Hostage At Crystal Manor

by Heather Graham

  They’d taken the house for Dakota Cameron.

  Because Dillinger believed that she was the map to the treasure.

  “Get going, Barrow. Do it. I’ll be watching from the top of the stairs. I mean, I really wouldn’t want to leave Miss Cameron completely alone,” Dillinger said.

  Nick headed on out and down the sweeping marble stairs to the first floor.

  He was loath to leave the upstairs, especially now that Schultz had been killed. He was afraid Dillinger would lose all logic in a frenzied moment of anger and start shooting.

  But he had no choice. And Dillinger needed Kody Cameron. He wouldn’t hurt her.

  Dillinger was at the top of the stairs.

  Watching Kody.

  Watching Nick.

  And there was nothing to do but play out the man’s game…

  And make it to the finish line.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Capone and Nelson were with the hostages when Nick arrived in the living room. The group of them was still huddled together.

  The group, at least, was a little smaller now.

  “You,” he said quietly, pointing at the tiny woman who had given them the hardest time. “What’s your name?”

  “What’s it to you?” she demanded.

  He fired his gun—aiming at a mirror on the wall.

  It exploded. He waited in silence.

  “Betsy Rodriguez!” the young woman answered him.

  “Thank you,” he told her. “Come on.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Come on. You’re going out.”

  “Me. Just me?”

  “No,” he said and pointed to another young woman. She appeared to be in her mid-to late-twenties; she was clinging to the arm of the man beside her. They were a couple. It was going to be hard to split them up.

  But it was what Dillinger wanted.

  “You,” he said to the young woman.

  “Us?” she asked. As he’d expected, she didn’t want to be separated from the man she was with.

  “No. Just you,” he said softly.

  The young woman began to sob. “No,” she said stubbornly. “No, no, no!”

  “Please, miss,” Nick said. “Honestly, none of us wants any of you dead. Help me try to see that no one does wind up dead.”

  “Go, Melissa, please go,” the dark-haired man who was with her said. “Go!” he told her. “Please. I need to know that you’re all right.”

  “Victor, I can’t leave you,” the woman—whom he now knew to be named Melissa—said.

  Melissa hugged the man she had called Victor. He pulled away from her, saying, “You can and you must.”

  “How touching! How sweet!” Capone said.

  “Nauseating!” Nelson agreed. He walked over as if about to strike one of them with the butt of his gun.

  Nick moved more quickly, walking through the huddled crowd to reach Melissa and pull her to her feet. He looked down at Victor as he did so. There was something cold and hateful in the man’s eyes. Cold, hateful—and oddly calm.

  The guy was a cop! Nick thought. Some kind of a cop or law enforcement. He just knew it. He also knew the man wasn’t going to cause trouble when he couldn’t win.

  Nick thought about the situation quickly. It would be good to have another cop around—except this guy didn’t know that he was FBI and he could easily kill Nick thinking he was with the bad guys—which he was, by all appearances.

  He reached down and grasped the man’s arm.

  “Victor, you’re coming, too.”

  The man stood and looked at him. “No, don’t take me. Take the young woman who is one of the guides here. She’s very scared. I’m scared—just not as scared,” Victor said.

  Nick liked him.

  He wished he could keep him around, that they were in a situation where they could trust one another.

  They weren’t.

  “No, I think we’re going to let you lovebirds go together. I don’t want my friends here becoming nauseated.”

  “Hey!” Nelson said. “He told you to go. You don’t want us shooting up your lovey-dovey young wife, do you?”

  Staring at Nick with a gaze that could cut steel, Victor took his wife’s arm and started out of the room, followed by Betsy Rodriguez and then Nick.

  He had to be careful now. Dillinger was watching from upstairs and Nelson was following him out to the porch.

  Nick walked out toward the gate, making his way slightly past Betsy Rodriguez. He came as close to Victor as he dared and spoke swiftly.

  “Cop? Please, for the love of God, tell me the truth,” Nick said urgently.

  Victor stared at him and then nodded.

  “Tell Agent Frasier that the main man plans to get out to the Everglades, down south of the Trail, near Shark Valley. Keep his distance. Watch for men abetting along the way.”

  It was all he dared say. He shoved the man forward, shouting to the assembled police, agents and whoever else at the gate, “Get the hell back! Take these three—and remember, sharpshooters have a bead on you and inside there are a few guns aimed at the skulls of a few hostages.”

  Craig Frasier stepped forward, his hands raised, showing that he was unarmed.

  “No trouble! And boats will show up at the docks almost as we speak. But what’s the guarantee for the rest of the hostages?”

  “You’ll find them once we’re gone. Most of them,” he added quietly. “But we need assurances that we won’t be followed. Get too close and—Well, just keep your distance.”

  He stepped back behind the gate and locked it again.

  Betsy Rodriguez and Melissa went running toward officers who were waiting to greet them with blankets.

  Only Victor held back a moment, nodding imperceptibly to Nick.

  “Wait!” Craig called. “I need more…more on the hostages to give you the two boats.”

  “As soon as I can see them from the back, I’ll bring out a few more,” he promised.

  “I’ll be here. Waiting.”

  Nick nodded gravely. He turned and headed back toward the house.

  As he’d suspected, Capone had waited and watched from the porch.

  Nelson was with the rest of the hostages. Dillinger was still upstairs and Floyd and Kelly would be manning the towers.

  He doubted that anyone other than himself and Dillinger knew Schultz was dead. Dillinger wouldn’t have shared that news, fearing the others might have wanted revenge.

  Dillinger only wanted one thing: the treasure.

  Capone walked with him through the grand foyer and into the music room. “Good call, by the way, on getting rid of that cop,” Capone said.

  Nick looked at him; Capone was no idiot. “You saw that, too?”

  “Yep. That kind of guy is dangerous. We don’t want any heroes around here, you know.”

  “No heroes,” Nick agreed. He shook his head. “I’ve got to admit—it’s got me a little worried. Getting out of here, I mean.” He hesitated. A man really wouldn’t want to be bad-talking an accomplice in an evil deed. “I kind of thought that Dillinger was sure what he wanted was here. I guess he had the idea we might be heading someplace else to find it all along—and that’s why he took the kid. More leverage.”

  “Yeah, I’m figuring that’s the leverage he’s using to get us all out of here. Do the cops even know he’s the one who took the boy?” Capone asked. “You know, I’ve done some bad things, but I’ve never hurt a kid. That’s why he didn’t tell us. Hell, even in prison, the men who hurt, kill or molest kids are the ones in trouble. I’d never hurt a kid!”

  “Nor would I—and probably not our other guys, either, but who knows. And I don’t know if the cops know that Dillinger took the boy yet, but I’m f
iguring they do. And if they find the kid…”

  “If they find the kid, we may all be screwed,” Capone said.

  “Do you know where he stashed him?”

  Capone shrugged. “He didn’t tell me. Dillinger isn’t the trusting kind. Let’s just hope he knows what the hell he’s doing.”

  Nick nodded.

  He really hoped to hell he knew what he was doing himself.

  * * *

  KODY HAD A letter opener.

  Not just any letter opener, she told herself. This was a letter opener that was now considered a historic or collectible piece. It was fashioned to look like a shiv—the same kind of weapon often carried by Anthony Green and his thugs. They’d been sold at almost every tourist shop in Miami right after Green had been gunned down on the beach.

  Now, they were rare. And collectible.

  And she had slid the one the property had proudly displayed on the library desk into the pocket of her jeans.

  Yep, she thought, a letter opener. Against automatic weapons. Still, it was something.

  Maybe it would help once they got to the Everglades. She didn’t imagine it would do much against a full-size alligator if one came upon her while she was trying to find the place in the glades where Anthony Green might have hidden his stash—or even one of the thousands of pythons. But at least it was something.

  She looked up as Dillinger came striding back into the room.

  “How are you doing?” he asked her.

  She stared back at him. “Um, just great?” she suggested.

  He laughed softly. “You are something, Miss Cameron. You see, I do know what I’m doing. I know that you know what you’re doing. See, if you were to go online and Google yourself, you’d find some of your acting pages or your SAG page or whatever it is, and you’d find some promo pictures and play reviews and things like that. But when you keep going, you find out that you were quite the little writer when you were in college and that you did a feature for the school paper on the mob in Miami. You’d already done a lot of studying up on Anthony Green—and why not? Your dad inherited this place! Now, of course, I know you’re not rich, that he runs it all in a trust. But I knew that if anyone knew how to get rich, it would be you. As in—if anyone could find the stash, it would be you.”

  Kody tried not to blink too much as she looked back at him. The man wasn’t just scary. He was creepy. He was some kind of an intellectual stalker—and knew things about her that she’d half forgotten herself. It was terrifying to realize he’d really gone on a cyber-hunt for her—and that he’d found far more than most people would ever want to find.

  Her skin seemed to crawl.

  “I keep telling you this—there’s no guarantee. Most people who have studied Anthony Green and Crystal Island and even the mob in general have believed that Green stashed his treasure out in the Everglades. I think I’ve found verification of that—and that’s all,” she said.

  “But you know just about where. Everyone has looked around Shark Valley—but you know more precisely where. Because you also studied the Seminole Wars, and you loved the Tamiami Trail growing up—and made your parents drive you back and forth from the east to the west of the Florida peninsula all the time.”

  “I didn’t make them,” Kody protested, noting how ridiculous her words were under the circumstances. “And you really are counting on what may not exist at all.”

  “The stash exists!”

  “Unless it was found years ago. Unless it’s sunk so deep no one will ever find it. Oh, my God, come on! Criminals have written volumes on people killed and tossed into the Everglades, criminals through time who never did a day of time because the Everglades can hide just about anything—and anyone! I can try. I can try with everything I’ve learned now that I’ve been put to the fire, and everything that I know from what I’ve heard and what I’ve read through the years. But—”

  She broke off. He was, she was certain, smiling—even if she couldn’t exactly see his face.

  “That’s right,” he said softly. “Bodies have disappeared out there. You might want to remember that.”

  “Maybe you should remember not to threaten people and scare them and make them totally unnerved when you want them to do calculated thinking!” she countered quickly.

  He held still, quiet for a minute. “It will be fun when we reach the peak, Miss Cameron. It will be fun,” he promised.

  Ice seemed to stir and settle in her veins.

  It would be fun…

  He meant to kill her.

  And still, she’d play it out. Right now, of course, because many lives were resting on her managing to keep this man believing…

  And then, of course, because her life depended on it.

  Barrow came striding into the room, his blue eyes blazing from his mask. As they lit on her, she felt the intensity of their stare and once again she had a strange feeling that she’d been touched by those eyes before.

  “We’re closing in on time to go. What are you going to need here, Miss Cameron?” he asked. Then he turned to Dillinger. “I’d wrap up whatever books and journals she wants to take. We’ll be getting wet, getting out of here in speedboats.”

  “Well, what do you need, Miss Cameron?” Dillinger asked.

  Barrow had walked over to the windows that looked out over the water.

  “They’re coming now,” he said.

  Dillinger walked over to join him. “They’ve stopped about a mile out.”

  “I’ll give them a few more people and they’ll bring the boats in to the docks. Their people will clear the area and we’ll leave the last of the hostages on the dock for them,” Barrow said.

  “Not good enough,” Dillinger said. “We need at least a couple of them with us.”

  “All right, how’s this? We let three go. We take two with us—and leave them off once we’re a safe distance away.”

  “I say when it’s a safe distance. And if they follow us, the hostages are dead,” Dillinger said flatly.

  “I’m telling you, hostages will be like bricks around our necks once we start moving,” Barrow said.

  “Let the guests go. There are a couple of people who work here left—keep them,” Dillinger said.

  Kody jumped up. “If you’re taking them, let me talk to my friends. The guides who work here. Let me talk to them. It will make it easier for you.”

  Dillinger pulled out a knife. For a moment she thought that Barrow was going to fly across the room and stop him from stabbing her.

  But he didn’t intend to stab her.

  He cut through the plastic cuffs that held her to the desk.

  “Go down. I’ll warn our guys in the turrets about what’s going on,” he said.

  Barrow caught Kody by the arm. She wanted to wrench free but she didn’t. She felt the strength of his hold—and the pressure of her shiv letter opener in her pocket.

  She glanced at him as they headed down the stairs.

  “This isn’t the time,” he said.

  “The time for what?”

  “Any kind of trick.”

  “I wasn’t planning one, but if I had, wouldn’t this be the right time—I mean, before we’re in a bog or marsh and saw grass and Dillinger shoots me down?”

  Those blue eyes of his lit on her with the strangest assessment.

  “Now is not the time,” he repeated.

  She looked away quickly. The man put out such mixed signals. He didn’t like blood and guts, yet he didn’t want any escape attempts.

  He headed with her into the music room where they joined Capone and Nelson.

  “You, you, and you!” he said, pointing out the two male and the one female guests.

  They stood, looking at one another anxiously. Kody was amazed at how clearly she remembered their
names now. The men were Gary Goodwin and Kevin Dean. The woman was Carey Herring.

  “No, no, no! They’re getting out—and we’re not!”

  Kody turned quickly to see that Brandi Johnson, her face damp with tears, was looking at the trio who was then standing.

  She left Barrow’s side, hurrying over to the young woman. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Brandi,” she said. She squeezed the girl’s hand and then pulled her close, talking to her and to the young man with the thick glasses at her side. “Brandi, Vince, we’re all going to be together. We’re going to be fine. Don’t you worry. They need us.”

  “I’m good, Kody. I’m good,” Vince told her. She smiled at him grimly. She really loved Vince; he was as smart as a whip and loved everything about his job at the estate. He had contacts that he seldom wore and he was a runner—a marathon runner. He’d told her once that he liked to look like a nerd—which, of course, he was, in a way—because nerds were in.

  He would be good to have at her side. Except…

  She was very afraid that Brandi was right; they were the ones who would end up dead.

  But not now. Right now, she was still needed. All she had to do was to make sure that Dillinger believed they could all be important in finding his precious Anthony Green treasure.

  “Come on, you three, it’s your lucky day,” Barrow said quietly to the guests. “Let’s go.”

  Kody stayed behind with the two guides, taking their arms in hers. “Just hang tight with me,” she whispered to a trembling Brandi.

  “Stop it. Move away from each other,” Nelson told them.

  “She’s scared!” Kody informed him. “We’re not doing anything. She’s just scared.”

  Barrow—who almost had the three being released out the door—paused and looked back. “They’re okay, Nelson. Trust me.” He turned to Kody. “No tricks at this moment in time, right?”

  She met those eyes and, for whatever reason, she had a feeling he was giving her advice she needed to heed. “No tricks.”

  * * *

  ALL THE WAY to the gate, the young woman who was being set free looked back at Nick, tripped and had to grasp someone to keep standing.