“All the better.”
Samantha thought she heard a smile in the voice.
“The lovesick girlfriend starves herself to death.”
Dammit, thought Samantha as she realized how hungry she was right now.
Footsteps approached from the other side of the room and she heard the familiar sound of duct tape being unwound from the roll. The killer wrapped it around her face, covering her mouth again. She wondered how she would be able to eat like this… but didn’t really care.
“Take care, poor Juliet,” the voice said, and the sound of a metal door screeching open poured light into the room. “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
It slammed shut, throwing Samantha back into darkness. That had to be Mortimer. Sounded like something he would say. As she sat in the black room, letting her head recover from the slap and the fall, she began to try and put pieces together from all that had happened. The more she thought about it, the more her head swam.
Surely, if it was Professor LeFleur, Troy was onto him and would follow him here to rescue her. But what if Troy had tipped his hand and LeFleur had killed him, too. It just got worse the more she thought about it. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Willing herself to meditate, she concentrated on the one thing she knew for sure. She was not going to sit here and die for the killer. Rocking back and forth, she pushed harder and harder with her feet until the chair slammed backward onto the hard floor. Through the pain, she grinned as she felt the chair crack under her weight. That was all she would need to get free… a crack she could work on.
29
I Know A Guy
Locking the door, the thief – Tayler’s murderer – walked out onto the street. The sun streamed down in bright rays… it was a beautiful day. There was no one walking here like there would’ve been back at the college. It was the perfect location to keep Samantha – quiet, industrial, and remote. It wouldn’t have mattered if anyone had seen the thief; this place was all part of the thief’s regular day-to-day activity.
Overhead, an airplane rushed by, the jet engines screaming into the sky. The thief grinned, wondering if the art dealers had ever found the painting. Skipping down to the curb, the thief hopped onto a scooter, unlocked a rope chain from a nearby streetlight, and drove away. The plan was coming together nicely. With Samantha gone, the way would be smooth sailing. The thief made a mental note to bring some protein shakes over tomorrow... with a straw. The girl would get hungry soon enough.
Troy plopped himself down on the leather club chair in his now roommate-less apartment. He had dialed Samantha’s number over and over, hoping whoever had picked up before would do that again. No such luck. It went straight to voicemail, so he hung up. Then a thought hit him… what if the person who had possibly killed Tayler had taken Samantha… and her phone. He dialed again. After a few seconds, he spoke into the receiver.
“Hey there,” he said, starting unsurely but gaining momentum as he spoke, “this is Troy Bodean. I know who you are. I also know what you’ve done. We both know where this is headed. I’m thinkin’ we can strike a deal. All I want is Sami back. If you drop her somewhere and let her come on, I’ll convince her to drop this whole Tayler thing and you can run away with the painting.”
He paused for a second and decided to go out on a limb.
“Unless you’ve already sold it,” he said, “in which case, you can run away to ole Mexico or somethin’ like that. Either way, you’re off scot-free. That is… if I get the girl back.”
He started to add something else, but his line beeped. He held the phone out to see who was calling. Vito Mantiaglio from out in Vegas was returning a call Troy had made to him earlier. If anyone would know how to find a painting being sold on the black market, it was Vito. Troy clicked to hang up on the voicemail he was leaving on Sami’s phone, and clicked over to pick up with Vito.
“Yo,” Troy said with a smile in his voice.
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” Vito’s big Italian voice boomed over the phone. “If it ain’t the infamous Troy Bodean.”
Troy laughed. “Infamous? I doubt that.”
“How the hell are you, Troy?” Vito asked. “I ain’t seen you since… friggin’ ten years ago, right?”
“Yeah, I’d say that’s about right,” Troy said.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of dis call, Mr. Bodean?”
“Vito, I got a question about a paintin’,” Troy said.
“Hold up,” Vito said, and Troy thought he heard the man standing up and walking away from other people talking in the background. “Aight, cool. I had to step outside for a sec. So, I’m guessin’ we’re talkin’ about a hot paintin’?”
“Yeah,” Troy said, “somethin’ like that. There’s a pretty famous one that’s gone missin’ down here in Savannah.”
“Shit,” Vito breathed, “you talkin’ about that black girl one? The one where the dude offed hisself?”
“That’s the one,” Troy said. “You know anything about it?”
“Dude,” Vito said, “that thing is so hot right now, it’s on fire. If anyone tried to sell it already, every Fed in the country would know about it. As such, I ain’t heard a peep.”
“Nothin’ at all?”
“Nuttin’.”
“Dangit,” Troy muttered. “Thanks, Vito. Hey, listen, do me a favor. If you hear anything about it, let me know, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, “I’ll call you. In the meantime, lemme hook you up with a local guy I know. He’s in the business. Mighta heard summ’n.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Vito said, “but be careful. Eddie ain’t always the most up and up guy.”
“Eddie?”
“Yeah, Eddie Vargo.”
“Cool.”
“I’ll text you his number,” Vito said. “Tell him I sent you, but don’t expect that to get you no favors.”
“Thanks, Vito.”
“Yeah, don’t thank me yet,” Vito said, “I dunno how helpful that’ll be. Anyways, when you gonna get out to Vegas again?”
Troy shook his head. “Not sure ‘bout that one. I’ll let you know if I ever do.”
“Aight, cool, brother,” Vito said, “be safe.”
“You too,” Troy said and hung up the phone.
As soon as he did, a text came through with a phone number and the name Eddie Vargo. Troy sniffed and punched the number to dial it. It went to voicemail.
Dangit, Troy thought, don’t nobody answer the dang phone anymore?
He left a short and sweet message: “Vito sent me. Call me back. I’m interested in that paintin’ I keep seein’ on the news. Name’s Troy. Call me back on this number.”
He dropped his phone on the coffee table and picked up a Ziploc bag full of dollar bills. He proceeded to count his haul from Club One. As he counted, he couldn’t help but grin.
Part III
Finishing Strokes
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
30
Pumpkin’ Chunkin’
Troy was belly up to the bar at the Rail Pub when the cute blond girl almost young enough to be his daughter hobbled up and stood next to him. He was four Coronas in and sipping on number five and not necessarily against some company. His head had begun to ache, thinking about all the heavy stuff he’d been involved in with the suicide… er, murder, of Tayler.
He’d pretty much excluded Mortimer LeFleur as a suspect with the video evidence from Club One, and was basically at a loss about how to proceed from there. Since Eddie Vargo hadn’t yet called him back, he figured it would be a good idea to grab a beer with some of his stage money. And he knew for dang sure he wasn’t goin’ back to Club One… yet.
The girl with unbelievably big brown doe-eyes stared at him for at least five minutes before she finally spoke.
“Well?” she asked.
Troy put his beer down, still almost half full, and looked at her. Is it just me, o
r is the college female population gettin’ prettier and prettier every single year? He smiled and put a finger on the front brim of his Outback Tea Stained straw cowboy hat.
“Well what?” he asked.
“You gonna offer to buy me a drink, or what, cowboy?” she said, batting her eyelashes.
Troy took the final sip of his fifth Corona and held two fingers up toward the bartender.
“Orange slice?” the college kid wearing the VAN HALEN KICKS ASS t-shirt asked him.
“Okay by you?” Troy asked the girl.
“Sure,” she said and propped a pair of crutches up beside her against the bar. “Little help?”
Troy got down off his own stool and grabbed her around the waist. Firm, young, and muscled more than he’d expected. Hoisting her up, he plopped her down on the next seat and noticed the bright pink cast on her left leg.
“How’d ya get that ding?” he asked, nodding toward the cast.
She inhaled, and suddenly Troy wondered if he’d gotten himself into a long and drawn out story he didn’t really want to hear. But she was diving in, so he had no choice but to hear her out.
“Well,” she said as the bartender sat the two beers in front of them, “have you ever heard of a Spartan Run?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Okay,” she said, “it’s like an obstacle course, but for adults. Most of the time, it’s a three-mile run with about twenty obstacles. Sometimes wall climbs, rope climbs, spear throws, Atlas balls—”
“Atlas balls?” Troy interrupted her.
“Yeah, big stones you have to move from one location to another and sometimes put up on a pedestal,” she said quickly. “So, anyway, I had just competed in my first beast run—”
“Beast run?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” she said and nodded vigorously, “fourteen miles of crazy. Hell yeah!”
She fist-pumped the air at this last comment, but when she realized Troy wasn’t going to react more, she launched back into the story.
“And this one was going to complete my Trifecta,” she said, and then as Troy opened his mouth to ask, she held up a hand. “That’s when you do a sprint, a super, and a beast all in the same year. Anyway, there I was coming down from the ape hanger, and I felt somethi—”
“You broke your leg on the landing, eh?” Troy smiled and sipped his beer.
“Uh, no.” She looked like she thought he was stupid. “I felt my shoe sink into the mud. I didn’t have time to get it back, so I just left it and ran on.”
“Oh,” Troy said.
“Yeah, and wouldn’t you know it,” she huffed, “the last obstacle was the dang inverted wall.”
“Ahhhh,” Troy said, pretending he knew what that was, “the old inverted wall.”
“I know, right?” she said, now smiling. “So, I say to Ben – my boyfriend – you’re gonna have to go up first and when you get to the top, just hang there and pull me up.” She paused, swallowing the last of her beer.
“Another?” Troy asked.
When she nodded, the bartender was already popping the top on another one.
“So, yeah,” she continued without skipping a beat, “he gets up there and starts to drop down to the other side. I’m like, ‘excuse me, you forgot something’.”
“The nerve.” Troy was too deep in to stop listening now… he needed to know how she broke her leg.
“Am I right?” she huffed. “So, like, Ben – my boyfriend – climbs back up the other side, reaches over the wall, and grabs me by my wrists, but by this time I’m covered in sweat and mu—”
“He dropped you and you broke your leg?” Troy asked.
“No, he didn’t drop me,” she said matter-of-factly, “he pulled on me and I slipped… and his hand caught hold of my sports bra.”
She started laughing as if she’d gotten to the punch line of the joke. Troy shrugged.
“So, yeah, basically, I finished the race topless,” – she laughed harder – “and with one shoe!”
Troy smiled a little. “Well, I’ll be.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said and shook her head. “Can you believe that?”
“Hard to believe,” Troy said. “So, you finished the race without breaking your leg?”
“Yeah, totally,” she said, “but then, that’s when Ben – my boyfriend – says he’s got tickets to the game.”
“The game?”
“Yeah, the football game. Duh.”
“Right,” Troy said on an inhale, “the football game.”
“So, I’m like, what the hell am I going to wear?” She pointed to her shirt. It was an oversized men’s dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbow. Troy noticed for the first time that her shorts were black spandex.
“Let me guess,” Troy said, “that’s Ben’s shirt?”
“Uh, no,” she said and huffed again, “why would I have his shirt on?”
“Oh, well, um—”
“No, but anyway,” – she launched right back in – “so, I’m like, okay sure, I’ll go to the game, but uh, I’m basically topless.”
“So,” Troy asked, now slightly more interested, “you just stood there at the end of the race… without a shirt on?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, “lots of girls lose their tops during the race. It’s just kind of a thing.”
“Gonna have to check one of these things out,” Troy said through a grin.
“Yeah, you’d really like it,” she said, missing his innuendo completely.
The bartender laughed as he slid two new beers in front of them. Troy shrugged his shoulders at the guy, but he backed away with his hands raised in a don’t-ask-me-bro kind of look.
“Okay,” she said grabbing the beer, “so, where was I?”
“Football game?”
“Right,” she said, “the football game. So, anyway, Ben gave me his shirt to wear for the car ride and drove me over to the thrift store.”
“The thrift store?”
“Duh,” she said, “you can get all kinds of cool vintage stuff there.”
“Naturally,” Troy said.
“So, anyway, I ran in and grabbed this totally awesome shirt,” she said.
Troy waited, but she seemed as if she’d come to the end of her story.
“So…” he started, “your leg?”
“Oh, yeah,” she giggled, “that’s what I was telling you.”
Troy mentally slapped his forehead with his hand. He’d just slammed his exit from this conversation shut.
“Shots?” he mouthed at the bartender.
The guy laughed and grabbed a dark green bottle out of a nearby refrigerator. All the while the girl continued with her story.
“But outside the stadium, they had this pumpkin patch set up,” she said, “you know, corn maze, pumpkins, hay bales, pony rides, petting zoo, all that jazz.”
“Uh huh,” Troy said, throwing back the ice-cold shot of Jaeger the bartender had slid in front of him.
“So,” she continued, “Ben says, ‘Hey let’s do the slide together’, and I was like, okay, cool!”
Troy sniffed. Maybe.
“And the sign said, only one person allowed at a time, but Ben said it would be fine, so we went together. And at the end of the slide, he slammed into me and my leg twisted to the side. Heard it snap and everything.”
“Dang,” Troy said, “that sounds painful.”
“Oh, it totally was,” she said. “I screamed pretty loud I guess, cause some girl came over and grabbed me pretty quick. She threw me over her shoulder like I didn’t weigh anything at all. I mean, I’m not big or anything, but I have muscles. See?”
She flexed her good leg and the quad muscles tensed and became rock hard.
“Impressive,” Troy said.
“Thanks,” the girl said sheepishly.
“I was talkin’ bout the gal who picked you up.”
“Oh.”
“So, what the heck happened to Ben,” Troy asked.
“I dumped
his ass,” she said. “I mean, he basically threw me off him at the bottom of the slide.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “I mean, if it weren’t for Becky, I’d probably still be at the pumpkin patch waitin’ on a ride.”
“Becky?”
“Yeah, that’s what she said her name was, I think,” the girl said. “Super cute and strong, too.”
“Picked you right up, eh?”
“Yeah,” the girl nodded quickly.
“Huh, ain’t that somethin’.” Troy motioned the bartender for the check.
The girl droned on about something else, but Troy was long gone. His mind was drifting back to something he’d heard a day or so ago… something to do with Becky acting strange about the whole mess with Savannah and Tayler. Troy thought about what it would’ve taken to get Tayler up to the rafters. And it could’ve been that Becky was strong enough to grab Savannah too.
“Where’s that check?” he said to the bartender.
“Oh, you leavin’?” the girl asked.
“Yeah,” he said, dropping a couple of twenties on top of his tab. “I gotta see somebody.”
“Will I see you again?”
“You never know,” he said, and tipped his hat.
31
Seal The Deal
Eddie Vargo’s head was spinning around as he watched the streets of downtown Savannah roll by. He and his associate, T.D., were following the last known destination recorded in the rental car’s G.P.S. to hopefully track down where the thief had taken the car.
It became clear soon enough that they were headed back into town… exactly where, he wasn’t sure yet. But as they drove, the picture became sharper and sharper. Heading slightly southeast on Oglethorpe Avenue, they passed by the SCAD Museum of Art first, then the Savannah Civic Center, and eventually reached their destination at the Jepson Center for the Arts… the museum where the painting they were supposedly buying had been displayed.
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 83