“Oh no, that’s not at all what a broken line means,” she said with a friendly smile. She shook her head, causing her beaded earrings to sway and tinkle. “Let me take a look.”
She cradled my hand in both of hers, running her thumb across the creases in my palm. “It looks to me as though you have great stamina and positive energy. Here”—she caressed the break in the line—“I see two strong lines, two strong lives. Have you undergone a significant change lately?”
I felt the little surge of excitement I get when Lorenzo nails a complicated situation while reading my cards. “I have. I followed a guy to Key West. He was a disaster but my life here has completely changed. For the better.”
“See?” she said proudly. “You’ll be fine. I’m no expert, but I did spend a couple hours studying readings on the Internet this week, getting ready for tonight. And I bought a book on it too.” She held up the book that I had not noticed spread open on her lap.
I stared at her in disbelief. “Just my luck to get a great reading from an optimistic amateur,” I said, and we both burst out laughing. I passed over a twenty-dollar bill, which she explained would go one hundred percent to the literacy charity. Then I stood up and perused the other tables for a tarot card reader, finally settling on a small woman with curly gray hair who looked relatively serious and professional. She nodded hello as I took a seat at her table.
“It can be helpful,” she said, meeting my eyes, “if you hold a question in your mind while we look at the cards.”
I nodded back, wondering which of my problems to address. Rory? Connie? My future at Key Zest? But Rory’s trouble surfaced quickly as having the most serious consequences. I pictured him in his hospital bed, so helpless and at the same time, prickly. And imagined how his life could be ruined if the blame for Mariah’s death haunted him.
The woman dealt three cards onto the table: the knight of swords, the High Priestess, and the two of rods.
“Things have been stormy in the past,” she said, “but there is new growth.” She studied the cards again, then looked up, her brows knitted in puzzlement. “Let’s ask for some clarity.” This time she dealt the page of rods, an upside-down four of pentacles, and an upside-down world.
“Your energy is being developed, but I’m not seeing the whole picture.” She brushed the curls off her forehead, and I began to suspect that she had gotten her knowledge off the Internet this week too.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Someone knows more than they should,” she said, now looking nervous. “They need your help.”
“What kind of help?” I asked. I knew what my friend Eric would say here: If only I’d gone into therapy like a normal person, instead of leaning on this tarot card business, I’d understand a lot more about life and my place in it.
“Sometimes it helps to stay a little quiet, to think about what you want, rather than what you don’t want.” She laid one more card out, the page of swords. “With this card, you must ask yourself whether you fear challenges. Are you ready to stand up for yourself?”
“I thought I was ready.”
Her pupils dilated, making her eyes look wide with anxiety. She twisted the ring on her finger. “Someone is afraid.”
I thanked her and left the card table, taking my phone out of my pocket. I flipped back to the picture of Rory with his pals on the deli bench. This time I noticed a ring on the finger of the guy next to Mariah. It resembled the coins rescued by Mel Fisher from the wrecked Atocha. If I hurried, the museum and gift shop might still be open.
I dashed to my scooter and roared back down to Front Street. The same guard my father and I had spoken with was locking the side door of Mel Fisher’s as I puffed up.
“Darn it!”
He spun around to face me—I’d spoken louder than I realized.
“Shop closed at five,” he said. “I was just straightening some things up. Open again tomorrow bright and early.” He forced a smile and strode down the concrete ramp.
“You don’t remember me—that’s okay,” I called after him. “We were asking you some questions about my missing brother and the stolen gold ingot?”
He paused, squinted, then laughed. “Purple Moan. Is your brother feeling better?”
“He’s conscious, but he’s in some trouble that I don’t think he caused.” I held my phone up. “If you don’t mind, could you take a look at this ring and see if you recognize it? I’d come back tomorrow but it’s kind of critical.”
I didn’t bother to spell out my mounting sense of dread or the details about the murdered girl or the fact that my amateur tarot card reader thought someone was in peril. He seemed like a no-nonsense kind of man who wouldn’t appreciate too much drama. He looked at the photo, first a close-up of the man’s hand with the ring on it, then the bench snapshot. He nodded.
“We only had a few of those,” he said. “More expensive than a necklace and not all that popular with our buyers. A fellow who looks a little like this guy was in within the last month and bought a ring.” He handed the phone back and scratched his chin. “Can’t remember his name off the top of my head. But he was a local, I remember. He fancied himself a treasure hunter—though I doubt he ever found anything.” He started walking toward the street but turned around. “Davidson. That was his name. James Davidson.”
I thanked him profusely and sank down to the curb to get my bearings. First I texted Torrence with my theory about the ring and its owner and suggested he follow up. But what were the chances that the cops would rush around based on my hunch?
I hopped onto my scooter, and roared over to Whitehead Street where it intersected Southard, with the Green Parrot Bar on one corner and the Courthouse Deli on the other. I parked and found an empty spot on the bench, in between two tourists and a young man wearing a Fury Water Adventures T-shirt. Across the street, a bluegrass band pounded out “Rocky Top.” The sidewalk buzzed with happy-hour revelers. The witching hour. What might Rory and Mariah have seen here the other night that could have led to an argument and then the high-speed chase on a stolen Jet Ski?
The heavy glass door to the deli swung open and the woman who’d made my Cuban coffees earlier stepped out and lit up a cigarette. I stood up and sidled over to her.
“Going to be a nice night,” I said.
She nodded and smiled, blowing out a stream of smoke and tapping her foot to the rhythm of the band at the Parrot. I pulled up the photograph of Rory and Mariah on my phone. “Did you work this past Wednesday by any chance? My brother got in some trouble and it seemed like it might have started with a disagreement here. Over drugs maybe?”
She studied their faces. “We don’t allow drugs here. We don’t want trouble.”
“Do you know a fellow named James Davidson?” I asked.
She wrinkled her nose. “Now he is trouble.”
The sound of a motor distracted me and I glanced away from the woman, saw a pink flash. Two people on a motorcycle coming toward us, the girl gripped in front. I looked again. It was Daisy, the waif who’d befriended Mariah and blamed Rory for her death. At first I assumed that she was with a boyfriend, but the look of terror on her face didn’t match that theory. And then I saw the face of her companion. Familiar, yet unfamiliar. My heart rate spiked.
The motorcycle roared by.
“Thanks!” I yelled as I abandoned the bench and darted over to my scooter, texting Torrence as I ran. Daisy in trouble. On a motorcycle heading east along Whitehead.
Would he remember who Daisy was? I hopped onto my scooter and wheeled around the corner onto Simonton.
License? he texted back.
Motorcycle. Can’t tell. Florida plates.
Sending patrol car. U stay put.
A siren whooped in the distance, but there were no patrol cars in sight.
Torrence texted again: Stay where you are.
The hell I would.
25
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the desse
rt cart.
—Erma Bombeck
I gunned my scooter to its maximum speed—if I caught up to them, I could tell Torrence which way they’d gone. High-decibel happy-hour crowds surged along the sidewalks, spilling into the streets. This felt eerily like the night of Connie’s shower when I’d combed the downtown looking for Rory. I lurched around two pedicabs loaded with tourists, but then caught the red light at the corner of Truman.
Another text came in from Torrence. Three patrols looking. We’ll find her.
Which made me feel a little better.
I took a left, then circled back around on Simonton, looking both ways up and down the cross streets. I thought I saw the motorcycle duck into a parking lot on Angela Street. I hooked an illegal left and raced up the block. The motorcycle was no longer in sight. I puttered along the street looking right and left, and finally spotted it parked behind the abandoned building that formerly housed the police department. Number 525.
I texted that to Torrence.
Stay OUT, he fired back.
I hopped off the bike, left it by the curb, and circled around to the rear of the building, where the back door had been wedged open with a beer can. Peering in, I could see nothing. I retreated ten yards and waited in the parking lot near a battered silver minivan. I paced past the van, noticing the mattress in back, the cracked windshield, the open windows rimmed in duct tape.
Daisy would be freaking out—and she’d freak out even more at the sight of a bunch of police officers. Like many of the kids on the street, she was wired to think police equaled trouble. Sirens wailed in the distance—four or five blocks away? Hard to judge. My heart was pounding double-time. I hummed a riff from the Rolling Stones to keep my mind calm, listening for sounds coming from the building with one ear, and the approaching cops with the other.
Then I heard an anguished scream from inside. A girl yelled, “She said they were here!” She screamed again, a horrible glass-shattering cry like an animal in pain.
I couldn’t wait. This girl was in danger. Even minutes might make a difference between whether she lived or died. A dozen yards from this building, I could see people milling around the parking lot where they’d left their cars while they enjoyed various Duval Street eateries. It would take too much time to run over, flag them down, and explain that they should tell the cops that I’d gone inside. My eye caught on an aluminum baseball bat inside the old minivan.
I dialed 911, gave them the address again, hung up, and grabbed the bat, which was almost as battered as the van it came from. Then I took a deep, deep breath, snapped a quick photo of me standing by the door, and texted that to Torrence, for insurance. The girl screamed again, the sound even more desperate this time. I edged in, flattening myself against the wall and listening with every cell.
The hallway was dim, just light enough to see the trash pushed to the corners. The place reeked of mold and urine. In the background, a smoke alarm cheeped every few seconds: enough time in between to let my nervous system settle, then spike with the next cheep. My feet crunched on a carpet of broken glass. I switched on the flashlight app installed on my iPhone and almost shrieked when I saw a rat scurry up a pole and slip into a hole in the ceiling. I closed my eyes and clutched the baseball bat, then forced myself to move forward. Every surface inside was covered with a dull green substance. From a fire extinguisher? I hoped so—couldn’t let myself think what else it might be.
“You can do it, Hayley,” I said aloud, and crept from the hall into a bigger room.
“Shut your trap, drop the phone and the bat, and put your hands up,” said a gruff male voice. I felt the barrel of a gun in the small of my back. I pitched everything to the floor and raised my hands.
“Move,” he said, poking me again and kicking the phone ahead of us down the hallway. I stumbled after it, praying that the sirens I’d heard were on the way here. And fast. Hoping Torrence would recognize the door I’d entered from my texted photo. And wondering why I couldn’t stay out of situations that could turn lethal. My mouth felt dry, almost sandy, and I could smell the rank scent of my own fear.
When we reached the end of the hall, the man poked me to the right into the dark recesses of a labyrinth of abandoned rooms. From ten or so yards away in the dark, I could hear the muffled sounds of a girl weeping. Which filled me with relief—at least he hadn’t killed her. Not yet.
“Who are you?” I asked, though I had some idea. In response, I got another jab in the ribs. I stumbled into another dark room, tripped over something soft, and went sprawling to the floor.
A girl whimpered.
“Daisy?”
“Shut up, both of you,” the man said. “Or I take you both out.”
I pushed myself upright, and scooted noiselessly across the floor, feeling for Daisy’s hand. I grabbed it and squeezed, wanting her to know we were in this together.
“Is there some way I can help?” I asked in a shaky voice.
“Unless you know where your stinking brother and that dumb girl hid my stuff, just keep your trap shut,” he said.
“They stole something belonging to you?”
“His emeralds,” Daisy whimpered. “Mariah told me she’d stashed them here.”
A loud bang echoed from outside the building.
“Shit!” said the man with the gun.
“This is the Key West police. Come out with your hands up,” shouted a fierce voice, its volume magnified by a megaphone. “Trained police dog here. Put down your weapon and come out or we let him run.”
The man with us fired his gun through the door and both Daisy and I screamed.
“Back off or I kill them both!” he yelled. Over the dull roar in my ears, I could hear the scrabbling noises of men retreating.
I pressed Daisy to the ground, my body shielding hers, my ears still ringing painfully in the silence that followed the blast. I snuggled closer to Daisy and tried to croon something soothing—not so easy when I had never been so scared in my life. The other times I’d been in serious trouble, the bad guys had been amateurs. Even though I’d been terrified, a small voice inside urged me to fight back. This man, I was certain, absolutely meant it when he said he would kill us. We could have been mosquitos, for all we mattered to him.
Suddenly my phone rang, singing its distinctive song from the show Oliver! Food, glorious food, the notes sounded.
“Shit,” the man said. “What the hell?”
“It’s my phone,” I said. “Outside in the hall where you told me to drop it.”
He swore again, but then cracked the door open, dashed out to retrieve the phone, and slammed the door shut. He peered at the dim light of the screen. In that instant, I recognized James, the man who’d been so solicitous of my family when offering to park their car or recommend restaurants. The same man who’d been photographed on the Courthouse Deli bench with Rory and Mariah. And Daisy. The man with the treasure hunter’s ring.
“It says Torrence,” he said, glaring at me and holding up the phone.
“Lieutenant Torrence,” I said, my voice all wobbly with relief. “From the Key West Police Department. He knows you have us in here. I told him exactly where I was going.”
“You’re a fool. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.” Then he answered my phone. “Look,” he said to Torrence. “I have nothing to offer you. Clear out of the area or the girls die.” He ended the call and stuffed the phone into his pocket.
We waited what seemed like a very long time in the darkness. Daisy had begun to shiver uncontrollably and the sound of her weeping swooped and faded in the small room. Every few minutes James would yell “Shut up!” and she’d cry harder. The smell of his body odor grew stronger, making me worry that he’d snap and do something vicious or crazy.
The Oliver! song rang out again. “What?” James barked into the phone.
“This is Detective Thomas,” said a deep voice that I didn’t recognize. “From the Key West Police Department. We’d love to make this situation i
nto a win-win. We’d like to get you out of there and on your way, and get the girls out safely too.”
“There’s not a chance in hell that’s going to happen,” James said.
“Are you and the girls comfortable?” the other man asked. “Do you need anything?”
A silly question, as it felt like the temperature had climbed to a hundred degrees. The Red Stripe beer I’d consumed at the BottleCap Lounge was pressing on my bladder. And my throat felt parched. But then he wasn’t asking me.
“Can we get you something to eat? Or a cool drink?”
“We’re fine,” James said. Still brusque, but had his voice softened a little?
“What’s the best-case scenario for you today?” Detective Thomas asked.
James paused. “I need a car,” he said. “With a full gas tank. And no freaking cops interfering on the way up the Keys.” He grunted, then lapsed into silence.
“So you’d like a car to drive off the Keys. With gas. We can do that,” said the other man. “I take it you’ll be heading north.”
A lame joke, as there was no other way off the island.
“Screw the car,” said James. “Make it a helicopter. And not a police chopper either.”
“How about you let the girls go while we make arrangements?”
James laughed. “You think I’m that stupid?”
“Give me a couple of minutes to talk with the chief, okay? Are you a pilot or will you need someone to fly you out?”
“No, I’m not a damn pilot,” James snapped.
“Okay. No problem, let me see what we can do. Could you put Hayley on the line?” asked the detective. “I’d like to hear that they’re okay before we go any further.”
I felt the barrel of James’s gun press into my temple. “Say hello, and that’s it. This isn’t a cocktail party.” He held the phone closer to my face.
“It’s me.” My voice shook so hard it sounded nothing like me. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hayley Snow. Daisy’s here too.”
James snatched the phone back. “Fifteen minutes and I’d better hear the sound of rotors or I shoot one of them while the other one watches.” He gave me a hard shove with his gun and I toppled over onto the sobbing Daisy, feeling a whole lot like sobbing myself. Instead, I tried to whisper reassurances to the girl that help was on the way.
Murder With Ganache: A Key West Food Critic Mystery Page 21