“Will you be back tonight?”
“I don’t think so. I still have the man to handle and it’s best if I just keep going. How are the babies?”
“They miss you, especially Emma, but your son only has eyes for Autumn. He follows her wherever she goes.”
“I think she’s a little old for him though, don’t you?”
Jessica laughed.
“I miss you. Handle those bastards and get back here, and oh, there’s a storm coming, they’re warning of high winds.”
He gazed off into the east and saw the dark clouds on the horizon.
“I see it. I’m actually on the water right now.”
“Seek shelter as soon as you can.”
“I will. I’ll have the boat back at the dock before the storm hits land.”
“I love you, and be careful, baby.”
“I will, and I love you too.”
After ending the call, he decided to have a second beer to go with the one he had while eating lunch.
Towards the south, a freighter passed by, but it was miles away from where he had left Angie, and although he was sure she would spot it, he knew that no one aboard would ever hear her cries for help.
When he checked his watch, he saw that nearly two hours had passed since he’d last left her. Between the short night of sleep, the two beers, and the ocean sun, he was feeling drowsy, and so he stretched out atop the bench seat on the deck, beneath the awning, closed his eyes, and napped.
When he awoke over two hours later, he saw that the storm had grown closer, and he guessed that it would come ashore soon.
Feeling a bit stiff from his nap atop the bench, he stripped down to the waist and did push-ups and jumping jacks for nearly half an hour, then, washed the sweat off with a damp cloth.
When he returned to the coordinates where Angie had last been, she wasn’t there, but after spending an hour in an ever-widening circular search pattern, he spotted her swimming for all she was worth towards the beaches of Miami, which were miles away.
She was waving to him the instant she heard the motor, and when he came up close, he saw that the last few hours in the sea had broken her.
“He lives on the water, in the everglades, right on the edge, a little town called Reeverville. I don’t know the address, but it’s a big old white house with a dock, and his last name is Ridley, he’s Boone Ridley. Now please, please toss me a line, I can’t hold on much longer.”
“What about Roberts, what was his real role in all this?”
“Boone was blackmailing him into helping us. He said he caught Roberts in bed with his sister-in-law. Roberts would have killed rather than have his family find out about them, so he did whatever Boone said, he was also scared of Boone, and you should be too, now c’mon, pull me on board.”
He ignored her, took out the satellite phone, and gave Lawson the information she’d given him.
Lawson said he would call him back within minutes.
Angie was crying again, only this time the tears were genuine, and they mixed with the first drops of rain as the storm moved in.
“Throw me a line, please, I’m so sorry I hurt your friend, but I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.”
“I’m waiting for a call to verify what you told me.”
“And then you’ll let me back on the boat?”
When he didn’t answer, Angie let out a whimper.
Lawson called back several minutes later.
“Boone Ridley lives on Shell Road in the town of Reeverville, and looking at the satellite images, I’d say his nearest neighbors are miles away.”
“Have you verified that it’s the right Boone?”
“Yes. I sent Jack a copy of Boone’s driver license photo; he says it’s the same man.”
“Good, then I’m off for Reeverville.”
“Take care, White.”
“I will.”
“Hey!”
He looked over at Angie and saw that she was smiling again.
“You checked, right? And now you know I told the truth, so let me back up, please, please?”
“The man you know as Johnny, you left him in these waters just days ago. He made it back to shore even with a broken wrist, maybe you’ll make it too.”
“That wasn’t me, it was Boone.”
“You pushed him in, not Boone.”
He said nothing more, and when Angie stared into his eyes, she saw her fate and screamed a cry of despair.
He started the engines, pointed them towards shore, and began planning the best way to handle Boone Ridley.
CHAPTER 24
Maggie opened the front door and found Cole grinning, while holding up a piece of paper.
“I got accepted, Maggie, I made it!”
“Really? Oh, that’s so great, and it makes me wonder if my results came back too.”
“You have to find out. Can’t someone back home check for you?”
“Maybe Jessica’s dad, oh God, I hope I made it.”
Cole stared at her, as he placed a hand on her cheek.
“You’ve got to go, that way we’ll be together.”
He leaned in and kissed her as he did once before, but this time Maggie didn’t resist, but when their lips parted, she shook her head.
“That was wrong. I’m with Jace.”
“I don’t care,” Cole said, and he kissed her again.
Footsteps interrupted them, and when they looked, they saw Jessica standing in the doorway of the living room.
“Sorry, I wasn’t sure that anyone had answered the door.”
Maggie wiped at her lips, as if to erase the last few moments.
“Cole was just leaving.”
“I’ll call later,” Cole whispered, and then he left.
When Maggie walked over to Jessica, her face was creased with worry.
“I’m so confused.”
“You have real feelings for that boy, don’t you?”
“I think about him all the time, why is that?”
Jessica smiled.
“That’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself.”
Jessica led her over to a sofa and Maggie told her about Cole’s acceptance to Harvard.
“I’ll call Daddy and ask him to take a look and see if it’s come.”
“He won’t mind?”
“Mind? He would love to have another member of the family at Harvard, in fact, with his connections, he might be able to just make a call and find out, now that they’re sending out letters.”
Jessica called her father, and when he called back ten minutes later, her smile told Maggie she’d been accepted before Jessica could even utter the words.
“I made it! Oh God, I’m so happy.”
Maggie stood and began pacing, when she stopped, she took out her phone.
“I have to call Cole and let him know. Oh God, we’re both going. That’s means I’ll be seeing him every day when I go away to school.”
“Is that good news or bad news?” Jessica said.
Maggie shrugged.
“I don’t know. I love Jace, but Cole. Jessica, what should I do?”
“I can’t tell you that, baby, but I will tell you to listen to your heart.”
“My heart? My heart is going in two directions at once.”
“You’ll figure it out, in the meantime, don’t feel rushed to decide anything.”
Maggie took a deep breath and held up her phone.
“I’m going to call Cole.”
“All right, and again, congratulations,”
Maggie gave her a hug and then went off to her room.
When Amanda joined Jessica a few minutes later, she was carrying the twins.
“Look who’s woken up from their naps.”
Jessica held her daughter, Emma, as her son, Liam, began playing on the floor. When she told her about Maggie getting accepted to Harvard, Amanda smiled.
“That will make your father very happy, but what about that boy, the neighbor, Cole?
Did he get accepted as well?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm, I think if I were Jace that would worry me.”
Jessica grinned.
“You don’t miss much, and yes, there’s something going on there.”
“I like Jace, don’t get me wrong, but I never thought he was right for Maggie, not in the long run.”
“Maybe, but she’ll have to decide that, and at her age, she might not meet the right man for years yet,”
“In the meantime, Jace is off working with that girl, Cassandra, correct?”
“Yes, why? Do you know something I don’t?”
“I know he had a hard time keeping his eyes off of her once she changed into that bikini.”
Jessica laughed.
“Well, he is a man.”
“That he is, and a hunk,”
“Amanda!”
“What? I can look too.”
***
Aboard the boat now named, Ravager, Jace was feeling no pain.
The man calling himself Chip might be a child-molesting rapist, but he had primo pot and booze.
They were all assembled down in the galley, and had been since the first few drops of rain fell, signaling that the storm had come ashore. The wind had picked up as well, but the big boat rode the water well in its perch at the dock, and the effect was a gentle rocking.
Despite its fierceness, the storm was expected to move on overnight, and Chip planned to take the boat to a secluded cove he knew of, a cove that sounded much like the one where Autumn had been attacked.
Throughout the afternoon and into the evening, Grace had been sending Jace admiring glances, while Noah had shown interest in Cassandra.
Kelly played her role well, and if Jace didn’t know better, he would swear the girl wasn’t a day over fifteen. She was seated between himself and Chip in the U-shaped booth, with Cassandra to his left, and Noah and Grace to her left.
The conversation had mainly consisted of giving reactions to Chip’s endless stories about his travels across the globe, but once everyone had eaten and gotten buzzed, Chip brought up a new topic.
“About those sleeping arrangements...”
“Yeah,” Jace said.
“Well, I was thinking that you could sleep up top, but with this storm that’s no longer an option, and while this booth is thickly padded, it’s not nearly as comfortable as a bed.”
“I thought you only had two staterooms?” Cassandra said.
“That’s true, but Grace and Noah here have been known to share their space. Isn’t that right you two?”
“Absolutely,” Noah said, as he stared at Cassandra.
Jace put an arm around Cassandra.
“No offense, people, but I don’t share my lady with nobody. I ain’t saying it’s wrong, it just ain’t the way we roll.”
“What about you?” Noah said, and he was looking at Kelly.
Kelly pointed a finger at herself.
“Me?”
“You’re old enough to be on the road, so you’re old enough for other things too.”
Kelly looked about the table, blushed a bright red, and then lowered her eyes.
Grace laughed at her reaction, but Jace marveled inwardly at it. There was no way that an offer of sex would embarrass someone like Kelly the woman, but Kelly the girl actually blushed. If the woman wasn’t an actress in her off hours, she had missed her calling.
“Don’t be embarrassed, honey,” Grace said. “We wouldn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to do, and if you change your mind, you know where to find us.”
Kelly looked up.
“Us?”
Grace smiled.
“I don’t discriminate.”
They talked and drank a while longer, but Chip said that he wanted to get an early start, and so the party broke up as Chip, along with Grace and Noah, went to their cabins.
Alone again, Jace, Cassandra, and Kelly, stayed true to their parts. Maybe Chip had wired the galley for sound and maybe he hadn’t, but one wrong word overheard and the man might kick them off the boat and risk facing the storm, rather than the law.
Still, they decided to take turns keeping watch, Jace first, then Cassandra, followed by Kelly, who grabbed a blanket, balled her small body up in the middle of the bench, and went to sleep.
Cassandra was stretched out, but when Jace looked over at her, he saw she was still awake.
She had been staring up at him, just watching him where he sat across from her, and Jace stared back at her.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
“Nothing, goodnight,”
“Goodnight,”
He got up and gazed out at the heavy rain, but when he heard a sound behind him, he saw Cassandra leaving the booth where Kelly still slept.
“Can’t sleep?”
“It’s a little early for me.”
“I know what you mean.”
Aware that someone might be listening, Cassandra mouthed her next words silently.
“We need to talk about tomorrow.”
Jace answered her the same way, his words softer than a whisper.
“I know. Wake me early, after the rain stops,”
Cassandra nodded, as she stared at Jace again.
He mouthed the word, “What?”
Cassandra kissed him on the lips, and once she felt him respond, she put her arms around him, as his hands rested first on her hips, and then moved upward. When she pulled back, she was smiling, and then she whispered directly into Jace’s ear.
“That was that practice I was talking about.”
She walked back to the bench seat with Jace watching her all the way, and then she laid down near Kelly.
Jace looked back out at the rain, but not really seeing it, as he thought about Cassandra.
CHAPTER 25
A big, old white house is how Angie Ward had described Boone Ridley’s home, and that’s exactly what it was.
When he arrived at Boone’s house, the rain had just reached land, and when he saw the well-used dock, he figured that Ridley owned a boat, and guessed that the man might return at any moment to get out of the storm.
The home sat on several cleared acres with water on two sides and dense foliage on the other two. He had parked his rental off-road and out of sight and walked in on foot atop a long, curving driveway of crushed shells. To avoid the noise the shells made beneath his boots, he stayed to the side, but had to be careful not to trip over the creeping vines that appeared frequently.
Boone’s lawn was overgrown, and near the trees, was an old refrigerator with its door hanging open from one hinge, and a rusted piece of metal up on cinder blocks that had once been a car.
The car was a Dodge Dart, the old model, from the 1960’s. And if the few patches of color among the rust were any indication, it had once been green, but the hood and trunk lid were missing, and when he peered in through the busted window in the back, he could see that some small creature had taken to nesting in the car’s interior.
After entering the house through a back door, he walked through the home and watched for the man’s return through a living room window that offered a view of the dock and driveway.
After several hours passed, he came to the conclusion that Ridley likely tied up somewhere and wouldn’t be home until the storm moved on. With that in mind, he began searching the house, hoping to find a stash of money.
It was an old, uncared for hulk of a house now, but he could tell that the place had been a small palace when new, which was likely a hundred years ago.
There were rooms and then more rooms, and upstairs, each was connected to the other by a doorway, like in a hotel, that is, all but one was, the master bedroom, and that room also had its own bathroom.
Ridley wasn’t the neatest of men and the house was a mess. Guns were hidden throughout the home within easy reach in drawers, beneath couch cushions, and there was even one wrapped in watertight plastic inside the toilet tank in the bathroom. These were in addition
to the loaded shotgun hanging above the fireplace in a first-floor room that must be Boone’s den, since it was the only one that had a TV.
He took the time to empty all but two of the guns of their ammo, and those two he hid in new places only he knew of.
By the time dawn arrived, he had searched the entire home and had five thousand in cash to show for it, but there was more somewhere, he was sure of it, and it occurred to him that it just might be on Ridley’s boat.
Ridley was a serious fisherman judging by the amount of sport fishing paraphernalia found around the home. There were half a dozen cases filled with lures and dozens of fishing rods of various types.
There was a big Harley touring bike in the garage, and nearby were several broken fishing rods, along with a work area and equipment to fix them, such as glues and epoxies. A man that serious about a hobby would spend many hours working at it, and a boat was an excellent place to hide money.
It might be where the money was hidden, because other than a simple checking account set-up to pay normal household bills, he’d found no record of a bank account where money might be hidden.
The man didn’t even own a computer, and the TV in the den looked twenty-years-old.
However, there was a collection of books, and their subject matter worried him. They all had to do with gambling, and each one touted a system of winning at games of chance.
If Boone was a gambler as these books indicated, then perhaps the man lost his stolen wealth in local casinos, and the hope of recovering Herbert Dyer’s money was doomed to failure.
But no, gambling addict or not, there had to be money about, because if Herbert Dyer’s fleecing was any indication, the man and his cohorts had conned millions from their victims, and if it wasn’t in a bank, it was hidden away somewhere in cash.
It seemed a foolish thing to do, to keep the money all in cash, especially considering that it was likely a million dollars or more, but perhaps Boone didn’t trust banks. If he were ever caught, the assets would be seized, and knowing that, perhaps he thought it safer to hoard the money somewhere.
The trick would be in making him talk and giving up the location.
The all-night search of the home had left him tired, and so he decided to sleep just as the sun was coming up, but before he did so, he left a message for Jessica on her cell phone.
The TAKEN! Series - Books 13-16 (Taken! Box Set Book 4) Page 42
