Licensed to Thrill: Volume 3

by Diane Capri

  “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” he shouted. Shaking, he slowed to fifty-five. Planted thick paws firmly on the steering wheel at ten o’clock and two o’clock. Felt sweat dot his forehead, dampen the fringe of brown curls around his bald crown, trickle from his armpits, chafe his crotch.

  The driver of the boxy green Kia alongside shook his fist as he sped past.

  “Sorry,” Gilbert mouthed, although he knew the driver couldn’t see his apology.

  He glanced into his rearview mirror. A midnight blue Jaguar stalking.

  “Bemorecarefulbemorecarefulbemorecareful,” Gilbert cautioned, noticing mucus dribbling toward his upper lip. His hands slipped on the steering wheel after he took a swipe at his nose. Another quick jab under his glasses smeared all remaining vision.

  His spiffy red Miata kept moving, speeding up again, sliding on the wet roads, and the Jaguar stayed close behind.

  Gilbert saw the flashing sign at the entrance to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge as he passed. “Warning: High Winds,” it said. Good. Not “Closed.” The bridge was closed when wind was too dangerous. He would make it across and keep running to highway’s end. To the Southernmost point. The end of the earth.

  And then what? Keep going?

  He entered the toll-booth line, opened his ashtray. Found four quarters; moved into the exact change lane. The last thing he wanted was to talk to anyone.

  On the other side of the booth the bridge suspension struts swayed. They looked like yellow sails on a huge yacht, catching gusts. Cars sped past Gilbert in the other lanes, but he’d slowed, trying to be careful. Not so much for himself. He didn’t want to hurt anybody.

  He rolled into the toll plaza but landed too far away from the toll basket, so he opened the car door and edged his body closer, prepared to toss his quarters into the hopper. The Jaguar skulked behind him, waiting; its menacing engine seemed to growl at him, barely tempered by the storm. Impatiently, the driver gunned the engine. Gilbert dropped one coin onto the ground and felt the Jaguar disapprove.

  Gilbert fumbled slimy fingertips to retrieve the quarter from the concrete. He managed to pick up the coin and dropped all four into the basket. Closed his door. Waited. Green light; okay to pass through. He moved ahead to escape the Jaguar’s menace.

  Rain pounded his roof in mesmerizing cadence. Gilbert’s attention faded out again as he approached the highest point of the bridge. Annabelle wasn’t coming back. Someone took her. Maybe she was dead. Gilbert worried. She’d have contacted him if she could. He knew it.

  His white-knuckled grip suggested control, but Gilbert was unaware; the Miata drifted toward the center line. A horn, louder than before, blasted briefly into his fog, but he dipped into preoccupation once more while another angry driver passed, honking.

  Gilbert looked down, noticed his speed was too slow, so he accelerated.

  “It’s not better. It’s not. It’s not,” he repeated, arguing aloud with his absent friend, Blake Denton, who quoted ’twas better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Without Annabelle, Gilbert knew, life was not worth living.

  Where was Annabelle? Maybe she wasn’t dead, but why hadn’t she called him? What had she done with the formula? Gilbert began to cry again as he wallowed. Damp-hot breath re-fogged the Miata’s windows.

  The Jaguar’s front bumper, coming around now, too close, on Gilbert’s left. An explosive thunderclap slapped Gilbert awake too late.

  He swerved away from the vicious Jaguar, but the Jaguar seemed to leap forward to butt him out of the way.

  Quick, hard impact jarred Gilbert’s rigid grip. His horrified glance noticed indelible bright red paint slashed across the Jaguar’s front grille as if snarling with Gilbert’s blood.

  The Jaguar rushed past. Never slowed. Never noticed the Miata, propelled like a hockey puck across the slick pavement.

  Gilbert was sobbing now; his nose dripped mucus onto his shirt. Blinding tears masked the bridge’s center rushing toward him, barely visible from the steamy interior.

  Panicked. Confused. He jerked the steering wheel sharply to the right, sending the lightweight car too quickly in the opposite direction, toward the looming guardrail at the bridge’s edge.

  Horns blared and tires squealed as traffic scrambled to avoid collision.

  Before he could right the small red vehicle the deafening storm exploded rapid cannon thunder.

  Startled again, Gilbert pushed the gas pedal hard to the floor instead of mashing his brakes. The Miata jumped forward as if it was giant-spring propelled.

  Fully aware now, Gilbert struggled but failed to regain control. The Miata hurtled, hydroplaning through sheeting rain and caromed the concrete abutment guardrail. Quickly, but feeling like the slow-motion matchbox toys he’d owned in childhood, the little car bounced. Tumbled forward. Lifted. And sailed beyond the bridge’s edge as if the Jaguar had tossed it across the veldt.

  Gilbert and the Miata plummeted two hundred feet into churning whitecaps and slipped into the channel.

  Wind-whipped Gulf of Mexico brine erased the splash point immediately.

  The Miata sank to the bottom and settled gently where Gilbert, stunned and confused, yet feeling his first peace since Annabelle disappeared, resigned and closed his eyes in the muffled quiet to rest.

  After long, slow minutes of breathing the last bit of air in the cabin, Gilbert’s eyes popped open. Gasped. Blunt fingers flailed desperately to release the seatbelt latch as he thrashed against its restraint.

  Too late.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JENNIFER LANE SQUINTED AT the computer screen as she reviewed the latest draft of the executive summary she’d been working on nonstop. She was scheduled to attend the biggest meeting of her career tomorrow—a new case Jennifer knew nothing about, except that she’d be working for the firm’s most important new client. The opportunity astounded her. This case would change her life forever. She knew it.

  Given the chance, every lawyer at Tampa’s Worthington, Smith & Marquette or any other firm for that matter would kill to represent Russell Denton and Denton Bio-Medical. But Jennifer was selected for the interview. Sometimes, a girl just gets lucky. She felt the excitement humming in her veins. She was running on pure adrenalin now, and she simply wouldn’t allow herself to blow this chance.

  After hours of labor, the five-page summary and longer full report were shaping up. She’d promised the senior partner that she’d have the information on his desk by six o’clock tomorrow morning. He wanted to review everything before their seven o’clock breakfast, when they would discuss her work in preparation for the big meeting. Her report had to be perfect. Nothing less would suffice.

  She glanced at her watch, a gift from her parents for her law school graduation five years before, and saw it was just nine-thirty. A grin stole across her face as she realized she might finish up in time to grab a couple of hours of sleep.

  Jennifer ran a quick hand through her short, curly hair and gnawed on a hangnail as she read through her straightforward prose. She’d created her boss’s favorite kind of report: quick and to the point, all essential information present. It flowed nicely with succinct, economical sentences. A warm glow passed through her, beginning at her toes and working its way up. This was some of her best work ever. She could feel it.

  Her eyes traveled backward up the words now from the end, making sure each was perfect, commas in place, no semicolons where periods should be, nothing misspelled, extra spaces eliminated.

  Wait. There.

  About the middle of the first page, she saw an empty spot she’d left a few hours ago. She’d forgotten to fill in an essential fact because she needed to look it up. Where had she seen that reference book?

  Right. She’d left the heavy volume of Who’s Who in American Business in the small conference room up on the next floor. No problem. She grinned again. Just one last date, a few more passes over the lines, and ready to print.

  “Sleep, here I come,” she said aloud to the empty room.
Stood. Sore feet yelped. Still wearing pumps.

  Stretched the kinks out of her back caused by too many hours in the lumpy chair. Winced. Not that she cared. She loved her job, her work. Her back was young enough to take it.

  The once pressed white blouse long ago pulled loose from her grey skirt. Earrings on the desk where she’d tossed them hours ago.

  Jennifer glanced up and caught her reflection in the small mirror hanging behind the door. She’d chewed off her lipstick. Mascara under her eyes created an unflattering raccoon look. Grimaced.

  She kicked her pumps off and headed around the battered wood desk down the corridor in her stocking feet. Didn’t worry about her bedraggled appearance. No one important was likely to see her at this time of night anyway.

  Stopped at the closest coffee pot counter near the stairs hoping for stale coffee. No dice. The pot was empty, except for long-burned scum on the bottom. Spied a Styrofoam cup about one-third full of black liquid perched on the counter.

  “Better than nothing, I guess,” she said aloud.

  Flipped the burner off under the pot, rinsed the scum, and set it aside for tomorrow. From experience, she figured she’d be the first one to make coffee in the morning when she was much more likely to need it.

  Carrying the cold coffee, she rounded the corner and bounded up the stairs.

  Hallways were dimly lit by emergency lighting. No matter. She could find her way around the familiar spaces in total blackness. She’d spent so much time at work over the past five years. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered to have a home, she was so rarely there.

  Exit lights cast an eerie red glow in the darkest corners. Where office doors had been left open, the last vestiges of twilight and weak street light offered enough illumination to navigate. Jennifer had never felt safer.

  Petite fingers kneaded her forehead to stave off the stress migraine’s sharp edges behind her right eye.

  She patted around in her pocket for an eight-hundred-milligram ibuprofen caplet as she walked. Put the bitter painkiller on her tongue, washed it down with unexpectedly sweet, cold, black sludge left by an earlier paying client. Grimaced at the appalling taste.

  “There,” she said aloud into the empty corridor. “That should do it.”

  When she came around the last corner, Jennifer noticed that the door to the small conference room, like several other doors along this corridor, was closed. Not slowing her pace at all, she reached the door, put her hand on the knob, turned to open it and, glancing down at the carpet, pushed in.

  Three steps into the room, Jennifer stopped, startled. Seated around the table were senior attorney Melanie Stein and two people Jennifer had never seen before.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MELANIE LOOKED UP, ALMOST as startled. Jennifer began to apologize and back out, but Melanie waved her forward. “No, come in. I’d like to introduce you to our new clients.”

  Mortified, Jennifer wagged her head back and forth, attempted to decline and back the hell out.

  “This is Ronald and Lila Walden,” Melanie said, as everyone stood to exchange greetings. “And this is one of our top associates, Jennifer Lane.”

  Both clients stared at Jennifer as if she was an apparition.

  When Ronald spoke, Jennifer could smell his breath across the table. The faintly acrid odor of metabolized alcohol when he exhaled churned her already queasy stomach and aggravated the budding migraine.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said, while his wife merely nodded.

  Stubby fingers he drew through dark wavy hair sported yellow smoker’s stains; nails bitten below the quick. Raw flesh unhealed.

  Once, Ronald Walden might have been handsome in a boy-next-door kind of way. The years and the mileage combined to produce a used and weary man.

  Partly because these were pro bono clients, Jennifer guessed at first he was a workingman who had never been inside a blue-chip, silk-stocking Tampa law firm like hers before and was probably nervous.

  No.

  He shook not because of nerves. Alcohol withdrawal. Jennifer recognized the signs. Her father, too, had been a drinker once.

  Lila Walden remained still, primly restrained, ankles crossed as she’d no doubt been taught in the church where she’d been baptized and married. The way she styled her hair and dressed reminded Jennifer of aged photographs in her mother’s albums.

  An old-fashioned, imitation leather purse rested on Lila’s lap under hands holding a delicate lace handkerchief. Narrow gold wedding band her only jewelry. Quiet. Controlled.

  “We’ll be helping Mr. and Mrs. Walden with a guardianship proceeding,” Melanie said, as if Jennifer were a part of the team. But she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. Jennifer’s time was already promised to other clients.

  “Our baby just up and disappeared, ma’am,” Ronald Walden told Jennifer. “We been lookin’ for her for weeks.” Ronald waited, figuratively hat-in-hand, pleading for Melanie or Jennifer to work a miracle. If only she could.

  “They’re concerned about their daughter being evicted from her apartment while she’s gone because the rent hasn’t been paid,” Melanie explained. “And they want to use her funds to hire a private investigator to find her.”

  Melanie headed up the Community Services team and Jennifer was grateful not to be assigned to the often desperate clients who lived too near society’s edges. She envied Melanie’s objectivity; something Jennifer could never master. She quickly recalled what Melanie said about this heartbreaking, hopeless new case yesterday at lunch.

  Almost as if she’d been abducted by aliens, Roxanne Walden had vanished three weeks ago. She’d left her tony apartment full of expensive furnishings and everything else she owned behind. She’d even left her purse, complete with wallet, credit cards, and cash.

  Tampa PD had done what it should have, Melanie said. Missing women had become a high priority to American law enforcement agencies. For too long, too many victims had been presumed missing but later discovered dead, usually at the hands of husbands or boyfriends. The police had tried to find Roxanne by using all their normal means.

  When the Waldens first reported Roxanne missing, local police had checked her credit card charges, ATM withdrawals, and bank account activity. There had been none. Roxanne’s car was still in the parking lot of her apartment complex. All airline, train, bus, and cruise ship lists of passengers departing Tampa had been examined. Friends and colleagues were interviewed. Even unidentified bodies that had found their way to the morgue in the intervening weeks were, one by one, considered. But none were Roxanne.

  Now, standing in the small conference room in the presence of Roxanne Walden’s parents, Jennifer felt herself being pulled into the vortex of a family tragedy, one she had no power to change. Except that it would have been incredibly rude to do so, Jennifer would have tried again to excuse herself from this nightmare.

  She knew she was the antithesis of the warrior goddess, Cyrene, for whom she’d been named: Cyrene Jennifer Lane. Maybe the ancient Cyrene had fought a tiger with her bare hands, but the modern Jennifer Lane had no illusions about her own bravery. She was a hardworking lawyer, honest, sincere. Maybe even intelligent. But she was certainly not brave. Jennifer had never been brave.

  When Melanie insisted that Jennifer take a seat at the conference table, she didn’t have the strength of will, or the right, really, to refuse. She tucked her blouse back into the waistband of her skirt and ran her fingers through her hair. Rubbed under her eyes, to minimize the black mascara rings. Jennifer knew she still looked foolish, but it was the best she could do.

  Jennifer listened through half an hour of Ronald Walden’s lament, feeling more disheartened with each passing second. There was no way Roxanne’s story would ever have a happy ending. She felt that as strongly as she’d ever felt anything.

  Ronald tossed a small cell phone from one hand to the other, then pushed a stack of pictures toward her.

  Jennifer flipped through the color photographs. The scene suggested Roxa
nne had only run outside briefly. To the mailbox, maybe.

  Nothing about the pictures of Roxanne’s two-bedroom apartment, only a few miles from where Jennifer now sat, screamed murder. Designer clothes still hung in the walk-in closets, while boutique toiletries implying pleasant floral scents rested on the dressing table in the master bathroom. A high-end computer perched on an ebony ergonomic desk in the home office.

  Big screen television gleamed like a black hole from the wall where it was mounted opposite a glistening oil on canvas. Speakers remained poised to serenade from the corners of the main room.

  Ronald handed a grubby manila file folder to Melanie, who opened it to review the contents.

  “Here’s the notice of eviction,” Melanie said, handing the document that had been tacked to the door of Roxanne’s apartment over to Jennifer.

  Skimmed the notice. Management would be removing Roxanne’s things from the building after five more days.

  “I knowed the gal felt real sorry for us,” Ronald continued in his heavy Southern drawl. “That’s why she called. She said if we just paid the rent, everything would be okay.”

  “Was Roxanne married?” Jennifer asked. Chagrinned to realize she’d used the past tense.

  Lila made a small snorting sound that might have been mirth, but Ronald said simply, “No.”

  “Children?”

  Ronald shook his head back and forth. No children, either.

  Jennifer struggled to maintain a safe emotional distance. She couldn’t get swallowed now. Not tonight. Melanie would be handling the Waldens’ case and she’d be great for them. Jennifer still had mountains of other work to do.

  She left as soon as she could reasonably excuse herself. It was the migraine that scared her, Jennifer told herself, not intuition that Roxanne Walden would never be reunited with her parents above ground. Jennifer couldn’t change the outcome. Just like the last time.

  CHAPTER FOUR