“We need a charter boat for tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn in Rincón, Puerto Rico, to take us out to Mona Island. And a hotel in Rincón.”
“Hotel in Rincón, boat from Rincón to Mona, earliest possible departure.”
“Yes.”
“I’m on it.”
A thought, a crazy thought, came to my mind. “Julie, wait.” I scrolled through the contacts in my phone. Found him. “Humor me. Call this number first and see if this guy is available to be in Rincón for a charter.” I read off the digits. “Don’t waste a lot of time, just one phone call, leave a voicemail, but then go straight to searching for another. But if he’s available under the same time frame, I want him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Bill.” The captain of the Wild Irish Kate. “He’s a childhood surfer friend of Nick’s. He captains a boat out of San Juan named the Wild Irish Kate for a rich American who likes to play in the Caribbean. Nick chartered him once a few years ago.”
“Got it. And I think I remember him. Let me know what’s going on when you can.”
“I will, I promise.”
Julie took a deep breath. “I don’t want to worry you, Katie, but there is one thing that happened this afternoon that you need to know.”
My tummy seized up. I’d been right. Trouble. “Tell me.”
“Taylor was outside playing right after we talked to you earlier. Ruth and I were watching him, and he was in the driveway. And then he was gone, in the blink of an eye. The only reason we knew to look so fast was that Annalise set off every alarm in the house. I swear, she about pierced our eardrums.”
“Is Taylor all right?” There was panic in my voice.
“He’s fine. But what happened is strange and scary. The crazy old guy that told you there were skeletons under Annalise had picked him up and was walking down the driveway with him. We saw and ran after him. He was very calm and friendly when he saw us. He handed Taylor back to me, and he said, ‘Sure easy to lose a boy.’ And he just walked off. When we got back to the house, we saw that all of the dogs were asleep. I think they’d been drugged, Katie. So everything is OK now, but we don’t know what to make of it.”
Tutein. That asshole Tutein.
“I think I do. Tutein left me a voicemail telling me what beautiful children I have, and he said I still have a chance to make all the problems with Annalise go away before the court makes its ruling on the injunction. I think he’s sending us a message.”
“I don’t like this message.”
“Me either. Please, ask Rashidi to stay with you guys from now on. Don’t let anyone go off alone.” The seizing in my stomach had turned to roiling nausea. “Oh, Julie, I’m so sorry.”
My children. My husband. How could I protect everyone at once? I didn’t want to tell the guys, but I knew I had to.
We hung up. I turned to the men. All of us had completed our tasks.
“I need to go first,” I said. I updated them quickly and the mood sobered. We moved on to Collin, who said Tamara thought our Mona scenario made sense.
Kurt reported on the FAA and Coast Guard. “I called our contact numbers and gave them our new information. The FAA said they will also call the Coast Guard and ask them to direct some of their search capabilities tomorrow between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The Coast Guard person gave me the same line they did last time, so I called my friend Ralph and asked for help. He’s going to rattle sabers and call me back.”
On cue, Kurt’s phone rang. “Yup. Uh-huh. Yeah, OK. Thanks.” He hung up and nodded. Quintessential Kurt.
Collin lost patience first. “Well?”
“My friend got through. They’ll start flyovers in the Mona Passage tomorrow. It’s too late today, not enough light. But he also said that tomorrow is day four and the resources will change for a recovery operation rather than a rescue.”
“Recovery?” I asked.
“Body recovery,” Collin said, putting his hand on my forearm. “But don’t worry, Katie. They’re just reading from a script. He’s out there. We’ll find him.”
The adrenaline in my body dilated my pupils. I concentrated on expanding and filling my lungs, then emptying them, five times. It helped. Enough to keep me upright, at least.
Kurt and I threw our bags together and we reconvened in the sitting area five minutes later.
I asked, “Time to go?”
“Ready,” he said.
“Just one more thing,” Collin said. “I made out a black guy watching us at the airport, and by the time we’d gotten to the hotel, he’d picked us up and was on our tail. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure at the time, but I am now. When I went out to talk to Tamara, I saw him and another black guy casing our room. Hadn’t had a chance to tell you yet, but now’s the time.”
“Oh my God!” I said, too loudly.
Kurt said, “If they’re out there, why don’t they just try to kill us like they did that boy today?”
Nice thought, Kurt.
“I don’t think they would want to attract attention by killing us unless they have to,” Collin said. “I’ll bet they just want to follow us in case we know something, especially about Nick or his passengers, who they seem to very much want dead.”
“Shit! What are we going to do?” I asked.
Collin said, “We need to scatter like a covey of quail.”
“Like that means something to me. Tell me in a way I can understand, big brother.”
“There are two of them and three of us. We need to leave one at a time, scatter in three directions—Katie go left, Kurt go right, and I’ll go forward—move fast, take confusing routes, walk past Victor’s car, find a new taxi. We’ll meet there. If that doesn’t work, we can visit a Plan B in the taxi.”
Kurt did his usual—he nodded. I gulped, then parroted him.
My phone flashed. No time to check messages.
Collin said, “Katie, you go first. Then Kurt. I’ll bring up the rear and carry all three bags. Ready, guys?”
Kurt and I answered yes, him with more steam than me.
“Go, Katie,” Collin ordered.
With my heart thundering, I handed him my bag and lunged out the door, then righted myself. Don’t look at them. I didn’t turn around, but I saw a black-skinned figure start to move in my side vision. Shit shit shit. I checked my watch. I needed to kill five minutes and make it good.
I made a sharp left toward the lobby. When I got there, I turned down a long hall of rooms. My purse slipped off my shoulder and bounced against my legs with each step. I forced my eyes to remain forward, no matter how badly I wanted to glance over my shoulder. I went up a flight of stairs.
As I reached the top of the staircase I tried to adjust my purse—and ended up dropping it. It tumbled out of my hands and everything in it spilled down the top three steps. My heart hammered in my chest and I kept my eyes on the tile floor as I crouched down and started shoveling things into my bag. Top step. Lipstick. Sunglasses. Passport. Second step. Keys. Checkbook. Pens. Third from the top. A pair of earrings. A roll of mints. I put my wallet in last and stood up, then saw my blue spiral notebook halfway down the hall. It must have bounced out of my purse earlier. I looked up and straight into the eyes of a black man walking down the long hallway toward me—and my notebook.
Shit.
Everything we’d learned so far was in that notebook. I couldn’t just leave it—it was a map directly to my husband. I sprinted down the steps and back through the hall on a collision course with the man. We reached the notebook at the same time and as he bent over to retrieve it, I grabbed a pen out of my purse, ready to gouge his eyes out. He stood up.
“You dropped this, ma’am,” he said in a voice that gave away his origins: Midwest, U.S.A. A tourist.
My fingers released the pen.
“Th-th-thank you, very much.”
I took it from him as another black man bolted around the corner behind him. I didn’t stick around to meet him. With my hand in my purse g
ripping my notebook, I wheeled and sprinted back up the stairs and into the short hallway at the top of them, where I ran head-on into one of the exact two people I did not want to meet. My breath was literally knocked out against his chest. His black eyes gleamed with recognition and triumph, and he grabbed me by my upper arm as I tried to spin back in the direction I’d come. His grip was strong. He wasn’t overly tall, maybe five foot ten, but he was lean and muscular.
He spoke, and it was an island lilt. “Good afternoon, miss. Would you come with me, please?” His mock courtesy and tight smile over gleaming teeth were sinister.
Sylis? Or his buddy? Who knew, who cared. My fear slipped away and years of compulsory practice in the dojo took over. He was bigger, he was stronger, but I was smarter and felt sure he underestimated me. I pretended to trip and shot my free arm into a hammer punch to his groin, then followed his sagging body with a side kick under his chin. My teacher had always praised my side kicks as my most effective move. His head snapped back—I heard his teeth meet with a loud clack—and he fell backwards to the floor.
I didn’t stick around to see if I’d knocked him out, but I was hoping for the best as I sprinted around a corner to the right, found another set of stairs, and headed down. I walked out onto the pool deck, trying not to look like I was heaving for breath. I circled the pool and entered the lobby from another angle, browsing the boutique windows as my breath slowed down, but not my pulse. I exited the far side of the lobby and walked around to the front of the hotel, where I saw Victor’s car.
I chanced another glance around. There were men everywhere. Black men, Latino men, men that could be from St. Marcos, men that could be from Mexico or not. Men that could be interested in me or care less. I walked past Victor’s Cutlass and down to the end of the row of cars for hire. I searched for a sign of Kurt or Collin. Nothing.
“Taxi?” I asked, leaning down to speak to a driver through the open window of his large van. I panted.
“Sí,” he said.
I hopped onto the first bench in the back. His radio was playing Kat DeLuna’s obnoxious “Whine Up.” U.S. pop music, Dominican-style. And I was trapped in his car with it, having a mini-panic attack. Not ideal. My blood pressure started rising.
“Where to, miss?” he asked. “Miss” sounded like “mees” in his accent.
“Wait. Two more men coming.”
“I charge you for wait,” he said. He sounded happy about it.
“Yes, charge me, that’s fine.” As long as he kept the taxi in park until Kurt and Collin came; that’s all I cared about.
Footsteps. I willed my eyes to stay on the floorboard. The door opened and Kurt dropped onto the seat beside me.
“One of the guys went after you. Did you see him?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I saw him all right.”
“We go now?” the driver asked.
“No, wait. One more man,” I replied.
“I still charge you,” he said.
“Yes, that is fine.” This time he had definitely sounded happy. “Did anyone follow you?”
“I think so, or at least one guy did. I didn’t see him when I reached the cars, though.”
“That’s good.”
“Yup.”
Suddenly the car door on the other side of me opened. There had been no footsteps. Collin settled himself in, tossing our three bags across our laps. I should have packed lighter.
“I go now?” the driver asked.
“Yes, the airport, please,” I said.
“Cape Air,” Collin said.
Collin didn’t say a word to us. His eyes roamed the people and cars around us but his head never moved. Kurt and I stayed silent. The driver pulled his taxi van away from the curb and eased around the other parked cars. Collin’s eyes hardened and I followed his gaze. One Afro-Caribe man stood at the entrance to the lobby, craning his neck and searching all the cars.
“Is that one of them?” I whispered.
“Yes. Get down,” Collin said. “I don’t see the other guy, and he could be watching us from a different direction.”
I flattened my upper body. “Why not you guys, too?” I asked. “I don’t think you’ll see the other one.”
“I’m the new guy. They’re not as likely to recognize me. They’re looking for two men and a woman, or for a man and a woman. Definitely not for two men. Maybe they’ll recognize Kurt, maybe not, but let’s give this a try.”
The van cruised past the men and Kurt kept his face averted. Collin played it cool, pretending to scroll through messages on his phone, but actually watching them from behind his sunglasses.
“Why don’t you think we’ll see the other one?” Collin asked.
“Because thanks to Dad, I think I knocked him out with a side kick.”
“No shit?” Collin asked.
I noticed that something felt breezy around my crotch. I looked down, then reached tentatively for the seam of my capris. Yep, split.
“No shit,” I said. “Which is why I’ll need to change these pants into something a little less revealing.”
Kurt spoke. “You kicked one of the guys and knocked him unconscious?”
I started to answer, but Collin got there first. “Katie was the Karate Kid when she was younger. State champion at the age of twelve. She was something else.”
Kurt nodded, surprised. “Huh,” he said. Respectful.
I changed the subject slightly. “Do you think the guy saw us?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. But even if he didn’t, this won’t fool him for long, if he’s any good. As soon as he realizes we aren’t in our room, he’ll head to the airport. Guaranteed.”
“And his buddy won’t be out forever,” I added.
The van turned onto the main road. I counted slowly to twenty and then sat up. The driver had acted as if my behavior was totally normal.
I whispered close to Collin’s ear. “Our driver is acting funny.”
“Yeah,” he said. “He’s sensing a profitable opportunity, I think.”
“Could he go back and rat us out?”
“I’d bet you anything he would.”
“We could pay him enough to ensure he sticks around the airport.”
“I like your thinking,” he said.
Collin negotiated a deal with the driver to wait for us, making up a story about one of us needing to return to the hotel. While they talked, I checked my phone. Ah, the message from earlier. A text from Julie. Or rather, several texts.
“I reached Nick’s friend Bill, and we made an executive decision. He is in San Juan. He wants to help, and he swore he could have you to Mona faster than anyone out of Rincón could. He wants to pick you up from the airport there and take you straight to his boat. You can sleep on the boat instead of in a hotel. I said yes and booked you tickets.” She gave the flight information and e-ticket confirmation numbers.
I felt a twinge of dread that faded fast. I used to get seasick, but since I’d had the twins, it had gone away. Thank God. I texted back. “Sounds good. Thank you.”
“Change of plans, guys,” I said.
Kurt made a sound like “hruh.” I took that to mean, “Please tell me about the change in plans, Katie.”
“Julie booked us tickets to San Juan. We’re catching a fast boat out of there tonight with Nick’s high school friend who captains the Wild Irish Kate.” I had already told them about Kate earlier.
“Are you sure? Will that get us there fastest?” Collin asked.
“Julie said she quizzed him, and he convinced her that it was our best option. I trust him.” And this is what Nick said to do. Sort of.
“Sounds like as good a plan as any,” Collin said.
Kurt looked squinty-eyed, but he finally nodded. There you go, Kurt.
“I’ll call and cancel our Mayagüez tickets,” I said.
“Hold off,” Collin replied. “Let’s leave it out there as a red herring.”
“What?”
“A false clue. In case they�
��re monitoring credit cards to figure out where we’ve gone.”
Ah. How had I lived to thirty-seven years of age and not had “red herring” in my vocabulary?
“Maybe we should all get as much cash as our debit cards will allow while we’re still where the bad guys expect us to be, so we can stay off the credit cards for the rest of the trip?”
“Wow, sis, that’s a halfway decent idea.”
“I’m smarter than I look. I was also thinking that tiny towns in Puerto Rico may not be the best place to use credit cards, anyway.”
“Cash makes for fast transactions, too,” Collin said.
The van pulled to the curb outside our terminal, except it wasn’t our terminal anymore.
“American Airlines, please,” I said.
“I thought he say Cape Air?” the driver asked, pointing at Collin with his head.
“Our mistake. American Airlines,” Collin said.
The van’s tires squealed.
Wild Irish Kate, here we come.
Chapter Twenty-one
The wheels of our plane touched down with a thump at San Juan’s Edward Munoz International Airport at 9:15 p.m., right on time. It had been a turbulent approach. My hands hurt. I looked at my palms and saw red stripes. Apparently, I’d had a death clutch on the armrests.
Fifteen minutes and one shuttle ride later, we entered the San Juan airport, carry-ons in hand. The message buzz sounded from my iPhone.
“Bill will meet you at baggage claim,” Julie texted.
I replied. “Thanks.” I had never seen Bill before, and I hoped Julie had given him a description of us. Exhaustion weighed me down. I felt the heaviness under my eyes that meant big black circles. I was sure they would match the dark spots that had multiplied all over my white blouse, which was now paired with blue jean shorts with an intact crotch seam. I swiped my lank hair back from my forehead and my hand came away greasy. I hoped the boat would have a shower.
After nearly three years in and out of here from St. Marcos, I knew the San Juan airport as well as I knew my children’s faces. Kurt and Collin surfed my wake as I powered ahead, Kurt on autopilot but Collin on full alert. Collin had assured us that we’d shaken our followers in Punta Cana, and no one on the plane had looked anything like them or shown any interest in us. But Collin said not to get our hopes up that we were free of them yet.
Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise Book 3) Page 16
