Blood of Cain (Sean O'Brien (Mystery/Thrillers))

by Lowe, Tom

  Dave said, “It’s believed Courtney Burke was spotted in New Orleans. Toss your ice in the freezer and come aboard Gibraltar. I was about to show Sean an image of what looks a lot like Courtney.”

  Nick nodded, walked back inside St. Michael, and reappeared with a six-pack of Coronas in his hand. He followed us to Gibraltar, sitting on a stool at Dave’s bar, popping the top off a beer. “Want one?”

  I shook my head. “Not now.”

  Dave said, “I’ll be mixing a batch of Grey Goose martinis after five-thirty.”

  I picked Max up and set her on my lap, scratching behind her hound dog ears. Her brown eyes began to close.

  Dave picked up his tablet and found the image. He enlarged it on screen and said, “The sketch artist was interviewed. He said he’d spotted the girl eating alone on a park bench near Jackson Square close to the French Quarter. He said, even with her dark glasses and hat, he could tell she was beautiful. He told a reporter that the girl had a face of an angel—a face he had to draw, if he’s to be believed.”

  Nick sipped his Corona and said, “To me, it sounds like a way to pick up women.”

  I studied the image. “It’s hard to say, but from the sketch, it could be Courtney. There’s a resemblance … but it could be a million other young women, too. We can’t be certain it’s her.”

  Dave nodded. “But we can be certain of one thing: whoever sent those two bounty hunters to Gibsonton, whoever intimidated and hurt Kim … you can bet they’ve sent their troops to New Orleans, or they may already have someone in the city.”

  Nick said, “Maybe that’ll take the heat off Kim.”

  I said, “If they find Courtney in New Orleans, yes. But they still believe Kim knows the name of the woman who lent her mobile phone to Courtney. Dave, do you have anyone at your old place of employment who you can unconditionally trust?”

  “There are a couple at the agency who haven’t retired. I’d trust them in any situation.”

  “Good.” I wrote down the number and handed it to him. “Here’s the number to the woman I told you about—the one Courtney called. I believe it’s connected to somewhere in South Carolina or across the state line near Augusta, Georgia.”

  Dave looked through his bifocals. “Okay, what do you need?”

  “The physical location of the person who has that number. It may be a landline or a mobile phone. I need the address. Home or apartment. If it’s a mobile, and the GPS is on, I’ll need her location as I’m tracking her.”

  “That’ll take minutes to find out.”

  “Good. It’s urgent. Did any of the news stories say whether Courtney’s been spotted by anyone else in New Orleans?”

  “No one has come forth, but with Carlos Bandini adding money to the Crime Stoppers reward, it’s now at two-hundred grand. That’ll bring out the sentinels and ghost hunters.”

  Nick chuckled. “The Big Easy has its share of ghost hunters.”

  I said, “The question is—if the girl in that sketch is Courtney, why did she go to New Orleans? What’s there or who’s there? Will she stay hidden in the city? Now that she’s been seen, probably not. Where will she go next?”

  “Good questions,” Nick said. “It’s too damn bad that all this is happening with your ex-girlfriend, at least with her politician husband, because if Andrea Logan gave a damn about the girl who might be her daughter, she could be in a position to help find her. But you can’t even tell Andrea because it places Courtney in the cross-hairs of an assassin. Screw it, Sean. I’m worried about Kim now. Call Andrea and tell her to tell her husband to back off or you’ll kick his sanctimonious ass the length of the Washington Monument.”

  “I did call her a half hour ago.”

  Nick’s dark eyebrows arched. “What’d she say?”

  “She listened, mostly. For half a minute. Without mentioning Senator Logan by name, I urged her to tell him to leave it alone … or there will be consequences.”

  Dave exhaled, set his tablet on the table and said, “You walk a fine and very dangerous line, Sean. Logan has the full protection of the Secret Service. If you even utter a threat specifically against Logan, they’ll arrest you so fast your head will spin. It’s a hell of an unfair advantage. He’s could have access to the NSA’s resources to monitor calls, emails, and any electronic communications through its PRISM program and Patriot Act. Is Logan privy to it? I don’t know. Regardless, he can be in his jet or luxury bus on the campaign stops, whisper treacherous directives for his subordinates to follow, and stay beyond reproach in the eye of the law and the public. But you, Sean, have to play by the rules.”

  “Maybe,” I said standing. “Maybe not.”

  “What do you mean?” Nick asked.

  “I might not be able to threaten Logan, personally. But I can send a sincere message through someone else.”

  Nick leaned forward on the barstool. “Sincere? Through who?”

  “That will depend on who they send. The invite goes out tonight. Dave, I’m going to give you a call in a little while. Play along. They’re listening on my main phone, no doubt. And now it’s time to turn the tables.”

  64

  It’s not difficult to find a sex shop in Daytona Beach. The hard part is going into one to buy something that’s not about sex, but rather about life or death. I needed a blow-up doll of a woman. The shop in the heart of A1A, a block from the Atlantic Ocean, smelled of latex and bleach. Its inventory of blow-up dolls was limited to one blond and three brunettes, fully blown up, all appearing to have the same anatomical assets. I picked a brunette. The beefy clerk was unshaven, lots of tats, one earlobe stretched with a black onyx piece of jewelry the size of a quarter. He had a silver pin through his right eyebrow. “Be eighty bucks,” he said.

  I paid in cash.

  “Have a nice night,” he said, sitting back on a stool in front of the register, picking at a scab in the center of a Daffy Duck tattoo on his Popeye forearm.

  I walked outside and into a wall of humid heat in the late afternoon, the sound of the breakers clashing with the bass throb of rap music coming from a low-rider car at the traffic light. Max sat in the front seat. “We have company,” I said to her, setting the doll down in the Jeep’s rear seats, glad my new passenger was only five feet tall. Max stuck her head between the front seats, glancing back at the naked doll, and then up at me. She cocked her head, looking at me for a brief Max moment.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Driving to my old cabin on the St. Johns River, about forty minutes west of Daytona, I rehearsed in my mind the conversation I was about to have with Dave Collins. It had to sound real, and it had to strike a sense of urgency that could set a trap for a killer or killers.

  I made the call.

  Dave said, “Hello.”

  “I heard from Courtney.”

  “You did? Where is she, Sean?”

  “She was in New Orleans. She’s been driving back to Florida. The kid’s scared. She’s tired and wants this to end.”

  “What can she do—what can you do?”

  “Hold a news conference.”

  “That should be an eye-opener. Where? When?”

  “Soon. Maybe tomorrow. That way it’s all out in the wash. Detective Grant can take her into custody, at least she’ll be safer. I don’t believe he has the evidence he needs to get a conviction in the death of Lonnie Ebert. In the Bandini case, I think a jury will believe Courtney’s story, defending herself against a sociopathic rapist.”

  “But the big question, the one the nation would like to hear the answer to is this: is Courtney Burke the girl you and Andrea Logan conceived twenty years ago?”

  “It’s time to let the chips fall where they will. This is about the life of a young woman. It trumps political rhetoric.”

  “Is she coming back to Ponce Inlet?”

  “No, I gave her directions to my river cabin. I expect her around midnight. She’ll be coming down I-75, catching 441 over to 40. Dave, my battery’s dying. I gav
e her your number, too. If she calls, if she gets lost, remind her my place is two hundred yards on the right past the first Ocala National Forest sign off Highway 445.” I hit the End Call button and let out a long breath. Dave had been magnificent. All of his covert training continued to serve him well.

  ***

  A half hour later, I was pulling into my gravel and oyster shell driveway leading down to my river cabin, a place I wish I could retreat to and take up yoga. Not today, and certainly not tonight. I was expecting guests, unannounced guests, and I’d leave the light on for them.

  I was glad the seclusion of an old cabin on the river would allow me to walk into my home with a life-size sex doll and not give the neighbors a season’s worth of gossip. Although my anonymity was lost, no sense in carrying the label of a sexual pervert, too. My nearest neighbor was almost a mile away, at this moment in time, not far enough. “Max, what do you say we call our friend? How about Suzy?”

  Max looked up at me and snorted.

  I turned toward the always smiling doll and said, “We hope you enjoy our little place on the river. You’ll have a great view of the water. More importantly, those folks who’d like to shoot a bullet through your rubber head will see you, but not too well. At least that’s Plan A. I’ve been known to go through the alphabet with my Plan A’s. Back in a second.” I had a sudden recall of one of the scenes from the movie Castaway when the character that Tom Hanks played spoke to a soccer ball he named Wilson.

  Max and I left the doll in the Jeep and walked around the perimeter of my cabin. I checked windows and doors for the slightest sign of intrusion, examined the dust and pollen on windowsills and doorknobs. I couldn’t see any overt signs that someone had entered my home.

  And then there it was.

  Max was sniffing something near a live oak. A boot print. A combat boot. I recognized the unique pattern or tread left in the dirt next to one of the largest live oaks on my property. The print was made from what was called a Panama sole. These combat boots are excellent in tropical terrain. I spotted some abrasions to the bark on the tree, a rather slight discoloration from the surrounding area of the trunk. The intruder had climbed the tree. When he’d dropped back down, he left the single well-defined boot print and a partial of another. Why had he climbed the tree? I looked from the perspective back to my house. A clear view.

  Surveillance camera.

  I jumped up to the first low-hanging limb, pulled myself on top of the limb and examined the tree. Someone had mounted a small camera to the limb. The camera was no larger than the water nozzle you’d attach to a garden hose. It was fastened to a metal plate bolted onto the limb. But the wires leading to a battery and a weather-sealed laptop were not attached. The job wasn’t finished.

  So they already knew where I lived.

  I dropped to the ground and looked at the western sky, to the horizon far beyond the oxbow in the river. It was less than a half hour before sunset, the clouds beginning to blush into pinks and soft merlot colors. I’d wait until the cover of darkness to move Suzy into the house. And then, at midnight, I’d wait for them. I walked twenty feet away from the tree, turned and fired a single shot into the lens of the camera they’d mounted, glass raining down like acorns dropping.

  65

  At 8:00 pm, I set the bait. I carried Suzy into the house, turned on the television, and placed my house guest in front of the screen. I positioned her so the flickering light from the TV screen would cast the silhouetted form of a woman against the curtains in front of the bay window. I adjusted the light levels in the room, walked outside and checked. Perfect. Since Suzy was presumably watching TV, no one should notice that she wasn’t moving. At least I was counting on no one noticing.

  And now, the countdown. In the conversation I had with Dave, I’d told him—and whoever was listening—that Courtney Burke was expected to arrive at midnight. Would they plan to be here before that time, or could I expect them anytime between midnight and dawn? I didn’t know, but I did know what I needed in my hands to stop the intruders if they came as a team—two or more.

  I went inside and opened the gun cabinet, removed my Remington Special Ops Tactical 12-gauge pump shotgun, and loaded the chamber and magazine with double-aught buckshot. I cleaned and reloaded my Glock. Learning to expect the unexpected, I was seldom surprised.

  Max seemed anxious, pacing the floor once or twice, occasionally glancing at our silent and lifeless house guest. I didn’t want her in harm’s way, but I needed her uncanny sense of hearing. Her bark would be a short alarm, just the edge I’d need to have a better advantage against the intruder or intruders. I’d planned on locking Max in a back bedroom facing the western approach to my cabin. The darkest area of the property. I would be outside, hidden, waiting in the shadows or trees. My point-of–view would include a bird’s eye perspective of the entire property, especially the road frontage, my driveway, and the side of the house with the silhouette in the window.

  I went back inside, secured Max in a bedroom, and dressed in dark jeans and black T-shirt. I sprayed insect repellent on my exposed body parts before stepping onto the screened-in front porch and reaching inside a bag of charcoal. I removed two briquettes, crushing them together in the palms of my hands. Then I rubbed the black residue all over my face, ears, arms and hands. I used a wet-wipe to keep my palms clean.

  A curlew called out across the river somewhere on the edge of the national forest. The dying sunset cast the St. Johns in cavernous shade from the palms, oaks and weeping willows along the shore. The river was very still. Woven in between the saw-tooth shade was the reflection of clouds like clusters of purple grapes floating in red wine, a wiry mist frolicking off the water and painting the surface into a river of dreams.

  But the illusion of tranquility was short lived. I spotted the ripple of a V formation as a massive alligator slowly swam from murky water beneath a cypress tree. It swam around cypress knees sprouting like knobby posts out of the water, the big gator’s nostrils and eyes above the surface.

  I was wondering how I might carry out a plan without resulting to torture. The thought of replicating the use of gas on a stove, like what was almost tried on Kim, disgusted me. I’d prefer to use Mother Nature. She could be much more convincing.

  ***

  I used an aluminum ladder to get to my lookout position—my rooftop, pulling the ladder up behind me. I’d taken a viewpoint position from behind my stone chimney, putting it between me and the road. That was three hours ago. Watching. Waiting. Mosquitoes orbited my head, whining off-key in my ears. I set the shotgun down and did twenty-five pushups, moving the blood, keeping my senses as sharp as possible.

  The moon was on my side tonight. It slept late, but like an old friend, the full moon was there, rising in the east above the tree-line, and its light like spun gold off the liquid face of the river. Bats did aerial stunts under the moonlight. I waited. Listened. Would they come?

  To my far right, in the west, I saw the distant flash of lightning. I was hoping the soldier or soldiers would arrive before the rain. It would be much harder to spot them in a moonless night with rain falling. I heard the distinct hoot of a barred owl, the hooting coming from one of the cypress trees near my dock. Cicadas vibrated in the limbs. Then there was the mechanical sound of man.

  A car was coming.

  I peered from around the side of the chimney and watched the light from the headlamps travel across the treetops. Within seconds, a car rounded the bend. It moved at a speed slower than the posted forty-five-miles-per hour, but not so slow to be obvious that the driver was searching for something. When the car was near the spot where my driveway joined the road, there was a minor reduction in speed. Then it passed the driveway. Fifty feet later, a tap of the brakes. But only for a second. The driver continued.

  I knew he’d be back. And he wouldn’t be in his car.

  66

  An hour later, I knew I wasn’t going to get my wish. I’d hoped the rain would not arrive before the merce
nary. It did. The clouds fanned in and the temperature fell. It was as if a black hood had dropped over the moon. Gone. The first drops were large, splattering through the branches and leaves, the rain cooling the old quarry-stone chimney that still harbored warmth generated by exposure all day in the Florida sun. Now it was cool to my touch.

  I could no longer see my driveway, the road was swallowed in black. I looked just above what I thought was the end of the drive, hoping I might somehow see movement. Nothing. The rain fell harder, water rolling down my face causing the charcoal to run. My hair was drenched. I glanced up into the sky, it was like staring into a coal mine.

  Lightning marbled white hot veins through the gut of the clouds. I instinctively looked toward the end of my drive. And there he was. His image caught and frozen for a second in the flash from the lightning. Dressed in military fatigues. Right down to his combat boots. I could only see one man. Maybe that’s all they thought they needed. They were wrong.

  I crouched down behind the chimney. I knew he’d survey the perimeter of the home, staying back, cautious of motion detectors turning on floodlights. Often the movement of rain is enough to trigger some motion detectors. He’d quickly find the silhouette in the window. The falling rain would make it more difficult to see movement inside the house. And if he got close enough to peer in the window, the trap door from the roof would fall on him. I knew he had orders to kill Courtney. I assumed he had orders to kill me, too.

  Max barked. Two barks. Muffled, but there.

  I stayed low, squatting and moving to the side of the roof above the bay window. The light coming from the window extended about ten feet into my yard. Within seconds he’d moved to the edge of the light. I could now see his face, right down to his boots. Kim’s voice ratcheted in my mind. ‘He’s about your height, but stocky. His hair is blond … cut short. His ears stuck out just a little. He had cleft chin and hateful green eyes.’

  And there he stood. On my property. Next to my house. Pistol in his hands. He stepped closer to the window, raising the gun up. I recognized it: a FNP .45 Tactical. Often used by Special Forces soldiers. It will fire up to fifteen rounds as fast as the shooter can pull the trigger.