Changing Tides

by Veronica Mixon

  “Who?”

  “Juan Cabral. At twenty-three twenty-two last night, she made a call to a Cabral safe number. The call popped for us, but we didn’t know it was your mother until we cross-referenced her phone number with your burner.”

  Mom called Cabral after I told her Calvin was murdered. My mind scrambled for a plausible reason Mom would have a current phone number for Juan Cabral. “What’s a safe number?”

  “Contact number to leave a secure message. The number belonged to an art gallery in Mexico City. The store’s a front for the Cabral syndicate.”

  I didn’t gasp or argue. My heart simply stopped, as if a hand reached inside my chest and squeezed. Had I known from the moment Mom’s color faded at the mention of Juan’s name? The jade box? The old letters? The rare and expensive jewels she never wore? Would she put me through this purgatory to cover up a long-ago affair?

  I knew in the depths of my soul this kidnapping was the result of Granddad’s dirty money. “I can’t explain the footprints, but Mom wouldn’t fabricate a kidnapping to cover up an old love affair. This is Joseph’s doing. He’s laundering money and that’s why he threatened Owen. To keep me quiet.”

  “What about your GBI friend? When’s he going to get here?”

  Parsi checked his phone. “He had to pull over and wait out the storm. His new estimate is in the morning by ten o’clock.”

  I gripped the desk, my nails dug into the wood.

  “I have an idea how we might locate Lafferty.” He made himself comfortable on the sofa, his back against the armrest.

  He typed. His phone beeped. He swiped the screen, returned to his keyboard.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m hunting. Your mom called Juan but that didn’t work.”

  “If my mother and Juan are in contact and such good friends, why wouldn’t he help her?”

  “Because he’s dead.” Parsi picked up his iPad

  “Dead? Since when?”

  “Our sources say two, maybe three months.”

  If Mom called Juan and found out he’d died, would that cause her to run? But why? Mom and Juan seemed such an unlikely pair. But there was the jade box, the jewelry… “I’ve tried working out a timeline on the robbery at Mom’s house, but something’s off. Joseph was out of town, so he couldn’t be the thief, and Calvin breaking in doesn’t fit.”

  Parsi looked up. “Why doesn’t Calvin fit?”

  “I went to Cal’s house Monday morning, around seven o’clock. We argued, and he stormed away inside of fifteen minutes. You claimed your men followed Calvin to the Abercorn diner. Even with traffic that’s a ten-minute drive.” I paced between the desk and the sofa, working out the timeline. “His pal Bubba picked him up at the restaurant, and Ben confirmed with a neighbor Cal and Bubba arrived at the condo before eight. That’s another twenty-minute drive.” I stopped and stood over Nathan. “The police officer noticed the door to Mom’s house open at eight. There wasn’t enough time for Calvin to leave Bubba’s, go to Mom’s, wreck the library, and steal a box of old letters and some jewelry.”

  Parsi sat quiet long enough that I knew I’d surprised him. Finally, he nodded. “And take care to leave no fingerprints, but careless enough to leave his briefcase.”

  A tingle swept my body. “You agree the briefcase was a plant.”

  “I never bought the idea Calvin ran out and forgot it.” He picked up his empty water bottle. “Good instincts. You might think about getting into detective work.”

  Detective. My missing detective. “Have you found a lead on Ben?”

  Parsi shook his head. “Guy’s vanished.” He unfolded his body, rose from the sofa and stretched his back. “Cedar Haynes had an interesting phone call the morning your grandfather’s old appraiser died.”

  “You have Cedar under investigation?”

  He shrugged, “He’s your attorney. Your mom’s boyfriend. Best friend to your dead father.” He grimaced. “Sorry, that was crass.”

  I waved his apology away. “Dad’s been dead for twenty years.” But now that Mom and Cedar were involved, Mom could have confided her past affair with Juan. Maybe Cedar helped her fake the kidnapping. But why? I struggled with sharing this thought because the scenario didn’t make sense. And Cedar had worked out the California house for me. We were within hours of leaving when Owen and Mom disappeared. “What kind of interesting call did Cedar receive?”

  “I traced the call back to a burner.” Parsi grabbed water from the bar refrigerator and threw one in my direction.

  “Might have been one of the burners he gave me on Tuesday,” I said.

  “The call was last week, on Wednesday, the day before Lafferty left town. My gut says it’s all related and your attorney’s holding back information.” He chugged his water and tossed the empty bottle in the trash.

  I walked to the bookshelf, pushed, and stepped inside the hidden passage.

  “Where are you going?” Parsi called.

  I glanced over my shoulder. “Hunting.” He followed me to the entryway. “There’s something in my room I want to show you. I’ll be right back.” I rushed down the passage, snatched the white notebook off my nightstand, and ran back.

  Back in the library, Parsi lightly pushed the shelf. The case swung silently back into place. He ran his hand over the wall. “This craftsmanship is impeccable. I would’ve never known.”

  I carried the notebook to the desk. “These are Joseph’s personal bills, phone records, and bank statements for the past year.”

  “Where’d you get them?”

  “His office. Nerdy bookkeepers collect paper.” I flipped to the section with Joseph’s bank statements. “I believe Juan Cabral paid handsomely for my grandfather to provide safe havens for his drug ring. When he had his stroke, Joseph stepped in and continued the scheme.”

  “You found proof?”

  “Bogus construction contracts, leases, and inflated rents for broken-down buildings, all with access to the ocean.”

  I walked to the corner desk, picked up my phone, swiped the screen, and handed it to Parsi. “I recently found out Joseph’s first wife was a Cabral.”

  He read the text from Jennifer, then tapped out a text message on his phone. “And where did the money end up?”

  “Offshore accounts.”

  “How much?” Parsi asked.

  “Thirty million for my grandfather. Ten million for Joseph.”

  He blew a low whistle.

  I flipped to the back of the notebook. “These are the statements with the account numbers.”

  “Maybe we can put together something,” Parsi said. “I’ve pulled Lafferty’s phone records. The day he left town, he called the same phone number six times. I ran the number, but this weather’s slowing everything down. But I should hear soon.”

  My dam of emotions resting just below the surface broke. I covered my face and cried. “We have to find Joseph. I know he has Owen and Mom.”

  Parsi rubbed my back, made soft, soothing sounds.

  After a few minutes, my crying jag slowed, the last of my energy spent, but we were no closer to finding Owen. I pushed away from the desk. Used another tissue to dry my face. “Exactly how do you plan to find Owen?”

  “We have a thread leading us to Joseph, and I plan to pull that string.”

  “What thread?”

  Parsi tore out the most recent bank statement from the notebook. His smile, more bad guy than good cop. “Montevideo. Now there’s a charming coastal city large enough for a man to vanish.”

  My heart somersaulted. “You think Joseph would try and take Owen and Mom out of the country?”

  Parsi’s cell buzzed. His phone conversation lasted less than thirty seconds, “yes, sir” his only words. He disconnected. “Erica’s been summoned to Atlanta.”

  “I shouldn’t have thrown her out.” I sat in my chair and laid my head on my desk. “No matter what’s happened between us, Erica loves Owen.”

  Parsi’s laptop signaled an incomi
ng message. “Got a hit on the cell number Lafferty called. The address is twenty miles from here, someplace called Hidden Cove.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Why does that sound familiar?” He grabbed his iPad and scrolled.

  I rose and walked across the room. “Come to the window.” Relentless rain poured from turbulent clouds casting a gloomy foreboding over the day. I pointed. “You can’t see it now, but the strip of land across the river is a fishing community called Hidden Cove. Thirty minutes by car, ten by boat.”

  “We’ll check out the address as soon as Jonathan arrives.”

  We stood at the window and watched the fury. “This has to be an eighty-mile-an-hour wind.” I whispered a prayer that Owen and Mom were safe from harm.

  “We’ll find them,” Nathan said.

  I searched his face for assurance and for the first time saw empathy and concern in his eyes.

  “You have to stay strong,’ he said, an oddly rough note in his voice. “Your family’s depending on you.”

  I pressed my fingers against my lids to hold back my tears, and he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer.

  I leaned my head on his shoulder, accepted his warmth. I couldn’t draw a full breath. But his arms were steady, and he didn’t let go.

  Slowly, slowly, I let myself breathe.

  The hours dragged by, each longer than the last. At five oʼclock my cell phone buzzed. I raised my head off the sofa cushion, patted my pocket for my cell and checked my email for the hundredth time. Nothing but a weather alert. But my emotions were under control and my mind was engaged again. A nagging thought persisted. I rolled it around, tried to remember where I’d run across the word Hidden Cove. On a form or a report? Maybe in one of Joseph’s files? No.

  I went back to the desk and found my purse, shuffled through the notepad where I’d written down Joseph’s scribbled notes from the Journey novel in his office. I read what I’d written.

  Hidden Cove 132

  Shell Landing

  On my computer, I googled and found a cross-directory website and typed in the pieces of an address, and got a hit. David Norwich, 132 Shell Landing, Hidden Cove, GA.

  “Does David Norwich mean anything?” I asked.

  “Norwich?” Nathan raised his head. “Yeah, there’s two Norwich boys. One was our third DB. The other one was Calvin’s low-life dive boat captain. Why?”

  I searched the DNR website, then I checked the time; we still had four hours before Nathan’s GBI friend would arrive. “I think you and I should take a ride.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I opened my Granddad’s safe, removed the Glock 17 semi-automatic, and two extra clips.

  Nathan frowned at the gun. “What are you doing?”

  I shoved the gun in the waistband of my still-damp jeans and grabbed two rain slickers from the closet. “We should be back before your friend Jonathan gets here.”

  “Back from where?” Nathan had assumed a Superman stance and blocked me from the door.

  I handed him a yellow rain slicker and turned to go.

  He spun me and snatched my gun and stuffed it in the waistband of his jeans. “Back from where?”

  “Hidden Cove’s ten minutes by boat and can’t have more than ten roads. Finding Shell Landing won’t be hard. But I’ll need the gun.”

  Nathan’s expression was as unwavering as ten-year concrete.

  I pleaded my case. “I checked Department of Natural Resource records, and David Norwich, Cal’s scary dive boat driver, has two boats registered in his name. A thirty-year-old shrimp boat and a sixteen-foot Carolina skiff. Whoever picked Mom and Owen up off the beach had to have a small skiff. And a shrimp boat would’ve been the perfect way to disappear.”

  “You think your mother knows David Norwich?”

  “No. I think Mom knows Joseph, who knows David Norwich. And Norwich is our first real lead. I’m not willing to risk him disappearing.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until Jonathan arrives.” Nathan backed me up a step. “And neither are you.”

  I twisted my hair into a tail, grabbed a rubber band off the desk, and snapped it in place. “If Norwich’s boat is at the dock, in this storm chances are good he’ll be home. I’ll let you know if your theory of my mother kidnapping Owen pans out.”

  “You’re not going alone.”

  Relief slid over my body. I wasn’t sure how well Granddad’s sixteen-foot Ranger would navigate the river’s five-foot waves, and having Nathan with me would at least ensure a call to the Coast Guard if I fell overboard.

  “You think Norwich is going to spill his guts because you ask politely?” He ran his fingers through his hair.

  I snatched my Glock back. “I’m a five-million-dollar deal-maker. I can be very persuasive.” I shoved the gun deep in the slicker’s front pocket.

  Nathan attempted his flat cop stare. “When Jonathan gets here, we’ll ride over and check out Norwich’s place.”

  I propped open the French door with my foot. “If it were your son, would you sit here waiting?”

  “Okay. Fine. I’ll go. You stay and wait for Jonathan. And possibly a call from Joseph.” Nathan used his no-room-for-negotiation tone.

  “I’m going,” I countered, my voice well past the negotiating stage. “If you go alone, you’ll end up stuck on a sand bar. Norwich will vanish like everyone else. I’m the best chance you’ve got at crossing that river.”

  Nathan put on the slicker. “This is probably a dead lead. And crossing a river in a flats boat, during a hurricane, is ludicrous.”

  The wind caught the French door and slammed the frame against the brick. “It’s not a hurricane anymore, Erica said they downgraded it to a tropical storm hours ago.

  I hoped my levity would get him out the door.

  He scanned my face as if looking for some clue I might change my mind, but then he locked his arm around my waist. Halfway down the path to the dock, a squall pushed across the rose garden. I bent, head down, and fought the wind with each step.

  Nathan pulled me along, then spread my fingers and forced them around the dock’s banister. “Use the railing.”

  I held on to the wood and pushed against a wall of wind. “I’ll handle the lift. Pick me up on the floating dock.”

  Nathan raised his thumb and shimmied over the side of the boat. He opened the storage bin and removed two inflatable life jackets and slid one over his head.

  I wedged my butt between one of the supports and the railing and hit the switch on the lift controller. The stainless-steel cable unfurled at an agonizingly slow speed. A blast of wind swept across the river and pitched the boat into a support beam.

  Nathan spread his legs, riding the boat like a surfer. The propeller finally sank below the water, Nathan turned the engine over, and seconds later the boat slid off the rails.

  My heart sank to my toes. “Gun the engine.” My voice lost in the wind. I made a megaphone with my hands. “The seawall. Watch the seawall.” I set the lift on auto, gripped the railing, and stumbled down the ramp connecting the stationary dock to the floating jetty. I crouched and waited for Nathan.

  The center of the jetty buckled. I ducked my head, and a monster wave washed over me. The boards slapped the river, and the jetty righted.

  Nathan slung a rope in my direction. The white snake arched, held, and then rode a gust of wind back to Nathan. The boat slipped past the jetty. He made another full turn, inched forward for a second attempt. He pitched the rope lower this time.

  I grabbed the lifeline. Fighting against the wind, I kept the rope tight. My burning palms walked up the line, and I jumped on board just as another wave hit the dock.

  Nathan threw me a life jacket and spun the bow toward Hidden Cove. “Brace yourself.”

  A five-foot wave slammed into the boat and slung me to the floor. I gasped; cold river water filled my mouth. I gagged salt water. Crawling forward, I slid the life jacket over my head and climbed on the bench seat. “Turn down river.” I waved in that dir
ection.

  Nathan threw his body against the helm and struggled to turn the boat in time to catch a mammoth wave.

  I slapped at the seat, arms flailing, searching for something solid to hold. The wave hit. Water gushed port side and slammed me starboard. My fingers wrapped around a cleat. I gripped the steel, but my foot slipped, my body heaved forward, and I lost my hold.

  Nathan clutched the back of my slicker and yanked me to standing.

  Marsh grass and water were all I could see in any direction. “We need to find a creek and get off the river.” I waved at an orange marker stuck in the muck. “Over there.” I knew this tributary from my kayaking days. The stream, impossible to navigate in anything larger than a canoe or kayak or a flats boat during extremely high tides, ended a few hundred yards from Hidden Cove’s public dock.

  Once inside the sheltered stream, Nathan powered down thirty feet from the working boats parked bow to stern.

  “Look for Deep Ship. That’s Norwich’s boat.” The jerk thought he had a sense of humor.

  Nathan maneuvered past Miss Denise and Papa’s Girl. Nestled in between The Kelly Marie and Docked Wages, sat the Deep Ship.

  “We need to tie up to a dock,” Nathan said.

  “Keep going around the next bend.”

  Nathan approached a small private dock. “Take the rope and jump.” He bumped the bow into the side of the floating dock.

  I jumped, landed in a squat, and then tied the rope to a cleat.

  I scanned the only paved road dead ahead. “Shell Landing must intersect this road.” A group of dirt roads peeled left. We walked head down, looking up only to read the county road signs. Each dirt road led to either fishing shacks or decades-old mobile homes, and occasionally a clapboard house. The fifth street sign read Shell Landing. We turned left, the second house, a white clapboard with a rusted-out Ford truck on blocks in the front yard was dead ahead. A black plastic mailbox sat cockeyed out front, the number thirty-two had been handwritten on the side.