by Mark Stone
"So am I," Kate admitted, speeding off the instant Anchor shut the door. There was a tightness in the woman's face that set Anchor's teeth on edge and a sternness in her voice that reminded him of just how little she wanted him here.
"I take it this wasn't your choice," Anchor said, reaching across the car's dashboard and fiddling with the radio.
"Choice is a strong word, but I was alright with it," Kate said, her eyes sliding suspiciously over to Anchor as he settled on a radio station playing The Allman Brothers' Band.
"What?" Anchor asked, noticing the look.
"Why did you stop on that song?" she asked, narrowing her eyes as she hit the interstate.
"Melissa?" He asked, confused by the question. "Because it's amazing. Why do you ask?"
"Because it's amazing," Kate muttered in response.
A smile spread across Anchor's face as he turned the music up. This woman might not have wanted him here, she might not have even liked him, but she knew good music, and that wasn't nothing.
"Did you know that was my mother's name?" Kate asked, lowering the radio down and looking over at Anchor.
"What?" Anchor asked, looking over at her.
"You're a fan of my father, right?" She continued, keeping an eye on the road as she glared over at the man. "One of those huge ridiculous fan boy types."
"I mean, that makes me sound like a loser, but I get where you're coming from," Anchor admitted.
"I've met a lot of those people, Anchor. I never know where I stand with them. They know things about me, but I don't know anything about them. It's like they're looking at me naked." She shook her head. "I just want to know if you knew Melissa was my mother's name," Kate said. "I want to know if you knew it was the song my father played for her at the end of their first date. I want to know if you knew he played it almost every day after she died, that I fell asleep to that song more times than I could ever count. I want to know if you knew that I grew up with it and, if you did, I want to know if that's why you stopped when it came on the radio."
Anchor narrowed his eyes at the woman, piecing together what all of this meant as she thought about the glimpse she had just given him into her life.
"So, you want to know if I'm trying to manipulate you?" he asked, breathing evenly. "If I'm using what I know about your father to tug at your heartstrings and convince you to like me?"
"Pretty much," Kate asked. "Even if I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that it won't work."
"Look," Anchor said, his jaw tightening. "I stopped on the song because I liked it, the same as I would have done if 'Peaceful, Easy Feeling' or 'Hey Jude' would have come across the station. If I ever knew what your mom's name was, I've forgotten it. Even if I hadn't, I'm not the type of guy to use a woman's past to coerce her into anything." He folded his arms over his chest as he turned his attention to the crowded interstate and the peaceful blue waters that lined it. "Just so you know, I've never had to convince a woman to believe anything about me, Cross. I'm not about to start now. They usually like me pretty well on their own." He looked back over at her. "I doubt that's going to stop now either."
"That's not what I meant," Kate said.
"I get that you don't like me," Anchor said.
"Did I say I didn't like you?" Kate challenged.
"You didn’t have to," Anchor answered. "Not with the look you have on your face. But hey, this isn't about whether you like me or not and, to be completely honest with you, I don't give a damn."
That was a lie. Whether it was because this was the daughter of a man he'd idolized his entire childhood or because he just had an innate need to be liked, Anchor would have loved for Kate to feel any way about him other than the way she felt about him now.
She didn't though, and he was just going to have to learn to live with that. Well, to live with it and to make her think he was unaffected by it.
"We have a job to do and I'm completely on board with getting it done," Anchor said, looking over at Kate with a smirk in his eyes. "If you knew what was good for you, you would be too."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Kate asked. Anchor could see her hands tightening on the steering wheel. He was getting to her, worming his way under her skin. The idea of that gave him a bit of perverse pleasure.
"It means that I heard what Marcus said back there," Anchor answered. "You've got a lot to lose if this doesn't go well. What happened? Did you get caught with your hand in the evidence locker? Did you get a little too physical with a suspect or something?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "Or are you just not good at your job?"
Kate huffed loudly. "Oh, Mr. Anchorage," she said, looking over at him, her foot falling against the pedal as they picked up speed. "We both know that's not true, don't we?"
The look in Kate's eyes, like she was about to unhinge her jaw and swallow him whole caused his entire body to retract. Of course, he knew she was good at her job. It was right there, obvious in the way she worked. Still, she was on thin ice. She had a lot to prove here for whatever reason, and that put them in the same boat, so to speak.
"Where are we headed?" Anchor asked, ignoring her question, suddenly concerned about the sheer speed in which they were burning up the coastal road. "And why the hell are we going so fast?"
"We're going to Orlando, Mr. Anchorage. It's where the next piece of this damned puzzle we've found ourselves in is," she said, not letting up off the gas at all. "And we're going fast because, the way I see it, the quicker I get this finished, the quicker life gets back to normal."
"Is that what you want, Cross?" he asked, his entire body turned in her direction. "Is 'normal' really what you're after for your life? What would your father say about that?"
"The same thing he told me before my senior prom, Mr. Anchorage. He'd say 'never let a boy tell you what it is you want’." She revved up the motor even more, practically taking flight as she roared down the highway. "Now I suggest you buckle up. I don't plan on slowing down."
Chapter 22
Ninety minutes later saw Katherine Cross driving through one of her least favorite parts of her most favorite state in the union with a partner she still wasn’t too sure about.
Florida was a paradise. Anyone with working eyes and the sense the good Lord gave a dung beetle could see that. With that said though, Kate had to admit that there were pieces of it that were definitely superior to others, and she never saw Orlando as one of those pieces.
Sure, it was a beautiful lay of land, and it certainly shone like an emerald on a hill, but it lacked something for Kate, something real, something true.
Orlando was perhaps the tourist mecca in all of Florida. While Vero Beach, which also made most of its money from tourism, drew visitors by promising them serene shores, gorgeous water, and the sort of sunsets that never existed anywhere outside of Florida, Orlando made its fortune on magic, fairy tales, and cartoon mice.
While Kate didn’t have anything against any of that- she liked fairy tales as much as the next person- it all felt cheap to her. It felt wrong. Why would you have to lie to yourself when the bounty of God’s hand stretched out right in front of you. The world didn’t get more spectacular than the shore, swamps, and skylines of Florida. So why the hell would someone need to pretend to be Cinderella to make visiting it bearable?
Kate pushed these thoughts out of her mind. They didn’t matter. She didn’t need to like where she was going in order to do her job well. Besides, she wasn’t going to Orlando proper, thank goodness. That would have meant hours in traffic and people who had no clue how to drive whatsoever and the ones who did had unbelievable amounts of road rage. No, the address Kate had been given, the woman who had seen Albert and sent pictures of him back to Marcus and the Vero Beach Police Department, lived just outside of Orlando in the thriving and quickly industrializing suburb of Winter Park. While that wasn’t Kate’s idea of the real Florida either, it did mean she could stop short on Interstate 4 before she had to deal with either Universal Studios, Disneyworld, or th
e traffic that each of them seemed to constantly flood the town with was a boon.
“Nice place,” Anchor said absentmindedly, looking over at the lines of mini mansions that littered the streets Kate passed.
“Figures you would say that,” Kate said, shaking her head as she followed her dashboard Navigation system toward the address Marcus had given him.
“Why’s that?” Anchor asked, grinning as she looked over at Kate. “Am I that predictable?”
“Heartbreakingly so,” Kate answered. “These houses, all these identical manicured lawns, and shiny, brand new cars; they’re just so basic.”
“Basic?” Anchor asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Yeah, basic,” Kate said. “Meaning, you can get it anywhere. There’s nothing about any of these houses, about any of this crap, that you couldn’t find in Baltimore or Phoenix. It doesn’t say anything about the people who own it, and it sure as hell doesn’t look like Florida.”
“I’ve lived my entire life in Florida, you know,” Anchor said, a hesitant smile playing at the corners of his lips. “I think I know what it looks like by now.”
“I’m sure you do,” Kate answered, smirking at the man. “The same way you know what a beautiful woman looks like, right?”
A surprised chuckle escaped Anchor’s lips before he could stop himself. He coughed, stifling himself and straightening up in his seat. There was no reason to loosen up around this woman. She had already proven she couldn’t be trusted. Still, his curiosity got the better of him.
“I’m gonna have to ask, Cross. What the hell does a beautiful woman have to do with an entire damned city?”
“When that city is Orlando, and the woman in question is someone you’d be interested in, I’d say they have a lot in common. Orlando thrives on fake, Anchor. Fake castles, manmade lakes, manufactured happiness.” She shook her head. “And judging by the cup size of the last blond bombshell those gossip rags at the supermarket said you were dating, you thrive on fake too.”
The hint of a smile on Anchor’s face broke wide open as he ran a hand over his face, stopping just south of his lips.
“I didn’t know you were a fan,” he said slyly.
“What’s the opposite of a fan?” Kate asked. “That’s what I am.”
“Sure you are,” Anchor said. “I suppose that’s why you used to check me out on all the magazine covers.”
“You’ve been on magazine covers? Really? They must have had slow news days.”
“We met once, you know,” Anchor said, shuffling in his seat. “A long time ago.”
“Did we?” Kate asked, pulling off Interstate 4 and getting off at the Winter Park exit. She would have to cut through on a few back roads to get to the address that Wanda Wilkins - the woman who’d called in the tip about Albert - left with the Vero Beach police department. Still, it was a better move than continuing on the interstate. Traffic was heavy now but, if she continued a few miles further, she’d hit Universal Studios and, a few miles past that, the behemoth that was Disney World. She didn’t need that kind of delay. She wanted to be back in time to get some actual work done back in Vero beach today, and catching Disney traffic would almost ensure that wouldn’t happen.
“We did,” Anchor said. “Not that I’d expect you to remember it. I wasn’t exactly the ravaging sex symbol you see before you today.” He shrugged. “I had glasses.”
Kate rolled her eyes as if she was totally indifferent, but she remembered that day. She would never admit it, but she did.
“That must have been difficult for you,” she said sarcastically. “I’m surprised you made it through without some sort of foundation to help you.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Anchor mocked, shaking his head. “I’ll have you know that it was hard. I didn’t fill out until I was almost eighteen years old. Spent most of my teen years as a skinny little four-eyed geek who had his nose planted in every travel magazine he could find.”
“That’s a shame,” Kate answered thoughtfully.
“I know it,” Anchor said.
“No,” Kate answered. “I meant it’s a shame you had to change. I think I might have liked that guy.”
“You seemed to,” Anchor said after a few beats. “I was fifteen, which would have made you thirteen, I guess.”
“More or less,” Kate said.
“Your father was doing a signing over in Naples.”
“In Naples?” Kate asked. “He lived here in Vero Beach. You live in Vero Beach. Why the hell would you go to Naples?”
“Because that’s where he premiered his book,” Anchor said matter of factly. “Love, Location, and Latitude-”
“Everything You Need for a Successful Salt Life,” Kate said, finishing the title.
“It was a special event,” Anchor said, his eyes glazing over as they dove into the past. “Two weeks before the book actually released widely, and he was signing copies. I mowed lawns for three weeks to get the money for the damned bus ticket across the state.” He blinked. “When I got there though, I realized I didn’t have enough money for the book. I stood there in line for two hours, without even a book in my hand. I hoped he would sign a scrap of paper for me. Anything.” Anchor smiled. “But when I got there, his agent told me he couldn’t sign anything other than the book. It gutted me, but I thanked him for his time and turned to walk away.”
“And, when you did, I snuck you a copy of the book,” Kate said.
“With your dad’s signature and everything,” Anchor confirmed. “You remember?”
“No,” Kate admitted, feeling her cheeks heat up, “But it seems like something I would've done.”
Pulling off the back road, she turned down a gravel drive which led up to a large, if unkempt, white house with coastal blue shudders.
“You were a sweet girl,” Anchor said as they pulled to a stop at the end of the drive, looking out onto a long and unmowed yard.
“I was,” Kate said, remembering the girl she used to be.
That girl was still there somewhere, but she well hidden.
“I guess I’m not the only one whose changed since then,” Anchor chuckled.
“Shut up,” Kate said, but couldn't keep the smile off her face.
A knock came on the window, startling Kate. She turned to find a shirtless man with a long scraggly beard and piercing blue eyes staring at her. His mouth was a severe thin line and a gun in his right hand was pointed straight at her head.
“Both of you,” the man said, his voice hoarse and desperate. “Get the hell out of the car.”
Chapter 23
Anchor’s body tensed as he looked at the shirtless jackass beside them. He had a gun pointed on Kate’s head, and a deranged look on his face that said he wouldn’t wait too long to use it.
“This isn’t something you want to do, kid,” Anchor said, his voice sturdy and his jaw set.
The guy wasn’t a kid. In fact, if anything, he was a little older than Anchor. Or, at least, he looked the part, given the long, horrible beard he was rocking.
“Shut your damned mouth and get out of the car,” the man said through the still rolled up window. “I’ve had enough of this garbage. You’re not going to do this to me again.”
“Look,” Anchor said, not moving from where he sat. “I’m not sure who you th—”
Kate’s hand moved, landing covertly on his leg. She squeezed to shut him up and didn’t stop until his words did.
“This is my property,” the man said, swallowing hard as he pressed the barrel of the gun flush against the window. Kate had seen this sort of thing before: women shot right in their cars at this distance. Never pretty.
“Of course it is,” Kate said, her hand still on Anchor’s leg and her tone intentionally soothing. “And we’re very sorry about intruding on it, but we have good reason.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you do,” the man said, almost growling. “You sons of bitches are liars and thieves, and I won’t listen to it. Now the both of you get your asses out of the car so I can ca
ll the police. Otherwise, I’ll bypass the cops altogether and just call the undertaker. It’s your choice.”
As strange as it might have seemed, it looked as though this made Kate breathe a sigh of relief. After only a second of wondering, Anchor knew why. This man might have just threatened to kill the two of them, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to call the police and (theoretically) have them taken away.
That was good. The police were their friend. Hell, they were the police. Or, at least, Kate was. Having them come here was probably the best thing that could happen, given their current situation.
“We’re getting out,” Kate said, finally moving her hand from Anchor’s leg. Though it was gone, the man could still feel her fingers on him, squeezing frantically in an attempt to get control over a quickly spiraling situation. She looked back at Anchor, not even a hint of the same panic that certainly must have been coloring Anchor’s own peepers. “Step out slowly and keep your hands in plain view.”
“Cross,” Anchor said, swallowing hard.
“Do it,” she answered. “Slowly. Hands in plain view.” She blinked. “And, no matter what happens, no funny stuff like what you pulled back in the bakery. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but there’s no reason for anyone to get hurt.”
Anchor wanted to yell at the woman, to say that he’d only pulled that “funny business” back in the bakery because he was trying to stop people from getting hurt. Her specifically. He didn’t say any of that though. Kate was the cop. She was the professional. Lord knows she’d made it clear enough. If this was what she thought needed to happen, then Anchor was sure she was right about it. He just nodded, slowly opened the car door, and did as she’d said.
Kate turned and watched the shirtless man’s eyes follow Anchor. His gun however stayed pressed firmly against the window, firmly trained on her.