“So you think he was younger than Miss Shah?”
“I’d say so, yes, but you know,” the old lady replied, “he was different.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t understand,” Faith responded. “You keep saying he was different, how so?”
“Well, he was a nice-looking white fellow, and I’ve only seen another woman come visiting. She stays over. If you know what I mean.”
Faith managed a smile and thanked the old lady for her help.
“Anything useful?” Brandt asked as Faith came back into the condo.
“Good-looking Caucasian male in his mid-twenties came by a few hours ago,” Faith confirmed. “Hopefully CCTV will give us a good look, so we don’t have to chase a better description out of the neighbour. Find anything else here?”
Brandt nodded towards the sliding glass doors, where the dog sat panting and staring up at the two agents.
“Found a notebook on the kitchen counter by the coffee maker. Maybe she set it down there while she made lunch or something. I get the feeling whoever did this wasn’t very thorough or systematic, maybe even panicked. I can’t believe he didn’t find the notebook.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have anything in it pertinent to his concern,” Faith suggested.
“Then this isn’t about our case,” Brandt replied. “There’s a bunch of notes in it, a to-do list, and two phone numbers. Both 345 area code which I’d never heard of. So I looked it up. Cayman Islands prefix.”
“Hm,” Faith murmured. “Maybe it is unrelated.”
“Perhaps. But I think the man was just sloppy,” Brandt replied. “We’ll have a better look through the notes in a minute and see if there’s anything helpful.”
Faith looked over at her partner. “So why are we standing by the window looking at a thirsty dog?”
Brandt pointed to the corner of the balcony. “Because I’m pretty certain the dog was shoved out here after the murder took place.”
“Did he tell you that?” Faith chuckled. “Is Fluffy the terrier our star witness?”
“Could be,” Brandt grinned, “because I think that’s a piece of the guy’s pant leg Fluffy dropped on the balcony.”
27
Locomotive
I sat in the chair and held my head in my hands, tired and drained. My body weighed a thousand kilos, and I felt like I’d never stand up again. Everyone has a breaking point, and for months my whole existence had teetered on that edge. Why did this drittsekk have to choose me?
The past three years had been marked by a violence I didn’t know existed beyond movie screens. One minute I was a 16-year-old schoolgirl infatuated with my handsome teacher, and the next I couldn’t remember the innocent girl I once was.
In my last-ditch efforts to resurrect an affair that he never should’ve pursued, the teacher and I both went missing. He, permanently, in a sailboat accident that I find hard to keep clear in my mind, and me, on the run for 18 months. It all seemed so long ago. After boat and island hopping around the world, I was recruited into a high-class resort on Grand Cayman. What appeared to be my ticket to a new life turned out to be a human trafficking operation preying on lost girls like me. I lived in a luxurious prison, provided company for sleazy old men, and lost myself deeper in a well of insecurity and doubt. My escape came with AJ and Whittaker’s help, and instead of money to start over, I was lucky to keep my life.
After ‘borrowing’ a sailboat, I went back into hiding, and that’s when I met Ridley Hernandez. He changed my life. For the first time, I discovered the way a relationship was supposed to be. I could never return to the innocence of my youth back in Norway, but Ridley made me human again. Loved and secure. When he reconnected with his mother in Mexico while she battled cancer, he was also introduced to her husband, Aldo Trujillo, head of the cartel in Acapulco. Trujillo’s greed over Ridley’s inheritance of diamonds that we searched to reclaim from the bottom of the Caribbean Sea led to a confrontation, and his stepfather’s death.
Four months ago, the Mexican cartel sought vengeance for Aldo Trujillo, and murdered Ridley.
Grief, despair, sorrow? These are just words that poorly described the depths of emotions I sank to. Ultimately, apathy would best explain my state of mind. I didn’t care what happened to me. Or around me. I would gladly have slipped away into oblivion. A fine, delicate thread kept me from taking my own life. That thread came from the respect I held for my parents, and my friend AJ Bailey. I couldn’t put them through the same pain that consumed me.
Whittaker took me by complete surprise when he suggested I join the police service. I was a perfectly poor fit for law enforcement, yet somehow he saw an opportunity to turn my past into a way forward. Through my months of training and first few weeks on the job, I’d revelled in the distraction, and allowed myself to be carried forth with new purpose. But now I felt like I was back where I had started. Another person had been harmed. And it was my fault. I failed to save Ridley, and now Skylar Briggs was in agony because I’d screwed up. People put their faith in me, and I let them down.
I was certain Massey had believed I could pull through and pass his stupid challenges. If I’d done a better job of leading Skylar through the process, we could have completed the drawing. I looked up at the whiteboard, frowning at my rough approximation of the toxic icon. My imperfect circles glared back at me, an embarrassing attempt at preventing the suffering. I wondered again what was wrong or missing. It didn’t matter. Time had no rewind button, and her severed finger would remain on the floor in the next room.
My biggest mistake with the man sent to kill Ridley was hesitation. Waiting for the perfect opportunity meant doing nothing until it was too late. There’s never a perfect opportunity. The hitman had lured Ridley by holding me captive, and once he had us both, he moved us to a boat intended for Mexico. I’d seen several chances with low percentages of success, but I should have taken them. Even if I’d failed, Ridley may have stood a chance.
My frustration began to boil over, and I refocused on taking whatever control away from our captor that I could. I didn’t want to be too late again. Being shot attempting to free us both held more appeal than sitting idly by while Skylar was mutilated. I stood up and booted the door with my foot. The whole partition wall shook, but the door was a lot stouter than I had anticipated.
“Stop that!” Massey shouted over the speakers.
I kicked the door again, aiming right by the lock. The wall rattled and the dry-erase markers flew out of the tray below the whiteboard.
“Nora, sit down or you’ll force me to hurt Skylar again!”
“Faen!” I screamed and glared at the camera looking down at me. “Skylar? Are you okay?”
I put my hand against the wall between us, hoping I could sense or feel something.
“It fucking hurts,” I heard over the speakers, her voice sounding brittle and hopeless.
Massey was letting us talk.
“You need to hold it together a little longer, Skylar,” I shouted, lightly tapping against the wall so she’d know I was right there, close by. “We have one more of these bullshit challenges. I’ll do my best I promise, but I need you to help me as much as you can.”
“He’s gonna kill me, so what’s the point?” Skylar moaned.
“Not if we pass the fourth challenge,” I countered, although I wasn’t sure I believed my own words. Massey had done exactly what he’d said so far. I tended to believe he’d let us go if we passed the challenge, but I was more worried we wouldn’t.
“You’ll both go free if you pass this challenge,” Massey said. But of course he’d say that.
“Have you wrapped her hand?” I asked, picturing the poor girl tied to the chair with blood dripping to the floor.
“I’ve dressed the wound,” he replied. “I’ve numbed it as best I can, but she wouldn’t take the pain pill I offered her.”
“That’s weird,” I retorted, “her having trust issues with you.”
I heard a faint laugh. “I g
uess that’s true. Anyway, her finger is on ice, so there might be a chance to save it. When this is all over.”
“If we pass the damn test,” I reminded him.
“Yes,” he said hesitantly, “of course.”
“Don’t you think this has gone far enough?” I said, trying to sound more sympathetic than authoritative. It came out somewhere in the middle and reminded me I suck at this.
“We’re almost done, and the final part is the most important,” he replied firmly. “I can’t stop now.”
“Then let me trade places with Skylar,” I said, and wondered where that idea had come from.
“I’m sorry, that’s not possible. You’ll see why shortly.”
“Surely she’s sacrificed enough? Just let her go and let me do the final test,” I persevered. “She still has the chance of a life ahead. Mine’s already fucked up.”
“She’s made a pretty good mess of hers so far,” Massey pointed out.
“Enough to deserve this?”
“Neither of you deserve this,” he said softly, barely audible through the wall. “But life isn’t fair, as you well know.”
I wondered how he knew anything about me. Maybe he’d discovered the story about Ridley, but the names of the girls at the resort had been withheld from the press. To my knowledge, the incident with the teacher only made the Norwegian local news. But he was right, life wasn’t fair. It was impartial and uncaring. Life was a locomotive made of iron and steel, riding down the railroad tracks of time like a soulless machine in complete disregard of the devastation in its wake. Fair was a myth spawned from human optimism.
“Let’s make a deal,” I blurted. “Failure in the final challenge is paid with a life, right?”
“Yes,” he replied suspiciously.
“Then it shouldn’t matter whose. So make it mine. I don’t care if I die. I’m pretty sure she does.”
All fell quiet, and I noticed the low drone again in the distance. It was coming from behind me, which if I was correct about the trail coming from the water, meant it was deeper into the woods. I wondered if it was civilisation, or maybe a generator to power the building we were in. That started to make sense to me. He had air conditioning and electronics, which all required reliable electricity.
“It matters,” Massey finally said, and I forgot about the noise and remembered I’d just offered up my life.
“What has Skylar done to hurt you?” I asked.
“She has done nothing, to my knowledge,” he replied.
“Then why hurt her?”
“Because it’s the only way I can hurt her family,” Massey snapped back. “And they deserve everything that’s coming.”
28
Speechless
Whittaker stared into the eyes of the kidnapper. Jensen Massey finally looked away from the camera and left Skylar in view, tied to the chair. Her left hand was wrapped in a bloodied bandage.
The detective was aghast. The exchange between Massey and his two captives had been aired to the world. Hearing Nora offer her life for the stranger in the next room left Roy Whittaker speechless, and desperately anguished. He was responsible for her being there. She’d joined the police on his invitation, and he’d persuaded her to do so.
“They,” Beth pointed out. “He said they, not him,” she clarified, nodding towards the police car where Donovan Briggs was still being detained.
Whittaker forced himself away from his guilt and turned to the agent. “If there’s someone else involved, then maybe he’ll throw them under the bus to save himself.”
“True,” Beth agreed, “but we have no idea what they have even done to aggrieve Massey.”
“But Briggs doesn’t know that,” Kowalczyk added.
“Then let’s formally arrest him,” Whittaker suggested, looking out from the tent towards the police car. “That should get his attention.”
The two agents looked at each other. “As representatives of the US, we would need to remind you of the rights of our citizens, detective. We could not support an arrest without probable cause or evidence of wrongdoing,” Kowalczyk said, with little conviction.
“Duly noted,” Whittaker replied. “And as representatives of the US, I assume you’d like to be present when your citizen is interviewed?”
Beth glanced at Kowalczyk and grinned. “Yes, sir, that would be appropriate.”
Whittaker nodded. “Jacob.”
The constable heard his name called and jogged over to the tent.
“Bring in one of the vans and park it over there, away from your car,” Whittaker ordered. “Then arrest Mr Briggs, put him in handcuffs and lead him to the van, where I’ll question him shortly.”
Jacob looked nervously at his boss. “If I put the van behind da car, I could probably sneak da man in without all da cameras seeing, sir? They probably make a big deal if I arrest da victim's father, and all.”
“I’m counting on it, Jacob,” Whittaker replied. “Now get to it, I want to question the man.”
“Yes, sir,” Jacob said, and ran from the tent.
Whittaker turned to Kowalczyk. “I have a feeling you’re an effective individual in an interview room, agent.”
Kowalczyk nodded. “I can probably help the RCIPS out, as I insist on being present while our citizen is being questioned.”
Satisfied, Whittaker picked up the digital radio. “This is Whittaker, status update please.”
“Unit one here, sir,” came the reply from a man with an English accent. “We’ve made it to the border with The Shores, sir. We’ve had a team on both sides of the road until now, but here the canal continues on the park side and the only way to follow it is on the water or from the road inside The Shores. We have a small boat being brought over, but we’re doing our best until it arrives. Trouble is, there are trees and shrubs between us and the water, so we have to fight through that to get a look. We then move farther down and repeat. Sorry, it’s slower than we hoped, sir.”
“Dis is Unit Two,” Williams said. “We searching da canals alongside da smaller roads of da interior. Nothing to report so far, sir.”
“10-4, thank you,” Whittaker replied, and put the radio down.
“Sound’s like it’s slow going,” Beth commented sympathetically.
Whittaker thought for a moment. “It is,” he said absent-mindedly, then looked at the two agents. “At some point I’ll have to risk putting the helicopter up.”
“Do you have a drone?” Kowalczyk asked.
“The RCIPS doesn’t, but I know someone who could bring one over and fly it for us,” Whittaker replied. “I understand it would stand a better chance of not being seen or heard, but my concern is our response time if we find Massey’s location. From the helicopter we can drop a few armed men within minutes. With the drone we get the location, but still have to reach it from land.”
“Fair point,” Kowalczyk conceded.
“If our ground search fails to turn up a result,” Whittaker said, “I think we have to take to the air and risk the consequence.”
Beth’s mobile rang, and she looked at the caller ID. “It’s ops,” she said, and answered the call. “Agent Ricci.”
Beth’s face slowly turned to a frown, and she covered the mobile’s microphone with her hand, “They just found Myra Shah dead in her condo. All her files and computer are missing.”
For the second time in less than five minutes, Whittaker was left without words. As one of the safest islands in the Caribbean, the Cayman Islands averaged three or four murders a year. Florida regularly logged well over 1,000 homicides in the same time frame. Of course, the populations were vastly different, but as the detective who dealt with most serious crimes on the island, he could recall the name of every victim. They were almost exclusively men who had lost their way and become involved in the small amount of gang and drug-dealing activity that took place. These things almost never happened to law-abiding, hard-working citizens.
He let out a long breath. “I was speaking with the woma
n just a few hours ago,” he said to no one in particular. “She was going to call me back with more details.”
He looked up at Beth, who was ending her call. “This whole mess is out of control.”
“The perp missed one notebook, which appears to be one she started today,” Beth reported. “They’re going through it now and will let us know if they find anything of use.”
“Do they have any idea who did this?” Whittaker asked.
“Not yet, but they’re working on CCTV and they have a rough description from an eyewitness of a male in his mid-twenties who visited the condo earlier today. They’re hoping the security cameras will give them something to work with.”
They all looked up at the sound of a car horn and saw Jacob waving a police van through the barriers. The press were eagerly filming the activity. Whittaker noticed the crowd had grown considerably. Many more news teams with foreign network insignias were scrambling for front-row positions.
“If he turns out to be innocent, this could turn into a big media problem for you and your island, detective,” Kowalczyk pointed out.
“Do you think he’s innocent?” Whittaker challenged.
“I didn’t say that,” Kowalczyk replied with a smirk. “But innocent and unable to prove guilt are the same thing in a court of law. This guy will show up with more lawyers than they’ll fit in the courthouse. If this arrest isn’t by the book, that’s the first thing they’ll throw out.”
The van parked near the tent, a good 50 feet from Jacob’s police car.
“Donovan’s crimes are almost certainly on your soil, agent,” Whittaker said. “My arrest will have no bearing on the case you’ll bring against him back home. Besides, my immediate concern is any information that will help us right here, right now.”
Kowalczyk shrugged his shoulders. “True.”
“And I certainly don’t care what the press have to say,” Whittaker added. “That’s for poor Pam in communications to deal with.” He made a mental note to buy the woman a gift basket and a spa visit when this was over. “All I care is that Briggs sees the cameras of the world on him while he’s in handcuffs.”
Deadly Sommer: Nora Sommer Caribbean Suspense - Book One Page 16
