by Chris Niles
The two slipped into the apartment’s tiny foyer, then Kate pushed the door shut behind them. Before she could turn back, Tony gasped. Ahead of them, the apartment’s living room was trashed. The couch and chair were overturned, their cushions slashed and stuffing strewn across the floor. The TV lay flat on its face, its open stand lying beside it. Behind it, the cold air return grate lay mangled on the carpet, surrounded by drywall dust, its screws ripped from the gaping hole in the wall above it.
The kitchen and bedrooms had fared no better. Drawers hung open or lay overturned on the floor. Debris covered the carpet and tile. A shower curtain rod stuck out of the tub, its tip pointing toward the ceiling.
Somebody was sure as hell looking for something.
“I don’t think she met a guy.”
“Tony, I think we need to call the cops. They’ll have to take her disappearance seriously now, won’t they?”
Tony’s phone was already in his hand. “Fish, it’s Bowden.”
Okay, so not the cops.
“Got a little development up here in Miami. That woman I called you about? We came up to her place to see if we could pick up a trail, but someone got here first.” He waited, nodding and grunting a couple times before tapping the screen and dropping the phone back into his pocket.
“What did—”
“We need to get through this stuff and get out. Here, put these on.” Tony pulled two sets of thin latex gloves from his pocket, handed one to Kate, then pulled a pair on his own hands. “This wasn’t a robbery, Kate. TV is still here. So’s the game console. They were looking for something else.”
“What if they found it?” Kate pointed to the open hole in the living room wall.
“People like this?” He waved around the room. “They like to make statements. If they found it, we’re way too late. Her body would have turned up already.”
Kate waded through papers and kitchen gadgets and broken glass until she stood in front of the refrigerator. She quickly peered inside, then slammed the door shut to contain the stench of soured milk. On the door, photos and drawings covered the surface, stuck to it with colorful magnets from destinations around the globe. Kate paused, examining photo after photo. Shelby with Eddie at the Magic Kingdom. Shelby holding a newborn to her bare chest. Shelby standing in front of a coffee shop in her flight attendant uniform. Shelby—
Kate pulled the uniformed photo from under its magnet and peered at it. Her roller bag sat on a sidewalk beside her, and a big leather shoulder bag sat perched on top, leaning against its handle. And sticking out of her shoulder bag was a huge, stuffed sloth.
“Tony, look at this.” She held the photo out.
He examined it for a moment, his eyes widening. “I think we have a problem.”
Tony sped down Caribbean Boulevard, passing a silver Ford Taurus on the right where the road dropped to two lanes. Kate’s head whipped up, and Tony replied to her unasked question.
“I want as much ground between us and that place as possible.”
Kate gripped the photo, the latex gloves still covering her hands. “What did you see?”
He took a right at the next stoplight, then a left where the road ended in a T intersection. A few blocks up, he pulled into a Publix parking lot then whipped into a space facing the exit. He leaned over, taking the photo from Kate. “First, the obvious. This stuffed animal is not Slothie.”
“Huh?” Kate cocked her head up at Tony.
“How can you be so smart yet so unobservant? Slothie is brown, with a tan face. This one is tan with a brown face. Now look at the door to the shop.”
Kate squinted at the small photo. Tony pulled it back and pointed. Azahar Café. “This is a Colombian shop. Bogota.”
“How do you—”
Tony just shook his head.
Kate stared at Tony blankly, her brain rolling these details around and trying to fit the pieces together, and just not finding any way they fit.
“Okay. One more detail. Look at the paper on the table beside her. The Bogota Post. And look at the headline.”
Above a color photo of the medal ceremony — the Olympics logo emblazoned on the backdrop — a headline screamed Golden Óscar reigns supreme as Colombians do themselves proud.
“This is from the summer Olympics in Rio four years ago. And Shelby is carrying an almost identical stuffed animal from Colombia, flying back to the States.” Tony tapped the photo. “Kate, Eddie told me he wasn’t supposed to have found Slothie. What if he was never supposed to get Slothie in the first place?”
Kate’s hand fluttered to her lips, her eyes wide. “She’s smuggling drugs?
Tony’s jaw tightened under his thick blonde stubble. “We need to get inside that sloth.”
Chapter Fifteen
As Tony eased the truck against the curb, Kate slipped her phone into her purse and nodded.
“All set. Chuck’s going to wear Eddie out to the point he needs a nap, then he’ll open Slothie up and check for the drugs. Babette’ll get it sewed back together before the kid ever knows what happened.”
They climbed out of the truck and walked up the driveway of a modern two-story Spanish Revival. Kate stepped into the shade of a deep portico, its cool terra cotta tiles battling the summer Miami heat.
Like the other houses on the street, Kelsey and Brian’s house stretched the width of the narrow lot. Its sturdy concrete and stucco construction and red terra cotta tiled roof was designed to stand up to the fiercest hurricanes and shade the interior from the intense heat. Storm shutters painted to match the Spanish architecture flanked every window. As Kate drew closer, she spotted their heavy-duty anchors embedded in the concrete walls.
Kate pressed the bell. Before she could pull her finger away, yapping erupted in the house’s foyer, and a small dog shoved its face behind the pleated curtains hanging against the narrow vertical windows stretching up both sides of the front door. The dog bounced nearly waist high, barking and jumping, jumping and barking, until a hand appeared on its back and grasped her pink collar. The dog whooshed backwards, then a moment later, the door swung open.
A tall woman with freckles across her cheeks clutched the dog under one arm and gripped the doorknob with the other.
“Can I help you?”
“Are you Kelsey O’Dowd?”
As she nodded, Tony inched forward and held the photo of Shelby out toward her. “It’s about Shelby Ellis. When was the last time you saw her?”
The woman took the photo and cocked her head to the side, confused. Then she looked back up to Tony. “Who are you?”
Tony rocked his weight back onto his back foot, and dropped his hands to his sides. Kate matched his relaxed stance, trying to put the woman at ease.
“I’m Kate. This is Tony. We’re from Key West. Shelby and Eddie came down a few days ago. They were staying near us, and we got to know them. But night before last, we all went into town for Hemingway Days. Shelby went to the bathroom and didn’t come back. She’s missing.”
The woman gasped.
“Eddie is safe.” Tony reached for her hand, but paused, his hand hanging in the space between them. “He realizes something’s up but not that she’s disappeared. We were hoping you could help us find her.”
The woman slowly nodded, setting the dog down and shooing her into the cavernous home. Then she stepped out onto the front porch and closed the door behind her. She gestured to a small iron table surrounded by four chairs, painted white against the salty sea air. “Sit, please.”
Kate perched on the edge of the heavy chair still damp with the morning dew.
Kelsey leaned forward, her eyes flitting from Kate to Tony and back again.
Kate finally broke the silence. “Shelby showed up at our campground a few days ago.” She glanced over at Tony. “What was it, Monday?” After Tony nodded, Kate continued. “She seemed a little jumpy. Gave a false name when she checked in, like someone might be looking for her.”
Tony leaned forward, his forearms on th
e table. “Do you know why Shelby might be hiding from someone? Maybe an ex?”
Shelby’s shoulders sagged. “Hiding? No, not that I know of.”
Kate hid her confusion, but followed Tony’s lead. “What about Eddie’s father? Have you ever met him? Is he...” Kate trailed off.
“She hasn’t ever said anything directly to me. Eddie told me he was a hero, and from what I put together, I think he might have been killed in the Middle East, but there’s nothing in her apartment. No medals, no folded flag, not even a picture… none of the things you normally see in a military widow’s place. So maybe it’s just something she told him. I really don’t know. Do the cops have any leads?”
Kate grimaced. “That’s where it gets a little difficult. They think she may have just run off. We don’t know Shelby well, but in the time we got to know her, I can’t imagine her just leaving Eddie like that.”
The woman shrugged. “Eddie is everything to her, but she’s also used to coming and going. Her trips usually last four days, sometimes five, and Eddie stays with us. He has his own room, and he’s here almost as much as he is with her.” Kelsey straightened. “Wait. He’s not with you. Why—”
Kate rested her hand on Kelsey’s. “He’s safe, and he’s having the time of his life. I’m sure we can get him transferred up here to you, but he’s in the system now, so it might take a little time. And I want to make sure he’s safe. Like I said, I can’t imagine Shelby just leaving him, especially after she just got back from a trip. And if someone took her, I think it’s best if both you two and Eddie lie low for a little while.”
“Do you think he might be in danger?”
“Until we know who we’re dealing with, we have to assume that’s a possibility.”
Tony pulled the photo from his pocket. “Have you ever seen this stuffed animal? Was it Eddie’s?”
Kelsey lit up. “Yeah. Shelby came from the airport to pick him up on Monday, she had it in her bag. He grabbed it and wouldn’t let go.” Her eyes darkened. “Come to think of it, she was a little bit weird about it when he did that. Almost like she hadn’t meant to give it to him.”
Tony shot Kate an ominous glance.
“But he was in love. Instantly. He even made her strap it into the seatbelt in the back seat next to him for the ride home.”
Kate grinned, imagining the stuffed animal strapped into a shoulder harness. “But before that? Had you ever seen this, or anything like it?”
“No. In fact, she never brought him gifts from her trips… she said once it’d break the bank if she brought him something every time. You know flight attendants don’t make all that much money. It’s tough for her to cover all her normal expenses, so we don’t let her pay for us to keep Eddie. We love him, and we have the space, and…” Her eyes started to water. “Yeah, we just love having him. How soon do you think we can pick him up?”
Tony and Kate traded a glance. “We’ll call the caseworker for Child Protective Services and start that ball rolling for you.” They pushed their chairs back, then Kelsey stopped them.
“Hang on a second.” The woman paused, her eyes flitting back and forth as she collected her thoughts. “Look, I love Shelby like she’s my sister. And I love Eddie like he’s my own. But you probably ought to know the reason the cops aren’t taking this more seriously. This isn’t the first time Shelby’s taken off.”
Kate dropped back into her seat.
“When Eddie was about two, she disappeared. She was on a short trip, just two nights, but she didn’t come back when she was scheduled. Now, it’s not unusual for her to be sometimes a day late if flights get delayed or cancelled and she doesn’t make it home on schedule. That happens all the time … snow up north in the winter. Storms down here in the summer. We’re used to it. We get alerts on all her flights when they’re delayed, and she texts me constantly and calls Eddie even though he’s kind of at the age where he doesn’t much like video calls — he’d rather be playing. But that time, her flight landed on time, but she didn’t show. Her texts went undelivered. We blew it off for the first day, thinking maybe she missed a flight or got reassigned, but on the second day we called the cops. They looked into it a little bit, but unless there are clear signs that something foul happened, there’s not a lot they can do for a missing adult. And when she turned back up a few days later with no real explanation, well, that cemented it for them.
“We had a huge fight about it. Shelby never did explain where she’d gone or why. She just apologized to us and told us it would never happen again.”
“But it did.” A tall man had crossed the front portico and stood with his hands on Kelsey’s shoulders.
“This is my husband, Brian.”
Brian reached forward to shake hands, then sat down beside his wife. “Last year, not long before Christmas, she told us she had a trip. Gave us flight numbers and everything when she dropped Eddie off. Said her phone had been acting up so to not freak out if we called and couldn’t get through, but that she’d keep trying and would catch us when she could get through.”
“We even talked about getting her a new phone for Christmas since hers was on the fritz.”
“But we’re pretty sure she didn’t actually make that trip.” Brian said. “The last day, Eddie got an ear infection. We tried to call her to let her know, but when we couldn’t get through, we called the airline to leave a message. That’s when it got weird. They said she wasn’t scheduled to fly again for another week.”
“She turned up right on schedule the next day, even though the flight she was supposed to be on from Newark was delayed by like six hours or something. We’d just gotten another delay notice when she knocked on the door.”
“Newark.” Kate nodded. Nothing left Newark on time. Ever.
Brian smirked. “She took Eddie back home and never said another word about it. Made us kind of wonder how many other times that might have happened, where she said she was on a trip, but wasn’t.”
Kelsey’s face softened. “But like I said, we love Eddie so much. We love having him here, and we love Shelby, too. Whatever she’s got going on, we’re concerned for her, but our priority is keeping Eddie safe.”
Tony and Kate exchanged glances, then together rose from the table.
“Thank you so much for talking to us. We’re not going to give up. We’ll find her, I promise.”
“And you’ll call CPS and get Eddie back to us?”
Kate glanced to Tony, and he nodded as he reassured the concerned woman. “We’ll make the call.”
They shook hands then stepped out onto the hot concrete driveway. As Kate shut the door of the truck and aimed the air conditioning vent at her face, she looked over at Tony.
“Well, that complicates things.”
Tony shook his head. “Not really. If she’s been using her airline schedule and free flights to run drugs, it makes perfect sense. Honestly, it’s a pretty clever story, if you ask me. But it’s also a dangerous one. If she’s wrapped up with one of the cartels, there’s no telling what happened to her.”
“Poor Eddie. I guess we need to call Chuck and the CPS lady.”
Tony shook his head. “Eventually, we’ll have to, but if something went wrong and that cartel snatched Shelby up, Eddie won’t be safe here, either.”
“Why would they want Eddie?”
“Two possibilities. It’s reasonable to assume that the rightful recipient of Shelby’s package hasn’t received it. So, they’ll come looking. Or, if they find Eddie and not the sloth, they would have no problem using him to get Shelby to talk. Which means we need to return it.”
“You’re joking right? Are you suggesting we put drugs back into the hands of the cartel?”
“If we want Eddie to grow up with a mother, that’s exactly what we need to do.”
“No.”
“Kate, the government has spent a trillion dollars, and they can’t win this war, so what makes you think we can? Besides, the small amount of cocaine that could be hidden in that
stuffed animal is nothing. A drop in the ocean. So, we have to look at what we can do. We can keep Eddie safe and we can try to get Shelby back and help them set up a new life somewhere far from all of this. We owe it to Eddie to give him a future. It’s the best we can do.”
Chapter Sixteen
Beyond the Eastern Hills, the sky blazed orange and the bottom of the blanket of cumulus clouds glowed fuchsia. Any moment, the sun would burst over the ridge and wake the city of Bogota with its warm glow before it passed behind the clouds hovering above the Andean plains.
Gloria watched in the rearview mirror as the car sped west along the expressway toward the airport.
“Charlotte,” she muttered. Her fingers twisted in her lap for a moment, then she turned to her cousin. “Austin won’t be a problem, but I don’t know how many candidates I’ll be able to find for Charlotte. I’ll need your help to find some leverage, Coco.”
The man’s chin slowly tipped toward his chest, then back again. “You can use S-S-Skip.”
Skip.
Gloria had never bothered to learn the woman’s real name. She had joined the Rojas Cartel five years ago. Her credentials as a bounty hunter — more specifically a skip-tracer — were solid, but after she’d crossed a few too many lines, she’d lost her license. Fortunately, Eduardo Rojas wasn’t bothered by details like that. In fact, he’d taught Gloria to use them. Loyalty is easy when a person has no other option.
Gloria and Coco had smoothed things over for her, then offered her a job on Coco’s team where the rules were just a little more to Skip’s strengths. Since then, the woman had proved invaluable. But eventually everyone rises to their level of incompetence.
“Skip.” Gloria watched Coco. Coco watched the road. “Do you trust her?”
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, then twitched as he shifted lanes and passed a taxi.
“As mu-much as anyone.” His shoulder rose, his body language almost as stunted as his words.
But Gloria had been reading her cousin since they were children. Coco trusted no one. In his line of work, he couldn’t. Not really. He struggled with deception. Perhaps it was a few too many head injuries in his childhood. Perhaps he was born that way. But his straightforward nature made it impossible for him to hide his truth. He spoke with his fists, and he made sure loyalty was the only choice for the people who reported to him.