We looked around. Cruz Bay was a beautiful place with a slow, small-town feel. There was a palm-shaded town park in front of us. Across the harbor to our left was the National Park headquarters.
To our right was a small outdoor mini-mall. “Looks like a good place to get directions,” I said.
“And maybe a bite to eat,” Joe said, hoisting his backpack. “I’m starving. Let’s go.”
We headed over there, passing stalls that sold coral jewelry, coconut wall hangings, and other trinkets to the tourists.
I noticed that we were the only ones in jeans and sneakers. Everyone else seemed to be wearing shorts or bathing suits, with sandals on their feet if they weren’t going barefoot.
“Man,” Joe said, “I think I’m gonna like it here. No, check that—I know I’m gonna like it here.”
His head swiveled 180 degrees as a couple of girls in bikinis walked by, sipping smoothies.
“Mmmm,” I said, “I could really use one of those.”
“Just one?” Joe asked, smiling.
“I meant the smoothies.”
I hate it when Joe rubs it in about me and girls. He knows I’m totally shy around them. My stomach gets all jumpy and I always say or do something stupid.
Meanwhile, he’s got all these smooth moves. It really kills me.
“Okay, then.” Joe sat down at an outdoor table by Jumpin’ Jake’s Smoothie Stand.
“Don’t you want to check in to our hotel first?” I asked him.
“You said you were thirsty,” he said. “And I’m starving. The hotel can wait.”
I gave up. “I’ll go get the smoothies,” I said. “What flavor do you want?”
“How about piña colada?”
“Okay.”
“Get me a cheeseburger and some fries, too, okay?”
That stopped me. “What am I, the waiter? Get it yourself, bro. I’m not standing on two lines while you sit here loafing.”
“Yeah, but we’ll lose our table if we both get up.”
I looked around. There had to be half a dozen empty tables. It was about five in the afternoon, and most people were probably back in their rooms, getting ready for dinner.
“I think our table will still be here,” I said.
I got on line and ordered two smoothies from the guy behind the counter. I figured he was Jumpin’ Jake because the name seemed to fit. He had mirrored shades on and a big green leather cap. He looked rockin’.
“Excuse me,” I said, while he was running the blender. “I’m looking for the Buccaneer’s Lair. Can you tell me where it is?”
He stopped blending and gave me a slow once-over. Something about the way he was eyeing me gave me the creeps.
“Yeah, mon,” he said. “It’s just across the park, and two blocks up the hill. You can’t miss it.”
He gave me the smoothies and my change. Just as I was leaving, he leaned over the counter toward me and said, “Sure you want to stay there?”
“Huh? Why wouldn’t I?”
“People been disappearing from there, mon.”
“Really? Tell me more.”
One thing I’ve learned—never let an opportunity go by.
He shrugged. “Nothing much to tell. But I’ve got a hotel just up the road—much nicer, and just as cheap.”
SUSPECT PROFILE
Name: Jumpin’ Jake
Hometown: Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.
Physical description: Age 48, 6’, 230 lbs., dark complexion, hair stuffed under big cap, graying hair, leering dark eyes.
Occupation: Smoothie stand owner, hotel owner, and who knows what else?
Background: Grew up poor on St. Thomas. Somehow made enough money to buy his hotel and the smoothie stand. No one knows how he got the money, and he’s not telling.
Suspicious behavior: Threatening Frank? Hard to tell.
Suspected of: Involvement with Esteban Calderon’s disappearance.
Motive: Ransom?
“Uh, thanks, but we’re all set.”
“Hmm. As you like, mon. Welcome to the island. I just hope you don’t be the next one gone.”
“Uh … thanks.”
Was he warning me? Or was he just angry that I didn’t switch to his hotel?
I took the drinks, turned around, and nearly barreled into the girl behind me on line. She had long, wavy red hair and huge green eyes that sparkled like jewels.
“Whoa! Sorry!” I said, feeling my face go red.
“That’s okay.” She gave me a big, perfect, dimpled smile, and I’m sure my face got even redder. “I’m fine.”
“You sure? I didn’t spill anything on you?”
She laughed—a musical laugh that made me feel dizzy for a second. “I heard you say you were looking for the Buccaneer’s Lair?”
“Uh-huh.” (What a stupid thing to say! “Uh-huh.” Why couldn’t I have thought of some cool comeback? I am such a dork!)
“I work there, actually,” she said. “I could walk you over if you like.”
Would I like? Yes, I would like!
But I couldn’t just leave Joe hanging. “Um, I’ve gotta wait for my brother,” I said, sounding totally lame, I’m sure.
“Oh. Okay. Well, see you when you get there!” She gave me another dazzling smile. “Just ask for Jenna.”
“Jenna,” I repeated, like a dummy.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
What was my name?
“Um … Frank! Yeah, that’s it, um, Frank.”
“Nice to meet you, ‘UmFrank.’” She offered me her hand. It was tan, smooth, and had lots of rings on it.
“You too,” I said, shaking it gently, like it was made of glass. “See you.” She sashayed away.
I turned back to the table, defeated—and there was Joe, grinning at me.
“You dog, you!” he said. “I turn around for one minute, and you’re putting the moves on the finest girl on the whole island.”
“Cut it out,” I told him. “I’m not in the mood for your warped sense of humor.”
“Ex-cuuuse me,” Joe said, pushing a hamburger platter across the table to me. “Here. Eat. Drink. Later you’ll be merry.”
The Buccaneer’s Lair had a wooden sign hanging over the front door. It swayed gently in the breeze, along with the palm trees that shaded the entrance.
“Sweet,” Joe said.
“I can’t wait to crash and take a good nap.”
“What? Did you just say ‘nap’? Hey, bro, we’re going out dancing tonight!”
“Dancing? No way.”
“Way. Have you forgotten we’re on a case?”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten. So?”
“So, I figure we’ve got to talk to as many people as possible.”
“And therefore?”
“And therefore, we should start with the finest young ladies we can find—after all, if this guy Esteban is all he’s cracked up to be, they’re the ones he was probably talking to the most.”
He had a point.
“In fact,” Joe went on, “I’d say that since he was staying at this hotel, he must have noticed that extremely fine young lady you were talking to before. Right?”
“You know, Joe, I’ve got to hand it to you. Every once in a while, you come up with an idea that doesn’t stink.”
“Ahhh,” he said, smiling. “He admits it! Somebody get it down on paper, before he denies he ever said it!”
“Come on,” I said, shaking my head and laughing, “let’s go inside.”
We walked past the uncomfortably real-looking statue of a one-eyed pirate, complete with saber, and entered the hotel lobby. In the rear was a bar and restaurant, with reggae music booming out of the speakers.
Lo and behold, there was Jenna behind the reception desk, waiting to check us in.
Joe didn’t waste any time. “Hello, there, young lady,” he said, laying on the charm—a little thickly, I thought.
Jenna looked at me. “This is your brother?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “Joe, Jenna. Jenna, Joe.”
She held out her heavily ringed hand to him. Instead of shaking it, he took it and kissed it.
Jenna looked at me again, as if to ask, Is he mental?
I shrugged again, as if to answer, Joe’s Joe. Nothing I can do about it.
“I just need to run your credit cards and get you to sign,” she said, taking back her hand. “Here are the keys to your room—it’s number eight, on the top floor. You’re free to use the hot tub on the roof.”
“Cool,” I said.
“Maybe you’d like to join us there later?” Joe asked her.
She let out a little laugh. “We’ll see.”
Meaning, Don’t hold your breath.
Joe took the keys—the old-fashioned skeleton type. “All righty, then,” he said. “Come on, Frank.”
I followed him down the hall, giving Jenna a last little wave. She returned it with a smile and a wink.
Whoa.
“Dude,” I told Joe when we were out of earshot. “You were way out of control there.”
Joe laughed and slapped me on the back. “No worries, mon,” he said, in a terrible try at Beanie Man’s accent. “Don’t worry, be happy.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s all good,” he said, opening the door to our room. “Trust me, brother—that girl likes you.”
“Yeah. As if.”
“You can believe it or not, dude, but I’ll tell you one thing—we’re starting our investigation with her. And you’re the one who’s going to do the investigating.”
Joe here.
My brother can be such a doofus. He meets this gorgeous girl, who happens to be a perfect way into the investigation, and he just wants to stay in our room and sleep?
I’m a big fan of sleep, don’t get me wrong—but not at night! The time for sleep is the morning, after a long night of having fun.
He can stay here—but I’m heading out.
Gotta start investigating, mon!
Catch you later.
4.
The Buccaneer’s Lair
I thought about Joe’s words as I lay on my bed in the hotel room, letting the cool breeze from the ceiling fan blow over me. Outside, the sun was going down over St. Thomas, and the sea was glittering red, purple, and gold.
Now that I’d showered and changed, I suddenly wasn’t so tired anymore. I could hear the sounds of reggae bands warming up for the evening’s entertainment—they must have been coming from downtown.
Behind me, I heard the shower going—Joe taking his turn, washing off the dirt of the trip—and wondered just what exactly we were getting ourselves into.
We’d been badly bruised and battered, not to mention burned, on our last case. It had only been two days since we’d wound it up, with the entire Skull leadership in police custody.
We badly needed a week off to recover before school started. And we were in the perfect place to do it. There was just one problem.…
We had a mission. Esteban Calderon had disappeared, in a place where it was very hard to disappear—namely, an island that was only nine miles long and five miles wide. There was nowhere to hide, unless he’d drowned and been washed out to sea.
Not a pretty thought. But I had to believe that if the son of a prominent international diplomat had really been kidnapped, it had to have been a professional job. And surely any professional kidnapper worth his salt would have whisked him off this tiny island by now.
So I didn’t really expect to find Esteban here on St. John. What I did hope we’d find was a trail that would lead us to him, wherever he’d been taken.
According to the police records in the packet we’d received, Esteban had already been gone for nine days.
And in all that time, there’d been no ransom note?
Strange.
See, if you kidnap someone who’s worth a lot of ransom money, you want to get that money, get the victim off your hands (one way or another), and get out of town—as soon as possible.
So why wasn’t there a note, after nine long days?
The only thing I could think of was that something really bad had happened to Esteban.
Joe came out of the shower, toweling himself off. “Aw, man, that was great,” he said. “You ready to go out and par-tay?”
“You go,” I told him.
“What, are you beat already?” he said, flicking his towel at me.
“Ow! Cut that out!”
He laughed. “Seriously, bro, you’re not gonna punk out on me tonight, are you?”
“I thought I’d stay around here,” I said. “Maybe ask around about Esteban. Maybe get a look at the room he stayed in …”
“Maybe get closer to that girl Jenna,” Joe said. “Hunh? Hunh? I knew it. Frank’s got a crush!”
“Cut it out, will you?” I said. “I’m in no mood for fooling around.”
“Okay,” he said, backing off. “Let’s talk about the alleged kidnap victim.”
“Alleged?”
“I was thinking about it—this Esteban guy probably just felt like disappearing for a while. You know, getting away from it all, being totally alone, without paparazzi and stuff.”
Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of that possibility, but maybe Joe was right.
“According to the police report, Esteban’s dad told them his son would never go anywhere without letting his parents know.”
“On the other hand, as we all know, some parents haven’t got a clue what their kids are up to.”
“Aw, come on, Frank. It’s been a long day—let’s clear our heads for a couple of hours. Aren’t you even coming out for dinner?”
I shook my head. “Thanks, but that burger did me in. It was huge. I’ll just do my investigating right here at the hotel.”
“You disappoint me, bro. Man, you’re getting old fast.”
Joe put some aftershave on and stuck his wallet and cell phone in his pocket. “Well, I’ll call you in a while and see if you’ve changed your mind.”
“Cool,” I said, flicking my phone open and turning it on.
“If you’re … ahem … with Jenna, you don’t have to pick up the phone. I’ll understand.”
He went out the door, narrowly avoiding the pillow I threw at his head.
Joe can be so annoying sometimes!
I went downstairs and into the bar. Jenna was nowhere in sight—but that was fine with me.
The bartender was a big guy who looked like he pumped iron all day long. In fact, he looked more like a bouncer, what with his buzz cut and his thick, dark eyebrows. “What’ll it be?” he asked me. “You got ID?”
“Oh, I’m not twenty-one,” I said. “I’ll just have an iced tea.”
“We don’t have iced tea,” he said. “This is a bar, not a restaurant.”
“Well,” I said, “what have you got, then?”
“Club soda, cranberry juice, lemonade …”
“I’ll have a lemonade.”
He seemed to relax a little. “Sure thing,” he said, and went to get it.
I looked around the room. There were tourists sitting at little tables, looking relaxed and happy. The reggae music that had been blasting from the speakers before was silent now—probably because the live music was going to start soon. I could see a pair of guys with dreadlocks hauling a steel drum in through the service door at the back of the bar.
“Here you go,” the bartender said, bringing me my drink. “Put it on your room tab?”
“Uh, yeah—number eight,” I said. “Hey … isn’t this the hotel where that missing guy was staying?”
Suddenly, it was like I’d dropped a bomb. The bartender stared down at me. His dark eyebrows gathered together like a pair of storm clouds.
One by one, every table in the room fell silent. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me.
“What are you, a reporter or something?” the bartender asked, his hands curling slowly into fists.
“Me? No, man. I’
m not old enough. Don’t you have to be twenty-one or something?” I laughed—too loudly. Nobody joined in.
“We don’t talk about that,” the bartender said. “People here are trying to have a good time, y’know?”
I noticed the muscles bulging out of his sleeves and wondered again if he doubled as the bouncer.
I sipped my lemonade, which was colored bright yellow—probably artificial coloring. “Mmmm … good,” I said, wincing because the lemonade was so sour. “No, I was just asking because, you know, it was in the papers and stuff.”
“Which papers?”
“Um, back home … in Bayport.”
“Bayport!”
SUSPECT PROFILE
Name: The Bartender
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Physical description: Age 24, 6’ 3”, 210 lbs., suntanned, blue eyes, buzz cut, thick dark eyebrows that come together when he gets mad.
Occupation: Bartender, maybe also bouncer
Background: Former valley boy and gym rat who found the Caribbean and never left. Dresses well and never misses an opportunity.
Suspicious behavior: Threatening, Frank, possibly sneaking into Frank and Joe’s room to search their stuff?
Suspected of: Trying to hide the truth about Esteban Calderon’s disappearance.
Motive: Fear of exposure?
“Yeah, apparently his dad is some big pooh-bah?”
“Look, I don’t know where Bayport is, but here, we don’t mess in other people’s business,” he said, leaning over toward me and cracking his knuckles.
“No. ’Course not. Me neither.” I picked up my drink and stood up. “’Scuse me.” I tried to look casual as I sauntered away from him, heading out of the bar to the outdoor deck lounge.
It was a calm, beautiful night, and the stars were coming out in bunches. The town of Cruz Bay sprawled out below us, its lights twinkling. Without the bartender breathing down my neck and all the customers staring at me, I could finally breathe again.
Of course, I understood why he didn’t want to talk about the kidnapping. It had to be bad for the Buccaneer’s Lair’s business. But I needed to ask questions if I ever expected to find Esteban Calderon.
I thought about the picture of him in the packet we’d gotten. A young, handsome guy; a real jet-setter …
Joe was right: If anyone around this small island remembered him, it would be the women—especially the young, good-looking ones.
Trouble in Paradise Page 3