The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set)

by John W. Mefford

  I released a ponderous sigh and watched Cristina rake her fingers through her long hair, hitting snags every few inches. She had set the tray on the nearby table, but still worked her phone with a single hand. Damn, teenagers could multitask with a vengeance.

  With her feet curled up underneath her, Zahera drank her martini while flipping pages on a magazine. I could see pictures of stunning architecture, probably old-world buildings somewhere overseas. The magazine fit the decor of Zahera’s condo—only top of the line.

  “Planning your next vacation?” I asked.

  “Pfft,” she said. “I’m catching up on the latest Hollywood gossip. The Clooneys are in Europe. It’s pretty cool to see how the other half lives.”

  I blurted out a laugh, smacking my hand on the couch. “You’re wondering how the other half lives? You are the other half, Z.”

  Tipping her head back, she drained the last of her drink. “Okay, I guess I do have it pretty good. I can’t lie.”

  “You better not deny it,” Cristina said, casting a gaze across the room, her eyes landing on the glass chandelier above the coffee table. “This is the life.”

  “But she didn’t inherit this lifestyle,” I said. “She went through… How many years of school, Z?’

  “I can’t count that high,” she said with a wink.

  “But if you didn’t have that medical degree, you wouldn’t have all of this right?”

  “Of course not.”

  “On top of that, you work crazy hours.”

  She eyed me and then my computer with a raised brow, as if to say, Look who’s talking. She lifted her martini in a salute. “Enough said. But we all need to chill, don’t you think? Enjoy life a little more without worrying about what we’re accumulating.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Cristina said under her breath.

  “What?” Zahera said. “Oh never mind. Just because we’re women and we think we need to prove something, doesn’t mean we need to define ourselves by our work.”

  “I’m cool with that,” Cristina said. “But let’s just not start chanting girl-power slogans.”

  “Oh, you’re no fun.” Zahera flipped a page in her magazine.

  Like a mosquito drawn to still water, I slowly eased my computer onto my lap and started clicking the mouse.

  “You need to put the weapon down. Slowly.” I could feel Zahera’s demonic glare without looking up.

  “I’m just doing a few things. I won’t be on for long, I promise.”

  “You promise? Are you sure you’re not diving into your past trying to figure out who’s behind this serial killing?”

  My fingers stopped moving, and I slowly turned my head in her direction. “How did you know about that?”

  “Ivy, you’re not as covert as you think. I saw you working on something earlier…names, clues on some sort of chart. I didn’t see anything that made sense to me, but I didn’t get my MD without being able to connect dots. You’re obsessing over this bastard.”

  Heat enveloped my neck and face. I was pissed at her for prying, at me for not keeping my guard up, and at the whole world for putting me in this mess. Just like that, my calm, stable mindset had vanished.

  She scooted over and put her arm around my shoulder. “I’m not trying to invade your privacy, Ivy. I just care about you and your mental health. You’re here with me, and you’re safe. We’re all safe.”

  “Your dog is locked up in a cage,” Cristina said, pointing her thumb over her shoulder.

  Zahera held up a hand toward my ECHO colleague, but kept her focus on me. I just stared at the city lights through the open floor-to-ceiling windows. “I know you mean well, but—”

  “But what?” she interrupted. “Stan and his team have a mountain of evidence. Something is going to turn up. Let the cops handle this crazy asshole. I’m betting he’ll be arrested by morning…thirty-six hours at the most.”

  She had a point. “Okay. I’ll dial it back.”

  She laid her head on my shoulder, and I patted it. “Good puppy,” I said. She barked and we all laughed.

  As she went back to her side of the couch, I said, “I still need to help Cristina with the search for Mona and Dexter,” I said, shifting my sights over to the teenager in the room. “I’m changing my focus to the maiden name we got earlier. Clancy.”

  Cristina splayed her arms. “I know you think we just got this big break, but even if they’re using Mona’s maiden name, they’re not waving a huge red flag from the top of the Washington Monument that has the name Clancy written on it. They don’t want to be found. Either that, or they’re being held against their will.”

  “Or they could be dead.”

  Cristina and I both looked at Zahera.

  “What?” She lifted her shoulders. “Just want to make sure you guys have thought about that option too.”

  “Seriously? You think we’re that stupid?” Cristina asked.

  Zahera pursed her lips and stared at me, as if she’d had enough of Cristina’s sassy comebacks.

  “She’s right. You think we’re that oblivious?” I asked.

  She let her arms fall to her lap. “I’ve been binge-watching the first season of True Detective. Feels like I’m a junior detective, working alongside Marty and Rustin.”

  I simply smiled.

  “Oh you just want to get in Rustin’s pants,” Cristina said.

  Zahera’s jaw dropped. “Listen to the mouth on that girl, Ivy. She needs to remember she’s seventeen.”

  “Uh, I might have been in a cave,” I said. “Who is Rustin?”

  “Matthew McConaughey, of course, silly.” Zahera shared a laugh with Cristina at my expense.

  “Okay, I’ll put it in my Netflix queue,” I said, turning my attention to my screen. I had an idea about locating the Hamricks, or the Clancys as the case may be. I decided to stick with South Padre Island, if for no other reason than the number of people was far lower than a large metropolitan city.

  “Hey, why don’t I queue up the next episode of True Detective?” Zahera jumped to her feet and opened the large doors of her built-in cabinet.

  “That TV must be five feet wide,” Cristina said in a breathy tone.

  “You sound like you just saw the Eiffel Tower.” My eyes were still focused on my computer, but I was following the conversation. “If we turn that on, I’ll never get anything done.”

  Zahera sauntered over to me. “I’ll put on the episode where they show his ass.”

  “Okay, I’m tempted.” I finally pulled my eyes from my laptop. “But I’ll never make any headway if we have his ass on the big screen.”

  She tossed the remote on the couch. “Okay, I might have to queue it up in my room a little later. But for now, how about a martini?”

  “I’m game,” Cristina said.

  “No ma’am,” Zahera said. “You’ve got four more years to wait.”

  “Seriously? You know I’ve had far more than a little bit of vodka.”

  Annoyed at their nitpicking each other, I said to Cristina, “And we know why. Which is another reason you need to wait until you’re legal. Even then, you need to be careful.”

  She gave me a mocking salute.

  “I’m off to get drinks. And for you?” she asked Cristina.

  “Oh, I guess I’ll take an Izze. Do you have the apple flavor?”

  “Coming right up.”

  Without breaking my mental stride, I focused on the job at hand, filling out online forms and checking my email to see if I was receiving responses. I was shocked. Even at ten o’clock at night, these South Padre Island businesses, most of them individually owned, were quick on the trigger as soon as a lead came in. Once they responded to the generic request I’d made for their business, that was when I followed up with a more detailed question about Mona and Dexter, with a slight twist.

  I found sixteen email responses to my various inquiries, covering the industries of home improvement, cleaning services, and pool cleaning. My working premise was that the
Hamricks changed their name to Clancy, and then, to support their new lifestyle and still stay under the radar, they got menial jobs where the pay was usually provided in straight cash. Along the border, a lack of administrative paperwork was usually the norm. When I worked at CPS, we knew a number of families who at one point in time had worked odd jobs for small businesses down in the Valley. Anything to avoid Mr. Tax Man.

  “Your drink is getting warm,” Zahera said.

  I glanced to my right and saw the martini sitting on the side table of beveled glass. The vignette itself looked like it belonged in an interior design magazine. “Right. Give me another minute.” I continued working my computer and my phone—a few businesses worked through text messages instead of email—while I heard Zahera joking about taking my drink from me. I ignored her.

  Cristina growled, and that got my attention. I gave her a questioning look. “It’s like she doesn’t frickin’ exist,” she said.

  I thought she might hurl her cell phone across the room. “I know it’s tedious work, but I’m hoping I get a hit on Mona and Dexter in Padre.”

  She pushed up the sleeves of her oversized robe. “I was talking about Sara Litvin, Mona’s AA sponsor who lives in Chicago.”

  “You had, what, nine or ten different Sara Litvins to sift through?”

  “Eight. And I’ve got a perfect score. A big fat zero.” She ran her fingers through her hair and hit another snag. She blurted two cuss words and scowled.

  “Don’t do that,” Zahera said, waving a hand in front of her face.

  “Me?” Cristina asked.

  “You’ll start getting wrinkles before you can drink if you keep getting yourself all worked up.”

  Cristina tilted her head, her gaze firing lasers across the room.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger,” Zahera said, going back to her magazine.

  “Anyway,” Cristina said, turning to look at me. “I was in the kitchen earlier, petting Clint—”

  “You didn’t let him out of his cage did you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. He shit all over my Persian rug in the dining area. It’s going to cost me a fortune to get that stain removed. Don’t get me wrong, when my parents first insisted I accept their gift of Clint—they felt I needed a guard dog—I wasn’t sure he’d last a week. But that Doberman is a good looking, rugged dog. Very loyal too…and he doesn’t sleep around,” she said with a snort.

  I was ready for Cristina to snap back with a speech about how it was cruel to have such a big dog locked up in a cage, but she blinked her eyes and ignored Zahera. “Actually, I was feeding Clint some of our leftover lasagna.”

  “You did what?” Zahera tossed the magazine to the floor.

  “Gotcha,” she said with a wink at Zahera, then she focused back on me. “I decided to call the last name on my list.”

  “I thought you called every name?”

  She huffed out a breath. “I miscounted, okay? Doesn’t matter. I still got nothing.”

  I pressed my lips together and picked at a nail. The Chicago piece to this missing-parent story didn’t seem to fit—if we were to believe Anika. From what Cristina had relayed about the airline ticket, I think we both felt the same about our young client: our trust was waning. Which didn’t sit right with me. Our little business was just like a toddler—we were still trying to get our legs under us. And we had to believe in our clients if we were going to put the full force of our heads and hearts into working for them, to make their lives better, to help a loved one.

  “What about the others?”

  “Let’s see.” Her eyes found the chandelier again. “One answered and said she changed her last name to Daley; apparently, she just graduated high school and got knocked up.”

  “I’ve heard that story before,” Zahera said, her eyes still on the magazine.

  Cristina proceeded as if Zahera didn’t exist. “The next four didn’t answer, and the calls all rolled to voicemail.”

  “Did you leave messages?” I asked.

  “Didn’t bother. Three of the voices sounded like middle school kids, and the fourth simply screamed into the phone. I’m guessing that’s not AA-sponsor material.”

  “The four others?”

  “No longer in service.”

  I found myself looking out the windows. A plane’s red blinking light moved across the sky. “What did you say happened on this last attempt?”

  “I didn’t. The voicemail was full.”

  My eyes shifted her way. “I wonder how full.”

  She chuckled once. “Full is full, right? There’s nothing higher than a hundred percent.”

  “I guess I’m saying, that doesn’t mean you struck out. That just means someone is really busy and hasn’t been able to get to their phone messages, or…something or someone is keeping them from getting to their phone.”

  “Hadn’t thought about it that way.”

  My phone buzzed, and I read a text from AAA Cleaning Crew. I jumped in my seat. “No need to worry about Chicago. I think I just found them in Padre.”

  “Shut the front door,” Zahera said, leaning over my shoulder.

  “How the hell did you find that out?” Cristina sounded a little jealous.

  “Told them I was a probate lawyer, and I needed to find Mona and Dexter to tell them about what they had inherited from Mona’s Aunt Beatrice.”

  “You’ve got balls the size of Texas,” Zahera said.

  Cristina popped out of her chair. “You’re a fucking genius.” Both of them hovered over me. “Can I get some air please?” I stood up, stretched my back, as Clint’s bark echoed from the kitchen.

  “This is inhumane. We need to let that dog out. He needs to roam free,” Cristina said.

  “I know, I know. Clint is a sweetheart, especially when he’s gnawing on a nice piece of steak,” Zahera said with a giggle, plucking her cell phone off the coffee table. “I’ll call up one of the bellmen to take Clint for a nice run around the building.”

  “And this is how the other half lives. Sheesh,” Cristina muttered.

  Over at the window, I stared across the city. Not the most impressive skyline in the country, but it was ours.

  “What’s our next step, boss?” Cristina said from behind me as Zahera talked on her phone.

  I thought about the status of the serial-killer investigation, most likely the same person who tortured me, carved me up like a Thanksgiving turkey. What else could I do at this point? Stan and the SAPD had a plethora of leads. Zahera was right. Something was going to lead them to that maggot. And it might happen soon. I could almost picture it, and that was a positive sign.

  “We’re headed to South Padre Island.”

  “Road trip, road trip, road trip!” Cristina hooted while jumping around and waving her fist. Then she stopped. “What about Chicago and Sara Litvin?”

  I’d been noodling that angle. “At this point, it’s not as important. Something we can follow up on after the fact. For now, we get to reunite a family.”

  “Want me to call Anika?”

  “Not yet. I want to talk to her parents first. Then we’ll spring the good news on her.”

  I just hoped it was all good news.

  29

  Cristina was brooding. Her fingers strummed against the passenger-side door, her eyes glazed over while looking at marshes and an occasional billboard as we motored the final fifteen miles into South Padre Island.

  My mood was only slightly better, given the drama we’d just experienced in Los Fresnos two miles back. “Let’s not beat ourselves up. Dumb mistake. Let’s leave it at that.”

  She flipped around in her seat to face me, offering up a nasty scowl. “That little shit-ass town is nothing more than a speed trap. Only trying to screw over people on vacation to build up the town budget. For what, the next police ball?”

  We might have been the only two people traveling east on Highway 100 who weren’t going on an official vacation. “I shouldn’t have let you drive. It’s my fault.�
� I tapped the brakes, seeing unexpected traffic backing up in the middle of nowhere.

  She flapped three slips of paper in the air. Three tickets. She got two—one for speeding, the other for driving without a license—and I picked up one for allowing a minor to drive without a license. I told her we’d pay the tickets out of the ECHO account, which essentially meant my personal checking account. And there wasn’t a lot of wiggle room in that account at the moment. By taking on this case for Anika, we’d all but stopped our cash flow. Shortly, we would hopefully be able to start the process of reuniting Anika with Mona and Dexter. If we were lucky, maybe we’d be able to collect at least a portion of our fees. And I did have that one lead from a father wanting us to look into his son’s friends.

  “Now what, a frickin’ traffic jam?” Cristina slumped in her seat, releasing a loud sigh.

  “All right, Miss Grumpy, the world’s not coming to an end.” Our car slowed to about ten miles per hour as I opened the window and leaned my head out to view the scene up ahead.

  “See anything?”

  The scent of salt wafted in the stiff, warm breeze. “Just cars and brake lights.”

  “Great,” Cristina said, thumbing through her phone.

  She was antsy. Who wouldn’t be? We’d been driving for almost five hours, and now that we could literally smell the ocean salt in the air, we were moving slower than…

  “There goes one biker, then another. There’s a damn procession of bikers,” Cristina said, watching the trail of men and women in spandex cycle by on the shoulder of the road.

  A moment later, we came to a complete standstill. I expected a flurry of expletives from the passenger seat, but none came. Glancing in her direction, I saw that Cristina had wedged her head between the seat and door, her bare feet up on the seat as she studied her phone. Her lips were moving again.