The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection

by David F. Berens

  He clicked his shoulder mic. “On my way.”

  “Sorry girls.” He nodded to Karah and then to Laura. “I’ll um ... I’ll check on this and then I’ll call you later. You know, with whatever I can find out.”

  Laura tore a piece of receipt paper from the cash register and scribbled something on it. “Call me on Karah’s cell. The asshat who was in here bashing things up earlier stole mine.”

  She smiled and arched an eyebrow at him as she handed him the number. “Or you can just stop by and see us later. We’ll be enjoying the beach.”

  He was glad he had his back turned as his own grin was hard to conceal. Over his shoulder he heard Karah say to Laura under her breath, “Cute!”

  Chesney slid into his patrol car on a slightly sticky seat. He remembered the overturned coffee he’d purchased and decided that he’d get a new one for the drive to Litchfield. Still feeling the glow of seeing Laura, he decided he’d splurge this time and get Starbucks. He clicked open their mobile app on his phone and began typing in his password to see if he still had any credit. Buck forty-two. Hardly enough to buy anyt ... His thoughts trailed off as he suddenly remembered his train of thought on Rick Hairre’s zip drive and the PIN.

  He opened his laptop (also a little sticky from spilled coffee residue) and clicked the F: symbol indicating the plugged-in zip drive. Again, he was prompted:

  Username:

  PIN:

  He opened the manila folder Tammy Anne Tidmore had secreted to him at the Georgetown Kraft Credit Union. Among other penciled information, the outside read: Rick Hairre, Account #04132016.

  He leafed through the papers until he found what he was looking for: a single sheet reading Debit Card Personal Identification Number.

  In the middle of the sheet in what must have been Rick’s handwriting was scrawled the four-digit PIN: 4747. He looked back at his yellow pad and noted that his ID card for the Hair Club had also been 4747. The number must’ve had some significance for Rick.

  Chesney proudly started to type in the PIN on the zip drive prompt, but his elation was quickly doused. What the heck is his username?

  He tried several combinations of Rick Hairre, R. Hairre, Rick H. and R.H., but none unlocked the drive. He flipped back to his yellow pad.

  Number 3 read: Driver’s License – Issued to one Rickard Bertram Hairre.

  He clicked Username and typed Rickard Hairre and then the PIN: 4747.

  His laptop made a whirring sound and the login box was replaced by a spinning circle indicating it was working. The contents of the drive popped up in a file manager window.

  Four files were displayed:

  GKCU_Deposit_Slip_LKS.jpg

  IMG_4833.jpg

  TCWEdPro.pdf

  VNHSBC002-08171971-47.pdf

  He double clicked the first file and the image popped up on his screen: a deposit slip for $500,000. Chesney whistled through his teeth. Where’d you get all that money, Rick?

  He scanned the deposit slip, noting that the account number didn’t match the account number on Rick’s file from the credit union. And where did you deposit it? Looks like I may have some more detective work for Tammy Anne.

  His radio crackled and jolted his attention from his screen. “Hey, um, Ches? I hate to be a dick, but ... ” There were not-so-restrained snickers after the pause. “I know you’ve had a hard night but, um, are you at the hospital yet? They called back and said there was no sign of you.”

  Chesney didn’t answer. He put his cruiser into drive, hoping the engine would hold together long enough for him to get to Starbucks. Screw ‘em, they can wait, he thought, I’m gettin’ a coffee.

  21

  Deal or No Deal?

  Troy watched as the huge, muscled security guard (whose nametag designated him as an orderly) wheeled the odd little man back through the stainless double doors into the emergency room proper. He’d gotten worked into a frenzy yelling something at Troy about stealing his hat and that he’d have his guts for garters before he’d let him walk out of the hospital with it.

  Orderly Eric had slammed a needle into the man’s backside and Troy watched his eyes roll back into his head. He slumped down into a wheelchair that had been slid behind him, and off he went.

  He looked like a wreck and Troy thought he must’ve been on drugs or something. Probably gang violence, he thought, too much of that goes on around here.

  “So, how are Daisy Mae and Ellie Mae coming along?” he asked the reception nurse.

  “She’s pushin’,” the nurse said without looking up from her computer, “probably gonna have a baby soon.”

  “No way! Really?” Troy smiled through his sarcasm.

  The nurse shrugged her shoulders and eyeballed Troy above her tiny reading glasses. “When the baby is born, if the mother says you’re allowed, you can go in. Not before.”

  “Okay, okay ... ” Troy tapped his fingers on the counter, “I’ll be over here ... just waitin’.”

  “Fine.”

  Troy sidled back over to the emergency room waiting area and slid down onto the vinyl couch. It felt a little sticky and he wondered what fluids might have caused that ... he stood up.

  He put his hands in his pocket and suddenly remembered his cell phone.

  “Ah, crap,” he said, clicking into his missed text messages.

  There were fifteen new messages from Karah.

  -“Are you ok?”

  -“Cop said there was an Uber crash.”

  -“Did your Uber crash?”

  -“Where are you?”

  -“Troy??”

  -“We’re leaving DJ’s. Call me.”

  -“Ok, I’m starting to worry now.”

  -“If you didn’t want to come, you could’ve just said so.”

  -“Sorry about that last text. Just let me know you’re ok.”

  They went on like that, but he didn’t finish reading them. He tapped out a quick text back.

  -“I’m fine. Sorry. Yes, Uber crashed, but I’m fine.”

  -“WTH. Why didn’t you text me?”

  -“Sorry, you have no idea what I’ve been through tonight.”

  -“Well, that makes two of us.”

  -“I’m really sorry, Karah. Where are you now?”

  -“Back at my place. Laura is with me. You should come over.”

  -“On my way.”

  -“For real this time?”

  -“Yes, for real. I’m taking a cab.”

  -“Good.”

  Troy walked back up to the reception nurse. Before he could speak, she removed her glasses, held up her hand in the universal stop signal, and said, “No, you can not go back there yet.”

  Troy smiled his biggest smile. “Well, that’s good, cause all I was gonna ask for was a cab to go home.”

  She rolled her eyes and handed him a business card for Creekside Cab Company.

  “Thank ya, darlin’.”

  She didn’t answer and went back to clicking away on her computer keyboard.

  Troy walked outside and dialed the cab company. His ride (a bright orange Crown Vic with a surfer dude painted on the hood) pulled up to the ER doors within fifteen minutes. The morning light was beginning to paint a new sunrise over the trees and Troy wondered what craziness today would bring. He’d come to South Carolina for peace and quiet ... to get away from all the madness in his past. And now he was caught up in all this new crap ...

  “Where ya headed, my friend?”

  “Pawleys. The Turtle Nest house, you know it?”

  “Ya mon, get ya dere real quick.”

  “No, no, just take your time.”

  “Whatever your pleasure, mon.”

  Troy settled back into the cab’s back seat. Within minutes, he was asleep.

  Darren woke to feel throbbing pains in his right eye, his right cheek, his right hand, his nose, and his right foot. His vision was blurry and he had drool crusted on his chin. His various injuries had pristine new bandages, but the one on his foot was starting to bloom new dar
k circles where his toes had been.

  He felt groggy and bleary-eyed and wondered how many painkilling drugs they had pumped into him. He actually felt pretty good ... all things considered. He looked to his left and saw a pretty blonde girl sleeping in the next bed. In what looked like a fried chicken warming tray, there was a tiny little baby sleeping as well. In a chair, next to the tray, was an exact replica of the girl sleeping in the bed. They were beautiful.

  “Gr’dayee,” he mumbled through his drug-induced haze. It came out sounding like he had a mouth full of marbles. He swallowed and tried again. “Howrdyyy, bonny girrllss.”

  He didn’t know what he was saying, but it woke the girl in the chair.

  “You ain’t Troy,” she said suspiciously. “Whar the hell is Troy?”

  Darren could only shrug his shoulders. “Got no idea what thet eez.”

  “Well, then who the Sam hell are you?”

  With extreme effort, Darren sat up in his bed. Pain lanced through his various injuries and sent him into a groggy flop back down onto his back.

  The girl jumped up out of her chair and ran to her sister’s side. She grabbed the nurse call remote and clicked the button several times. The nurse’s voice came over the intercom, sounding very much like she’d been enjoying a coffee or a smoke and was being interrupted.

  “What is it now?” the nurse asked.

  “Thar’s a strange man in my sister’s room.”

  Darren took offense to that. “Ahm not thet strange!”

  “The hospital is over full tonight, ma’am,” the nurse said, sounding as if she had explained this a thousand times before, “and that man has significant injuries. Your room was the only room with a bed left.”

  “But he’s lookin’ at me all funny like.”

  Darren sat up again and looked over at her. “Huh?”

  “Thar, see?” she said, pointing at him. “He done it agin.”

  “Ma’am, if there’s no emergency attention needed, I have work to do. The doctor will be doing rounds soon for your sister’s baby and you’ll probably be moved to a regular room by yourselves soon.”

  “Better sooner ‘n later,” she harrumphed.

  The nurse had disconnected the intercom when the baby squawked. Darren watched as the girl raced over to the chicken warming tray and lifted the baby up to cradle it.

  “Thar, thar little one,” she cooed at the baby, “mama’s getting’ some shut eye. Aunt Ellie Mae is here.”

  Something in Darren softened. He never had a mama—or an aunt for that matter—pay him any attention. Psychologists in the pen tried to tell him that was why he was a criminal ... something about neglect and all that.

  “Thet’s a beautiful baby,” he said, adjusting his bed with the electric remote so that he could see them better.

  The woman, Aunt Ellie Mae, glared at him, but then she softened a bit too.

  “I know he is.” She traced her hand over the top of the baby’s head. “Cuz his mama’s beautiful too.”

  Darren felt tears begin to well in his eyes. “Thet she is.”

  “Who are you?”

  He thought Ellie Mae seemed to be asking less out of suspicion and more out of curiosity.

  “Name’s Darren,” he said, nodding.

  “You in a car wreck or sumthin’?”

  Darren opened his mouth to say no, that he’d had his toes torn off by a rogue recliner, his eyeball and socket crushed by a beer bottle and a fist, his other eye slammed into the dashboard of a van, his cheek burned by the barrel of a gun he’d been shooting at his criminal partner, and his fingers ripped off by that partner grabbing the gun out of his hand, but then he thought better of it.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” he said and smiled, sending a sharp pain into his cheek, “car wreck. Damn drunk driver.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, “I hope they ketch the bastard!”

  “Ah, don’t ya worry, lass.” Darren pictured Man’ti in his mind. “Ahm gonna get ‘im good.”

  Ellie Mae shrugged. Beside them, the other girl in the bed yawned and opened her eyes.

  “C’mere little T.C.” She stretched out her hands and Ellie Mae handed her the baby. “Yer mama’s here. You hungry, little one?”

  She promptly pulled out her boob and shoved the baby on it. Little T.C. began to nurse.

  “Daisy Mae,” —Ellie Mae pointed a finger— “This here’s Darren, right?”

  He nodded.

  “He was in an awful car wreck.”

  “I can see ‘at. Ya look like shit,” Daisy Mae said matter-of-factly.

  Darren flushed. “Ah don’t normally look like ‘is! Ahm pretty good lookin’ actually.”

  Daisy Mae shrugged and turned to her sister. “Whar’s Troy?”

  “He done run off.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Guess he figured since little T.C. ain’t his, he’s off scott free.”

  “Well, shee-it.” Daisy Mae switched the baby to her other boob. “Who’s gone take care of us and little T.C.”

  Darren watched this exchange with growing interest and an idea bloomed behind his broken eye socket.

  “Ah ken take care of all three of ya,” he said, surprising himself.

  She turned toward him, looking at him as if they thought his meds had made him crazy.

  “Ah got so much money comin’ in that it’ll set us all fa life,” he said defensively, “but we might have ta move to Mexico ... or Australia.”

  His clouded mind was still working on the small detail that Troy had disappeared, but he’d figure that out later.

  “I ain’t never been to Mex-eee-co,” Daisy said to her sister.

  “And we can all get married,” he started, “or at least two of us ken get married. The other could be a live-in or something.”

  He could see that the sisters were clearly warming up to the idea.

  “You’ll hev all tha money ya eva need,” he said, trying to clinch it. “Ah got seven million comin’.”

  Ellie Mae whistled through her teeth. “Seven million?”

  Daisy Mae looked down at her baby. “At’s enough to make ‘lil T.C. very happy!”

  “Um, yeah.” Darren crinkled his eyebrows. “About thet. Any way you’d consider changin’ ‘is name to little Darren?”

  “Darren Gallup,” Daisy Mae said, testing out the name. “It does have a nice ring to it. What you think, Ellie Mae?”

  “I think it sounds like a million bucks!”

  “Seven million,” Darren corrected her. “Is thet a deal, ladies?”

  Ellie Mae looked at Daisy Mae. They nodded at each other.

  “Yup, it’s a deal,” Daisy Mae said, smiling. “Little T.C.—er, ah mean little Darren—is gonna be so happy!”

  “The deal is,” a deep voice said from the door to the hospital room, “ya comin’ wit me.”

  The girls jumped at the sound of a new voice and gaped at the figure in the doorway. A giant man with close-cut black hair and black tattoos scrawled all over his muscled arms stood silhouetted in the opening. He had on a black t-shirt and black jeans that strained against his NFL sized shoulders and legs. His skin was dark olive and slick. His eyes were hidden in the shadows.

  “Ah, shit,” Darren whimpered.

  “Get ya shit and let’s get outta heyah,” the giant said and turned to walk out.

  Darren eased out of the bed and said to the wide-eyed girls, “Take good care ‘o little Darren. Ah’ll be beck.”

  22

  A Böhring Family Vacation

  Victor Böhring considered himself a man of impeccable taste. His hands caressed the dark wood inlays on the steering wheel of his brand-new Mercedes Benz AMG G65 SUV. It was the only vehicle he’d found that matched his considerably high standards.

  He eased the accelerator toward the floorboard and the 621-horsepower engine pushed him backward into the black handcrafted Napa leather diamond stitch patterned driver’s seat. He lovingly traced the gleaming chrome Mercedes logo on the horn, a
nd allowed himself a small tight-lipped smile. He loved this car.

  His newly constructed beach home on Pawleys Island had been built with the same attention to detail. By the island’s standards, the house was palatial. Eight bedrooms and six bathrooms, each with its own particular theme, made the house into a veritable beach mansion. Lazy palm leaf ceiling fans kept the air breezing comfortably over the terrazzo marble floor. A modern palette of creamy whites with splashes of bright colors in the furnishings. Custom artwork on every wall represented the theme of each room.

  The master suite was an exact duplicate of the honeymoon suite at the private island estate in Jamaica that had served as the Böhring’s marital holiday destination. A massive four-poster mahogany bed with draped sheets, deep chocolate furnishings with only the smallest antique brass knobs, hinges and pulls, and original Angela Moulton paintings of local birds and landscapes, made this room anything but shabby island chic. It was more like a European interpretation of shabby island chic, which suited Victor just fine. It was in this bedroom that Mrs. Böhring slept, awaiting her husband in a mid-morning, mimosa-fueled daze.

  Victor had been feeling particularly generous, so he called ahead to have the maid warn his wife he was coming. She usually required half an hour or so to compose herself. Her melancholy moods were becoming tiresome. He would do something about this soon.

  As he turned onto Myrtle Avenue, the main drag on Pawleys Island, he slowed to the required twenty-five miles per hour. Normally, it didn’t bother him to cruise at the island speed limit, but today he was in a bit of a rush. Tourists on rusty rental bicycles, runners carrying bottled waters and iPods, and the occasional high strung toddler mom pushing a stroller, crowded the street. This time of year, it made the two-lane road a veritable obstacle course to navigate.

  He tapped his horn twice to gently nudge a double-wide stroller over just a little and gave the obligatory sorry-about-that wave as he passed. “Go home, Yankee,” he whispered under his breath, and smiled a broad, gleaming white smile.