Lost at Sea

"I can't imagine why anyone in Palm Beach would be trying to connect with us," Frank said, "but at least he's not anywhere nearby. That's reassuring."

"I agree," Celia said. "Furthermore, we've traced a lot of scams to South Florida, so maybe this really is only some new kind of Internet scheme. Just be sure Bobby and Lori don't have anything to do with those friend requests."

"I will, Celia, and thanks. I feel a lot better about all this."

"I'm so glad I could help, Frank."

Despite what he had said to Celia, Frank was not reassured at all. On the contrary, he felt as though he and his children were under a continuous assault. First had come the terrible news of Meredith's death, followed by poor Bobby's revelation that his wife had cheated on him. Then he had been told that Merry might have been involved in some crooked business dealings before her death. And now some unknown person was trying to get information on his children. Frank felt like they were under siege, and he decided he was going to fight back.

His first priority was to find the enemy in Palm Beach County and confront him. But how could he do that? A quick check online showed the county had a total population of 1.3 million; searching for "Tom Thomason" would be like looking for a short stick in high grass. Besides, Frank thought, the name was just as likely to be a phony.

Frank's orderly mind continued to wrestle with the problem. Then an idea hit him: "If I can't find Thomason, maybe I can get him to find me." A plan began to take shape in his head. "It's a long shot," he admitted, "but it's all I've got."

The first thing he had to do was to get Bobby and Lori safely out of the way. It was almost time for summer vacation, and that gave Frank an idea. He dialed the number of his in-laws. "Dad, would you and Mom be interested in having Bobby and Lori come visit for a week? I've got to make a trip out of town during that time, so it would really help me if you could."

When the children's grandfather had gladly agreed and the logistics of their stay were arranged, Frank hung up and immediately called Delta. "I'd like to book a flight to Palm Beach."

His kids were excited to hear about the upcoming visit to their grandparents, but their enthusiasm was dampened when they learned their dad wasn't coming with them. This would be the first time they'd been separated since their mother's death, and the prospect brought back some of the fear of abandonment they'd been dealing with ever since that painful time. Frank hated to cause his children any kind of distress, but he felt he had to do what he had planned, so he managed to persuade them.

The week before their visit was to begin, Frank found himself beset with doubts. "Am I doing the right thing?" he kept asking himself. But despite his uncertainty, the thought of doing nothing was even worse.

His inner turmoil was interrupted briefly by a phone call from Celia, calling to inquire how he and his family were doing. After a chatting a few minutes, her tone of voice changed slightly, and Frank thought she sounded almost shy. "I was wondering if you'd like to get together next week. It's been a while since I've seen you and the kids and . . ." her voice tailed off uncertainly.

"I'd love to do that, Celia, but I'm taking the kids to see their grandparents then. We'll be gone all week."

"Oh," she said, "I understand. Maybe some other time."

"I'd really like that, Celia," he said fervently.

Frank had hated to lie to Celia about his plans, but, he told himself, "at least it was partly true." Besides, he was sure he knew what she would say if he had revealed his true plans.

When Frank returned home after dropping his children off at his in-laws' home in the country, he immediately sat down at the family computer. One of the reasons he'd asked Meredith's family to take his kids was that he knew they didn't have a computer. Accordingly, he felt safe in logging on to Lori's Facebook account.

Sure enough, there was a friend request from Tom Thomason. Frank clicked on the Accept option, and quickly received a confirmation that Lori was now friends with the stranger. "If nothing comes of this," Frank thought, "I'll just 'unfriend' him later."

Next came the most difficult part: pretending to be a twelve-year-old girl. He had studied his daughter's previous postings and he thought he could do an acceptable job of emulating her style. "I probably won't fool her friends," he admitted to himself, "but hopefully I can fool Tom Thomason."

He decided his first post should set the stage, so he wrote a brief note mentioning his (Lori's) visit to the country. "Just a little update for her friends," Frank thought, "nothing to make a lurker suspicious."

The next day was when he planned to set the trap.

OMG, I'm going to Florida! My BFF Celia offered to take me with her, and Daddy said yes! Leaving tomorrow -- can't wait!

Frank decided to use Celia's name because he felt neither Lori's friends nor Tom Thomason would know her. He hoped Celia wouldn't mind.

Now that the bait was in the water, Frank hoped to wiggle it enough to attract the fish's attention.

I can't believe I'm in Palm Beach! It's 2 die 4!

That evening, Frank posted the next installment.

Spent the day at the beach. I'm gonna be so tan!

The next morning, Frank posted the note that he hoped would set the hook:

Heading back to the beach today. Tomorrow, Celia's taking me shopping on Worth Avenue. We're gonna have lunch at Ta-Boo! 2 kul!

As soon as the entry appeared on Lori's page, Frank headed for Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Soon he was settled in for the two-hour flight to Palm Beach.

As he gazed out the window, he recalled that he had been to Palm Beach once before. In fact, he and Merry had driven through the city on their way back from their honeymoon in Miami Beach. They'd taken the bridge across Lake Worth and then driven along South Ocean Boulevard, gawking at the mansions overlooking the Atlantic.

Upon landing, Frank picked up a rental car and drove to the motel in West Palm Beach where he'd made reservations. There was a fast-food restaurant across the street, and he picked up a sandwich and a cola that he ate in his room while studying a map of the city on his laptop. He hoped he was doing the right thing.

Following breakfast, he checked Lori's Facebook page, but all he found were a few envious replies from classmates of hers. He hadn't really expected any contact from Thomason, but he had hoped for some kind of indication that his fishing expedition might land something.

About 10:00, he got in his car and drove east across the Royal Park Bridge, turned south and then east again onto Worth Avenue. He wanted to be in position early, and he needed to park his car on the street so he could get to it quickly if need be. After circling the block where the restaurant was located numerous times, he began to wonder if he'd miscalculated, but suddenly a car pulled out just ahead of him and he was able to pull into the vacated parking spot.

After feeding the meter, he walked along the street in front of the restaurant. Spotting a bench in the shade, he gratefully took a seat. He'd brought along a baseball cap and sunglasses, and he put those on in hopes of disguising himself. Then he pulled out a copy of The Palm Beach Post and pretended to read while scanning the street.

As he sat there, the realization of how flimsy his plan was slowly began to sink in. He had no idea if the mysterious Tom Thomason had even seen the phony postings on Lori's Facebook page, nor if he would show up in response. Even worse, Frank had no idea for whom he was looking. Unless the mystery man turned out to be John Collier, which Frank had to admit was pretty unlikely, how would he identify the threat? All he could hope was to spot someone acting suspiciously -- whatever that meant -- and confront him.

The street was crowded, and Frank kept busy trying to watch all the passersby. The restaurant began to fill up, and as he watched people entering, his stomach began to growl. He cursed himself for not thinking to bring along a sandwich, but he dared not leave his post.

Time slowly crept by as he sat there, and after a while he saw that the restaurant crowd was beginning to thin out. A glance at his watch told him it was after 1:00. "What an idiot!" he thought. "I wouldn't have been any worse off if I'd stayed home, and at least I could have seen Celia again."

As he watched the window-shoppers stroll by, his eye was caught by a woman strolling on the other side of the street. "I'm doing it again," Frank thought, "seeing Merry in a crowd of strangers." In fact, he noted, the woman really didn't look like Meredith at all. Meredith had shoulder-length brunette hair; this woman was a blonde with her hair cut short. Likewise, her clothes were a different style than anything Frank had ever seen Meredith wear. But there was something about her that looked eerily familiar, and as Frank continued to watch, he realized it was the way she walked that had triggered his reaction.

Impulsively, he stood up and started to walk after her. Looking down the street, he saw the blonde had reached the corner and was trying to flag down a taxi. Risking his life, Frank ran across Worth Avenue and jumped in his car. Just as he was pulling away from the curb, he saw the woman clamber into the back of a cab and start off down the avenue toward the Atlantic.

Before it came to South Ocean Boulevard, the cab turned left on County Road and began driving north. Frank followed at a distance. Finally, he saw the cab turn left on a suburban street and continue until it almost reached Lake Worth. Frank pulled his car to the side of the road about a football field's length away and watched as the woman paid the driver and then went into an elegant home that appeared to front on the lake.

Frank squinted his eyes in an effort to see her clearly. With her hair color and short hairdo, she looked nothing like Merry. But she was the same height and weight, and as she proceeded up the walkway to the house, Frank was again struck by her walk.

As he sat there in the car, Frank suddenly remembered a book he had read long ago. In the story, an actor found it necessary to disguise himself. But rather than use a false mustache or wig, he simply put pebbles in his shoes. If someone sees me, the actor told a friend, they'll say "That looks kind of like the guy, but it's not him," because I'll be walking differently. "It works the other way too!" Frank thought.

As he remembered the book, he grew more and more certain that he had just seen his "late" wife. Trying to control his rising anger, he ran down the street and up to the door. He rang the doorbell and then crossed his arms to wait.

When the woman opened the door, she looked at him with a puzzled glance. Then she did a double-take and shrieked, "Frank, what are you doing here?"

"Hello, Merry. Funny running into you here," he said sarcastically.

After a moment's hesitation, she threw her arms wide to embrace him, but he quickly held his hands up to stop her. "Don't touch me," he snarled. Then he could no longer constrain his anger, and he yelled, "How could you do this to me? How could you abandon Bobby and Lori?"

Glancing anxiously toward the street behind him, Meredith grabbed his arm and pulled him into the house, pushing the door closed behind him.

"I did it all for you, baby, for you and the kids," she said urgently. "You've got to believe me, it was the only way." As she spoke, she kept glancing around nervously.

"What in the hell are you talking about?" Frank demanded hotly. "You're not making sense. None of this makes any sense!"

"Sit down, baby," she urged him. "You've got to let me explain." She was still speaking loudly and was nervously rubbing her hands together as she took a seat and encouraged him to do so.

An icy calm came over Frank as he sat down. "Alright, Merry, I'm listening."

"I was so close, baby, I had the big job I wanted in my pocket, but then the damned economy began to tank. I knew if I could just keep the region's numbers up a little while longer, the economy would come back and the promotion would be in the bag."

She gave him a pleading smile and held her hands palm out toward her husband. "And Frank, once I got that job, we'd have been on easy street: no worries about paying for college for the kids, no worries about retirement, no worries ever again."

Frank could barely contain himself: this was all about money and Merry's position in the company?

Meredith's hands fell back in her lap. "So John and I . . ."

"John Collier," Frank said darkly.

"Yes," she went on, not reading his mood, "you met him. Anyway, he and I figured out a way to pull some sales forward from our biggest accounts. We knew they'd come through eventually; we just booked them early -- in the current quarter. All the other regions were reporting big sales declines, and we were pulling in major increases. Corporate was just blown away. We earned the biggest bonuses the company has ever paid!" she said proudly.

Then the smile slipped from her face like a tissue dropping to the floor. "But the economy got worse instead of better, and when John told me it was all going to come out eventually, I knew we had to do something. We knew we'd need a lot of cash to pull it off, so John set up a dummy supplier account and began sending fake invoices to IMC. They're so sloppy and wasteful at that place they never even noticed!"

"So you planned to fake your deaths in a plane crash to cover your tracks?" Frank asked.

"That's right, baby" she said, as though Frank was her star pupil. "With enough money, it's not hard to get somebody to leave a Zodiac motorboat with a GPS signal out in the Caribbean. We just homed in on the signal and crash landed right beside it."

"So the whole thing was just a way to steal a bunch of money and abandon your family?" John asked bitterly.

"No, baby," she protested, "that's not it at all. I knew I'd have to get out of sight for a while, but I made sure you and the kids would be OK. I loaded up on life insurance and put everything I could into my 401K so you guys would have plenty of money," she said proudly.

"And you thought having enough money would make up for losing my wife and our kids' mother?"

This time she heard his bitterness. "No, baby, no. You don't understand, I was going to come back for you. Once everything had had a chance to blow over, I was going to contact you. We could go someplace safe, baby, we could be together." As she spoke, her eyes continued to dart around the room.

Frank looked at her with a stony gaze. "There's just one thing you've left out," he said in a flat voice.

"What's that, baby?" she asked.

"You forgot the part about you fucking John Collier," he said.

She was startled at first, but then she stood and lifted her arms to him. "No, baby, it wasn't like that. John and I just worked together. We were never more than colleagues at work."

"Don't lie to me, Meredith," Frank snapped. "Bobby saw you two together in our bedroom!"

She gasped. "Omigod, Bobby saw us? Oh, that's terrible." A sob caught in her throat, but then she recovered and straightened up again. "It was just the one time, baby. He told me he wouldn't help me unless I gave myself to him. But it was just the one time, I swear it."

Frank stood up. Ignoring her, he looked around. "Come on out, John," he said loudly, "I know you're back there somewhere."

Meredith continued to wail, "No, baby, it's just me. It was just the one time."

But before she could continue, John Collier emerged from the bedroom. He was wearing a bathrobe and his hands were stuffed in his pockets.

"Give it up, Merry, he knows," Collier snarled.

Even though he'd guessed that the two of them had been living together, hearing Collier use his wife's pet name caused Frank to bristle.

Meredith began to weep.

"He must have found us through Facebook," Collier hissed at her. "I warned you, but you just had to check up on your two brats!" Then his tone changed to something cold and hard. "But it doesn't matter now. We've got to get out of here."

He turned to Frank and from the pocket of his robe pulled a snub-nosed automatic, which he brandished in Frank's direction. "As for you, bright boy, you're the only one who knows we're still alive."

"No, John, no!" Meredith screamed, but Collier ignored her.

"It looks like your kids are going to lose their Daddy as well as their Mommy," he said with a sneer, as he raised the gun at Frank.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," came a voice from the entry hall.

All three of them jerked around to look in amazement as the figure of Celia Murray emerged, holding her Smith & Wesson automatic leveled at Collier.

Before Collier could react, a second voice spoke up from behind him: "Drop the gun, Collier. It's all over." Special Agent Harold Barnes stepped out of the kitchen, his pistol also trained on Collier.

The former accounting executive glared at the two agents with hostility, but then his shoulders slumped and he dropped the gun to the carpet and slowly raised his hands. While Barnes kept his weapon trained on Collier, Celia swiftly stepped behind the sullen man and twisted one of his arms behind his back, cuffing him at the wrist. Then she swung his other arm down and clicked the second cuff shut. Once Collier was secure, she repeated the process with Meredith.

When the two were lying on the floor, Barnes got on his cellphone to the Palm Beach Police Department. A second call went to the local FBI office. In a short while, the house was swarming with uniformed and plainclothes officers. Frank just stood to one side, looking on in a daze.

As the two fugitives were being led away, Frank peered carefully at them both. Collier was muttering to himself; Meredith was weeping. Neither glanced in Frank's direction.

When they were gone, Celia went over to Barnes and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for coming with me, partner. I owe you big time."

The older agent smiled. "Nah, you don't owe me anything. Solving this case is going to look real good on both our records."

As Barnes left, Celia finally looked at Frank. To his amazement, she walked over to him, threw her arms around his neck and began to sob. "You big idiot, don't you ever do that to me again. You could have gotten yourself killed!"

He held her tightly until her crying subsided. Then he tilted her back away from him enough to look at her face. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "How did you know where to find me?"

She smiled through her tears. "Lori called me to chat. When she told me that you weren't with them at their grandparents' house, I got suspicious you were going to do something stupid and started checking around. When I saw her posts on Facebook, I called the airlines and found out you had booked a flight to Palm Beach. I talked Harold into coming with me, and we've been following you ever since this morning."

She shook her head. "We almost lost you when you took off after that taxi, but Harold guessed which way you'd turned and he was right."

Frank held her even tighter. "I guess you really are my guardian angel," he said, and kissed her.

Two Years Later Frank pulled the collar of his coat tighter around his neck. The humidity was high as always, and the wind off Puget Sound was cold and damp. "Still," Frank thought, "it feels good to be here."

The past two years had been hard in many ways. While it had been a terrible shock to Frank to find his wife alive, the impact on Bobby and Lori was even worse. Having to see her brought to trial and convicted on multiple criminal charges only added to the family's pain. During the inevitable media frenzy surrounding the arrest and trial, Frank feared his kids wouldn't make it through it.