by James Swain
The sky was lightening as he parked outside his condo. He lived in Venice Isles in a two-bedroom with a panoramic view of the Intracoastal. The unit had been well above his pay grade until Hollywood had offered to buy the rights to the story behind the YouTube video. His friends had urged him to hold out for a part in the film, and he’d told them to get lost, and bought into the building while it was still under construction.
At first, his neighbors had turned up their noses at his bad fashion statement. Then they’d learned he was an ex-cop and decided he was cool. A day didn’t go by without a text questioning a suspicious character lurking about.
He slept a few hours, showered, but didn’t shave. While the stubble wouldn’t pass for a beard, it gave his face character. Standing at the mirror, he thought back to Janey touching his belly and her surprise. Not all fat men were created equal.
He thought about the Pearls as he dressed. Strange men were trying to abduct their daughter, and no one knew why. Or perhaps someone did know, but wasn’t letting on. He liked puzzles, and felt confident that he could solve this one.
Melanie greeted him at the front door. “Good morning, Jon. While we were having breakfast, we saw a story on the news about Janey MacKenzie being rescued in Melbourne last night. You must be very proud. Congratulations.”
Good news traveled fast. He entered and she shut the door behind him.
“We had visitors yesterday after you left,” she said. “A pair of detectives appeared on our doorstep wanting to know if you’d discharged your gun while rescuing Nicki. They had very unpleasant things to say about you.”
“Detectives Vargas and Gibbons,” he said.
The words caught her by surprise. “How did you know?”
“It’s not the first time they’ve spread dirt about me. What did you tell them?”
“Nolan covered for you, and said you hadn’t shot your gun. I want to be up front with you. I wanted to fire you after they left, but my husband and daughter were against it. They felt the detectives weren’t being honest. I thought it over, and decided they were right. But I need to ask you a question. Why did those detectives lie?”
“We have a history,” he said. “A Hollywood studio paid me a lot of money for the rights to make a movie about my rescuing a little girl. Vargas and Gibbons were on duty that day, and felt they deserved a cut because they assisted in the rescue. I thought about it, and decided no. Hollywood wants to tell my story, not theirs. They didn’t like it, and have been causing me problems ever since.”
“What kind of problems?”
“They sued me, but it got thrown out of court. Then they started harassing me and trying to ruin my business.”
“That explains it. I have one more question, if you don’t mind. Were you really a Navy SEAL? The detectives said that you weren’t.”
“I was. You act surprised.”
“You aren’t what I envision a SEAL would look like. Even an ex-one.”
“Did my belly throw you off?”
She blushed. “It did.”
“I was born with a condition called gastroschisis, which gave me a big stomach. The doctors fixed the problem, but for some reason my protruding stomach remained. People think I’m fat, but I’m not. Give me your hand.”
She lifted her hand, and he placed it against his belly. Her face registered surprise.
“My God, you’re as hard as a rock. You must take a lot of grief for it.”
“I’m used to it,” he said, letting her hand go. “How’s Nicki doing?”
“We pulled her out of school, like you suggested. She’s upstairs studying.”
“I told you last night that your daughter wasn’t to leave your sight,” he said, raising his voice. “Please get her downstairs.”
“We thought you meant when we went outside.”
Melanie was challenging him. He’d let it go once, but not a second time. “Don’t think these people won’t break into your house. Go get her.”
“Of course.” She went to the foot of the stairway and called for her daughter.
“Nicki, please come downstairs. Bring your laptop with you.” There was no response, and her face filled with apprehension. “Nicki, are you there? Answer me this instant.” She turned to Lancaster. “She must be plugged into a device.”
“Or she’s gone,” he said.
“You’re scaring me, Jon.”
Melanie was living in a bubble. So were most wealthy people, who believed that money could stop evil from entering their lives. Brushing past her, he bolted upstairs to the second floor and ran down the hallway. The doorway at the end had a drawing of a chestnut horse Scotch-taped to it, and he pounded on the door.
“Nicki?”
Melanie was right behind him. She twisted the knob and they entered together. Nicki lay on her bed, plugged into her iPhone. The teenager jumped up with a start.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing, honey. Everything’s fine,” Melanie said. “I thought you were doing homework. When you didn’t answer me, I got worried.”
“I was taking a break. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“That’s okay. Now grab your laptop, and come downstairs with us.”
“Sure, Mom.”
Nicki scooped up her laptop from a desk and followed her mother into the hallway. Lancaster did a quick sweep before leaving. The bedroom was a shrine to horses, the walls covered with posters of equestrian events held during the last Summer Olympics. The room had a single window facing the front of the house. Gazing out, he spied a white van parked across the street with a retractable aluminum ladder strapped to its roof and two men sitting inside. The van hadn’t been there when he’d parked in the driveway a few minutes ago. Melanie edged up beside him.
“Is something the matter?” she asked.
“Any idea what that van is doing parked across the street?” he asked.
“My neighbors must be having their house painted.”
“Are you friends with them?”
“We are. The Hartmans were the first people we met when we moved in.”
“Call them, and see if you’re right.”
“You think I’m not?”
“I painted houses one summer when I was a teenager. We showed up at eight in the morning and finished up at four. If the two guys in that van are painters, they should be painting your neighbor’s house instead of casing yours.”
“How can you see that far away?”
“It’s called visual accommodation. My eyes can adjust to distances and make out objects with total clarity. It comes in real handy sometimes. Please call the Hartmans.”
Melanie placed a call to her neighbors on her cell phone. It ended with a frown. “They’re not having any painting done. Do you think—”
She was asking too many questions, and he cut her short. “Take Nicki downstairs to where your husband is. I’m going outside to talk with these guys.”
“Whatever you say, Jon. Should I call 911?”
The average 911 call in a residential neighborhood was worthless when dealing with a real emergency. But Melanie was in distress, and trashing the cops wouldn’t help her frame of mind.
“It can’t hurt,” he said.
He came out the front door holding his car keys like he was preparing to leave. He went to the driver’s door of his vehicle and pushed the unlock button. The car’s headlights blinked, and so did its brake lights. Instead of getting in, he sprinted to the street, hoping to get a good look at the pair inside the van, which had its engine running. He was successful. Both had copper-tan skin and wore shades. He tried to determine if it was the same pair he’d seen in the cigarette boat, and decided it was.
“Hey! I need to talk to you!”
The van started moving. With tires squealing, it retreated down the street in reverse, making it impossible for him to read the license plate. Still in reverse, it whipped around a corner and disappeared. There was a science to not getting caught, and these guys were pros.
Frustrated, he went back inside. Melanie was in the foyer, cell phone in hand.
“I’m on hold with the dispatcher,” she said.
“You might as well hang up. They took off. It was the same pair from yesterday.”
She brought her hand to her mouth. “They’re not afraid of anything.”
“Oh yes, they are. They’re afraid of me. They wouldn’t have run like cowards if they weren’t. Is Nicki with your husband?”
“They’re in the study. How about a cup of coffee? You look like you could use one.”
“I never say no to coffee.”
She fixed him a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Her cell phone chirped, and she tugged it from her pocket. “My husband just texted me. He has something to show you. This house is so big that we have to text each other, if you can believe that.”
“Do you feel safe here?”
“I did when we first moved in. Now, not so much.”
“We need to fix that.”
“I’m open to any suggestions.”
“I know three ex-SEALs who will protect you when I’m not here.”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea.”
He followed her across the downstairs holding his steaming mug.
“One of our neighbors has a surveillance camera with a partial street view,” she said. “He shared a tape from last night with us. It’s very alarming. The neighborhood appears to be overrun with men stalking my daughter.”
They entered the study. The blinds were drawn, and it was dark. South Florida was all about bright-blue skies and sunshine, and the room felt like a cave. Pearl sat on a couch facing a wall-mounted TV, Nicki cross-legged on the floor, doing homework. On the TV’s screen the neighbor’s grainy surveillance video played. Each time a vehicle drove down the street, Pearl made a mark on a yellow legal pad. He glanced up.
“Hello, Jon. Congratulations. I saw the story about your rescue on the news. My wife said there was a suspicious van parked outside.”
“It was the same pair from yesterday. They bolted when I approached them.”
“But you shot one of them.”
“He was wearing a bulletproof vest. It was them, I’m sure of it.”
“Do you think they’ll be back?”
“Normally, I’d say no. But this situation isn’t normal. These guys don’t seem to care if they get spotted. May I ask what you’re doing?”
“I’m counting the vehicles that drove down our street last night. My neighbor leads the neighborhood watch group and said we normally get six cars per hour after midnight. Last night, it was triple that.”
“Eighteen cars per hour.”
“Correct.”
“Are there any road closures that you know about?”
“None that I’m aware of. The increase in traffic was caused by five vehicles.”
“Let me make sure I’m getting this right. Five different vehicles kept passing your house late last night. How long did this last?”
“From midnight until five a.m. Then it stopped.”
Pearl passed him the legal pad. Written on it were the names of five vehicles. There was a Chevy Malibu, a BMW Roadster, a Dodge Charger, a Ford pickup, and a Mini Cooper. Each car had a row of check marks beside it. The list didn’t look right, and he quickly realized what the problem was. The white van with the two kidnappers wasn’t on it.
CHAPTER 9
KING TIDES
“May I keep this?” Lancaster asked.
“Of course,” Pearl said.
Tearing the sheet off the pad, he turned it into a square, and slipped it into his shirt pocket. The more he learned, the less he understood. If the white van hadn’t been casing the house last night, then who were the drivers of the other five vehicles? How did they fit into the puzzle? He didn’t know, and supposed they would have to wait for one of them to show his face again. In his experience, waiting for a bad guy to act was dangerous. The better choice would be to draw one of them out.
“Would you be up for a field trip?” he asked.
Pearl and his wife exchanged troubled looks. The house was their sanctuary, while the outside world was a frightening and unpredictable place.
“Nicki was nearly kidnapped the last time we went out,” Pearl reminded him.
“She was actually kidnapped in your backyard,” he replied. “We can’t just sit here and wait for another attempt to be made. I want to grab the bull by the horns and confront one of these guys.”
Nicki lay on the carpeted floor beside the dog. The conversation was upsetting her, and she pulled the dog closer and gave him a protective hug.
“Where do you have in mind?” Pearl asked.
“I was thinking of a little shopping excursion on Las Olas, followed by lunch. I’m going to tail you, and see if I can catch one of these creeps.”
“You want to use our daughter as bait,” Pearl said.
“In a manner of speaking, yes. If I can get my hands on one of these jokers, I should be able to make him talk.”
“Do you plan to hurt him?” Melanie asked, sounding alarmed.
“I want to put the fear of God into him,” he said. “The law doesn’t look kindly on adult males who stalk teenage girls. Most guys who do this stuff know this. If I catch one of them, I’ll threaten to have him locked up, which should scare the daylights out of him. Then I’ll offer to make a deal. I’ll let him go, provided he tells me why he’s stalking your daughter.”
The Pearls again traded looks. They were gambling, and the stakes were high if things went wrong. They needed more convincing, so he said, “My goal is to find out why Nicki is being targeted. There has to be a thread that links these creeps together. If I can discover what that thread is, I can get to the bottom of what’s going on here, and keep your daughter out of harm’s way.”
Nicki rose from the floor and took her parents’ hands. She gave them a smile that was best described as courageous. “I want to do it. I want this to stop. Please.”
Melanie let out a deep breath. “You sure about this, honey?”
“Positive, Mom. Jon won’t let these men hurt me, will you, Jon?”
“No one’s going to hurt you, Nicki,” he said.
“I’m okay with it, if your father is,” Melanie said.
Pearl frowned. As a doctor, he knew that there were no good choices in bad situations. Leaving the house was a scary proposition, but staying inside was equally nerve-racking. The time had come to take action and deal with the situation head-on. “I’m in,” Pearl said.
Each fall, the King Tides swept across South Florida, turning coastal roads into rivers as the full moon swung closer to the Earth than normal. This year’s flooding was particularly harsh and had pushed water onto lawns while threatening coastal businesses.
The hand-painted signs were in nearly every yard: NO WAKE ZONE! At least people had a sense of humor about it. If the meteorologists were to be believed, this would one day be a regular event, as gravity and rising sea levels ravaged the coastline. So far no one was screaming too loudly, so the natives just figured out a way to cope.
Lancaster coasted down the flooded streets as he followed the Pearls to Las Olas. On the corner he spied a kid in swimming trunks with a bamboo fishing pole. He lowered his window and stuck his head out. “Catch anything?”
“I caught a shark, but my mom made me throw it back,” the kid said.
He waved and drove away. That was the cool thing about living in Fort Lauderdale. The locals had a sense of humor. Except for the occasional evil soul, the natives were friendly, and easy to get along with.
The Pearls drove a white Infiniti SUV that gleamed like a freshly minted coin. It occurred to him that everything in their lives was brand-new. New life, new home, new car. They’d probably thought they’d died and gone to heaven when they’d moved here. Then the problems with Nicki had started, and it had all gone to hell.
The Infiniti braked at a stop sign. Pearl glanced in his mirror at his tail. The good doctor look
ed scared, and Lancaster wondered if his original assessment was wrong. Abductions were about money, and Pearl obviously had plenty of it. Was Pearl the real target and Nicki just leverage? He had a feeling that he was about to find out.
They drove past palatial Mediterranean-style homes so tightly squeezed together that it was impossible to see the ocean. The streets were quiet, and he used the Pandora app on his cell phone to play a Jimmy Buffett song, “Cuban Crime of Passion.” During his first trip to Key West, Lancaster had crashed on the couch of the song’s composer, a genial barkeep named Tom Corcoran. Lancaster had been right out of the military, and Corcoran’s hospitality had gone a long way to help him get adjusted.
In his mirror he spied a black Ford pickup filled with lawn equipment riding his bumper, the driver a burly Hispanic with a handlebar mustache and borderline crazy eyes.
He called Pearl on his cell phone. “See the black pickup behind me?”
“Yes, I see him,” Pearl said.
“I think the driver’s following you. There was a black pickup on your list. Did it have lawn equipment in the bed?”
“I believe it did.”
“Must be the same guy. I want you to speed up. I’ve got your back, so don’t get scared if he tries anything stupid.”
“Got it.”
Pearl hit the gas and sent waves onto several manicured front yards. Within moments, a block separated their two cars. The crazy Hispanic punched his horn. Lancaster looked into his mirror and raised his hand as if to say What do you want? The Hispanic shook his fist, then passed Lancaster on the left and raced down the street.
His cell phone rang. Pearl calling.
“He’s chasing us!” Pearl said. “What should I do?”
“Nothing. Leave the heroics to me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Run him down and have a talk with him.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“You and your wife ask too many questions. Just drive.”
Lancaster ended the call. The Hispanic had caught up to the Pearls and was riding their bumper. The situation was teetering out of control, so he got in the opposing lane, pulling up alongside the pickup. The Hispanic was watching a video on his cell phone while he drove. Lancaster strained to see and made out a girl’s face.
