by CJ Lyons
“Special Agent Tierney, I’m Captain Nouri, the Alvarados’ pilot. Do you have anything at baggage claim?”
“No.” She’d learned to travel light and had assembled a collection of clothing that would work for anything from a press conference to a tactical raid. In fact, the only things that she missed bringing on these trips were her ballistic vest and long guns. She could pass through TSA with her service weapon and backup Glock, but had to leave the rest behind.
She followed Nouri through the terminal. He didn’t offer to take her rolling travel pack or smaller messenger bag, but she didn’t ask. “Where are we going?”
“Maria’s friends and the ship she is supposed to be on are docking at Cozumel this afternoon. We’re flying out to meet them.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “You do have your passport?”
“Of course. But I’d hoped to speak with Maria’s family, learn more—” She’d used the jet’s Wi-Fi to research as much as she could via the Internet, but that was no substitute for meeting witnesses up close and in person.
“Mr. and Mrs. Alvarado will be traveling with us. You can talk while we are en route.” He led her into a private corridor that he accessed with a special pass. A few minutes later they were on the tarmac in the back of an SUV being driven past the commercial jets and out to a private section of the bustling airport. It was too noisy in the SUV to talk, so Caitlyn got caught up on e-mails. She’d done a quick Google search on the Alvarados during the flight down and found they owned a privately held company called BioRegen that specialized in human tissue procurement for research and medical use.
Not very glamorous; in fact, the company’s Web site had been filled with so much technical data, aimed at physicians and scientists, that her eyes had glazed over. But as they drew up to a sleek Gulfstream, she realized medical research must be more lucrative than she imagined.
Nouri bounded up the steps and into the cockpit without looking to see if she followed or needed help with her luggage. Obviously playing errand boy sent to fetch a lowly FBI agent was beneath him. She wished Carver were here to annoy the haughty pilot with his biker persona. The thought made her smile.
She entered the plane, and a young man in a business suit immediately relieved her of her bags and ushered her to a seat at a table. He presented her with a glossy folder stamped with BioRegen’s logo, then after offering her a drink, he showed her her seat belt and the call button. “We’ll be taking off in a few minutes.”
The engines started and the steward closed the cabin door. Caitlyn leafed through the folder. In it were photos of Maria, a copy of her passport and driver’s license, contact info for her and each of her parents, class schedule, cruise itinerary. Very thorough. She wondered who had put it together—the distraught parents or an anonymous employee?
Just as they began to taxi, a door in the rear of the plane opened and a man and woman emerged. Maria’s parents were older than Caitlyn expected: Sandra Alvarado in her late fifties and Hector Alvarado his early sixties. But they moved with grace and strength, in sync with each other, the plane’s movement not bothering them at all.
They were both tall, with dark hair and dark eyes, Latino coloring. Hector was dressed in a conservative suit, tie tight, not a wrinkle in sight. Sandra wore four-inch heels and a silk dress that reminded Caitlyn of the designers her mother favored. Even though the swivel chairs were bolted to the floor, Hector still held hers for his wife, his hand brushing her neck before he sat down. Possessive and more than a little controlling.
A united front was the impression Caitlyn had. A true power couple. Two against the world. Where would their daughter fit into that dynamic?
“Thank you for coming on such short notice, Special Agent Tierney,” Sandra said. She made it clear her words were simply a formality, but inclined her chin as if waiting to be thanked for the gesture.
“Actually it’s Supervisory Special Agent,” Caitlyn couldn’t resist correcting her. Then immediately chided herself. It wasn’t her place to judge how parents grieving their child’s disappearance should behave. “But please, call me Caitlyn.”
“Caitlyn,” Hector said in a smooth, businesslike tone, as if Caitlyn were a dawdling toddler, “I’m sure you understand there’s no time to waste.”
Definitely no need for handholding with these two. “How did you learn Maria was missing?” Caitlyn asked, opening a notebook. People were always reassured when you took notes by hand, even if a recording would be more accurate and easier. Her own notes tended to serve as mnemonics rather than a verbatim record. Especially during conversations like this, where the subjects couldn’t possibly be involved in the crime. “Did the cruise line call you? Do they know when she was last on board?”
“We can’t get any straight answers from the cruise people,” Hector said with disdain. “They still refuse to confirm that she’s not on board. That’s why we need you.” His tone implied that it was the only reason they’d allowed an outsider to intrude into their private affairs. “If they listened to reason, this entire trip would be unnecessary.”
“What makes you think she isn’t still on board?” Caitlyn didn’t care what kind of political clout the Alvarados had. If they’d brought her all the way down here on a wild goose chase …
“She calls me every night. Ten o’clock,” Sandra said. “She didn’t call last night.”
“And she’s not answering her phone. She must have also disabled the GPS tracking on it. We called the cruise line and had a steward page her but she didn’t answer any of those messages.”
Caitlyn kept her head down so they wouldn’t see her eye roll. This was sounding a lot like overprotective parents and less like a federal case. Didn’t these two remember what it was like, being a nineteen-year-old college kid, giddy with your first taste of freedom? “She’s on the cruise with friends, right? What do they say?”
They glanced at each other and shifted in their seats. “They’re her friends from college.”
“I kept asking her to bring them home. We wanted to meet them before they went off together.…” Sandra’s voice trailed off, and finally the two made eye contact with Caitlyn once more.
Hector took over. “Her so-called friends insist that everything is fine and we shouldn’t worry. They won’t say anything more.”
Caitlyn focused on her scribbling as she thought about that. These two were obviously biased, but … even college kids would understand the importance of a friend missing from a ship at sea. “Perhaps she met someone? A romantic involvement?”
Both parents bristled, as if her suggestion were outlandish. “Maria would never date a boy without our approval,” her father said in a tone that didn’t allow for compromise. Sandra nodded in agreement. “And she has far too good sense to be involved in any kind of shipboard dalliance.”
Right. Clearly these two didn’t remember their own college days. The Alvarados were a generation older than Caitlyn. To someone Maria’s age, it must have seemed like her parents belonged to an entirely different world.
“Tell me more about Maria,” she suggested. “What was she studying? Any interests outside of school? Did she have a job?”
“She’s an excellent student when she applies her mind. We encouraged her to study something that would provide her with lasting skills. Biochemistry or engineering. Even architecture. But…” Hector’s shrug threatened to wrinkle his Italian suit.
“Always with her head in a book, even when she was a child. I guess we should have done something about that, not indulged her so much.”
Caitlyn looked at the parents, waiting. Finally the mother confessed, “She’s studying archeology, of all things. Thinks she’s going to get a job exploring ancient ruins and digging for treasure. It’s quite impractical, of course, but the more we argued with her, the more she dug her heels in.”
“She gets that from you,” Hector said. “Stubborn.”
“At least I’m also practical.” She sighed. “But I assure you, she is very practi
cal in other matters, Special Agent Tierney. Very responsible. She’d never not contact us, not unless something happened to her.”
“And she’s never missed a day calling before this?” Caitlyn asked.
“Never,” they said in unison. The father picked up the narrative. “Ten o’clock at night before she goes to bed. Without fail. It was one of our requirements for her to go to school so far away from home.”
Like Orlando was so far from Miami? Talk about strangling on apron strings.
“So, if you’re correct, she went missing yesterday or sometime after ten o’clock the night before?” That was a long time when you had a few thousand people tramping all over the potential crime scene. If there was even a crime.
Caitlyn began to wonder if maybe Maria had run away. That would explain the friends’ reluctance to talk with the parents. Only problem was, a naïve nineteen-year-old trying to escape smothering parents would make for easy prey for streetwise predators.
It was the worst-case scenario, but worst-case scenarios were Caitlyn’s expertise. She glanced at her notebook where she’d jotted down the ship’s itinerary. Key West, Belize, Guatemala, followed by Cozumel. Was Maria still on board? Could she have slipped past the ship’s crew and gotten off at one of the ports?
Was she still alive?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Apparently money talked even louder in Mexico than it did in Miami, because Caitlyn and the Alvarados were whisked through customs with lightning speed. After a short taxi ride, they soon found themselves ushered into the office of the Caribbean Dream’s chief of security, Ian Broadman, and were asked to wait for him.
Hector and Sandra groused that they weren’t being given access to the ship’s captain. The Caribbean Dream was nine stories high, and from the activity on the dock and on the various decks they crossed through, Caitlyn figured the good captain had plenty on his hands to worry about. It must be like running a small country, only in addition to the administrative headache of feeding, housing, and entertaining thousands of passengers and crew, he’d have to also worry about external concerns like the engines and storms and navigating the ocean.
Not a job she’d want, that’s for sure. After keeping them waiting for several minutes, a tall man with military bearing wearing a suit and tie rather than a uniform strode into the office. “Mr. and Mrs. Alvarado,” he said without shaking hands as he slid behind the desk to take his seat. “I’m Chief Security Officer Ian Broadman. It’s good to meet you, but really, I’m not sure how I can help.”
Hector bristled at that. “What do you mean, you’re not sure how you can help? You can either bring my daughter to me now, as you insist she’s still on board, or you can allow Supervisory FBI Special Agent Tierney here full access to your data so she can begin a proper investigation.”
“As I told you on the phone, your daughter is an adult, and I can’t violate her privacy. However, I understand your concerns and I can verify that to the best of our knowledge, she is still on board.”
“You’ve seen her?” Sandra leaned forward, one palm pressed against Broadman’s desk. “Is she okay?”
He frowned at the impression her hand left behind on the polished hardwood, and Caitlyn knew he wanted to wipe it clean again. A by-the-book kind of guy. “I don’t need to see her to know that she’s on board. We have a state-of-the-art security system and—”
“What led you to that conclusion, Mr. Broadman?” Caitlyn asked before either of Maria’s parents could leap over the desk to throttle the security officer. Both had edged almost off their seats—the most emotion she’d seen from either. “That Maria is still on board?”
Broadman didn’t back down. “Each passenger has an ID card that must be carried with them at all times. It has a RFID device implanted, so they can use it to purchase onboard amenities, and we can track usage of our facilities, which meals are most popular, et cetera.”
“And Maria’s ID is still on board?”
“Yes. Last used at breakfast on the Lido deck this morning.”
“Can you tell us where she is now?”
He frowned. “I’m afraid that would be a violation of her privacy.”
“How do you know she’s the one using it?” Hector demanded. “Why hasn’t she called us or answered her phone? She could be anywhere and all you’d know is where a damned card is.”
Caitlyn tried to smooth the waters. “He has a point, Mr. Broadman.”
“In my experience,” Broadman said, “cruises such as this one that appeal to our younger clientele often lead to shipboard romances. Perhaps your daughter has simply been otherwise occupied.”
Both parents jumped to their feet. Caitlyn pushed out of her own chair and stood between them and Broadman. “Nevertheless, I am a federal agent who would like to speak to Ms. Alvarado and verify her well-being. Mr. and Mrs. Alvarado will wait here while you take me to where Ms. Alvarado is now.”
He frowned at that but was smart enough to realize it was the only thing that would get the Alvarados off his back. “Very well. If you need anything, Mr. and Mrs. Alvarado, my assistant will be right outside. Agent Tierney, if you’ll come with me.”
No one was very happy with the arrangement, and for a moment Caitlyn thought Hector was going to barge after them, but to her surprise he and his wife merely sank back into their seats while Broadman escorted her from his office.
As large as the ship had appeared from down on the dock, it seemed even larger as they journeyed through it. They ended up at the rear of the ship where there was a climbing wall, a large water feature that simulated surfing, two pools, and an outdoor bar. Despite the beach being just a short distance away, the deck was crowded with laughing young men and women.
Caitlyn couldn’t remember her last vacation—unless you counted her trip home two months ago. The trip that had ended with her mother under arrest for murder. She decided it didn’t count. Maybe she and Carver …
“Her ID card indicates she’s at the bar.” Broadman interrupted her fantasy. The man was inhuman, not even sweating despite the fact that it was eighty degrees and he was overdressed—especially compared to the co-eds who wore bikinis that used less material than the rags Caitlyn cleaned her guns with. Which also made her think of Carver, stuck back in Virginia. He would have loved this.
A trio of giggling girls purposely brushed their oiled bodies against Broadman as they passed. Maybe it was a good thing Carver wasn’t here. He would have enjoyed this too much. Yeah, cross cruise off the list. Besides, if she was going to be trapped on a boat, she preferred to be the one in control. Maybe a rafting trip?
They navigated through the crowd of sunbathers and reached the bar. No Maria.
During the flight from Miami, Caitlyn had done some basic background checks on Maria and her friends—finding the most useful data, including photos, on their Facebook pages. Standing at the bar were two of the girls. Linda Cervino and Tracey Morton.
“I don’t understand,” Broadman said, his haughty demeanor slipping for the first time. “She should be here. Perhaps she’s in the pool or showers, took her ID off.”
Caitlyn saw the two girls eyeing them. “Why don’t you go look? I’ll wait here.” She waved her hand and wiped her forehead. “In the shade.”
He gave her a look of disdain for her weakness and left her at the bar. Linda, who had obviously overheard them, grabbed her purse and tried to sidle past, but Caitlyn grabbed her arm. “Want to tell me where Maria really is?”
The girl had acting chops. She shook off Caitlyn and glared at her. “I think you have the wrong person. Whoever you are.”
A third girl joined them. Vicky Smith, if Caitlyn remembered correctly from her perusal of Maria’s social media. “Why are you asking about Maria?” she said in a worried tone. “Has something happened? Who are you?”
Linda rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Vicky.”
“That might not be the wisest decision, Linda.” The girl flinched at her name, glared at Caitlyn. “And to answer
your question, Vicky, I’m FBI Supervisory Special Agent Caitlyn Tierney.” She flipped her credentials open, showed them to the girls. “Before any of you say anything, you should know it’s a federal offense to lie to a federal agent. Tracey, you’re pre-law, you already knew that, right?”
Tracey bit her lip and nodded.
“Tell you what, girls. Let’s go back to your cabin where we’ll have some privacy and you can tell me everything. Linda, you lead the way.”
Broadman was going to be furious that she was wandering the ship unescorted, much less that she’d stuck him with Maria’s parents, but better him than her. And no way would these girls answer their questions. But she could get them to talk.
She only hoped their story would have a happy ending—a prank gone on too long, Maria holed up in a romantic liaison with another passenger. Typical college spring break adventures.
From the worried look on Vicky’s face, she had a feeling that wouldn’t be the case.
CHAPTER NINE
The girls shared a small stateroom with a bunk bed, foldout sofa bed, and window. Clothing and souvenirs were scattered all around and there was no place to sit except for the sofa, which Vicky hastily folded up, shoving the dirty linens under the cushions.
“Where is Maria?” Caitlyn asked once the girls were seated on the couch. She remained standing, the better to intimidate. They seemed to respond to authority, even Linda, who was obviously their leader.
“Having the time of her life digging through some ancient ruins in Guatemala,” Tracey answered. Her tone was wistful, as if she wished she’d had the courage to go on an adventure instead of being stuck on a cruise filled with the same kind of drunk college kids they could have hung out with back home.
“Ancient ruins?” Maria’s parents had said her passion was archeology—a passion they disapproved of. Hence, the deception. “Start from the beginning.”
“Well,” Linda said, “it all started with a cute guy.”
“Prescott,” Tracey put in. “He’s a grad student at Cambridge.”