The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection

by David F. Berens

  Chris ignored it and wrapped him in a big bear hug again.

  “I can’t thank you enough for the ride,” Brant said, “and everything else. I… I’m not sure I would’ve made it without you.”

  “Heck,” Chris said, chuckling, “Greyhound would’ve gotten you here and probably a little cooler than I did to boot.”

  Brant shook his head. “I’ll never forget my journey with Christopher Saint Juneau, that’s for sure. A memory I will treasure forever.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Chris said, and smiled as he pulled a small box out of his pocket and handed it to Brant.

  “What’s this?”

  “A little somethin’ I got for you to take with you, wherever you go,” Chris said.

  “Thanks, Chris,” Brant said, and turned to go.

  “Safe travels,” Chris called from behind him. “Go with God.”

  Brant opened the box as he walked toward Jackie’s room. It was a small sterling silver chain with an oval shaped pendant dangling from it. He flipped it over to see the inscription.

  It was a simple carving of a man with the name St. Christopher written on the outside edge.

  The patron saint of travelers, Brant thought.

  He turned around, but Chris was gone.

  24

  Sister Save Me

  Mindy Colpiller felt her bottom lip cracking as she sat in the steaming hot room at the top of the Cape Florida Lighthouse. The tears had long since stopped flowing, but she still felt as though she was crying. Dehydration had robbed her of that.

  The chest labeled OIL laid open, its lid removed and flung across the room. Mindy had broken it free by unscrewing the hinges and then jerking it off the front—with the padlock still attached.

  Inside the box, she had discovered the gruesome and heartbreaking remains of her twin sister, Caroline. Taz had not only beaten her to death, but had also broken her legs—and maybe her arms—to make her body compact enough to be shoved into the small chest. After seeing the disgusting remains, she’d screamed until her voice was hoarse and had broken into sobs that jerked her chest up and down.

  And then she had screamed some more, upon realizing she was likely to suffer a similar fate… if she survived the heat long enough for Taz to return… if he returned at all.

  She had exhausted herself beating on the trapdoor style hatch that led out of the top of the lighthouse. She’d tried slamming the broken lid of the box onto it over and over again, but had only succeeded in scratching the door and cutting her hands in several places. It was hopeless. The door was apparently built to withstand strong storms.

  As she sat with her back against the rounded wall, looking up at the wide windows above her, it struck her as ironic that she was trapped in a building made to send a beacon out for miles and miles around, but she couldn’t get it to make a peep. She breathed as deeply as she could; she had long since become desensitized to the stench odor of her sister’s rotting body.

  She ran through all the memories of Caroline she could, hoping to sear them into her mind for all time. Playing dolls together, insisting that their dolls be dressed alike. Riding bikes together that matched, exactly down to the last streamer flowing from the handlebars. Dating the same guy in high school… that hadn’t worked out so well, but he turned out to be a jerk, so they had both dumped him. Asking for the same car on their sixteenth birthday… Daddy had agreed, of course… and then getting the same vanity plate with a slight variation. COLPI1 and COLPI2.

  It had been Caroline who had talked Mindy into smoking pot in college, and had gotten them both into the biggest trouble with their Dad they had ever been in. Mindy had immediately quit, but Caroline had kept smoking; she the free spirit, Mindy the straight arrow. Caroline had been the one to travel far and wide on road trip after road trip, following festivals and party bands all over the country. She was the one who’d had the pregnancy scare with some stoner out of Colorado. Dramatically, that had ended when the next month came around. Mindy had held her sister in her arms as she cried… not sure whether to be sad or relieved she wasn’t going to have a baby. The recovery from that event had pushed Caroline into another kind of trip with some pretty heavy drugs and a guy who’d promised to stay with her forever… Naturally, he didn’t, but the addictions Caroline had formed to the substances he brought her did. Mindy had dropped everything and stayed at the clinic with her sister while she got clean and well.

  Lately, though, with college done for Mindy, and Caroline romping around South Beach and trading the hippy life for the Miami party, they had grown apart.

  Caroline was rarely at home for more than three days in a row, and when she was there, she spent her time down at the tennis courts, off to Brickell for shopping, or on South Beach meeting her newest Latin lover. Mindy was left to sit on the couch and listen to her dad complain about how neither of them was doing anything productive with their lives, and that he’d be damned if he was going to leave them anything in his will.

  Mindy knew this was a lie, but she also knew that their father, the great Jack Colpiller, was a picture of good health. He wasn’t likely to be kicking the bucket anytime soon. So, Mindy had started to make plans. With her father’s approval, she had signed up for classes at SCAD—the Savannah College of Art and Design. She had convinced Caroline to drive up with her last summer and check the school out. Caroline partied it up while they were there, and even said she’d consider going to school with Mindy… but, unfortunately, her artistic talent was limited to deciding the proper shade of eye-shadow to apply for maximum effect under the black lights of Club Opium on South Beach.

  The rift between the sisters had opened up after that trip. It got wider when Caroline convinced her dad to buy her the Porsche. It was only fair, she argued, since he was footing the outlandish tuition SCAD was going to charge him for Mindy’s schooling. He relented after Caroline claimed she would run away from home and travel the country with… whatever that guy’s name was from Colorado.

  Mindy had resented the car, and more than once had threatened to scratch the crap out of the hood… but she never did. They were twin sisters, after all.

  And now, Caroline was dead, brutally murdered and dismembered by that asshole, Taz. It felt like the left side of her body had been torn away. Where she had once felt the bond that only siblings—only twins—could feel, she now felt nothing.

  She screamed into the empty space and it echoed dully. She wondered if it could be heard at all outside, but she was pretty sure she was over ninety feet off the ground and just a few feet from the churning surf. No one would hear anything.

  She sat in silence, trying desperately to figure out how to get out… it was like an old riddle she remembered her sister telling her. You’re in a room with no doors and no windows. All you have is a pencil. How do you escape? She hated Caroline for torturing her with that one back in the sixth grade. She’d googled it and asked everyone she knew, but the answer was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Caroline had agreed to tell her, if she gave her the weekly allowance their dad paid them. Fifty bucks. It wasn’t much, and at first Mindy had been against it.

  “Yeah, right,” Mindy remembered saying, “that’s never gonna happen.”

  But every time Caroline got the chance, she would say Mindy was stupid for not knowing and finally, it was too much. Mindy forked over the fifty bucks.

  “Okay, tell me,” she demanded.

  “It’s simple,” Caroline said, and smirked. “Break the pencil in half.”

  “What?!” Mindy was furious. “How does that get you out?”

  “Well, now the pencil is broken into two halves,” —Caroline had tucked the money into her purse, bill by bill… taunting Mindy— “and what do two halves make?”

  “A whole?”

  “Exactly,” Caroline jeered. “You just climb out the hole.”

  To say that Mindy had been angry did not come close to the reality of that little game. She had ignored Caroline for two months without so much as
speaking a single word to her. But like all arguments between them, it faded in time. She wished Caroline was alive to help her get out of this room now.

  She glanced at the box that held Caroline’s brutalized body, then jumped up and ran over to it. She tipped it up, and part of her sister’s arm tumbled out. She almost vomited, but she regained her composure quickly.

  “Sorry, sis,” she said as she began to empty the box of gruesome body parts.

  Her sister was wearing a white Nike tank top with matching white Nike shorts. She reached into the box and tucked her hands inside Caroline’s pockets, hoping she had something—anything—that could help her escape. Her fingers closed on a small tubular object. Elated that Taz hadn’t thought to empty Caroline’s pockets, she dug through them all and came up with a small pile of her sister’s things; her driver’s license, a tube of lipstick, a disposable lighter with a picture of a Kitten on the side, and a key that looked like a locker key from the Ritz-Carlton Tennis Garden.

  So, she had been at the Tennis Garden on the night she died. Taz had kidnapped her—or killed her—before she even had a chance to get her things from the locker. Bastard.

  Mindy was ecstatic to have these small things of her sister’s, but she had no idea how they would help her get out of there. She clicked the lighter and found it would light, but it was a low blue flame… almost out of fuel. She didn’t click it again for fear of running out completely. She opened the lipstick and glossed a little onto her chapped and cracked lips. It hurt a little, but then it seemed to moisturize them somewhat. She was so hungry, she almost bit into the lipstick, but she still had her wits about her enough to know it wouldn’t help.

  She carefully dumped the rest of Caroline’s body out onto the floor of the lighthouse and considered what help the box might be. It was about the size of a trunk you might take to college with you, or maybe on a summer camp trip with the local scout troop. She thought that maybe if she broke the box somehow, she might end up with a sharp piece that she could attack Taz with when he came back… if he came back.

  That was as good a plan as any, so she picked up the box and slammed it down on the floor. It banged loudly, but nothing happened. It was well made. She picked it up again and heaved it toward the wall. Nothing. She began flinging it around furiously, bashing it against the wall and over and over on the floor… but it never gave way.

  She fell breathlessly to the floor as the box tumbled end over end and landed upside down and wedged up against the wall. Between her heavy breaths, she dry-heaved and gasped for air. She was hyperventilating. She tried desperately to fight off the panic and slow her breathing. She stood up and walked slowly around the room with her head tilted back like a marathon runner. In with the good air, out with the bad.

  She paced around the room a few times, until finally, she felt her pulse slow to what felt a normal pace. Her breathing was slowing, so she eased herself down against the wall and tried to think happy, calming thoughts.

  “Ha!” she said out loud to the empty room, “Happy, calming thou—”

  Her thought never finished, because in her mind she realized the box was sitting next to the wall like a step. She stood and ran over to the opposite side of the room, stepped up onto the box, and screamed. She could see out. The windows were about six feet off the ground and, until now, she hadn’t been able to see outside. She screamed for twenty minutes, until finally her voice faded as she realized there was no one on the beach below the lighthouse. It was probably too late in the day for anyone to be out, especially this far south on the island.

  She stopped yelling, but she kept looking out, watching the waves roll up onto the beach.

  She might not be able to get out, but she would see him coming. And she would smash the box on top of his head if he came through that door.

  If he never comes back, I’ll probably die of starvation up here.

  But at least I’ll see the sunset one last time before I do.

  25

  Union Of The Snake

  Remington Hoyt Reginald was surprised at how stupid the cops must have thought he was… they were hiding in plain sight—and in uniform—at his apartment. He wasn’t sure what was up, but the police were onto him. Governor Dickerson had obviously figured out some way to get him arrested and taken down, but that was okay. Remington had his bugout bag, his Gram doll, and Pepe (what he had taken to calling his new pet skunk) with him in the car. He rolled past the building and slowed down for just long enough to figure out where he could go.

  It had become obvious that the Governor-elect had no intention of naming Remington as his Chief of Staff—hell, he’d gone on TV and named some other senator from Vermont to the post. So, it was time to make good on his threat. He had a friend at a local television station and he’d called him about some explosive information he had on the newly elected Governor. He didn’t have digital copies of it, so he’d hit a Kinko’s somewhere, scan everything he had, and email it to the reporter. But he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder every few minutes, sure he’d see a black SUV, with blacked out windows, following him.

  He needed a way to blend in—as if blending in would be easy for a man carrying a doll and a skunk. He could think of only one place where that would be considered normal; the Keys.

  He decided he’d head down toward the Keys and make himself disappear, so he pulled his car onto US 1 and clicked on the air conditioning.

  “You okay back there, Pepe?” he asked, looking over his shoulder.

  The skunk tittered and lifted its head. It was snuggling in the blanket Remington had grabbed from the apartment and had its arms wrapped around the Gram doll. He had long since stopped spraying, and Remington wondered if he’d run out… or if he’d become tamed by the pretzels and cheese puffs Remington had been feeding him. Maybe both.

  He checked the bag sitting next to him and found it to be empty. Fearing that the skunk would rebel against him if he didn’t replenish their food supply, he pulled off at a Food Spot… then thinking better of that decision, he maneuvered around the parking lot to pull into a Mom ‘n Pop grocery store next door. Pulling into the first parking place, he turned his car off, but without the AC going he realized he couldn’t leave Pepe out here in the burning heat.

  He grabbed his Coach Metropolitan Courier bag (made with genuine sport calf leather) from the back seat and tucked the blanket in the bottom of it.

  “Sorry, Pepe,” he said, gently picking up the skunk, “but I can’t leave you outside this time.”

  The skunk purred and relented… maybe he felt the heat too. Remington folded the flap over the bag and closed the car door. He clicked his fob and went inside. This time he didn’t look around, and missed the black SUV pulling in behind him.

  Armed with a handheld basket from the front of the store, Remington started shoving in various cheese flavored chips, puffs, and balls, which seemed to be the skunk’s favorites. He walked the aisles, choosing a large bag of lightly salted sunflower seeds for himself, and grabbed a few bottles of water from the cooler in the back.

  The door dinged at the front of the store and Remington glanced up and saw a man wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans walked in. He wasn’t sure what tipped him off that something was up, either the fact the man didn’t take his sunglasses off, or the fact he’d raised a shotgun and blew a giant hole in the clerk at the register. Either way, Remington fell to the floor and scrambled back toward the bathrooms.

  Dammit, he thought, that didn’t take long. He was certain that the man must be working for Gil Dickerson. To walk in and murder someone in broad daylight without pause had to be the work of someone with serious connections.

  The man began walking through the store as bits of glass and broken pieces of store counter and displays crunched beneath his shoes.

  Remington crawled as quietly as he could toward the rear of the store, hoping there was a back door or some place to crawl in and hide.

  “Misther Rethginald,” the man said with a
n obvious lisp, “we bosth know how thisth isth going to end.”

  It felt strange to be both terrified of this assassin who’d been sent to kill him and yet distracted by the man’s speech impediment. Not that Remington associated any kind of humor with speech impediments—he’d had trouble pronouncing the letter R for quite a few years of his own childhood—but to hear a deadly hitman struggling with his death threats… okay, there was no time to be politically correct here.

  Remington said nothing, instead just continued to crawl along, trying his best to time his movements with the killer’s to mask the noise. He hoped someone would walk in and disrupt the scene, if only for a second. He could feel Pepe scratching against the inside of his messenger bag and hoped the skunk would calm down, but his pet seemed determined to escape.

  “My employer isth disthpleasthed with the way you have handled your… arrangement,” the man said, continuing to crunch his way through the store.

  No shit, Remington thought as he came to the doorway that led to three choices, Women’s, Men’s or Employees. He chose the third, and scrambled through after shoving open the Employee door. He ducked his head as the man fired his shotgun into the wall. Chunks of sheetrock and wood shattered and fell around him as he stood up and ran. He looked around and found what he was looking for… a giant, walk-in cooler. He figured he could duck in there and be hidden and protected at least for a minute or two. From there, he wasn’t sure what the plan was… but he needed time to think.

  He jumped up and ran toward the cooler. Jerking open the door, he jumped inside and ran to the back, where boxes of ice cream treats, popsicles, frozen candy bars, and frozen drink mixes sat on crates. The floor of the metal cooler was sticky from the residue of what looked like a recent spill of something cherry or strawberry flavored, and Remington felt the skunk start scratching at the inside of the bag, probably smelling the sweet stuff on the ground.