Someone's Watching (19 page)

He lay down on the bench and lifted the barbell slowly over his chest. A hundred and sixty pounds. All the way up, then slowly down.

When he was alone, with time to think, the memories would come at him in a rush. His mother making breakfast, sipping coffee. His father bent over his computer in his office, Mozart playing in the background. Robbie sticking her tongue out at him. But wait, that came later. He always thought of Robbie with his parents. It was as though she was a bridge to them. An easy, accessible bridge. And without her, the connection to them was so much more painful.

Sweat soaked through his T-shirt. He lifted the barbell all the way up, then slowly down.

He wished he had the balls to call her. Seeing Robbie at BURN the other night was like being offered a candy bar, then having it pulled right out of your mouth. But he wasn’t going to call her. Let Robbie make the move when she was ready. If she was ever ready.

He raised the barbell straight up, then lowered it. Slowly up, then slowly down. His arms trembled under the strain. Slowly up, then slowly down.

There was a change in the air behind him. Someone standing nearby. Jeremy could feel eyes on him. A tense energy.

The barbell shook. Jeremy almost lost his grip. He brought it down cautiously, sat up, and turned. Brett was just behind the bench.

“Brett,” Jeremy said. “What’s up, man?”

“I want to know who the hell you think you are.”

Jeremy remembered Friday night at BURN. How pissed Brett had been that Jeremy and Robbie were talking.

Jeremy stood. Brett’s hands were in fists. He was a couple of inches taller than Jeremy, but Jeremy felt he had the advantage in muscle bulk.

The other guys who were working out slowed their movements and watched them.

Even in the darkened room, Jeremy could tell Brett’s face was red. A vein was throbbing in his forehead in time to the music.

Ba-boom. Ba-boom.

Brett spoke first. “Why are you talking to fucking detectives?”

So that’s what this was about. Jeremy felt a moment’s annoyance. Had Lieber mentioned Jeremy’s name or had Brett figured out that Jeremy had told her? “Chill, man,” Jeremy said. “She just asked who was at BURN Friday night. Everyone saw you there. It’s not like I was giving away any big secrets.”

“I don’t like my name thrown around.”

Jeremy started to reach for his barbell, but Brett grabbed Jeremy’s arm, his fingers digging in. “I said I don’t like my name thrown around.”

Jeremy pulled out of his grip. “Get your damn hands off me.”

“I want to know that you’ll keep out of my business.”

“Are you serious? What’s your problem?”

“Say it, Stroeb. ‘I promise to keep out of Brett Chandler’s business.’ ”

“You’re an asshole, Brett. I can’t believe Robbie’s wasting her time with you.”

Jeremy saw the punch coming and blocked it before Brett’s fist connected with his face. “Hey, man. This isn’t the place.”

“It’s your fucking fault,” Brett said. “What did you tell her about me?”

“I didn’t tell Lieber shit.”

“Not the detective. Robbie. What did you tell Robbie? She talks to you and the next thing I know she’s done with me.”

Robbie dumped Brett? Jeremy felt a warm sensation ooze through his veins. “Robbie’s a smart girl,” Jeremy said. “She can figure things out herself.”

Brett pounced on Jeremy, catching him in the chest and knocking the breath out of him.

Jeremy recovered and lunged toward Brett, but a couple of the bodybuilders grabbed his arms. Two others were holding Brett back.

“That’s enough, dudes,” someone said. “Go somewhere else if you want to beat each other’s brains out.”

Brett shrugged off the guys hanging onto his arms. He ran his fingers angrily through his spiked blond hair. “This isn’t the end, Stroeb. You’re getting in my face and I don’t like it.”

The two guys who were holding Jeremy released him. Jeremy picked up the barbell and walked away, the cool darkness all around him.

Robbie had broken up with the asshole.

Ba-boom, ba-boom.

Ba-boom.

At a little after eleven on Monday morning, feeling as though she had nothing else to lose, Robbie got on her bicycle and pedaded. East. Toward the gym. To Jeremy.

Was she crazy? Or was this the sanest thing she’d done in months?

Yesterday, after Lieber left Robbie’s apartment, Robbie had studied the street map she’d marked up with South Beach clubs. But doubts about her plan to spend Sunday night looking for Kate at any of them grew. Was that really the most likely place to find her sister? The bottled water receipt Lieber had found in Joanne’s car had been from a Circle K in Key Largo.

Not South Beach.

Robbie wasn’t sure why, but she had this nagging feeling that’s where her sister was.

She biked down a side street, swerving to avoid a construction truck that was backing up. What if Jeremy wasn’t at work? Or what if he was and didn’t want to help her?

She turned onto Collins Avenue and slowed. Jeremy’s gym was up a couple of blocks, but the entire street was obstructed by equipment and men in hardhats who were digging up the road and sidewalk.

Robbie got off her bike and walked it. A temporary chain-link fence cut off all traffic.

She had to get to Jeremy.

She told herself it was because she needed his help. But was that the real reason? So much had happened over the last few days that she felt tangibly altered. As though she wasn’t the same person who had tried to distance herself from Jeremy these past months.

She maneuvered her bike around the fence, ignoring the shouts from the construction workers. The sound of a jackhammer started up and white dust rose all around her, settling on her hair, arms, T-shirt, and jeans. She kept walking, pushing her bike along.

But what about Jeremy? How would he feel about her showing up, especially after the scene with Brett on Friday night?

She stopped, only barely aware of the hammering. The ground vibrated beneath her, making her feel woozy.

Maybe she should have called him. But this wasn’t something she wanted to do over the phone. She wanted Jeremy to see her. So he would understand how much—

“Robbie.” The shout came from just ahead, beyond the construction. Through the cloud of dust. Jeremy’s voice.

She went quickly toward it, pushing her bike forward over broken cement.

And then she felt someone take hold of the bike and drag it beyond the torn-up street. The hammering stopped. The dust cleared.

“Jesus,” Jeremy said, still holding the handlebars. “Are you crazy? You’re in the middle of a construction site. You could get hit by flying debris or something.”

“I needed to see you.”

He was scowling, but at her words the frown lifted. “That’s interesting. Because I was on my way to see you.”

“You were?”

His lips twitched like he was holding back a smile. He reached over and removed a small piece of chalky debris from her hair.

“Why?” she asked.

The hammering started up again. Jeremy signaled for her to follow him. He locked her bike against a post, then took her hand and led her down a side street toward the ocean. They reached the oceanfront path where Robbie liked to run. The wide buildings screened the construction sounds; they were surrounded by the rush of the waves breaking, the screeching of birds.

“So you were saying something about needing to see me?” Jeremy asked, ignoring her question. His black T-shirt was soaked through as though he’d just finished a workout.

Now wasn’t the time for an emotional watershed. She was here because of her sister. Whatever else was going on inside her had to wait. “I need to go to Key Largo.”

He tilted his head, waiting for her to continue.

A group of joggers ran by on the path, forcing Jeremy and Robbie to move aside. Robbie glanced over the barrier of sea oats at the wide expanse of beach. She turned back to Jeremy. “I think my sister may be there.”

“Oh yeah?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Lieber told me there was a receipt for two bottles of water in Joanne’s car. It was from a Circle K in Key Largo, and it was dated the Friday the girls disappeared.”

“But Joanne’s body was found here in Indian Creek.”

“I know. But I need to figure out what the girls were doing in Key Largo.”

“So you came to say goodbye?”

“Actually.” Robbie pushed her hair behind her ear. “I was wondering if you’d mind driving me. Sixty miles is a bit far to go by bike.”

He glanced up the street to where they’d left her bicycle just beyond the construction. “Yeah, I can definitely see where that would be a problem.”

Robbie watched Jeremy. He was holding the steering wheel, his toolong brown hair blowing helter-skelter by the breeze through the windows of his father’s old red Corvair.

Jeremy had showered, changed into faded jeans and a white T-shirt, and cancelled his appointments before picking her up from her apartment. Robbie had also cleared her schedule with Leonard and asked for the next couple of days off.

As they drove, Robbie told Jeremy about her reconciliation with her father and what she had been doing to find her sister. They were soon out of Miami, heading south on the turnpike, windows open to compensate for the broken A/C. The conversation dwindled. Robbie looked out at tract-housing communities and car dealerships, then at groves of palm trees—unnatural, perfect rows of cabbage palms, royals, and silvery Bismarck palms.

Jeremy seemed to be waiting her out. She almost asked again why he had been on his way to see her, but didn’t want to press him.

The turnpike ended at U.S. 1 and they slowed as they passed a giant outlet mall, then an ugly stretch of fast-food restaurants, gas stations, billboards, and motels.

“Last chance,” Jeremy said.

“Last chance for what?” She felt herself blush.

He pointed to a sign on their right. “Last Chance Saloon. No booze until we get to Key Largo. Think you can make it?”

She grinned back at him.

The billboards fell away with the traffic lights. They picked up speed as they left Florida City behind. Robbie could smell a change in the air—warmer and saltier. Her feathered earrings fluttered in the breeze.

Jeremy slid a cassette into the tape player. Mozart’s
Requiem
. The music sent shivers through her. It was what they had listened to the last time they’d left Miami together. When it was just the two of them, and anything was possible.

“So,” Jeremy said, “do you have a plan?”

Robbie pulled herself back from the Mozart. “Of course.”

“And?”

“First, I thought we’d stop at the Circle K and see if anyone remembers seeing Kate or Joanne. I brought the flyers with their pictures. Maybe the girls said something to the store clerk about where they were going.”

Jeremy nodded. “Then?”

“Well. I tried to think like an eighteen-year-old. Why would they have gone down there, except probably to party? So I Googled bars and clubs from Key Largo to Islamorada and printed them out.”

“Good.”

“We can take the flyers around and see if anyone recognizes them. Then I think we should check out motels where the girls may have spent the night. Lieber said she had someone doing that, but, well, you know.”

“I do know.” There was a laugh in his voice. “You’re still such a control freak.”

She knew he meant it with admiration, but it rankled Robbie. She wasn’t that much of a control freak.

“But I agree,” he said. “It’s not likely Lieber’s people spoke to every single person who may have seen your sister. Besides, I think the locals are more likely to talk to you than to cops.”

They continued down the straight, two-lane highway that followed the abandoned Florida East Coast Railway right-of-way. Signs warned them to drive slowly. The scenery had become monotonous—flat, brown swampland with occasional stands of Australian pines and little islands of jungly trees. Powerline posts zipped by at even intervals.

Robbie realized with heightened awareness this was the route her sister would have taken. Was Kate still down here? And if so, how did Joanne’s Volvo get back to Miami, and why?

“Brett came by to see me,” Jeremy said, jarring Robbie back to the moment.

“He did? When?”

“This morning. At the gym.” Jeremy kept his eyes on the road. There were construction barricades on the shoulders.

“What did he want?”

“To beat the shit out of me.”

“Seriously?”

“It sure looked that way.”

“Why?”

“He said it was because I told Lieber he was at BURN Friday night, but he seemed more upset about something else.”

White egrets were perched on the branches of dead trees, and dense, tangled mangroves rose out of the dark, swampy water.

“I ended things with him.”

“That’s what I picked up.”

“He blamed you?”

“Let’s just say he thinks I was a motivating factor.” Jeremy slowed as a car passed on their left in the oncoming traffic lane. “Idiot,” he said. “Can’t he see this is a no passing zone?”

“I should have done it sooner,” Robbie said. “I didn’t realize how different his and my values are.”

“I guess he didn’t like being told it was about him, so he’s looking for someone to lay it on.”

“Did he make a scene?”

“He had to. The guy’s got a big ego.”

Robbie rested her arm on the window frame and watched a thicket of trees go by. She hadn’t noticed that side of Brett until recently. The early days of their relationship had been all about having fun.

“So now that Brett’s out of the picture,” Jeremy said, “I was wondering—Shit!” He slammed on the brakes and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. A black car with tinted windows, passing on their left, cut in front of them suddenly to avoid an oncoming car.

“Jesus, what an asshole.” Jeremy pushed down on the horn and held it for a few seconds.

An arm popped out of the driver’s window of the black car, giving them the finger. Then the car pulled back into the oncoming traffic lane and disappeared ahead of them.