“Thanks, Bryce.”
Jackson shifted his gaze, spotted his brother standing next to a twenty-year-old gray Ford 250 with streaks of peeling paint on the hood. He made his way over to the man who was a mere eleven months younger than he was. “I thought you were somewhere in the Bahamas.”
Mitch tossed out an arm, gave his brother a man hug. “I was. We were diving near Little Bahama Bank for a treasure-laden ship we think went down in 1658. After Mom called, I caught the first flight into Miami, then took a jumper home, same as you.”
“When did you get in?”
“Last night. Left my crew in the middle of the best hunt I’ve been on in two years. When Livvy does turn up, she better have a good explanation for taking off like this, scaring the hell out of Mom.”
Jackson nodded. “Let’s hope she’s back home right this minute explaining herself to Mom and Dad.” But the notion fell flat. Jackson’s eyes bored into Mitch’s. It was then he noticed how gaunt his brother looked and the dark circles that showed the strain of the past two days. There was something about that one fact that caused him to divert the topic from Livvy. “No one has keener instincts at finding a ship’s location than you do. It doesn’t take much for your pirate instincts to surface. I can tell you’d rather be out on the water instead of dealing with this.”
Lack of sleep had taken its toll and Mitch’s face showed every line. “Look, I have to keep my mind on something other than Livvy and those kids or else I’ll go nuts.”
“Understood. So what fortune was listed on the ship’s manifest?”
Mitch’s golden-brown eyes, so much like his own, gleamed with the pride of a treasure hunter. “Records show it held gold doubloons stuffed into fourteen chests, precious gems along with snuff boxes, each one made from gold, each weighing five ounces or more.”
“Nice haul.”
“Gotta locate it first. No good to us unless we find it.”
When Bryce brought over the luggage, Jackson helped him load it into the bed of the truck, making room for his stuff among his dad’s toolbox and ladder.
Bryce offered his hand. “Y’all need anything, your mama has my number. Anything Michelle and I can do, you be sure to let us know.”
“Thanks,” Jackson said again, as he weighed Bryce’s grip. “We appreciate the offer. Would the wife still be Michelle Gretzel?” Jackson asked, his tone teasing remembering a busty brunette cheerleader whose measurements had kept him up nights.
Bryce grinned. “She’s been Michelle Kimmel now for eight years. We have two daughters. One’s in Blake’s class at school, the other in Ally’s.”
Jackson ran a hand through a mop of hair the color of rich espresso and let out a sigh, the playful tone gone. “It makes me sick at my stomach just thinking about what might’ve happened to those kids. Surely someone knows something.”
“Or saw something,” Mitch tossed in. “That’s the kicker. Why hasn’t anyone come forward with information, a sighting, a tip of some kind?”
“They’ll turn up,” Bryce assured the brothers. “Maybe it’s as simple as Walker and Olivia heading out of town for a few days to grab some downtime and forgetting to call.”
Jackson’s disdain for that idea showed on his face. “Not this time of year with school just getting started. Ask yourself, would you and Michelle do that with your kids?”
Bryce scratched his head. “No, probably not. We usually wait for three-day weekends to go exploring.”
“Exactly. And if you wanted downtime, you’d need to arrange for someone to sit with the kids. It doesn’t make sense that they’d take Ally and Blake and go off without telling anyone.”
Mitch shifted his feet, impatient. “Sorry to break up this little reunion, but we need to get moving. Mom and Dad are waiting for us.”
After another round of man hugs from Bryce, the brothers crawled into the Ford to head for home, Mitch behind the wheel. “Funny, I don’t remember the football player being so warm and fuzzy the day he beat me up in eighth grade and demanded that I give him my lunch money.”
Jackson snorted. “Maybe Bryce is getting soft in his old age. Or maybe he secretly still has a thing for Livvy. They went to junior prom, as I recall.”
It was Mitch’s turn to laugh as he turned the pickup south onto the Causeway that would take them into town. Glancing out the window at the Key that was a slice of paradise to all of them growing up, Mitch added, “Please don’t put the image of Bryce and Livvy making out in my head. I’m the one who caught them tonsil diving on the front porch steps. That almost stunted me for life.”
Jackson was too tired to reminisce. He let his head fall back on the headrest, eager for a chance at a quick nap. “How are they holding up, Mom and Dad?”
Worry flicked in Mitch’s eyes. “About like you’d expect. Mom’s trying not to bawl all the time and Dad’s trying to hold it together for her. Neither one has been to work since this thing started. For days now, they’ve been sitting around that house imagining the worst. While he’s making sure Mom doesn’t break down every time the phone rings. There’s something you ought to know. You’re walking into a hornets’ nest. Dad insists Walker’s responsible for Livvy and the kids going missing.”
“Not such a surprise there. Dad never did warm up to Walker.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“So what exactly does he think Walker’s up to?”
“I’ll let him pitch his own case.”
“Okay, so what’s the battle plan? What exactly do we do first?”
“We find Livvy and the kids.”
Jackson scrubbed his hands over his face in a gesture that spoke volumes about how drained he felt and he’d only been on the ground less than thirty minutes. “Some part of me hoped that by the time I got here, Livvy would drive up to the house with a big smile for all of us and say how they took off on a fishing trip.”
“That didn’t happen. Walker’s boat is still sitting in Sugar Bay.”
“That’s what Mom said. This morning as I waited to board my flight at JFK, I looked up at a TV monitor only to see Olivia’s name and picture come across the bottom of the screen. ‘Olivia and Walker Buchanan and their two children missing from their home on Indigo Key,’ that’s what the tagline read. And that’s when I realized this was for real and I needed to get my ass back home.”
“This whole thing is surreal to me, too. I mean, where are the kids? Like you said back at the airport, Livvy wouldn’t just take off without letting someone know her plans. She’d tell mom for certain.”
“Yeah. And that kind of thinking made me realize that if my adventurer brother—who loves treasure hunting more than anything else in the world—tells me we have a family crisis back home, I know better than to argue with him.”
Mitch sent his brother a scornful glare. “Since when did a brain like you start holding a poorly educated sailor like me in such high regard?”
Sensing the familiar sore subject building between them, Jackson took off his sunglasses so he could look his younger brother in the face. “Come on, that’s not fair. Was it wrong of me to want you to go to college instead of working on a salvage ship right out of high school? As your older brother it was my duty to encourage you to do something more with your life, something better.”
Mitch’s face closed off at the same excuse he’d heard for years. “I had my fill of school even when I was in school. I couldn’t wait to get out. I tried to make you understand that. College was something you wanted, not me.”
“Fair enough. You’re obviously good at what you do. Finding that Spanish galleon off the coast of Jamaica three years ago made you a wealthy man.”
Mitch made a derisive noise in his throat. “I had to split the booty with a team of ten. Besides, it wasn’t that much of a challenge. We found the ship in sixty feet of water where it had run aground. Didn’t even take that much to clean up.”
Jackson sent him a lopsided grin at the obvious attempt to downplay the importance
of the find. “You’ve never been one to beat your chest any more than Garret. You’re both fairly level-headed, a little quick to anger but still...”
“Maybe so, but when the athlete in the family agrees to leave Australia in the middle of a competition where he’s going after another world surfing title, I know something’s way off. I may not have a bunch of degrees like you or the athletic ability Garret possesses, but I’m pretty sure Livvy’s disappearance tops a treasure hunt any day of the week.”
Mitch exited toward the downtown section of town, driving past the marina where a twelve-foot bronze statue of a pirate, sword drawn, one foot resting on his pirate chest, stood tall above a flowing fountain at its base. Carved from quartz and red Italian marble, the swashbuckling landmark had greeted tourists at the corner of Pearl Street and Seafarer Way since 1896. For more than a hundred years the sculpture had marked the entrance to the port.
With the installation of lights in 1956, the distinctive fountain lit up at night and could be seen for several miles offshore. It made for a popular backdrop where tourists could pose for snapshots.
From the point of the statue, if you wanted to venture into the business district, locals knew to hang a right onto Pearl. Take a left on Seafarer Way and it would lead you straight into the residential section of town.
Mitch kept heading right, reducing his speed past the Winn-Dixie, the bank, Mattito’s Bar, a nightspot called Theo’s that proudly advertised a live band seven nights a week, and several little boutiques lining the way to the strand. From there a row of restaurants gave way to a grill house that specialized in steaks, a pizza place, a barbecue joint, a hamburger stand, and a taco eatery.
Jackson saw people he recognized milling along the sidewalks sweating in the heat, either making their way from the beach, or coming back from an afternoon of fishing.
The inlet known as Sugar Bay glistened in the sun as it swelled with catchy-named sloops and sleekly-built catamarans that bobbed in the gentle waters. The sight of it all brought fond memories rushing back in a montage of snapshots from the past. The foundation of his childhood had been built on these shores, on these streets.
The smells of local cuisine caused Jackson’s stomach to rumble. “Right about now I could use the biggest, juiciest cheeseburger from Charlie’s that I could shovel in my mouth.”
“I wouldn’t mention that to Mom. When I left home she was cooking up a batch of cornbread and a pot of gumbo.”
“That’ll work, too. Look around. Everything seems so normal. Everyone’s going about their business as usual as if nothing’s wrong.”
“Except Livvy and the kids aren’t here.”
“Exactly. When’s Garret due in?”
“Tonight. And you’re picking him up.”
“My little brother’s become bossy. Why me?”
“Hey, we’re more like twins really. And you’re doing the hauling because there are a couple of people I want to talk to.”
Jackson’s temper flared. “Not without me you don’t. And I’m sure Garret will echo that same reaction. So whatever it is you’re cooking up, you might as well push it back until we can go as a unit.”
Mitch let out a low growl. “I was afraid of that. I should’ve kept my big mouth shut. You know, when I called Dad ship-to-shore to get more detail about what happened, I’m sitting out in the middle of this dive spot and decided that if you and Garret could chuck what you were doing to come home and help look, I couldn’t stay away either. So while I’m not crazy about leaving my crew to get into, God knows what kind of trouble, you should know that I’m in this for however long it takes.”
“Glad to hear it. What do we know for certain so far?”
Mitch ticked off the list and it was short. “That Livvy left the Vitamin Hut to pick the kids up from school on Wednesday afternoon just as she always does. She made a stop at the Winn-Dixie to pick up something for dinner. The kids were with her.”
“They have surveillance of that?”
“Yep, including all three of them loading the sacks of groceries into that minivan she drives and taking off out of the parking lot. After that, Livvy heads home. We know that because she talked to Mom around five o’clock, said she had to go so she could fix dinner for the kids. And that’s the last time anyone talked to her.”
“What about Walker? When did he leave the health food store?”
“Walker closed up the Vitamin Hut at six o’clock. There’s video of that, too, from the bank across the street. But there’s nothing that tells us what time he reached home.”
“Or if he ever did.”
“Right. What I want to do is arrange a face to face meeting with Jessup Sinclair, get his take on all this up close.”
“Is that old man still police chief?”
“He is. And Jackson, get this. Sinclair told Dad he doesn’t think they disappeared on their own. That’s his take, which could mean something’s seriously wrong here. Like you said earlier, considering the worst-case scenario makes me sick at my stomach. We both know Livvy would call if she could. It’s been seventy-two hours since she got off the phone with Mom. Something isn’t right.”
Jackson rubbed his tired eyes. “I talked to Mom this morning before hopping on the charter. I’m pretty sure she said there was no sign of blood found in the house, no evidence of foul play. So that’s good, right?”
“Doesn’t mean it isn’t there. If Livvy and Walker up and left, what happened to make them do that? Crime scene techs are still turning that place upside down as we speak. Who knows what they’ll find?”
“But will they share anything? That’s the major question. Not likely,” Jackson surmised. “That’s why we need to prepare to go it alone, maybe hire us a private investigator if that’s what it takes.”
“I can tell you this,” Mitch went on. “Blake and Ally were marked absent on Thursday and Friday. By Thursday afternoon the school called Mom when they couldn’t reach Livvy or Walker to find out why the kids weren’t in school. That’s when Mom got worried and went over to the house. The minivan wasn’t in the driveway. So she decided to use her spare key to go in and look around.”
“And?” Jackson prompted.
“Nothing. Mom saw nothing out of the ordinary. The rooms downstairs were left tidy, nothing out of place, nothing missing, clothes still in the drawers, suitcases still in the closets.”
“That’s odd. It doesn’t sound like they left on their own to me.” Jackson chewed his jaw. “But where’s the minivan?”
Mitch shook his head. “That’s the thing. There’s been no sign of it anywhere around town.”
After reaching the end of the row of businesses in downtown, Mitch gunned the truck toward the corner of Blue Fin and Windward giving Jackson his first glimpse of the media craze. Scads of journalists, neighbors, and onlookers had invaded Livvy and Walker’s neighborhood. Like an annoying swarm of mosquitos, the reporters fluttered around the two-story house that Livvy had painted a soft green.
Jackson sucked in a breath, remembering how ecstatic his sister had been the day she and Walker closed on the property five years earlier. She’d emailed everyone pictures of the interior, room by room.
“This is anything but normal,” Jackson muttered. “Just look at those vultures standing out here while the state police try to keep everyone back.”
The crowd was so thick the closest Mitch could park the pickup was six houses away on the other side of the narrow street.
“Why are all these people hanging around here anyway?” Jackson grumbled. “What do they hope to gain or to see?”
“Hey, don’t knock it. Many of these on-air personalities made the trip all the way from Miami and Tampa to cover Livvy’s story up close and personal.” Mitch pointed a finger at a good-looking platinum blonde. “And she’s down here from Jacksonville. Getting the word out is part of the process. You’ll have to figure out a way to deal with it. Someone has to be the family spokesperson. These guys have already been bugging Mom and Dad
to make a statement. Somebody’s got to do it.”
Jackson wiped his brow beginning to sweat at the thought of standing in front of a wall of reporters and microphones. He ran a hand through his hair. “This is nuts.”
“More like unbelievable,” Mitch corrected.
“That too. It’s hard to imagine that six blocks from here is where we grew up. Mom always worried about her sons going out into the big bad world. Which meant Olivia should’ve been the safest since she never left Indigo Key for longer than a week.”
“Good point. Her getaway for a week was the cruise she and Walker took on their honeymoon.”
“Yeah. It’s difficult to believe Olivia married Walker two years out of high school.”
In the heat of an Indian summer, Mitch noticed Jackson sweating and reached over, cranked the air conditioning up to max. “No matter what I said earlier, I can’t take much of this. I think you should be the family spokesman because, let’s face it, Dad is not the most diplomatic person you want in front of the world. You know how he feels about the Buchanans. That’s bound to come out in the first few minutes they shove a microphone in his face. Any statement he tries to make will likely be biased and rough. Are you ready to get out of here?”
Jackson nodded. “Yep. Get me home. There’s nothing to do here anyway except watch the media melt in the heat of September.”
“Not until all these cops clear out and the horde leaves.”
Mitch hit the gas and turned the corner. In the shadow of the saltshaker-style lighthouse at the end of the block, Jackson spotted several more newshounds who’d staked out the house where he’d grown up. A few stragglers lined Quay Avenue. One van had lettering from as far away as Atlanta, Georgia.
“Sheesh, these guys are everywhere. They’re waving us down,” Jackson noted.
The small crowd had Mitch slowing to keep from hitting one of the more aggressive types. “That’s because they’re looking for a quote from the family they can air tonight.”
“I’m not up to making a statement so don’t even suggest it. Hell, I just got here, I’m not even sure my brain has engaged yet or what exactly is going on.”
[Indigo Brothers 01.0] Indigo Fire Page 2
