by Karen Harper
She took the letter with numb fingers. “Where will you go?”
“I’ve said enough. The storyteller in me just wants you all to have a happy-ever-after ending. As for me, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison. Not being able to see Darcy or my grandchildren is punishment enough. If I can, over time, over the years, I’ll contact Darcy, or at least send things—money for Jilly and Drew. Please ask Steve to forgive me, too, to take good care of my girl.”
“I—yes, of course I will.”
“I’ve visited her grave many times, you know—Miranda’s, your mother’s. I released beautiful butterflies there. I did love her, Claire, but I’ve said it all now and must go. I’ll call the police from the car, and they’ll be here soon. Nick, too, I’m certain.”
He kissed her on the cheek and ran on unsteady legs through the buffeting wind to his car. She moved out from under the shelter of the entry, clinging to a pillar, sobbing, unsure if Will was a liar and a murderer, but she believed him about being Darcy’s father. How would she tell her? She was only Darcy’s half sister now, but that had to be enough.
Her legs went weak, and she slid down a pillar to sit on the doorstep of Onward while the rain poured down and lightning forked to the ground nearby and thunder shook the sky.
She must be hallucinating through the rain and her tears to see a vehicle with flashing bar lights pulling in. Already? Maybe Ralston or Jedi had called for an ambulance.
No, it was a police car. It stopped so close and—yes, she must be dreaming—Ken Jensen jumped out bareheaded in this rain, and Nick... Nick right behind him.
Ken started shouting questions, but all she could do was cling to Nick.
* * *
“What was that?” Jace asked Mitch as the plane jolted. The aircraft yawed left, and Jace struggled to get it back on even keel.
“You’re heading back to base through a wind and lightning storm and you ask what happened?” Mitch shot back, but his voice quavered.
Thank God, Jace thought, he could get the plane back on its radar heading toward Tampa, but it kept shuddering, listing left. And though they were flying through low clouds that were bumpy, he was certain they had actually hit something. Birds? Pelicans, maybe, brown bodies up this high, maybe trying to outrun the storm or getting sucked up into it—hit by the left engine propellers?
He held tight to his control wheel, while their little hanging mascot figure jerked wildly. He skimmed the readouts. The left engine was—was gone, dead.
He tried to restart it while Mitch opened the all-call to the crew. Jace could imagine them back there, glad their tangling with the worst of the hurricane above the gulf was over, but tense until they landed at MacDill. But with one engine and all that distance in rocky winds, MacDill and Tampa were too damn far to make it without going down into the drink.
“Come on, baby,” he muttered to the forty-nine-million-dollar plane, not to mention the valuable weather equipment and trained crew.
“It won’t restart?” Mitch asked.
“Tell everybody to sit tight,” Jace told him, ignoring the obvious answer. “I’m going to radio Naples Municipal because we’re wobbling, and even the Fort Myers Airport with its longer runways may be too far. Besides, I’m used to the approach in Naples, and no way we’d have room to land at our little Marco spot for Fly Safe. Damn,” he muttered, his voice low. “Fly Safe. Mitch, see if they can take us at Naples. Get me the radio reading for them.”
As Mitch explained to the crew to strap in and sit tight, that they were going to request an emergency landing in Naples, Jace concentrated on keeping the plane from dipping the left wing or starting to circle. He had to use a huge amount of rudder to keep the aircraft flying somewhat straight. They were just a little moving blip on the radar screen in a vast ocean of black. In a brutal storm. Worse than a desert dust storm in the Middle East.
Trained to respond with cool, objective thought and action, Jace fought picturing his loved ones. Brit. Lexi. Even Claire. He had to bring this big bird in, one that must have been damaged by birds in flight.
He talked as calmly as he could to the Naples control tower. “Affirmative,” he told them after they repeated his request. “Probably bird ingestion, left engine. Might not make it to Fort Myers. NOAA Hurricane WC-130 turboprop with twelve aboard. Yes, requesting emergency equipment to meet us.”
“Roger that. Crosswinds a problem,” the Naples controller said. “And we just heard from your NOAA headquarters that the storm will arrive here earlier than expected.”
Mitch whispered to Jace, “We were right about that.”
The airport controller went on. “Gusts to sixty miles per hour from southwest but swirling, but I’ll bet you know that. We had a jet land that got shoved off the north/south runway before we closed.”
“Roger that, but we have no choice.”
“Understand. We’ll talk you in. Heavy ponding on the runway surface makes for skidding, so do not overshoot your wheels down. Not certain you’ll be able to see the approach and runway lights until you’re very low. We will continue to give you readings.”
“Affirmative. Used to fly jets in dust storms but not with twelve aboard and Cat 4 blow.”
“We see you on our screen, but you’re still a ways out and over water. Runway all yours.”
In the sudden radio silence, Mitch said to Jace, “Hope they even have ER vehicles to send with that storm coming. Bet everybody’s trying to help evacs on the ground.”
Jace’s hands were steady but his legs shook from handling more and more rudder.
Mitch went on. “And we thought this assignment would be a piece of cake. But if anybody can put us down all right, it’s you, Jace.”
“Affirmative that, my friend. Semper Fi and comin’ in on a wing and a prayer.”
33
“But how did you know to find me here?” Claire asked them once Nick and Ken had her in the squad car with Ken in the front seat, Nick in the back with her.
Nick said, “Will Warren phoned me to say where you were, but not why. He wouldn’t say more, cut me off. And thank God I was with Ken, and we weren’t far from here. We were leaving Clint Ralston’s house because Jedi had called in to say Clint had been kidnapped. In the call for help, Jedi said he had a security home video but couldn’t identify who took him. When we got there, Jedi was gone, but Ralston’s butler told us about Onward, and we figured it was the first place Jedi would look for his boss.”
“So, on the phone, Will didn’t tell you what happened inside—what we found—that Clint Ralston and Jedi Brown are both injured in there?”
“No,” Ken cut in. “Only that you needed help and were at this address with the big butterfly logo. Describe what you can about what I’ll find inside. Go ahead. I’m turning my body cam on to go in.”
“You should hire Will Warren as a detective if you catch him, but I bet you won’t. He’s a mastermind, but I won’t tell you all the details now, so you can help the wounded, however evil they are. Will said Jedi’s been shot and Ralston—I’m not sure, but Will dumped liquid nitrogen on him. He tried to hit both of them with it. Turn left down a hall to a large room. You’ll be shocked to see what else is in there. Cryogenically preserved bodies in liquid nitrogen, with the intention of being revived someday. In other rooms, the missing orangetips and a dolphin Larry Ralston must have caught for his brother. But my biggest shock was that Will said he’s Darcy’s father. And I believe him.”
Ken swore under his breath. Nick pulled her even tighter to him. Claire briefly described more of the layout inside. Ken called for two ambulances and police backup. He also radioed for officers be on alert to apprehend Will Warren if his vehicle, which he asked for a license plate number on from his controller, was spotted, though it was probably a futile request in this storm. Then, after telling Nick he should stay outside and take care of Claire, he ran alone into the building.
“Needless to say, I’m so glad you’re here with Ken,” she told Ni
ck, holding tight to him. “But you should never have left the house in this dangerous weather.”
“Sweetheart, you’re scolding me for reckless behavior, like leaving the house in a storm? At least I was with someone on the right side of the law.”
She almost laughed at that, but she was—like Darcy—too traumatized to control her emotions, and she started to cry again, shaking uncontrollably.
“Nick, I had to go with him. I had to know what happened to Darcy to help her, and I trusted him. Somehow, I knew he cared about Darcy, even for me a bit. I know now that was because he loved our mother.”
“The police may not find him right away. I kind of hope they don’t at all. I have to give the guy credit for all he did, each detail, even telling me on the phone that he’d left the front door of Onward open, so the police could get in. It was almost as if he knew I was with Ken, but I didn’t tell him. I guess Will Warren—the ultimate enigma—wanted Ralston and Jedi to be found before Jedi bled out or Ralston managed to escape, liquid nitrogen burns or not.”
“He—he didn’t mention Ralston’s injuries to me.”
“He said he thinks Ralston is probably blind now.”
* * *
Despite the storm, two big, square, red ER rescue vehicles came screaming in, and their crews rushed inside with gurneys and equipment. She and Nick had been talking about Will being Darcy’s father, and how all that had come about. Nick had comforted her just as she must soon be the one to comfort Darcy—after telling her everything.
Nick said, “I wish Ken would come out to tell us that the two of them were captured and are still alive enough to be interrogated and tried in court.”
“If there’s a trial, I would have to testify. Nick, you won’t believe the horrors of that place, bodies floating in those huge vatlike containers. If you climb a ladder, you can look in and see their faces. And that trapped dolphin that haunted Darcy is so sad. I guess I can grasp the desire to see the future, to live again, to come back from the dead, but I don’t think that’s for mankind to decide. Ralston tried to justify their experiments by saying their findings would help space travel, but their tactics of using animal and human guinea pigs is just plain wrong.”
Sitting on Nick’s lap, she held tight to him as they saw Jedi carried out on a stretcher and put in the back of one rescue squad vehicle. A police officer got in with a paramedic, and they pulled away, lights and siren on. What else had that man, Clint Ralston’s guard and enforcer, done that he must pay for?
Next they watched as Ralston himself was brought out. Much of his face was bandaged. He was helped up into the back of the other ER vehicle, and an officer climbed in before it pulled away. So both men were captured now, Claire thought, just like they had captured Darcy, the dolphin, even those delicate butterflies—and those floating bodies inside, too.
Yet sitting in the gated back section of the squad car, Claire almost felt that they were prisoners, too. She knew she’d have to give extensive debriefings and, later, testify in court. From danger at least—at last—she and Darcy were free. Yet how would her half sister take the stunning news about what had happened here tonight? About Will? Darcy had already been so hurt, but she had to know and be strong enough to accept the truth. Claire had to help her mend her delicate wings, her past, herself.
“I hope Darcy’s strong enough to learn about Will, to understand,” she said. “And to forgive him. He protected me when Jedi showed up. If he hadn’t, who knows what might have happened to me.”
“I’ll bet Jedi didn’t know Will was the one who abducted Ralston in the video. I think Jedi just figured Onward was the place to look when his boss went missing. Jedi told Ralston’s butler he didn’t recognize the kidnapper from the home surveillance camera, though maybe that was just so he wouldn’t be blamed if he rescued Ralston and killed Will.”
“I can’t wait to get home—even in this hurricane. And to get to Darcy when all this is over.”
“So here you were, in the line of fire again. Ken said you continually overstep, but that’s putting it mildly.”
“You should talk,” she said, but her voice was shaky and soft as she clung closer to him. “How many times have you put yourself in danger trying to help others through your South Shores rescue missions, starting back when we first met, before our nearly deadly time in St. Augustine?”
“Enough talk,” he said, resting his chin on the top of her damp head as he pinned her to him, then tipped her face up toward his. He began to kiss her again, gently at first, then possessively, and despite all the terror and grief, it was wonderful, like riding on the wings of the wind.
They both jumped at a knock on the door of the car, and Ken got in. Before they could pepper him with questions, he said, “Another lucky detective is going to be sent to calm the masses at Germaine Arena instead of me. I’m taking you two home before this gets worse. Will Warren was seen ditching his car at a nearby gas station, which I had an officer check first. I’ve read Jedi Brown his rights for firing on Claire and Will, and he’s heading for Naples General to have several bullets dug out along with a blood transfusion. Clint Ralston was complicit in keeping Darcy here once Jedi abducted her, so I read him his rights, too.”
“But Will got away,” Claire said, sliding off Nick’s lap and leaning forward to hook her fingers through the lattice between the front and back seats as she spoke through it.
“The gas station cashier who saw him said he just abandoned his car and got in another one parked there and drove north. That’s all—he drove north in a dark car into the darkness, so I’m not banking on him being found, at least not for a while.”
“He was a kind of genius, Ken. Will arranged for me to have papers that show Darcy was abducted and brought here for testing. Jedi took her, but Ralston was all for detaining and experimenting on her. The papers are wet—where are they, Nick?”
He pulled them out of his duffel bag. “Criminal lawyers know criminal intent when they see it,” he said, pushing the damp papers to Ken around the very end of the mesh screen. “But I know your police techs will be all over the files where this came from—if that place gets through this storm.”
“If we all do. You know,” Ken said as he put the papers in a front compartment, “as damning as his testimony would be in court, I wouldn’t mind if the guy just vanished. It would be easier on your sister, too, not to mention he’s been making the Collier County law enforcement guys—including me—look bad by doing a better job at turning up criminals than we have. Besides, all I have is he’s a man heading north in a dark car.”
“His most serious charge would probably be manslaughter,” Claire said. “And faking evidence, if Will’s the one who faked Larry’s suicide note on his phone. But I’ll bet, if you catch him, he could testify to make us all believe Larry fell in.”
“And remember that old guy on the dock you two asked for directions to Captain Larry’s boat?” Ken said. “He’s willing to testify that a man we can now prove is Will Warren was arguing with Larry after Steve had a fight with Larry and then stormed off the dock. In all this mess, I didn’t have time to tell you and I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but with that confession letter from Will, I’m pretty sure all charges will be dropped once we all get through this storm.”
“Thank God,” Claire said. “I bet Will’s heading back to Japan. He made a lot of connections and money there dealing in butterfly smuggling and black market selling.”
“You don’t sound unhappy about that,” Ken said.
“He may have killed Larry Ralston, abducted me at gunpoint, planted that smart doll in our house to spy on us, and hurt a lot of people with his actions. But he tracked down Darcy’s abductors when I couldn’t. Misguided as his actions were, he did it out of love. I don’t want to see him charged,” she added with a huge sigh.
Nick put his arm around her to draw her closer again. “That’s exactly how I think of my beautiful wife. Are you sure he’s Darcy’s father and not yours?”
“I’ve got one officer still inside and two more coming to guard this place along with some of the staff to tend to those bodies. As soon as I can hand the scene over to them, I’ll take you both home. Waiting for more orders, always someone else’s orders, and now we have to listen to the weathermen. Be back in a sec.”
He got out of the car and jogged toward Onward again, but he returned quickly as promised.
“Change of plans. I’ve been ordered to the Naples Airport, so I’ve handed the scene here over to the officer inside. I’ll take you two as far as the airport. Even though it’s closed to traffic and people,” he told them as he started the car and gunned the engine. “Maybe you can get your man Bronco to come get you there or even Darcy’s husband if he’s not going to sit this out at the hospital—and give him the good news I predict we’ll be dropping charges against him per your future testimony.”
“Yeah,” Nick said, “I can have Bronco come to get us there. Steve is going to be celebrating once all the charges are dropped. So what’s the big problem at the airport?” he asked as Ken turned the siren and the lights on. “I heard it was closed because of the storm.”
“A NOAA hurricane hunter plane blew an engine. It’s going to try to land, but it’s really dangerous in this mess, and we’ll need emergency vehicles and cops if it goes down. Hopefully, it will even make it as far as the airport runway because there’s a big population with lots of buildings on that approach.”