Body Movers Books 1-3

“We don’t,” Carlotta said, walking up to stand near him. She looked pale, and her hand shook as she held up a manila file. “I brought all the information to post a property bond.”

“Hello, Carlotta,” Liz said.

“Hello,” Carlotta said.

His sister’s voice was pleasant enough, but Wesley could feel the animosity rolling off his sister in waves toward the other woman. What was it with chicks?

“You certainly came prepared,” Liz said lightly.

“I look out for my family. Wesley, let’s go home.” She turned and walked toward the exit.

He hesitated, then looked up at Liz Fischer. “Thank you for your help…Liz.”

“No problem,” she said smoothly. “Your arraignment is Monday morning. I’ll be in touch.” She picked up her briefcase and walked in the direction opposite from the one that Carlotta had taken. He noticed that the woman turned back and eyed his sister intently before continuing.

Escorted by a bailiff, Wesley caught up with Carlotta and watched with apprehension as she pledged the equity in their town home against the fact that he would appear in court when summoned. He had every intention of being there, but what if something happened? His sister’s faith in him was a little unnerving. Even after his handcuffs were removed, his stomach was in knots, but he kept telling himself that the end justified the means.

As part of his sentence, he planned to offer his expertise to help the courthouse develop better safety firewalls, ones that only he could penetrate. If that failed, he had left himself a back door in the courthouse records database so when everything died down, he’d be able to go back in and explore. This arrest would be worth the inconvenience if it helped him gather information to help—and find—his father. He glanced at his sister’s troubled profile and felt a twist in his gut. Someday, Carlotta would agree with him.

He hoped.

4

Carlotta’s eyes popped open from a restless sleep, with elusive dreams of her parents sliding into the dark corners of her subconscious. Mercifully, the dreams had become less frequent over the years, and she hoped this recurrence was an isolated incident. A glutton for punishment, she allowed herself to wonder where her parents were waking up, and if she and Wesley ever crossed their minds. Then the events of yesterday—Wesley’s arrest and bail hearing—came crashing back, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Her family was going to be the death of her.

She turned her head on her pillow to look at the alarm clock and groaned. She’d meant to get up early to make up for the hours she’d missed yesterday, but now she’d be lucky to make it to the morning staff meeting on time. While she stood and yanked up the duvet cover to make her bed, she thought of Angela Ashford and the commission she’d walked away from yesterday. And she wondered how much of her phone conversation with Wesley the woman had overheard—enough to fuel another gossipy lunch with her girlfriends?

She tamped down her resentment toward Angela, recognizing that it was mostly rooted in the fact that the woman had married Peter, which, truthfully, only proved that Angela was…smart. Peter had graduated from Vanderbilt and returned to Atlanta to launch a successful career and join the ranks of his fabulously rich family. Angela enjoyed social status and all the perks that came with being a third-generation Buckhead wife.

Carlotta frowned. Although, considering the fact that the woman was sneaking booze in the department-store dressing room, her life might not be as rosy as the picture she’d painted for Carlotta.

After a quick shower, Carlotta opened the door to her closet, which always lifted her spirits. Working at Neiman Marcus for the better part of her adult life had afforded her a fabulous wardrobe on her employee discount. She had eased off her habit of “borrowing” clothes to wear for a special occasion and then returning them after nearly getting herself and her friends Jolie and Hannah in trouble last Christmas when they’d “borrowed” outfits to crash an upscale pajama party where a man had wound up dead. Since they’d been the only uninvited guests at the party and had drawn attention to themselves by accidentally falling into the pool fully clothed, they’d been fingered as the prime murder suspects. They’d managed to clear themselves, but had been stuck with paying for thousands of dollars’ of ruined silk pj’s and robes. She still hadn’t paid off her Neiman Marcus credit card.

Thinking of Jolie made her smile. Her friend and coworker had moved to Costa Rica with the man of her dreams, and her parting gift to Carlotta had been a pink leather autograph book to replace the one full of celebrity autographs that had been ruined by the fall in the pool, and two thousand dollars in cash to satisfy the loan shark that had been hounding Carlotta for money that Wesley owed.

Jolie had saved their lives…or at least their kneecaps.

Carlotta flipped through her bulging wardrobe and decided to go all out today. Dressing to the nines always made her feel better.

She pulled out a black miniskirt, a teal-colored tunic, one of the vintage Judith Leiber huge “breastplate” necklaces from her mother’s collection and tall Prada boots. She pulled her long black hair—her best feature, she thought—into a low ponytail, and added dangling glass earrings. She popped in her blue contact lenses, always amazed that they covered her dark brown irises so well. Blessed with good skin, she was able to skip foundation, but took time to stroke several coats of mascara onto her lashes to play up her eyes, add a touch of blush to the apple of her cheeks and smooth on red, red lipstick. When she made a final check in the mirror, though, she couldn’t help but compare her dark coloring to Angela Ashford’s golden good looks. Not only was Angela patently gorgeous and rail thin, she was well connected, with a long southern lineage. Yes, Angela was definitely the better match for Peter and the life he was destined for.

Carlotta sighed and turned to face the life she was destined for. She walked out of her bedroom and looked across the hall at Wesley’s closed bedroom door and farther, at the end of the hall, to the closed door of her parents’ room, left largely untouched except for the times she’d gone in to dust or to adjust the heating and air-conditioning vents. Daylight shining over the gray carpet in the hallway revealed large shoe prints, evidence of where the police had entered their home and confiscated Wesley’s computer and phone equipment. A sense of violation permeated her skin—the cramped living space she’d tried to make a home for Wesley, compromised.

Using the toe of her shoe, she wiped out the footprints, wondering if they belonged to Detective Jack Terry. The mere thought of the man made a frown settle on her face and the knowledge that he’d been in her home made her feel naked, as if he knew intimate things about her. Had he peeked into her bedroom, sneered at the girlish white furniture, the pink Lilly Pulitzer linens and the fuzzy yellow chenille robe she always left draped across the foot of the bed? A flush climbed her neck when she remembered the way he’d looked at her when she’d told him that her father was Randolph Wren. He’d decided that she and Wesley were from bad stock. Your father’s name is like a bad smell.

The friendly warning he’d given her about the D.A. notwithstanding, she had a feeling that Detective Terry was going to stir up more trouble before he exited their lives.

As she walked through the living room and into the kitchen, her thoughts turned to Liz Fischer. She didn’t like the fact that Wesley had called the woman. She didn’t trust Liz. After her parents had skipped town, Liz had tried to convince her that she was too young and ill equipped to raise Wesley, that his needs would be better served with a foster family until her parents returned.

This from the woman who’d had an affair with her father.

Carlotta had hated the woman for trying to fracture her family further, and it was Liz Fischer’s insufferable words that had given her strength in the early years when she’d thought she would collapse under the stress of raising Wesley.

She knew what the woman was thinking now—that Carlotta had done a crummy job of parenting and that Wesley would have been better off with strangers.

And considering that he was head over heels in debt and now facing jail time, Carlotta couldn’t exactly disagree. Maybe Wesley would have been better off with two authority figures who weren’t bogged down with their own emotional baggage, who weren’t struggling to make ends meet, who weren’t, deep down, yearning for a life of their own.

Carlotta walked into the kitchen, massaging her temples and craving a Starbucks latte. But since they were facing unknown expenses, she poured water into the automatic coffeepot and waited for the homemade brew to trickle out. She walked around and straightened things that might have been moved by the police, or perhaps she was just being paranoid. What was it that Detective Terry had said?

Don’t worry—we didn’t trash your place. That only happens on TV.

Pushing the unpleasant thought—and the unpleasant man—from her mind, she glanced around the red-themed kitchen and contemplated repainting. All the rooms decorated under her mother’s heavy hand were looking a little dated. In fact, she’d love to sell the town house outright and find another place for them to live, someplace with only two bedrooms and a larger living area, rather than having to walk by their parents’ empty bedroom every day. But Wesley wouldn’t hear of moving. He was afraid they would miss a postcard or a phone call…or the reappearance of their prodigal parents.

Heaving a sigh, Carlotta filled an insulated mug with coffee and cream to drink during the drive to work. Then she grabbed her purse and walked through the living room to the front door.

In the corner of the living room, the small aluminum fringe Christmas tree that had occupied the same spot for the ten years that her parents had been gone stirred anger in her stomach. Her mother had put up the tacky little tree the day after Thanksgiving and put a few presents under it, then had skipped town with their father two weeks later. Carlotta often wondered if her mother had felt guilty about abandoning her children just before Christmas, if Valerie had considered the tears that Wesley had shed Christmas morning when she and their father had failed to return, dashing his hopes for a Christmas surprise.

Carlotta loathed the raggedy little tree that had lost most of its luster, but Wesley had insisted that they leave the tree up and the presents underneath so they could celebrate when their parents came home. She had been eager to comfort her little brother in those first few weeks and months after her parents had left, but eventually she had begun to resent the tree’s lopsided shape and the pathetic little pile of presents underneath. She’d long forgotten what she’d wrapped to give to her mother and father, and no longer cared what they had given to her. Several times over the years she had broached the subject of taking down the tree or, when money had been tight, of opening the gifts in the event that they contained cash, only to be met with Wesley’s curt refusal. He was obsessed with the tree, as if somehow by taking it down, they would be giving up on their parents ever coming home. That ship had sailed for her years ago, but she couldn’t bring herself to hurt Wesley yet again by taking it down. Turmoil rolled in her empty stomach. She was never sure how to handle her sensitive, quirky brother, so she usually erred on the soft side.

Too soft, apparently.

She opened the door, stepped out onto the stoop and bent to retrieve the newspaper. Around her, the neighborhood was peaceful, if a little shabby. Downsizing from their lavish home in a tony neighborhood to a town house in a “transitional” area had been a blow to her mother, who had chirped that it was only temporary and then taken another drinkie-poo.

“Carlotta!”

Carlotta winced, then turned to face her busybody neighbor. “Good morning, Mrs. Winningham. How are you today?”

The woman stood on the stoop next door with her head jutted forward, her eyes narrowed. “Why were the police at your place yesterday?”

Carlotta gave a hoarse little laugh. “Oh, that? It was a mistake. They were at the wrong address.”

Mrs. Winningham frowned. “I saw them carry a bunch of computers out of there.”

“Everything is fine, Mrs. Winningham. I have to run—I’m late.” Carlotta jogged down the steps and toward the garage while holding down the button on the remote control for the garage door. The noise of the door going up drowned out the woman’s words, and Carlotta waved cheerfully as she swung into her dark blue Monte Carlo. She muttered a curse under her breath at the woman’s snooping, then started her car.

The Monte Carlo was another sore spot—she loathed the car. Her beloved ten-year-old white Miata convertible sat like a sick and neglected pet next to her new car. Just before last Christmas, her Miata had died and she couldn’t afford to have it fixed. So she’d taken advantage of a dealer’s offer to test-drive a vehicle for twenty-four hours before buying it. Except the night she had taken the vehicle out for a test-drive was the night that she and her friends had crashed the party where a man had been murdered. She’d been taken to the police station for questioning and the car impounded. When she’d been released and had finally tracked down the car, the twenty-four-hour return period had expired and she owned the car by default.

The money that her friend Jolie had given her had kept Carlotta from having to sell her beloved, crippled Miata convertible to satisfy Wesley’s debt. She still held out hope to have it back in working condition someday so she could get rid of the Monte Carlo—although what the Monte Carlo was worth amounted to less than what she owed on it.

Her life was a catastrophe.

Next to her Miata sat another thorn in her side: Wesley’s newly acquired motorcycle, a fluorescent-green crotch rocket. He’d already received so many speeding tickets, his driver’s license had been suspended, which only made him more prone to stay at home in his room and mess around with his computers.

Puffing out her cheeks in an exhale, she backed out of the driveway, avoiding eye contact with Mrs. Winningham, and steered the car toward the Lenox Mall. She knew every curve of the road of her commute. The first traffic light would stay red long enough for her to take a long drink of coffee and scan the first three pages of the newspaper. The second light would stay red long enough to allow her to read any article that had caught her eye. The article that caught her eye this morning reported a rash of crimes in the area surrounding the mall where she worked—purse snatchings, muggings at gunpoint, even an attempted assault. There were also some disturbing reports of a ring of identity thieves operating in the Buckhead area. And then she saw it:

Man Arrested and Charged With Breaking Into Atlanta Courthouse Records—Wesley Wren, 19, of Atlanta was arrested yesterday and charged with hacking into the records of the Atlanta City Courthouse database, a federal offense. A police spokesperson wouldn’t comment on how much data might have been compromised during the break-in, but maintained that records confidentiality and identity theft is a top priority for the department and that hackers will be prosecuted “vigorously.”