by Karen Harper
“Yeah. Like mine—now ours. The huge, Spanish-themed ones have really been sprouting amid the late 1960s and 1970s ranch house structures. Buy a big lot, tear down the old place and build a new, bigger, better one. But even a little older house like this, with its small pool and lot, is worth big bucks because of location, location and location.”
“I can imagine,” she said, taking his arm.
“Once I could afford this, it was our downsize place from where we lived when Dad was alive. It got my mother out of the little apartment she’d been stuck in after he died. The insurance company reneged on his life insurance since the cause of death was ruled a suicide. More than once I’ve taken cases to help a family like ours fight the big insurance boys over suicide that really wasn’t—or, at least, was a questionable ruling.”
“Which means you probably have enemies beyond Ames High, Inc. So this place became your bachelor pad after she died?”
“When I moved back in here from my little apartment, I didn’t do a lot of entertaining. After law school, I became a workaholic, building the firm, setting up South Shores on the side. I tried to give my best to each client and my growing staff. I only wish my father could know how it all worked out. Not so much that he’d be proud of me, but so he’d know I’m not giving up on vindicating him and, yeah—getting justice, even revenge against Ames.”
Taking her hand in his, he said, “Before we go in, let’s go around the back where I can see the street. If we’re standing in front like this, someone following might stay way back. If it’s someone local, they’d maybe know this is a dead end and wouldn’t turn in.”
They went to a back corner of the house and stood behind a spray of dwarf palms and watched the street. Only a single car drove by, one Nick recognized as belonging to a neighbor. “A retired couple from New York City,” he told Claire. “Let’s go in the back way and start the little soap opera we have planned for our audience.”
But as he fished out his keys, Claire gripped his arm. “There,” she whispered, tugging him back farther into the foliage. “That young man walking the dog on the sidewalk and looking at the house as he goes by. I think that’s the guy Maggie paid off. He looked like a beach bum before but a lot better now. Yes, I’m sure that’s him. Should we try to talk to him, pretend we don’t know who he is?”
“If he was armed with a WaveRunner and a gun before, not yet. And that looks like a pit bull to me. We can find him later since all we have to do is go somewhere off the beaten path and he seems to appear. We’ll confront Maggie first, so he doesn’t tip her off. Today, it’s not only poor Ada, but poor Haze.”
* * *
Claire’s phone went off, and she tried to muffle it, though the man had walked past the house. She fished her phone out of her purse and stared at the caller ID. Oh, Wes Ringold.
“It’s the new The Burrowing Owl editor,” she whispered. She followed Nick as he hurried around the other side of the house to keep an eye on the man. “I’d better take it. Maybe he turned something up. Hello, Wes,” she said, speaking quietly. “Claire, here.”
“Claire, glad I got you. I’m sure you’d like to make a statement about finding Ada Cypress drowned, set the record straight before everyone else jumps on it about whether it was a suicide or not. So are you on the yacht in Goodland? I can come right over.”
“Sorry, Wes, but Sheriff Scott made it very clear that he’s the only point person right now for the tragedy.”
He blew out a breath. She could tell he was frustrated and annoyed. “Pretty weird,” he said. “So she was found on the same property where my sources tell me Hazelton is going to see an indictment for murder real soon.”
“The place was right out her back door, and she valued the—”
She stopped herself just in time.
“So, can you give me anything else?” he went on as she watched Nick motion that the man with the dog was now walking back the other way. “This will appear in the same issue your interview will, so it will make a great piece,” Wes coaxed, his tone soothing now. “I can tell you’re still going to stand up for Haze Hazelton. I’d give you and your husband a good platform to do that.”
“Thanks, Wes, but not now. Sorry.”
“Now, listen to me, bec—”
She punched off as Nick walked over to her, then unlocked the back door. “Of course he wanted a statement,” she said. “I upset him. Maybe he’s not really the mild-mannered Clark Kent he pretends to be.”
“He’s not Superman either and bears watching. I’ve heard TV reporters say about murder cases, ‘If it bleeds, it leads.’ Really. No doubt, Wes thinks the same way. He’s looking for sensational headlines to sell papers, just like Stirling was.” He shook his head. “He’s on the list, but not at the top. I think our shadow’s gone too. Maybe he decided twice by this place is enough, but we’ll keep an eye out for him. Let’s go in. And once we’re inside, it’s showtime. You ready?”
She felt she wasn’t really ready for anything, but she gave him a quick hug and whispered, “Curtain up.”
* * *
As Jace jogged along the hard-packed sand of the beach near Doctor’s Pass, he tried to keep an ear tuned to the phone in his bathing suit pocket. The California experts were still here in Naples, he assumed, because he hadn’t been contacted to fly them back. The watch-the-sunset crowd wasn’t too big this early evening. Meanwhile, he was staying sober and more watchful too, especially for Thom Van Cleve. Yet he felt he was living the life of a celibate monk, and that bothered him, especially when he kept thinking of the newlywed Markwoods.
But, evidently he wasn’t being watchful enough. Until they were quite close up, he hadn’t noticed that the guy running toward him was the tall, blond FBI agent who had boarded the plane in the hangar and given him the song and dance routine about being a reporter before he admitted who he was—if that was the truth. It had been in the back of Jace’s mind ever since that he might be another spy working for Nick Markwood’s “Uncle Clay” instead of for “Uncle Sam.”
Before the guy got to him, Jace slowed his pace, then went up a few steps and sat where the dry sand met the wave-washed shore. He whipped off his aviator-style sunglasses. Yeah, the man also made a turn and flopped down beside him as if they were long-lost running buddies.
“I guess you remember me,” he said. He was out of breath too.
“Rod Patterson, but I doubt that’s your real name. Here’s what you need to remember. I’m sick and tired of being watched.”
“Obviously by others too, since I haven’t been following you, physically, that is. When you took that one-day flight, I did lose contact though.”
Jace was not only angry now but panicked. This must be another of Kilcorse-Ames’s spies. “What do you mean, you haven’t followed me physically?” he demanded.
“I can track you through this,” he said, pulling his cell phone from the pocket of his hoodie sweatshirt. “That is, through yours. See that plane circling up there?” he asked, pointing with his phone.
Jace squinted up at it. “Yeah, a Cessna, largest one they make.”
“It has a logo on it for Palm Tree Research, but that’s a fake company. Does that sound at all familiar—someone flying for a fake company? It’s really a flying electronic tracking device. It can locate criminals of all kinds, kidnappers, killers—even pilots working for such, through their cell phones.”
Jace’s head snapped around. He’d been agonizing over the fact Van Cleve had flashed a picture of Lexi and her cousin at him on his cell phone, especially since Lexi had been abducted before.
“So,” Patterson went on, “are you listening?”
“You gonna make me an offer I can’t refuse?”
“One you shouldn’t refuse. Our government does very necessary surveillance of criminal activity. All kinds, but we’ll leave it at that for now.
In this age of terrorism, we have a fleet of planes—not jets—that fly over our country and even other territories when needed, Mexico, Cuba. Through people’s cell phones, we can pinpoint the location of—shall we say—problems, which have happened or are about to happen.”
“So how do I come in? My background is jets.”
“Which makes flying in and overseeing this large operation we call ‘Stingray’ a cinch for you. Consider this a preliminary career-change interview. Yeah, I know you have a job, but this one has lifesaving perks,” he said, emphasizing those last two words.
Jace wondered whose life exactly. His? Lexi’s?
“And this program,” Patterson went on, “may begin using jets in the future. However, besides your excellent dossier and the fact this would provide you and your daughter with Witness Protection Program assurance, we would need something else from you.”
“Wait a sec. You’re going way too fast for me.”
“I doubt it. Namely, we would need help in locating and nailing the mastermind who has already caused you and your daughter trouble. If I’m reading you right—or my informant is—you’ll be willing to help us to protect your daughter.”
Jace swore under his breath. “But Witness Protection? Isn’t that run by the Justice Department to hide criminals until they can testify?”
“Not only criminals. You and your daughter no doubt could be invaluable noncriminal witnesses. WITSEC, as they call it, yes, is run by the Justice Department, as is the FBI, so I could liaise.”
“Liaise exactly what? And how do I know you’re not working for the man you’re calling the mastermind, and just double-checking on my loyalty to him? I shouldn’t even be talking to you, especially out in the open like this.”
“Worried about Van Cleve? Or anyone else? Don’t, at least right now. I—and that plane overhead—know where they are, and it’s not near here. But your mentioning your loyalty to the mastermind makes me realize you are flying for him, which could be construed as a criminal act in and of itself. But how do you know this is not a double cross? Because Nick Markwood thinks you and your daughter—as well as his wife—could benefit from the Witness Protection Program. That is, until you and Markwood—with our help—manage to find, arrest and testify against the mastermind. Then, you’d have this important government career waiting for you.”
His mind racing, Jace frowned down at his feet. A colony of tiny coquina shells were just upending and reburying themselves to fight the slosh of the next incoming wave.
“I—I need to think about it, of course.”
“Not for long. Talk to no one but Markwood. Here’s his cell number,” he added, handing him a piece of paper, “so you don’t have to go through Claire to talk to him, meet with him. I’ll be in touch. And, Jace, don’t try to change or toss your phone. The antenna under the fuselage of that plane and the camera mounted just above its belly would have your new phone ID fast. By the way, this isn’t a secret system, and all the privacy protection fanatics and a lot of media are exposing and fighting it. But our government needs to protect an expensive, essential endeavor. You ever see that Jack Nicholson movie, A Few Good Men, Jace?”
“Yeah, I remember it.”
“There’s a climatic line where he yells at the courtroom, ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ He was talking about everything—tricks, underhanded stuff, expenses too—that our government has to accept to keep us all safe. The suitcase-sized tracking systems in each plane are worth about $400,000 apiece, so that’s why we need good pilots—and in your case, the man to not only fly these south shores, but to oversee things—you know, like that old US Marines recruiting motto ‘We’re Looking for a Few Good Men.’ I know you were a great navy pilot, Jace, and your country needs you on this new, important endeavor. Later, then. Don’t call me, I’ll call you, but talk to Markwood first. Soon.”
Patterson pocketed his phone, got up and, without another word or look, jogged back the way he’d come. Jace looked up at the plane still circling with the sinking sun behind it. For sure, not an aircraft the local Realtors used to show or photograph luxury beach property. Not one of the planes that trailed the advertising banners. Imagine that. A spy plane of sorts right here.
And Markwood was working with that guy. Nick had more or less recommended him for this new job. But Jace knew he’d be dead meat if he just cut out on Kilcorse-Ames, so that was why the idea of WITSEC was not a bad one. For him, for Lexi, maybe Claire too. That meant Markwood did love them, care for them, want to protect them. Jace liked him for that, at least.
Still, could he trust that he was not being set up again, by either Patterson or K-A? He had to talk to Markwood about it.
And, without Claire there or Lexi anywhere around, that’s exactly what he was going to do.
28
“So, I’m hoping,” Nick launched into his prepared lines in the living room after he gave Claire a tour, “as soon as we win this case for Haze—and for Ames—we can move back in here. Though the yacht’s a great plan B, I can’t ask Dylan to loan it to us forever. The guy’s got to sell it, especially after what happened there. No wonder he’s still estranged from his wife.”
Claire recalled that Nick didn’t want them to mention here that Dylan had accepted their invitation to dinner Sunday evening. She was really nervous about their winging this despite the fact they both knew the main points they wanted to make. Although she could shoot the breeze with anyone, she half hoped this place wasn’t bugged now. Lately, she felt she was losing her poise and her patience. What if this sounded too planned or fake? And even the idea of cameras hidden here gave her the creeps. If they did get through this mess, she’d talk to Nick about buying a house somewhere else, though he did seem attached to this one.
Trying to speak in a normal voice and remembering to move around, so it didn’t sound staged, Claire played her part. “It’s in the wind that Haze is going to be arrested soon. At least we have enough other possible suspects that you can muddy the waters in court—sorry to put it that way—to show someone besides Haze murdered Mark Stirling. But you know,” she went on, getting to a point Nick had insisted on, “it’s going to look really strange for you to call an expert forensic psychologist to testify if it comes out she not only works for you but is your wife.”
“Good point, but I’m hoping it will be such an open-and-shut case with all the evidence I’ll have that I won’t have to call you to the stand. Like you said, Stirling and his rabble-rousing rag had so many enemies, that—if it wasn’t suicide—it should not be pinned on Haze just because they had an argument in a restaurant bar. Especially a place with such a crazy reputation.”
“I think things will work out well if—when—Haze gets his day in court,” she said.
“And the thrust of the defense will be that he had such strong faith in the power of the water that he was satisfied with only telling Stirling off. Since she died, we can’t call Ada Cypress to the stand anymore. I can claim that Haze wasn’t worried that a small, local paper could really damage the water’s reputation. Look at all the good that Fountain of Youth is doing, both for those who drink the water and those who use the cosmetics. No way Haze needed to kill Stirling, because he knew, even if the waters were tested, their benefits could be proved.”
“So that’s where the testimonies of those so-called water experts will come in?”
“Right. I gave them a hard time in my office only so I knew they’d hold up under the prosecution’s cross-examination. Can’t give away all my secrets, even to you, sweetheart.”
Claire wasn’t sure whether she would burst out laughing or crying at the mention of keeping secrets. That’s exactly what they were doing here to be certain Ames stayed away, content and misled. At least, thank heavens, she and Nick weren’t keeping secrets from each other anymore.
* * *
That night, in their bed,
though with all the lights off so it was just them without the wild woman and man in the mirror above them, they made frenzied love to each other. Although Claire was so aware of her body, and his, it was an almost out-of-body experience, since her mind and heart seemed so involved too. They were two people but somehow one, not only when they were locked together, but when they just held tight afterward, awed by the power of it all.
They slept, then woke. She had to take her second dose of meds soon. But his hands were on her again, caressing, moving. “Mmm,” she murmured and stretched. “I hope it’s not morning yet.”
He nuzzled her throat and trailed kisses lower. “I’ll be a wreck with all I have to do tomorrow—a happy, happy wreck. We’ll both nod off during dinner with Dylan, also at the reception at the firm the next day too.”
“Mmm, but that’s Monday and today’s Sunday.”
“No rest for the wicked,” he said and cupped her breast with his free hand.
“Yes, you are wicked. But really, do you have to go somewhere today? I’m going to spend the morning with Lexi, poor darling, though at least she’ll have one childhood disease behind her.”
“How about I read her a book for once, instead of you? And aren’t you going with me to talk to Maggie?”
“Right. I guess something’s happened to me this night that has erased all rational thought. Yes, I dread it, but I’m going too. Darn reality.”
“I texted Heck to get a copy of Haze’s and Maggie’s Last Will and Testaments so I don’t have to ask them for those directly. I don’t want them to think I want it because Haze will be found guilty and sent away.”
“Or put on death row,” she said. “If only he had a more solid alibi than Maggie’s say-so for that day Mark died. Nick, I can’t think, can’t talk when you do that.”
