Laura Saunders took another sweep through the large colonial house, making sure nothing of value was left behind. Over the past week, Laura had removed the Van Gogh and the Monet paintings and replaced them with fakes. Over the past month, she had systematically removed and replaced the antique silverware with silver-plated cutlery. The ancient Chinese Jade figurines and the Ming vase had been spirited away over the last four months and replaced with fakes. The originals had been stored in her safe deposit boxes.
As Laura moved through the house calmly, she was relatively certain that everything of value had already been gathered. But she had been taught to double-check to be sure. Yesterday, the final piece fell into place when Laura sold her husband, William's house, using his power of attorney. Just before leaving the house, she would text the order to move the slightly more than ninety million dollars out of her husband's accounts and into her own. With the artwork, Laura would net slightly more than ninety-two million dollars.
When Laura came to the framed picture of her and her husband by the front door, she paused. It had been taken at their engagement party almost two years ago. Laura ran her finger lovingly over her husband's face and sighed. He had been loving and kind during their time together, especially their short marriage. She would miss him, but it was time to move on, having stayed well past what she had intended. The truth about Laura was that she was a confidence woman and had planned to steal her husband's wealth from the very beginning. Laura's gypsy grandmother had a saying that she repeated frequently. If you leave something out where it can be taken, then you deserve to have it stolen. William had left his fortune out, and Laura was stealing all of it.
Laura was taught how to pick a pocket before she could read. Learning how to run "cons" was just a normal part of her life. Her mother, Hester, and her father, Patrick, were both gypsies, and their marriage had been arranged. It wasn't a particularly happy marriage as her mother was always after her father to be more ambitious. Laura's mother was fairly skilled at parting unsuspecting people from their money, but her father was hopeless. Due to his ineptitude, he had spent three stints in the county jail.
Over the years, Laura knew that her mother wanted to be done with her husband, but the Gypsy Council refused to give its consent. This was because two of the Council members were William's brothers. So, Hester cheated on her husband shamelessly. When it came to infidelity, however, the Council had a different standard. They felt it was Patrick's responsibility to keep his wife in line. And if he couldn't, that was his problem.
Patrick wasn't a fighter, so he was unable to stop his wife's philandering. In fact, Patrick was just a good-hearted soul who loved his daughter, ale, telling stories and singing. He had a beautiful voice and would burst into song whenever the mood struck him. But as far as running cons were concerned, Patrick was hopeless. Still, most people loved him for the simple soul that he was. Laura adored her father but only tolerated her mother. She also hated all the men who took advantage of her father. She also hated with a passion, all the men who constantly controlled her life. When her father was killed in a con gone wrong, she mourned him for months.
Teddy had arrived three months before Patrick died and immediately moved in with them. He was a third cousin or something like that who had to leave Cleveland in the middle of the night. Teddy was only seven years older than Laura but immediately took up with Hester. At first, Laura hated her mother and Teddy for cheating once again on her father. But Teddy was something different. He didn't treat Laura like other men. Teddy always listened and treated her like an equal. When he dumped Hester, Laura was already in love with him and easily fell into his bed. From then on, Teddy taught her everything he knew about the confidence game. Laura was so impressed by Teddy's knowledge that she once told him that he must be the smartest confidence man in the world. Teddy had laughed at that and said he was good but nowhere near the best.
"People think guys like Charles Ponzi or Bernie Madoff were the best con men," Teddy explained to Laura, "but they weren't. Oh, they conned people out of enormous amounts of money, but in the end, they got caught. Over the last ten years, the two most successful con men have been anonymous; no one knows their real names. I only know them by their nicknames - the Bishop and the Chairman. Both have conned their "marks" out of at least two to four hundred million dollars. But those two are pikers in comparison to the Silver Fox. While he was alive, he conned his marks out of at least a billion dollars."
"If no one knows their names, how could you possibly know about them?" Laura challenged.
"The dark web," Teddy said with a smirk. "There is a site for the more technologically savvy confidence people where they can post their latest scores without the fear anyone will be able to learn who they are. Every person who posts has their own handle. The "Bishop" posts his scores with the picture of a chess bishop. The "Chairman" posts his achievements with a picture of Frank Sinatra. The Silver Fox used a cartoon drawing of a silver fox sitting with its tongue hanging out the left side of its mouth. This site even has a "gatekeeper" that screens any submissions. In order to have your con posted, you have to have incontrovertible proof that you did what you claim. Someday, I'll be posting my scores on that site."
It was Teddy who had selected William as the target for this "long con." Originally, Teddy figured that the con should only last six months. But it took almost that long to gather enough information on William and find a way into his life.
The plan that was finally adopted called for Laura to insinuate herself into William's life as his administrative assistant. Once Laura had his trust, she was supposed to steal his passwords and access his financial accounts. The day before Laura took the job as William's administrative aid, Teddy told her that it shouldn't take any longer than four months to get the necessary codes. But after six months, Laura had not been able to penetrate William's security. As his administrative assistant, he seemed to trust her with almost everything, including access to his house account. However, the house account never had any more than sixty or seventy thousand dollars in it.
Teddy was getting frustrated that they hadn't progressed any further. He was especially frustrated because Laura had learned that William was worth more than ninety million dollars. Then, Teddy began pushing Laura to begin a sexual relationship with her boss. Laura was cold to the idea at first, but Teddy's charm and persistence finally convinced her.
The relationship started slowly, and Laura finally decided that being William's girlfriend was really very nice. He treated her like a princess. Yet after eight months of going together, Laura still didn't have the codes for the vast majority of his investments. Although she now had access to his business operating account. But that never had more than two or three hundred thousand dollars.
It came as a shock to Laura when Teddy mentioned the subject of marrying William. She had been in love with Teddy since before the first time he took her into his bed. But again, Teddy's charm and persuasiveness convinced her that marrying William was the only way they could access her boss' fortune.
At first, all of Laura's efforts to maneuver William into proposing failed. Teddy finally came up with the ploy that worked. He instructed Laura to submit her resignation. Teddy further suggested that when William asked why, Laura was to tell him she'd fallen in love with him and it was too difficult to be near him, knowing it would never be any more than it was. If William accepted Laura's resignation, she was to clean out the accounts she had access to, and they'd disappear. But Teddy felt that William would step up and ask her to marry her, and Teddy was right.
Laura and Teddy had discussed how to handle William if he proposed. Laura was to push for a small wedding with just a few intimate friends. She had already told William that she didn't have any family still alive. She was to insist upon a prenuptial agreement to convince William that she wasn't marrying him for his money. The agreement stated that she would only be paid three hundred thousand dollars if they were married for at least five years and then divorced. If they divorced before then, Laura agreed to take only the twenty-five thousand dollars that she currently had in her savings account.
Of course, the prenup was meaningless as they would be long gone with William's money before any divorce could be filed. Teddy was sure that William wouldn't pursue them because Laura had discovered paperwork that indicated much of William's money was gained through insider trading. Teddy was fairly certain that William wouldn't want the authorities looking too closely at his investment accounts. Besides, William wouldn't have the money to really pursue them.
It was eleven months before Laura told Teddy that she had all the access codes to William's investment accounts. Actually, she had them after five months but being married to William proved to be more than anything she could have imagined. While being his girlfriend, Laura had found him to be a kind and passionate lover and companion. Being his wife had been something else altogether. William was still kind and passionate, but he made her feel loved and safe like she had never felt before. However, when Laura expressed her feelings for William to Teddy and told him that she didn't want to go ahead, it infuriated him. Despite the fact that becoming romantically involved with a mark was considered a cardinal sin, he held his temper.
It took weeks, but Teddy was finally able to convince Laura. He subtly filled Laura's head with images of how men had controlled her most of her life and how William was putting her under his thumb. The fact that Laura still had feelings for Teddy made his job easier. He even accused Laura of becoming a mark herself. To a confidence person, this was the highest insult. Finally, with still a little reluctance, Laura came around and agreed to go forward with their original plan. Now, as Laura continued her final sweep of the house, she had pushed her feeling for William to the back of her mind.
With a sigh, she removed her wedding and engagement ring, placing them on the kitchen table along with her letter. Laura had debated for some time as to what would go into the letter. In the end, she went with the standard phrasing. This was perhaps the cruelest thing Laura could have done. The letter merely told William she didn't love him anymore and was leaving him. He would find out later that all his wealth was gone as well. Then the heartbreak would turn to anger and their loving relationship would be shattered.
Finally, Laura finished her tour of the house and headed out for the last time. Her bags were already packed in the 2016 Honda Accord, which was recently purchased under an assumed name. Laura would have preferred to have taken her 1967 Mustang convertible that William had restored for her. He had upgraded it with several modern conveniences like Bluetooth and GPS. But taking the car was impossible because an anti-thief security system had been installed. In addition to the GPS tracking system, there was a kill switch. If the car was stolen or someone tried to disable the security system, the kill switch would be activated, and the car would cease to function.
As she drove through the gate, Laura took one last look at the rose garden William had planted for her. She loved those roses, but they were part of a life that was ending.
Teddy's office was about two hundred miles away in another state. He had a two-suite office that he ran his minor cons out of. It was leased on a month-to-month basis, so he could bolt if anyone started to make waves. Laura pulled into the parking lot and got out. Her new cellphone began to beep. That was strange because Teddy didn't even have the new number. Figuring it had to be a telemarketer, she declined the call and turned the phone off. A few seconds later, the phone turned back on, and a text message appeared.
