by Linda Ladd
“Right. Sure thing. Love them already. But okay, this little jaunt is getting interesting, I do have to admit, but I’m not disarming myself. This Glock stays right where it is.”
“Whatever. We’ll have a bite to eat, hear what they have to say, comfort them if we can, and then we’ll make our excuses and go home.”
“You bet we will.”
“I’m a little worried. This is not their normal behavior.”
“I’m a little worried, too, but not about that. And the food better be good.”
Black only smiled at her, not above using his killer dimples to disarm her, something that usually worked well enough. It worked this time, too, kind of, and she did feel more comfortable with the situation. So Black sat down on the couch and seemed to be admiring the lavish maritime décor with its pictures of rusty anchors and old War of 1812 sailing vessels and ships in bottles, not to mention the lovely rays of the South Seas sunset now watercoloring the horizon pink and mauve and gold with a dash of deep purple-violet rimming the edges. Claire made a circuit of the museum-ish grand salon and found it grand, indeed, with all its crystal vases and priceless paintings by artists she had never heard of but who were probably as famous as hell. She wondered how they kept all that junk from sliding off the shelves when tossed about in stormy seas or even irksome swells.
She also checked to see what was behind each door, always careful to memorize all the exits of Mafia lairs, and then she finally ambled back over to the couch and sat down beside Black, who was utterly composed and exhibiting his usual sangfroid. After about ten more minutes of waiting, Black went to the wet bar and fetched himself an Australian beer called Crown Lager and handed Claire her usual fare, which was an unopened bottle of plain water. She twisted off the cap and took a deep drink, not about to dull her senses while floating in a known criminal’s stronghold. No way, José. Or Jonas, in this case.
When their hosts/enforcers returned, Claire’s heart did soften a bit toward the Mafioso’s little and apparently super miserable wife. She had cleaned herself up a bit but still looked chalk-white under her tan and ready to blow at any minute, and not in the mood for beach-attired company invited by her husband, either. Claire knew the feeling. The woman was not sobbing like crazy anymore, however, and that was a definite plus. Observed up close and personal, her gray-green eyes were red and swollen, as if she had spent the last two days or ten enjoying some massive outpouring of personal waterworks. But she was gracious now, and she walked straight over to Claire and held out her small and delicate little hand, the one with several huge diamond dinner rings weighing it down. Her accent sounded American. Boston genteel, maybe. “I’m sorry for my earlier behavior, Ms. Morgan. I have been quite upset for several days now. I am not usually so unwelcoming and impolite. I do hope you will forgive my rudeness.”
“I understand. I’ve been upset a couple of times lately, too,” Claire said in return, trying to match her in civility. Yeah, she’d been upset, all right, a couple of times, plus ten thousand more or so. The last one being forced out onto this very boat against a wealth of better judgment.
“Thank you. Please, come, dinner is being served in the dining salon. Our chef, Dexter, is most excellent. Won’t you join us?”
Oh, God, not the Dexter of Saran Wrap fame? Well, she hoped not. Or maybe she hoped so. Arresting that guy would be quite the coup in law enforcement circles. At least it wasn’t Hannibal Lecter stewing up some body parts in béarnaise sauce, or something else equally disgusting. She didn’t think so, at any rate. And, as if they had a choice in the matter. However, the tiny marital duo weren’t toting guns and making threats to poke out their eyeballs or pry off their fingernails, so what the heck? Claire was hungry.
Now Black was beaming like a proud papa, pleased as punch that his detective girlfriend was not shooting up the place, and Jonas with a Y watched Claire as if he wasn’t quite sure or not if she might do just that before the evening waned. Probably because she still had the Glock in her hand and laid it on the dining room table next to her stemmed wine goblet. But nobody commented on that so maybe that was part of a gangster’s table setting after all.
As it turned out, dinner was quite perfecto, and as delectable as Black had promised. And not a sea creature inhabited their plates, either, thank goodness. Instead, they were served succulently prepared fried chicken and garlic mashed potatoes and fresh green beans and golden cornbread. For a moment, Claire was almost certain they’d been transported back to the Missouri Ozarks and a Cracker Barrel restaurant. All of it was undeniably delicious, though, and Claire and Black enjoyed the food with relish, a good break from their Tahitian diet of ocean-fresh tuna and bonito and mahi mahi and swordfish and shrimp and clams and scallops and lobster and turtle soup, all of which they’d been devouring nightly during their island sojourn with Mr. Edward of the Seafood Specialty Cuisine. Yep, and sometimes she had craved a fried bologna and mayonnaise sandwich but had been afraid to mention it to Eddie the chef, for fear he’d faint in horror. Their hosts, on the other hand, watched them eat and picked desultorily at the scant portions of food upon their own gold-edged, pricey plates. Oh, yes sir, and count on it, there was something very serious amiss aboard this fancy schmancy yacht, all right, and it was only a matter of time until they got hit in the head with it. Might as well enjoy the good food while they could. Because whatever the tear-inducing problem was, it was probably gonna turn their stomachs. Then they could go home. She hoped.
Abigail decreed that they would have their Cherries Jubilee in the grand salon, so they all traipsed back there. They watched the admittedly rather wonderful Chef Dexter, who fortunately had neither red hair nor an extensive filet knife kit, light up their dessert with a great deal of aplomb and then serve it hot and happily over scoops of vanilla ice cream, which they ate in a rather heavy and stilted silence. And it was good, good, yummy good, too. But Abigail wasn’t partaking and wasn’t crying, either, so that was a good thing. Nope, nothing much ruder than stuffing delectable dessert in your mouth while your hostess bawls buckets of woe. Claire sat down in a red-and-black-striped armchair with her now empty bowl of cherry delight, pretty sure the boom was gonna drop now, and any minute. Black took the chair beside her, probably wanting to be close just in case the boom rubbed her the wrong way.
“I guess you are wondering why I brought you here,” said Jonas at long last.
“Yes, actually, I am.” Claire waited expectantly. So did everybody else. Abigail had teared up again, her eyes looking all glassy and wet and shiny. Oh, brother, what the hell was going on aboard this boat? Did they lose their winning lottery ticket? Did the Chicago Bulls lose? Was Jonas sad that he couldn’t go back to Chicago and wreak more havoc for the cops? Did he drop his favorite gun into the drink? Why, it could be anything, anything at all.
“Our daughter has gone missing.”
Black sat forward, startled. “Oh, my God. Andrea’s missing? When? Where?”
“We fear she’s been kidnapped.”
Okay, now it was getting interesting, all right. Claire leaned forward, too. “Did you get a ransom demand?”
“No, it’s just been utter silence. I fear she’s in some serious trouble. My wife is worried sick.”
True, true, oh, so true. Now Abigail was weeping once more, but silently, and Jonas put his arm around her and clucked out a couple of now nows. He loved this poor minuscule and maudlin woman, that much was clear. Doggone criminal or not, he appeared to be a very good and attentive and empathetic husband. He got points galore for that in Claire’s book. Abigail needed him right now. Apparently, so did his long lost daughter.
Black was frowning, really putting some umph into his concerned look now, and probably envisioning a bloody mafia war, with his naughty big bro, front and center, deadly machete in hand. “Do you have any idea who might’ve taken her?”
“No, no, nobody. No hint of any kind of kidnapping attempt. So our hands are pretty much tied. We don’t know what to do. We’re at
the end of our rope.”
“How so?” Claire asked. “Surely you’ve contacted the appropriate law enforcement agencies, right? Got them to put out a nationwide BOLO on her. Got the television stations on board with her picture and description.”
“We cannot do that—ask American law enforcement to issue a ‘be on the lookout.’ I’m sure Nicky told you that I have been banned from entering the United States.”
“Andrea’s in the States?” Black asked quickly.
“Yes, she’s in her junior year at Tulane University.”
Okay, that definitely caught Black by surprise. Claire could tell by his open mouth. “She’s in New Orleans? I wish I’d known that.”
“She just started there this semester. She’d been going to the Paris-Sorbonne University, but all of a sudden, she decided that she wanted to transfer. It really caught us by surprise, you must know, but she’s always been fascinated by the city of New Orleans, with all the bayou lore and French influence and all of that.”
Claire was beginning to get the drift now. “And you have no idea who took her?”
“No. But I suspect that it was one of my enemies, either out for revenge or using her against me as a bargaining chip of some kind. It could be a kidnapping for gain, but she keeps quiet about my being her father. Very few people know that she’s my daughter.”
Smart girl, Claire thought. Just like Black had claimed the Fifth about his bad boy brother. Advertising one’s kinship to horrible crime lords just never seemed to be a productive thing to do in one’s career. “Has she ever disappeared like this before?”
“No. Never. Not once in her entire life. She’s just twenty, still just a baby to us.” That was Abigail, throat all clogged and strangled up tight, wiping her eyes and letting it all out now. “She’s a good girl. A good daughter, just such a wonderful, sweet, kind, loving daughter. All she wanted was to live in America and go to school in New Orleans. I was against it. I wanted her to attend school in Australia where she’d be safe. Jonas can’t protect her in the States. I told her that. I told him that.”
Jonas’s face dissolved into extreme and heartfelt and noticeably grief-stricken guilt. He wasn’t one to shirk responsibility, either, it seemed. “It is my fault. I cannot seem to say no to Andi. It is true. Abby is right about that. And I am so sorry, so very sorry. I should have insisted that she come to Australia with us. Go to school down here in Sydney.”
“How long has she been gone?” Claire asked, now expecting the worst but hoping to hell there was hope. The longer kidnap victims were gone, the less likely they would be found alive. Everybody knew that, including her parents it seemed.
“One week tomorrow.”
Not good, that. Claire looked at Jonas. “You’re absolutely certain that she didn’t take off to Mexico for spring break? Or run off somewhere with some guy? Weeklong getaway, something like that?”
“Oh, no. She always tells us where she is. She calls us every other day. She’s a very responsible girl. And she knows how much we worry about her. Especially now, being half a world away from her and all. She contacts us like clockwork. She told us that she was going to be studying for midterms and probably wouldn’t be in touch for a few days, but that was last week. And we can’t get hold of her anywhere. She’s not answering her phones. She’s not in her dormitory. Nobody there seems to know anything about her whereabouts.”
Claire considered all that, and then she considered all that was a bunch of crap. She had been in college once, too, down in Baton Rouge at Louisiana State University. She didn’t have any family back then, or anybody else, either, not unless she counted some jerk foster parents whom she hated worse than arsenic in a Cherry Coke. But no coed she knew during her collegiate career had parents who knew what their baby girl was doing every single hour of every single day. Uh-uh, just wasn’t gonna happen at age eighteen or nineteen or even twenty, not unless Andrea Quinn was an angel in training to be a nun or the village librarian in rural Mayberry R.F.D. In Claire’s experience, there weren’t too many of those kinda girls hanging around on college campuses anymore. Zero in fact. And not too many went incognito, all calls barred for finals, either. None of it made a lot of sense, not in a college kid. Something was wrong all right.
Black was obviously thinking along the same lines because he said to Jonas, “Sometimes kids don’t tell their parents everything. No matter how much they love and respect them.”
“Andi’s different. She doesn’t want us to fret. She knows that our family dynamic is unique. She appreciates that.”
Well, that was one way to put it, not the right way, or even the honest way, but yes, a way that would save face. Claire looked again at Abigail Quinn. “Is that what you believe, too, Mrs. Quinn?”
Abigail looked down at her hands, and Claire knew then, and without a doubt, that Mama Quinn was closer to her daughter than Papa Quinn was. “I’m sure Andi has secrets that she keeps from us. Nothing illegal, I’m sure. Just normal girl things.”
“What? What girl things?” Jonas demanded, looking a bit stunned.
Abigail was silent a moment, and then she said, “Be sensible, Jonas, it’s just about boys she likes, and such. She dates, you know. She knows how you get about the boys that she goes out with. You know good and well how upset and overprotective that you can get at times.”
“No, I do not get upset and overprotective. I just know that she is vulnerable because she is my daughter. Is there somebody special that she’s seeing now? Is that what you’re telling me? You can’t mean that she’s serious about some man and I don’t even know who he is. She knows I need to check out all her boyfriends, just to be safe.”
“No, I don’t mean that. If she is seeing someone special, she hasn’t told me about it, not yet, anyway. As far as I know, she still sees her old friend, Pierre Dubois, from time to time when she’s in Paris, but they had a falling out over something I think. Something minor, but she wouldn’t tell me what happened. And she’s still new to New Orleans. She said she’s met some other kids who live on her dormitory floor and around campus, in classes and such, but she’s still getting acclimated to the area and learning her way around the city. She hasn’t told me about any particular boy that she is interested in.”
Claire had heard enough. “I think you need to call the New Orleans Police Department. Right now. Too much time has passed already. I have an old friend who’s a detective there now. Lieutenant Gabe LeFevres. Ask for him. Tell him you’re a friend of mine.”
Silence reigned for about twenty seconds, and then Jonas said, “We can’t do that. You must know that we can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
All three of Claire’s companions swiveled their attentions to her, their expressions revealing their feelings: Are you a stupid girl, or what? We’re known to be desperado criminals, remember? They up and threw us out of the country, even. We’re bad, real bad. Cops don’t like us.
“It’s not wise for me to contact the police,” Jonas told her at length, and yes, that did come down rather on the cryptic side. “I prefer to handle this privately. It’s important that I do so.”
Black looked askance at Claire in his own attempt at a significant moment and then back at Andrea’s grieving parents. “And you want Claire to find her? I take it that’s why you brought us all the way out here?”
That surprised Claire a little at first, but not too much. It had occurred to her, too, of course. She sat silently and waited for them to reply, but they didn’t say anything. Instead, Abigail rose and rushed quickly over to where Claire was seated. Claire watched, uncomfortable as hell, as the elegant little woman dropped to her knees, grabbed both Claire’s hands with her own gaudily beringed fingers, looked up into Claire’s face, and beseeched her with red-rimmed, swimming eyes, and spoke with trembling lips and shaky words.
“Please, please, detective, please, I beg you. I beg you down here on my knees. Jonas says you have caught many criminals, serial murderers even, that you are kn
own to be an exceptional investigator. Please, please, help me find my daughter. I am on my knees here begging you. I am begging you to help us. I will do whatever you want. I will say whatever you want. I will give you whatever you want. I will pay you anything you want.”
Well, crap. Abigail was squeezing both Claire’s hands to beat the band. Tears were flowing down her cheeks now, as if there were gigantic holes in her motherly tear ducts. Despite herself and her reluctance to get involved with a crime lord’s kidnapping issues, Claire’s heart clenched with sympathy. She couldn’t help it. She was still human, somewhere under all the many years of jaded police work. She had lost her own child, her beautiful, darling baby boy. Oh, God. Poor Zach. She knew full well how losing a child felt. The devastation, the emptiness, the utter and never-ending thoughts of despair and unwillingness to live without him. She had felt as if her life was completely over. She had wanted to die. Still felt that way at times. If Andrea Quinn was gone for good, this distraught woman would never get over it. She put her hand on the woman’s trembling back and looked over Abigail’s bowed head to where Black sat and watched them in silence.
He said, “You’re going private, Claire. This could be your first case. It’s in New Orleans, so you could set up your office there while you work it. But it’s completely up to you whether or not you take this. Totally. I’m not saying a word, one way or the other.”
Well, thank you a whole helluva lot for that, Black, she thought. Put the onus on me with the kid’s mama begging and crying all over my pants. But yeah, he was right on. It was her decision, and hers alone. But with a grieving, despairing, pitiful mother right there, weeping and clutching Claire’s knees in a death grip, what choice did she really have? Let’s see, what should she do, just push the little lady off, get up, and say, “Sorry, Charlie, ain’t gonna happen. I don’t deal with gangstas”? Okay, true, Claire could be a hardass at times, that was a given, but Abigail Quinn was plucking at Claire’s heartstrings like a professional harpist. That didn’t happen all that often, either. When the woman lay her cheek down on Claire’s knees and started sobbing out loud, Claire threw in the proverbial towel. She patted Abigail Quinn’s neatly sprayed coiffure.
