by James Swain
“Whatever you say,” he mumbled.
I went around the desk and knelt down beside Linderman. The bullet had clipped him, and he lay on the floor clutching his side.
“I think I cracked a rib,” Linderman said.
“You wearing a bulletproof vest?” I asked.
“Yes. We both are.”
“Thanks for offering me one.”
Linderman didn't know what to say. Rising, I told Coffen to stand up. He slowly came out of his chair. He was flexing his right hand, which was turning an ugly purple.
“Tell me where Melinda Peters is being held,” I said.
“Never heard of her,” Coffen said.
I glanced at the frozen picture of the Lopez sisters on his computer. Then I looked at Linderman lying on the floor. His presence was only complicating things, and I found myself wishing I'd never asked for his help.
The automatic felt awkward in my hand. I lay it on the desk and drew my Colt. I aimed the Colt at Coffen's belly.
“If you don't tell me where Melinda is, I'm going to kill you,” I said.
Coffen's expression was defiant. Like all predators, he was used to dominating the people around him. Nothing was ever going to change that. Not a lifetime in prison, nor endless psychiatric counseling. It was simply who he was.
“Last chance,” I said.
Blood was pouring out of his mouth, and Coffen raised his hand and wiped it away. Then he stared at the blood. He looked at me and began to tremble.
“All right,” he said.
I looked at the blood as well. I knew that it was a precursor of his new life, for in prison he would be beaten by fellow inmates who felt the need to remind themselves that he was a worse breed than they were. His career as a successful businessman was over, while his role as a pariah was about to begin.
Coffen knew this as well. It was in his face and his posture. His life was about to become a living hell. Which is why I was shocked but not surprised when he bolted around his desk and jumped headfirst through the wall of windows.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I didn't shoot Coffen as he burst through the glass. If I killed him he wouldn't be able to tell me where Melinda was being held, and that was all I cared about right now.
Going to the window, I kicked out the broken glass with my shoe. Coffen was staggering across the parking lot with hideous gashes in his black T-shirt and pants. He wasn't moving very fast, and I didn't anticipate any trouble running him down.
I jumped through the broken window and landed in a standing position. The fall was short, but it made my right knee sing with pain. Coffen was fifty feet away, and I watched him pull a key ring from his pocket as he staggered toward his Mercedes.
Linderman appeared in the broken window above me.
“He's getting away! Take him out!”
I aimed at Coffen's legs and fired. A large hole appeared in the Mercedes's gas tank, and gasoline began pouring out. Four more shots produced the same results. I missed Coffen but kept hitting his expensive sports car.
Coffen got into his car and backed out of his space. Instead of driving toward the exit, he went in reverse and plowed through a thick hibiscus hedge. Reaching the street, he spun the wheel until he was facing Las Olas.
I fired my last two bullets at the gas tank. The Mercedes began to make loud popping noises, followed by a muffled explosion. Within seconds the vehicle became engulfed in bright orange flames.
“Way to go!” Linderman shouted.
I limped toward the burning vehicle while reloading. The flames were intense, and I cautiously approached the driver's door and found it wide open. Coffen had escaped.
My eyes found his bloody trail. It crossed the street and went straight down the sidewalk of Las Olas. Linderman came out of the building and staggered toward me.
“Where's Coffen?”
I pointed down the sidewalk. Something wet touched my wrist, and I looked down to see Buster pinned by my leg.
“Can't you go anywhere without that dog?” Linderman asked.
“No,” I said.
We limped down the sidewalk in pursuit. It was early, and most of the stores along Las Olas were closed. Halfway down the block I spotted Coffen hanging on to a lamppost. In his damaged hand was a cell phone, into which he was frantically punching numbers. I knew what he was doing. He was calling Jonny Perez to tell him to kill Melinda.
“Drop the phone!” I shouted.
Coffen saw me and pushed himself off the post. The life was draining from his face, and his eyes were out of focus. Throwing himself across the sidewalk, he disappeared inside a hotel restaurant.
“Get him,” I told my dog.
Buster took off running.
I was moving faster than Linderman and hurried ahead. The restaurant Coffen had gone into was part of the Riverview Hotel, a local landmark. I walked through the main dining area to find several patrons hiding beneath tables.
“Stay down,” I said.
I passed through the restaurant into the hotel lobby on the other side of the building, an airy room decorated with elegant rattan furniture and ceiling fans. There, Coffen's bloody trail mysteriously stopped.
“Buster! Here boy!” I called out.
I heard my dog's familiar yip. The hotel's entrance was on a backstreet, and I pushed open a swinging door with my gun and went outside.
Coffen stood by the valet stand, trying to punch numbers into his phone while kicking at my dog. His broken fingers were making this especially hard for him. I leveled the Colt at his chest.
“Drop the phone,” I said.
“You're not a cop. You can't tell me what to do,” he said.
He kept pressing numbers into the phone. Even Buster nipping at his ankles didn't seem to faze him.
“I'm giving you one more chance,” I said.
He raised the phone triumphantly to his face. His call had gone through.
“Go fuck yourself,” he said.
I fired the Colt three times. Coffen spun away from the valet stand, clutching his chest. The phone slipped from his hand and clattered to the pavement. He tried to speak, but instead of words, blood spilled from his mouth. He crumpled to the pavement.
I retrieved his cell phone and held it to my ear. It had gone dead. I attempted to power it up and retrieve the number he'd just dialed. The phone did not respond.
“Shit,” I said.
Linderman came out of the hotel and said something. When I didn't reply, he knelt down and checked Coffen for a pulse. It was strictly a formality, and he looked up at me.
“He's dead. Did his call go through?”
“No,” I said.
In the distance I could hear wailing sirens. I couldn't imagine how I was going to explain this to the police. Linderman stood up.
“Give me the phone,” he said.
I handed him the damaged phone.
“Let me deal with the police,” he said.
“Deal with them how?”
“I'll tell them I shot Coffen. It will take the heat off you.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. It will make everything easier.”
I suddenly felt light-headed. I had never shot an unarmed man before. It was a strange feeling, and I pointed at the doors leading inside.
“I'll be in there if you need me,” I said.
The hotel lobby was filled with frightened guests and wide-eyed staff. I sat on a creaky rattan couch with Buster glued to my side. A white-jacketed waiter served me a cup of coffee without being asked. I thanked him and sucked it down.
The coffee brought me back to life. The couch faced a flat-screen, high-definition TV, the lobby's only nod to modernization. CNN was on, broadcasting live from Starke Prison. I stared at the screen and nearly got sick.
Simon Skell had been released.
Starke was in a rural area, the facility surrounded by a six-foot-high chain-link fence topped with razor wire. A stretch limousine came through the front gates, followed by
several news crews covering the event. There was a light drizzle, and the caravan inched down a muddy road to a field where a helicopter sat.
The limo stopped, and four figures piled out. Leonard Snook, Lorna Sue Mutter, Chase Winters, and Skell. Skell was dressed in jeans, an Old Navy sweatshirt, and white tennis sneakers. Everyone else wore raincoats.
The group climbed into the waiting chopper, and the door closed. Skell's face appeared in the side window, and he tugged on his paintbrush beard.
The chopper went airborne and briefly hovered in the gray sky.
A second chopper appeared and followed Skell's chopper. I guessed this chopper contained Scott Saunders and the other FBI agents tailing Skell.
As the choppers faded from view an icy finger ran down my spine. The FBI wasn't going to stop Skell. Skell had been on the FBI's radar for three years, and they hadn't gotten close. They didn't understand what made him tick. His motivation was a crazy song, one I knew by heart. Only I could stop him.
I grabbed Buster and went outside. Coffen lay beneath a white sheet. Two uniformed cops stood behind him, making small talk. They paid no attention to me.
Linderman stood by the valet stand, talking on his cell phone. In his face I saw something that resembled hope. He folded his phone and approached me.
“Tell me you've got good news,” I said.
He nodded enthusiastically.
“Theis just cracked Coffen's computer,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
We limped down the sidewalk back to Trojan Communications.
“What's wrong with your dog?” Linderman asked.
Buster walked with his nose glued to the ground. The shooting had done a number on his head, and I promised myself to later take him running on Dania Beach. It was his favorite thing to do and would bring him around.
“He'll be okay,” I said. “What did Theis find on Coffen's computer?”
“Hundreds of photographs are stored on the hard drive,” Linderman said. “The memory's overloaded, which is why it froze on him. There's also a database. Theis is hoping it will lead us to the other members of the gang.”
And Melinda Peters, I hoped but would not say aloud, as if uttering her name might jinx our ability to rescue her. We reached the parking lot, and I put my dog into my car. Then we went inside.
Heidi the receptionist was still at her desk. Seeing Linderman, she slammed her fists on her desk and flew into a rage.
“My friend at the Riverview Hotel called and said you killed Mr. Coffen!”
Linderman put his palms on her desk as if he were doing a push-up.
“Calm down, or I'll arrest you,” he said.
“Why did you have to kill him?” she said.
“Let's see. For starters, he shot me.”
“Couldn't you have just wounded him?”
“Your boss had his chance.”
“You bastard!”
I walked around Heidi's desk and down the hallway to Coffen's office. Despite what had happened, it was business as usual, and through the walls came voices of faceless operators taking orders from around the state. They reminded me of Skell's victims, and how their voices were yet to be heard.
I stopped at the hallway's end and stuck my head into Coffen's office. Special Agent Theis sat at Coffen's desk, working the computer. He motioned me inside.
I stood behind Theis's chair. My eyes fell on the computer screen.
“How did you get it unfrozen?”
“I tried the idiot approach,” Theis said. “I turned off the power, then rebooted it. I needed a password to gain entry and found it on a business card in Coffen's briefcase. There's a ton of stuff on the hard drive, including a file that has pictures of you.”
“Let me see it,” I said.
Theis opened up a file called ENEMY. It contained a photograph of me taken from a newspaper article along with a short biography. There were also photographs and bios of Tommy Gonzalez, Sally McDermitt, and dozens of other Florida law enforcement agents who specialized in finding missing people.
“What about Coffen's database?” I asked.
“Who are you looking for?”
“Jonny Perez. Jonny's spelled without the h.”
Theis searched the database for Jonny Perez. Finding nothing, I suggested he try Ajony Perez. The results were the same.
“Try Neil Bash and Simon Skell,” I said.
Theis did and found nothing. On a hunch, he exited the database and checked Coffen's e-mail, first looking at his address book, then his sent e-mail folder and deleted bin. Everything he came across was business related and worthless to our search.
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. Each road in my investigation had taken me to a dead end, and only an act of luck or God had let me progress. How the hell was I going to save Melinda if I couldn't locate Jonny Perez?
“Want to look at his photograph collection?” Theis asked.
“Sure,” I said quietly.
Theis exited the database and clicked on the My Pictures icon. It opened to reveal dozens of different folders. The ones at the top were labeled by city—Orlando, Miami, Tampa—while the ones on the bottom had cryptic notations. One file caught my eye:
MIDRAMB
“Open this one,” I said.
Theis opened MIDRAMB, and a page containing eight JPEG files filled the screen. Each JPEG had a date attached to it, spanning the past two and a half years.
I gripped the back of Theis's chair. I knew what the JPEGs contained without having to look at them. They were electronic snapshots of Skell's victims taken at McDonald's drive-throughs. I was one step closer to learning their fate.
I had dreamed of this moment. I was finally going to find out what had happened to Skell's victims. Yet, I was also filled with dread. Throughout the investigation, I'd continued to hope that I'd get a phone call from each of them, saying they were okay. It was what every person who lost someone told themselves.
Theis opened the first JPEG. The picture was of Chantel, an African American girl who got tossed out of her home at fourteen. She'd lived near the beach, where she did her hooking. The picture showed her in a car with a white-haired guy chomping on a cigar. Chantel's hand was in his lap, the guy all smiles. Coffen had caught her servicing a john.
“Know her?” Theis asked.
“She was Skell's first victim,” I said.
The next JPEG was of Maggie. Maggie worked for a Fort Lauderdale escort service, a fair-haired Irish girl whose stepfather had married her mother in order to sleep with Maggie. She worked the local hotels and was on a first-name basis with the concierges. In the picture, Maggie was on her cell while applying lipstick. Her face was all business, and I imagined Coffen overheard her getting a call for a job.
“What about her?” Theis asked.
“She was number two.”
“You knew all of the victims, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
“Want something to drink?”
“No thanks.”
“Want my chair?”
“I'm fine, really.”
Theis opened the rest of the JPEGs and let me study them. Had I not stuck the victims' photographs on the walls of my office, I wouldn't have recognized them so quickly. But I did, and their faces evoked a sharp pang of delayed grief.
In each photograph I searched for what Coffen saw, or heard, that alerted him to the potential for victimization. Most of the time it was obvious. Either the victim was talking on her cell, or she was talking to a passenger in the car. Some snippet of conversation must have tipped Coffen off to the type of person he was dealing with.
But in three of the photographs—those of Carmen, Lola, and Brie—there was no telltale clue. The women were in their cars, staring absently into space. They were all victims of family abuse, their faces hauntingly sad. I studied their photographs but learned nothing. Perhaps I would never know what Coffen had seen. Or perhaps he'd seen the same thing I just had. Three young women with faces like ref
ugees. Maybe that was all he needed.
The office had a small refrigerator. Theis removed two bottles of Perrier and handed me one. Brie's picture was still on the screen. I drank while staring at her.
I'd stayed in contact with Brie for over ten years. Every few months we'd meet for a pancake breakfast, and she'd show me her most recent bank statement. She was saving up so that on her thirtieth birthday she could quit hooking and open a nail salon. She already had the location picked out, and the name: New Beginnings.
I pitched my empty bottle into the trash and headed for the door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“I'm sorry this was a dead end,” Theis said.
Pulling his wallet out, Theis placed a snapshot of a young woman in a cap and gown on the desk, then got back on the computer. I stopped in the doorway.
“Who's that?” I asked.
“Danielle Linderman,” Theis said.
“Ken's daughter?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You going to look for her on Coffen's database?”
Theis mumbled yes, his fingers tapping the keyboard. I came around the desk to get a better look at the photograph. Danielle Linderman bore a strong resemblance to her father, with a pretty, intelligent face and soft hazel eyes. The faces of scores of missing kids were stored in my memory, and I added hers to the group.
“Good luck,” I said.
I found Linderman in the reception area. He'd gotten Coffen's cell phone to work and was scrolling through the address book while pressing a hanky to his face. Lowering the hanky, he displayed a nasty gash running the length of his chin.
“Did the receptionist do that?” I asked.
He nodded grimly.
“Did you arrest her?”
“You're goddamn right I did,” he snapped. “So help me God, if I find out that little bitch knew what Coffen was doing, I'll ruin her.”
I didn't reply. More than likely, the receptionist didn't know that her boss was a predator. Coffen ran a respectable business and had a public face. That was the person she knew. Hearing he'd been killed, she'd snapped.
