A Stranger on the Beach

by Michele Campbell

  They synced their radios and waited.

  Three thirty came and went. Five more minutes passed, then ten. Jess was getting antsy.

  “Anything yet?” she said to Mike over the radio.

  “A couple people in and out of the front entrance. Two cars into the parking garage, one out. None of them was Caroline. You?”

  “Nothing. It’s dead back here.”

  They waited some more.

  At four, Jess radioed Mike again.

  “You think maybe you should check in with the claims adjuster?”

  “Good idea. Hold on.”

  A moment later, Mike came back on the line. “Lily says she just left!”

  “What? How did we miss her?”

  “No idea.”

  “Do you have eyes on her now?”

  “Nope. And I’ve been watching. Anything out the back?”

  “Nothing. Do you think she’s disguised somehow?” Jess asked.

  “Huh. Hold on. I’ll see if Lily has further information.”

  Jess waited. Mike came back on a minute later.

  “You’re right. Lily says she looked older than she was expecting. Short gray hair and glasses.”

  “Was it even Caroline?”

  “I don’t know. Wait. Wait, I think I see her. That might be Caroline in a wig. Yes. It’s definitely her. Short gray wig. Nobody does that unless they’re guilty as sin.”

  “Or, hiding from the Russian mob,” Jess said.

  “Come on. You can’t possible still think she’s innocent. Uh, she just pulled out of the garage. Proceeding southbound in a silver Nissan Rogue with New York plates. Pursuing.”

  “Got it. Moving out. I’m behind you but I don’t have visual.”

  A couple of stoplights later, Jess spotted Mike’s car in the distance. But she didn’t see Caroline.

  “I have eyes on you now,” Jess said. “I don’t see her.”

  “She’s getting on the Southern State, eastbound,” Mike said.

  “Copy that. I’m behind you.”

  They followed Caroline for a good forty minutes, until she got off the Southern State Parkway and headed into Central Islip. Jess was familiar with the area from an MS-13 investigation she’d worked a couple of years earlier. But as soon as she saw the name of the street they were on, she realized there was another, more salient connection to this case.

  “I know where she’s going,” Mike said, over the radio.

  They were on a busy surface road in an area of warehouses, strip malls, and fast-food joints, not far from the LIRR station.

  “Me, too. Lombardo’s trucking company,” Jess said. “Never been there but I recognize the address.”

  “I’ve been there, as you know, since I surveilled Lynn to that location. You said Lynn visiting her husband’s company was significant. You were right. She went to the grocery store first and brought two bags of groceries with her.”

  “She was feeding someone. Caroline’s been hiding out there.”

  “That’s got to be it. Okay, the subject vehicle is pulling in to the Lombardo Trucking lot. I see two buildings. One is the main building, plate-glass windows. Looks like the office. Five passenger cars parked in front. The second is a hangarlike structure with four garage bays. To the right of the office building. The subject vehicle is entering that hangarlike structure, specifically, the third garage bay from the left. Door closing behind her.”

  “Should we pop her now?” Jess asked.

  “The place looks busy. It’s not even five yet. I say we sit on it for a while and see if it clears out, so we don’t risk any interference.”

  “Got it. Pulling into the parking lot directly across the street.”

  “Heading around the back.”

  They sat and waited. At some point, Jess realized it was after five o’clock. Aidan Callahan had pleaded guilty by now. To Jess’s mind, that made it more, rather than less, urgent to apprehend Caroline Stark. If Aidan acted alone, let Caroline convince them of it and explain the evidence to the contrary. And if he didn’t, Aidan could testify against her, and Caroline would face the music.

  More sitting, more waiting. Jess wished she had a cup of coffee, but she didn’t. She didn’t even have chewing gum.

  It was nearly six thirty. The sun had set. Jess had watched five different men leave the Lombardo Trucking offices, departing in the vehicles that had been parked in front of the building with the plate-glass windows. Towering streetlamps lit the parking lot, illuminating several rows of tractor trailers and the large garage facility that Caroline’s Nissan had disappeared into an hour earlier. But the lot was empty of people.

  Jess radioed Mike. “Office lights out. No individuals visible on the lot. Time to move in.”

  61

  Jess and Mike pulled up simultaneously in front of the garage building Caroline had disappeared into earlier. They each parked lengthwise across the bays, so that any vehicle inside would be blocked from exiting. The building had no windows and no doors on the front other than the garage bays, which were closed up tight. There was no way for anybody to look out and see them, though it was possible that their approaching cars might have been heard.

  Jess checked her service weapon and returned it to the holster under her arm. She took a utility knife and a lock-picking tool from the glove box and put them in the pocket of her pants. When she got dressed this morning, she’d initially pulled out a dress and high-heeled boots in imitation of that AUSA who told them about the Russians. Thankfully she’d thought better of it and put on pants and a blazer instead, with leather brogues that she could run in. A cop really couldn’t wear a dress, not even to court. You never knew where the day would take you, or what surveillances or chases it might bring.

  She met Mike behind his vehicle. They crouched down and kept their voices low.

  “There’s a door on the back and another on the right side,” Mike said.

  “We hit both simultaneously.”

  “She could run out the front. She’d have to open a bay first, and we’d hear that.”

  “And she’d be on foot. I may not look it, but I’m fast. I bet you are, too. We’ll get her,” Jess said.

  Mike nodded. “I’ll take the back.”

  Jess looked at her watch. “Okay. We hit in five minutes, so we have time to set up. That’ll be six seventeen.”

  “Got it.”

  Jess went around to the side door. It was elevated about five feet above ground, accessed by a short flight of concrete steps. There was some kind of skylight above it, but no window that would afford someone inside a direct view of Jess’s approach. She climbed the stairs. The door itself was metal, with a flimsy knob. The knob was locked, but she was confident she could breach it. She took the metal pick from her pocket and got started. It was harder than it looked, or maybe she’d forgotten what she’d learned in the academy about lock picking. She checked her watch. She had two minutes before they were supposed to enter. But that time slipped away as she wiggled the tool in the lock, her hands sweating in the cold, wondering if Caroline could hear her. She started thinking about shooting the lock, but the door was metal, and bullets could ricochet.

  “Police!” Mike Castro shouted from behind the building.

  Shit. Mike was in, but Jess was still locked out. As she started down the stairs, intending to go around and support him at the back entrance, the metal door flew open. Jess whirled to see Caroline Stark standing there, a shocked look on her face.

  “Stop right there!” Jess said.

  She was back up the stairs in an instant. Caroline ducked inside, yanking the door closed, but Jess managed to grab the handle. They played tug-of-war until Caroline let go and fled back into the building. Jess ran in after her.

  Inside, the lights were out. Jess stepped forward quickly, and her foot hit open air. She grasped at the emptiness in front of her, struggling for balance; then she plummeted. The fall lasted a millisecond, and then she hit hard, landing on hands and knees on a concrete
floor with the breath knocked out of her. Pain radiated through her wrists and legs. She managed to shift to sitting, and looked back. In the darkness, she’d walked right off a concrete loading dock and fallen about five feet to floor level.

  Jess staggered upright, shaking her extremities and patting herself to assess the damage. Nothing was broken.

  There were skylights above each side wall, and the rear door stood ajar, adding up to enough light to see outlines. Her eyes were adjusting. She saw the silver Nissan that Caroline had been driving. Two cots and a plastic table and folding chairs. A closed door that presumably led to a bathroom. But no people. Where was Caroline? Where was Mike? Either they’d run out the back exit, they were hiding inside the car, or they were in that bathroom. Jess took out her gun and moved cautiously toward the Nissan. She peered in through the side windows, but in the dim light, she wouldn’t be able to tell if there was someone lying on the back floor. She holstered her gun and took out her phone, flicking on the flashlight to shine into the car.

  In the reflection the light made on the windows, she saw the man standing behind her. She heard him chamber a round in his gun and saw him point it at the back of her head. She recognized him immediately from the surveillance photos taken in Queens of him meeting with Galina and the Russian enforcer.

  “On the floor, now,” Jason Stark said.

  62

  Jason Stark knelt beside Jess and patted her down, taking the gun from the holster under her arm. His sour smell and heavy five-o’clock shadow told her that he’d been holed up in this garage for days, hiding from the mobsters who wanted to kill him. And hiding from the police, who would blow his cover by telling the world that he wasn’t actually dead. Jason wore a thick bandage on his left hand. It was gray and dingy and snaked up his arm, its bulk puffing up the sleeve of his shirt. Jess knew how he’d suffered that injury—opening a vein, spilling enough of his blood to fake his own murder and hang it on an innocent man. Aidan Callahan was a patsy. He was innocent of the murder of Caroline’s husband, who was alive and well and currently pointing a gun at Jess’s head.

  Caroline must’ve been in on it with Jason all along. Jess had followed Caroline to this garage, which proved that Caroline knew that Jason was here, and knew he was alive. Of course she did. She’d been hiding out herself, waiting for the plan they’d set in motion to play out. The two of them stole millions from the Russian mob, enough to support their lavish lifestyle, to build a fabulous oceanfront house, and presumably to fill the coffers of the numerous offshore bank accounts that Jess would now spend years attempting to trace, assuming she got out of here alive. Stealing that money wasn’t the sort of crime a person should expect to get away with. Not because the police would find you. The police were busy; they missed a lot. But the Russians weren’t so easily distracted. They were ruthless and relentless. They wouldn’t stop until they got every penny of their money back and took the interest payments in blood. The Starks knew what was coming. Jason would end up in a shallow grave with a bullet in the back of his head, and there was no escaping. Mexico wasn’t far enough to run. The only way out was to die before they got to him—credibly, believably, with someone else to take the fall. Someone who’d walk into the trap willingly and play his role to perfection because he didn’t even know he was playing. Someone gullible and vulnerable, like Aidan Callahan.

  “Up,” Jason said, and yanked Jess to her feet roughly.

  He stood behind her, pressing the gun into her back. They were alone in the garage as far as she could tell. The rear door was open; Mike had gone in pursuit of Caroline. The building was large—fifty or sixty feet wide by thirty long—and sparsely furnished. The SUV Caroline had been driving was parked in the middle of the floor. The Starks had set up camp along the far wall, with cots, table and chairs, and a workbench that functioned as a makeshift kitchen, complete with microwave, hot plate, and groceries. There were tools on the workbench that Jess might be able to use as weapons, if only she could reach them.

  Jason wasn’t about to give her that chance. He pulled her around to the driver’s side of the SUV, opened the front door, and shoved her in. Then he jumped in the seat behind her and stuck the gun against her neck.

  “Turn the car on. I’ll tell you where to go.”

  There existed a real possibility that Jason was planning to take her somewhere and kill her. She replayed the moment when Jason came up behind her. He’d emerged from behind the closed bathroom door. Mike Castro presumably hadn’t seen him. Mike didn’t know Jason was here. Jess was the only one who could blow Jason’s cover and prove he was alive. If she got away and told her story, word would spread. The case against Aidan Callahan would be dismissed, and the Russians would come looking. Jason wasn’t about to let that happen. In order to stop it, he’d take her away from here, to somewhere remote, and put a bullet in her head.

  “I said, turn the car on.”

  The coldness of his tone confirmed her assessment. He’d be capable of it, when the time came.

  Jess pushed the ignition button. The garage door was down, and Jason was too distracted to realize that. She was about to ask him whether he intended her to drive right through it, but then she realized this was her chance.

  “Go,” he said, waving the gun.

  She stepped hard on the gas and crashed into the metal door. There was a terrible crunching sound as the front of the SUV crumpled. Jess wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and the impact tossed her forward. The airbag deployed, so fast and hard that it felt like a punch to the gut. She felt a searing pain in her chest and couldn’t breathe. But she forced herself to reach for the door handle. Managing somehow to open the door, Jess rolled sideways out of the car onto the concrete floor. And in the nick of time. Jason, who’d been thrown around in the backseat, righted himself and fired at the spot where she’d been, an instant too late. The bullet punctured the airbag with a loud popping sound. He fired again and shattered the windshield. Jess struggled to her knees and crawled around to the back of the car. He’d be coming for her any minute. She tried to get up and run, but whatever the hell was wrong with her chest made it impossible. Her breath came in wheezes. She saw spots, felt light-headed. Her side was an agony of pain. She must’ve broken a rib, punctured a lung. She heard Jason get out of the car behind her. He got off a third shot. It hit the concrete floor beside her, sending up a spray of chips. She rolled aside. But his feet were coming. There would be no escape.

  “Drop it now!” Mike said.

  He stood inside the back door, moving forward, his weapon out. The shots came too fast for her to keep track. Jason was down on the floor, his blood spreading toward her.

  “He’s got a second gun,” she said.

  Mike crossed to the spot where Jason lay and felt his pulse. He reached down and took Jess’s gun away.

  “He’s alive. I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “I need one, too,” Jess said, and passed out.

  63

  One month later

  Aidan walked into the hushed lobby of the federal courthouse. Caroline and Jason Stark were scheduled to plead guilty to criminal charges this morning, and he wanted to be there to see it happen. He stepped up to the security line, placed his phone and belt in the bin, and walked through the metal detector. As he retrieved his belongings on the other side, a woman who’d just done the same turned around and gasped.

  “What are you doing here?” Lynn Lombardo said.

  The security guard was right there watching. Aidan didn’t need to get into some confrontation with Caroline’s sister. If nothing else, the past weeks of chaos had taught him to keep a tighter grip on his emotions.

  “I’m here for the guilty plea. It’s open to the public,” he said calmly, and walked away.

  Lynn’s high heels rang out on the marble floor as she pursued him.

  “Aidan, wait.”

  He turned. She caught up with him by the elevators.

  “I didn’t mean to sound so hostile. Can we talk for a
minute? Please,” she said.

  “All right.”

  They moved out of the stream of people to a bench against the wall.

  “I owe you an apology,” Lynn said.

  “That’s an understatement,” he said.

  “Caroline lied to me, like she lied to you,” Lynn said. “She told me you were stalking her and her family. That’s the only reason I came after you at your job. I’m sorry. I should have known better than to believe anything she said.”

  “Wait, you’re apologizing for yelling at me at the bar? I don’t give a crap about that. I almost went to jail for life for killing a man who was still alive. You knew about it and did nothing. Try apologizing for that.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry for what happened to you, and my part in it. You have to understand, though—Caroline told me you were trying to kill Jason. I knew nothing about the Russians or the money laundering or any of that. She told me you were a jealous lover, and that she had a way to make it look like Jason was already dead, so the police would finally arrest you. It made sense to me at the time. But she was lying, like she lies to everyone.”

  “I heard Caroline is living with you. If she really put one over on you, then why take her in?”

  “Because she’s family, and she had nowhere else to go. The judge let her out on bail, but only on house arrest with an ankle bracelet. The feds seized all their assets. Not only their money. The beach house and the apartment in the city, too. My place was her only option.”

  “They seized the beach house?”

  “Yes, it’s going on the auction block next month.”

  The idea flashed into Aidan’s mind that this was his chance to get Gramps’s land back for his family. But, no, it was impossible. Even heavily damaged by the hurricane, that house would sell for a bundle at auction, and he barely had a dollar to his name. He could try to talk to Tommy. Maybe if they pulled together, they could raise the money somehow. It was something to hope for, anyway.