by Jeff Abbott
“Hold it!” the kidnapper yelled at me, caging Rey in one arm, scrabbling to his feet. He had the knife at Rey’s throat. I stopped.
“Hands up, get on your knees, or I cut his throat.”
I obeyed his orders. I heard the trace of a Russian accent in his ragged voice. I could read a code in it; he’d underestimated me, he was afraid he was going to lose. But to kill me he’d still have to get close. I could wait for him to move.
Rey Varela’s eyes bulged, not in pain but in rage. “I’m gonna kill you for this, gonna kill you…”
“Shut up, old man,” the kidnapper said. “Now,” he said to me, “he’s coming with me, to have a quiet chat with some friends of his, no one wants him dead. You understand? Last thing we want, all right? Lay down flat and stay still and be quiet and you’ll be okay.”
“All right,” I said. Rey’s eyes met mine.
I understood his look: Get ready.
Rey seized the attacker’s arm, then bent back, getting the knife away from his throat a few more inches. I threw myself at them, slamming my fist into the kidnapper’s face, yanking down his arm, pulling the blade away from the old man. Rey fell, slipping out between us.
But the kidnapper head-butted me and my brain exploded. He caught me to one side of my nose, worse than a fist being thrown. I staggered back, falling, and he was on top of me, the knife raised. The bright gleam of steel was the last thing I was going to see.
I grabbed his wrist but all the leverage was on his side. The blade was inches from my face. I saw a rock bounce past the kidnapper’s shoulder—Rey Varela throwing it, trying to hurt him.
My gaze locked with the kidnapper’s. His eyes were brown. His mouth was set in determination. It was nothing personal. The blade inched closer to me. I thought of Daniel, and I’d like to say that my love for my son powered my strength but instead I felt my muscles start to give and the life I wouldn’t share with him spun before my eyes. And then I heard two shots; the kidnapper’s head turned toward the sound and he fell. The knife nearly cut me as he went down, but not because his hand guided it. Just gravity.
He fell and I could see the wet hole above his eye. He looked surprised.
Rey Varela was on the ground, clutching his cut and bleeding arm, blinking.
Ten feet away I saw Galo Varela slowly lower a gun. Staring down at us, shock creasing his face. Then running toward us, yelling, “Papa!,” calling for the guards. I heard Cori scream too. Screaming the way she did when Steve died. Then it stopped, because she saw her father and I were both still alive.
Rey leaned over me. He looked about seventy, his hair bedraggled, his gaze blank and confused. I wanted to tell him to sit down, but my whole face hurt.
“You saved my life,” Rey Varela said to me. “But who the hell are you, kid?”
The blood pulsed from my shoulder, my brain felt rattled in its cage of skull, and I fell back down in the dirt when I tried to stand. The sky spun. Rey leaned into my face, studying it as though wondering whether he knew me, asking Galo, “Who is this? Is this Eddie?”
21
MEET THE FAMILY.
One way to make that important first impression is to save the father from abduction and see the brother kill a man to save you.
From my bed, I looked through the stone-framed window at the lovely blue sky. The day was still quiet.
Too quiet. No sirens. No police officers came to my room to question me, to take my statement.
The sheets were cool against my body, the high-thread-count kind you find in a luxury hotel. Towels under me to catch any bleeding past the bandages. A doctor, a longtime and trusted family friend of the Varelas, had been summoned. He was in his seventies, English, tanned, and gentlemanly. He stitched up my shoulder and tended to my back (which was a very shallow cut) and inspected the head-butt bruise on my cheek. He brought painkillers instead of a prescription pad.
“I am pretty sure there are hospitals here in Puerto Rico,” I said to the doctor as he worked on my shoulder and back. He took a sip of whiskey when he was done and then offered the glass to me and I took a sip as well.
“There are indeed. Excellent ones.”
“But I don’t get a ride to a hospital.”
“Horrifying lack of privacy at a hospital.” The doctor said this to me in a tone of maddening reason, as though I were a five-year-old asking why I couldn’t go out to play during a hurricane.
“They’re not going to call the police, are they?”
“I can’t say.”
It occurred to me it might be good for the police to understand how badly I was injured. That Galo’s killing of the kidnapper was justified to save me.
“It was self-defense,” I said when he finished stitching me. “That guy getting killed, it wasn’t my fault.” I needed to sound like the scared, in-over-his-head boyfriend.
“Rey will tell you how this is handled, Mr. Chevalier, and I suggest you listen carefully to him. You don’t have a concussion, so you should be able to understand his reasoning.” A slightly wry tone shaded his words.
“Who would want to kidnap Mr. Varela?”
“He’s a very wealthy man,” the doctor said. As if that was all there could be to it. “Kidnapping is a very sensitive subject here. After Edwin. You understand.”
“I guess.”
“The police were ineffective. It was as if Edwin vanished from the face of the Earth, pardon the cliché. So if Rey doesn’t think they need to call the police, they won’t.”
“But…Cori…there could be a threat against the family…” I’d thought the threat to Cori came from inside the family. Ricky searching Steve’s house for Galo, Z and Galo arguing to the point of her slapping him, this big secret meeting that excluded Cori…
What if I was wrong?
“I am going to give you very important advice, Sam. Please follow it. Rest for a couple of days, then go home. Your cheekbone’s not broken, the bruising will heal, the cuts will heal. The family will be grateful to you and no one can be grateful like a Varela.” He rubbed fingers together: money. “And keep your mouth shut. That above all else. Keep your mouth shut.”
“You knew Mr. Varela in Africa,” I guessed.
He nodded. “Yes. I used to work with the UN. I decided to retire here.” He washed up, threw away his gloves. I got up and washed the sticky, dried blood from my hands. He stood in the bathroom door, watching me.
“The UN…” I said.
“My paths crossed now and then with Rey and his partner. They can be very charming.”
“You mean when they smuggled arms?”
“Rumors. All I ever saw unloaded were food and medical supplies.” The doctor’s voice got a little harsher. “You were a bit of a surprise.” He glanced aside at me. There are some other scars on my body. I’ve picked them up like hipsters find tattoos. “You helped Rey, so you’re the golden boy for the moment.”
For the moment.
A knock sounded on the door. “Is he decent?” Cori called.
“Yes,” I said.
She stepped inside and she held a dark T-shirt and a pair of loose athletic pants, with a drawstring waist. “Not the dressiest. Galo’s extras, he’s bigger than you but loose clothing might be best with the bandages. Your baggage is coming from the hotel. But your suit is blood-soaked, ruined, and so…” She stopped and she looked at my bandaged back and my bruised face and her mouth twisted.
“It’s okay. Thank you.”
“You saved my dad,” she said, her voice breaking.
“It’s okay.”
“None of this is okay, Sam.” She drew a steadying breath.
The doctor told me and Cori he’d want to see me again in two days, or I should see a friend of his, a doctor back in Miami who could keep her mouth shut about unexplained knife injuries. Cori thanked him and kissed him on the cheek and he seemed embarrassed. “Cori, I’m going to check again on your father before I go.”
“Thank you.” She looked to me. “Papa’s not
badly hurt, but he’s very confused.”
“And the assailant?” the doctor asked. “I don’t want to know details, I just want to know if it’s handled.”
“It’s…handled.” Cori nearly choked on the word. She glanced at me as though she were afraid I was going to ask unneeded questions. Or maybe she was afraid I was going to simply leave. Would they let me? Great to meet y’all, but I’ve had quite enough for the weekend, thanks! Let me out.
“All right,” the doctor said. I heard the putter of a boat in the inlet. I looked out the window. A small boat, returning. I couldn’t see who was in it.
“They took the kidnapper’s body out in the ocean,” she said. “To get rid of it.” The words sounded like they tasted bitter in her mouth. Then she looked at me, at the doctor. “No jury would convict Galo…saving his father, saving his sister’s boyfriend…”
“No jury would,” the doctor agreed. “Your dad’s resting in his room?”
She nodded.
“I’ll go check on Rey. He took a couple of hard blows there and added onto what he’s already dealing with…” The doctor shook my hand. “You’re a brave young man, Sam. You take care. Remember what I said.” He walked out and shut the door behind him.
The silence between us was thick. “So,” she said. “What did he say?”
“To do exactly what your father tells me. I’m going to put on those clean clothes,” I said. She handed them to me and turned around to look out the window. I shrugged off my bloodied underwear, and socks, slipped on the exercise pants. I stayed barefoot, since she hadn’t brought socks. The T-shirt, built for Galo’s wide shoulders, hung a bit loose on me.
“Okay,” I said, and she turned around and gathered my discarded cut-and-bloodied clothes. “We’ll get rid of these.” She couldn’t look me in the face. I touched her arm.
“We may only have a few minutes before the family descends on us, Cordelia.” I made my voice a low growl. “You are going to tell me everything, right now.”
22
SHE SHOVED MY clothes into a trash bag. “I asked you to stay at the hotel. You don’t have to be involved.”
“Way too late, and you’re a liar,” I said, and she looked up at me, stung. “You want me involved. You kissed me when you could have pretended I was a stranger bothering you in the casino. But no. You told your brother I was your boyfriend, it made your family nervous that I was here with you, so they bring me here to have a look at me. And now I’m nearly killed and I’m supposed to hush up a death.” I shook my head. “Now. Tell me what is going on here.”
“I’m not a liar. I didn’t engineer this. Sam. Just…I was trying to protect you because I didn’t know what you might say to my brother. Steve was already dead, I didn’t want you hurt. I’m sorry.”
“Are the people responsible for Steve’s murder the same people who tried to take your father?”
“I think so. They must be.”
“You think. Does your family know Steve was killed working for you?”
“No. They didn’t know I hired him.”
“At least one of them must. Galo sent Ricky to his house.”
“Maybe they found out, but there’s no way my brother could have…”
“Your brother just shot a man an hour ago.” Maybe Galo didn’t shoot him just to keep him from killing me, I thought. Maybe Galo shot him to shut him up. But why would anyone stage a kidnapping of his father from the family retreat? Was that designed to throw off the scent of suspicion?
“That’s different,” Cordelia said.
“What did you hire Steve for? I know he did a job for your charity a few months ago.”
She swallowed, sat down on the bed, glanced at the door, made her voice a whisper. “Papa’s company routinely donates to the charity I run. He’s been very generous.” She licked her lips. “About six months ago, he started slipping. Mentally. We thought he was just forgetful, but the doctor here said it was probably dementia. Papa refused to see a specialist. Sometimes he’d be just fine for weeks, then he’d be out of it. And I mean, out of it. Thinking one of his wives was still alive. Thinking he was still flying planes back in Angola and Congo and Rwanda. We kept it quiet. For the sake of FastFlex. Papa said he didn’t want anyone in the company finding out. Galo and Z and Kent were going to start, you know, transitioning Galo to be the CEO, retire Papa. But Papa got mad, fought them. He didn’t think then he should give up running the company. So they backed off, a bit, but Papa knew he’d have to hand over the reins.”
She took a deep breath for composure. “Two weeks ago, he called me and asked me to meet him at FastFlex’s office by the airport. He seemed out of it. Confused. When I arrived, he took me to a storage facility we own, he said he had something to give me. He had a…large crate of money, basically. Ten million dollars, in cash, he wanted to donate, to help the kids I help. I told him, Papa, this isn’t how you give me money for the charity, and he kept insisting that I was to take the money…I mean, who stores cash like that? In a warehouse? Not a legitimate business, right? You keep it in a bank. I’d never seen so much cash in my life and it scared me. He told me to take it and go. Like I was going to rent a truck and shovel it in the back. He started to cry and he sat down on the money. I asked him, where did the money come from, all this cash. And he said, from the underside of the business.”
“The underside.”
“Yes. And I asked him what that meant, and I called Galo to come over there and then, and Zhanna showed up, and she freaked that I’d seen all this cash. Galo got there and saw it too, and Z told him to leave, to wait outside. And he did, like she was in charge. Zhanna said it was cash moved from a South American government, they were a client. Well, I researched it, and it’s not legal to bring in a massive amount of cash like that and not declare it. Zhanna told me that it was a special case, showed me all the paperwork. But…who moves cash like that? And Papa thought it was his to give, not a client’s. Galo waited for me, walked me to my car, and told me to go home, and I was so upset I did. Later when I pressed Galo on it he claimed it wasn’t my concern, it was a private FastFlex matter. They’d moved it, he said, just like Zhanna, for a client. Then Papa claimed to forget he’d ever brought me there, or shown me. I knew my family was lying to me. Lying about ten million dollars.” Her voice shook in anger and frustration and she blew out the tension with a ragged sigh.
“So you decided to find out where this cash came from. You hired Steve.”
“Yes. He’d worked for me before, security at an event where there was a jewelry auction…and I remembered he’d had a background working security details in Africa. That was where Papa started FastFlex. I thought…” She looked at the door. The family still hadn’t materialized, probably hovering around Rey and the doctor. “I’ve heard the rumors. I’ve seen the newspaper articles that accused Papa of running weapons into war zones. He’s always denied it and nothing was ever proven, and more than one government tried. But then…he talks to me about the ‘underside’ of the business, I thought, maybe it was true. But if it was true, I thought it was in the past and he’s done so much good for people…what if it’s not in the past?”
“You wanted Steve to investigate your own family’s business.”
“Yes. Just a bit. If they were doing something illegal then…I wanted to know.”
“Why? You’d be complicit.”
Her mouth moved. “My brother vanished four years ago. What if Edwin was taken because of what they’re doing? If Papa is giving up the company to Galo and Zhanna, then this is time to stop doing anything illegal.”
I considered. “They’re moving cash under the radar. What else do you suspect?”
“Nothing. I have no idea what else they might be moving.”
“Why would your father risk a very successful, legitimate business to be a smuggler?”
“I don’t know.”
Downstairs I heard voices. “What did Steve find out?” I asked. “Because I didn’t find any reports on yo
ur family or FastFlex at his house, and he worked from home.”
“I asked him not to keep records. To tell me everything verbally. I just wanted to know, I didn’t want evidence. I wasn’t going to the police and I didn’t want Steve to have evidence the police could take. He’d just started, and he was digging into Papa’s past in Africa. He said someone might be trying to bribe him to stop…”
Bribe. The casino chip. I got up, dug through the bag of bloodied clothes. Found the chip, slipped it into my pocket.
“What are you doing?”
My back was blocking her from seeing. “Nothing. My spare hotel key.” I stood, dropped the bag to the floor. “Yet someone knew Steve was investigating your family’s business.”
“My family wouldn’t kill him. They wouldn’t.”
“Cori,” I said quietly. “They’re covering up a death right now.”
“Someone came after Papa. It’s someone else, someone outside of the family. An enemy.”
“Unhappy clients, maybe?” I said. “If Galo and Z and your dad are doing something illegal, then there must be clients. Who might be unhappy your father tried to give away a large amount of money that wasn’t his? Or competitors? Someone in the same line of smuggling who wants to get rid of your father. But why now?”
“Oh God,” Cori said, putting her face in her hands.
I leaned close to Cori. “The kidnapper—he told me he didn’t want your father dead, he wanted to take him to chat with his friends.” She looked up at me. “And the man who fell from the roof, he said this—I assume he meant getting rid of Steve—was for your own good. That’s what made me think it was your family, after I saw Ricky go to Galo after he searched Steve’s house.”
I took her hands in mine. “What do you want to do, Cordelia?”
“I want my family to stop breaking the law. I want them to be safe.”
And I wanted whoever ordered Steve killed. Maybe it was this outside group, maybe it was her family. She couldn’t see straight about it. My head ached. “Do you want my help?”