by D. L. Wood
“Who’s they?”
Vargas shook his head. “No idea, yet.”
Korrigan passed through the lawn to the stone wall at the rear of the property. He leaned over it, peering down, then straightened, scanning the water in the distance. Vargas stood silently beside him.
“I told those idiots he was military,” he muttered in between slightly labored breaths. “I told them to prepare accordingly.”
“Drake said there were maybe three of them,” Vargas offered by way of excuse. “At least.”
Korrigan inhaled, nostrils flaring. “You’ve been in the house. You believe him?”
Vargas shrugged. “Maybe. I only see two on the video. But the cameras could’ve missed one.”
“And DiMeico?”
“We found him in his panic room. Says he heard the commotion and locked himself in there.”
Korrigan turned back to the water. Vargas remained still and quiet, waiting for orders. Suddenly, Korrigan turned towards the patio again, Vargas striding to keep up. When they reached the steps, Korrigan began bellowing as if Vargas were half the yard away, instead of nipping at his heels.
“Vargas!”
“Yes, sir.”
Korrigan spun around to face his subordinate. “I’m going upstairs to tell Mr. DiMeico why he can no longer afford to dictate to me how this crisis will be handled.” His eyes darkened like storms brewing, and if it was possible, his voice grew colder. “If he hadn’t put his privacy over security we’d have seen them coming on live cameras, but no—” He broke off, pausing in an apparent attempt to regain control of himself, which seemed to be requiring a great deal of effort. In a deliberate, steely voice, he continued. “Call everyone in. Meet up at the office. We are going to use every contact we have to scour this city.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Vargas?”
“Yes, sir?”
“This is on you. You were in charge of security here tonight. If they get away, it will be your head that rolls.”
With an iron gaze that matched Korrigan’s, Vargas replied evenly, “Yes, sir.”
FORTY
“It was the pendant,” Chloe finished, pulling a forest-green blanket tighter around her as she concluded her account of Tate’s entire recorded message. “It was the pendant all along.”
They sped down I-95, all three packed into the front seat of Riley’s pickup, headed back towards his house. Jack’s arm was draped protectively around Chloe, water dripping steadily off them onto the floorboards.
“He kept talking about celebrating our birthday together . . . and he ended by saying, ‘Always.’ It finally just clicked for me—the pendant he gave me for my birthday last year. The engraving on the back—”
“Always,” Jack interjected.
Chloe nodded. “Always.” She shivered and Jack squeezed her.
“Here,” Riley offered, “let me turn the heat on,” he said, reaching over to turn a dial.
“Thanks,” Chloe said, tossing him a faint smile. They’d barely had time for a lightning-fast introduction as they’d moved from the boat to the truck, speeding away from the water as quickly as possible.
“So what about the pendant?” Jack pressed. “How does it figure in?”
“There’s a series of numbers engraved on the back, very small, right below the ‘Always.’ I just thought it was a serial number, or model number or something. But now . . .”
“What are they? Let me look,” Jack asked, extending his hand towards her.
“I don’t have it,” Chloe replied flatly.
“What?”
“They took everything. When we got to DiMeico’s they made me change into other clothes and took my jewelry, too.”
“So we’re back to having nothing.”
“No, I can find out what was on it,” Chloe said, a hopeful note in her voice. “Before I take a trip, every time, I take a photo of my jewelry, cameras, you know, just in case they get lost or stolen. For insurance. I thought they were serial numbers so I took a shot of the back.”
“But how—”
Chloe smiled. “The cloud. All my phone photos go directly to the cloud. Get me access to a computer and I can pull it up.”
“Well,” Riley chimed in, turning off an exit, “once again, it looks like it’s Riley to the rescue.”
* * * * *
“This brother of yours seems like a real winner,” Riley said, handing Jack a beer and opening his own as they sat in chairs around Chloe, who was parked in front of his computer waiting for it to boot up.
“Riley, not now. Okay?” Jack rebuked, putting a hand on Chloe’s arm.
“Sorry, it’s just . . . well, for somebody you say was brilliant, he sure comes off like . . . well, like a little bit of an idiot to me.”
“He’s right,” Chloe conceded, before Jack could admonish Riley again. “I mean, I knew Tate would go to any length to get what he wanted, but this . . .” Her voice trailed off sadly.
“He might as well have painted a bulls-eye on your butt,” Riley chimed in.
Jack flashed him an impatient look. “Nice.”
Riley glanced at Chloe sheepishly. “Sorry. Not much of a filter here,” he said, pointing at his mouth.
“It’s fine. It’s nothing I haven’t said.” She paused, seeming to struggle with her thoughts as she rubbed her forehead. “He’s done so much damage. All these people, dead. Ruby, Rohrstadt—Tate himself even—and those are just the ones we know about.” She spun around to face Riley. “And you, Riley. I don’t know what Jack was thinking dragging you into this. I’m so sorry.”
Riley shrugged. “Are you kidding? This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time.” He tilted his head towards the computer. “It’s up finally.”
Chloe turned back towards the screen, her fingers pecking at the keyboard. Riley and Jack moved to hover closer, and in under a minute the screen was displaying her cloud storage photos. It didn’t take long to find the one of the pendant.
“There it is!” she exclaimed, clicking on it. The photo expanded, revealing a clear shot of the pendant’s backside.
“Here,” Riley said, handing her a pen and a piece of junk mail to write on. She took it, scribbling away.
“Okay,” she said, whirling around to face them and holding out the paper. “What is it?”
There were ten numbers, then a dash, then another seven. They stared at it for several seconds before anyone said anything.
“It’s a phone number,” Riley said. “The first three,” he pointed at the paper, “7-8-6, that’s a Miami area code.” They all looked at each other, then Riley and Jack both pulled out their cell phones.
“No wait,” Jack said, placing a hand on Riley’s arm. “There doesn’t need to be any record of you in this. Let me.”
Jack dialed the ten numbers and pressed the speaker button. All three waited, nearly holding their breath.
“You have reached Bio-Tite, your biometric storage solution. We are open seven days a week, ten to eight. Please call back during business hours or leave a message—”
Jack hung up. “Bio-Tite?”
Riley shrugged. “No idea.”
A quick search on the computer revealed that Bio-Tite, Inc., operated biometric safe deposit box facilities up and down the east coast. Similar to a traditional safe deposit box, these biometric boxes differed in that no keys were necessary. Instead, fingerprints were used to verify the identity of the box owner and a special code granted access to the box.
“Tate would’ve loved the idea. One way to insure that either he or I would have to be there to get into it,” Chloe commented dryly.
“The question is, what’s in the box?”
Chloe shrugged. “Something that proves what’s going on, I hope.”
Jack sighed. “From what you say about Tate’s video, it sounds like it’ll be directions about how to actually lay hands on the money.”
“Whatever it is, it’s more than you’ve got now,” Riley said, slapping Ja
ck on the back. “I’d say we’d better get planning.”
* * * * *
Chloe leaned back and let the hot Caribbean sun drip over her. She was back on St. Gideon, in the swing on the porch of her perfect little beach cottage. She could see Ruby waving to her from the other side of the fence. She had a date that night. With this guy she had met on the beach that morning. Maybe they’d go to that seafood restaurant—
A creak from inside the cottage startled her. Frantically she dashed inside, where a strong arm grabbed her—
Chloe’s eyes flew open as she bolted up in the little twin bed inside Riley’s second bedroom. Jack stood in the doorway, looking very guilty.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to check on you.”
It took a moment for her to reorient. “I was having a nightmare.”
“You okay?”
“I’ll let you know after my first cup of coffee.” She cast around the room for a clock, but didn’t see one. “What time is it?”
“Six.”
“Where’s Riley?”
“Messing around in his garage.” Jack stepped inside the sparsely decorated room and sat down beside her on the worn navy comforter. A knotty pine dresser topped with a rectangular mirror occupied the wall opposite the bed. The plastic blinds were drawn, but the Miami sun bore through the slight gaps, reflecting off a cheaply framed poster of a famous painting hung over the headboard.
Jack regarded her with a gaze so affectionate that he might as well have told her that he thought she was beautiful. Even now. Even with that crunchy black hair and the matching dark circles under her eyes. Even as a paler, terribly exhausted, disillusioned version of the woman he had accosted on the beach on St. Gideon. It made her feel warm and self-conscious at the same time.
“So how’s the planning going?” she asked, neutralizing the moment.
He sighed. “We’ll leave soon. They open at ten but we plan on getting there early. It’s only thirty minutes away—less with light traffic.” He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped. “So, this nightmare. What was it?”
“More of the same.”
Jack nodded, as if he knew exactly what she meant.
A few moments passed. She looked at him, a need building within her to tell him what she had realized at DiMeico’s before he’d come to get her. She wanted to share it with somebody, someone who would understand. Someone who wouldn’t laugh. And he was responsible for it after all. But still . . . her nerves flared at the prospect of traveling the road she was about to go down.
“I need to ask you something,” she started.
Jack’s eyebrows arched, his expression nudging her to continue.
“When I was at DiMeico’s I started doing a lot of thinking, about death and dying and what that means.”
Jack looked down, took one hand from her lap and held it. Her heart fluttered as he just stared at it. “Okay,” he said, inviting her to keep talking.
She continued. “The thing is . . . I prayed, Jack.”
Though he continued staring at her hand, Jack’s lip curled with a hint of delighted surprise. “Really? You did?”
Chloe nodded, her face pink from embarrassment. She fought it back and kept going.
“I think you were right. I think God may have been trying to get my attention. I’ve got this big, empty space in my soul. It’s never been filled. And through all this craziness, it’s just grown and grown and . . .” She sniffed and Jack squeezed her hand.
“I don’t know . . . while I was up in that room I just suddenly had this rush of . . . knowing, I guess, and realizing that I didn’t want to be that way anymore.”
She stopped talking then, and bit her lip anxiously. The quiet of the house surrounded them, insulating them from the noise and the urgency of the world outside. There was just his breath, her pounding heart, and air charged with expectation. Then timid words spilled from her lips, testing Jack’s reaction even as they came. “I told God I believed Him. About Jesus. About everything. That I was sorry. I asked Him if I could come home.”
When Jack failed to instantly voice his approval, Chloe averted her eyes to her lap. “I sound like an idiot, I know.”
Jack shook his head, his expression empathetic. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He put his arm around her and drew her to his side. “No. What I was thinking was that I’ve never heard anyone put it better in my whole life.”
They stayed that way for a while, wrapped up in the fragile solace of each other, warding off whatever was to come. Nestled in his shoulder, Chloe breathed in deeply, soaking up the scent of fresh soap on his skin and the brief moments of comfort she knew would end all too soon.
“I could never thank you enough, Jack,” she whispered.
He reached a hand up and stroked her hair in response.
“For everything,” she continued. “For sticking it out with me.”
He let a thin smile slip. “Really wasn’t another option.”
“Sure there was. You could have disappeared. You could have gone to the cops. You were never DiMeico’s real target anyway. They would have lost interest in you once some time had passed.”
“Doubtful,” he said, reaching out to run a tentative finger across her cheek. “Besides, by then it was too late for me.”
“Too late for what?”
He turned towards her, his gaze narrowing to meet hers, the space between them dissolving. “You know what I mean, Chloe. You know exactly what I mean.”
He leaned in then, and as their lips finally met, her heart gave an almighty lurch, and the breath rushed out of her body. She pressed into him, her only conscious thought being that she had never felt anything so wonderful in her whole life. And then, lost in a swirl of ardent color and heat and light, she couldn’t think about anything at all.
“Um, excuse me,” Riley said, clearing his throat uncomfortably at the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt, but, uh, the door was open . . .”
Jack pulled away slowly, squeezing his eyes shut in exasperation, before regarding Riley with a forced smile. A blushing Chloe looked sideways.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jack said, not sounding the least bit convincing.
“Well, I’ve gotten most of the gear together.” Riley continued, plodding into the room with Charlie in tow. He wore faded jeans and a faded charcoal gray tee shirt that cuffed his biceps. “Charlie’s hungry, so I thought I’d make us some breakfast if you’re up for it.” He reached down to scratch the dog’s ear.
“Yeah,” Chloe nodded. “I could eat.”
“Good, because you’ll need your strength if we’re gonna pull this off today.”
“Wait,” said Chloe, concern clouding her face. “We?”
“Yeah, we,” replied Riley confidently.
“Um, no. There’s no we. I can’t let you.”
Riley bent down to rub the dog’s ear more vigorously, Charlie’s head craning toward him. “Look, somebody’s got to keep an eye out, make sure no one’s waiting for you at this place or jumps you when you come out.”
“I don’t think they’ll know where to look.” Chloe’s gaze flashed from Riley to Jack. “I didn’t tell them I’d figured it out.”
“Even so, the smart thing would be to assume they’ll be waiting for you,” Riley said. “Jack needs to go in with you to keep an eye on things from the inside. That means you need me.”
“He wants to, Chloe. He’ll be fine. He can take care of himself,” Jack protested.
“Clearly,” she said doubtfully, eyeing his wounded leg.
“This?” Riley asked, gesturing at his leg. “This is nothing.”
“No. You’ve done enough. It’s not safe.”
“Safe, schmafe.”
“This isn’t your problem,” Chloe said. “I don’t want anyone else getting killed because of me.”
“Well, we’re all set then, because I don’t plan on getting killed. So you can stop worrying and just concentrate on thanking me for saving your ta
rget-painted butt last night.”
When Charlie barked in agreement, even Chloe had to smile.
FORTY-ONE
Bio-Tite, Inc., was located in the heart of the Brickell area, a stand-alone structure tucked between two longer strip-mall buildings that, altogether, took up the whole block. The strip-malls were tall and cream-colored, housing various small businesses, including a nail salon, office supply store, and a copy/mail box store, among others. The squatty plain building that housed Bio-Tite resembled a safe deposit box itself. There were no windows, very few doors, and the outside looked to be made of some kind of concrete block painted a drab gray. Both Jack and Riley assumed that extra precautions must have been taken to shore up the space with the level of impenetrability that would be expected for a business of this nature, probably including doubled concrete walls and a great deal of extra security. Its minimalist sign—a polished silver plaque with “BIO-TITE, INC.” engraved on it—drew little attention and gave no indication of its purpose, which was most likely intentional for security reasons.
Jack, Chloe, and Riley sat in Riley’s pickup, parked in the lot of a Burger King situated catty-corner across the street. They’d arrived shortly before eight just to keep an eye on the place. Now, five minutes till it opened at ten, it was time to move.
“You ready?” Jack asked.
Chloe nodded. “Ready to be done with this.” She heaved a sigh. “Just . . . done.”
Riley patted her shoulder. “Piece of cake. Just walk in, do your thing, and come right back out. I’ll be watching the whole time. If anything goes wrong—”
“Just say ‘cold,’” Jack interrupted. “Like—it’s cold in here—”
“Cold,” Chloe echoed. “Got it. Cold.”
“If Riley hears that, he’ll come in after us.”
Chloe nodded again. Though she was trying to seem confident, the slight tremor in her hand suggested otherwise. Jack took it.
“Come on. Let’s go.”
The two exited the truck, while Riley started it up and repositioned it in a space that had opened up almost directly across from Bio-Tite’s front door.