by Ralph Zeta
I wished her good luck, gave her one of my cards, made plans to have lunch or dinner with her the next time I was in town, and told her to call me before she signed any more legal documents granting anyone power over her affairs. I left her beaming and crying on the front porch and drove straight from her neighborhood to Jacksonville International Airport, where I boarded a jet bound for Naples Municipal Airport.
***
Mackenzie and Amy were already waiting for me in the ample library den of Mackenzie’s Naples beach compound. Half-drawn drapes muted the strong afternoon sunlight bathing the room in warmth. Mackenzie was wearing khaki slacks and a white linen top, and Amy had on a light blue sundress. Her face was still not completely healed even though makeup concealed most of the remaining bruises, some of the darker spots above her eyebrow were still visible. Her face brightened when I showed her the old tapestry that had hung for so long in her Palm Beach house.
“You found it!” she crowed, bringing her hands to her lips. Tears began to streak her bruised cheeks.
I asked Mackenzie to open the safe concealed behind a large painting. She entered a code into the safe’s keypad, rotated a dial, and swung open the heavy door to remove a black velvet-covered box and a large manila envelope, which she handed to me.
I sat next to Amy on the off-white couch and put both items down between us on one of the cushions. “That night on the Stella Maris,” I said, “I took three keys from Baumann. Two of them led us to a pair of offshore bank safety-deposit boxes. The third key led us to a warehouse in Miami.” I glanced at the rolled tapestry and said, “That’s where we found it.”
I picked up the envelope from the couch. “In here you’ll find documents pertaining to a trust account I opened in your name as your attorney. I deposited all the recovered cash deemed to have belonged to your mother. There’s over six million dollars in the account.”
Amy let out a gasp.
“We’re not done, yet. There’s more,” I said, holding up a finger. “The envelope also contains an offer from the bank holding the mortgage on your mother’s home. Bottom line: given market conditions, they’re willing to release the liens placed on the home for a substantially reduced amount. No fees and no penalties, either. So the home is yours if you want it.”
She reached over and hugged me and kissed my cheek, wetting it with her tears. “Oh, my God, Jason, thank you so much!” she said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I said. “We’re not done.”
Mackenzie offered us both tissues, then joined us in the couch. She quietly sat down behind Amy and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Amy glanced back and put her hand over Mackenzie’s. I picked up the black velvet box and held it. It felt almost unreal that something that held so much promise, so much earthly value, could be so light, so small.
“I have to admit, I was dead wrong,” I began to say. “And I owe you a big apology. Your father did not lie. He kept his promise to you. He did, in fact, hide something in the tapestry.” I placed the box in her hands, and she took it. “Something more valuable than any insurance policy he could have ever bought. Open it.”
She hesitated at first, her eyes anxiously darting from the box back to me in a moment of hesitation. Finally, after taking the box in her small delicate hands, she took a deep breath before opening the small box, and her puzzled frown gave way to joyous amazement.
“Dear God!” she breathed, and again broke into tears.
The little black box contained forty-two sparkling stones that shone like little stars in the night.
They were all perfect diamonds, each gem flawlessly cut and weighing from 2.1 to 5.2 carats. The largest, most valuable stone, an emerald-cut yellow diamond weighing 12.4 carats, was the centerpiece of the collection. A receipt found along with the stones conclusively established their provenance. Reichmann had bought them as part of his investment portfolio a few years before he established the trading firm that would be at the center of the Ponzi scheme. The stones were clean.
“According to the appraiser I hired to examine them,” I said, “they’re worth about forty million dollars wholesale considerably more retail. And they all belong to you.”
This time her hug felt like a python’s embrace. She buried her head in my chest and sobbed tears of happiness. When she had calmed down I explained that I was taking a fee of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and expenses amounting to another eighty-two thousand. That included fees payable to Sammy and his private investigators who had worked on her case.
Amy looked down at the black box and then at me, a look of incomprehension on her tear-streaked face. “But you said your fee was a third of whatever you recovered! I want you to take it. You earned it!”
“I appreciate that,” I replied. “I really do, but I want you to keep it. Maybe start a foundation in your mother’s name to help worthy students facing difficult circumstances like yours or injured kids in need. You could consider me your first benefactor.”
“You don’t have to do that!” she exclaimed.
“Oh, but I do,” I said. “Otherwise, I’ll feel like just another blood-sucking leech of a lawyer.”
Mackenzie asked me to stay for dinner, and we dined by the verandah and then went for a long sunset walk on the quiet beach. She asked what was next for me. I said I was headed to Puerto Rico the following day. I had a house, inherited from my mother, on a mountaintop on the northeast coast of the island. The twenty acre property was located near the El Yunque tropical rainforest. It had magnificent views of both ocean and mountains. The home had been in the family for a few generations. I had some matters that required my presence in there and I hadn’t visited the island in a couple of years, and I had promised myself a vacation. She asked if I was traveling alone.
“I am,” I replied.
“You know,” she said, stopping and turning toward me as cool sea foam rolled over our bare feet, “I’ve always wanted to visit San Juan. I hear the old city is something to see and the beaches are magnificent.”
“All true,” I said with a wry smile, wondering where the conversation was headed.
“So, how would you feel about showing me around, counselor?”
I felt myself beam. My mind began to fill with the possibilities. Even though I wanted her as bad as anyone could possibly desire another human being, I also knew Mackenzie was not trivial, far from it. She was a woman of means, intelligent, well educated, complex and full of life, a woman ready to offer whoever won her heart, an enviable life. So before we went any further down a road that may lead only to disappointment and, perhaps, even heartbreak, I needed to clear the air she deserved that much.
And so I did.
“I’m glad you shared that with me, Jason,” she replied. She held my gaze for a long moment, searching for something. “But we’re just talking about a vacation, right?” she finally said. “We’re both adults. I’m a big girl. There are no obligations and no expectations, agreed?”
***
We spent a magnificent week in the island. I enjoyed myself as much as I could have possibly hoped for and Mac repeatedly stated she thoroughly enjoyed herself as well. When our time together in the island came to an end, I drove her to the airport where her family’s Gulfstream G-500 jet was waiting. On that warm late autumn day when I watched her jet streak thunderously into the cloudy tropical skies I waved good-bye and remembered her sweet face smiling away tears. I also remember her parting words; “And, Jason, don’t forget; if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me, don’t you?”
The memories of the kiss, our last, still linger. I stood in the hot tarmac in silent contemplation, feeling the ever growing void, as I watched her climb aboard the gleaming aircraft. She turned for one brief moment to face me, waved one last time, and the door was closed.
I watched as the jet became smaller as it soared almost vertically into the bright blue skies and was soon swallowed by a towering white cloud.
I felt like the world’s biggest
idiot for letting her go.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to all the amazing people who helped me, in different ways, with this project:
First, I wish to thank B.C., who bought in early, for her unique and timely insight. This project would have never seen the light of day without your timely involvement. I owe you. To my early readers and critics extraordinaire, Alex Zapata, Gabrielle Darcy, Carly Zapata and Diana Wilkin, thank you so much for your time and encouragement. To Beth Bruno, thank you. Special thanks to my supremely capable editor, Michael Carr, for taking the raw materials, shaping them and turning it into the best it could be.
Also, special thanks are due to the following individuals; Gene Fisher, Thomas Waltz, Jill Corgiat, Ita Ramirez-Huhn, Kristine and John True and Judy Wilkin.
Special thanks to Carl Graves for the captivating cover art and to Cheryl Perez for all her expertise.
And last, but not least, to my parents, for without you, I am not.
Author’s Note
While this book is a work of fiction, I have done my best to ensure that the story was firmly grounded in fact. The places I have described are all real; the cities, towns and neighborhoods, the roads, interstates and by-ways, all exist and are, wherever possible, mentioned in the text by their proper name or designation.
The population growth and ensuing overdevelopment mentioned in the story is also very real. In the last fifty years, the landscape of the great state of Florida has been forever transformed by all this growth. This transformation is more noticeable in the southern half of the state. Every year, despite the economic collapse of 2008 and the ensuing economic depression, the state continues to experience a net influx of new residents. The population of Florida has exploded, growing from approximately 3 million residents in 1950 to well over 16 million in recent times. If this trend persists, the population will have doubled by 2050, when the population will exceed 32 million inhabitants.
How will the Everglades and the estuaries that depend on its water flows fare when faced with the ever expanding population and its appetite for land and dwindling natural resources?
The current effort to save the Everglades is ongoing. For more information on the Everglades please visit The Everglades Foundation’s website at: www.evergladesfoundation.org.
If you would like to reach me with comments, suggestions or even complaints, I encourage you to email me at: [email protected].
About the Author
Ralph Zeta has been a financial advisor and money manager for the past twenty years. After spending close to two decades living in California he relocated to South Florida where he now lives full time. He is currently working on series of new thrillers and perhaps, one more Jason Justice adventure. This is his first novel.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Midpoint
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
About the Author
