“I’ve got to go,” she said and stood up, almost knocking the chair over. Her unfinished drink sat on the table. “I’ll get this to the lab, not that anyone will test it for six months. They’ll probably lose it. Maybe even on purpose.”
Before she could move to the door, I stood up and blocked her way. I watched her nostrils flare as I took a deep breath and stepped directly into the magnetic field, my face an inch from hers. I smoothed a long stray hair behind her ear and followed the line with my fingers to the back of her neck.
She melted into my arms and I kissed her hard. Her body went slack under me, her hands running up my spine as she let go and pressed herself hard into me. I ran my hands down the back of her as I nibbled her face all the way up to her hair, where I took in a whiff of her highly-charged girl smell. Then, I bit her ear. She licked my neck and wrapped a leg around mine.
I was about to throw her down onto the airbed when something smashed and a girl screamed.
We both froze.
It was from upstairs. Then, a loud thump and a crash like broken glass. A male voice yelled and there was another girl scream.
Shit.
THIRTY-ONE
GUN IN HAND, I WAS OUTSIDE RUNNING UP THE STEPS fast. Sofia was behind me, also with her gun drawn.
There was another scream. I turned the knob, but the door was locked. I rammed my right shoulder into it. Then again. Sofia gave me a “1-2-3-go” signal and we both threw our weight into it. The old jamb cracked and the door swung open.
We flew into the room. A Latina girl with dark hair was on the floor holding a big ceramic mug she had been about to throw at the same Latino kid with the gang tattoos that I had faced down before. Blood ran down her face. There was smashed glass everywhere. They both stared at us. The kid held a broken beer bottle in his right hand. He lunged toward me.
I stepped slightly to my left to allow his right arm to sail past me. I grabbed his wrist with my left hand and from on high I smashed his face with the side of my gun. Then, I moved both my hands around my gun and his small wrist and twisted while leaning back, and kicked him in the groin. He made a sound like “Unk!” as he went down. I twisted his wrist further back and put my knee into his forearm. I was about to break both bones, but a self-control washed over me. Instead, I placed my left boot onto the right side of his face and held him in place on the floor.
“Got a zip-tie?” I said to Sofia. She nodded and holstered her gun. I just knew she’d have a zip-tie.
I looked over at the bleeding girl, who was crying and screaming at me.
Holy fuck.
She was right above me the whole time.
“Marisol,” I said.
“Take your hands off him!” Marisol said as she smashed the ceramic mug on the side of my head and I went down, bewildered.
The kid used the opportunity to get back up, but Sofia’s fist smashed into his face and he went down again, very quiet this time.
Marisol screamed at Sofia in Spanish and looked around for something to throw at her. Sofia stepped into her space and slapped her. Then Marisol slapped Sofia back. Sofia grabbed Marisol’s wrist and twisted it. Marisol fell to her knees and Sofia pulled out a zip-tie, bound her wrists behind her back, and threw her down on the couch like a used pillow. During all this, they continued to scream at each other in fast vile Spanish.
“You okay?” Sofia finally said to me.
“Yeah,” I said, even though the room was spinning slightly. I felt my throbbing head. No blood. Just a swelling bump.
I sat up. Sofia came over, zip-tied the boy’s arms behind his back, and threw him onto a chair opposite the couch. He was conscious, but just barely.
Then there was more yelling in Spanish between Marisol and Sofia. There were references to me, I could tell, but otherwise it was gibberish. I did pick out parts of the Miranda warning.
“Sofia,” I said, “wait. Don’t take him in yet.”
“Oh, they’re both going in!” said Sofia.
“Wait. Just wait.”
I took out my phone and called Marisol’s mother. I tried to ask her where she was but the language barrier was too rough. I handed the phone to Sofia.
“This is Marisol’s mother,” I said. “Please tell her where we are.”
Sofia took the phone and had what felt like a three-hour long conversation with Marisol’s mother in Spanish, although it was probably only a few minutes. Marisol was breathing heavily, glaring at me with hatred.
Sofia handed me back the phone and I put it away.
“You are a real piece of work,” she said.
“She told you?” I said.
“It wasn’t enough to find one missing girl. You had to be out there looking for another. Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped, especially with the language.”
“You seemed busy.”
She smiled a beautiful smile again and the magnetic field found its way to this sad bloody scene. I felt even closer to her than when we kissed downstairs.
“How far away is the mother?” I said.
“Close,” said Sofia. “She’ll be right here.”
Marisol erupted in another angry tirade at Sofia, who shot back an equal one that ended with Marisol staring at the floor.
“Why does she hate me?” I said.
“Because she loves this dirtbag,” said Sofia, rolling her eyes. “See those neck tattoos and the one on the chest? He’s with MS-13.”
“Fantastic. I don’t get it. Why do beautiful young sweet girls want murderous scumbags? He cut her. He was maybe even going to kill her. It makes no sense.”
Sofia shrugged. “I don’t get it either. Some girls get off on this bullshit. They’re fucked in the head. They equate being a criminal with masculinity. Oh, get this—Marisol here just told me she’s pregnant with this asshole’s child.”
“Oh, no fucking way.”
“Yep.”
“I hate you!” said Marisol to me through gritting teeth.
Sofia railed at her in Spanish again. The kid remained half-conscious.
I sat there on the floor, the spinning not so bad now, and looked over at the bleeding girl. What happened to the pretty face in pigtails I first saw in the middle school picture at the intersection that night? How does this happen?
Marisol’s mother arrived. More Spanish ensued. More yelling. Sofia and I stepped outside onto the second floor landing and looked down into my dirty little courtyard. It was night now. We stayed like that for a long time, standing while our shoulders almost touched, looking out at the Meridian Ave streetlamps while the three people behind us hammered it out. In all the chaos, life felt good there with her.
“He can’t stay here,” I finally said.
“I know,” said Sofia. “No matter what, I’m taking him in.”
“You could drop him off the Venetian with a weighted cinderblock. I wouldn’t tell.”
“I leave stuff like that to Tommy Nero.”
I felt a stab of pain in my head at the name.
There was more yelling in Spanish and then finally Marisol’s mom came out to us. She thanked me profusely and asked if Marisol could come home with her.
Sofia didn’t want to, but a look from me made her nod. She cut the zip-ties off Marisol. Marisol’s mother thanked and hugged me and asked God to bless me a hundred times or so. I offered to pay for a cab and there was more thanking and blessing as I called. It took less than five minutes for the cab to show up and they were gone.
“Did you tell her to go to the hospital to get that stitched up?” I said to Sofia.
“I did,” she said, “but they won’t.”
“She’s going to have a scar.”
Sofia shrugged and walked back into the apartment, where she said something in Spanish to the gangbanger, and then got him up off the couch and down the steps to her unmarked SUV.
I walked with her. A light rain began to fall. She shoved him in the back and closed the door, then turned to face me.
“This
was great,” I said. “I had a really good time. What do you want to do for our second date? Maybe a shootout with a drug kingpin down at the docks?”
She folded her arms, looked down, and stepped back from me a little. Uh-oh.
“Yeah, about that,” she said.
“Don’t say anything,” I said, and played with the same wayward strand of her hair as before. She reached up and took it away from me, tamping it down.
Ouch.
“Titus, I can’t,” she said.
I nodded, not sure what I was nodding to.
“I’ll run the weapon and let you know what they find, if they even try,” she said as thunder clapped and the raindrops became steady.
“Sure,” I said and leaned in to kiss her, even if on the forehead, but she pushed me back.
Double ouch.
She got in the SUV and rolled down the window.
“I’ll—uh—see you,” she said.
“Sure,” I said and watched her as she drove away.
Triple ouch.
THIRTY-TWO
I WALKED BACK IN AND TURNED ON THE LITTLE LAMP on the table. Sofia had barely touched her drink. I scoffed it down in one gulp. Then, I drank my unfinished one and poured another. I could almost hear Luther’s disapproval from here, but fuck it.
I noticed I had left the stash spot open.
There was a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning. Full of unresolved sexual tension, I growled like an animal and bashed the spring door hard. The spring snapped and the whole thing fell off, crashing to the floor of the closet.
Fuck. Why did I do that?
I ran my fingers through my hair and took a deep breath. I bent down to pick up the spring door. That’s when I thought I saw in the dim light something that had been stuffed in the stash space underneath the shelf.
I reached down and felt something. It was soft and plastic with straps. I got hold of it and yanked it up through the narrow opening under the shelf.
It was Allie’s green duffel bag, the one with the red trim. The one she had with her last night.
Without knowing why, my heart beat out of my chest. I brought the bag up and put it on the table. I carefully zipped it open.
Holy fuck.
I zipped it shut again and took it over behind the curve of the kitchen counter onto the floor in front of the stove, away from the window where nobody could see from the outside. I dropped to my knees and opened the bag again.
Holy fuck. Still there.
Cash. A lot of cash. Too much cash. Cash that shouldn’t be in one place all together like that—ever. The kind of cash that most people never see in a lifetime.
I listened to the raindrops for a few minutes as the money and I sat there on the floor. A profusion of Ben Franklins smirked up at me from the tops of stacks of other Ben Franklins banded tightly under them, all sitting on a pile of more stacks of Ben Franklins. All those smirks and not one of them said anything.
There was a plastic bag with some papers in it. I removed it from the duffel bag and put it to the side, and then decided to count the cash. Gingerly, I counted out stacks of bills, nothing but hundreds. Two million one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. I counted again, just to be sure. Two million one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. One more time. Two million one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars.
A thunderhead crashed and made me jump, my gun in my hand. I peered over the top of the counter toward the window. Nothing.
I re-stuffed the bag. Once all the stacks were back in, I zipped it up and shoved the duffel bag into the inert oven for now. I don’t like having that much money in my possession. I felt like everybody in Miami could see me and the money, like there was a giant spotlight on me—even though the only real light came from the tiny table lamp and the fluorescent streetlights behind the dancing silhouettes of palm fronds tossing about in the hot wet wind.
I turned my attention to the thin plastic bag. Inside were some photographs and papers. I took them out, got up, and walked over to the table. I opened the bag and took out the papers.
The first document was a birth certificate. The name on it was Tiffany Connors, born 7-19-98 in Newark, New Jersey.
There were a handful of pictures of Allie as a child. The first was a baby in a blue bonnet with eyes like Allie’s.
She was about five in another, wearing a winter coat. In another, she was maybe seven and stood under a banner with several other kids. The banner read “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TIFFANY!” Several more pictures spanned her childhood from probably age eight all the way up to about thirteen. Then, they stopped.
The thunder clapped. The rain fell. The palm fronds danced. The wind whistled.
I counted the pictures. There were eleven of them all together. I flipped through them again.
Allie looked about twelve years old in the most recent one. She stood with a forty-ish blonde woman and a man with dark movie-star looks in front of a sign surrounded by palm trees that read Welcome to Lakewood Ranch. The blonde woman had the same distinctive big eyes as Allie. Allie is nineteen now, so that was seven years ago.
There was a plump girl in several pictures. From the age progression, I surmised she was about five years older than Allie. She got plumper as the years went by. She had dark red hair and freckles, but the same big eyes.
I finished my drink and poured another.
I booted up my Chromebook and ran an online search for Tiffany Connors from Newark, New Jersey. Nothing.
I modified the search to Tiffany Connors from Lakewood Ranch, Florida. I found a death notice from 2011. Tiffany Connors died when she was thirteen years old, which was six years ago. Killed by a drunk driver. Horrible accident. At the Legacy site, two relatives were named: her mother Jean Connors and her sister Hayley Thurlow. I copied the names into a text document. I finished my drink, poured another, and studied the palm frond silhouettes some more.
Tiffany Connors died when she was thirteen years old, which was six years ago. If she were still alive, she’d be nineteen—just like Allie Hayes.
Six years ago. Six years ago. Something about the phrase replayed in my mind. Where have I heard that phrase recently?
No distractions like six years ago.
I leaped to my feet. It was Pam Hayes. Six years ago, Rexford J. Hayes was running for the Senate. He lost. Now, he’s running again. No distractions like six years ago, she had said to me.
An idea hit me. I’m not sure where it came from, but it landed on me and I felt compelled to follow it. I sat down and looked up Pam Hayes on IntelLookup and BeenChecked.
Pam Hayes had two sisters, both still in Connecticut—Monroe and Greenwich. A brother in Newport, who owns an art gallery. Father died ten years ago. Mother still alive. Eighty-one years old. Lives in Stonington, Connecticut.
I looked up her number and dialed, the buzz of the bourbon hitting me full force. As the phone rang, I wondered what I was doing. I seem to be making this up as I go along. I don’t even know what I’m going to say. Pam Hayes’ mother picked up on the eighth ring.
“Hello, Mrs. Elliott,” I said, falling into the voice of a man I know well who speaks in a thick Boston accent. “This is Agent Clark Erwin from the FBI.”
“Oh God,” she said. “What now?”
“What do you mean by that, Mrs. Elliott?”
“I mean that I thought I’d never hear from you again, Agent Erwin.”
Shit, Pam Hayes’ mother knows Clark Erwin. I hadn’t expected that. Bad call to impersonate Clark Erwin. Very bad call. This is going to be tricky. But I need to run with it as far as I can get.
“Well, Mrs. Elliott,” I said, “I was just cleaning up some records here. We’re moving offices and some of these cases are near expiring. I just came across yours and I wanted to follow up before we destroyed it.”
“We finished this matter a long time ago, Agent Erwin,” said Mrs. Elliott. “Alison came home to Pamela and Rexford and that was that. My daughter isn’t as evil as you suspected she was. This
is an odd call so late at night. What are you fishing for?”
Sharp old lady.
“Right,” I said, channeling what Clark Erwin would say. “Okay. Well, as long as you say everything is fine, then everything must be fine. How’s Allie been?”
“Alison has been wonderful. She’s in college now. She regrets running off with that group of hooligans. Two months she was gone, but she returned home almost reborn. Alison is now a fine, healthy, well-balanced young woman.”
Mrs. Elliott obviously hasn’t spent much time with Allie.
“Oh,” I said, “so you see her a lot?”
There was a long silence.
“Nobody visits an eighty-one year old woman anymore,” said Mrs. Elliott. “They’re all too busy staring at the screens of their ridiculous little devices. So busy. So so busy. Busy busy busy. Truth be told, Agent Erwin—and I don’t know why I’m telling you this, of all people—I haven’t even seen my own granddaughter in five years.”
“Five years?” I said.
“Yes, Pamela and Rexford never come up here anymore and I refuse to travel south of Manhattan.”
“But as far as you know everything is fine with Allie and Pam and Rex?”
There was another silence on the other end of the line—a longer and stranger one. Then, Mrs. Elliott said, “You’re good, Agent Erwin. You bring the soap, and then you bring the steel wool. Fine, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you because I’m a lonely old woman and I have nobody else to tell. Nobody ever listens to me anyway.”
“That’s frustrating, I’m sure.”
There was a long pause. I thought I had lost her, but then she said, “It was just so strange at the time.”
“Strange at the time?” I said.
“Pamela and Rexford were here for a wedding with Alison. It was, oh, what was it? Five years ago. The last time I saw Alison. Alison looked—different. Like she had a facelift or something. I know children these days have plastic surgery, but it was ridiculous for fourteen-year old Alison. I started talking to her and she acted odd, like she didn’t know me. I could swear it wasn’t even her, almost a girl who looked like her who was playing her part. She had big eyes. Alison doesn’t have eyes that big. Then, Rexford and Pamela came by and whisked her away from me. I thought that was strange.”
Miami Burn (Titus Book 1) Page 22