by David Banner
"A safe one," I said.
"I'll be okay. I've got you keeping me safe. I've got you, and you've got me."
I sat there quietly for a few minutes, just looking at my little brother. I couldn't help being proud of the man he had become. He was strong, in both body and mind, with a will that I had yet to see break. But, most of all, he was fiercely loyal, both to me and to the memory of this family. I couldn't have asked for anything more.
"I'm going to shower," I said. "I have blood and bleach all over me."
"Go. I'm gonna get dinner started."
"Dinner?" I said, a little surprised by the thought.
"Yeah!" Micha said with a big grin. "Low country boil."
"Awesome," I replied, then headed up the stairs.
After a long shower, and a good look at myself in the mirror, I walked out onto the small balcony and watched the sun as it set into the endless orange sky. It was a beautiful thing to see. The way the pink clouds melded into the distance against the vivid backdrop of orange and yellow shadows and light. Even after the sun set, you could still see those wondrous colors. Even on the darkest of nights.
The world was full of beautiful sunsets but none like those on Anna Maria Island. The way the sun just melted into the water in a swirl of glistening color and reflection. It was something magical and unique if you only let be. It was song in sight and it only existed here, on Florida's spectacular Gulf Coast.
"Do you still think about them?" Micah asked as I sat at the small table. "Like ... when you hear the waves or see a jellyfish. Do you still think about Mom and Dad?"
"Remember that time he sat on the jellyfish?" I said, trying not to laugh at the memory of my father's pain.
""Yeah ..." Micah chuckled. "His balls had to be sore for weeks."
"Yeah. Not something I wanna try if I can help it."
"Nope!" Micah said, tearing the tail off a crawfish and dipping it in butter.
"Yeah. I think about them a lot actually." I grabbed a chunk of andouille sausage.
The mix of spicy meat and sweet butter was like heaven in my mouth, melting across my tongue and gliding down my throat. It had been longer than I would have liked since the last time my brother and I shared a meal. Especially one he cooked himself. "This is so good," I said.
"I know, right! We should serve it at Freefish."
"Yeah," I said. "Do it."
"I think I will."
"What about you? Do you ever think about them?"
"I do. But not in a sad way or anything. More like ... I wonder if they'd still wanna go to Key West in the summer. Or ... if Dad would wanna help me fix up a boat. Just stupid stuff like that. It just pops into my head sometimes if the world gets quiet."
"Yea ..." I said. "I know what you mean."
I knew exactly what he was talking about. It was a hard thing to go through, having your parents disappear that way, with no warning. And he was right, it wasn't a sad thing really; to think about them. And it wasn't something I tried to do or not to do. But sometimes, for no reason at all, I would just picture my mom on the beach, sitting beside me and smiling.
The truth was, I missed them and we’d been too young for them to go, but I know they couldn't help it. I don't know exactly what happened, I know if they could have stayed, then they would have.
"I guess we should get going," I said, popping open one last crab leg.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
T HERE WERE ONLY FOUR HOUSES ON IVANHOE LANE THAT LOOKED TO BE EMPTY, AND ONLY ONE THAT OVERLOOKED THE NINTH HOLE OF THE KEY ROYALE GOLF CLUB. If we were going to find any clues about Sharon Rhodes this was a good place to start, especially given how things went at the hotel earlier that day.
"Hopefully this will go over easy," Micah said as our boat glided to a stop at the far end of the golf course.
"Hopefully," I said.
I grabbed a mask, a flashlight, and a small pocketknife, giving one over to Micah too. While I had done this kind of thing a lot over the last few months, this was the first time I would have my little brother with me. If someone had asked me before all this began, I would have probably said that I’d never let Micah get involved in anything like this. I would have said that this was my fight, and he belonged home, and safe.
But, over the last little while, those thoughts seemed less and less like the truth and more and more like something I had been trying to convince myself was true, when in actuality, I knew it wasn't. The reality was that; I was beginning to like the idea of my brother working with me. Sure, there was a level of danger that he probably otherwise wouldn't be exposed to, but I knew that he was a strong enough person to handle it.
"There it is," Micah said. "1577 Ivanhoe Lane."
"God, I hope no one is in there."
"Doesn’t look like it. Not unless they like sitting around in the dark."
"They might be asleep," I said.
"Who goes to sleep at nine thirty?"
"I don't know. You're probably right. Come on, let's go."
The golf course was empty and quiet, with only the rhythmic clicking of sprinklers echoing softly in the distance. I had never been one for golf, or for any sport really. I loved the water and I loved the sand, but why anyone would want to strap on fifteen pounds of gear and run around chasing a football was beyond me.
The warm sand and a cold drink would win out any day in my book. But golf was another story, and while it wasn't my game, I could see the draw. It was calm and easy, always played in beautiful, and oftentimes, tropical locations.
"Let's try the back," Micah said. "People usually forget to lock the water-facing doors."
Crossing over Ivanhoe Lane we headed around the side of the house, keeping as low a profile as possible. The house was beautiful. Large white columns sat perched in front of both the front and back doors. Massive picture windows covered almost the entire rear wall of the house, looking out onto the calm moonlit water.
It was places like this that drew people to Florida. There was just something special about waking up to the sound of the birds and the waves. Something special about the way the morning sunlight reflected off the water and gently nudged you awake. Once people fell in love with that kind of thing, it seemed to last their whole lives, like they could never get enough.
There was a truth in Florida, even with the danger and the mystery that seemed to permeate around every corner, there was still something very special, something unique that just couldn't be found anywhere else.
The back deck was high off the ground, like the rest of the house, it was suspended on stilts. I took the lead, walking ahead of Micah until reaching the sliding glass door. "Shit!' I said. "It's locked. Check the windows."
My first attempt was a bust, as was my second. Just as I was beginning to think we were going to have to make a little noise Micah popped up from around the corner. "Jackpot!" he said. "The bay window is unlocked. Let's go."
I followed him around the tall wooden deck and climbed through the window after him. The house was in darkness, with only the moonlight casting shadows throughout the spacious rooms. I pulled my flashlight from my pocket and began shining it around, trying to keep the light focused near the floor. Just on the off-chance anyone was looking.
The house was outfitted in mostly brown and gold hues, with shimmering metallic trim. I always loved this look, Spanish architectural styles had always been my favorite, aside from maybe an old-school-style beach bungalow.
We spent a good forty-five minutes looking around and not coming up with much. For the most part, the house looked like it hadn't been lived in for some time. Not that it was old or dusty, or that the furniture as covered in white sheets. It was actually the opposite of that. This house looked like something out of a magazine. The kind of house that was designed so perfectly its residents were too afraid to mess it up.
"Sharon said she felt like she was being watched in here, right?" Micah asked.
"Yea. That's what she said."
"Well ... if she
felt like she was being watched then there are probably cameras."
"Do you think we're being watched now?" I asked.
"I don't know. Maybe, but no one is here so maybe it’s not being broadcast. Look for a recording device. Like, a hard drive or something."
I started in a small bedroom at the bottom of the stairs but found nothing. Micah headed upstairs but came up empty. I was beginning to think that going to that house was a waste of time and that maybe Sharon Rhodes really wasn't involved in any of this. Maybe her turning up dead was an accident after all. Then I noticed something odd.
"Isn't this room smaller than it should be?" I said to Micah, tracing my hand along the rear wall of a small office.
"What?" Micah said.
"Look. This wall stops about six feet before it should. Look on the other side of this room. It's the same wall, only its thicker here. Much, much thicker. I think there's something behind it."
"A panic room." Micah's eyes grew as wide as golf balls. "And I bet that’s the door!" he said, pointing to a large bookcase.
I watched as Micah pulled furiously at one book after another, trying to figure out how to open the thing, but after going through almost every one, he turned to me and threw his hands in the air. "This has to be the door, right?"
"Looks like it," I said, plopping myself down in a large brown leather chair. After spending a long moment looking over at the bookcase something caught my eye. Or rather; something caught my knee. "What is that?" I said, reaching down, and feeling a small bubble popping out from under the leather desk.
I slid my chair back and looked under the desk to see a small black covering. And flipping it open I found what we had been looking for. "This is it," I said, pressing hard on the small button.
In a flash a door flew open behind the desk. "What the fuck ..."
"I didn't even see that!" Micah said. "I guess this is just a bookcase then."
The door was hidden in plain sight, as part of the wall and indistinguishable from the rest of the room. It was clever and had I not stumbled on the button I would have likely never noticed it.
"Whatever. Come on."
Micah and I went in one after the other. He was right. It was the very definition of a panic room. Screens lined one wall, perched above a control desk with multiple keyboards and camera operational controls. "Look!" Micah said, opening a large refrigerator. "There's enough food in here to last for a month."
"I guess it pays to be prepared. Especially if you're super rich," I said.
"Here's the hard drive," Micah said. " I wonder if there's anything valuable on it?"
"I don't know. I wish Hope were here."
"Who?"
"Hope. The woman who helped clear you back in Miami."
"Oh. Right," he said. "Well, let me see what I can find anyway."
I watched Micah slide through video footage as though he were looking through old newspaper articles on one of those library screens people use in movies. The images were mostly blank, with a few random people coming in to clean every once in a while.
"Wait!" I said. "Look!"
I felt my heart drop to the floor as I saw Sharon Rhodes appear on the screen, but not because I was surprised to see her in this house, it was the man behind her that I wasn't expecting to see. There she was, with the man she had been having an affair with. The one who had likely killed her to hide his secret.
"Is that ..." Micah's voice trailed off.
"Yeah," I said, not taking my eyes off the screen. "That's Charles Mitchell."
CHAPTER TWENTY
I COULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT I WAS SEEING. Charles Mitchell, the soon-to-be District Attorney of Anna Maria Island was guilty of adultery. He had been having an affair with Sharon Rhodes at the time of her murder, and somehow, no one knew.
"We should take this to the police," Micah said. "It'll clear you."
"No," I said. "We have it, that's good enough. But it's too soon to make a move. I don't want to do anything that'll jeopardize Rachel’s safety."
"So, we're just gonna sit on information that would almost certainly take you off the suspect list?"
"Yes. For now, we are," I said, pulling my phone out and snapping a few pictures of the screen."
"Well ..." Micah said. "I guess we figured out what was going on with Sharon Rhodes. She was a drug-dealing home-wrecker."
"Yeah ... And I guess now we know who killed her."
My mind raced with a million different thoughts. It seemed Charles Mitchell had the world fooled into thinking he was this good, and pure, family man, while keeping a woman in a fancy house so he could have his way with her. But maybe that wasn't all of it, maybe he was one of those drunk-on-power lunatics who thought that just because they had a little power it afforded them things like that.
Micah cycled through hours of footage. Time and time again Mr. Mitchell would show up late in the evening and the two would inevitably start pawing at one another, then head into the bedroom. Other times they would skip the bedroom all together and just head for the kitchen counter or the dinner table with Charles' face buried between her legs.
"I feel like a voyeur," Micah said. "And not even the good sexy kind. This is just gross ..."
"I know. I've seen enough, turn it off."
"Yeah ... I'm gonna transfer a couple of minutes of footage to my phone, just for backup."
"Good idea," I said.
I wondered what Sofia would say if she knew this. I wondered if she would still think Charles Mitchell was such a goody two shoes. I doubted it seriously. But, at the moment, I wasn't sure telling her was in my best interest. I needed to have as much information as possible, on as many people as possible, before I made my move. And right now, I was more confused than anything.
"Look!" Micah exclaimed, pointing to a screen in the top left corner.
The living room light had suddenly popped on illuminating the entire front portion of the house. For a minute, it appeared as though it were some sort of timer or glitch, I stared hard at the camera but saw nothing change. But after a few moments I noticed a shadow moving near the edge of the screen.
Seconds later the image of a woman came into view. "Is that Sofia?" Micah asked.
"No ..."I said, looking hard at the screen. "I don't know who that is."
"Look!" Micah said again. "It's Charles."
Following behind the woman was none other than Charles Mitchell, the almost-District Attorney I now knew to be a philandering douchebag.
"Eww ... Are we gonna have to watch more of this dude?"
"I hope not," I said.
What happened next was both hard to watch and impossible to look away from. The two walked back and forth around the house arguing one minute, then embracing one another the next. It was Charles Mitchell, that I knew for a fact, but the identity of the woman remained a mystery the entire time we were watching them.
She would say something, obviously in anger. Then Charles would respond by yelling back and throwing his hands around. She would march right up and slap him in the face. It was sick-cycle-carousel watching it happen over and over.
"We've got to get out of here!" Micah said. "This crap is going to go on all night and we've already got what we came for."
"I agree," I said. "Let’s just wait for them to go back into the kitchen, and we'll leave out through the front door ..."
"Okay," Micah said, sliding his mask back on.
It took almost fifteen more minutes for the couple to finally make it back into the kitchen. As soon as they came into view on the camera, Micah slammed his palm against the door button, and out we went. The only light on was the one in the living room so going undetected seemed like a pretty simple task. Especially given the way they were arguing back and forth.
As we finally made it to the door, I slowly reached out my arm and tried to turn the handle. "Fuck!" I said. "It's locked with a key."
"Well ain't that some shit."
"Yeah ... What are we gonna do now?"
&nb
sp; "We have to go back the way we came," Micah said.
"We'd have to go through the kitchen."
"I know."
"They're in the kitchen," I said.
"I know ... Just follow my lead," Micah said. "I have a really bad idea."
"Shit!"
I followed closely behind my brother as we headed for the kitchen, being sure to keep our backs pressed against the wall. "Don't move!" Micah said, holding his knife high in the air.
For a moment I was genuinely confused. But as I stood behind my little brother, I realized once again, he was more adaptive than I ever gave him credit for. Yes, he was right, this was a terrible idea. But in the moment, it was the only card we had to play.
"Give me your wallet!" I said, pointing my knife directly at Charles' face.
"You too!' Micah said. "Hand over your purse."
The two fumbled around nervously, Charles dropping his wallet to the floor twice before managing to slide it across the bar and over to me. The woman, who was visibly shaken and afraid, dropped her purse to the marble-tiled kitchen floor and kicked it to Micah.
We had no choice but to make it look like we were robbing them. As though we had broken into the house expecting it to be empty and took the opportunity where we found it to score some extra cash.
"Here," Charles said, tossing me a set of keys. "Take the car. It’s a Mercedes. Please, don't hurt us."
"You're that politician guy," Micah said.
"Yes ..." Charles replied nervously. "I ... Can get you anything you want. Just, please, let us go."
"Who is this little thing?" Micah said, stepping closer to the woman.
"Theresa Charles. She's my wife," Charles said.
"Your wife ..." I muttered.
Why would anyone bring their wife to a house they had been renting for their mistress? It made about as much sense as a pelican with a fishing pole. I knew there had to be more to this whole thing. Like there was this big piece I was missing, and I couldn't help feeling it was right in front of my face.
"Stay where you are, and no one will get hurt."
