“That’s one big-ass emerald,” he said, handing it back.
“Don’t know anything about them,” I lied, folding it back into my pocket. “Ginger found it on a treasure hunt that her friend has every year. He hides them all over an island for his guests to find. From what he says, it might be worth a few hundred bucks, but it ain’t no diamond.”
A noise from above preceded a shadow, then a man stepped down from the cockpit. He was obviously one of the workmen, dressed in jeans and long sleeves, with a ball cap sitting backward on his head, a surgical mask perched on the front of it.
Sniffing the air, he looked blankly at both of us. “One of you guys the owner?”
“Yeah,” Carmichael said. “I’m the owner.”
“We hit a coupla snags, during the demo,” the man said, unconcerned about the pot smoking. “Things we need to talk about before continuing the build. You got a few minutes where I can go over them with you?”
“Sure,” Carmichael replied. “In fact, my friend here gave me an idea that I want you guys to add to the work order.” Turning to me, Carmichael said, “Think you can find your way back, amigo?”
“Yeah, sure,” I replied, feeling slightly sluggish. “I can get back okay.” I didn’t understand it; I’d seen Jimmy smoke a number of joints, one after the other. He called them spliffs, or hog legs. An exceptionally fat one he called a zeppelin, but why I was remembering that just now, I had no idea. Pot didn’t seem to affect him much more than a beer There must be some kind of tolerance built up through habitual use.
As I slowly mounted the steps to the cockpit, my legs felt very heavy. I carefully moved over onto the ladder and descended. A few minutes later, I was out in the sunlight, walking toward the car.
“Did I just hear you smoking weed?” Tony asked.
“I think he was testing me,” I replied, unlocking the door, and getting in. The inside of the car was very hot, but I didn’t seem to feel it. I just sat there, staring out the windshield. Then, for no reason whatsoever, I grinned.
“No way is that the same stuff that Jimmy smokes,” I mumbled.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” Andrew said, sounding concerned.
Starting the car and shaking it off, I replied, “Negative. Head for the hotel, let’s regroup in the room. I’m fine; it was just a tiny pinch.”
I turned onto Bayshore and made my way north at a snail’s pace, cars roaring past me, as if the expensive sports sedan was sitting on cinder blocks. I turned off the air conditioner and pushed the buttons to make the windows go down. The little electric motors in the doors were silent, but the rush of incoming air told me they worked.
When I got back to the room, Chyrel and Paul were at the desk on separate laptops. She was still wearing the white dress and heels. Deuce asked me again if I was okay.
“Yeah, it was just a speck,” I replied. “The amount would have barely filled the bottom of a thimble.”
“Just a speck of some strains of weed,” Tony’s voice said over the comm, “is a lot more potent than a whole joint of other kinds.”
“And you know this how?” I asked him.
“I know a few people who smoke weed,” he replied.
“Stand by,” Deuce said, motioning Chyrel, with a finger across his throat. She typed something and nodded back at him.
“Chyrel just turned off Charity’s, Tony’s and Andrew’s comms,” Deuce said. “How much do you think we should expose her to this? These two have kidnapped, tortured, and killed a number of women.”
“We found two more incidents like we learned the other day,” Chyrel said.
“More murders?” I asked, pulling over a chair from the dinette and sitting down beside her. Paul was next to her on another laptop, headphones covering his ears.
“Yeah,” she replied, turning in her chair to face me. “Two more multiple murders near Army bases. Six people dead.”
“In one,” Deuce began, “three young local women were abducted over a week’s time. All three were single women, no family. Their bodies were dumped together, ten days after the last abduction. All had been tortured, raped, and murdered.”
“That was a year ago, just outside Fort Sill, Oklahoma,” Chyrel added. “Four months later, two more women were abducted near Fort Bliss in El Paso. The husband of one of the women was found shot in the head. The two women’s bodies were dumped together on the American side of the Rio Grande, two weeks after his body was found. Again, tortured and raped. Apparently, the killer escalated it this time, forcing the married woman to drain several bank accounts, in small amounts at different ATMs, over the period of several days. They made off with nearly a hundred thousand in cash.”
Odds were, I knew Charity better than anyone—at least on an emotional level. We’d never been physically intimate, but we both knew things about the other that nobody else knew. She’d told the rest of the team some about the ordeal she went through as a prisoner of the Taliban, and seemed somewhat flippant about parts of it. But even her psychologists didn’t know the extent of the torture. But, Deuce knew that she’d confided in me and was putting it on me to make the call.
“Charity can handle it,” I finally replied. “Most wouldn’t have survived what she went through, much less be able to put it behind them to the extent she has, but she did. She told me everything that happened in Afghanistan, while we were looking for Smith—something she never did with her shrinks.”
Paul’s face came up, and he clicked the pause button on whatever he was listening to. “No disrespect, Jesse, but you’re hardly qualified to make a judgment like that, nor be the sounding board of things she should have told her therapists.”
“There’s a difference between being a cop and a warrior,” I said. “The threat level is much greater on the battlefield. Only someone who’s been there can understand it. Isn’t that what psychology is all about? Understanding the person?”
Paul nodded somberly. “Your call.”
“Bring her in fully,” I said to Deuce. “She can handle anything that comes up. I’m sure of it.”
Deuce nodded to Chyrel, and she typed a couple of keys.
“Sorry about that,” Deuce said, turning, and looking out the sliding glass door at Biscayne Bay. “Andrew, how far out are you guys?”
“Pulling into the lot now.”
“Hurry and get up here. Chyrel and Paul have a plan.”
Putting down the earphones, Paul stood up. “I don’t think these abductions started out as such.”
This was something I’d already added up. But, knowing Paul, I was sure there was more to it. “Carmichael, and probably Cruz, are into multiple sex partners,” I said. “At the same time. And the more people, especially women, the better. They specifically target bisexual women. And it starts out simply as likeminded people having a consensual romp together.”
Chyrel looked up at me, surprised. “And I always thought you were a prude. How’d you figure that out.”
“Just some things they both said,” I replied. “And body language.”
The door opened and Charity came in, followed by Tony and Andrew. Them having key cards didn’t surprise me in the least. I was sure that among the many devices Chyrel carried in her electronics bag all the time, she’d be bound to have something that could duplicate the magnetic strip on the back of a hotel key card.
“Chyrel was about to tell us about more unsolved murders near Army bases,” I said, as Charity dropped several shopping bags on the bed nearest the door.
Deuce and Chyrel went on to explain what they’d learned again, since the others had had their comms disconnected the first time.
Charity was the first to speak. “I assume these abductions and murders occurred when Carmichael was stationed at these bases?”
“The one in Fort Sill, yeah,” Chyrel replied. “And the one in Fort Bliss happened while he was on leave. Cruz had an apartment in a rundown complex in El Paso at the time. And Carmichael flew to Fort Bliss.”
“So, she rounded up some women for the party?” Charity asked, sitting on the edge of the bed, crossing her legs. “Then Carmichael took leave to go down there to torture these women?”
“It fits the profile I’m putting together on both,” Paul said, moving one side of the headphones up, leaving the other over his ear to hear whatever he was listening to. “Once Carmichael is apprehended, I feel certain that a psych eval is going to reveal severe anti-social personality disorder. Certainly Cruz will. She’s the dangerous one.”
“You mean they could claim insanity and walk, after being arrested?” I asked.
“Doubtful,” Paul replied. “APD rarely has a clinical diagnosis. They know right from wrong, but lack any empathy for their victims—or anyone and anything else. Most start out in early adolescence, tormenting, and killing animals, even pets. But there could be several other mental disorders associated with these two, so an insanity defense could be mounted. But walk? No, they’ll spend the rest of their lives locked away in prison or in psychiatric confinement.”
“I’m no psychologist,” Andrew said. “But those two seem pretty social for folks having an anti-social disorder.”
“It’s all a put-on,” Paul explained. “A sociopath can be extremely outgoing and sociable. They use this trait to manipulate their victims. And everyone is a potential victim. Sociopaths have a persistent and pervasive disregard for social norms and the rights and feelings of others. As Jesse would say, their moral compass is off by more than a few degrees. Nearly all serial killers show signs of sociopathy.” Turning suddenly, Paul pulled the other earphone over his ear, motioning Chyrel toward her laptop. “She just called Carmichael from the room.”
Chyrel sat down, punched a few keys and I heard a clicking sound in my earwig, followed by Carmichael’s voice.
“I’m tellin’ ya, it’s a hundred percent identical.”
“And none of ours are missing?” Cruz asked.
“No, I double counted. They’re all there.”
“Where do you think he got it?”
“I don’t know,” Carmichael said. “Before you killed Huggins, he told us about the stones, remember? There’s another whole chest, identical to the one he had, on display at the museum in Mexico City.”
“You think someone stole the chest from the museo?”
“Who knows,” Carmichael replied. “Museums don’t make a lot of money. Maybe they sold it.”
“It would be nice to add his stone to our collection.”
“Yeah, it would,” Carmichael said. “That’s another ten grand. Hard to pass up.”
“I think the man is anxious to return to his farm,” Cruz said. “He only came here to go to the Bahamas.”
Carmichael chuckled. “Yeah, it’s some kinda old-man bucket-list thing.”
“How long until you return?”
“I’m pulling into the hotel lot now,” Carmichael said. “Meet me down at the pool bar. But stop by Stretch’s room and listen at the door, to see if he’s there.”
She said she would, and there was another click, as she hung up the phone.
Rising, Chyrel quickly crossed the room toward Charity, telling Andrew to watch the door. She grabbed Charity’s hands and pulled her to her feet. “Moan,” she whispered. “Loudly; like you’re having sex.”
Chyrel sat on the bed and started bouncing up and down on it, as she’d done before. Charity caught on quickly, and began breathing very hard, yipping and moaning.
Andrew watched through the peephole, as the two women carried on. Tony grinned broadly, covering his mouth to stifle a laugh.
Finally, Andrew turned and smiled. “She’s gone. But she listened a lot longer than is polite.”
“We need to get inside that boatyard and recover the emeralds soon,” Deuce said. “They could easily take them off the boat before next week, or sell them all off. Or worse, kill again.”
“I agree,” I said. “We need to hand this over to the police and the Army, as soon as possible. But we really need to get those stones first.”
“I checked out Mistrall’s security,” Chyrel said. “He works on boats belonging to some of Miami’s most influential people. He’s got cameras everywhere, and armed guards inside the fence at night.”
“Too much chance of someone getting hurt,” I said, thinking aloud. “Once his boat’s out of the yard, we can take him down on the water, but they’re a week from finishing, at best.”
“We’ll just have to do something to make him move his schedule up,” Tony said.
Chyrel jumped up from the bed, grabbing Charity’s shopping bags. “I have an idea how to do that,” she said, pushing Charity toward the bathroom, and handing her the bags.
“Put on a bikini,” she told her. “Fast, then get back out here.”
With two large beach towels under her arm, Chyrel returned and pointed at me. “Start doing pushups, Jesse.”
“What the hell for?”
“Just do it,” she said, urgently.
I rolled my eyes, but assumed the supine position on the floor, and started doing pushups.
A moment later, Charity emerged from the bathroom, wearing a tiny white bikini and sheer yellow beach wrap.
“You, too,” Chyrel ordered. “Pushups with Jesse.”
Without a word, Charity got into position in front of me, eye to eye. I paused for a second, then we both started doing pushups.
“You two need to be sweaty and flushed, before you go down there,” Chyrel said, pacing the floor between the beds, her hand on her chin in thought. “Keep going until I say stop.”
“I still don’t get it,” I said, as the two of us went up and down in unison. Charity had a wicked smile on her face, matching my speed and count, as I passed twenty in my head. I could feel beads of perspiration popping out on my forehead. Charity looked completely composed.
“Cruz will go down to the pool and tell Carmichael that you and I were doing the wild thing,” Chyrel said. “Once you and Charity are adequately prepared, you’ll go down to the pool to cool off.”
Paul turned in his chair. “Brilliant,” he said. “These two are sexual predators, Jesse. Cruz heard what she thought was you having sex with your wife and when you and Charity show up, flush-faced and over exerted, they’ll both assume that you were in bed with Charity… er, Gabby, Ginger’s college friend.”
“Exactly,” Chyrel said. “They target couples, or single women who go both ways. After you two have been down there at the pool for a few minutes, and you introduce Charity to them, that’s when I’ll show up, all excited.”
“The jealous wife, catching me in the act?”
“Stop thinking like a Mormon, Jesse, and keep pumping,” Chyrel ordered.
I was sweating heavily now, streaks running down my face and dripping off my nose. There wasn’t a drop of perspiration on Charity’s face, but I could tell she was breathing a little harder.
“No, just the opposite,” Chyrel said. “I’ll come down and make it obvious that not only do I not mind that you were screwing my old college friend, but all three of us actively take part. And I’ll let slip that I found four more emeralds on today’s boat trip.”
“I get it!” Deuce said. “Dangle more bait in front of them. But how does that get them to move up the departure? There’s still a lot of work to be done on the boat.”
“I’ll drag Charity back to the room,” Chyrel said. “Leaving Jesse down there. Greed and lust will make their minds explode. Then Jesse will let Carmichael know that the sailboat is nearly ready and we’ll be leaving for the Bahamas on Saturday. Taking his two hotties and all those big ole emeralds with him.”
When Chyrel finally told us to stop, Charity and I both stood up. Her neck, chest, and belly were beaded with sweat, and my tee-shirt was sticking to my back.
“Get on down there,” Chyrel said. “And double time. Keep your heart rates up.”
“This is nuts,” I said between breaths, as Charity and I ran down the hall toward the elevator, he
r in a bikini and me in shorts and a tee-shirt. Neither of us were wearing shoes. In fact, I hadn’t seen Charity with shoes on since she arrived.
She continued past the elevator and I yelled after her, “Where you going? The elevator’s right here.”
“The stairs,” she called back over her shoulder.
Paul’s voice came over the comm. “Good idea. Take the stairs. These people are swingers. Remember, you want them to think you’re one of them.”
“I don’t think they’ve been called swingers since probably the nineties,” Charity said.
“We’re on the ninth damned floor,” I muttered, sprinting after Charity. “If not swingers, what are they?”
She pulled the heavy steel fire door open and disappeared. I yanked it open and started down the concrete-and-steel steps after her.
“I’ve heard it called the lifestyle,” Charity’s voice echoed from below.
I could hear her breathing hard now, as I vaulted to the next floor’s landing to catch up. Hearing her labored breathing, and knowing that I was keeping pace with a former Olympian, fifteen years younger than me, made me feel quite pleased.
Pausing to compose ourselves at the door to the first-floor lobby, Charity turned toward me. Her breathing was a bit more labored than my own.
She looked me up and down, smiled and winked. “Not bad, for an old-timer. We should, uh…work out together again.”
If my face hadn’t already been flushed beet red, it was now. Doing pushups, face-to-face with a beautiful woman in a bikini will cause all kinds of thoughts to enter a man’s head.
Smiling broadly, knowing she’d caught me in a mental act of debauchery, Charity stepped past me, her breasts gently brushing my arm, and pushed the door open. We walked casually through the lobby and into the bar, carrying our beach towels.
The lounge was empty, save for the bartender, who rose from his stool and put his paper aside. I ordered two Cokes on ice and he poured them quickly.
“You still have an open tab, Mister Buchannan.”
Remembering his name, I said, “Sorry, Nick, I don’t have my wallet on me. Can you add these to the tab?”
Rising Storm: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 11) Page 17