Sweet Caroline

by Micqui Miller

  Sweet Caroline

  by Micqui Miller

  "I've read her report, Foy. I have a copy of it, too." For less than a millisecond, Mick read uncertainty in Foy's eyes. Just as quickly it disappeared.

  "I don't give a damn what you have, Mahoney. This is the final, official version, and it's going to put you and your baby brother away for a long time."

  "That's bullshit and you know it."

  "We'll see about that." Ian stood and leaned forward. He thrust out his chin and flattened his hands on the top of his desk. "The Mahoneys are going down, Mick. You and the rest of your fucking clan. This report has all I need to prove Brian diverted the funds and you received them. You don't believe me? Here, take this one and read it again. You'll be interested in the new evidence that's not included in your copy. I have several dozen of these that I'm only too willing to share with anyone who's interested."

  Mick took two steps forward and leaned across the desk until his face was only an inch from Foy's. "You're a bloody liar, Ian Foy. Caroline knows the truth and so do I. No matter how you alter this report, you'll never win." Ian stood tall and leisurely scratched the underside of his chin. At the same time, three members of the security staff nearly tripped over themselves racing into his office. Foy waved them off. "No need, fellas. Mr. Mahoney was just leaving. Weren't you, Mick?"

  Mick straightened his jacket and ran a hand through his hair. "You're a loser, Striker. Not worthy to scrape dog shit off the boots of a Mahoney. You'll never beat us, never."

  "Wrong, my friend. I already have." 312

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  Only the thought of finding Caroline kept Mick from ripping the smile off Ian's face and taking his head along with it. Marching back to his Jeep, Mick used every curse and invective he knew, regardless of language. Annie was gone and now Caroline, too. Lost another of your women? Mick hadn't said a word about Annie, only Caroline. No way Striker knew Annie was missing, too—unless he was responsible for both of their disappearances.

  Mick's fingers flew over his cell's keypad the minute he slid inside his vehicle. As he suspected, the number he had for Caroline in Dallas answered with a disconnect message.

  "Damn it!" He dialed long distance directory assistance. Five calls later, he exhaled the breath he'd been holding at the heavy, Texas-twanged voice that answered, "Prosecutor's office, Travis Spring."

  "Travis, this is Mick Mahoney. I'm lookin' for your sister." After a long pause, a suspicious-sounding Travis said, "I thought she lived across the hall from you. Why are you calling me?"

  Because I'm an idiot and drove her away. "I'm at ZyQyx. Ian Foy just told me Caroline flew home last night. I called her number this morning. It's disconnected. I need to speak to her, it's urgent."

  "How do I know you're really Mick Mahoney?"

  "Bloody hell, man, because I'm tellin' you so. Now is Caroline there or not?"

  After another excruciatingly long pause, Travis said, "Give me your number. If you check out I'll call you back." 313

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  "Travis, we don't have time for that. If Caroline's not with you, that means she's missing, too."

  "Missing, too? What the hell's going on out there?" Mick heard the panic in Travis' voice that told him Caroline was not with him. His head pounded and his stomach churned. Against the heat of the morning, he zipped up his jacket. He felt chilled to the bone. "I wish I knew, Travis. My cousin Annie's disappeared and now Caroline. Annie's been gone since noon yesterday. She had Caroline's postcard with her."

  "Give me your number, Mick. I'll check out her place and get back to you."

  A few minutes later, Gabe was on the line to Mick. The police had found the "stolen" car parked two blocks from Holy Trinity Academy. Locked, keys under the floor mat. No sign of a struggle. Looked like Annie had parked it and walked way.

  "Striker's responsible for this," Mick said in a quiet voice that seethed with anger. "He's got Caroline, too."

  "What? Caroline's missing, too? What the hell is going on?" Gabe exclaimed, echoing Travis' sentiments.

  "I haven't connected all the dots yet, but you can bet Ian's behind it."

  Over Gabe's protests not to hang up, Mick cut the connection and continued watching Foy's BMW from his vantage point hidden among the cypress outside the ZyQyx building.

  Travis called back in less than half an hour. He'd been to Caroline's condo and it was just as she'd left it. Then he told Mick about the man he'd run off twice in one day. 314

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  "Describe him to me."

  "Tall guy, kind of grayish-blond hair. Maybe fifty. Gut hanging over his belt and a big grin, all teeth. Said he'd heard Caroline's place was on the market. I came on strong, ran him off. Ticked me off because someone had hacked into Caroline's computer and sent e-mails to her boss and her landlord that she was staying in California."

  "When did this happen?"

  "Couple of days ago. She brushed it off as one of her hacker friends playing a practical joke on her."

  "Or maybe she didn't want to worry either of us."

  "I told her to call the police." Mick heard the same frustration he felt in Travis' voice. "She wouldn't listen to me. Never does."

  "If it's any consolation, mate, she doesn't listen to me, either."

  "What do you want me to do at this end?"

  "Hang tight in case she shows up. Let me know if you hear anything—anything at all. I'll be back to you as soon as I hear something."

  * * * *

  BY THREE O'CLOCK, Mick's head was splitting and his stomach churned. He had broken surveillance once, only long enough to duck behind a tree and answer Nature's call. He was zipping up when Ian Foy walked out the front doors of ZyQyx, as if he didn't have a care in the world. He drove out of the lot and turned north. South was home to Foy—was north where he was holding Caroline and Annie?

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  Chapter Twenty-Three

  FOR MORE THAN two hours Mick trailed behind Ian Foy at a discreet distance, sometimes turning and using a street that ran parallel with the main roadway or hanging back if he knew a traffic signal was about to change to red. Foy gave no indication he knew Mick followed. He didn't speed up or careen around corners like the car chases in the movies Mick had never tired of as a child. There was something so deliberate about the way Foy drove from place to place, almost telegraphing his next move, Mick wondered who was chasing whom.

  The slow, deliberate pace also gave Mick a chance to mull over the details in Ian's version of Caroline's report. He'd thrown it on the seat beside him, and from time to time, flipped a page while stopped at a red light and re-read a sentence or a phrase. What an elaborate scheme Striker had concocted to bring down the Mahoneys. He must have planned it for months, maybe even years, but his motive for dragging Caroline into the mix still eluded Mick. While he drove along, he also checked in regularly with Gabe. Still no word on Annie, but they'd reached Brian and Ramona, who'd turned back immediately and headed home. Gabe and Sheila had spent part of the day with the Mahoney family attorneys, who in turn contacted colleagues who specialized in fraud defense. Whether Foy made good on his threat, the Mahoneys had circled the wagons and were ready to fire back.

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  "What's he up to now?" Gabe asked when Mick checked in at 5:30 p.m. "Still going in circles?"

  "We've been to the cleaners, the bank and two mini-marts. If he stops for dinner at the Calla Lily, I swear I'll poison his food myself."

  "Careful, Mick, if Foy's put a listening device under your bed, what makes you think he hasn't wired your car?

  Threatening to poison him will sound great to a jury." Mick laughed but neither of them would put anything past Striker Foy. "How much longer 'til the police are willing to take the missin
g person's report?"

  "Mum and the twins are down there now, with John Carey."

  Mick knew the attorney's reputation, although he could not put a face to the name. "That's the best news I've had today."

  "Then come back, Mick, and leave this to the police. You and Striker are both hotheads. We're going to have enough trouble keepin' Brian out of jail. We don't need you sharin' a cell—or worse, disappearing, too."

  "Don't worry about me." His voice was grim and determined. "Setting up Brian's one thing. In taking Annie and Caroline, he crossed the line. I'm going to get them back, Gabe, even if I have to kill the sonofabitch to do it."

  "Mick, I know what you're feeling, but you have Charlie, Rick and me, and the police. Mum's called in the entire clan. By suppertime, there'll be a hundred of us here to help in the search. Keep your telephone line open, and if he leads you 317

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  somewhere, we'll be right behind you. You don't have to do this alone. "

  "You're wrong, Gabe. This one I do."

  * * * *

  ONE MOMENT FOY was leisurely coasting to a stop at a traffic signal and the next, the light changed, and he took off so fast, his tires screeched. Muttering a curse, Mick craned his neck and caught a glimpse of Foy's taillights as he rounded a curve.

  "Gabe, we're going somewhere now," Mick shouted into the speaker of his cell that he'd attached to his visor. He yanked the steering wheel into a hard left and cut around a van that was crawling along in search of a parking space.

  "You may be right, that he's listening to us because he just took off like he'd been shot. I'm at Chestnut and Delancy, heading west, about two miles behind him."

  "Got it," Gabe answered, and in the background, Mick heard him relay the message to someone. "Trevino's on the other line, Mick. He doesn't go on duty 'til six but he's unofficially coordinating with us until the missing person's reports go out. He's tracking you, too."

  "I'm sure Striker knows I'm behind him now. I'm on speaker so standby. I'll shout if anything else happens." Mick sped through the rest of town, driving as fast as he could without killing anyone. He knew the roadway straightened for a few miles past the next two curves. He needed to get there before Striker lost him. He came around the last curve on two wheels, skittering dangerously close to 318

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  the gravel shoulder. For all his effort, he saw nothing but one lone truck headed east while he drove west. With a string of profanity that would have made the vines and orchards blush, Mick reported in. "I've lost the bastard," he shouted to Gabe. "Came 'round that last curve by the Sunnyside Farm, and he was gone. Couldn't have turned in there because the gate's padlocked."

  "You let a Beamer and that crazy jackal outrun you?"

  "I didn't think so, but I'm looking halfway to the ocean now and I don't see him anywhere. Only other turn-off is the old campground road about a half-mile back."

  "That's been torn up for years, Mick. The bridge was hangin' in pieces when we were in high school." Mick's adrenaline started pumping again. "Never stopped us from sneakin' in when we were lookin' for a make-out spot, did it? Maybe Striker went out there, too—with Annie."

  "God strike you dead for going there! I don't want to think about that."

  "Neither do I, but right now it's lookin' like the only place he could have turned. I'm goin' to give it a look-see."

  "That's all you do, Mick. Swear to me. If you see anything at all, you let the police handle it."

  "I'm rollin'."

  * * * *

  A HALF DOZEN "ROAD Closed" signs and posted warnings later, Mick coasted to a stop, grabbed the binoculars from the seat next to him and surveyed the horizon. He, Gabe, and the group of kids they ran with had spent countless forbidden 319

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  hours combing the dry river bed for gold and other treasures among the debris that blew in from the west or trickled down from a tributary of the Russian River during heavy rain years. Once they discovered girls, forbidden took on a new meaning. The campground had seen its best days in the late sixties and early seventies. Then one month it closed, and the next, a band of aging hippies moved in and set up a commune. The righteous townsfolk threw a fit. They preferred the land stay abandoned and worthless to allowing the scruffy-looking bunch to live on it. One day after the police found a single marijuana plant, rumored to have been brought in by the police, the love children were rounded up, the bridge blasted, the property fenced, and the road closed. A few years later, the teenaged "hell raisin' Mahoney boys" scaled the fence and suddenly the abandoned campground became a favorite haunt for make-out parties and "grassers." On the other side of a shallow incline, Mick saw a glint of light, like metal attracting the sun or a mirror reflecting it. He moved cautiously to the far side of the Jeep then pointed his field glasses in the direction of the dry river bed and the abandoned buildings that had served as the campground's general store, dining hall, and dormitories. A smaller building stood a distance away. The boat rental office. There it was again, the same flash of light, but this time Mick saw its source—Foy's BMW. The car was parked hidden among a clump of dying trees. For probably no more than three minutes out of twenty-four hours, the sun managed to cut through the branches and reflect off the side mirror. A very small window of opportunity. The sun had to be banking 320

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  at just the right degree and someone had to be watching through field glasses to see it.

  Mick slid across the passenger seat and picked up his cell, not wanting to use the speaker. Foy could be watching or listening from anywhere.

  "Gabe, are you there?" he whispered.

  "Yeah, Mick, what's happening?"

  "Striker's here. He hid his car under that old walnut tree behind the general store."

  "Good job. Rick's relaying the information to Trevino. Stay put, Mick. We'll be there in twenty minutes."

  "No way, Gabe, I'm going in, now."

  "Mick, don't be an ass—"

  Mick cut the connection.

  Using techniques he learned at survival training, Mick circled the perimeter until he had a full view of the structures. The smaller of the two buildings was little more than a sagging heap of lumber that would collapse completely under a strong wind. The fact that it was shielded by the large building was likely all that kept it standing.

  "Choosin' this place is no fluke," Mick said. He noted the larger building had recently undergone repairs. There were no missing slats, and the walls stood erect. The windows on the side that faced him, and in back, were boarded up with cross beams, leaving the front door as the only points of entry and exit.

  The path he'd traversed in his youth proved more of a challenge than he'd remembered. Overgrown with tangled weeds, the footing was treacherous with a forty-foot drop the 321

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  only alternative. Mick was stronger now than he'd been at fifteen, and plowed through the thigh high foliage in long, sure strides, oblivious to the brambles that shredded his jeans and tore at his skin. He ignored the searing pain until he reached the bottom of the trail. Mick looked down. Blood streamed from a gash in his knee, but the boarded-up building stood no more than twenty yards away. The main building faced the stream. At one time, there had been a gazebo where local bands played for Saturday night dances. By the time Mick and Gabe had discovered the place, the gazebo was long gone, but several of the picnic tables remained. If memory served him, there was likely a distance of thirty yards between the front of the building and riverbed.

  The building itself had a covered porch, and two sets of windows on each side of a wide screen door. Mick wondered if those, too, had been boarded up or if the porch even existed any more. Slowly, carefully he approached the building and edged his way to the front.

  When he peered around th
e corner, he saw that little of the porch remained, and only the two steps leading to the door appeared sturdy enough to support an adult's weight. As he suspected, the front windows had been boarded up as well, but new metal doors had replaced the sagging screens. They'd been left open.

  "What the devil's he thinking?" Mick crept forward, so intent on soundlessly approaching the entrance he didn't hear the crunch of gravel behind him until it was too late. 322

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  "Door's open, Mick," Foy said, startling him and sending his heartbeat racing into triple time. "We've been expecting you."

  Mick spun and faced him. "What are you doin', Striker?" he asked, his voice a mixture of anger and pity—until he noticed Foy held a gun in this right hand, a 9 mm. Ruger— Mick's 9

  mm. Ruger. "Where'd you get that?" Foy took a step back but extended the gun to arm's length. He held it in both hands and aimed straight at Mick's heart. "Maybe you should keep better track of your weapons, Mahoney. Or were you too busy trying to get into Caroline's panties?"

  Mick swore and inched forward. He wanted to fling himself the distance of the six feet that separated them and choke the living breath out of Foy.

  Ian stood his ground, showing no fear and aimed the gun higher, right at Mick's throat. "Don't tempt me, Mahoney. I've been waiting half a life to do this."

  "Then for chrissake, shoot me, but let Caroline and Annie go. You've got no quarrel with them."

  Foy's lips contorted into an evil smile, spittle moistening the corners of his mouth. "Not before you join the party, Mick. Won't you come and have some tea with me?" he crooned in the sing-song voice of the nursery rhyme they'd recited as children.

  Mick jammed his hands into his pockets, frustrated, angry, and terrified. He was looking into the face of madness, and there was nothing he could do without getting his head blown 323

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  off. "Striker, you've got my gun, so you know I'm not armed. Put it down before someone gets hurt. Let's talk about this."