by Dana Mentink
“So Ellsworth and Tom have escaped?” she said. “My goodness, you do have trouble keeping track of your prisoners, don’t you?”
Now it was Jett sending her a don’t poke the bear look, but she was past caring.
“You won’t get what you want now. You’ve wasted all this time and left two men dead, and you’ve got nothing. Your painting will remain hidden wherever Young stashed it. Or maybe Mary Ellsworth will go sell it on her own, or even better, she’ll give it back to her father.”
Beretta was breathing in short angry bursts.
“Sarah,” Jett warned.
“Wouldn’t that be ironic?” she said. “If Ellsworth wound up with The Red Lady in the end in spite of everything you’ve done to get it back?”
“He will not have my painting,” Beretta said through gritted teeth.
“They might be on their way to pick it up right now. Maybe Tom understood Young’s ramblings and knows perfectly well where he hid the painting. He was waiting for a chance to get away, and he got one while you were here playing the part of the bully.”
Beretta raised his gun, and Jett broke free of Miguel and leaped between them. “We can still find The Red Lady for you.”
Beretta’s finger tightened on the trigger, and he lifted the weapon to pin Sarah in his sights over Jett’s shoulder.
“Talk,” he demanded.
“The list,” he said, talking fast. “The words Tom recorded. They’re clues to where Young stashed The Red Lady.”
Beretta’s eyes narrowed. “They could be delirious babble.”
“Give Sarah a chance to look it over. She’s a detective. She can figure it out.”
Sarah had no idea what Jett hoped to accomplish by bringing that into the conversation, but she stayed silent, trying to calm her raging pulse.
“A girl detective?” Beretta laughed. “It is too bad I am not in the mood for humor.”
“It’s not a joke. She works for Pacific Coast Investigations with her family. Those are the people your man ran into at Del Young’s apartment.”
Beretta raised a thick eyebrow and jutted his chin at Miguel, who brought up something on his cell phone.
“‘Pacific Coast Investigations,’” Beretta read from the screen. “‘Associate Sarah Gallagher.’” He laughed long and loud. “And to think, I believed I was talking to Florence Nightingale, and instead I have a Dick Tracy in my presence. Or perhaps a Nancy Drew? My daughters like to read of this American girl detective. Is that who you are trying to be, Nurse?”
Miguel pocketed the phone. “It doesn’t matter. They cannot find the painting. This is a ruse to distract you.”
“I am inclined to agree with you, Miguel.” Beretta’s finger tightened a fraction more. “I cannot leave behind witnesses to what has gone on here. Bodies, yes. Witnesses, no.”
“But what have you got to lose?” Jett said. “She’s right. At the moment you have nothing but a mess here on Ellsworth Island. A couple more hours might mean the difference between getting your painting back and leaving empty-handed.”
Miguel’s eyes blazed hatred at Jett. “The longer we stay here, the more likely the police will become a problem. We should kill them and go, now.”
“Empty-handed,” Jett repeated. “Never knowing how close you were to retrieving your painting.
“Not totally empty-handed,” Miguel said. “We will be able to kill you two. That’s something to take satisfaction in, anyway.”
Beretta was thinking it over, the gun still aimed. He was cruel, but Sarah was praying that his sense of greed outweighed his brutality.
“Let her look,” Jett prompted. “If there’s a chance she can get The Red Lady back, you’d be foolish not to let her try.”
“They’re desperate,” Miguel said. “They are stalling to save their skins, that is all.”
Beretta’s eyes moved from Jett to the shrouded man on the bed. The seconds passed.
“Think of The Red Lady, your priceless painting out there somewhere, hidden,” he prompted.
“Don’t believe them,” Miguel said.
“Quiet.” Stroking his beard, he turned to Sarah. “How will you figure out this puzzle?”
Jett heard Sarah gulp. “I... I need to make one phone call, to my sisters at the agency.”
Beretta laughed. “You take me for a fool, Nurse Sarah. Would you like to dial the police, too, while you’re at it?”
“I will use any phone you like. You can listen to every word.”
“Why would I let you involve them?”
She thought fast. “Because they were there in Del Young’s apartment. They might have seen something that will explain these words—a trip he was planning, a destination where he stowed The Red Lady.”
The room grew so silent Sarah could practically hear her own heart thudding a frantic staccato in his chest. Their only hope was that Beretta’s desire to retrieve his painting would outweigh his caution.
After a moment, Beretta came to a decision. “You are persuasive, Nurse, but I am not convinced.” He aimed the gun and fired.
* * *
Jett heard the whistle of the bullet and Sarah’s scream as the shot passed between them and buried itself in the plaster wall. His body ricocheted with terror as he reacted to the bullet missing her by mere inches.
Sarah’s hands were clapped over her ears and he scrambled to her, making sure the shot had not hit her. Her whole body was trembling, and tears sparkled on her cheeks.
Rage filled him to overflowing as he turned to Beretta, who was laughing heartily.
“You see?” Beretta said. “I am a criminal thug with a sense of humor. You should see your faces.”
Jett held Sarah’s shaking shoulders, pulling her to his side, not taking his eyes off Beretta. I’m going to see you brought down if it takes my very last breath to do it.
Still chuckling, Beretta gestured to Miguel with a jerk of the head. Miguel stared daggers at Jett and Sarah, but he freed the phone from his pocket.
“It’s a burner phone, paid for with cash and disposable. Your people at the agency will not be able to trace it, if that was your intent. Tell Miguel the number, and he will dial for you.”
“This is a mistake,” Miguel hissed. “They are manipulating you.”
“If they attempt to identify me or give away this location,” Beretta said mildly, “they will be dead before the phone hits the floor along with their bodies.”
That gave Miguel a sneer of satisfaction.
Sarah recited the number and Miguel dialed, thrusting the phone at Sarah, who took it with trembling fingers.
“H-hello?” she said. Tears sprang in her eyes, and Jett knew she’d heard her sister’s voice.
Beretta waved his gun. “Put it on speaker. Now.”
Candace’s voice filled the room. “Sarah,” she sobbed. “Where are you? Are you all right? We’ve been going crazy.”
“Yes, I’m all right for now. You’re on speakerphone with me and Jett.”
Marco came on the line. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Tell me your location right now.”
Beretta gave her warning look.
“I can’t do that.”
Marco paused. “There are people holding you there, listening to this conversation?”
“Yes, and don’t bother tracing the number. It’s a burner phone.”
“Jett, you there?” Marco asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Unharmed?”
“For the most part.”
“All right,” Marco said, voice low and dangerous, “whoever you are, holding Sarah and Jett, listen to me very carefully. I’m going to find you, and if you hurt either one of them in any way, you will spend the rest of your life wis
hing you hadn’t.”
Jett’s insides tightened at Marco’s quiet ferocity. If Beretta didn’t comply, he was going to realize their mistake the hard way. He’d once seen Marco track for a hundred miles a man he’d witnessed abusing and robbing an elderly clerk at a gas station. The guy had been relieved to be handed over to the cops after Marco brought him in. Jett knew part of Marco’s strategy was to get Beretta talking so he could gain more intel on his enemy.
Beretta’s mouth quirked, but he did not take the bait and remained silent. He made a hurry-up gesture.
“I need you to do something for me,” Sarah said.
“Oh, Sarah, we’ll do anything we can.” Candace’s voice quavered. “Are they treating you okay? Can you tell me that at least?”
“We’re okay for the moment. Candace, I don’t have a lot of time. I need you to listen to a list of words and think about what you saw in Del Young’s apartment.”
“How did you know we were—” Candace started.
Sarah kept going. “Never mind that. Lookout, vacation, spotting. Those are the words.”
“What? What are you talking about, Sarah?” Candace said.
“Del Young must have been planning some sort of trip. Can you make sense of these words? Figure out a location based on what you saw in his apartment and these clues?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please,” Sarah pleaded. “Candace, if you don’t...we—they will kill us.”
“No,” she breathed, undisguised panic in her voice. “No, whoever you are, please don’t hurt them. We’ll figure it out. What are you looking for, exactly? Tell me and we can help find what they’re after.”
Sarah chewed her lip. “I can’t tell you that. I need a possible location, Candace. You have to hurry.”
“We’ll do anything you want. There’s no reason to harm them,” Candace said, voice throbbing with tears. “We have plenty of resources here at our disposal.”
“Just the location,” Sarah repeated. “Anywhere he might have been headed.” She read Beretta’s lips. “And if you go to the police...”
“We won’t,” Candace blurted. “We won’t. Just don’t hurt them. We’ll figure out the location, I promise.”
“We need time,” Marco snapped. “Three hours at least to run it through the computers and analyze the photos we took at Young’s place.”
Beretta took the phone and covered it with his palm. “Tell him the number. He can call you back in one hour.”
“But...”
“One hour,” Beretta said. He handed the phone to Sarah.
She repeated the directions.
“That’s not long enough,” Marco said.
Would an hour be long enough for Marco and Candace to put the pieces together? Jett was not sure, but it was an hour more than they’d had before.
Beretta took the phone from her again and disconnected. The grief shimmering on Sarah’s face made him want to take the legs out from under Beretta. Her family was being tortured by their kidnapping, and the phone call added both comfort and fresh agony to the situation. His only solace was that Beretta had made the fatal mistake of angering Marco Quidel. He would live to regret it, even if Jett and Sarah did not.
Beretta held out the paper to Jett. “You have one hour. During that time we will attempt to recapture Tom and Ellsworth. In the meantime, Miguel will be outside the door. If you try to leave this room, Miguel will kill you. If you or your people don’t have an answer by the time I come back, I will kill you. If your family disobeys and contacts the police, they will arrive to find there is no one left alive on this island to save.”
He walked out of the room.
Miguel trailed after him, stopping with a hand on the doorknob. He grinned. “It’s better this way, American. You have another hour to think about your death. And I have another hour to enjoy your misery.”
He slammed the door.
“That guy’s really getting on my last nerve,” Jett muttered.
Sarah was staring at him, mouth open. “What were you doing telling him I could find the missing painting?”
“Buying time for Marco and your sisters to locate us or at least convince the cops to get a search warrant. Now they know we’re alive, being held by someone who knows about Del Young’s apartment. They’ll put it together.”
“But how can I figure out where The Red Lady is before Beretta comes back? Marco and Candace might not be able to figure it out, either. This list might not mean anything at all.”
He handed her the paper. “Only one way to find out.”
“I don’t have any idea how to make sense of this.”
“You can do it.”
“But what if I can’t?” she said, clutching his hands, her own skin icy cold. She was still badly shaken from Young’s death, terrorized by Beretta’s actions, unsure of her own abilities. She did not have the strength to believe in herself. So he would do it for her.
He gave her the old Dominic Jett grin. “Sarah Gal, you always were the smartest girl I ever knew. So put on your detective hat, and let’s solve this.”
NINETEEN
Sarah was on her knees, smoothing the paper on the floor with her fingers, mumbling over the strange words. Jett preferred to pace, even though he could only manage a few steps in each direction in the small room while avoiding the final resting place of Del Young. They’d both spent time praying by Young’s body. He didn’t know what to say—the conversation with God was something so new to him that he felt like a toddler groping for words. He let her do the out loud praying, his hand caressing hers, hoping that God had given Young a different kind of treasure than he’d sacrificed his earthly life for.
Sara sighed, shoving back the hair that had escaped its ponytail. “I can hardly read this list. Tom has terrible handwriting.”
He tried for levity. “I’ll alert his elementary school teacher to rescind his diploma.”
“I’m too tired and scared to find that funny.”
She looked exhausted, dark circles showing under her eyes, her shoulders slumped. It was time to deploy his surprise, he decided. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the squashed candy bar. “I saved this for you.”
He thought he actually saw tears of happiness glimmering against her lashes and felt like laughing with joy. She looked at the dismal offering as if it was a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.
“Chocolate?” she gasped. “You didn’t eat yours?”
“Nah. Figured you might want it later. I don’t like chocolate, anyway. You know that.”
She stared at him as though he were an alien amoeba from some faraway galaxy. “I still cannot comprehend anyone not liking chocolate.”
“You never complained while we were dating. You always ate the brownies Mrs. Grossman gave me.” He’d enjoyed giving them to her, watching her make a big show of packing them away to share with her family and then seeing her eating them all by herself when she thought no one was looking.
He watched her bite into the banged-up chocolate, eyes closing in pleasure, a soft moan welling up from deep in her throat. A cheap candy bar brought more happiness than anything else he could have rustled up. He was thrilled that he’d been able to give her respite, even if it was only for a moment, a second or two of distraction from the deadline looming over their heads.
She finished the chocolate down to the last bit, searching the wrapper for any tiny remnant she might have missed before she let out a gusty sigh. “That was wonderful. Thank you.”
He chuckled. If they ever got out of the current mess, he resolved to send her a candy bar every month, no matter where in the world they both landed. It was selfish, probably, to want her to think about him, at least for a moment or two. Seemed only fair, since he knew he would never stop thinking about her.
It was fully dark outside now, sometime between nine and eleven, he estimated. He didn’t know if Beretta would hold tightly to his hour deadline, but they had to come up with something to placate him and buy more time. He read over her shoulder.
“Lookout, vacation, spotting,” he said again. “It sounds meaningless, but there’s got to be a reason he listed them, unless it was just plain delirium.”
Licking her lips, she read the paper again before she threw it down and pressed her hands to her eyes. “I can’t. I’m empty. This isn’t going to work, is it? Beretta is going to kill us. We might as well just let him get it over with.” Now the tears really were trickling down her face. She was as strong as any woman he’d ever met, but chocolate or no chocolate, she was coming to the end of her reserves.
He knelt in front of her and gathered her close. He exalted in the warmth of her skin against his, the strength in her slender body that had labored so hard to keep both him and Del Young alive. Now it was his turn to be strong for the both of them.
“We are going to get out of this, Sarah.”
“I don’t see how. I can’t solve the case.”
“Didn’t you say to me once that faith was not seeing, but believing anyway?”
She sniffed, the tears continuing to trickle down her cheeks. He used his sleeve to dab them away. “Hey,” he said, propping up her chin to meet his gaze. “We’re not defeated yet.”
“I’m sorry Marco told you to look out for me,” she said, shaking her head, “that you got into this mess because of me.”
“I’m not sorry,” he said.
She drew back and stared at him, swiping at her nose with the sleeve of her baggy coveralls. He’d seen Sarah decked out for prom and dressed to the nines for a wedding, but he’d never thought her so lovely as he did then, swathed in dirty blue coveralls, her face exquisitely tender and grave. He was privileged to be the one standing with her through this horror, honored to be the one who was chosen to spend what might be their last moments together. Thank You, God. Thank You for letting it be me.