by Ralph Zeta
Keeping to the shadows as best we could, we jogged over the uneven cobblestone driveway that curved toward the massive dark bulk. Stands of towering palms and tall clumped birds of paradise and other tropical plants I didn’t recognize broke up the building’s lines in the hazy gloom, and suddenly, there it was, a magnificent two-story Spanish revival mansion, crafted long ago in the classic Mediterranean style so prevalent in this town.
We walked around to a side entrance, and Amy took a key from under a big planter of night-blooming cereus and opened the door. Following her into the cool air-conditioned darkness, I pulled out a small LED flashlight I keep in the glove box for emergencies, and quietly closed the French door behind us. Moving through most of the first floor, we came to an expansive foyer flanked by two curving staircases, and went up the closer of the two. Amy entered a room near the end of a long hallway. She whispered that this had been her childhood room.
A quick scan with the bluish beam of my flashlight revealed none of the things one would expect to find in a college girl’s room. Devoid of dolls, stuffed animals, or crazy posters, it looked like any other sterile guest room in an otherwise meticulously kept home. The only thing seemingly out of place was the unmade bed and a black suitcase on the floor. It was obvious Amy had been staying in the room since her return.
Amy went about grabbing things from a dresser near the far wall and stuffing them haphazardly into a commuter-style suitcase. With her thus occupied, I went back to the hallway and surveyed the interior of the house from the second-story balcony. The place was large, no doubt maybe eight or ten thousand square feet not including pool, patios, and porches. It was well kept and clean, with plants and palm trees rising from expensive planters of varying sizes and shapes scattered throughout the house. It was eerily quiet, the staff long gone, and soon enough it would go on the auction block for the next comer into Palm Beach royalty.
It seemed that Amy’s mother had spent her last days in this formidable home like a sick, frail animal in a cage, oblivious to the splendor surrounding her. The home did have that peculiar scent to it, similar to a hospice I had once visited. It is strange when you think about it, how our olfactory sensors pick up the dreadful scent of tears and sorrow, of death. Our brain never forgets. It’s hard to suppress memories and images that make us aware of our own mortality. Whether we like it or not they are forever burned in our subconscious.
I poked my head back into Amy’s room. It was quiet. The black suitcase lay open on the unmade bed, but Amy was gone. I peered into the bathroom nothing. I softly called out her name.
Silence.
The closet door was ajar, and a dim light was on. Inside the deceptively long walk-in closet were rows of cardboard boxes arranged neatly along both walls. Above the boxes dangled a few forlorn empty hangers. I glanced at the boxes. They all had labels: “Books,” “Dolls,” “Toys,” “Stuffed Animals.” Amy’s childhood stuff, all stored away out of sight by someone who had come into their lives only to rob them of everything. I went deeper into the closet, past more boxes, toward the back wall. The ceiling sloped sharply lower, and I had to crouch. Then I saw it. Near the lower right corner, neatly tucked away behind the boxes, was a small door, perhaps to an attic crawl space. A narrow slit of light from inside the small entrance illuminated a sliver of the gleaming wide-planked floor.
Amy sat on the floor of the brightly lit space, her legs tucked beneath her, and what appeared to be an old scrapbook on her lap. It was a sad image: a little girl lost and alone, her family gone, along with practically everything she knew.
Small bookcases lined three of the little attic room’s receding walls. Posters of now extinct musical groups had been thumbtacked to the walls and sharply sloped ceiling. There was also a small mirror on one wall, and a few pictures of young girls in school uniforms. Stuffed animals leaned against the wall and the big white storage trunk behind where she sat. This must have been a very private place, a sanctuary where she went to get away and where she kept some of the treasures of her childhood.
She looked up at me and lifted the album on her lap. “Pictures. My dad and me. Mom, too.”
I simply smiled at her but said nothing.
“I wanted to have this scrapbook,” she said, closing it.
“I understand.” I held out my hand to her. “But we really should go, Amy.”
She nodded, stood up, and turned off the overhead bulb, and we left the little room. She placed the scrapbook carefully inside the suitcase and zipped it shut, and we slipped back outside the house the same way we had entered.
Outside, Sammy met us, and I made the introductions. He told us he had a safe place where Amy could stay. An old friend and his wife had recently bought a small bed-and-breakfast up in Stuart, and they would be more than happy to look after her. Besides, the owner, “Big Ed,” as he was known to his friends and colleagues, was a retired Miami Sheriff’s Office SWAT team member. She would be in good hands.
Amy gave me a big hug. I towered above her smallish frame. I told her to get some rest. Before leaving, Sammy handed me a Glock 21 .45-caliber pistol with two extra clips. “You just never know,” he said. He was right. I slipped the holster inside my waistband and ran my belt through it. With my shirttail out, it was almost invisible.
Amy climbed inside Sammy’s black SUV, and they drove away, swallowed by the cool, rainy darkness.
Seven
Fat raindrops splattered angrily against the windshield, obscuring my view of the highway ahead, so that between swipes of the wiper blades, the best I got was a hazy, shifting image that was quickly blurred away by yet more rain. I was doing about thirty-five miles an hour. Other drivers were doing even worse, and some had even pulled over to wait out the worst of the storm. It was that bad.
By the time I pulled into my assigned parking space, the entire marina was dark and quiet. I could barely distinguish my boat through the downpour. The hundred or so vessels that called this marina home were nothing more than ghostly, diffuse silhouettes revealed by the dim light of a few lampposts. I left my loafers in the car and ran barefoot as fast as I could toward my boat and the promise of a glorious evening.
Nora was standing near the door, her sumptuous body clad in a sheer silk nightgown, two beach towels in her hands. “I saw you park,” she said with a bright, welcoming smile.
“Thank you,” I said as I dropped a towel on the floor and stepped on it.
“Why don’t you get in the shower and I’ll make you a drink?”
I couldn’t help but grin. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“Just get in the shower, Romeo!”
In any boat, except for the mega yachts costing tens of millions, a shower stall is not a roomy place. Onboard space is a precious commodity, to be used in the most efficient way possible. But my father, when designing the layout to his dream boat, had made some allowances and sacrifices here and there and came up with a shower-and-head combo that could easily fit two standing adults. There were plenty of boats out there whose space restrictions allowed for only a single handheld showerhead, to be used while sitting on the lid of the toilet. Not my father. He used to say there was something fundamentally wrong in any boat’s design if you had to shower and take a dump in the same spot.
It wasn’t long before Dr. Norton joined me in the shower and then led me to bed, where we got sweaty all over again. As we rolled onto our backs, glowing and exhausted, I decided not to bother with another shower.
Outside, above the soft sounds of our labored breathing, the storm raged on. I glanced at the alarm clock. It was 2:23 a.m., and though I was well into my first day of a long-anticipated vacation, I was no better rested than yesterday. We had little chance of departing as planned, if at all. I felt a long, slender finger softly tracing the outlines of my no longer so well chiseled abs.
“Jason?” she said, almost purring my name.
“Hm-m...?”
“So what did you think of Amy?”
“Nic
e girl.” I put my arms under my head and stared at the ceiling. “Sad case, though.”
“I know,” she said as she turned to look at me, her head resting under her left arm, her right hand caressing my chest. “Doesn’t it break your heart to see someone so young so beaten down by circumstances?”
“It’s tough. I’m sure she’s not alone, though bad shit happens to a lot of good people.”
“Can you help her?”
I turned over and stared at her. “Why are you so interested in this girl?”
She thought about it for a moment, then said, “Her mom was not just a patient; she was a good friend, someone I really came to care for. For most of her life, she carried a big cross on her shoulders a few of them, in fact. And in the end, after all she had been through, this man she married not only took everything from her, he may have also taken her life. And I think this man may possibly be a threat to Amy if she goes after him.”
True to character, Nora was doing what she always did. She was by nature nurturing and a sucker for a sad story any sad story. So this preoccupation with Amy’s plight was not entirely a surprise. But the really hard part, the challenge of recouping what had been taken from Amy, would fall squarely on my shoulders. Nora would go back to her sad but safe, sterile environs at the hospital, and it would be up to me and Sammy to do the heavy lifting. And I had a feeling that Evan Robertson wouldn’t give in without a fight.
I must have stayed quiet too long. “A penny for your thoughts?” she asked playfully.
I glanced at her before answering. “I have a feeling this is not going to be so easy,” I said. “This guy is not simply going to roll over and give up what the law says is legally his.”
“Then what can you do?”
“Dig deep. It’s going to take a lot of research and legwork maybe too much. Maybe this will require more time than I have at the moment. Maybe this is something I won’t be able to see through to its bitter end.”
“I can help!” she said. Always so eager, so Nora. “I’m not a billionaire, but I have more than plenty. Amy can pay me back after you recover whatever this man stole.”
“That’s generous,” I said as I kissed her hand gently. “I really appreciate it, but no, that’s not necessary.” I sat up a bit and leaned my head against the couchlike headboard, a large, semirounded number permanently affixed to the bulkhead behind the queen-size bed.
“Let’s see what we uncover about this man her mother married and then we’ll reassess. For the moment, Amy is with Sammy. He’s got her in a safe house.”
“Safe house?” she said, sitting up. Nora sounded alarmed. “She in danger?”
“Just a precaution.”
“She could stay with me, you know.”
“No way.”
“Why not? I’d love to have her. And I wouldn’t cost you or her anything...” She ran a fingernail up my arm and toward the nape of my neck. She knew damn well what that did to me. She wasn’t playing fair.
But this was no game. Robertson didn’t seem like an amateur, and I had to assume he was playing for keeps.
“If this asshole is the kind of person I believe he is, then Amy may be in danger, and if she stayed with you, that could put you in harm’s way. A risk I’m not willing to take.”
“I feel so bad for her.” Nora’s shoulders slumped a little.
“She’ll be safe where she is,” I said, sitting up next to her. Thanks to the air-conditioned cabin, we were no longer sweating like horses after a six-furlong race.
“It’s unfair, but shit like this happens, Nora. People get kicked even when they’re down. That’s life. A chain of events gets set in motion, for one reason or another the victim refuses to deal with the problem or simply lives in denial, and then disaster after disaster occurs until there’s nothing left. And along with the material things lost, the human spirit vanishes, too. It’s human nature. Some victims end up taking their own lives. Like I said before, when you look into these cases and you examine the events leading up to the final deception, almost without exception you find out that there were warning signs all along. Victims, for whatever reasons, simply refuse to heed the warnings. In all likelihood, Amy’s mom was just another victim who let someone take advantage of her. It was a choice she made. And now Amy is paying the price.”
Her head snapped toward me, and her back straightened. “Do you think Amy might do something irrational? End up like her mother?”
“No, not Amy,” I reassured her. “The girl may have been dealt her share of bad hands, but she’s really determined and she is not blinded by his charms. She wants to fight this guy.”
“What does she want you to do?”
“She’d like to get everything back. But what she’s particularly concerned with is that tapestry that hung in her mother’s house. Supposedly, her dad left something hidden in it just for her some sort of insurance policy in case things went bad. She has no idea what it may be, but she’s convinced its valuable.”
“And you being you, and her father having been a convicted embezzler, you don’t believe it for a second, do you?” Nora knew me well. Or maybe I’m just that damned predictable.
“You blame me?” I asked.
“Not at all. You’re just naturally skeptical. I like that about you. I like it a lot. Me, I’m way too trusting. Too naïve. I guess we balance each other.” She smiled and nuzzled my cheek. “But you’re gonna help her find whatever it is, aren’t you?”
That was too much. I was getting tired of being a marionette for women like Nora to pull my strings almost at will simply because they were beautiful and I had certain needs that weakened my otherwise strong, manly resolve. I looked her square in the eye and said, “What if I say no? What if I just don’t want to get involved in something like this?”
It didn’t work. She purred like a kitten and took my face in her soft, knowing hands, kissed me, and said, “But you won’t, will you, Sir Justice of the Night? Knights always help damsels in distress, don’t they? It’s in their blood. They can’t help themselves, can they?”
“Cute,” I quipped as I tried to scoot away from her. “And why is it that I just can’t say no and walk away from this?”
That strong, manly resolve was already on very shaky ground. Nora must have sensed it, and she was ready for the kill shot. She resorted to one of the dirtiest tricks in the book: she stuck her hot, moist tongue in my ear and nibbled at my earlobe while her right hand slithered ever so sensuously down my midriff. This was a battle I was already prepared to lose.
“Because,” she said as she pushed me back down and straddled me with those strong, tanned legs, “Mr. Justice, you are one of the really good guys, which is the reason I am here.”
“You better believe it, lady.” She was driving me a little wild.
“And you know what else?”
“Enlighten me, please.”
“Because you have a big heart, Mr. Justice.”
I was in a state of bliss. “That right?”
And just like that, her sexual teasing came to an end. She eased herself up and stretched her naked splendor on top of me and gently kissed my lips. The tender kiss promptly descended into a wanton sparring of tongues.
This passionate exchange was over in less than a minute. Nora held my face with both hands and slowly pulled away from me, her eyes boring into mine, studying me. She then came closer and tenderly kissed my eyes something she had never done before. As far as I could recall, only my mother had ever kissed me that way. After that tender moment, Nora slid off me and lay beside me, a lean and shapely leg folded over mine. And then she uttered something that would forever change the character of what had thus far been the very best, most desirable relationship I had ever known.
“I’m falling in love with you, Jason.”
A sudden pang of dread invaded every inch of my body. We were doomed.
Eight
It was already too late. I felt my world rapidly spinning out of control, careening into a
dark oblivion at Mach 5 with little hope of a survivable landing.
The dreaded words shattered the silence with a thunderous force. The beast had been set free, and any attempt to rein it in now would be futile. This was territory we both had agreed not to dive into. She had crossed that imaginary demarcation line, a line as important as the border between two uneasy neighbors, like the Rio Grande in Texas or the thirty-eighth parallel on the Korean peninsula. You just didn’t go there without calling first. Spontaneous or not, those words forever changed the nature of the relationship. She knew it as well as I did. A pact had been broken. Emotions would be involved. No good could ever come of it.
The long, heavy silence lasted longer than it should, the sheer weight of it pressing down on both of us. The drumming of the rain on fiberglass surfaces above became the only sound in the universe. I could also hear the incessant soft clang of rope against hollow metal most likely a line on one of the nearby sailboats beating against the aluminum mast. I could no longer hear her breathing. Or mine. It was as if our vital signs had ceased, stifled by the stark realization of what had just happened and could never be undone. Shit.
And then she did something that took me completely off guard. She put her hand over her eyes as though caught in an embarrassing situation. Had she come to the same realization as I? I didn’t know whether to feel relief or be even more worried.
The silence dragged on.
Then she did something even more unexpected: she began to laugh. It started as a little laugh that became louder the longer it went on, as if she had heard one of the best punch lines in the world and was just now figuring it out. I wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or offended.
“I’m sorry, Jason.” She was trying hard to control herself. “Forget I said that.”
“I’m confused.”
“It’s okay,” she said as her laughter subsided.
She got up on an elbow and silently held my gaze for a long moment, as if searching for some meaning in my expression. What it was escaped me. She broke the silence by saying, “We had an agreement and I broke it. I should not have said that.”
