Florida Is Murder (Due Justice and Surface Tension Mystery Double Feature) (Florida Mystery Double Feature) (64 page)

I trotted outside to the large shed where the Larsens stored some more gear. There was a small padlock on a thin metal hasp, and I picked up a geranium-filled urn and bashed the lock. It let go on the third bash. In amongst the bikes and water skis and windsurfers, sure enough, I found tanks, regulators, masks, and fins. The fins were huge, even for me, but they’d work. I took what I needed and walked down to the dock. I was surprised Abaco didn’t join me, but I decided she must be nosing around with Sunny. With the boat hook, I retrieved the Whaler and tied it up to the dock. After dropping the dive gear in the dinghy, I jogged back up to the house.

“How’re you doing?”

B.J. shrugged.

“Where’s Sunny?” I asked.

“She hasn’t come back.”

B.J. didn’t look so great. He needed to see a doctor soon. “I’m going to go see what’s taking her so long.”

As I slipped out the back door of the Larsens’ place, I stepped into the bushes that ran along the base of the house and surveyed the yard. Sunny should have been back by now. How long could it take to call 911 at four in the morning? Something was wrong. Keeping my body low to the ground, I trotted across the grass to my cottage and peeked around the corner of the door.

“Sunny?” I whispered. “You there?”

Nothing.

It took no more than fifteen seconds to glance into the bedroom, into the bathroom, and behind the bar in the kitchen. I picked up the phone on the bar to dial the police myself. It was dead.

Maybe she had gone next door to the neighbors’. Maybe the phones were out all over the neighborhood. Or maybe the crew out in front of the house had cut the phones to this property. I was still standing there staring at the dead receiver when I heard a soft whine.

“Abaco?” I said aloud, and the whine grew louder.

I followed the sound to the walk-in closet in my bedroom. Even without the lights, I could see the outline of a girl, her hands and feet tied with rope, her mouth gagged with a scarf of my mother’s I’d saved for years but never worn. Next to her, a huge pile of my clothing had been dumped off the hangers and then covered with my spare anchor chain. It was from inside the pile I heard the weak whine. I shoved the clothing aside until Abaco’s head came clear. She licked my hand, then squirmed out, groggy from lack of oxygen but alive. Sunny’s eyes held that too-familiar terror.

The girl’s arms and legs were bound with some light polypropylene line I’d had stored in my closet, and the knots were so tight I couldn’t budge them. “Just a minute. I’m going to get you out of here.” I went to the kitchen and was about to open a drawer to grab a knife when Abaco started barking like mad.

“Shh.” I grabbed the dog in the middle of the living room just as James Long poked his head around the open front door.

“Hello? Seychelle?”

I held the squirming dog tight as James walked in, cool and immaculate in his violet silk shirt, open at the neck, and his long, crisply pleated wheat-colored slacks. Abaco wouldn’t stop barking.

“Abaco, no! Shh!” I stroked her head and grabbed her muzzle while keeping her in a headlock.

“Seychelle, are you okay?” He sounded genuinely concerned.

“What are you doing here?”

“I got this call from Sunny on my cell. She told me to come over here fast, that you were in trouble.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, offering it as though it proved his story was true.

Abaco was still growling deep in her throat. I didn’t dare let her go.

“What’s going on here, Seychelle? What did she mean by trouble?” He held his hands wide, his palms lifted. “What can I do to help?”

“Sunny called you?”

“Yes. Where is she?” He looked around the combined living room/kitchen and then headed into the bedroom. Abaco tried to lunge at him as he walked past us, and it took all my strength to hold the dog back.

From the bedroom I heard him say, “Sunny, it’s okay. I’m here now.” There was something not quite right about how he said it. It was too calm.

I got my fingers firmly around the dog’s collar and dragged her to the bathroom, and locked the door.

When I turned around, James was kneeling in the closet opening, and he had freed the rope around Sunny’s legs with a small keychain knife. He helped her to her feet. He’d removed her gag, and she shouted, “Sey!” before her voice was cut short so suddenly, the silence that followed sounded louder than her cry.

In my dark bedroom, the scene lacked color of any sort. The walls, the closet with the swaying empty hangers, the back of James’s head, all were colored only in black and white and muted shades of gray. In that quick glimpse I’d caught of her face, Sunny’s wide white eyes and pale skin made me remember James’s paintings hanging in the gallery down on Las Olas.

“James, what ...,” I started to say, but then I saw that same little half smile on his face, his head cocked to one side. His hand was wrapped around her throat, his brown skin contrasting with hers, the position grotesque yet familiar.

“James, let go of her!” I grabbed his arm and tried to wrench it free. A burst of lights went off in my head, and I found myself on the floor, the side of my head feeling like a firecracker had exploded in my ear.

“Man, that feels good.” Cesar was standing just inside the door to my room, smiling and rubbing his fist. Zeke pushed past him and took James by the arm.

“Mr. Long, not yet. We can still use her.” He peeled James’s fingers from Sunny’s neck. She began coughing and gasping for air. Zeke shook his head and said to Cesar, “The man just doesn’t know his own strength.”

James adjusted his shirt and cleared his throat, blinking at Zeke for a moment as though struggling to remember who he was. “That’s enough, Zeke.”

“No disrespect, but the boss would be pissed if you did this one before he got a shot at her.”

In the video. The arm.

I launched myself at James before I’d had time to think it through. A high-pitched wail filled the room, and even I was startled at some deep level to realize the sound had come from me.

Finally, Zeke grabbed me about my midsection and pulled me off him. James had never stopped smiling.

***

B.J. was half asleep or unconscious when we all came into the house through the kitchen, but the noise woke him, and he started to heave himself up off the couch before he saw the gun in Zeke’s hand.

“What...”

“Relax, lie back down,” James said. He turned on a small lamp. “See, everyone here is fine.”

“Sey...”

I didn’t answer him. There was nothing left in me. Zeke pushed me toward the love seat, and I fell back into the cushions and covered my face with my hands.

I had kissed those lips. I had touched him, laughed with him. If we hadn’t been interrupted that night by someone, probably Neal, looking in the window, I might have slept with him. First Neal, then James. What was wrong with me? I rubbed at my lips and felt dampness, and realized I had been crying.

Cesar dragged Sunny into the room with his big hand clamped over her mouth. “I think she likes me.” He stuck out his thick tongue and ran it over the side of her face.

“Hey, let her go,” B.J. said, pushing up into a sitting position and then finding Zeke’s gun again pointed at his face.

Sunny’s eyes met mine, looking not so much afraid as resigned. Cesar’s hand held her head tight against his upper abdomen.

I forced myself to sit up on the couch. “Dammit, James.” Even my voice sounded soft. “Make him leave her alone.”

“Seychelle, you’re so predictable. It’s certainly made it easy to follow you. We would have been here sooner except for the fact that this idiot”—he motioned toward Cesar—“couldn’t put two and two together when he heard the boat engines start up earlier.”

Cesar looked at James through his wide-set eyes and his upper lip curled.

“I’m surrounded by idiots.” He waved his hand at Zeke and Cesar.

Cesar’s grip on Sunny’s head grew so tight, the blood drained from his fingers. He and James were locked in some sort of staring match.

“She’s just a kid, James,” I said. When I got no response, I added, “I don’t know why I’m even bothering. You’re no different from either of them.” I jerked my head toward Cesar and Zeke.

“Actually, I’m quite different.” James turned to face me, and his smile turned into a self-satisfied smirk. “I see her as a commodity. I understand the business potential. Men have an appetite for young girls like Sunny.” He spread his hands apart, palms up. “It’s the law of supply and demand.”

“You sick, twisted jerk.”

“No, Seychelle, it’s not that much different from selling cars or shoes. I’m just a good businessman. It takes a certain kind of talent—insight, if you will—to recognize opportunities.”

“Talent? Who are you kidding?”

“I’m serious. I first met Crystal at a Harbor House fund-raiser, and I recognized the opportunity immediately. I could see he was fascinated with what I did, working with young girls every day. He told me he was interested in meeting privately with young girls, and I had an endless supply of runaways. We never had enough beds for all of them at Harbor House, anyway.”

“Stop it. Why are you telling me this?”

He reached over, took my hand, and pressed it between his. I yanked my hand back as though I’d been burned. “I’m just a good businessman, that’s all. Crystal’s the one with the need, always wanting someone fresh, unsuspecting, someone who will fight hard. Who am I to judge? Live and let live.” He laughed out loud then, as though at some private joke.

“When it was just the beatings, I paid the girls well, and they left happy. He got jobs for some of them in the club, and they could make lots of money there.

“Then he started with the video camera. The timing was perfect. I got us onto the Internet, contracted with servers around the world.”

“That’s right, Long,” Cesar said, his guttural voice lower than usual. “You’re the man.” He turned to me. “Dude never wanted to get his hands dirty, always acting like he’s better than us, till one day he found out he likes squeezing off chicks.”

James moved so fast, Cesar never saw it coming. Sunny fell to the floor and James held Cesar’s wrist twisted high behind his back. “No one asked your opinion, now, did we, Mr. Esposito?”

When Cesar didn’t answer James applied more pressure to the bent wrist. Cesar grunted.

“I didn’t hear you.”

“I said I’m fucking sorry,” Cesar said, his voice strained.

The room seemed unnaturally quiet just before we heard the crack of breaking bone, followed by Cesar’s scream.

James smiled as he looked down at the man now crumpled on the floor cradling his wrist and whimpering. Then he smoothed out imaginary creases in his clothing, reached into the pocket of his slacks, and pulled out a cell phone. “You look a mess, Seychelle, you know that? That’s a shame, beautiful girl like you.”

“James, Neal’s outsmarted us all. He’s out there collecting Crystal’s money,” I said.

He flipped open the phone and began to dial.

“He took
Gorda
and went out there over an hour ago. I was going to go out in my Whaler and stop him, but since you’ve been playing games and telling us your life story, he’s probably had time to grab it all and take off.”

“Crystal,” he said, “yes.” He turned his back to us and spoke into the phone. “Yes, sir we’re here at the girl’s place.” He stared straight at me. “All right,” he said, “then you’ll bring the
Hard Bottom
down here, pick them up, and meet us out there.” He laughed. “You’re right.”

He snapped the phone shut and slid it into his pants pocket. “Zeke, the dive gear, in the car.” He jerked his head, and Zeke Moss hurried toward the front door. “Crystal says you and I are to go ahead without them. You find the wreck site, and I’ll take care of Garrett. Our friends will be along to join us later.”

***

As we rode the tide downriver, I could see the sky lightening behind the houses and trees. The stars were slowly winking out as a watery blue tinged with pink washed in from the east. James sat next to me on the varnished wood midships seat. His thighs showed a tan line—the trunks he had borrowed from Mr. Larsen’s bedroom were too short for his long legs. Between his feet lay the mesh dive bag Zeke had brought in from their car with all the shiny new equipment: mask, fins, and Cesar’s ever-present bang stick. I was more nervous about the firepower of the pressure-sensitive bang stick bouncing around on the floor of the dinghy than I was about the gun that he held low, tucked under his arm, barely visible.

By the time we reached the Intracoastal, dozens of sportfishing boats were headed to the harbor entrance, deckhands readying the baits and outriggers in the growing light. Those big charter boats usually passed me when I was running my tug, but this morning in the Whaler I jockeyed my way between and around them and pounded my way out through the swells in the harbor channel.

At the sea buoy, the charter boats fanned out in all directions, their white wakes etched in the water like the spokes of a wheel. The rim of the sun peeked over the horizon, and within seconds, the whole orb popped into the sky. The sea was flat, and the tiny wavelets reflected back the horizontal rays, making the sea look covered in jewels. The day was shaping up to be hot and almost windless, with no sign of yesterday’s squalls. Summer was nearly upon us. I knew exactly where to head— north, off the condos of Galt Ocean Mile. The coordinates were etched in my memory, the picture of the chart clear in my mind. As we flew up the coast, I tried to come up with a plan, to figure out just what I would do once we got there. When I could make out the
Gorda
rolling slightly in the little waves, anchored in the same spot I’d found the
Top Ten
just a few days ago, I still didn’t have a clue.

Chapter XXVIII

We were about a hundred yards off
Gorda
when James waved his hand, palm down, motioning me to slow down. Faintly, across the water and over the sound of our own outboard, we could hear the higher-pitched roar of an engine running. I knew that sound.

“What’s that noise?”

I couldn’t see any reason not to tell him. “It’s a compressor. I use it for filling scuba tanks, hookah diving sometimes.”