‘Aren’t you going to wait until he comes out of the store so that I can get a look at his face?’
Jack slammed the Explorer into gear, and roared down the street with a squeal of rubber.
‘I guess that answers my question,’ Grace panted. ‘You know, it might not have been the same man.’
He looked sideways at her. ‘Do you want to go back and take that chance?’
She drew in a deep breath, but remained silent. Her fingers clutched the door handle, tightening until they where white and bloodless.
‘I didn’t think so,’ Jack said. ‘I slipped up. I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight for a moment. I could have got you killed.’
‘That’s being over dramatic.’
Jack lifted his foot of the gas pedal and slowed down to comply with the island’s speed limit. ‘First thing they teach us at Quantico is that you stay alive by being overly cautious.’
Stunned by Jack’s bluntness, she snapped her mouth shut and stared out of the window.
A road-weary motor coach, its roof bristling with antennae and satellite dishes, huddled underneath a large Banyan tree fifty feet from the entrance to Sand Dollars. The headlights flashed twice as they approached.
‘Someone you know?’ Grace asked.
‘Yeah, Anderson and Kennedy, the two agents Mike assigned for back up. I’ll introduce you later so you don’t get scared if you bump into them. They’ll be taking the night shift—watching the house while we get some sleep.’
‘When Catherine and I were young, our parents owned what we Brits call a caravan. It was very basic, just a tin can on wheels. Catherine hated it, especially when it rained. Everything would be damp, bedding, clothes, shoes—everything. And when it was hot, it was even more unbearable, so I don’t envy your colleagues in this heat.’
Jack smiled. ‘Tin can. I’ll remember that next time I have to use it. It’s newer than it looks, and is equipped with an array of high-tech gadgets and a decent A-C.’
‘A-C?’
‘Air conditioning. Never fails to amaze me how we say we speak the same language…but we don’t speak the same language. Do we?’
His eyes met Grace’s and a thrill of something more than fear twisted her heart. She wondered if Jack felt it too. He glanced at her again. His look said nothing. She stared straight ahead at the motor coach.
Jack slowed the SUV to a crawl and wound down the driver’s window as he drew level with the vehicle. To anyone who might be interested it appeared as though he was telling the guy behind the wheel to move away from his property.
‘You’re clean, Jack. No one, not even the mail man, has gone near the house since we got here.’
‘Thanks, Kennedy. We’ll be in for the rest of the day. Get some shut-eye.’
The Explorer picked up speed and turned into the driveway. Jack pulled on the brake and swivelled in his seat to face Grace.
‘You need protection and I’ll do my best to make sure you get it. But I’m a realist, Grace. So, I want you to promise me that if anything untoward happens, you’ll head straight for that motor coach. Anderson and Kennedy will take care of you.’
‘I—’ Grace tried to frame another question, but Jack’s sombre expression prevented her.
Jack leaned closer and tilted her face to his. ‘Promise me, Grace.’
She nodded her head. ‘I promise.’
He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘Now let’s go eat and then we can see what secrets your husband was hiding in that safe.’
Thirty minutes later, Grace carried the tray containing their lunch into the office and placed it on the desk. She picked up her plate and a can of soda, and sat down in the chair opposite Jack.
‘Found anything?’
‘Apart for a few receipts from the local gas station and one to a cleaning service, the desk is pretty much empty.’
‘That doesn’t surprises me. Daniel never threw a receipt away, no matter how mundane the purchase. But when it came to cleaning he was barely house-trained. He didn’t know how to vacuum or dust. What about the safe?’
‘I was waiting for you before I tried it.’ He picked up his sandwich and took a bite.
‘Before you do, can I use the phone? I’d like to call my sister, see if she’s at home.’
Jack popped the tab on his can of soda and took a long swallow.
‘I don’t see why not. Mike’s got a tap on the line. It will register the number, but won’t interfere with your call.’
Grace lifted the receiver and dialled her Catherine’s apartment, but all she got was her answering service. Next she tried Catherine’s cell phone, but that too, ran into her voicemail.
‘No answer?’ Jack asked.
She shook her head. ‘I’m worried, Jack. You’d think she would have been in touch by now.’
‘Sounds like something serious is going on. Did you contact her through her employer?’
‘I didn’t think hearing about her brother-in-law’s death from some work colleague was a good idea. I’ve left countless messages for her to call me, but she’s either ignored them, or just hasn’t picked up her messages in the last couple of weeks.’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe she’s taken a vacation.’
‘I suppose it’s possible. She can be fiercely independent when the mood takes her. Even so, I don’t think she’d go off without telling me.’
‘Are you two close?’
Grace’s smiled faded. ‘We used to be, but the last few years we’ve grown apart. Catherine is your ‘wild child,’ whereas I’m more—’
‘Dependable.’
Grace smiled. ‘I was going to say more staid. Catherine was always getting into mischief, and that hasn’t changed. She lives life at full tilt, when she’s not working she’s dancing the night away in some club or other.’
Jack said nothing. Grace confirmed what he’d already surmised. Catherine was self-centred and cared for no one but herself.
‘Do have a picture of her?’
‘Not with me. Why?’
‘I just wondered what she looked like.’
‘Catherine is the pretty one of the family. Long, wavy, blonde hair, and brown eyes, she’s taller than me and thinner too. She’s never been short of admirers, but so far she’s remained single.’
Jack grunted, and wondered why Grace had such a low opinion of herself. He drained his soda and was about to throw the can into the trash, when he noticed someone had dumped the contents of an ashtray into it.
‘Did Daniel smoke?’
‘Only a pipe. I smelt his tobacco as soon as we entered the house.’
He picked a half smoked stub out of the trashcan.
‘Whoever else was here, smoked Cuban cigarettes. I recognize the brand.’ The same brand that Rosa smoked before she had Emilia. He dropped the cigarette into the ashtray on the corner of the desk.
‘For all you know it might be the cleaner and he or she just forgot to take out the trash.’
‘Could be.’ Jack put the trashcan to one side. He’d bag up the rest of the stubs and give them to Mike. They might get lucky and find some DNA to link the smoker to a member of one of the known gangs. But he doubted it.
He crossed the room to where a large seascape hung on the wall, and ran his fingertips around the frame. Satisfied it wasn’t wired into an alarm, he lifted it down and rested it against a bookcase. Then took a pair of exam gloves from his pocket and put them on.
‘What are you thinking?’ Grace asked.
‘I was wondering why Daniel had a safe installed, yet didn’t bother to set the burglar alarm when he left.’
‘Perhaps he forgot or was in a hurry.’
‘Or maybe he wasn’t the last person to leave.’ Jack looked at the old fashioned tumbler.
Grace opened her mouth and closed it. Jack had a way of getting right to the point.
‘I don’t know how many tries we’ll get at this,’ he said. ‘But give me some birth dates.’
‘Try ten, one, ni
neteen, seven, zero.’
Jack spun the tumbler and tugged at the handle. ‘Locked. Give me another.’
‘Three, seven, nineteen, seven, five.’ Grace held her breath as he turned the dial.
‘Nope. Anymore?’
‘Twenty-eight, ten, nineteen, eight, zero.’
As he entered the last digit, Jack heard a telltale click as it was accepted. He turned the handle and the safe opened.
‘Was that yours?’
‘Catherine’s. Did I mention that Daniel left her some money in his will?’
Jack kept his features composed. ‘How much?’
‘Not a vast amount, five thousand pounds—about seven thousand dollars.’
‘Any idea why?’
‘They thought the world of each other. I presume it was because Daniel was like a big brother to Catherine and helped pay for her education.’
Jack blinked. He had other ideas as to why Grace’s husband might leave his sister-in-law money, but he wasn’t ready to voice them, at least not yet.
He pulled a narrow spiral-bound notebook out of the safe, together with a small plastic box, a wad of cash, and a bundle of papers, and carried them over to the desk.
He showed Grace the notebook. ‘Is this Daniel’s handwriting?’
‘Yes, I can tell by the way he writes a seven, with that little wavy line across the down stroke. And Daniel was left-handed. Whenever he wrote the letter ‘g,’ it looked as if he’d written it backwards.’
‘I’ll need to study the notebook to see if I can make any sense of it.’
‘I doubt that you will. Daniel had his own version of shorthand. He tried explaining it to me once, but I never could understand. He uses a mixture of letters and numbers—it’s a sort of code.’
Jack opened the box. It was empty. ‘I wonder if this contained the disks your mysterious man was looking for.’ The cell phone on his belt vibrated. He freed it and looked at the ID window—his SAC, Mike Zupanik.
‘Hey, Mike.’
‘Bad news, Jack. The police pulled Zachary Parous out of the Miami River an hour ago.’
‘Shit.’
‘His hands and feet were bound and he’d been systematically beaten. The medical examiner says it looks as if someone tossed him in then left him to drown. We’ll know for sure after he’s done the autopsy.’
‘Grace and I saw Pete Jacobs again today. He regularly flew Elliott down to an island near Marathon Key. He said he didn’t know who owned it, but I got the impression he knew more than he was saying. I’ve got the GPS co-ordinates. It’s not enough for a search warrant, but I wondered about satellite surveillance.’
‘I don’t know, Jack. That’s a big ask when we’ve got so little to go on. Let me think about it, talk to a few people.’
Jack signed heavily. ‘Okay. What else do you know?’
‘I only know one thing for sure,’ Mike said. ‘You’d better keep an even closer watch on his client’s widow.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Spanish was the only language spoken in the La Bodequita del Medio bar in Little Havana, Miami. The potent aroma of high-octane coffee fought with the smoky air and lost, while the heady rhythm of salsa music blared out from the radio above the bartender’s head. Any tourist entering, expecting to find somewhere quiet for a meal and a drink quickly retreated.
For Sergio Vasquez, it was his home and his office—the place where he ate and did business. Despite his slight, wiry build, other criminals in the city knew him as a man not to be crossed. No job was too big or too difficult. What mattered was the money he earned, the kind of cash that was impossible to earn back in Cuba. In recent years many Nicaraguans and Hondurans had moved into the area. Those who frequented the bar knew to keep out of his way.
He ordered a plate of ropa vieja and a beer, and sat down at his usual table in the corner, the surface scuffed and scratched from years of use. While the other inhabitants of the bar wore the traditional, locally produced, linen guayaberas, the four-pocket men’s shirt, Vasquez preferred Armani or Gucci and hand-made thousand dollar loafers when he wasn’t working.
Last night’s hit had been easy. He’d followed the Yuma, his American mark, from his office to the underground parking lot. As soon as he heard the trunk of the Mercedes open, Vasquez had stepped out of the shadow, struck the guy over the head and tumbled him inside, along with his briefcase.
The Mercedes was a fine car. He’d driven one like it before. He’d thumbed away a smudge from its otherwise spotless white paint, hopped inside and nestled himself into the black kid leather driver’s seat, and drove across town to the deserted warehouse that served as his private torture chamber.
It had taken a while, but he got the information he wanted. Disposing of the body was simple; he’d driven to one of the slipways and dumped it into the river, leaving the tide and the fishes to do the rest.
Although it had pained him to abandon the lovely Mercedes, he’d done as instructed, but that hadn’t stopped him from taking a memento of his night’s work. He smiled, and straightened the sleeves of his shirt, pausing to admire the heavy gold cuff links and Raymond Weil watch on his wrist previously worn by his victim.
The bar girl brought his meal, along with another bottle of beer. Barely out of her teens, her hair was a sheath of black silk, her body ripe and firm, in a few years time she’d be stunningly beautiful. He gave her ass a squeeze, and was rewarded with a smile and an extra swing of her hips as she sauntered back to the kitchen.
He scooped up a forkful of shredded beef in piquant tomato sauce, and chewed. The word on the street was that some minion had skimmed money from the Banker’s account. No one messed with the Banker, not if they wanted to live, and especially not attorneys who thought they were beyond his reach.
No one knew the Banker’s identity for sure. Some thought he was Juan-Carlos Fuentes, head of the Fuentes family, who were into drug trafficking and money laundering, others said he was the head of a rival gang based in New York. Vasquez had tried to find out. But he was smart. He knew that if he asked too many questions he’d end up as alligator food.
He pushed his empty plate away. The bartender appeared at his elbow and placed a cup of café Cubano in front of him, then discretely withdrew. He leaned back in his chair, lit a hand rolled cigar, sucked hard, and blew out a plume of smoke.
His eyes shifted to three elderly men, their heads bent over the table as they concentrated on their game of dominoes, a dish of chicharones and half empty glasses within easy reach of their gnarled and arthritic fingers.
Life was good. He had money to spend on hookers and a decent set of wheels. He even had a condo overlooking the ocean. Not bad for a boy whose parents had arrived in America some forty years earlier with little more than the clothes on their backs.
The door opened, a man entered. He paused briefly to size up the bar, then impervious to the curious glances from the other occupants, hobbled over to Vasquez’s table, dragged out a chair and sat down.
Short and stocky, he walked with a slight limp, as if he’d been born with one leg slightly shorter than the other. He wore a silk shirt tucked into Italian slacks, and carried a jacket over his arm. His pale, square-jawed face marked him as an outsider. Beneath the dark aviator sunglasses, his eyes were indiscernible.
The bartender appeared at the newcomer’s shoulder and placed a bottle of beer on the table in front of him, then retreated to the bar and resumed polishing glasses.
The stranger crossed one ankle over the other, and withdrew a packet of Cohiba and a gold Colibri lighter from the pocket of his jacket. He stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, lit it, and sucked in a hit of nicotine.
Vasquez watched the smoke trickle out from between the man’s lips.
‘How did you know I’d be here?’
‘You’re predictable, Vasquez. If you want to survive in this game, you should change your habits.’
Vasquez tried to place the accent, Italian or Portuguese, may be Spanish, he co
uldn’t be sure which. But no matter, this wasn’t a man to be crossed. A cheer came from the table in the corner where the three old men played dominoes. Heads turned, but he kept his gaze on the man sat opposite.
‘I like it here. The food is good and no one bothers me.’
The man shrugged. ‘It’s your life.’ He puffed on the cigarette and scrutinized the Cuban through the smoke. Vasquez wasn’t smart, but he was ruthless and did as he was told.
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