Chapter 12
Pipe wasn’t happy.
Nothing about the upcoming situation was making him feel all warm and fuzzy. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t believed Cora when she’d insisted Ridge Michaels had kidnapped her friend, though without proof, he couldn’t make any hard and fast decisions.
But now that they were listening to the new information Tex had dug up, he knew without a doubt that going to Arizona and getting Lara back, if she was still alive, wouldn’t be easy.
Peter Ridge Michaels was the son of John Michaels, a man who’d made his money inventing a new painkiller and who now lived in California.
Pipe didn’t understand all the ins and outs of the drug, but apparently it was very strong, and he’d done a lot of lobbying to get it into the mainstream doctor and drug networks.
But a decade after the drug was approved by the FDA, and subsequently prescribed to millions of people, questions were being raised about the ethical responsibility of doctors who prescribed the drug to their patients because of its highly addictive nature.
All of that was practically a moot point, because John Michaels had long-since ridden the wave of his drug’s popularity, making millions of dollars before selling the formula—which really made him some serious cash.
Despite the price of the drug plummeting, and anyone who prescribed it now being raked over the coals, the Michaels family was enjoying the benefits of the painkiller’s early successful years.
“What does Ridge have to do with the drug?” Owl asked. They’d decided to use the name Lara and Cora knew the man as, because it was less confusing for everyone.
“Nothing, as far as I can tell,” Tex said through the phone in the middle of the table. “He benefited from his dad being the creator and has more money than most people know what to do with at his disposal.”
“So why would he risk all that by kidnapping Lara?” Cora asked.
“Don’t take this the wrong way…but we don’t know that he did,” Tex said.
Pipe felt Cora stiffen next to him.
“I hear what you guys are saying,” she said quietly.
“I’m willing to concede that maybe Lara did move to Arizona with Ridge voluntarily.
She is a romantic. She could’ve been so enamored with the idea of love and marriage that she went with him.
Maybe she expected it to be a short leave of absence, as she told our workplace.
Maybe she actually found her prince charming.
But I still want to hear from her own lips that she’s there of her own free will. ”
Pipe’s admiration for Cora rose. She’d been insisting over and over that her friend had been kidnapped, but she was still at least willing to consider that maybe she was wrong.
“The Michaels family has a twenty-four-room mansion in the Phoenix area. Michaels Senior employs a dozen people who are regularly in and out of the house, day and night. Ridge has two bodyguards, one of whom is with him at all times. He was seen at a charity fundraiser in the last week, by himself, and nothing seems amiss with his schedule,” Tex went on.
“Has anyone seen Lara?” Stone asked.
“Yes. Ridge took her out to eat a couple weeks ago…rented out the entire restaurant so they could have privacy.”
“That doesn’t prove she’s there of her own free will,” Cora said. “He could’ve rented out that restaurant so she couldn’t make a scene or ask anyone for help. He’s isolated her completely, both in his home and now seemingly even in public.”
“Which is a good point,” Tex conceded. “I’ve uncovered satellite images of her in the gardens on the estate, always with Michaels at her side. Granted, those pictures were from when they first arrived.”
“Has she made any phone calls? Talked to anyone outside Ridge’s bubble?” Brick asked.
“Not that I’ve been able to find.”
Pipe looked over at Cora and found her staring at her hands, which were clenched together in her lap. He hated this for her.
“Is she using any of her credit cards?” Tiny asked.
“Actually, yes. Quite regularly. The Osler family is also very well off. Lara has a trust fund that’s quite generous, and she’ll be the sole inheritor of their estate when her parents pass, currently estimated at around twenty million dollars.”
Cora’s head came up and her brows furrowed as she stared at the phone.
“What are you thinking, Cora?” Tonka asked.
She glanced at him. “I knew Lara’s parents had money, but she’s the last person you’d ever think was rich.
She works hard, but doesn’t make a ton of money as the executive director of a preschool.
She’s also very frugal. Doesn’t like to go out to eat a lot, doesn’t buy a lot of stuff.
So it’s weird that she’s using her credit cards so much.
Every now and then she’ll go to a function with her parents, but she’s always been more of a jeans-and-T-shirt kind of girl. ”
“Where’s she been spending money? And how much?” Spike asked Tex.
They heard the other man clicking on a keyboard before he spoke once more. “Looks like in the last three weeks, she’s spent almost a hundred thousand. Ralph Lauren, Saks Fifth Avenue, a couple jewelry stores, lots of high-end restaurants, and…Oh. Well, shit.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Brick asked.
“A large chunk of the money went to the Blue Moon,” Tex answered.
“What’s that?” Owl asked.
“A high-end gentlemen’s club.”
Cora abruptly stood and began to pace the length of the conference room. Pipe kept his eye on her as the others erupted into conversation.
“So he’s either taking Lara with him, or he’s using her credit cards.”
“Why bring Lara to Arizona if he’s indulging in strippers?”
“More importantly, why would he be using her credit card when he’s loaded himself?”
“Is there a pattern to when he goes to the Blue Moon?” Stone asked.
Pipe turned his attention back to his friends.
“Sort of, but only due to frequency,” Tex said. “There are expenditures just about every night.”
“Which is good,” Stone said. “We can go to the Blue Moon, see what’s what. And we also know he’s out of the house every night.”
“Which also means we can head there while he’s gone and see if we can talk to Lara,” Owl agreed.
Pipe turned back to Cora and was surprised to see her crouched down with the wall at her back, hugging her legs. He pushed away from the table and went over to her. “Cora?” he asked, kneeling beside her and putting a hand on her shoulder.
She shook her head. “He’s using her for money,” she said in a tone that was so defeated, so full of bitterness, it made Pipe want to take Cora in his arms and simply rock her.
“It’s the one thing she dreaded most. It’s part of the reason she didn’t date much.
I figured she thought Ridge was ideal because he’s just as rich.
Lara might assume having money means she can trust that he likes her for who she is, not because of her bank account. ”
“Let’s go back to the important question. Why would Michaels need her money if his family is so rich?” Tiny asked.
“Tex?” Brick said. “Any ideas?”
More clicking came from the phone on the table, but Pipe’s attention was on Cora. He felt powerless to do anything for her. It was obvious she was devastated by this latest news, and he couldn’t do anything to help other than remain by her side.
“Not really,” Tex said. “His family is loaded, and like Ms. Osler, Michaels has a trust that doles out money every month.”
“Something’s fucked up here,” Brick mumbled.
“Agreed,” Stone said with a nod.
“Wait a second,” Tex said. “Hmmmm…for years, it looks like he was getting twenty thousand a month from his trust. But before he started dating Lara, it dropped to three thousand.”
“That’s a huge drop,” Brick said.
“It is,” Tex agreed.
“Daddy took away most of his money before he met Lara. That seems like a good motive to me,” Tiny said.
“Right. So we know he’s using Lara’s money, and he goes out a lot, which is good for us,” Owl said with a nod. “Maybe going right up to the door and knocking isn’t actually a bad plan.”
“Or we can talk to the ladies at the Blue Moon,” Stone said. “Do some recon and learn who his favorites are, see what kind of information they can give us.”
“Cora?” Pipe asked. “What do you think we should do?”
Her head came up, and she met Pipe’s gaze head on. “Find where he’s holding Lara and get her the hell out of there,” she said firmly.
“I’m thinking we shouldn’t start out with a B&E,” Spike said with a wry grin. “We’ve got good connections here, but the last thing I want is to have to bail all of you out of an Arizona prison.”
“Wait, isn’t Arizona where that one guy made the inmates wear pink underwear?” Brick asked.
Pipe tuned out his friends’ chatter, his focus fully on Cora. “We’re going to find out what’s going on,” he told her.
She shook her head. “All she wanted was to find someone who loved her for who she was, not for her money.”
“You knew about her trust fund?”
Cora rolled her eyes. “Of course. We’re best friends.
I know everything about her. But she doesn’t care about the money.
I mean, she’s grateful for it because it means she can have an apartment in a safe part of the city, and she can do what she loves rather than having to find something that pays better.
But she’s not the kind of person who wants designer handbags and expensive jewelry.
She’s generous to a fault, always giving money to the homeless, and she buys every one of the kids at the preschool a present during the holidays.
She makes sure all the lower-income families have a turkey at Thanksgiving, and if any of her kids come to school with dirty clothes or looking rough, she personally reaches out to their families to check in.
And she does it in a way that no one feels as if they’re accepting charity.
She’s truly amazing. And to find out that Ridge only wanted her money? ” She shook her head sadly.
“We’ll get her out of there,” Pipe reassured her.