Atlantis (5 page)

CHAPTER NINE

             
Sloane awoke with a headache, but she felt good. Last night she and Candice had come up with a plan to manage themselves. Today they were going to put that plan into action. The first stop: the bank to have Geraldine removed from all their accounts. As Sloane got out of bed, her cell phone rang. She picked it up. "Hey, Jason, how's it going?"

             
"Well, you sound chipper this morning," he said. "I take it things went well with Nate last night and you got yourself some wild make up sex."

             
"No." Sloane took a deep breath and explained the events of last night to him, everything from the moment she left Jason's house up to and through the late night talking with Candice. "So," she said, taking a short pause, "we're going to manage ourselves, and we might need your expertise." On the other end of the line she swore she heard Jason clapping. It made her laugh.

             
"I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself, Sloane. And I will do whatever I can to help you."

             
"Thanks, Jason. Okay, well, I gotta get going. We have to get to the bank." Sloane disconnected the call and made her way toward the shower. Candice had left early to file the paper with the college's judicial review board, and Sloane had promised to meet her at the bank. If she didn't hurry, she'd be late.

*****

              An hour later, Sloane and Candice were sitting inside the branch manager's office of the bank. They both were stunned speechless. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Sloane asked.

             
"Geraldine Parker was here this morning. She made a large withdraw, leaving the business account with less than twenty dollars in it," the man said, folding his arms on his desk.

             
"Why? I mean…how did this happen? Aren't there safeguards in place to prevent any one of us from draining the account? I thought there had to be two signatures for every transaction," Candice said.

             
"Let me check."

             
Sloane and Candice shared a look of disbelief as the manager pounded away on his keyboard. Sloane's stomach was in knots, worse than it had been right after she'd fired Geraldine.

             
"Yes, it appears as though Ms. Parker came in two weeks ago and changed the authorized signers on the account." He fell silent for a moment and studied his computer screen. "She added a gentleman by the name of Nate Banks. He's listed as the manager to Sloane Parker."

             
"He's not my manager," Sloane said.

             
"So, you're telling us that the account is empty," Candice said.

             
"Yes, that's correct. But your line of credit attached to the account is still in good standing, and your Centurion cards are usable."

             
"But…how…I can't believe—" Candice put her hand on Sloane's arm to silence her.

             
"Thank you, Mr. Jenson." Candice stood. "Come on, Sloane."

             
Once outside, Sloane let out a slew of obscenities that weren't fit for a sailor let alone a young woman. "Now what?" She threw her hands up in defeat.

             
"Just, let me think for a minute." Candice paced the sidewalk, her hand on her forehead. "We're not broke, so that's a good thing. We need to go see a lawyer and our accountant."

             
Sloane nodded. Candice was right, but there was something Sloane wanted—no, needed to do. "You go to the lawyer's office. I'll meet you there soon."

             
"Why? What are you doing?"

             
"Just get to the lawyer. I'll be there soon." Sloane hailed a cab and took off, leaving Candice staring after her. Sloane felt bad, but if she told Candice what she was up to, Candice would try to stop her. And nothing would stop Sloane from doing what she had to. She gave the cabbie directions to Nate's building. It was close, and she probably could've walked the couple of blocks, but she didn't have any time to waste. "Thanks." Sloane tossed some money at him and got out.

             
She took the elevator up to the tenth floor and rushed down the hallway to his apartment. Banging on the door, she wasn't surprised that he didn't answer. Thankfully, she hadn't given his key back last night. Digging it from her purse, she quickly unlocked the door and stepped inside.

             
The apartment was empty. All of Nate's furniture was gone; all of his pictures and paintings were missing from the walls. Sloane made her way through the apartment. It was completely empty. Even all the food was gone from the refrigerator. "Shit," she muttered. Jeez, they didn't waste any time, did they?

             
Sloane dug her cell phone out and dialed Candice. "They're gone," she said as soon as her sister answered.

             
"Who?"

             
"Nate and Mom, they're gone. Nate's apartment is empty, and I'd bet anything that Mom's house is cleaned out, too."

             
"Are you serious?" Candice asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

             
"Yeah, I'm serious."

             
On the other end of the line, Candice sighed heavily. "Meet me at the lawyer's office. I just got here."

             
"Okay." Sloane hung up and went outside to get another cab. Just when she thought things were looking up, getting better, something like this had to happen. As if sleeping with her boyfriend wasn't bad enough, her mother now had to steal all their money and take off. It hurt—she'd be lying if she said otherwise. Geraldine was her mother, the woman Sloane had always trusted and looked up to. How could a mother do this to her own children?

             
The trip to the lawyer's office was quick, but by the time she arrived, Candice was outside waiting for her. "Well? What did he say?"

             
"He's going to look into it. But basically, because she's still legally, on paper, our business manager, she has every right to access the business funds. However, if she uses them for anything other than business expenses then we can file charges against her."             

             
"We know she used the funds for personal reasons. She and Nate took off. They're probably half way to Mexico by now."

             
"But we don't have any proof. That's the problem." Candice adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder. "He said he'd investigate their disappearance. In the meantime, he's filing all the necessary paperwork to have her removed as our business manager and to have her name taken off any and all financial accounts."

             
"Good. Now what?" Sloane asked. She had a boost of adrenaline zap through her system. She'd been eager to get their mother out of their lives since last night, but she was extra eager right now.

             
"The accounting office. Mr. Brinnon called him while I was in the office. He's expecting us. "

             
"Sounds good, let's go." Sloane whistled and waved for a cab. Three of them passed them by before one of them finally stopped.

             
"My head hurts," Candice complained once they were in the cab. "I say we get some lunch first."

             
"I agree." Sloane gave the cab driver directions to their favorite pizza place. Hopefully they'd be lucky and there wouldn't be any paparazzi there. Neither of them had mentioned what they were going to tell the press, but they couldn't avoid it much longer. Once the tabloids learned of what happened, there would be no stopping the rampant rumors.

             
"God, this is such a mess." Candice propped her elbows on her knees and dropped her head into her hands.

             
Sloane frowned. Please don't let Candice get discouraged, she silently prayed. Candice was the stronger of the two, and if she lost hope, Sloane would freak out. "We'll get through this, you said so, remember?" Sloane said, gently rubbing Candice's back.

             
"I know," she muttered.

             
"I'm scared, Candice." The fear had been present since firing Geraldine, and it was rampant now that their account had been drained and Mom was missing, but this was the first time Sloane had said it aloud.

             
Slowly, Candice lifted her head and looked at Sloane. "Me too."

             
Oh God! That is not what Sloane wanted to hear. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Maybe we should just hire someone."

             
"We don't have the money to hire anyone, Sloane."

             
That was a foreign concept to Sloane. They'd never not had money before. Would she have to give up her apartment? Her cell phone? Would she have to sell her clothes and jewelry? How would they pay for the flights back and forth to their jobs? Surely they couldn't afford the private jet they were accustomed to traveling in. Sloane slumped back against the seat and stared out the window. Silent tears coursed down her face.

             
She had no idea what was going to happen to them, and not knowing was more terrifying than anything else in the world. 

CHAPTER TEN

             
Twelve days had passed since Sloane and Candice's mother had skipped town with all their money and with Sloane's boyfriend. The lawyer had done exactly as he'd said and had all new papers filed so that Geraldine was no longer their manager; and their accountant had removed Geraldine from all their financial accounts. Not that it mattered because Geraldine had already bled them dry of everything. All the girls had left were their Centurion cards.

             
"Hello?" Candice said, pinching her cell phone between her ear and shoulder as she fumbled to put on her sandals.

             
"Miss Parker? This is Mr. Seton." He cleared his throat. "I think I've located your mother."

             
Candice froze with her shoe half on. "Hold on a sec." She put her finger over the speaker and shouted, "Sloane! Get in here. Now!" A moment later, Sloane came into the bedroom and gave Candice a dirty look.

             
"What's the matter?"

             
Removing her finger from the phone's mouth piece, Candice said, "Mr. Seton, I'm going to put you on speaker so that Sloane can hear this too." She pressed a button and the man's voice came through loud and clear.

             
"Good morning, ladies. I think I've located your mother. She's transferred all of your monies into several offshore accounts, that, unfortunately, we are unable to seize because they are not governed by the law of New York State. Plus, she had legal access to those accounts when the transfers were made."

             
"So, we're basically out of luck? That's what you're saying?" Sloane interrupted. "How can she do this to us?"

             
"Shh, let him finish," Candice said. "I'm sorry, Mr. Seton, go ahead."

             
He cleared his throat. "I've also tracked some credit card charges to your mother's cards to Brazil."

             
"Brazil?" Sloane said, her voice rising to almost a shout.

             
Candice shot her sister a dirty look and rolled her eyes. Jeez, Sloane could be so dramatic at times.

             
"Yes, Brazil," Mr. Seton confirmed.

             
"Good. So that means we can go get her. We can have her arrested," Sloane said.

             
"Arrested for what?" Candice asked. "She technically hasn't done anything illegal."

             
"Candice is correct. Plus, Brazil doesn’t have an extradition policy with the U.S. so even if she had committed a crime, there's nothing we can do about it."

             
Sloane groaned and flopped down on Candice's bed.

             
"Thank you, Mr. Seton," Candice said, feeling Sloane's frustration and angst. "We'll be in touch if we need anything else."

             
"What are we going to do?" Sloane whined.

             
Candice took a deep breath. "The same thing we were going to do two weeks ago. We're going to manage ourselves." It sounded so easy, but truth be told, Candice was in over her head. Sure, she'd taken her finals and managed to not get kicked out of school, but that didn't prepare her for what had to be done. They needed help.

             
"We don't know the first thing about managing ourselves, Candice. We missed the last job we had because of everything that happened. And we have no idea what Geraldine had lined up after that."

             
Sloane was right. When they really broke it down, things seemed hopeless. "You said Jason took care of that, though, right? He knew the photographer."

             
"Yeah, he did. What good does that do us for figuring out our next job though?"

             
Candice paced in her room. When did Sloane become so pessimistic? Taking a deep breath, she said, "Okay, we go to Geraldine's house and go through her office. Surely there has to be something there that will point us in the right direction."

             
"Good idea. Let's go."

*****

              Sloane sat back in the leather, executive style chair and sighed as she looked around. The office was trashed. Not that it had been very clean when they'd arrived, but it was much worse now. "We've been here over an hour. There's nothing here."

             
Candice plopped down on the couch and nodded. "I can't believe there's nothing here. No date book, calendar, rolodex, sticky notes…nothing. Either Geraldine took everything with her, or she just never kept any records."

             
"My money is on the first option. I hate to say it, sis, but we've been played by our own mother."

             
"Yeah, some mother," Candice grumbled, looking dejected and hurt.