Beautiful No More

by MJ Nightingale

  “Tell Cat, I’ll be in momentarily,” he called out to Marcus over his shoulder as the man went through the sliding back doors. Marcus stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Sir, Miss Stone is not inside. We saw her leave with you.”

  A moment of dread permeated his heart, and his head cut to the package. In a heartbeat, he began to run and his actions startled Marcus who pulled out his radio and began to talk furiously as he, too, came running towards the pier.

  Andreas retrieved the package and began to tear at the wrapping. It was a watch box!

  “Sir, don’t open that,” Marcus warned fearing the worst.

  Andreas wasn’t listening. He popped the box open and his blood turned to ice. He’d been right. It was a watch. His father’s! The one he was given when he retired from the police force. The sight of the watch undid him. It brought it all back, seeing his parents dead, his father resting in his recliner, a single shot to his brain. His mother, face down on the floor. Sal had come for him again, and took Cat right from under his nose. It was too damn fucking much.

  Andreas crumbled to his knees, broken, and screamed out his anguish. Gulls flew, took to the air in droves, as his cry pierced the air. Just as Marcus reached him, others came pouring out of the house, Gio, and Blaze. Nikko and Lucas too! All were running towards the dock.

  The watch tumbled out of his hand and clattered onto the dock. Etched in a childish scrawl, one Andreas would have recognized had he not been blinded by his own tears, were the words that haunted his nightmares, “Beautiful No More,” emblazoned upon the surface.

  * * *

  Spiro drove all day.

  When Catarina began to stir the first time, he placed a dropper in her mouth that contained a powerful muscle relaxer and sleep aid. They were his own prescriptions, and he knew they helped him and would work on her. She was just waking when night began to fall. Darkness came early as he entered North Carolina. He had a few hours to go before he reached his destination, and so he gave her another smaller dose of the concoction, and kept driving. Soon, he thought. Soon, he and Catarina would be going home. Finally. His dream would be a reality.

  * * *

  In that first twenty minutes after Cat’s disappearance, Andreas was a raving lunatic. When his brothers finally calmed him down enough to get him inside, Gio took over the situation while Blaze interrogated the security team, and Nikko reviewed the surveillance tapes.

  Gio placed a call to the police, who promised to be there as soon as they could. Blaze’s interrogation of the team revealed that Marcus, who had been on perimeter, heard a commotion to the right of the house and had gone to investigate. A pit bull apparently wandered into the neighbor’s yard and got into their garbage cans. Lucas, who was watching the cameras, had been watching the feed on the right side of the house, and was in communication with Marcus, giving him as much Intel as he could about the commotion.

  Nikko was looking back at the other tapes while Gio came up behind him. “What the fuck? That sure as hell isn’t the neighbor!” He saw a man dressed in a tourist type Hawaiian shirt drop something in the garbage can. Then he wandered out of view.

  “Can we get a still of that and enlarge it,” he asked Lucas, who nodded and began to hit some buttons. “Let’s look at the feed in the back now.” Lucas cued it up. Off in the distance, they saw the pier then Cat coming out. The camera panned the rest of the yard then thirty seconds she was there again, stretching. “Fast forward that until we see something, but not so fast we miss it.” Andreas, calmer, came up behind Gio who made room for him. The look on his face was grim.

  Deadly.

  Three minutes later, the same tourist with the large straw hat was coming down the pier. Cat turned at his approach, and the man rushed her. He punched her in the jaw, and she slumped over before she made it to her feet. “My God! I shouldn’t have left her!” His voice was desperate. Deep, dark guilt settled on him once more. Romeo had taken what he loved right from under his nose.

  “We are going to get her, Andy.” Gio promised, his heart thundering.

  “Make no mistake, bro,” Blaze came up behind him putting a hand on Andreas’ shoulder. “We’ll find her, and he will pay.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Andy whispered. His voice sounded like a pained animal. He watched as Sal Mazzelli, now with bright orange hair, and a sun burn ointment covering his nose, first put a cloth over Cat’s face. He placed the package on the dock, his memento to Andreas, and then gently picked up Cat, walking her down the pier. He hurried, like he knew security would come any minute. He wandered into the bushes that lined Andreas’ property with the property on the left. Thirty seconds later, they saw a boat, a speed boat, zoom by in the left part of the screen. But it was too far to see anything clearly.

  “Get a picture of that boat, and enlarge it. If you get an identifier call it in to the Coast Guard.”

  Lucas nodded, while the Marinos turned to Andreas. “Andy, hold it together man, we will find the boat, and find him.”

  “Nah, he’ll dump it.” Andreas was pacing once more like a caged animal. The tick in his cheek revealed his fury. “He knew we had security, fooled us all. He’s been watching us for a while. Fuck! Where would he take her? That’s what we got to figure out.” Where would he take her? Where would he take her? Think. Think. He repeated his mantra. He had no clue.

  “We can’t give up on the boat angle. Lucas, call the Coast Guard either way, and Marcus, call the police and see if they can get a chopper in the air.”

  “On it, sir.”

  Andreas slammed his fist into the wall beside one of the book cases. His mind was racing. He was near panic. His breathing was becoming louder as he held his fist in his hand wanting to hit something else. “I don’t think he’ll kill her. Not right away. We have time,” he murmured. Please let us have time. “I’m calling Tony. Those guys got us the Intel we needed before, maybe they can pull another rabbit out of a hat.”

  “Call him,” Gio encouraged. Keep him busy. Keep him focused on finding her. His heart was breaking for his brother, but he knew if he could keep him focused on finding Cat, he wouldn’t lose it. As long as they had a chance to get her back, to get Cat back alive, before this bastard did something sick and twisted to her, Andy would keep his shit together.

  Please, Gio looked up, let us get him this time. If not, if they didn’t save Cat, he didn’t know if his brother would recover. Glancing at his other brothers, he knew they were thinking the same thing.

  * * *

  Although it was Christmas Day, and he had been spending it with his wife and son, Tony answered the phone when he saw who it was on his caller ID.

  His heart ached for the man after he told him what had happened just a few hours earlier. “I’ll do what I can. I promise.”

  “Please. Dig deep,” Andreas begged.

  Tony heard the desperation in the man’s voice. He knew what that felt like. He had been there himself almost a year earlier. He looked across the room at his wife, Sherrie, who was nursing their son. “I will. I promise.” He knew Sherrie would understand.

  Chapter 34

  Intel

  BJ and Lily, two of Tony’s best computer technicians had been at it for eight hours. They had nothing. They called it in to Tony who was waiting by the phone all day. Andreas had called twice already to get a status update and fill him in on the progress of the investigation from their end. By nine o’clock, Tony went to his headquarters to check on the progress himself.

  He steered into the parking lot of Alvarez Security and parked. Andreas reported to him earlier that they had found the boat. It had been abandoned twenty miles away, on a private beach near Tarpon Springs, Florida. A young couple had called it in. They had seen a man carry a woman to a parked car nearby, and gave a description of the vehicle. An APB had been sent out on the color and make, the license plate too. Once they found the boat and saw it was a rental with yet another fake identity, they had been able to track a rental car to the sam
e name. But that car had been found in Ocala, dumped two hours later. At that point they did not know what Sal was driving. No thefts reported, and nothing rented under any of Sal’s other known identities.

  All they knew so far was that Spiro Makas, aka Sal Mazzelli, Darryl James, and a Kenneth Gagne was headed North. That was what his tech people were working on now. They had several aliases on the man, and they were scouring their files and databases for properties, places the man had been before. Somewhere he might be taking Cat. But so far, all the places they thought were probable, turned up vacant, or others were residing in them.

  He was about to call Andreas and give him the news, when a fatigued Lily jerked up from her seat at her computer station. “Hang on, I think I have something.”

  Tony put his phone away. “What is it?” He jumped from his seat at the conference table.

  BJ, his other technical specialist, slid across to Lily and looked over her shoulder.

  “Hang on.” She hit a few keys, and a document appeared on the large screen at one end of the conference room. She began to explain what they were looking at.

  It was a deed. “After getting nowhere on the aliases, I decided to look at family properties. I knew the father lost all of his, but what about the mother, I thought. And Bingo. I found out Spiro inherited a cabin. It belonged to his mother. It’s in Virginia. It was not owned by his father, so it wasn’t confiscated by the FBI. But his mother who divorced the father when Spiro was ten, didn’t own the property then. It belonged to her father. She died, let’s see, four years after her ex was arrested. But Spiro had already disappeared by then. That’s why we missed it in the first look at family properties. No one ever found it because she left it to a trust company in the name of George Spiro Makas. Her son’s middle name is George. She reversed it, or he did. After New York, he probably hid out there with his mother until she died. It was probably his safe haven. But there is nothing around the area. He probably left so he could work. I’m just assuming. It’s a long shot, but it is also not far from here. Maybe an hour’s drive. We could check it out.” She turned in her seat and looked up at her boss and friend.

  He was smiling. “Good work Lily. BJ, can you get it up on satellite.”

  BJ nodded and slid over to his computer station. Thirty seconds later, they had a grainy image of the small cabin. “There is a car, but I can’t get in close enough to make out any license plate.” BJ was tapping on his keyboard. “It looks like it has been backed into a carport, and nothing but trees, and a stream behind it.”

  Tony had a hunch. This could be the break his friend needed. “I’m calling Andreas. This could be it. BJ call in the team.”

  * * *

  “We’re on our way. Thank you, Tony. I owe you. I owe you.” Andreas’ heart hammered in his chest. Gio was already on another phone, making the arrangements for the private jet that would take them to Virginia.

  “I am assembling my team now, and we’ll formulate a plan. We are getting the specs now as we speak. And we’ll figure out a way to get inside. We will pick you guys up at the Richland Airport. We’re gettin’ your girl back, and we are doin’ it tonight. We’ll have everything ready as soon as you touch the ground.”

  Andreas ran his hands through his course black hair for the millionth time that day. He nodded at his two younger brothers. They understood the silent message. Blaze and Nikko ran upstairs to pack, and tell the women what was going on. As soon as Gio hung up the phone, Lucas was told to bring the car around. Their flight left from TIA in thirty minutes. They didn’t have a minute to spare.

  Chapter 35

  Home Sweet Beautiful Home

  When Spiro pulled onto the dirt road leading to his mother’s cabin, he smiled. The long drive and the fear of being caught stayed with him throughout the entire day. He only stopped to refuel when he was sure Catarina would not wake up.

  He’d allowed her to stay awake for the past two hours. But he took precautions. He tied her hands together with cord and they were also attached to her feet. He had done that at his last stop before he made the decision to allow her to regain consciousness. He did not want her to sleep all night. He wanted her company.

  He also did not want to take a chance on her overdosing. She meant too much to him. He hated having to do it in the first place, but it had been necessary to keep her subdued for the long drive. But these last few hours, the long stretches of backroads that he took to get to his mom’s cabin would not be very well travelled, especially on a holiday. Just in case someone passed and noticed her, he covered her with a blanket.

  Plus, the weather was much colder in this neck of the woods. He would have to see about getting her some warmer clothes eventually.

  When she had woken up, she had been quite groggy and disoriented. When her eyes finally focused on him, he had seen the confusion, and fear. “Hush now, my beauty.” He smiled at her, eyes watering at seeing her grey eyes once more looking upon him. His heart constricted. She was really with him. By his side, where she was always meant to be. “You remember me. You know I won’t hurt you, right?” She nodded nervously and licked her dry lips, but the fear was still there.

  He offered her a sip of soda. He purchased a fountain drink for her at his last stop. He was sure it was watered down by now, but with her hands tied he would need to assist her. He put the cup in front of her, but she was looking at it suspiciously. “It’s a soda, I’m sure watery by now, but it’s wet,” he offered.

  She vaguely remembered a dropper being placed in her mouth before, and didn’t doubt that the drink might be laced. But her mouth was so dry, and parched, she risked it. She moved her head forward an inch and took a small sip making a face. “I have some bottled water and other things in the trunk. We are almost home, another thirty minutes.”

  Cat swallowed down the lump of fear choking her, and wondered how Andreas was doing. She felt her ring lying between her breasts, the one he had given her that morning. She had put it on a chain this morning before her workout fearful of losing it. It had been slightly too loose for her slender fingers. The pain slammed into her. Dreams she had never dared to dream had come true today. She hoped she had the chance to hide it. She did not want him to see it, suspect what it was and take it from her.

  She nodded. He was still staring at her. His birth defect was still noticeable despite the facial hair he sported now. He had died his hair an orange color, and it made him appear more clownish, but she would not show her distaste. She now knew what he was capable of.

  “You are still so beautiful,” he whispered in the silent car. His breathing was erratic, and he gave another sideways glance. She kept her mask in place.

  She cleared her throat. “Thank You.”

  She would have recognized the voice instantaneously. He spoke softly and evenly. Every word enunciated with precision. She remembered that he had mentioned once his need to see a speech therapist for years as a child until his father refused to pay for it any more. He also had several surgeries to correct his deformity, but those operations had only been able to do so much. The cutting had left nerve endings damaged and had paralyzed his top lip to a great extent.

  “You’re welcome,” he giggled despite his effort to keep it in. He felt glee. She was here, and she was talking to him.

  “Spiro, what do you plan to do with me?” she asked respectfully, but he noticed her body receding into her corner of the car. He didn’t like that.

  “I’m going to love you, Catarina. Take care of you. Just like I used to.” He was looking forward at the road ahead. It was beginning to snow and he needed to concentrate. The white flurries danced in the headlights and he did not want to miss the last turn. “Snow. It’s lovely. I missed it. Not the cold though,” he laughed softly looking down at her. “Please, Catarina, don’t be afraid of me.” He scowled.

  Cat sat up straighter. “Spiro,” she paused looking for the right words. Terrified of making a bad choice in how she worded things. “You killed so many people. Why?
”

  He shook his head not expecting that question and a feeling of panic sent his heart racing. He glanced her way and noticed her eyes were looking on him kindly. He cleared his throat and would try to answer that. For her. “I really don’t want to talk about that with you. But, I’ll say this. They weren’t you. Their eyes were not kind.”

  Cat remained quiet, taking that in. She knew she shouldn’t show fear, or revulsion of the things he had done. She was used to this. Not showing her feelings. She had plenty of practice in schooling her emotions.

  “Where are we?” she asked after a minute of silence.

  “Not far. My mother’s cabin in Virginia.”

  She nodded. She remembered him mentioning his parents’ divorce and his mother once. She had lived across the state line from his father, whose primary residence was in Maryland.

  Her mind spun. She did not want to press him, and she was fighting her fear of the unknown. Thoughts of Andreas and what he must be going through began to filter through her brain. God, she hoped he was looking for her. Had some lead to go on. Sadness for what he was going through threatened to make her mask slip. “Spiro?”

  He glanced her way. His eyebrow arched up.

  “I’m afraid.” She was honest.

  “I won’t hurt you. I promise.” He winked and turned back to the word. The snow was falling faster. The road getting narrower, and the trees on either side of the road getting thicker.

  Cat felt the tears begin to prick at the back of her eyes. This morning her life seemed so hopeful, and now she was a captive once more. By a boy who had been kind to her once. She choked back the sob that threatened to engulf her. She closed her eyes to keep the tears from coming.

  Time passed, and she occasionally glanced out the window, but it all looked the same. Under her blanket, she tried to tug on the cords once more, but she could barely budge them. Escape would be difficult. She had not seen a light from a house for several minutes. She glanced at the odometer then. She would check it each time they passed a house to calculate how far she would have to go, if she could manage to escape. She just hoped Spiro did not plan to tie her up permanently. She hoped and prayed he had nothing planned until she could think a way out of this.