No clue. But I trembled like Pippa in a thunderstorm.
“Hey, wait—you can’t do this right now! We’re in the middle of something!” the club manager shouted as the two men proceeded into the room, followed by a small contingency of law enforcement. I kept my eyes away from Donner’s gaze. Scott still stood at the podium holding his plaque and looking concerned. He glanced over at Donner, who had his phone out and was rapidly tapping.
Jim Arnold didn’t slow down on his sojourn toward our table. He called behind him to the distraught manager, “We have a warrant. And we don’t care that you’re in the middle of something.”
“What’s going on?” Ty asked his father while watching the parade of black heading our way. He seemed to understand that it revolved around his dad.
“Marjorie, dear, Ty will see you home. I fear this is about me. Unmerited, of course, but I’ve always had a target on my back. Everything will be okay,” Donner said, patting his wife’s hand. Marjorie looked like a little lost sheep, and I felt really awful that he’d brought her to this event. Talk about bad timing.
“What do you mean, Don?” Marjorie asked, looking at Ty. “What is happening?”
Donner stood and buttoned his suit jacket just as Jim arrived with the warrant. “Mr. Arnold, I see we were destined to meet again. Could you have not picked a better time?”
Jim raised his eyebrows. “We waited until you had coffee.”
The officers were moving toward Scott, who looked panicked. He had tucked his award under his arm and had started moving away from the advance. He threw out a hand and said, “I have nothing to do with this. This is all on Donner. He’s the guy you want.”
Donner’s eyes flashed with hard anger as he glanced at Scott. I could almost see his thoughts. Never should have trusted this fool.
Honestly, it looked like something out of a comedy—my husband squealing like a pig and Donner turning and presenting his hands to be cuffed as calmly as I had ever seen him. Marjorie had started crying, and Ty was already on the phone, likely calling another attorney. Ruby and I sat there sipping our wine, our version of eating popcorn as the arrest went down.
“Scott Crosby,” the man with Jim Arnold said, “you’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit fraud, aiding and abetting, and wire and mail fraud. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right—”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Scott shouted, still backing away. “All I did was introduce him to some of my friends. That’s it. This is on him. He’s the one—”
“Shut up, Scott,” Ty called, pressing his hand against the microphone of his phone. “Don’t say another word.”
The organizers of the luncheon were wide eyed, whipping their heads back and forth, mouths open. Everyone else in the room was absolutely aghast and titillated at the scene unfolding. Ed stood nearby, his hand still outstretched as if to shake Scott’s.
My husband had moved around toward me, like if he just sat down at the table, nothing bad would happen.
“Mr. Crosby,” the other agent said, following him, “you need to stop, turn around, and let me cuff you. Don’t make this hard on yourself and add charges.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” he said, nearly tripping as he backed away. He turned toward me, his eyes panicked. “Cricket, tell them.”
He was actually asking me to help him? “Tell them what? That you stole our savings and our retirement and put it in an offshore account with the tainted money that Donner gave you to feed him clients? Tell them you’re sleeping with our daughter’s tennis pro and plan to flee the country? Or tell them that you’re the . . . person of the year? Which would it be?”
Scott stopped, his face utterly shocked. If I could have taken a mental picture and framed it for all eternity, it would be that expression. The comeuppance. The moment he realized that I knew everything. That I wasn’t stupid. That I had rocked the motherfucking boat. “What?”
The SEC investigator caught up with him, taking him by the shoulder. One of the law enforcement officers jerked his left arm back and cuffed it. Scott’s mouth fell open, and I could see the wheels spinning. “Did you do this? Did you set this up? Because of Stephanie?”
I took a sip of wine and lifted a shoulder, not answering.
“You bitch!” he screamed, lurching toward me. Thankfully, he’d been cuffed, and there were several officers there to pull him back.
I had never been called a bitch before. Because I wasn’t. I was always the person who smoothed things over, who sent thoughtful gifts, and who remembered Scott’s mother’s birthday. Being a bitch was so far away from who I was that I truthfully had never, ever been called one. So one might think I would have been insulted and embarrassed at my husband of twenty-one years calling me a bitch in a roomful of our friends and colleagues, but I wasn’t. Instead I laughed. “From you that’s a compliment.”
Ruby let a chuckle escape as she squeezed my hand beneath the table.
“A compliment? You stupid bitch. You have no clue what you’ve done! I hold the cards, and I’m not going down for this. You’ll regret this. You’ll wish you had never said anything to anyone. You’ll wish—” They were leading him away, and everyone in the room looked on as if they were watching a play. The place was silent. Not even the clink of silverware could be heard as Donner and Scott were led from the room in cuffs.
But Scott’s last words made me angry. I stopped smiling and stood, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. They ping-ponged their heads like they were at Wimbledon instead of a normally boring luncheon. “I won’t wish anything, Scott Crosby. Except that I never married you! Besides, I’ll be in Grand Cayman sipping margaritas while you defend your actions to the courts and all the people you helped to steal money from.”
He stilled when I said “Grand Cayman.” He jerked away from the officer and came toward me. They grabbed him again and pulled him along. “What did you say? What do you know about Grand Cayman?”
I looked my husband straight in the eye. “That’s right. You signed the papers that gave me access that day at the bar. The SEC and Justice Department know all about the offshore accounts. I made sure they did.”
I’d never seen my husband go crazy, but at that moment he did. He looked like a wild animal trying to escape the ropes. And to make it even better, Stephanie rose, her face tragic. “You promised me, Scott! I told you we should have left last week, but you had to receive this award.”
Scott struggled against the agents. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. I love you, baby.”
Stephanie banged both hands onto the table. “You’re an idiot. This is over. It’s way over.”
“Nooo, don’t do this,” Scott called back as they pushed him through the door. “I love you. I did it all for you.”
Stephanie grabbed her purse and ran to the other side of the ballroom as if she had a Yorkie biting her ankles this time. Tears streaked her angry, betrayed face.
It was horrible.
It was wonderful.