Nick had pulled a chair up next to my bed and was manipulating my fingers, wrapping
them around his stress ball and gently squeezing them, as if subtly encouraging me
to move on my own.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Nick looked like hell. His hair was unkempt,
his clothes were wrinkled, and at least three days’ growth of beard shadowed his face.

Whoa.
The last time I’d seen him, when he’d told me my lip looked sexy and then became
angry with me over Brett, Nick had been clean shaven.

Had I been in the hospital for three days?

“You lied,” I said, my voice coming out airy and breathless as my eyelids drooped
closed again. “You lied about the fish.”

Lu leaped from her chair. “What did she say?”

Nick emitted a sound that was half choke, half chuckle. When he spoke, his voice was
raspy with emotion. “I’m not sure.”

“Was it something about a fish?”

I opened my eyes again.

Nick still looked like hell, but his devilish grin had returned. He gave me a discreet
wink. “Hey, there.”

“Hey.”

“You think you’re good and awake now?”

I nodded.

“All righty, then. I’ll go round up your parents.”

“Thanks, Nick.”

He gave my hand a final squeeze and released it, pulling his chair back to give Lu
access to me.

Lu stepped up next to my bed. “You gave us a real scare, you know that?” She blinked
her false eyelashes, trying to hold back her tears.

I offered a feeble smile. “Sorry.”

She wagged a meaty finger at me. “You learned your lesson, right? That you can’t trust
anybody? That you can never let your guard down?”

“Yes, Lu. I did.” Yep, I’d learned that lesson well and I’d learned it the hard way.

“Good.” She yanked a tissue from a box on the bedside table and dabbed at her eyes.
“Because I don’t want anything like this to ever happen again. I don’t think my heart
could take it.”

Neither could my head.

Eddie stepped up next to me. “It’s like déjà vu all over again, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Except last time you were the one with a bandage on your head.”

“Maybe we should start wearing helmets.”

“It couldn’t hurt.”

Eddie exhaled a long breath. “Thank God you left that voice mail telling me where
you were going. Otherwise we wouldn’t have found you until it was too late.”

I asked Eddie what had happened after Margie tried to hit a home run with my head.
He gave me a quick rundown. When I hadn’t called him back by eight o’clock, he’d begun
to worry. He’d called my cell phone several times with no success. When he couldn’t
get an answer on my mobile, he tried my home number and got in contact with Alicia.
She hadn’t heard from me, either, and had been worried, too.

Eddie had phoned Nick and the two of them headed to Strike-it-Rich. Though the lights
were off inside the store, my car was still parked out front. Fearing something bad
had happened inside, Nick picked up one of the concrete parking stops and smashed
it through the front window.

“But the windows have metal bars on them,” I said. Even if he’d managed to shatter
the glass, there was no way a grown man could squeeze through the bars.

“Nick ripped them off like some kind of rabid gorilla.” Eddie acted out the scene,
raising clenched fists and pretending to wrangle with invisible bars. “I’ve never
seen anything like it.”

Nick must have been terrified for me. At the thought of him coming to my rescue, my
heart gave a little flutter and the beeping monitor sped up slightly. Lu glanced at
the noisy machine, then at me, one pinkish-orange brow raised.

“We drew our guns,” Eddie continued, “and charged the place.”

They’d found me sprawled unconscious on the floor in front of the cash register, my
head resting in an expanding pool of blood, the autographed bat lying nearby. After
assuring themselves I was still alive, Eddie had immediately called 911 to summon
an ambulance while Nick searched the store, looking to see if my attacker was still
around.

“Whoever did this to you is lucky Nick didn’t find him,” Eddie said. “Nick would’ve
ripped him limb from limb.”

“It wasn’t a
him,
” I said. “It was a
her.
”

Eddie’s brows drew together. “What are you talking about?”

“It was a woman named Margie Bainbridge. She owns the place.”

“Seriously?” Eddie and Lu exchanged glances. “She and her car have been missing since
that night. The police assumed you’d been injured in a botched robbery attempt and
Margie Bainbridge had been kidnapped and probably killed. They’ve had search and rescue
teams out looking for her in empty fields near the pawnshop.”

Fury flared in the Lobo’s eyes. “It’s been three days. That woman could be anywhere
by now.” Lu pulled her cell phone from her purse and stepped into the hallway to call
the detective at Dallas PD and give him this new information.

Eddie continued his story, telling me that my cell phone had rung in my purse while
he and Nick waited for the EMTs to arrive. It had been Brett calling. Eddie told him
what had happened, that they’d found me with a head injury in a pool of blood and
were waiting for medical help.

“He totally freaked,” Eddie said.

I felt a twinge in my heart. “Has Brett been here?” I asked, glad Nick wasn’t in the
room at the moment.

Eddie nodded. “Several times. He waited with the rest of us in the ER while they ran
your MRI. He’s the one who called Alicia and your parents after we told him what happened.
Alicia’s been around a lot, too. In fact, they’re both here at the hospital now, getting
coffee with your parents in the cafeteria.”

Both Nick and Brett were here, at the same time. This could definitely get awkward.

The doctor, a petite Asian woman, came into the room. “Your coworker caught me in
the hall. He said you’d come to. How are you feeling, Tara?”

“Like I’ve got a major-league headache.”

Eddie groaned at my lame joke. “She’s back. God help us.”

Dr. Ling gripped the ends of a stethoscope draped around her neck. “Your skull is
fractured, and you’ve lost a lot of blood. But you’re lucky—”