by Desiree Holt
“Everything’s just taking so damn long.” Lisa swiped her hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ears. “I’ve racked my brain again and again to see if I’ve missed anything, but I haven’t. The police said drug dealers would have let me know that’s what this was about. They’d want their so-called honor back. But who else could do this and make a little boy disappear so completely?”
“You don’t know what other enemies Charles had,” Josh reminded her. “Here.” He set a mug of hot tea on the little table beside her. “Drink this. It’ll settle your nerves.”
“I can’t handle any more of this, Josh.” Her eyes burned with tears she forcibly held back. “I can’t sleep because I have nightmares about Jamie. I can hardly focus on one thing at a time. A nervous breakdown would be almost a welcome relief.”
Josh knelt before her and took her hands. “Lisa, you’ve managed to hold it together this long, though God alone knows how. Please try to hold on a little longer. I know in my gut Ethan will do this, and he’ll find Jamie. Alive. He can reach into any black hole necessary. Anywhere. Can you just trust me on this?”
“All right.” She gripped the hands holding hers. “But he’d better have some good news for us when he returns.”
Chapter Five
“Help yourself to whatever you find.” Dino waved his hand around the small house. “The extra bedroom’s not much, but the bed has a good mattress. And there’s beer in the fridge. I’ll head back to the office and make some calls. Be back around seven, and we can catch some dinner.”
Ethan hoped his friend didn’t mean that literally. Fishing had never been an activity that appealed to him. He’d spent so much of his professional life sitting absolutely still in one place, when he was on his own time, he wanted to be able to move and make noise if the urge struck him.
Alone, he changed from the clothes he’d worn on the plane to shorts and a T-shirt that had seen far better days and slipped his feet into tattered Nikes.
“Buy yourself some decent clothes, for God’s sake,” Josh always ragged at him.
But he had no need for anything except what he had, and shopping was an experience more stressful than he needed.
“If my manner of dress offends people, they can just shove it up their collective asses,” he always said.
Now, in his ragtag clothes, he looked around the compact bungalow Dino called home. Tile floors picked up the tropical theme of the islands, and a huge window in the living room look out to the end of the street and the beach beyond. Even on this side street, tourists in every manner of garish dress were bumping along on the sidewalk, laughing and shrieking, carrying colorful bags from the island’s overpriced shops.
He opened the fridge and reached for a beer, thinking to plant himself on the front porch rocker, drinking and watching the world go by while he waited. But before he could snag a bottle, he slammed the door shut. He’d taken a good look at himself in the bathroom that morning, an action that brought home some painful truths. He was way out of shape. If he was required to do anything to get Jamie Mallory back more strenuous than using a cell phone, he had some serious work to do. And he needed to start now.
Locking the front door and pocketing the key Dino had left with him, he walked to the end of the block and onto the beach. In years past he’d run five miles every morning on beaches like this, or similar places. Now he was having trouble with an old man’s stroll.
Swallowing a sigh, he made his way to the hard-packed sand at the water’s edge and eased himself into a slow jog. By the time he’d covered a mile, he was sure he’d have a heart attack. He was leaning over, hands on his thighs, dragging air into his lungs, when a group of teenagers flew by him, waving and hooting.
“Damnation.”
He straightened, waited another minute for his pulse to slow a little more, then began the jog back. By the time he reached the bungalow, he was ready to call an ambulance, but he dragged himself up onto the porch and collapsed in the rocker.
He was still sitting there when Dino pulled into the narrow driveway just before seven. His friend took a look at him and laughed.
“Did someone leave a dead body on my porch, or are you still breathing?”
Ethan flapped a hand at him. “Ha ha. That’s a great sense of humor you’ve got.”
Dino punched him lightly on the arm, then leaned a hip against the porch rail, studying his friend. “What did you do to yourself? I only left you a few hours ago. I didn’t think you’d get into trouble so quickly.”
“It’s the new Ethan Caine Self-Improvement Program.”
“Put on a T-shirt that doesn’t stink quite so much, and we’ll get some food. I have things to tell you.”
****
Dino had brought printouts of two emails with him. Each contained pages of records that he and Ethan spread out on his kitchen table, a record of Charles Mallory’s life for the five years prior to his murder.
For hours, they sorted through copies of phone records, credit card receipts, travel records, client lists. By the end of the evening, a pattern had begun to emerge.
“Mexico.” Dino tapped his pen on the pad where he’d been making notes.
“Yeah, I’d say so,” Ethan agreed.
He’d drawn a big circle on the paper in front of him and made tick marks for phone calls to the same numbers, receipts for travel to the same places, clients with related addresses. The grouping of marks formed three clusters within the circle, all of them overlapping.
“Cancun,” Dino continued. “And Playa del Carmen. He shows money transfers for businesses in and out of there, businesses that I know are fronts for drug cartels. And don’t ask me how, okay?”
“So what now?”
“Remember how we used to do this, amigo?” Dino grinned, but there was no humor in it. He drew ten squares on a clean sheet of paper. “First we figure out who’s operating in the area, who the most likely people are Charles might have been doing business with—and you can bet that’s what took him there. Nobody takes that many vacations, and besides, it’s a perfect spot for drug dealing and money laundering.”
He plugged in his laptop and booted it up, his fingers dancing over the keys.
“Don’t tell me you can now Google drug cartels and guerilla groups.” Ethan’s tone was dry.
Dino nodded. “In a manner of speaking.” He turned the computer so both men could see the screen. “You’d be surprised what the government lists on its web sites these days. Especially if you say the secret word.”
Ethan looked. “I’ve kept an eye on it, believe it or not. Just out of idle curiosity.”
“Uh huh.” Dino tapped the screen. “Well then, just bear with me. So here we have Uncle’s list of known groups operating in the general area we’re interested in. You can eliminate these six.” He indicated them with a finger. “They’d never be involved in something like this.” He highlighted them and hit the delete key.
“And you know that because?” Ethan raised an eyebrow.
“Because in ten years we’ve gotten a pretty good sense of who’ll commit what crimes and what’s on the agenda of each group.”
“Nice of these guys to have a code of conduct.” Ethan helped himself to another bottle of water from the refrigerator, twisted off the cap and took a long swallow.
Dino looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Another part of the Caine Self-Improvement Program?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Okay.” Dino turned back to the laptop. “The guerillas are the kidnappers of choice just about everywhere. This is their business. They fund their activities with ransom money so we look at them first.”
Ethan rubbed his forehead. “But how would they be connected to Charles? Isn’t it a stretch from cartels to out and out nut cases?”
Dino shrugged. “Yet to be determined. But there’s too many things here connecting to each other to ignore them. There’s a link here somewhere.” He shut down the computer. “Tomorrow I can tap into some other s
ources that I’ve run a few…fishing charters for. Pick up some more info.”
Four more days passed while Dino did his thing, hunting information through his hidden contacts. Each morning, Ethan pulled himself out of bed and began his routine—jogging, swimming, more jogging, pushing himself until he was exhausted at the end of each day. He hadn’t had alcohol of any kind since he stepped off the plane, instead drinking huge amounts of water and Gatorade.
Dino chuckled when they ate that night, Ethan refusing anything but lean meat, broiled fish, and salads.
“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Let’s say the kid’s still alive and I have to get him out. I can’t afford to die halfway there.”
By the fifth day, Dino had scraped all the information from his sources he could. “These are some badass people your lady’s gotten herself hooked up with,” he told Ethan.
Ethan made a face. “She’s not my lady, and she’s not hooked up. I doubt if she even knows these people exist.”
Dino opened the folder he was carrying and began spreading papers out on the table. “So much the worse. She’ll have no idea what she’s up against.”
What he gave Ethan had more questions than answers. Through his sources, he’d been able to pinpoint one group as the most likely kidnappers. Their home base was in Cancun, although they sometimes operated out of Playa del Carmen.
“They call themselves Las Tormentas. The Storms. They say they sweep everything clean. People are afraid of them and say they are like a storm of devastation, leveling everything in their path. Shortly after Jamie was snatched, they got a new infusion of funds.”
Ethan memorized everything, then burned the papers they’d been working with and flushed the ashes down the toilet. When he came back into the living room, he had his carry bag with him. “I took a chance earlier that we’d be finished tonight. Made a reservation on the late flight to Tampa. But information isn’t the only thing I’ll need.”
“Equipment, you mean.”
“Yup. Hardware. Firepower. Night goggles. Stuff like that.”
Dino nodded. “I figured. I don’t know what you’re getting from Guardian and what you need from me. Some of their stuff may be too, uh, open for this.”
Ethan actually chuckled. “You mean too traceable. You’re right. We’ll get Nick on the phone, and you and he can figure it out.”
“I’ll work out a pickup with him for the stuff you can’t take on the plane. They can send their fancy helo for it.”
“Works for me. Let’s get to it.”
Ethan got Nick on the phone, introduced Dino, and they went over all the details. They discussed extraction, hopefully assuming they’d have Jamie with them. Nick had a team he was using, but Dino offered two of his men who knew the area.
By the time they finished the call, all the arrangements had been made. Tomorrow Nick would send the helo to gather whatever equipment of Dino’s that would be used and he’d put it together with the stuff from Guardian. For the first time since that last op had gone to fucking hell, Ethan felt a surge of emotion. Some friendships never died.
They made one traditional stop on the way to the airport, a last drink—rum and Coke for Dino, plain Coke for Ethan—at the Dolphin Bar at the pier where the Straits of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico meet.
“Can you believe people come here every evening just to celebrate the sun going down?” Ethan asked.
“Key West, my friend. It’s a ritual.” Dino tilted up his glass.
They both stared at the blending of the two bodies of water, knowing how many people had crossed that blurred line for reasons that would never come to light. Or how many were yet to come, including, very possibly, Ethan himself.
Dino finished his drink and gave Ethan a long look before he stood up. “Remember these aren’t people who want to play nice. Dios de protégé, my friend.”
God protect you.
****
Lisa slept fitfully, tormented by disturbing dreams. Somewhere a bell was ringing, and she couldn’t make it stop. She sat up abruptly, suddenly aware that it was not in her dream. It was her cell phone, and it was ringing insistently.
“H-Hello?” She pushed her hair from her face and tried to untangle the sheet from her body.
“Lisa? Hey. Wake up.”
“Josh?” She squinted at her alarm clock. Six a.m. “Has something happened? Oh, god, is it bad news about Jamie?”
“No, it’s good news. Get up. Ethan’s back, and he wants to talk to us.” His voice was controlled, but he couldn’t hide the edge of excitement.
He doesn’t want to get my hopes up.
Her breath caught. “Did he say anything?”
“No, but if he didn’t have anything to tell us, he wouldn’t have asked to see us, especially at this ungodly hour.”
“I’m getting up right now.” She kicked off the covers and headed for the bathroom. “Where does he want to meet?”
“Manny’s Diner. It’s a dive not far from downtown, but he feels comfortable there. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes. And Nick flew in late night. I’m guessing Ethan called him from the Keys.”
“He’s certainly racking up the frequent flyer miles for a job he’s not making money on. Couldn’t he have joined us by cell phone?”
“They can afford it, and he didn’t want to trust it to electronics. Go on, now. Get ready.”
She was waiting in the driveway, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other, long before Josh pulled up exactly twenty minutes later. She’d passed on makeup, only grabbing the jeans and sweatshirt she’d thrown on her chair the night before and tugging a ball cap over her pony-tailed hair.
“If the fashionistas could only see the famous Lisa Mallory now,” Josh chuckled, then looked at his sister’s face. “You have to ease up a little, sis. If Jamie’s alive, you’ve gotta keep it together.”
“I know, I know.” But the tension wouldn’t let go of her body. Throughout the short drive, she jiggled one leg and chewed her thumbnail.
Josh reached over and pressed a hand on her rapidly moving thigh, and she shoved it away.
“Lisa, if you don’t settle down, you’ll implode.”
“What if Jamie’s dead?” Her voice cracked. “What if that’s what Ethan wants to tell us?” She rubbed her hands nervously on her thighs.
Josh reached over and grabbed one of her hands, giving it a squeeze that said don’t panic yet. “Even Ethan Caine isn’t that insensitive. He’d handle that differently.”
“So you say. I’m not convinced.”
Josh wheeled the car into a gravel parking lot surrounding an old railroad dining car painted black. A chipped sign over the door read Manny’s and under it Come On In.
“What is this place?” Lisa frowned. “It’s a far cry from The Club.”
“Ethan feels comfortable here,” he told her. “I have a sneaking suspicion he owns it.”
Lisa grunted. “He should invest a little in decorating.”
A rundown restaurant for a rundown man.
Nick Vanetta pulled up in his rental just as they exited their car, and the three of them entered the restaurant.
Inside, one end was blocked off for the kitchen and bathroom. The rest of the interior was jammed with a row of cracked vinyl booths and a scarred counter.
Ethan was sitting in the end booth at the back, facing the door. His gaze met hers as she came toward him, but his face gave nothing away.
Her eyes widened as she took in his appearance. He’d shaved his beard, trimmed inches off his dark hair, and his face sported a hot-looking shade of red, thanks to a sunburn. The fleshiness around his chin and eyes had shrunk, and his eyes seemed sharper, clearer, although the traces of anguish were still visible. The plate in front of him held scrambled eggs and tomato slices, with a mug of black coffee on the side.
“Jesus.” Josh’s voice was hushed. “Where is Ethan Caine and what have you done with him?”
Ethan grunted. �
��That’s some comedy act. Maybe you should take it on the road.”
Nick sat down beside Ethan while she and Josh settled themselves opposite them. A heavyset man in jeans, a T-shirt, and a not-so-spotless white apron approached with four glasses of water, four mugs, and a carafe of coffee.
“Menu’s up on the wall,” he told them, filling the mugs.
Nick accepted a full mug while Josh and Lisa both shook their heads.
The man shrugged. “Suit yourselves.” He set the carafe on the table and walked away.
“What’s with the new diet?” Josh squinted at the plate. “Where’s the truckload of food you usually eat?”
“You should try it some time. Eating right is eating healthy.”
Josh burst out laughing. “Ethan Caine concerned about his diet and…”
“Stop.” Lisa curled her hands around her water glass. “We aren’t here to discuss eating habits. Or menus. Or make jokes.” She turned a glare toward Ethan. “Where have you been? I knew this was a mistake.”
Nick cleared his throat. “Mrs. Mallory, I—”
“Lisa, please. I think we’re past formalities here.”
“Okay, Lisa. I know how desperate you are for news of your son. I have one, too, and I know how I’d feel if this happened to him. But let me assure you of this. If I was in your shoes, if this were my son, I’d want Ethan Caine to be the man heading the search. That’s about the strongest recommendation I can give.”
She shifted her gaze to the man in question. “So what made you decide to do this?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I’m a sucker for kids. Doesn’t matter. I said I’d do it and I will.”
“Why did you run off to the Keys?” she demanded.
He took a swallow of his coffee, his eyes glued to her face. “I went to see a friend. Someone who could help me figure this out.”
“And?” She’d kill him if he didn’t tell her something soon. “No bullshit, Mr. Caine. Is Jamie alive or dead?”
Ethan took so long answering Lisa wanted to leap across the table and yank the words from his mouth.
He took another sip of coffee and set his mug down with a precise movement before looking up at her. “I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing he’s still alive.”
