Cut and Run (30 page)

Horatio pulled out his phone as he walked up to the rental truck. “Calleigh? I need you to run a plate for me.”

As he'd expected, Calleigh told him the truck had been rented to Randilyn Breakwash. “Got something else for you, too, H. Think I've figured out who the third partner has to be…”

Horatio listened. “Yes, that makes sense. Good work. I'll let you know how things go at this end.” He snapped his phone shut just as Wolfe and Eric returned.

“A woman fitting Randilyn's description came through here a few hours ago, towing a boat on a trailer,” said Wolfe. “A tugboat. She offloaded it and headed east.”

Horatio nodded. “Of course. Shallow draft, strong motor. Eric?”

“The airboat's ours. McCulver's firing it up right now.”

“Good. Eric, put your diving gear aboard; you and I are going with McCulver. Mister Wolfe, you're our eyes in the air. Go.”

 

Wolfe spotted the tugboat in a fairly wide channel amid the mangroves. He grabbed the heavy-duty walkie-talkie and told Horatio, talking loudly to be heard above the rotors. Horatio acknowledged and directed McCulver which direction to head in, then told Wolfe to head back to Flamingo; there wasn't much he could do to help now. There was also little point in stealth—both the airboat and chopper could be heard coming from miles away.

Randilyn Breakwash, dressed in a wetsuit, came out of the wheelhouse as they approached. The sleeves of the suit were cut off, exposing her burn-spotted arms, and she held one cupped hand palm up in front of her. She didn't look surprised, just defeated.

“Randilyn,” said Horatio as McCulver cut the motor and the airboat drifted up to bump against the tug. “I'm afraid your treasure hunt is over.”

She looked at him with dull eyes. “It's gone.”

Behind the tug, the tip of one white wing projected a few feet above the water. Horatio could see how easily it could be missed, or mistaken for something else from a distance.

Randilyn held out her cupped hand. “This is what I found. It was in a small leather pouch around the pilot's neck.”

Horatio stepped aboard and took her hand gently. Cradled in it were a bunch of white shards, gleaming iridescently in the sun.

“The crash must have crushed them between his breastbone and the throttle,” she said.
“La Pellegrina
.
La Huerfana
. Both of them, destroyed.”

“And the paintings?” asked Horatio.

“Underwater for two decades. Ruined.” The look on her face was twisting from shock to anger. “He knew. He
knew
! He knew there was nothing left, knew it had all been a waste of time—”

“Yes,” said Horatio. “But he didn't know you were planning on killing him, did he?”

“You don't understand. I stood by him for so many years. All those crazy ideas, all those plans…I really believed in him, you know? At first. But somehow, my whole life slipped away waiting for Tim to strike it rich, for one of his ideas to pay off. I just couldn't do it anymore. I stopped thinking about Tim's treasure hunting as any kind of possibility and started looking at it as a vice, like gambling. And if he deserved his vice, I deserved one of my own.”

“Is that when you started up with Joel Greer?”

She looked away. “Yes. I was never serious about Joel. I just wanted something…something of my own. My own secret treasure.”

“But then your husband found the real thing. And you were the first one he confided in.”

“Not the first.” Randilyn shook her head. “He had a partner. He wouldn't tell me who, just said he'd never have found the plane without him. Said he had inside information no one else did.”

Horatio nodded. “Fredo Bolivar, the man who tortured you. But you couldn't tell him what you didn't know, could you?”

McCulver jumped aboard the tug. “Hold on, Horatio. I know I'm coming late to this game, but I'm getting confused. Did she know where the treasure was or not?”

“She knew the coordinates, yes. A simple series of numbers, longitude and latitude. Probably the most important numbers she ever had to memorize, and just to be safe she and her husband wrote them down inside a venting flap in the balloon. But then an unexpected factor was introduced; another partner. More accurately, a silent partner.”

“Who?” asked McCulver.

“Pfiesteria piscicida,”
said Horatio. “The cell from hell. Timothy Breakwash had samples of it in his lab. They were simply for comparison, but all the biohazard labels made you suspicious, didn't it, Randilyn? You thought Tim was holding something back. You did a little surreptitious investigating—and exposed yourself to the organism.”

“I didn't think it was dangerous,” she said. “The way Tim talked about it, it mainly affected fish.”

“Mainly, yes. But
Pfiesteria
has also been known to cause neurological symptoms in people. One of those symptoms is headaches. And another,” said Horatio, “is temporary amnesia.”

Delko had joined them aboard the boat. “She forgot the coordinates?”

“That's right. And by the time she realized it, it was too late; Timothy had already triggered her trap. Don't bother denying it, Randilyn—we found the doctored binoculars, and we have your prints on the mechanism.”

Delko had an evidence envelope ready; he took Randilyn's hand and dumped what she held into it. Then he pulled out a set of handcuffs. “You're under arrest,” he told her.

“So this is it,” said McCulver. He stared at the wingtip as if he couldn't believe it was real. “Rodriguo's really down there.”

“The one that got away,” said Horatio. “Seems he didn't get quite as far as he'd planned.”

McCulver nodded. “Never thought I'd see the day. Guess I have you to thank, Horatio.”

“We couldn't have done it without your help.”

“What happens now?”

“Well, I have to escort Mrs. Breakwash back to Miami. Eric will stay behind to start processing the site; I'd appreciate it if you could be his spotter while he's in the water.”

“Wouldn't miss it for the world. But I thought you needed me to pilot the airboat?”

Horatio smiled. “You're mistaken, Mister McCulver.” He stepped back into the airboat, and took out his sunglasses. “Enjoy your big fish.” He put them on, then helped Randilyn into the boat.

He radioed ahead while Delko offloaded his diving gear, made sure Wolfe would be waiting with the chopper in Flamingo. Randilyn Breakwash, her hands cuffed in front of her, sat in the prow and stared silently ahead. Horatio started up the engine.

The airboat made too much of a racket to talk, but Horatio didn't know what he'd ask her, anyway.
Was it worth it? How did it feel, to betray the one you loved for so long, only to have your own mind betray you?

He found himself thinking about memory, about how it was a map of the past that led to places both valued and treacherous. It seemed to him that painful memories remained the sharpest, while the good ones, the ones you most wanted to remember, faded faster than the rest. He could still remember the exact sound his dog had made as his father kicked it…but the other day, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember the color of the dress Marisol had worn on their first date. It was a small detail, an unimportant bit of trivia, but it bothered him deeply. It was an erosion of something good and fine in his life, an erosion that would continue year after year until even her face would be hazy.

It was simple biology, he knew. An organism that remembers what causes it pain is an organism that survives. It was science, not philosophy.

He took a deep breath of the rich Everglades air, and tried to remember Marisol's perfume.
There. Lilac, with a touch of vanilla. Not gone yet…

Not yet.