In Their Blood: A Novel

by Sharon Potts

  He turned his Mont Blanc pen around in his thick fingers. “Your concern about National is valid, Robbie. And I’m impressed with your offer, but I can’t let you go in your condition. You might hurt yourself.”

  “You don’t have to worry.” Her voice was stronger. She’d almost worn him down. “I can take care of myself.”

  He closed his briefcase. “I’m sorry, Robbie. I can’t let you do it.” He stood up slowly, as though weighing something. “I have a meeting this morning, then I’m flying out to St. Mary’s. Enrique’s already there and Irv will be joining us.”

  Robbie’s stomach did a flip-flop. Today, Bud and Irv were meeting Mr. Castillo at the Olympus. It was too tempting an opportunity. And no one would dare pull any hanky-panky with the others present.

  “Let me go with you. Please, Bud.”

  “That’s impossible. We have private business to attend to. In fact, I shouldn’t have mentioned the meeting to you. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t discuss it with anyone.”

  “Please, Bud. I’ll stay out of the way.”

  He glanced down at the chessboard. Something seemed to have captivated him. He moved the black bishop and removed the white queen from the board. He laid the queen down carefully, then looked up at Robbie with a smile.

  Chapter 49

  Jeremy checked the time as he pressed down on the accelerator, edging between cars, trying to outrun the rush hour traffic. eight twenty-five.

  I-95 southbound was moving at twenty miles an hour. He should have called her yesterday. Regardless of how messed up his own life was, he should have called her. He picked up his cell phone and dialed Robbie’s number. Still no answer. Maybe she was asleep. At least, that’s what he hoped.

  He turned off the highway and navigated through the street traffic. Not much faster, but at least he had a sense of progress. At eight forty-five, he turned onto her block.

  Her car was there. Okay. Good. She was home. He knocked on the front door. Could she hear it in her bedroom? He doubted she was still sleeping on the sofa. He rang the doorbell and waited. He tried again. Nothing.

  He walked through the overgrown plants on the side of the house and tapped on her bedroom window. The blinds were closed so he couldn’t see in. “Robbie,” he shouted. “Robbie? Wake up.”

  He listened for any sound. A white cat sidled up to him, rubbing against his leg. Robbie’s cat. He tried to remember. Was the cat inside or out when he left her the other night? In. Definitely in. Which meant sometime since he’d left her sleeping, over twenty-four hours ago, Robbie had gotten up and at least opened the door to let the cat out.

  Something yellow was lying between the bushes and the house. Newspapers. A strange place for the newsboy to throw them. He pulled off the plastic wrappers and checked the dates. Today’s and yesterday’s. Had Robbie already seen them? Why were they in the bushes? Unless she’d thrown them there on her way out.

  He banged on the front door again. She couldn’t have gone to the office. Not after what had happened in the file room. How could he not have called and warned her?

  And then, a taxi pulled up. Robbie got out. She hopped a few feet, balanced on her crutches. She gave Jeremy a tentative smile.

  “Jesus, Robbie. Where’ve you been?”

  “Excuse me?” Her face changed at his tone of voice. She brushed past him and fumbled to unlock the door.

  “I asked where you’ve been.”

  “I heard you. And I’d like to know where the hell you’ve been and why you’re showing up now like a raving lunatic on my doorstep.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “No, you don’t. Apparently, you need to shout at me. And you know something, Jeremy? I don’t need to be shouted at.” She got the door open.

  He tried to follow her in, but she pushed the door closed catching him in the doorway. “Please, Robbie. A lot’s happened since your accident. You may be in danger. Let me in.”

  Robbie looked skeptical, but she took her weight off the door. She hopped into the living room, dropped her crutches on the tile floor, and collapsed on the sofa. The bump on her forehead had receded and her eyelid was normal size, but a bluish bruise covered the upper side of her face. Robbie and Elise, both injured. How come he couldn’t take better care of the women he cared about? Then he thought about Marina.

  “Did you watch the news?” he asked.

  A look of alarm replaced the one of annoyance. “Something happened?”

  “He killed again.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  It was still difficult for him to say it aloud. “He killed my father’s graduate assistant. In the driveway. At my house. He slashed her throat.”

  “My God. No.”

  “She was lying there dead when I got home. After I brought you here from the hospital.”

  “Oh Jeremy. But why? Why would he have killed her?”

  “He thought she was Elise.”

  Robbie covered her mouth to stifle a cry. “Is she okay? Is Elise okay?”

  “Yeah. But I was worried you might not be. That the killer might go after you again.”

  “Again? What do you mean again?”

  He felt drained suddenly, like coming down off a high. He sat on the sofa next to her. Just like the other night.

  Robbie took his hand. Warm, just like the other night.

  “The file cabinet was weighted so it would fall on you or me if we went back to look for the Castillo reports.”

  Her face became pale. “It wasn’t an accident?”

  “No. That’s why I needed to get to you. To warn you.”

  “To warn me.” She seemed to be having difficulty processing this.

  “He wants to stop us. He knew we were getting close.”

  The red candle he’d lit the other night had burned down and the coffee table was splattered with red wax. “Were we, Jeremy? Were we getting close?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know something?” She straightened up. “You figured it out?”

  “I know a little more. I just can’t put it together.”

  “Tell me. Tell me what you know.”

  Robbie was back. She’d help him. Together, they’d figure it out.

  “Elise was hanging out with Carlos on his parents’ yacht,” he said. “She found these hidden accounting papers.”

  “Accounting papers?”

  “Yeah. Elise has this incredible memory. She described the way they were set up. There were columns with amounts, dates, and the column heading, ‘Transfers to Corporate.’ Then there were columns labeled EX, JR, VL.”

  Robbie shook her head. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “But I’m sure there’s a connection. Mr. and Mrs. Castillo, Bud, and Irv saw her with the papers. There was a scene, and Elise got frightened.”

  “The killer must think Elise put something together from the accounting records.”

  “That’s why he tried to kill her.” Jeremy looked down at his muddy sneakers. “But he got Marina by mistake.”

  The room was quiet except for the humming of the air conditioning. The cat meowed outside the front door. Robbie didn’t seem to hear it.

  “Why would legitimate accounting records be hidden?” she said. “They must be a second set of books.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure. But it sounds like money laundering records where deposits from illegal operations were transferred to make them look legitimate. But EX, JR, VL?” She scraped the red wax off the glass tabletop with her fingernail. “I don’t know what that means. EX? Exclusive?”

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jeremy could hear Liliam Castillo’s voice. One of the most exclusive hotels in the world. Only villas and executive and junior suites. Regular people don’t even know about it.

  Jeremy felt a rush. “It’s the Olympus. That’s it. But EX isn’t for exclusive. It’s for executive. Executive suites. EX, JR, VL— executive suites, junior suites, and v
illas.” He shook his head, frustrated. “But why would Castillo Enterprises need to run a laundering operation when they were making so much money legally?”

  “Were they? Most of Castillo Enterprises was losing money; only the Olympus was a major success. Successful enough to keep the entire company profitable and the stock price rising. “

  “But what if there wasn’t an Olympus?” Jeremy said, feeling a surge of excitement. “What if the hotel had been destroyed by hurricanes, like my mother had predicted?”

  “Then the entire company would have collapsed,” Robbie said. “Someone must have come up with an illegal business that was run through the Olympus’s books as legitimate earnings.”

  “Something my mother would have discovered if she’d ever made it out there. That’s why she was stopped.”

  “But by whom?” Robbie said. “Who killed them?” She chewed on her lip. “Enrique? Could it have been Enrique? He had the most to lose. So did his wife.”

  “They had a lot to lose,” Jeremy said. It was finally coming together for him. “But so did someone else.”

  “Irv?”

  “The only thing Irv was afraid of losing was his job. PCM was his life. So he’d be willing to play along with any scheme.”

  “So who was behind it?”

  “Who masterminds everything?” Jeremy said. “The grand master.”

  “Bud?”

  Jeremy nodded. “It makes sense that he would have come up with the laundering scheme.”

  “But why would Bud have done that?”

  “Because Castillo Enterprises was his biggest client, generating huge audit fees, not to mention prestige for him and the firm. He couldn’t afford to lose them.”

  She twisted her ring around her finger. “Bud’s certainly smart enough; I just don’t see the motivation for him to kill anyone.”

  “Really? If Castillo Enterprises came down, Bud would be discovered as being behind their illegal operations. Bud would be ruined along with PCM. Imagine the negative national publicity. You think Bud’s ego could have handled that?”

  “But you’re still speculating. You have no proof. No witnesses.”

  “My sister saw the killer the night of the murders. She couldn’t recognize him, but she remembered him saying, ‘Your mama’s calling you.’”

  Robbie shook her head. “Anyone might have said that— Enrique, Irv.”

  “True, but Enrique or Irv say, ‘your mom’ or ‘your mother.’ I’ve heard them. Bud’s the only one who says, ‘your mama.’”

  She took her ring off, put it back on, took it off. Why was she so nervous?

  “Hey.” He covered her hand with his own.

  “Bud.” She mumbled something, but he didn’t understand her.

  “What?”

  “That’s where I was. This morning. I went to see him.”

  “Bud?”

  “I tried to talk him into letting me go to the Olympus. I figured the only way we’d know what was really going on, was to fly out there.”

  “Jesus, Robbie.”

  “I thought he was going to say yes, but then he changed his mind. He told me he was going to St. Mary’s today. He and Irv. Enrique’s already there. He said not to tell anyone.”

  Jeremy’s adrenaline was pumping.

  “What, Jeremy?” Robbie looked alarmed.

  “It’s perfect.”

  “What? What are you thinking?”

  “I’m going to St. Mary’s.”

  “God, Jeremy. No. He knew I’d tell you. He wants you to follow him out there.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No, Jeremy. Don’t do this. It’s a trap.”

  Jeremy felt the weight of the gun against his thigh. “Don’t worry, Robbie. It’s only a trap when the prey doesn’t know one’s been set.”

  Chapter 50

  Jeremy sat on the torn leather seat at the front of the shabby fishing boat, gasoline fumes mingling with the stench of old fish guts and salt water. The boat bobbed in the pristine green-blue water. The captain, whose leathery face was shaded by a dirty baseball cap, counted the American bills Jeremy had given him. Jeremy had brought plenty of cash, knowing credit cards wouldn’t be the best medium of exchange for what he needed here in the Grenadines.

  He’d flown from Miami to Grenada, the southernmost of the Grenadine Islands. In compliance with regulations, he had declared and checked the small bag, which contained his father’s Smith & Wesson and a box of ammunition.

  After his initial burst of purpose when he left Robbie’s house and headed for the airport, he’d become jittery. Why was he going off to the ends of the earth to confront his parents’ murderer? Was it that he needed to be absolutely certain that Bud had killed his parents? Robbie had been skeptical. And he’d already jumped to the wrong conclusion once before, believing Enrique had done it. Was the word “mama” enough to justify pulling the trigger? And what if Jeremy arrived on St. Mary’s, and discovered a magnificent five-star hotel?

  The captain had one hip on his chair, a dirty white sneaker planted against the helm. His triceps rose and fell beneath the loose skin on his arm as he languidly turned the wheel. He throttled up the engine. The mountain peaks of Grenada grew smaller and smaller as the boat continued into the broad expanse of the Caribbean. The water was a darker blue out here, with just a hint of green. In another hour or so, the sun would be setting. An hour. Just an hour.

  In the distance, he could make out the shapes of islands rising from the sea— mounds of volcanic lava now covered with thick vegetation. St. Mary’s hadn’t been on any maps he had found back home, but the boat captain seemed to know exactly where it was.

  “Is it much farther?” Jeremy asked.

  “Eh?”

  “Much farther. Is St. Mary’s much farther?”

  “Not much.” The captain had a thick accent or maybe he just naturally slurred his words.

  “Can you bring the boat in a back way?” Jeremy asked.

  “Eh?”

  “The back. I don’t want to be seen.”

  The captain shook his head in annoyance. Jeremy wished he was better prepared, with more than the memory of the photo from his mother’s workpapers to rely on. He didn’t know how he would sneak onto St. Mary’s, what time Bud was arriving, or what he would do when he finally came face-to-face with him. If Bud was, in fact, his parents’ murderer.

  He wondered if his uneasiness was some form of procrastination, the lack of willingness to accept responsibility his father had always accused him of.

  The sound of piston airplane engines filled his ears. An old, battered DC-3 cargo plane rose from one of the hilly islands just in front of them.

  The boat slowed. Purple, jutting cliffs loomed out of the clear water along the uneven coastline. White sandy beaches bordered the mound of green shrubs like a halo. The captain brought the boat into a cove and left the engine idling.

  “St. Mary’s?” Jeremy asked.

  The captain nodded.

  Jeremy’s stomach knotted with apprehension. The gun was now in a pocket of his cargo pants.

  He put on his backpack, climbed over the gunwale, and landed in a couple of feet of water. He sloshed through until he reached the sandy shore. A thin dirt path wound upward through the underbrush. The engine of the boat picked up speed. Jeremy turned to see the captain guide it out of the cove and into the open sea. Jeremy had told the captain to return the next day to pick him up. Would he think anything of it if Jeremy wasn’t here? Would he bother reporting it? Probably not.

  After the first eight or ten feet in from the beach, Jeremy was surprised by how steep the path had become. The trail was rocky and uneven and wound back and forth across the south slope of the island. He could see the crest, but didn’t seem to be getting any closer. He hadn’t imagined from the photo in his mother’s workpapers that the hills would be as steep and high as they were.

  In the distance, the sound of engines grew louder. The high-pitched whine was no tramp cargo plane. A gr
aceful white jet, probably a private one, approached the island. Jeremy ducked so he couldn’t be seen. From the sound, the plane was landing just ahead. Could Bud be on that plane?

  Jeremy was almost at the ridge that ran across the top of the island. He pushed past the shrubs and stopped to catch his breath. The scene opened up before him. On either side were seemingly endless fields of tall, delicate, dark green stalks. They wafted ever so slightly in the breeze. A man’s deep laugh floated toward him. Two dark-skinned men stood together, talking in some unfamiliar dialect, rifles hanging from their shoulders. Guards. And the plants were familiar— marijuana. So the money laundering theory had been correct, but he still had a strange need to see what had become of the Olympus Grande.

  Crouching until he got past the guards, Jeremy followed the ridge up a farther rise, hoping to gain a view of the entire island. Another ten minutes brought him to the summit. He climbed to the highest rock and surveyed the paradise that was St. Mary’s.

  The sight was dizzying. The endless blue sky blending with the blue-green sea. A lot like the sensation he’d experienced in Enrique’s office.

  To the east, he could make out an airstrip, a straight, level strip of grass. Several plain low buildings that looked like bunkers were nestled under a canopy of trees. Near them was a pallet of crates, probably dropped off by the cargo plane he’d seen leaving the island. So St. Mary’s was probably also a transshipment point for drugs. Their operations were more extensive than he’d imagined. From his cover behind the bushes, Jeremy could see two white Lear jets. Bud’s and Enrique’s? Where were the two men now? Would Jeremy be able to confirm that Bud was the murderer and pull the trigger?

  Beyond, built almost into the side of the steep hill, were more than a dozen run-down huts. From their prime location surrounding a sandy cove and overlooking the Caribbean, these could have once been posh villas. The Olympus. This was the Olympus! The collapsing, overgrown ruins were mostly uninhabitable. Thick leafy branches obscured his view. He parted them. And then he saw it. White columns rising toward the blue sky like reaching fingers. The temple from his mother’s photograph. He pushed through the bushes to get a better view. Half a dozen pillars formed a semicircle on the ledge, which jutted out from the top of a cliff and overlooked the azure sea and purple rocks of the photo.