The Abandoned (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 14)

by Jonas Saul

  The plot thickens …

  “Sarah?” Casper said from behind her.

  She jumped. “What?” she said without turning around. She placed both hands on the railing and squeezed.

  “The clerk was the same one who checked Wong in but had nothing for me. He barely remembers Wong and doesn’t speak very good English.”

  “So where’s the ledger?” Sarah asked, taunting him, knowing he was no closer to solving the mystery of its location. By now, the black book could be anywhere in the world. Unless they solved this mystery today, it would remain unsolved as far as she was concerned. With or without Casper, Sarah had a cartel near Tijuana she had to make a house call on.

  “I have no idea, Sarah.”

  She turned to look at him. His voice was low, like he regretted having to admit defeat. Casper squinted into the sun, shaded his eyes with his hand and then looked back at the hotel.

  “What now?” she asked. “Any ideas?”

  “The pier. Try to locate the boat he rented. Maybe we can discover where he went.”

  Something clicked into place. “Boat?” she whispered. “Rented?” Casper had mentioned that before entering the hotel to talk to the clerk. She turned back and stared out over the sea. The castle appeared to float on the water. It sat an easy five hundred yards from Nafplio’s shore.

  “Come on,” Sarah urged. “I think I found the Greek Island Wong said he put the ledger on.”

  “What?” Casper called behind her.

  Sarah ran along the wall until she found stone steps leading down to the pier. She bounded down two at a time, Casper close on her tail.

  “Sarah?” he called. “Wait.”

  But she kept running, dodging people, passing a line of restaurants, until she made it to the first boat moored to the cement pier that had someone on it.

  “Excuse me,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Can you take me to that little castle out there?” She pointed.

  The man had been lounging on a loveseat-sized cushion on the back of a small yacht. He turned and looked at the castle, then back at Sarah.

  “You mean Bourtzi,” he said in Greek. Vivian was so fast at translation, that Sarah caught it within seconds of the man finishing his sentence.

  “Naí,” she said, repeating Vivian’s whisper of how to say yes in Greek.

  Casper had caught up and stood wide eyed beside her as she spoke Greek to the man.

  “There’s a water taxi at the end,” he said in Greek and pointed. “Four euros and they’ll take you over. They’re taking tourists all day.”

  “Ef̱charistó̱ polý,” Sarah replied.

  She started off toward the water taxi at the end of the cement pier, dodging slow-moving tourists the entire way.

  Casper caught up with her. “Slow down.”

  “Can’t.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “You speak fluent Greek?”

  “No.”

  “Then what language was that?”

  “Greek.”

  “What?”

  Sarah kept walking. Casper kept up.

  “That was Vivian?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “She translates for you and tells you what to say?” he asked, his voice rising to falsetto.

  “That’s about it. Chinese too.” She looked at him. “I’m surprised as shit as well.”

  “You don’t look surprised.”

  “Didn’t know I could do it until today.”

  “What? I mean, what?” Now his voice was squeaky. “You’ve got to be kidding. That kind of talent would be extremely useful in—”

  “Casper,” she shouted. People around them turned to see what was going on as they passed. “I’m not a guinea pig. No governments. No tests. If Vivian goes silent I’m not useful to anyone but Aaron. We work together but do not mistake who I am and what I represent. I’m only there for Aaron and if this cartel dies in the process, so be it.” They were almost at the water taxi. From what Sarah could see, it appeared there were two water taxis. “Our agendas are different, we just happen to be on the same train speeding down the same track that might be a dead end.”

  “There’s no dead end. Aaron’s alive. They need proof of life to get to you.”

  The truth in that statement sent a wave of relief through her and a shiver down her back.

  People were getting on the boat. Sarah counted a family of four, and two teenagers talking to an older woman who was probably their mother. Seven people. Sarah and Casper made nine. The boat’s operator stepped off the boat and asked for eight euros for the two of them.

  Sarah got on the boat first and sat beside the father of the small family. Casper sat on the other side, facing her. Probably a routine response for him. A better way to watch her back and she could watch his.

  After a two-minute wait, with no other tourists approaching the boat, the operator unhooked the ropes and started away from the pier.

  “Beautiful day, eh?” the man beside her said in English.

  Sarah turned to look at him, then started and moved a few inches away. “I’ve seen you before.” She thought about where, then it hit her. “In Italy. On a train.”

  The man nodded, a wide, teeth revealing grin on his face. “That’s right. You remembered. Brenda and I live here now. In Nafplio. We’re traveling with our two daughters, Bethany and Odette.” He pointed at each girl as he said their names. They nodded at Sarah, big smiles on their faces.

  Why is this family so bloody happy?

  “Jonas Saul, right?” Sarah asked.

  He nodded. “Good memory. And you remember my wife, Brenda?”

  Brenda extended a hand and Sarah shook it. She caught a glimpse of Casper’s face and the question of who these people were written all over it. Sarah ignored Casper.

  “Coincidence?” Sarah asked. “Or are you following me?”

  “I’m following you,” Jonas said in a deep voice, then burst out laughing. “Of course not. You think I have time to follow people around the globe? I’m busy traveling and killing people.”

  Sarah started again. She leaned in closer. “Killing people? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m a writer. I try to find inventive ways to murder people and research locations for scenes from around the world. You know, dead body disposal and things like that.”

  The island was approaching, the operator already revving the engine lower.

  “Something strange is going on here,” Sarah mumbled. “I don’t like this.”

  “What’s not to like? It’s a beautiful day. You’re in tropical Greece. Have an ice cream. Drink a cold beverage. Read a book. Nap. Do what humans of leisure do. Relax. Sarah, you have to relax. You’ll live longer.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  Jonas leaned away from her, his expression one of fake shock. Then he shoved his face in close and said, “A threat? That’s hilarious. Who writes your material? A threat. Sarah, you’re the last person in the world I’d threaten.”

  The boat bumped the dock. They began tying the ropes up when the operator announced that the boat would take them back in thirty minutes.

  Jonas’ family got up and exited the boat. Sarah followed with Casper close behind.

  “Who was that?” Casper whispered.

  “Someone I bumped into in Italy. Purely coincidence.”

  “Really? Coincidence or synchronicity?”

  “What?” She looked sideways at him as if he was crazy.

  “Nothing. Just something I was reading lately that Carl Jung said.”

  Jonas’ family of four had headed into the center of the castle. “Come on, Casper. Let’s find that book and get to Athens. The chopper is waiting.”

  Something about meeting Jonas and his family bothered her. Maybe it was something Darwin Kostas had said when she told him about Jonas.

  Jonas Saul.

  Darwin had said something about suspecting that everything he had gone through wa
s Jonas’ fault somehow. But that didn’t make sense.

  Was he following her? Was the wife a ploy? Why didn’t Jonas have the girls with him in Italy? And now, suddenly he shows up with two daughters, the youngest one at least fifteen or sixteen. What was really going on?

  She hurried her pace and rounded the corner where the Saul family had gone. No one was there.

  “Casper, find that family for me. I want to talk to the father again.”

  Casper moved away and ascended a set of stone stairs to her right.

  Alone, she turned in a full circle, waiting for something from Vivian. Nothing came.

  To her left was what looked like an old restaurant. Maybe the economic crisis aided its demise. Or maybe it closed down a long time ago.

  She walked over to its door and tried the handle. Locked. She tried to peek through the windows that were covered in newspaper, but that proved difficult. She dropped to the bottom part of the window. Sunlight filtered through on the opposite side of the room behind the glass. There was enough light to see the dirty floor which was covered with papers strewn about. But what caught her eye were the footprints that had waded through the dust, leaving tracks toward the back. Those prints were recent. Nothing else appeared disturbed.

  She tried the door again, firmer this time. Using her shoulder, she tried to bump it open. Nothing.

  The glass would have to be broken. There was no other way. A quick entrance and exit and then off the island with the ledger, providing it was in there.

  Someone was coming down the stairs behind her. She turned around to see Casper.

  “I couldn’t find them. I even asked those two teens with their mother, but no one has seen the family of four you were talking to on the boat.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. I think the ledger’s in here.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Footprints in the dust are current. Look.” She pointed at the small hole in the newsprint and Casper bent down to look.

  “You’re right.” He tried the door. Put his shoulder into it, too.

  “The glass,” Sarah said. “Break the glass.”

  Casper pulled his gun, flipped it around and hit the glass with the butt end. It broke and made a huge racket as it clattered to the floor. Sarah hopped over the sill, careful to not get cut, and disappeared inside.

  “I’ll wait out here,” Casper said behind her.

  Old furniture was piled up along one wall. Tables lie on their sides, chairs piled one on top of the other. Two grime-covered carpets were rolled up and shoved into a corner. Sarah followed the footsteps toward the back of the restaurant wondering how Wong got in here if those were his footprints. If he didn’t break the glass, then he must’ve gotten the key from the owner or picked the lock.

  The prints led her into what was once the kitchen of the small restaurant. Most of the cupboards were open and empty with two of them broken off. A large walk-in freezer sat to the side, the door open wide. The only door that remained closed was the oven.

  Gingerly, Sarah touched the handle of the oven’s door and figured she would count to three and yank it open. This had to be the place. Could the oven’s door be rigged to blow? Wong was into explosives after all.

  “Sarah!” Casper shouted.

  She jumped again and let go of the oven door. “What!” she yelled back.

  “Come quickly.”

  Moving away from the oven, she left the kitchen and retraced her steps to the broken glass window.

  “Come on out,” he said. “You’re going to love this.”

  Sarah eased out of the restaurant and turned to face him. Casper had a large black book in his hands.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Sarah asked.

  “It is.”

  “Since my nerves are frayed and my patience has dried up—think Sahara Desert dry—would you like to tell me where you got that?”

  “The guy you talked to on the boat on the way over here. He gave it to me.”

  “Jonas?”

  Casper nodded like he just told her a dirty joke, his grin devilish. “Apparently they had walked around the outside of the castle wall and discovered a small hole in the stones, sheltered from the sea and wind. When Jonas took a picture with his flash to capture whatever was inside the hole, he saw this sitting in there. He grabbed it and was heading toward the boat when he passed me standing here. I asked him where he’d found it and after a short conversation, I relieved him of James Wong’s black book. We’re golden. We can go and prosecute nearly a hundred people because of this gem.”

  “This is unbelievable.” Sarah started back toward the boat. “I want to talk to Jonas. No, I need to talk to him.”

  Casper caught up with her. “You can’t. Another boat came in and took his family off the island.”

  She stopped walking and faced Casper. “So he’s gone?”

  Casper nodded.

  They boarded the boat without another word. She shoved thoughts of Jonas away and focused on Aaron. Miraculously they had the ledger. It was over. She could go and get Aaron.

  The boat started back for shore. Sarah remained silent on the way back. Once off the boat and back on the pier, she recalled that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

  “We need to grab something before we get on the chopper. I’m famished.”

  “Okay, we’ll grab a gyro and walk with it. A plane is already waiting at the Athens airport. You can sleep on the way to L.A. It’s a little over sixteen hours of total flight time.”

  “Great,” she said sarcastically.

  They found a small restaurant that served gyros, and Casper reluctantly agreed to sit and eat instead of walking back to the chopper.

  “It’ll only take us five minutes to have a meal,” Sarah said. “Sit down and eat and shut up. We’ve got the ledger. It’s over.”

  “Yeah, thanks to your friend.”

  “Jonas is not a friend. In fact, I think he’s responsible for something. I just don’t know what, though.”

  “You don’t make much sense sometimes.”

  “Good.”

  They ate, Sarah devouring hers before Casper finished.

  “I have to use the boy’s room before we go to the chopper,” Casper said. “Wait here.”

  Sarah leaned back in her chair and looked around. She watched the people come and go. The carefree vacationers having a good time. They felt safe, comfortable. They laughed and appeared to be enjoying life. Would she ever have this? Could it be possible with who she had become?

  “Excuse me,” a man said beside her.

  She turned to look up at him but the sun blocked her vision. She brought a hand up to ward off the sun. With one eye open, she caught a glimpse of his face. A dark-skinned, Spanish looking man held a small white box in his hand.

  “This is a gift from a common friend,” he said in a Spanish accent.

  A gift? That made her wary.

  “What friend?” she asked.

  “When you open it, you’ll understand.”

  The man set the box down on her table and started away with purpose.

  That was weird.

  She undid the green string and slowly opened the top. Inside, there was a small envelope. She picked it up and looked back over at the figure of the man retreating toward the parking lot. Then she opened the envelope.

  It was an invitation card. It told her to join them at their horse ranch for a race one week from then to see who lives or dies. Miss the race at her own peril.

  That was odd. What ranch? Where?

  She saw the man still walking away. He hadn’t looked back once.

  She flipped the card over and saw Tijuana Mexico written in a dark red substance like melted wax. It reminded her of those old feather pens dipped in ink.

  Could it be blood?

  Tijuana, Mexico? The Enzo Cartel? Spanish accent? She looked sideways. The man was far away, but she could still see him meandering through the parking lot. He wasn’t Spanish. He had to be Me
xican.

  Inside the box, below where the card had sat, was another smaller box. She flipped the top off it just as Casper stepped up beside her.