by Alex Finlay
“She and the other girls stayed in rooms above the club. We searched her bunk and locker. She left her passport. And the rental car—she shared it with two other girls—was found abandoned in Chan Chemuyil, about fifteen minutes from Tulum.” Escobar paused. “I’m sorry.”
Keller let out a breath. “What else do we know about her? Any priors? Known associates?”
“She had a prior for cocaine possession in Oklahoma, but that’s it. Nothing that identifies the man with her in the photo. She’s had a tough run, Ms. Grace. Her father died in the Oklahoma City bombing when she was young, she spent her teenage years in foster care, then worked at a gentleman’s club, which is where she probably got hooked up with the party girl company.”
“Nothing on the man with the cleft lip scar?” Keller’s blood pressure was rising, her jaw clenched. She shut the curtains and sat on the bed. She needed to calm down, think clearly.
“He’s a ghost. It does look like he rented the place at the address you sent me.”
The address tenacious Maggie Pine had found through a cell phone aggregation service. Keller had a random thought: Maybe Maggie would’ve become an FBI agent.
Escobar continued. “He gave the last name Smith, paid in cash. The owner never dealt with him in person—he sent the money by messenger—but the neighbor saw him a few times. And the rental property, it was scrubbed down with bleach. I don’t think it has ever been so clean.”
“Cleaning crews usually aren’t that detailed. I can send a team and—”
“I don’t think you’re hearing me. The place was clean. And not by any maid service. More like a forensics expert.”
“A professional,” Keller said. It was consistent with the staged crime scene, the wiped phones.
Escobar said, “Makes sense.”
“CCTV cameras in the area?” Keller knew the answer, but had to ask.
“I’m sorry. But this isn’t Manhattan, Agent Keller.”
“Is there anything—anything at all—that will help us ID the guy?” Keller knew the answer to this as well.
Escobar paused, then said, “I feel like Gutierrez knows something. It’s a pretty corrupt force.”
“The cop who gave us trouble releasing the bodies? The one who threatened Matt Pine.”
“Sí.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“I tried, but he refuses to speak with me.”
Keller worked through this. She couldn’t force a foreign municipal police officer to cooperate with them. And Carlita Escobar was the person the State Department said had the best chance of dealing with the Tulum force. Now even she was getting stonewalled. “I’m open to ideas,” Keller said.
After another long silence, Escobar said, “There may be a way to get Gutierrez to tell us what he knows.”
Keller wasn’t sure what she meant by that. The way Escobar said it made Keller wary.
“What do you mean?”
“He won’t answer my questions. He knows I’m constrained by American interview techniques.…”
Keller tried to digest where Escobar was going with this, and didn’t like it.
“But I’m family friends with a state senator. He holds sway with the Mexican federal police. And I’m sure he could get them to question Gutierrez.”
Keller was starting to wonder whether, despite her protests to the contrary, Escobar was in fact related to Pablo. She imagined the local cop in a basement that had a drain in the middle of the floor.
Escobar said, “Of course I would never ask them to do that. But if the senator knew Gutierrez was making the US State Department unhappy, he might take the matter into his own hands.…”
Keller wanted the man with the cleft lip. He was now linked to the disappearance of Joey Grace and death of the Pines. But she wouldn’t break the law. “Let’s call that Plan B,” Keller said.
“Of course, I wasn’t suggesting—”
“Did you find anything else?” Keller said, sparing Escobar the false denial.
“One more thing,” Escobar said. “The bartender where the girl worked. He said he’d seen her with a man who fits the description. Just one time. But he remembered because Joey Grace made the bartender an unusual offer.”
Keller felt a flutter of excitement again. “What was it?”
“She paid the bartender four thousand pesos to call a cell phone number if anyone came to the bar looking for an American girl.”
“Did he ever make that call?
“Sí. He said a man, an American, showed up at the bar one night looking for a girl.”
“Evan Pine,” Keller said.
“Sí. I showed the bartender a photo, and he confirmed.”
Keller played this out in her mind. The man with the cleft lip scar hired a local party girl to pose in a video as Charlotte to make a deepfake and lure Evan Pine to Tulum, perhaps making it easy for Evan to trace her to the particular club. Then he paid the bartender there to call him when Evan arrived and started asking questions.
This had to be a professional.
“Thank you for all your hard work on this,” Keller said.
“My pleasure.” Then, in a matter-of-fact tone that sent a chill down Keller’s back, Escobar said, “I’ll contact you when we find the girl’s body.”
CHAPTER 52
MAGGIE PINE
BEFORE
Maggie and her father walked side by side along the dirt pathway at the Mayan ruins in Tulum, the afternoon sun beating down on them. Mom was chasing after Tommy, who’d run ahead. The ruins were somewhat disappointing, Maggie thought. Too many tourists. Not so many ruins. There was even a Starbucks, for goodness’ sake. It reminded Maggie of an ancient college campus made of crumbling stone. The centerpiece was a tall temple facing an open field, with smaller buildings at the perimeter. The area wasn’t in a jungle, like in the old Indiana Jones movies Matt used to watch over and over, but atop a cliff overlooking the ocean.
“Dad, you know this isn’t right. It’s all too perfect. The caller ID leads us right there. The bartender at Moloko just happens to know Charlotte out of all the customers they get every night? Wants you back there tonight at midnight—by yourself?”
Her dad put up his hands, as if to quiet her down. He looked out at Mom and Tommy again. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Maggie frowned. They hadn’t had a chance to talk since last night. And she didn’t like keeping this from Mom. She looked at her father and had the sinking feeling that nothing she could say would stop him. The never-ending loop of her life: Evan Pine fixating on a clue, running it into the ground, getting discouraged, swearing he was done with it all, then identifying a new clue and repeating the cycle. A drug addict in search of a fix. Now he was going to screw up this trip—put himself in danger!—walking into a trap. Was it a trap? Or a prank? Someone trying to shake him down? She didn’t know. But she did know something was off. And that they’d been lured to the Moloko Bar.
“It’s a scam,” Maggie said.
“I know.”
This surprised Maggie. Her father wasn’t one to give up so easily. But something was different today.
“So you’re not going back tonight?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“It could be dangerous, Dad.”
He didn’t respond, just waved to her mom, who was looking hot and exasperated as she wrangled Tommy back toward them.
Maggie decided she couldn’t keep it from him anymore. She hoped it wasn’t a mistake. But telling him about the cell phone report, the address where the phone that called him pinged, was the only way to get him to stay away from the bar. “I have something I need to tell you. A new lead. But only if you promise not to go to Moloko tonight.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“I uncovered something. It could answer who’s behind this. Who really called you.”
Her father looked at her intently in that way he would.
“What is it?” he said. “And why didn’t you te
ll me before? What’s—”
“I need a promise.”
“Okay. I promise.”
“I’m serious,” Maggie said.
“I know, so serious,” her dad said playfully.
Her mom and Tommy appeared. Mom gave them a skeptical look. “What are you two up to?”
“Maggie’s decided to take a gap year. Or two. Live with us until she’s thirty,” her dad said.
“That would be totally fine with me.” Liv gave her a side hug. They were so embarrassing.
“Actually,” Maggie said, “Dad said he was taking me out to dinner tonight, just me.”
“He is, is he? What are you two plotting?”
Tommy interrupted them. “What’s a human sacrifice?” He pronounced it sac-pre-price.
“Where’d you hear that, sweetie?” Mom said.
“Those people over there were saying that’s where they would make human sacrifices.” He pointed to a stone platform in the center of the ruins.
Her parents looked at each other.
Dad said, “You want to take this one?”
“All yours, handsome,” Mom said. “That’s what happens when you ditch me for dinner.”
CHAPTER 53
Maggie and her father had a quick dinner at a place called Burrito Amor, then turned to the plan. They didn’t have all night to wait for someone to come out of the house identified in the cell phone report. So they’d have to be more proactive.
Maggie wrote a simple note:
WE KNOW YOU MADE THE VIDEO PRETENDING TO BE CHARLOTTE AND WE’VE CALLED THE POLICE.
It took some doing, but she convinced her dad to give it a try. He’d be crazy to go to the bar tonight. That was where they wanted him. They needed to be the hunter, not the hunted. Maggie felt so cool right now.
They rode the bikes to the small run-down house in the twilight. Maggie waited at the corner under the cover of a stand of shrubs. She watched her father ride his bike to the broken sidewalk in front of the house. He looked around to see if anyone was watching, then pedaled to the front door. The place was a one-story ramshackle structure with bars protecting the windows. She’d googled the address and it popped up as a vacation rental property, so with luck the owner of the phone that pinged at the location was still there. Otherwise, the new tenant would likely be freaked out by the note.
Her dad’s back was to her, but when he turned around, she saw that he’d taped the note to the front door. He positioned the bike away from the house, gave a hard knock, then rode for his life. Maggie’s heart pounded as she watched him race away, praying he’d make it without being spotted. With only seconds to spare, he disappeared around the corner as the door opened a crack. The silhouette of a man emerged in the doorway and he removed the note.
It felt like an eternity, the man standing there a dark mass. Maggie’s father had circled around and was next to her now.
“He’s reading it,” Maggie whispered.
The man’s movements became quick, jerky. His head snapped back and forth, looking for whoever had left the note. Then he turned and went back inside, slamming the door behind him.
Maggie and her father looked at each other. Her dad was perspiring, out of breath. “Now what?” he said.
Maggie honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead.
She didn’t need to decide, because the door to the house flung open. The man was wearing a ball cap and sunglasses. He walked, head down. His gait suggested he was agitated. He said something into a cell phone.
They followed him to the main drag. It was easy to keep a safe distance. He was tall and skinny, and his hat drifted above the crowd on the main road. Sure enough, he went to the Moloko Bar, which looked different in the daylight. The place apparently didn’t open until the evening.
He waited out front, as if he were expecting someone.
Out came a woman, pretty. She wore shorts and a bikini top.
The man said something to her. She shook her head repeatedly.
“Let’s get a picture,” Maggie said. She held up the camera. It was too far away to get a clear shot, even if she zoomed.
“We need to get closer.” She got off the bike.
“No,” her father said.
“Come with me, keep your back turned. They’ll think we’re tourists.”
Her dad didn’t have a chance to object. Maggie pushed his bicycle’s handlebars, wheeling him backward so she could get the picture. She pretended to take a photo of her dad. His face was in the frame, but Maggie was really trying to get a clear shot of the couple.
They were in the shadows, the neon from the sign casting a glow over the woman. Just as Maggie was taking the shot, the man covered his face with his hand. The woman seemed to fix her eyes on Maggie.
“We need to go,” Maggie said. She turned, climbed on the bike, and started to ride away, her father right behind her. She didn’t look back.
CHAPTER 54
MATT PINE
Four coffins were stationed at the far end of the church, but it was the fourth one—the tiny wooden box—that caused each and every mourner to gasp as they entered First Presbyterian Church. The stained glass, the same windows Matt used to stare at bored out of his mind on the Sundays of his youth, dulled the light, fitting the gloomy occasion.
The place was packed, though Matt didn’t recognize many of the bereaved. Several had the grooming of television news reporters, hair helmeted with too much hair spray. Faces too tan for the spring. His aunt said they were going to keep out the media and gawkers and grief junkies, but there was only so much they could do. Despite the Pines’ persona non grata status, several townspeople filled the pews.
As Matt paced the long aisle, he could feel the eyes on him, hear the murmurs as he walked toward the four caskets. He just looked ahead, feeling distant, vaguely out-of-body.
When he reached the front, Aunt Cindy patted the open space on the pew. Next to her was his grandfather, with a faraway expression, his Jamaican nurse looking more grief-stricken than Charlie. Next to Grandpa was the governor, Mom’s old friend. With the prison refusing to allow Danny to attend the ceremony, that was it, the Pine contingent.
After lowering himself to the pew, Matt felt hands on his shoulders. He turned and it was Kala. Next to her, the rest of the Misfit Toys. All were dressed conservatively, something he’d never seen before in all their time together. Even Ganesh was in a suit—an expensive one, by the looks of it—the contrast with his unruly hair and unshaven face giving him the look of a tech mogul. Curtis’s head was bowed in prayer. Woo-jin looked like a giant next to Sofia, whose makeup was already streaked down her face. Matt gave them a nod and turned back.
He stared at the caskets again. They were simple, understated. Despite her beauty, Matt’s mother had hated flash. When his aunt had emailed him the catalog of coffins, it had taken Matt only a moment to choose.
The old minister—the same one from all those years ago—approached the front of the church and waited for the crowd to settle. Then, in a weak voice that again brought Matt back to when he was a boy, the minister began his remarks.
Something else hadn’t changed. Matt was able to tune out the guy instantly. Instead he focused on the caskets.
He swallowed at the smallest box. Matt said goodbye in his head. Tommy, I’m sorry the world won’t get more of you. You were loving, hilarious, and you came when we needed you most. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Goodbye, Little Man.
His eyes slid to the next box. Maggie. Matt released a sob. You were the heart of this family—the glue—and there won’t be a day that goes by where I won’t miss you. The world is a worse place without you. Even when I was away at school, you were with me—my conscience, my better angel, my proof in the fundamental goodness of people. Goodbye, Mags.
He had a fist lodged in his throat now. There was movement in the church, and he saw a figure take the microphone. The governor.
Matt eyed his mother’s casket, then his father’s. He wanted to say goodbye b
efore the politician started blathering on. The rituals, the remarks, didn’t mean anything to him. He didn’t need the show.
Before he said his goodbyes, a siren wailed outside.
The sound intensified, and the church filled with a low rumble of voices. Matt turned and looked at his friends. Ganesh was making a what the fuck expression at the others. They all looked dumbfounded at the noise. Except Kala, who was from Oklahoma.
Matt heard her whisper, “Tornado warning.”
“All right, folks, I hate to do this,” the governor was saying into the microphone. Next to him, the minister was giving him instructions. “We need everyone to get down to the basement.”
The din of the crowd grew louder. “We’ve all been through this a million times and it’s probably nothing, but better safe than sorry, so let’s stay calm and make our way to the stairs.”
Quickly, mourners moved one pew at a time and marched up the aisle. The minister was at the top now, directing traffic.
Matt caught Ganesh’s eye. His friend gave him a sly smile and winked at him. It was an odd gesture, but somehow perfect.
It was an orderly exit. Aunt Cindy tried to usher Matt along with her, but he held back, said he wanted to make sure his friends got squared away. In truth, he wanted a moment alone to finish his goodbyes. Matt wasn’t scared of the tornado. In his fourteen years in Adair there had been countless warnings, a twister or two touching down in cornfields, but he’d never even seen a funnel cloud. His aunt reluctantly agreed, mostly because she needed to tend to Matt’s grandpa, who was riled up by the commotion.
With the church cleared out, Matt stood alone with the caskets. The wind was whistling outside, and there was a crack of lightning.
He touched a hand to his mother’s coffin, then his father’s.
There were no words, he decided.
Matt turned, and instead of heading to the basement, he loosened his tie and walked out into the storm.
CHAPTER 55
SARAH KELLER
