by Sam Cameron
“I’ll sign your cast,” Denny promised. Lame, he told himself. But Brian didn’t seem to notice.
“My car’s probably totaled.”
“You’ll get another.” Denny dragged a stool over. “You didn’t see the driver?”
Brian shook his head. “Do you think it was on purpose?”
“I don’t know. But a lot of strange things seem to be happening around you.”
“Why me? When The Tempest blew up, I didn’t see anything you didn’t see.”
Denny patted his knee awkwardly, because he didn’t want Brian to misinterpret the gesture. And because he really wanted to grab Brian and never let anything bad happen to him again.
It was possible that Denny was totally out of his mind.
Or falling in love.
Luckily, a nurse came in and said, “We’re going to go over to X-ray now, see about that arm of yours.”
Brian looked uncertainly at Denny.
“I’ll be right here when you get back,” Denny promised.
“Okay. Thanks.”
Left alone, Denny went to find coffee. He was going to need the biggest, hottest cup he could find. All of the vending machines were in the main lobby, which was airy and bright and too cheerful for his taste. A blond man with a crew cut was inserting coins into one slot when Denny got there.
Maybe if he’d been thinking straight, Denny wouldn’t have blurted out, “I know you.”
The man jerked his head. “What? No.”
“You were in Key West. On the boat—”
The man punched Denny in the jaw so hard that Denny spun around and fell backward on the carpeted floor. Pain exploded through his whole face and his vision blurred. Son of a bitch!
The man sprinted away. Denny staggered upright and followed him across the lobby, nearly colliding with a nurse along the way. He could hear concerned voices asking him questions, but they sounded like they were far away and maybe even in a different language.
He burst out past the sliding doors just in time to see Crew Cut ride off on a motorcycle.
A security guard came jogging over. “You all right, kid?”
Denny rubbed his jaw. He was pissed at himself for not seeing that punch coming. Sensei Mike would be embarrassed over him. “Yeah. I’m great.”
“Who was that?”
“I’m going to find out.” Denny turned to him. “Where are your security tapes?”
*
In the surgical waiting room, Steven found out that Christopher was under the knife and would be for a while. One of the young nurses at the desk, a brunette with dark blue eyes and perfect skin, flirted with him while he waited.
“So you’re in school?” she asked.
“University of Miami,” he confirmed.
“You like it?”
“I love it. I’m thinking maybe of becoming a doctor. Specializing in good bedside manners. Any tips?”
She laughed. “I think you’re going to have to work on that line.”
Her supervisor came over with a dour look. Steven decided to go back to the emergency room. Apparently, chaos had broken out in the time he’d been away—Dad and two of his deputies were standing around Denny, who was holding an ice pack to his jaw. Dad looked pissed off. A hospital security guard was there, too, along with a guy in a tie.
“We’ll have prints made up right away,” the man in the tie was saying.
“I’m telling you, it was the same guy from Key West,” Denny insisted.
Mr. and Mrs. Vandermark arrived before Steven got the full story. Mrs. Vandermark’s eyes were puffy and her mascara runny—she’d probably been crying the entire drive up. Mr. Vandermark’s expression was stony.
“Your son’s fine,” Dad told her. “Broken arm, they’re already setting it.”
Steven sat next to Denny in one of the padded blue chairs.
“He was on the snorkel trip,” Denny said. “He never said a word all the way out or back. He could be the same guy who drove Brian off the road.”
“You don’t know that,” Dad said.
“Why else would he punch me and run away?”
“Steven, why don’t you take your brother back home? He’s going to have to ice that jaw all day.”
“I want to stay,” Denny said. “I told Brian I’d stay.”
“Brian will understand,” Dad said firmly. “Don’t both of you have to work today?”
Steven checked the clock. “I could switch—”
“Go to work,” Dad said. “Brian’s parents will take care of him, and people are counting on you.”
Steven said, “Okay, but first we have to tell you about what we found at the impound lot.”
Halfway through that story, Agent Crown and Agent Garcia arrived. Mr. Vandermark went outside with his cell phone in hand, looking upset. Dad wasn’t too pleased to hear they’d opened the SUV but was mollified, at least, that Steven and Denny had left the book and the portable hard drive exactly where they were.
“Give me the keys,” Dad said.
Steven handed them over.
“We’ll take those,” Agent Crown said. “The FBI has jurisdiction here.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Dad said.
Which led to a rather heated discussion about who exactly was in charge. Steven thought it was best that they make themselves scarce. He steered Denny out to the parking lot and into the truck.
“I don’t want to leave,” Denny whined, like a kid.
“You heard Dad. Besides, we’re not going to find anything out by sticking around there. Let’s call Sensei Mike. Maybe he has friends at the Casa Marina who can fax up a list of everyone who was on that snorkel trip.”
Denny said, “Huh. I guess that’s a good idea.”
“I’m brilliant that way.”
Mopey-eyed, Denny watched the hospital recede in the rearview mirror.
“It’s just a broken arm, Denny. He’ll be fine.”
“Someone tried to kill him. That’s not fine.”
“So we stop them,” Steven replied.
Denny met his gaze squarely. “Yeah. We stop them.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Steven dropped Denny off at the Bookmine. Denny got two feet inside before his mom was all over him.
“They should have taken X-rays! Your father should have insisted,” she said. “What if your jaw’s broken?”
“My jaw’s not broken,” he assured her. “I can talk.”
Sean Garrity was ringing up purchases for a woman with two small kids. “You got in a fight in the middle of Mariner’s Hospital?”
Mom said, “Not now, Sean,” and tugged Denny into her office. He always liked it there—small and homey, with vintage travel posters of Cuba on the walls. She sat him down in her chair and peered into his eyes, maybe looking for signs of brain damage.
“I get punched harder in karate class,” he said.
“You’re lying,” Mom said. Today she was dressed in a red dress with yellow fish embroidered all over it. “Do you want some ibuprofen?”
“Sure.”
“You should go home and rest.”
“I want to work,” he said. Besides which, they’d given Mom’s fax number for the Casa Marina list, and Denny wanted to be nearby when it came through.
He’d already sent Brian a message, saying he was sorry he had to leave. Brian’s first text came an hour after Denny got to the store. He couldn’t type well with his left fingers only, but he said he was okay and Christopher was out of surgery with his leg in traction.
Denny apologized again.
Brian sent a picture of his arm in a cast.
Ten minutes later Brian asked, Did u get punchd?
Denny said, I’m fine.
Brian didn’t message anything back.
Mom hovered for hours, but aside from some soreness, Denny felt fine. Part of his job was to work the Buyback desk, where customers could trade in used books for cash or store credit. Several customers brought in overflowing b
ags, and one brought in a huge cardboard box of hardcover mysteries. Sean kept pestering him as Denny entered the totals into a calculator.
“If you don’t tell me what happened, I’ll die of curiosity.”
Denny replied, “I’ll take my chances with your mortality.”
“Was it someone’s jealous boyfriend?”
“Would you like a black eye?”
Sean wagged his finger. “Violence never solved anything.”
“I don’t need a solution. I just need silence.”
The Casa Marina list didn’t come in until three o’clock. There were eighteen names on it, twelve of them male. Crossing off his and Brian’s names left him with ten possible suspects. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that Crew Cut had spoken with an accent—German, maybe. None of the names seemed German, though.
He looked at the last name on the list.
Antonio Ferdinand.
Two more characters in The Tempest.
*
Steven dropped by the sheriff’s substation on his way home from lifeguarding. The substation was a brand new building financed by Homeland Security dollars, with gleaming tile floors and state-of-the-art electronics.
Two steps into the lobby and he started to turn around, but it was too late.
“Denny!” said Lucy Mcdaniel.
He faced her. Didn’t bother to correct her. “How’s the story coming?”
“I wanted to talk to your dad but he’s busy,” Lucy said. “Something about a car accident? Up the highway?”
“He’s got a big jurisdiction.”
“I’m trying to finish my story,” she said with a little pout. “Can you get me in? Only for ten minutes, I promise.”
“I can’t.”
“I can pay you back. Dinner on me.”
“Sorry,” Steven said.
Cold anger flashed across her eyes. In that instant, he saw that you never wanted to be the guy who stood her up or broke her heart. Lucy’s phone rang and she turned away. He escaped to the front desk, where Sergeant Henry Martin was manning the counter.
“Friend of yours?” Martin was typing into a computer with one hand and squeezing a gel stress toy with the other. “I keep telling her she’s not going to get in.”
“Dad in a bad mood?”
“Rotten as the bottom shelf of my refrigerator. Go on back.”
The captain’s office was bigger here than in the old building, with bulletproof windows that looked out on the public baseball field. Steven had played Little League on that field for years and years. Dad was glaring at a whiteboard mounted on the wall.
“What’s with the radioactive death stare?” Steven asked.
“I don’t like this case,” Dad said. “And I don’t like that you’ve been keeping secrets.”
Steven kept his poker face on. “Which secrets?”
“You know.”
So Dad knew about the Navy. Denny must have said something. Or Eddie Ibarra. He’d have to kill them.
“I was going to tell you,” Steven said. “But things just sort of happened fast.”
“That money could have given us a clue.”
Oh. So this wasn’t about the SEALs at all. “Eddie’s money?”
“The money Eddie found,” Dad said. “What were you thinking, letting them go off and spend all that cash?”
“I didn’t know,” Steven protested. “I only found out last night, when I was late for curfew. I would have told you, but I didn’t want to get him in trouble.”
“He came in and reported it himself today,” Dad said. “Just after I got back from the hospital. Maybe news of Brian Vandermark’s accident scared him into it.”
Steven turned around to look at the whiteboard. Written in Dad’s neat square handwriting was VANDERMARK, MORGAN, CASA MARINA, TEMPEST, BURGLARY. Dad always did like to work things out in a visual way.
“There’s no Agent Prosper working out of the Miami FBI office,” Dad said. “So that’s an open question.”
“Denny thinks maybe it has to do with Shakespeare. There’s a guy named Prospero in The Tempest.”
Dad blinked. “Huh. That’s a good one.”
“And he texted me a half hour ago. There’s a Ferdinand in the play, and a guy named Ferdinand was on that snorkel trip Brian and Denny took in Key West.”
Dad picked up a pencil and toyed with it. “I didn’t know Brian and Denny were such good friends.”
Steven shrugged. “Almost getting killed brings you closer to a guy.”
“Is that it?”
He tried not to squirm. “What are you asking me, Dad?”
Dad studied him for a long moment. Out on the baseball field, two kids from the junior high started to toss a ball back and forth.
“Nothing,” Dad said with a sigh. “I’ll talk to your brother.”
Steven was pretty sure he didn’t want to be around for that conversation. He turned back to the white board. “What about that SUV that was impounded?”
“We ran the VIN number. It was stolen from Fort Lauderdale last week. The FBI took custody of the hard drive that was in the glove compartment. Obviously, we were meant to find it, sooner or later. Someone wants to communicate something. But it’s not my problem anymore.”
“The FBI took over?”
“Lock, stock, and barrel,” Dad said. “I’d say I’m disappointed, but your mother and I are supposed to go up to that state conference tomorrow and she needs a break from work. You boys should come with us.”
“Tallahassee?” Steven shuddered. “That’s like going to the desert. You know us, Dad. We’ll stay out of trouble.”
“You’ve never been able to stay out of trouble.” Dad cocked his head. “You know, you haven’t talked about BUD/S much. You’re not worried, are you?”
Steven wondered for a moment if Dad knew. Maybe Eddie had spilled more than just the story of the money. Or maybe Dad had run into some of the recruiters from the Miami office. They were always traveling up and down the island, enlisting young people for the navy.
“Sensei Mike says if it doesn’t kill me, it’ll make me stronger,” Steven said cockily. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re pretty strong already.”
Steven appreciated the thought.
But he still couldn’t figure out how to tell his parents that he was lying to them.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Thanks to painkillers, Brian slept the entire afternoon away. He barely remembered Mom driving them home or how he’d crawled right into bed. His dreams were muddy, half-remembered kaleidoscopes of smashing metal and glass. Now, with the sky still blue outside his windows, he dragged himself out of bed and checked his phone. He had twelve text messages from Christopher: I’m bored, leg hurts, bring me food, where are you, and several more, not a single one asking Brian how he was.
He adjusted the sling around his arm and went out to find his mother in the kitchen, stirring together whole wheat pasta and organic tomato sauce.
“I made dinner,” she said. “How do you feel?”
“Okay. How’s Christopher?”
“He’s doing fine. Henrik’s still up there, trying to arrange for an ambulance to take him back to Boston.”
Her words sounded calm, matter-of-fact. Her face was haggard, though, and her shoulders stiff with tension.
He gave her a one-armed hug. “I’m okay, really. It was just a small accident.”
“Small!” she exclaimed, into his shoulder. “Small. Tell me that when you’ve had kids.”
“That won’t be for a long time,” Brian admitted.
She separated from him and drew in a shaky breath. Offered him an equally shaky smile. “Do you need a pill for the pain?”
“I’m good. Starving.”
He wasn’t really hungry, but finishing the food gave her something to focus on. The two of them ate at the big glass table near the patio doors. He had a hard time eating with only his left hand. Mom pushed her pasta around on her plat
e and barely touched her garlic bread.
“So we were thinking of going to St. Thomas,” she said. “On Thursday.”
“Of going where?” he asked, not sure he’d heard correctly.
“St. Thomas.”
“In the Caribbean.”
“For a little while. Rent a house, lie on the beach, and get away from all this bad karma.”
Brian looked at Henrik’s empty chair. “Don’t we need to stick around and find out who’s been behind all this? Breaking into my hotel room, driving us off the road—”
“The FBI is working on it,” Mom said. “They don’t need us. We’ll be somewhere warm and safe, and they can do their jobs. You’ll like St. Thomas. It’s pretty.”
“It’s pretty here,” Brian argued.
“You don’t even like it here.”
“I like it fine.”
Mom poured herself some wine. “You’ll like St. Thomas better. Just for a few weeks. Let things cool down. Please don’t argue with me, because it’s been a long day.”
“I know. I started it off being driven into the ocean.”
That was totally the wrong thing to say, because she burst into tears.
So unfair. He could never fight tears.
“I’m sorry,” Brian said. “I didn’t mean it.”
She pressed one hand to her face and waved at him with the other. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Tell me about St. Thomas. What’s there to do?”
She sniffed. “There’s swimming, and scuba diving, and surfing.”
None of which he could do with his arm in a cast.
“Cute boys?” he asked.
She laughed a little. “Yes. Many cute boys.”
He tried stabbing more pasta with his fork. “There are some cute boys here. I’d like to stay and hang out, and you guys can go and have a good time.”
Mom lifted her head and swallowed her tears. “No. It’s not possible.”
He stared at her. What aliens had kidnapped his mother and left this clone behind? Last summer she and Henrik had gone to Paris and he’d stayed alone for two weeks in Boston. No parties, no police reports, just a quiet week in which he and Christopher had the whole run of the house for themselves. Mom had called twice a day from France, but at least she hadn’t hired a babysitter.
