The Trust (32 page)

“Your word is shit, O’Rourke.”

“What’s the point of hurting her?”

“Because I enjoy it.” He sneered and pushed me from behind as we walked the beach.

Ricardo’s smug self-satisfaction repulsed me. The ocean shimmered like Bombay sapphires, the water so clear I could see our shadows rippling on the sand two feet down. But the pleasures, the visual feasts of an island paradise, were lost on me as we walked. And I think it was that moment when my dignity finally returned.

Palmer’s wife occupied every corner of my mind. She was suffering, bleeding, gagging. Ricardo’s confederates, for all I knew, were stuffing her full of that damn insulation. I had no idea what was happening back at Rafter’s on Sullivan’s Island.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To clean up. You look like puked-up balut. And that won’t cut it at the bank.”

“What’s balut?”

“Hard-boiled duck embryo.”

“What town is this?”

“Providenciales.” He pushed me again.

My five senses were kicking into overdrive. I could see, feel, and smell everything. I could still taste the duct tape. And strangely, I heard the slightest note of hesitation in Ricardo’s voice. Perhaps it was uncertainty over the $200 million payment.

“Provo?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I had never been to Turks and Caicos. But my clients tell me about “Provo” all the time. Some own houses along the beach. “What bank?”

“You ask too many questions. Pick up the pace.”

Ricardo pushed me again, which pissed me off. For a moment, I thought he might be inviting me to throw a punch. Bile was washing up my throat, the muscles in my arms were growing taut, and the spring was returning to my legs.

My head was buzzing. But this time it was Annie’s words that came to mind. “Get down there and fight.”

Another push. I exercised restraint. You don’t suffer total humiliation in one breath and throw a punch the next. Plus, there was JoJo. Ricardo would call his goon at Rafter’s the minute I blinked the wrong way.

“Stop shoving, okay?”

“We haven’t forgotten our working agreement, have we, dear?”

Dick.

I wanted to kick the ever-living shit out of him. That’s the thing about anger. It gets the blood going, clarifies the muddle.

Suddenly, I realized that Ricardo had not used his cell phone since we left Charleston. I looked over, eyed the spider-sun climbing up his arm, and witnessed the most beautiful sight.

No watch.

I slowed down, not abruptly, but one step at a time. “Where’d you get your tattoo?”

“What the fuck difference does it make?”

“Just curious.”

“Pasig City.”

“Does your tattoo mean something in the Philippines?”

“Just keep walking.” Ricardo was all business. He had no interest in the small talk.

Nor did I. “How long before we get to your place?”

“Five minutes, maybe ten.”

“You know what time it is?”

“What difference does it make?”

“We’ve been traveling all night. Maybe we could get some breakfast.” I wasn’t hungry in the least. I was testing him. Trying to determine whether he would reach into his pocket and pull out a mobile to check the time. Because if he didn’t have one, I had a chance of reaching the police before he could reach his goon at the hotel.

“Do me a favor and shut the fuck up.”

Inconclusive.

“Just asking.” I slowed my pace. Time to do something.

“Jesus, you walk like an old lady.” He pushed me again.

Which was one push too many. I wheeled around, instantly feral. Without thinking, I snapped a left jab to his nose. Not an open-palmed karate strike. Just knuckles and wedding band aimed at Ricardo’s sad-sack puss.

The move surprised him. But he was fast. He swept my arm off to the left.

That’s when I came from below with an old-fashioned uppercut. I caught him on the cheek and tasted the most satisfying crunch of my life. Fist against jawbone, the impact fucking delicious. For a moment, I thought his eyes might roll back in their sockets and flutter skyward until the whites surrendered consciousness.

Wrong.

The shot rocked Ricardo. It was good, solid, enough to raise a red welt on his cheek. But not good enough. I made the mistake of gawking, savoring my handiwork, forgetting the kill. He leered at me, the malice gleaming through two slits. His palms were open, his hands raised in a karate fighting stance.

Ricardo stepped back, way back. He pulled off his black shirt, never dropping his gaze. I had always suspected he was well put together, in a priestly kind of way. But I was still surprised by what emerged. He was thick through the torso, built like a mailbox. His biceps bulged. He had thirty pounds on me.

Girl Louie said “Bong” had worked for a bank. But one thing was certain: Ricardo had developed his physique somewhere else—that and his aura of violence. There was a snake tattooed over each nipple.

For a split second, I worried that my kickboxing lessons had been a joke, that my uppercut to his cheek was a mistake. We were a long way from the controlled environment in Rhode Island.

“You got some training.” Ricardo smirked and rolled his head in a circle, stretching the muscles till they were loose. “I’m guessing fifteen, maybe even twenty sessions.”

I said nothing, moving backward to my left, angling my body to make the target small—the way they teach in those fifteen to twenty sessions. Ricardo had guessed about right.

“Me,” he said, advancing in a straight line, “I should get a goddamn medical degree for all my fights. First time you break somebody’s nose, it’s pretty fucking exciting. But make somebody spit out a tooth with the roots attached—now, that’s a thing of beauty, first time or the fiftieth.”

Jab. Jab. Ricardo’s second jab caught my right ear. It stung like a bastard. He spun 180 degrees, jumped, and roundhouse kicked through the air. But his right shin only glanced over my head. He was fast. I never counterpunched, not even once.

“You know what happens,” he continued, “when you hit guys in the spleen?”

Ricardo dropped his right arm. I jabbed and crossed right with a combo. Missed both. He came back with an uppercut from down low and caught me in the chest, smacking the air from my lungs.

“Sometimes they barf purple shit.” Ricardo danced a shuffle and dropped his right hand, inviting me to take a shot. He had yet to break a sweat. “Fucking nasty, if you ask me.”

Left jab. Left cross. Nothing. I missed.

One, two steps, and his ferocious sweep kick caught me on the right hip. I almost went down. “There’s no 911 out here, Grove. I rupture that little fucker spleen of yours, and you’re dead within the hour. We can’t have that, can we?”

I felt myself limping. I moved right to work out the pain.

“You enjoyed that last one? I wonder how many teeth you’ll have after this.” Ricardo feinted right and snapped my head back with a left cross. Then a right jab. Suddenly, my face became his speed bag. Right. Left. Right. Left.

I heard something snap. There was blood everywhere, and maybe a piece of nose. Mine. I brought up my right knee, fast, furious, dirty.

Ricardo deflected it aside and laughed, dropping his right hand, goading me. “You got some street in you.”

He stepped on a shell. Or perhaps it was a depression in the sand. I’ll never know. But in that second, I saw the opening. His eyes flashed like he was losing his balance. I stutter-stepped and launched into the air, swinging my shin against his head.

Ricardo ducked.

I kicked out, the mother of all lucky shots. You have to understand: I can leg press eight hundred pounds no problem. Most decent cyclists can. The heel of my foot snapped Ricardo’s forehead, eight hundred pounds of torque and leg extension crashing into his face. And he went down. Lights out.

“Wake up!” Now I was the one screaming, lording it over him. I forgot JoJo. I wanted to kick him in the face, in the nuts, in the hand with his pinkie exposed. I was raging.

That was a mistake.

I never heard a thing—not the slap of the waves, nor the rustle of running feet, not even the whoosh of a club sailing through the air. There was only pain. There was only my consciousness plunging into a vast, vacant stretch of blackness darker than midnight.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

THE PALMETTO FOUNDATION

What would Dad do?

Claire gazed out the window at the pastel office buildings across the street. She could hear the pedestrians below, friends and neighbors greeting each other near the corner of Broad and ennui.

The Southern voices, cured with manners and mellow cadences from the low country, were comforting. She found the consistency reassuring, the way names never changed other than the Roman numerals behind them.

Most days, she felt safe.

Charleston was more than a peninsula. It was an island of manners where family ties ran deep through the generations. Where kids shrimped and crabbed together and later watched each other’s back on the high school playing fields. Where neighbors dated and swapped spouses and built their fortunes and borrowed their historic homes until the next generation took over. Where old folks walked through gardens that exploded with the candied scents of magnolias, azaleas, and Confederate jasmine. Where everybody reminisced about the way things used to be. The riffraff were not allowed inside the Holy City.

Today, Claire Kincaid was a wreck.

Her father was gone. JoJo had been kidnapped. And in all likelihood, the Palmetto Foundation would exhaust its resources just to get her back. Claire turned, her brow furrowed behind the bangs, and surveyed the conference room. There were photos of Kincaids everywhere, handing out checks, making other charities more productive. The Palmetto Foundation was the only employer she had ever known. And now, holding the reins less than a month, she was presiding over its demise.

Where’s Grove when I need him?

It was 9:58
A.M.
, and he was nowhere to be seen. Nor had Father Ricardo arrived. Almost on cue, Jill’s voice boomed over the speakerphone. “Your guests are on the way up.”

For a moment, Claire felt the weight lift from her shoulders. She stopped wringing her hands. But her relief quickly changed to confusion. “You mean Grove and Father Ricardo, right?”

*   *   *

The conference room door was open. Biscuit knocked anyway. Claire rolled her eyes and threw up her arms. “Not now.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, hands flat, palms facing down. “Hear me out.”

Claire’s clear blue eyes had turned murky and red, casualties of too much booze, not enough sleep, constant worry, or all three. Her sweep of brown hair drifted out of control, the sheen gone, the bangs screaming for help.

Seeing an unfamiliar face, Claire flashed a wan smile. The Hispanic woman standing next to Biscuit was pretty and athletic, even if her outfit did nothing to enhance her appearance. Her intense pupils glowed like shiny ball bearings, her lips a thin pink line. It seemed like there was a question concealed behind every tilt of the head.

“You know we have a meeting, darling.” Claire did not think of Biscuit as a “darling.” The word just came out, force of Southern habit. “And I need to get ready before Grove and Father Ricardo arrive.”

“They’re not coming.” The Hispanic woman extended her hand.

“And you are?” asked Claire in a dismissive tone.

“Agent Torres. I’m with the FBI.”

In that instant Claire Kincaid snapped. It was all too much: how much money to send; when to tell the authorities; whether to trust Grove or a Maryknoll priest. Father Ricardo was not just another chaplain. He was emerging as the family’s go-to priest. She’d need his counsel if JoJo died and the Palmetto Foundation vanished down a rat hole of ransom demands.

“What have you done?” Angry as a hornet, she stabbed Biscuit’s chest with her forefinger.

“Let me explain.” The big man’s face turned bright spanking red.

“You have no right to meddle in my family’s affairs.”

Biscuit backpedaled until Torres intervened. Soft and soothing, the FBI agent caught Claire’s hand with her own. “We know how to help.”

“Help! Puddin’ over here just okayed a hit on my father’s wife.”

“Stop,” demanded Torres.

Biscuit ignored the crack. “Have you seen Grove?”

The question calmed Claire. Her face softened, and her expression grew vulnerable again. “No. I expect him any minute.”

“How about Father Ricardo?”

“No. He’s not here either. Why do you ask?”

The agent and lawyer traded glances.

The exchange distracted Claire. She turned from Biscuit to Torres, first one, then the other. As the room fell silent, she wondered what they knew. What she didn’t. The role of odd one out was foreign to Claire, discomfiting. She had grown up in a community of cliques and took pride in penetrating them. “You want to clue me in?”

“Let’s sit down.” Over the next few minutes, Torres briefed her about the FBI’s ongoing investigation into Ricardo.

Claire listened and said nothing at first. Wary. She glanced over at Biscuit once and caught the big man staring at her hands. She looked down and noticed the slight tremor herself. Claire sat back, folded her arms across her tan cardigan, and waited for the agent to finish. “You’ve been investigating Father Ricardo how long?”

“Three years.”

“And where’s Grove?”

“With Ricardo in the Caribbean.” There was no emotion in the agent’s voice.

“Is he in danger?”

“Probably.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you can get JoJo back?”

“Not fair,” Biscuit interrupted. He understood how Claire was piecing the events together.

“Easy for you to say. The Bureau’s been watching Ricardo for three years. Grove for a few weeks. Now both are gone, and my new best friend tells me she’s the cavalry. I don’t buy it.”

Torres had seen similar frustration in the past. She expected the pushback. And from eleven years on the job, she knew there was only one way to gain Claire’s cooperation: change the conversation. “I have questions about your father.”