I held Nick’s hand and basked in his glow as his friends and family peppered him with questions and welcomed him home. Nick looked good now, compared to earlier. Which was still pretty awful.
“Hi, Daddy,” one voice trumpeted over the rest.
“Hi, Taylor. How are you, little man?” Nick’s voice cracked, but Taylor didn’t notice.
“I’m good. Are you done with your work trip? Gramma’s happy you’re coming home. Did you bring me a present?”
Good job, Gramma.
“I did, I got presents for everybody, but I dropped them in the water. Can you believe how silly I am?”
“Silly Daddy.”
“Next time, buddy. How are your baby sisters?”
“They cried a lot today. Gramma said they’re teasing.”
“Teasing?”
Julie said, “Teething.”
We laughed. How simple and settled we could feel, just by talking to Taylor. Chihuahua cartel, who?
“’Lise said welcome home, Daddy,” Taylor said.
“Did she? When did she tell you that?” Nick asked.
“At lunch.”
“Annalise can’t talk,” I said.
Taylor cocked his head. “Yes she can. She talks to me. And Oso.” He looked to his left. “Bye bye, Daddy. Oso wants me to go play.”
Well. That would give me something to think about. I knew Annalise felt a special bond to Taylor, but talking to him? Surely that was just his imagination. Understandable, though, for a boy who lived in a jumbie house. But maybe, maybe.
“Bye, Taylor. I love you,” Nick said.
“Love you, too,” Taylor said, and his head disappeared as he climbed off the kitchen barstool.
I listened to his bare feet slapping the porcelain tile as he ran off. When he was gone, I asked, “How did it go with the attorney about DPNR, guys?”
Rashidi answered. “Good. We all going in to meet the director tomorrow at 9:30. The attorney got some great ideas. And we haven’t had any more visitors up here at Annalise.”
“Excellent news all around,” I said.
Nick raised one eyebrow and whispered, “Tell me about this later?” I nodded and patted his knee.
“I’m so glad you’re all right, son,” Julie said. “I’ve been very careful what I say and how I act in front of Taylor, but I’ve been praying twenty-four hours a day since you disappeared, and I am thankful to God that you are alive. I love you.”
“Thank God, Katie, Kurt, Bill, Collin, and Annalise, Mom. I love you, too.”
“Annalise?” Julie asked.
“We can’t wait to get home and tell you all about it,” Nick said.
We ended the call and Kurt and Collin headed off to sleep. Alone with Nick again, I found myself fighting my anxiety about Kate and the fact that I was the only able-bodied, right-minded person in our party. I was losing the battle.
Nick watched me get ready for bed, his eyes glazed with exhaustion. “I thought about you all the time, you know. While I was on that island.”
I willed the creases I felt between my eyebrows to ease. I didn’t need to pass my stress on to him. I lay down on my side facing him and held up my head above my bent elbow to listen to him.
“I was so optimistic at first. I was scared when the plane’s engines stopped, of course. But I knew how to land it. I had my raft, my paddles, my survival kit. I could see an island in the distance.”
I laid my free hand on his chest.
“I put the Malibu down perfectly. I got out in plenty of time and into my raft before the plane sank. I thought I’d be on land and looking for help by nightfall. But it was so much harder to get there than I thought it would be. That current was strong. I fell asleep during the night, and when I woke up, I was farther away than when I started. So I decided I would by God row until I got there. I made it around dusk, and by that time it had been thirty-six hours, I was out of water, and my arms felt like bricks. And the island was a giant jagged-ass rock. It was getting dark and I had to get out of the water, but I couldn’t find a decent place to land. It took all my strength to crawl up to where you guys found me. I lost my raft. I was stuck. The next day I was starting to feel alone. Scared. Sunburned. Thirsty. Hungry.”
“It sounds awful,” I said. I would have flipped out.
He said, “I knew you were mad at me, too. And I knew why.”
“Yes, I was mad.” Am mad. Less than before, but still angry nonetheless. I was tired of being the emotional pinball caught between flipper and bumper.
He rolled his head toward me. “I’m sorry, Katie. I thought I was protecting you by keeping you out of the details.”
“And how do you think that worked out for you?” I said, involuntarily sarcastic.
“Not good. Don’t you see I had to, though?” he asked.
Wrong thing to say. I counted to ten, but it didn’t work. “Had to? Like someone held a gun to your head and said they’d kill the kids if you didn’t lie to me? No, I don’t see that, Nick. I see you firing me from a case that you needed my help on. I see you texting your fingertips bloody and pretending you’re not. I see you lying to me about meeting with Jorge. And flying to another country with Elena, not telling me one damn thing about it. I see a man who didn’t treat his wife like a partner, or his partner like a wife.” I was getting louder with each point I made. My last words punched into the walls like fists.
Nick’s eyes widened. “You really are mad, aren’t you?” he said.
I looked at my husband. We had rescued him only twelve hours ago. I was picking on a man who had dry-roasted in the tropical sun for four days. Could I save this for a better time and place? Maybe. I could try.
“Yes, I really am. Let’s put it this way. For a while I wasn’t sure whether I’d kill you myself when we found you. I still ping pong from joy to fury in between heartbeats.”
“I wanted to keep you safe.”
“Lying made everything worse, Nick. Everything.” I exhaled forcibly.
Nick put his hand on my leg. His eyes had started drooping. “I know. I know it did. I knew that even when I was stuck on that island. At one point, I looked around for a way to climb the damn rocks, and I managed to scrape myself up pretty good.” My eyes traced a few of his cuts and bruises. “But I was locked in. I wished I had told you what I was doing, where I was going. All I could do was hope you’d come for me. Or someone would come for me. But it was you I counted on.”
“You didn’t count on me before you left. You should have known. You should have known you can always count on me.”
“I know.” His eyes closed. They didn’t reopen.
I chewed the inside of my cheek. His regret over lying to me was that it kept me from rescuing him sooner. No mention of the impact on me. Not a real apology.
Later.
The time for reckoning would be later. I let the exhausted man sleep and lay there listening for the phone, hoping for good news.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Bill called at 3:30 to let us know Kate would leave the dock in a half hour. Nothing like an early start from a last-second warning, but it was good news. Collin and Kurt appeared at our door seconds after I hung up the phone.
“Bad news, sports fans. We have watchers,” Collin announced.
“What?” I sputtered. Where had they come from? “How could they have found us? I thought that’s why we paid in cash.”
“We did pay for our rooms in cash. But remember dinner?” Collin asked.
I thought back. I hadn’t paid, but I couldn’t remember who did. I looked at Nick and he lifted his shoulders in a “Dunno” sort of way.
Kurt mumbled something.
“What, Dad?” Nick asked.
“I said, ‘Shit,’” Kurt said. “I slipped the waiter my credit card to make sure I beat you guys to the bill. I was tired. I drank too many cocktails. Damn, I just forgot.”
“Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-al-co-hol,” Collin sang, imitating Jamie Foxx poorly. “Here’s the deal.
One of our goons is in the lobby. But there are more of them, one in a car by each exit. So, unless someone comes up with a better idea, I think slipping out the front door makes the most sense.”
“What? Just walk right past the guy sitting out there?” I said in a sharp voice.
“Well, I do think we should stage a diversion.”
“Like what?” Kurt asked.
“Like Kurt goes to the front desk and asks the clerk in a very loud whisper to send a taxi to the back door for his party.”
“Collin, you’re confusing me. I thought you said you think we should go out the front door,” I said.
“And so we shall, as soon as the lobby watcher leaves his post for the back door,” he said.
“Which we will know how?” I asked. Collin’s plan was giving me a headache.
“Because I will call the clerk two minutes later and order a taxi for the front door, and I will nonchalantly ask if my yellow-shirted friend is still waiting for me in the lobby.”
Ahhhhh.
“It all sounds good except for one thing. I’ll go to the lobby. I’m the most recognizable member of our group,” I said. “We need to be sure the watcher sees and hears us.”
No one disagreed.
I won’t pretend my heart wasn’t in my throat, or rather, pretty much all the way up my nasal passages and into my cranium. But I sashayed my tall red-haired American self into the lobby like I owned it, channeling the energy I used every time I went onstage. I wanted rent-a-thug to be unable to tear his eyes from me, to strain to hear my every syllable.
In my best slow Texas accent, I over-enunciated terrible Spanish to the clerk. “Par-doh-nuh-may, señor. I need a taxi, um, I mean, Yo necesito uno taxi por favor, en cinco minutos? Did I say ‘five minutes’ right?” The clerk nodded. “Now how do I say ‘to the back door?’ Um, puerta posterior? By our room?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a burly man in a yellow shirt stand up and stretch. Bingo.
“Sí, un taxi, puerta posterior. A taxi to the rear door. You are checking out?” the clerk responded.
“Sí, checking out.” I gave him our room numbers and a vapid grin. “Dónde está el aeropuerto?”
“It’s OK, I speak English,” the poor guy said. His ears were probably bleeding. “Your taxi driver should know the way to the airport, but here’s a map.” He handed me a map and a receipt for our rooms.
“Gracias, señor,” I said, but it came out more like “grassy ass.” My work here is done.
“Safe travels,” he said.
“Adios.” Addy-ose.
I felt the eyes of Yellow Shirt following me as I continued my performance down the hall and back to my first floor room. I fumbled my room key on purpose so I could get another look at him. He was talking into a cell phone and had moved to the end of lobby nearest me. Take the bait, sucker, take the bait.
I slipped into the room.
“Well?” Collin asked.
I pretended to put out the fire on my smoking hot hand. “No problem. He appeared to be rounding up his buddies on his cell phone and heading toward the back door.”
Collin grunted, which I took to mean “Wow, sis, you rock.” “Let me go make the call for the taxi from the other room, so they won’t think it’s related to you.”
One minute later, he knocked and beckoned us out into the hallway. I held my breath and Nick’s hand. We humped our packs on tiptoe through the lobby and out into the tropical night, where we found Ponce still awake around us. Puerto Ricans partied every night, which meant cabs were always available. We ducked into the one waiting for us, which was a tight squeeze with four passengers, our bags, and my hatted head. The cab appeared to have had a spray-paint makeover, and patches of yellow were still visible through the uneven sky-blue paint job. If I had seen it on the street, I would have walked.
Kurt got in the back seat last. As he shut his door and settled in, though, he said, “Uh oh.”
I didn’t like uh oh.
“Señor, how fast can you get us to La Guancha dock?” Collin asked. “There’s $100 US for you if you lose him.” Collin pointed to Yellow Shirt, who stood in the hotel entrance speaking into a cell phone and looking at us.
The young driver said, “Sí, señor,” and stomped the gas like in the movies, only harder.
I closed my eyes. Horns blared and brakes squealed as the taxi bounced into the street and fishtailed through a right turn. We accelerated like a drag racer and cornered on two wheels, or as close to it as I ever wanted to come.
“What if we don’t lose them?” I asked.
No one answered me.
After we had gone about three blocks, the cab driver stepped on the brakes. Revelers were spilling into the street from a bar that looked closed. Music blasted from a boom box and people were dancing on the sidewalk.
“We could get there faster on foot! Let’s run through that alley,” I said, pointing at a narrow opening on the far side of the bar.
Collin said, “Whoa, good idea, sis. But we need to throw the bloodhounds off our scent.”
He rolled down his window and held out a handful of hundred-dollar bills. “Who wants to make some money?” he yelled. A cry went up among the people nearest the cab. “Stop the car,” Collin said. He turned to the driver. “Here’s a hundred bucks to drive these folks to the airport, and there’s another hundred for you when you get back. Go when I tell you to.” He turned to the three of us crowded in the back seat. “Don’t wait for me. Run like mad. I’ll meet you in the alley where it ends at the dock. Stay hidden until I get there. Everyone out.”
We barreled out of the car one at a time. Collin got out and smiled at his new friends. “I need two men—you and you—and one woman—you.” He handed them each two hundred dollars. The trio cheered. “All you have to do is ride to the airport and back in this taxi. We’re trying to get away from her husband, so we can have some fun,” he said, pointing at me.
The crowd cheered.
“And wear this,” I said, snatching off my straw hat and jamming it onto the drunk woman’s head. She giggled and put her hand to the back of her head to hold it on.
The partiers clambered into the taxi, waving goodbye to their friends. Collin noticed we were still there and shouted, “Go, go, go, what are you waiting for?”
We took off, running into the pitch black of the alley.
The last thing I heard was Collin’s hand slapping the roof of the car as he yelled, “Now,” and the taxi’s tires peeling out.
We kept running. Nick had grabbed our duffel bag, but as weak as he still was, I kept up with him easily. I couldn’t see his face in the dark, but I could hear him breathing and he sounded as bad as I felt. Kurt pulled ahead of us.
And then the ankle strap on one of my gladiator sandals broke in two. I hadn’t packed for a track meet. Next time I chased a lost husband across the Caribbean I would know better what to wear. While I ripped the shoe off my foot, Nick caught his breath.
Ahead of us, Kurt yelled in a whisper, “The dock is across the street. We wait here.”
Behind us, I heard a splash—someone’s foot in a puddle. I yelped.
A second later, Collin’s hand clamped around my arm. “Move it, sis. We haven’t got all night.”
“Did we lose them?” I asked as I started my careful one-shoed run, scanning for broken glass.
“Last I saw, they’d picked up the taxi and were following it. But we have to hurry. They could figure out our switch any second.”
He led the way across the street, which was eerily devoid of partiers. Collin appeared relaxed, but the rest of us swiveled our heads back and forth, scared of the long night shadows. We sprinted for Kate down a dock that seemed to pull an Alice in Wonderland and stretch longer with each step. The hairs at the back of my neck tingled like hot needles. I wouldn’t relax until we were at sea with no other boats in sight.
Bill shouted a cheery “hallo” at our approach. He stood ready to untie lines with Kate’s engines
running. Kurt dropped his bags and went straight for the helm.
Collin said, “Make haste. We have a tail.”
Bill patted Kate’s side and replied, “Sounds good, my friend. See that boat over there?” He indicated a Hatteras one hundred feet away, identical to ours. “Our mechanic borrowed her impeller and a few other odds and ends, and he asked me to remove the evidence as quickly as possible.” He high-fived Collin. “We are simpático.”
Nice. Now we were knowingly transporting stolen property. Wait, no, as soon as we put Kate in gear, we were the thieves. Even better. I tried to clear my mind of things best not considered.
Collin stayed to help Bill with the lines. Nick tried, too, but Bill and Collin waved him off.
“Goldbricking ends tomorrow. Live it up while you can,” Collin told him.
I settled Nick on the couch in the salon. So far, no men with guns were running down the dock. I decided to think positive and stay busy, so during our rapid disembarkation, I made breakfast for the crew: scrambled eggs, toast, and little smokie sausages with a big pot of extra-dark-roast Colombian coffee. My hands were still shaking as I loaded the plates. I dropped one off with Nick and headed to the flying bridge with the others. I passed them out as we exited the harbor.
“No followers?” I asked.
“None,” Kurt said. He turned up the corners of his mouth ever so slightly.
“Thank God,” I replied.
“Thanks for the grub, Red. I’d slap you on the ass for good measure, but now that Nick’s restored to good health, I think I’d better not,” Bill said.
“There’s a man who has a way with women,” Collin said.
All Bill needed was Collin backing him up. “Not a good idea,” I said, “no matter how Nick feels. You’ve noticed the color of my hair, but I take it you haven’t figured out its significance yet.”
“Are you a natural redhead?”
It appeared that Bill had kept himself hydrated during our absence. I changed the subject to everyone’s favorite topic, our new plan, and then slipped away when I’d heard enough. It took a lot more than a drunken sailor to offend me, especially one who had helped rescue my husband. Still, best not to let him test my patience.
Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise Book 3) Page 22
