Take the Money: Romantic Suspense in Costa Rica

by Lucia Sinn

  “Killed? Oh my God. But why are you here alone? Where are the police?”

  “Don’t worry, I know how to take care of myself. But the police can’t know. Don’t call them, whatever you do.” Julie inched the car forward.

  Her mom reached out a hand and pulled at her coat. “Baby, stop!” she cried out, her anguished tremolo tearing at Julie’s heart. Unable to bear another moment of the pain she was causing, Julie gunned the motor.

  “I love you,” Julie called into the rainy night. “I’ll be just fine.” Rocks cracked against her hubcaps as she flew across the gravel driveway, anxious to escape one of her mom’s emotional storms.

  She had often regretted not inheriting her mother’s thick curly red hair, dark blue eyes, and fine Celtic features. But never had she wanted her high-strung Irish temperament. In contrast, Dad had been cool but brittle—like a porcelain plate that shattered when his risky schemes collapsed.

  Julie pulled out onto Interstate 70 and headed east toward the Indianapolis airport. From the moment she’d come out of the woods, she’d known she would have to go it alone. It was only now, as she sped along the smooth ribbon of highway, that her shoulders began to shake as loud wrenching sobs came from her throat. She tried to keep her eyes on the painted white strip along the rain-spattered pavement, but a vision of Kevin’s face and neck twisted in the agony of death blurred her vision. Whatever he’d done for the money, he hadn’t deserved that. Someday she’d find a way to make the killer pay for his heartless disregard for human life. But there was a time for everything, and now it was time to go.

  *

  Julie joined the procession of cars gliding around the airport driveway like skaters in a roller rink. She stopped a moment at the juncture where a decision had to be made, but the impatient blast of a horn compelled her to make a quick turn into the abyss of long-term parking.

  When would she be back and how long would it take them to tow her car away? She felt a wave of sadness, as if she were abandoning an old friend, not a deteriorating hunk of metal. The Honda had over 100,000 miles on it, the air conditioner was busted, and someone had yanked out the stereo the last time she was in New York. The car was dented and rusted from years of being parked along the street. Hard to believe she’d bought it back when she was a high falutin’-corporate-biggie engineer, and yet it had served her well and it was the only thing she truly owned.

  A thick fog forming in the cool damp air made it difficult to see her parking choices. Headlights from behind cast circles of blinding light in the white mist. She panicked for a minute, her heart thumping in her chest. Was she being followed? Of course not. How could anyone know she’d escaped? She studied the few inches she could see in front of her and pulled into the first empty space, then waited to make sure the headlights in the car behind continued their search. She sat for a moment with the lights off, trying to figure out what to do about the money.

  The stacks of bills were cool to her touch, thick, inert. She flipped them with her thumb like a deck of cards. She took off her boots and lined them with bills. Others she stuffed into various pockets in her pants and windbreaker. She crammed a thick stack of $100’s into her small leather billfold, then stuck several in her right hand coat pocket. Whatever was left she mixed in with her underwear, socks, and the few extra Tshirts she’d wadded into the bag.

  Julie hesitated for a moment before leaving the car, drawing her hood over her head and pulling it tight so that her face was half-covered. Should she risk waiting for the shuttle? She longed for the company of strangers whose very presence might provide a margin of safety should she need one. But taking the shuttle wouldn’t be smart. It wasn’t that cold; she’d been through worse trekking through the mountains of Switzerland and the forests in Germany. Get a move on, girl. Time’s-a-wastin.’

  She picked an entrance crowded with customers arriving for an outgoing flight and slipped inside the airport. Six months ago she’d walked through these same corridors after getting off a plane from Prague, looking for safe harbor and a chance to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. It had seemed then that there were still lots of choices before her. Now those choices had narrowed considerably. Realizing she had to pee, she headed for the nearest restroom.

  “Pardon me, miss, but could you tell me what time it is?”

  Startled, Julie looked up to see a blonde woman in a beige velour leisure outfit whose smoothly coifed hair and elaborate politeness exuded an aura of comfortable suburban living. Probably she was off for a midwinter holiday with her stockbroker husband. In contrast Julie felt frazzled and disoriented. Somehow, while running, her watchstrap had come loose and she’d shoved it in her pocket. She reached down to retrieve it, and couple of hundred-dollar bills tumbled out onto the floor as she pulled out the watch.

  “Dropped something, dear,” the woman said in a saccharin voice, watching silently as Julie snatched the bills from the ceramic tile littered with towels.

  Julie’s throat constricted. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think this thing is working.”

  “Well, never mind dear. Sorry to have bothered you.” The woman’s eyes drifted down, taking in Julie’s rain-streaked face, matted hair, grungy clothes, and brown boots. Julie turned away as the woman walked out the door, and was dismayed at her image in the mirror. It was one thing to look thin and voguish, but her cheeks were sallow with eyes burning in hollow sockets ringed by purple pouches. Her lips were chewed, and her hair hung in damp straight strings. She rutted through the bag and found a comb, an old eyeliner pencil, and a half-tube of lipstick. She didn’t use rouge, considering it artificial and menopausal, but it seemed called for here—not so much to make her look glamorous—but simply to make her look alive. If she looked too bedraggled she could fit some sort of suspicious profile. She dotted her cheeks with the lipstick and rubbed it in.

  The next choice was where to go. She had already made up her mind it would have to be an international flight. The porker in the red truck would be clueless in a foreign country. Her college Spanish was passable. That gave her a large geographical area to pick from—all of Latin America.

  She stopped at American Airlines, noticing two Hispanic women in spirited conversation with the ticket clerk. They seemed to be buying tickets. She moved closer and discovered there was a flight leaving in one hour for San Jose, Costa Rica. She took her place behind the two women, who were small and dark, gesticulating wildly. She waited while they tried different credit cards. It had always seemed strange that there were people who would purchase their tickets on any flight—much less to a foreign country—with only an hour to spare, but now she was one of those people.

  The ticket clerk was a young, olive-skinned man with curly dark hair and soulful brown eyes that met hers with a passing flicker of skepticism when she asked to purchase a one-way ticket.

  “Sorry,” he said. “That’s not permitted. You must buy a round trip ticket.”

  “Fine, whatever.”

  “Are you traveling for business or pleasure?” he asked.

  “Neither,” she said. “My sister lives there, she’s ill.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Does she live in San Jose?”

  “Yes. She’s a missionary. I’m very worried about her.”

  A look of genuine concern showed in his face and he leaned forward. “Don’t worry, the hospitals are excellent.”

  “How about the doctors?”

  “Costa Rican physicians are well trained. We are a well-educated country.”

  Julie noticed he pronounced it Coasta Reeecan and made a mental note never to say Costa Rica the way they did in the States.

  “Of course,” she said. “My sister thinks highly of everyone there.”

  That seemed to please him. He smiled and said, “I’ll need your passport and driver’s license.”

  She handed them over, wishing there had been some way to use a fake ID. But it was impossible to get into a foreign country without good credentials and she wasn’
t connected with anyone who trafficked in forged passports.

  “How long are you planning to stay?”

  She tried to look sad, as if picturing her non-existent sister languishing in the hospital. “Not more than a month, I hope. But I’m not sure.”

  “I understand,” he said. “And how do you wish to pay?”

  Julie looked over her shoulder. A white-haired couple stood behind her, waiting to check in. They wore the usual uniform of the Midwestern traveler: warm-up suits, tennis shoes—blatant earmarks of the elder-hostel crowd that would make them stand out as North Americans. They were eyeing her with curiosity. “Cash.” she said, trying to keep her voice low.

  “Cash?”

  “Yes. Is that a problem?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “That will be $1,100.”

  Julie took out her billfold and held it below the counter while she fished out eleven hundred dollars. The bills looked like monopoly money. God, what if they were counterfeit? The clerk counted slowly and deliberately, his long black eyelashes blinking every few seconds, and she wondered if he wasn’t thinking the same thing. He checked the bills before taking the money and looked directly into her eyes, holding her gaze a bit longer than she felt was necessary. He was making a note of her physical description, she was sure of it. At last he handed her a ticket. “Gate 17,” he said. “To the right.”

  “When does the plane leave?”

  “Forty-five minutes. They’ll be boarding soon.”

  She turned and fled, not responding as he called after her to have a pleasant flight. Now she had to get through Security. A knapsack full of bills wouldn’t trigger any alarms, and yet her heart sped up as she sucked in her breath, took off her boots and threw her bag on the conveyor manned by two security guards dressed in the usual Post Office blues.

  A stolid male with steely gray hair and a bristly mustache looked her up and down carefully as he stopped the conveyor.

  “What’s in that bottle?” he demanded.

  Julie tried to unscramble her exhausted brain and recall the items she’d thrown into the bag. “Contact solution, I think,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Would you like me to get it out?”

  “If you would, please.”

  Julie fished around and found a big white bottle, which the guard promptly threw in a trash can. With a swift kick to the foot pedal, he reactivated the conveyor and Julie exhaled slowly. Every second seemed like an hour as the bag inched its way to safety, but she tried to assume the usual bored look of the innocent, seasoned traveler who is forced to put up with the minor annoyances of a security check. She picked the backpack up and slung it across her shoulders, resisting the impulse to take it and run.

  She felt a rush of adrenaline as she scurried along the passenger ways lined with shops and newsstands to the end gate. Another new country beckoned. Once again, she was leaving the heartland where she’d never felt she belonged.

  She headed for a seat and turned to look at her fellow travelers, a pretty casual bunch compared to the flights she’d taken to Europe. Even though travel clothes had gotten less formal, she’d never seen so many people in blue jeans. She was going to fit in pretty well. They might have been going on a picnic or to a rock concert. There were several students, too, and she remembered the medical school she’d heard about in San Jose. Then, to her dismay, she saw the couple from the ticket counter moving toward her.

  “May we sit here?” the woman asked, pointing to empty seats beside Julie.

  “Of course.” Julie spotted a discarded USA Today on the floor and picked it up, hoping to escape conversation.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear,” the woman said. “You’re going to see your sister in the hospital?”

  “That’s right.” Julie’s eyes were so tired that the newsprint blurred, but she pretended to be vitally interested in reading about some rock star in the Life section.

  “Why is your sister in Costa Rica?”

  “She’s—umm—doing some missionary work.”

  “’Really? What denomination is she with?”

  Julie hesitated. The woman was no doubt very active in her own church. Goddamn, why couldn’t she mind her own business?

  “I think it’s interdenominational,” Julie said.

  “Poor thing. Does she have dengue fever, or what?”

  Mercifully, the loudspeaker blared that it was time to board. The couple was called far ahead of Julie, so she was relieved from having to weave a greater web of lies. She settled down into her seat at the back of the plane, grabbed a pillow and blanket, and let her head fall back against the seat. Suddenly she was aware of aching all over, numb with exhaustion, when the pilot announced they were preparing for takeoff. As the plane droned across the runway, she felt herself slipping away into her dreams. Then, abruptly, they came to a halt and her head snapped up in alarm.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen. Sorry, but there’s been a slight delay. We have a passenger who almost missed the flight and we’ve decided to let him aboard.”

  Julie turned to the flight attendant who stood behind her, clicking her long fingernails in annoyance. “Why would they stop the plane?” she asked. “Usually, if you miss a flight, it’s your own tough luck, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” the young woman said, her smooth forehead furrowing. “He’s either someone pretty important or a fast talker.”

  Julie tried to ignore the prickle of apprehension traveling down her spine. She told herself she was overreacting, feeling paranoid about ordinary events. It was ridiculous. She’d done nothing wrong. Or had she?

  TWO

  Prosecutor Ed Corey, head of the Clark County Task Force on Drugs, was awakened from a deep, post-coital slumber by the ringing of his land line.

  “It’s about Kevin DuFrain” Detective Fisher told him. “There’s been a wreck over on Highway 140; he went off the road and the car caught fire. He’s dead. I don’t think it was an accident.”

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty sure. I was in the restaurant tonight having dinner, just like we planned at the meeting yesterday. His girlfriend was waiting on me, then all of a sudden, there was someone else bringing my order. When I asked the waitress what had happened to the Lawson girl, she said they’d gone on an errand over to West Lewiston. I got up to find out where they went, but it was too late. They’d disappeared. Next thing I know, there’s a 911 about a wreck over near St. Theresa’s College. I get to the scene and the girl isn’t anywhere in sight.”

  “Get out to the girl’s house right away. We need to find out what she does next.”

  Ed’s bride turned on the light. His first wife had been used to these types of calls and found them annoying, but Mary Margaret still enjoyed the excitement. “What is it?” she asked, her honey-colored hair spilling across her small young breasts as she propped herself up on a pillow.

  “It’s DuFrain,” he said. “He’s been in a wreck but his girlfriend got away.”

  “Kevin DuFrain?” Her voice was tinged with awe. She and the other secretaries at the courthouse sometimes had lunch at the Kensington House.

  “Yep. We’re pretty sure he’s part of an interstate drug ring bringing cocaine to Lewiston.”

  “Interstate? Why do you think that?”

  “Caught a couple of guys in Michigan last week with coke in their cars. They made a deal with the prosecutor in exchange for information. Seems this DuFrain was behind the trafficking of cocaine from Lewiston to Phoenix. We’ve been watching him real close the past few days, especially since he just bought a new Porsche.”

  “But they do a big business at the Kensington House. He’s very successful.”

  Corey snorted. “What does a basketball player know about running a restaurant? He can’t be making that kind of money; the previous owners went bankrupt on it. And his folks are farmers who drive pick-up trucks, not the kind to buy that type of vehicle for their son.”

  “So this would make you look good, right?” Mary Margaret tra
iled a fingernail along his spine. “I mean, if you could break up a drug ring like that. The newspaper wouldn’t be able to criticize you anymore.”

  The Lewiston Star had been on his case ever since he had failed to get a conviction of the Whitney woman who ran a day care center where a baby had smothered to death under a pile of blankets.

  “I don’t know why they blame you about Dee Whitney going free,” Mary Margaret said. “Everyone in town believes her rich Daddy bought off the judge.”

  Ed caressed his wife’s soft warm bottom, wondering just how high a price he’d paid for it. Syrians weren’t supposed to leave their wives for Irish secretaries, especially if they were running for re-election in the spring. He had risked the ire of the priests at St. James Orthodox Church and St. John’s Catholic Church and most of the women in the party by marrying this woman. Now there was a faction in the local organization saying there should be a new candidate on the ticket. He desperately needed a high profile conviction.

  “The Whitney case will be forgotten in the spring,” he assured her. “Kevin DuFrain’s girlfriend is going to show us the money.”

  *

  The rain had come on a wave of arctic air, and it was cold inside the car five minutes after Detective Fisher turned off the motor. He shivered and turned up his coat collar when he saw the light go on upstairs. Was Julie Lawson going straight to bed after seeing her boyfriend blow up? He hoped she had other plans, because he’d freeze his ass if he had to spend the night sitting in the car across the street from her house. To his relief, he spotted someone coming out the side entrance within a few minutes. A woman in a white gown was running down the steps. He heard the start of a motor and saw the car moving across the driveway. The car stopped for a few moments. There seemed to be some words exchanged between the woman and whoever was driving. He recognized Julie behind the wheel as she pulled out into the road and turned right.

  Following her to the Indy airport was not a problem, except for the damn semis splashing mud against his windshield. But he’d been surprised when she bought a ticket to Costa Rica. That took a lot of guts, leaving the country. And she’d paid with cash. He picked up his cell phone and called Ed Corey.