The Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Series Boxset

by David F. Berens

Hardy’s demeanor instantly went dark. “Now, you listen here, Governor Dickerson,” he said, squeezing Gil’s arm harder. “We have worked very hard to get you to this point. Do you really think we haven’t taken care of this?”

  “How could you—”

  “That man is in custody right now,” James interrupted, “being questioned from six ways to Sunday and in grave danger of being charged for attempted assassination.”

  Gil felt his mouth drop open. “He had a gun?”

  “If I need him to have had a gun,” James said, easing the pressure on Gil’s arm, “he will have had a gun.”

  Gil studied the man’s eyes. He was becoming increasingly worried about what James Hardy was seemingly prepared to do to make sure nothing stood in his way. Gil wondered when he would become the something in his way.

  “What do they have so far?” Gil asked.

  “They know that this man’s wife, Jackie Ranchero-Doral, was an intern in your office,” he said, “and that she is currently missing.”

  “Shit,” Gil said, whistling through his teeth.

  James held up a hand. “It’s okay. We have retroactively recorded a few memos from your office detailing her less-than-stellar punctuality, and thrown in a couple of write-ups for no-shows as well.”

  Gil felt his heart rate speed up and the monitor next to him beeped.

  “Easy buddy,” James said. “Get that under control.”

  Gil took a few deep breaths, and his heart rate slowed just as the nurse entered his room.

  “Are you doing alright, Mr. Diavia?” she asked him.

  “Oh, gosh, yes,” Gil said, and smiled and made a show of adjusting his position in bed. “Sorry, I was just getting comfortable and you know how that makes the heart rate jump.”

  “No worries,” she said, with a trace of annoyance in her voice.

  James looked at Gil. “Mr. Diavia?”

  “My wife’s horse’s name,” he said and shrugged.

  “And the nurse has no idea who you are?”

  “Doesn’t seem to.”

  “Well, don’t get used to that, Mr. Governor,” James said, then winked at him.

  Gil said nothing. He clicked on the television to find a local story about Mr. Doral. They were detailing two separate incidents of domestic violence against his current wife, Jackie, and also against an ex-girlfriend. Neither had ended in prosecution, but they had two different mugshots of Mr. Doral looking decidedly evil. Gil looked over at James.

  “We didn’t do that,” he said, shrugging, “Mr. Doral did all of that to himself.”

  The news story continued and showed a reporter detailing the multitude of guns and rifles that Mr. Doral owned and used on a regular basis, one of which was discovered to be illegally purchased.

  James Hardy pulled out his cell phone, tapped a number, and said, “Get me that gun.”

  He hung up, took the remote control from Gil, and turned the television off.

  “I’ve got to tell Sandy,” Gil said. “I owe her at least an explanation of what was going on with Jackie and I.”

  James Hardy’s face darkened. He pursed his lips and inhaled deeply. “Now, you just hold that thought for a second,” he said, and walked toward the monitor. As he traced his finger down a bag of saline solution that was dripping into a wire running into Gil’s arm, he said, “I’m not so sure the timing is right for such a thing.”

  Gil felt a chill run up his spine. “James,” he whispered, “I can’t lie to my wife. She deserves better than this.”

  Hardy’s face softened a bit. “Look, Gil,” he said, “this is all my fault really. I’m the one who set you up with Jackie. Hell, you can blame it on me when you decide to talk to Sandy about it. In fact, I insist that you throw me under the bus when it comes to your adultery. I will be more than happy to beg forgiveness from her.”

  His phone pinged. Pulling it from his pocket, he stole a quick glance at the screen and then tucked it back into his suit. “But let’s hold off on this revelation,” he said quietly and glanced back at the door, “at least until we’ve taken the White House.”

  “Aw, hell, James,” Gil said, raising his arms, “I’ve just barely won the governorship and with this damn heart attack—”

  “Incident,” James corrected him.

  “Okay, whatever,” Gil continued. “There’s no guarantee of anything at this point.”

  “That, my friend,” James said and poked a finger at Gil’s chest, “is where you are wrong. There are a lot of people invested in you, a lot of very powerful people.”

  “James, you’re hurting me.” Gil grabbed James’s hand, but he wasn’t strong enough to remove it from his chest.

  “And these people,” James continued without releasing the pressure, “have assured me that you will be the next President of the United States of America. And you and I both know that I will be the Vice President.”

  He pulled his hand away and Gil grabbed his chest.

  “Are we clear?” James Hardy asked dryly.

  “Crystal clear.”

  “Well, hello there, Mr. Diavia,” a kindly voice chittered from the doorway.

  They both looked to see an elderly lady standing in the door holding a tray of Jello cups.

  She seemed to notice Gil wasn’t alone. “Oh, no,” she said, frowning, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you had company. I will come back later.”

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Saint Juneau,” Gil said pointedly, “he was just leaving.”

  In a flash, James Hardy became the smiling, baby-kissing, hand shaking politician he always was in public.

  “Not before I steal some of that homemade Jello,” he said, beaming.

  The elderly lady smiled back and tittered. He grabbed a cup and pecked her on the cheek as he walked out the door.

  “Get well soon, Mr. Diavia,” James’s voice echoed down the hall.

  “Well, he sure is a nice man,” Mrs. Saint Juneau said as she walked into the room and laid a Jello cup on Gil’s table.

  “Mmhmm,” Gil said and nodded absentmindedly.

  “How are you feeling today, Governor?” she asked him.

  Gil was shocked for a second and his face must’ve shown it.

  “Oh, come now,” she patted his hand, “don’t you think I would recognize the man I voted for in the election?”

  Gil smiled and took a bite of Jello. “Thank you, Mrs. Saint Juneau.”

  “I could just tell by looking into your eyes what a fine, honest, upstanding young man you were,” she said as she picked up her tray.

  Gil inhaled deeply. He decided in that moment that he would tell Sandy. She deserved the fine, honest, upstanding young man that she had married, and telling her what had happened was the only way he would feel worthy of her trust and love.

  “Can I ask you a favor?” the elderly woman asked as she reached his door and turned.

  “Of course,” he answered, and joked, “as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with voting for a bill you sponsor.”

  She chuckled. “Oh no, no, nothing like that. I’d just like to have my son drop in and meet you… if that’s alright.”

  “Can he keep our little secret?”

  “Of course, he can.”

  “Then that would be just fine with me.”

  “Wonderful,” she said, “I’ll bring him by when I finish my rounds.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Saint Juneau,” he said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Diavia,” she said, and winked.

  Gil Dickerson sighed and took his last bite of Jello.

  22

  If The Shoe Fits…

  Troy Bodean again sat in the jail cell that he’d been in just a day before. Joe Bond had acted very strange upon seeing the discarded white shoe in his belongings bin that he’d had with him when he left work—ostensibly for the last time. Now he was waiting… not exactly arrested… just being held.

  He lie on his back staring at the ceiling and wondered if it was just his lot in life to be locked up
. He also wondered what in the heck he was being locked up for this time. At least this time, he wasn’t locked up with a bunch of Troy clones for being a Peeping Tom. But then again, he worried that this time he’d been locked up for something much worse.

  As he stared at the concrete ceiling, he began to think about Mindy. He hoped to God she was okay, but the longer this situation went on, he worried that she really was in grave danger… if Taz hadn’t already done something awful to her. Taz was really the key here. Troy sensed he was the bad guy in all of this, he just had a hunch that the guy was becoming more and more unhinged, and offing the two girls was easily something he was capable of… and now he was missing too.

  Troy ran over the details in his mind, trying desperately to figure out where the allegedly murderous tennis pro could be, but nothing seemed to click. He ran down the list in his head.

  Taz comes to America to teach tennis.

  Taz teaches rich, pretty girl—Caroline.

  Caroline… angers/dumps/ridicules Taz?

  Taz murders Caroline.

  Troy shook his head against the stainless-steel bench he was laying on. That hurdle seemed a bit too high. Would Taz murder Caroline over something simple like that? According to Mindy, she’d been taking lessons from him for years. Maybe it was a caste thing—Taz was a servant while Caroline was royalty. Something about that seemed more plausible, but still a stretch. Troy continued his list.

  Taz moves on with Mindy as a new obsession.

  Mindy rebuffs him.

  Mindy’s dad has P.I. look into Taz.

  Troy sat up. Maybe the investigator had found Taz out and Taz got spooked and went into hiding. But why harm Mindy? Mindy had been suspicious of Taz all along… maybe she’d confronted him. Where the hell was he keeping her? If she was even alive. Troy shuddered at the thought. She was definitely still alive, he had to keep believing that. A dark thought entered his mind. If you’ve hurt her, Taz… He shook it away.

  Maybe the two girls were just locked up in a basement dungeon somewhere, like that crazy dude had in Silence of the Lambs. Troy thought that sounded about right. He wasn’t sure about Caroline, but he was pretty sure Taz wanted to keep at least one of the girls alive… to play with. Ugh, Troy shuddered again.

  He went to the door and pounded on the wire-lined glass.

  “Hey!” he shouted, “what’s taking so long? Where’s Joe?”

  “Dang, man!” a voice murmured from the other side of the room. “Keep it down, bro.”

  Troy turned to see a bum lying in the corner of the room, curled up in a fetal position.

  “Cantcha see I’m tryin’ a get some sleep?”

  “Sorry.” Troy turned back to the door.

  He could only see a few feet down the hall before it turned a corner. No one was coming.

  “Dangit,” he said and slumped back down on the bench.

  The bum uncurled himself and stretched. He yawned and smacked his lips loudly.

  “You got anything to drink?” he asked Troy as he slowly stood up.

  He was dressed in dirty, ragged, mismatched clothes that all appeared to have come from various dumpsters and such. His beard was long and brown, uncut and untrimmed. He wore a bandana on top of his head and had three more tied to his belt loop dangling down his leg. Spares, Troy guessed.

  “Sorry, dude,” Troy said and held up his hands, palms up, “I got nothin’”

  The man cackled out a raspy laugh, revealing he had fewer teeth than holes in his gums.

  “Yeah, I guess not,” he said through a hacked cough, then shot a suspicious glance at the door. “Ya got any Molly?” he asked Troy.

  “Molly?”

  “Yeah, man. Molly.”

  “Well,” Troy shrugged, “I don’t know what Molly is, so no, I don’t suppose I have any of that either.”

  “Shit, man,” the bum said, now scratching his arms in the crook of his elbow, “that’s too bad. I’m comin’ down somethin’ fierce.”

  “Sorry, dude.”

  “You’re alright, man,” the bum said, then plopped down on the bench beside Troy.

  He smelled awful. Like he’d rubbed a rotten banana all over his body, and then to be sure of a bad smell, had eaten a few rotten eggs.

  Troy gulped and tried not to breathe through his nose. The man suddenly wrapped his arm around Troy.

  “Whatchu in here for, Jabroni?” the bum asked with his mouth a little too close to Troy’s ear.

  “Ummm…” Troy’s mind raced, “littering.”

  The bum squinted at him.

  “And umm… causin’ a disturbance,” Troy lied.

  The bum seemed to like this better. “Me too, brother. Me too.” He nodded his head enthusiastically. “They locked up ma’ place down at the lighthouse. I wadn’t botherin’ nobody… just crashin’ there whenever it was cold or rainin’.”

  “That sucks,” Troy said, with no idea what the man was talking about, but he agreed anyway.

  “You’re alright, Jabroni,” he said with a grin.

  “Thanks.”

  “Yup,” the bum said and closed his eyes. He was fast asleep within seconds.

  Troy eased out from under his arm and gently laid the man down on the bench.

  The door to the cell jerked open and Joe Bond stuck his head in. “Troy, come with me.”

  “Thank the Lord.” Troy felt the bum’s smell following him as he walked out. Joe clipped down the hall at nearly a jog and Troy skipped along in an effort to keep up.

  “Hey, Joe,” he called to the detective, “I don’t know what’s up with that shoe, but it ain’t mine. Heck, I don’t wear shoes unless I have to, and I wouldn’t wear ones like that anyway.”

  “We know,” Joe said as he turned into his office and pulled Troy in. “It’s a size nine and you’re a size eleven. But we have the matching shoe and they appear to be the shoes that made bloody prints in Caroline’s car. It’s not much blood, but it’s hers. And we found it along with traces of Taz’s blood on the steering wheel.”

  “Dangit,” Troy said, “I knew somethin’ was up with him.”

  “We’re sure he had them on when he…” Joe considered his words, “when he kidnapped her. The question is, what did he do with her?”

  Troy shrugged. “Been racking my brain with that all night. I have no idea.”

  “And there’s something else,” said a voice from a chair behind the door of Joe’s office.

  Troy turned to see Jack Colpiller sitting there.

  “It appears that he might be working with the private investigator I hired,” Jack said, standing.

  Troy furrowed his brow. “Taz? Working with the P.I. dude?”

  Joe broke in, “We traced his cell phone location to an apartment in Liberty Heights. The apartment was rented in the name of Remington Hoyt Reginald—the man Jack hired to find Caroline.”

  “Why in the heck would the P.I. be workin’ with Taz?”

  Joe shrugged his shoulders. “No clue. Neither of them were at the apartment.”

  “And it’s not like he wasn’t going to get paid handsomely for his efforts,” Jack said. “I spared no expense.”

  An image of dinosaurs running through an empty building trying to eat people flashed into Troy’s mind.

  “Well, hell, let’s get out to that apartment,” Troy said and turned toward the door.

  “Troy, there are four units watching the building,” Joe said quickly, “so if anyone shows up there, we’ll know about it.”

  Troy felt the helplessness coming back. “Dang,” he said and slumped into a chair beside Jack. “What now?”

  “We wait,” Joe said quietly.

  “And pray for a miracle,” Jack added.

  23

  A Mission From God

  Brant Reginald had lost his two companions, Christopher and Anastasia Saint Juneau, wandering around the halls of Raulerson hospital. Nurses and doctors rushed to and fro without much of a glance in his direction. He nodded and smiled to patients we
aring paper nightgowns, and their visitors wearing two-day-old clothes. He dropped a couple of quarters in the vending machine and sipped a cup of burnt black coffee.

  His mind retraced the tumultuous events of the past few days. He’d gone from heavenly host to fallen angel in no time flat. From television star being beamed across the country saving the souls of the million-plus masses of viewers, to barely speaking to the lost souls buried down in the middle of Florida at the Raulerson Hospital. He was a long way from Fairhope, and felt like he was even farther from God.

  But then again, he was sure God had brought him here. The events were too coincidental, and the hand of the Holy Spirit could be seen in every turn he took. He stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked up.

  “Father,” he said, praying to the fluorescent lights in the ceiling, “send me where you will. I’m here because of you, now show me what you would have me do.”

  A nurse jogged down the hall from behind him, clipping his elbow and throwing his coffee in a dirty brown rain all over his shirt.

  The nurse turned her head back toward him as she ran. “I’m so sorry,” she called, but she didn’t slow down. She turned a corner and disappeared.

  Brant felt something. An invisible force, grabbing him and tugging him in her direction. He dropped the empty cup and started after her. Then he trotted, and finally, he ran. He turned the corner after the nurse and slammed through the stainless double doors at the end of the hall. He never noticed the sign above them that said, No Admittance—I.C.U.

  “Hey!” a man in blue scrubs shouted after him as he passed.

  “It’s okay,” he shouted back, “I’m on a mission from God.”

  He smiled at the reference as he ran on. The nurse rounded another corner and he followed. She ducked into a room with a label beside the door, that said, Jane Doe. He swallowed, inhaled deeply, and pushed open the heavy glass door.

  Inside, the nurse was checking the patient’s heart with a stethoscope. Then she wrapped a sleeve around the patient’s arm. She pumped it a few times, taking the patient’s blood pressure. When she was satisfied, she shook her head. “Gave me quite a scare there, Jane,” she said to the patient.