Hawaii Can Wait (The Girls Series)

by Sheila Horgan

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I did notice an anomaly.”

  “What’s that?”

  “About twelve pages into this rather disturbing document, Barry and this one young woman he refers to as ‘tits,’ describe a location. Not an address, but an intersection nearby and some details. I think they were going to meet for the first time. Then, several pages later, he does the same thing with another. I wonder if we would be able to determine just where these locations are.”

  “Even if we could, which seems doubtful, the young women aren’t going to be standing on the street corner waiting for us.”

  “Well, considering the conversations, they just might be. But I was thinking that we might be able to take a look around. Document what we see, and even if we don’t find the girls, if we have enough detailed information, when the time is right, we can use that information to make Barry believe we have discovered more than we actually have.”

  “Oh, you are good.”

  “It’s an old corporate trick. Never sell a product until you have it complete. Once you have it complete, then negotiate with the buyer with a bonus schedule that pays for a timely delivery. Arrange a small bonus if it is ready for delivery in a year. A reasonable bonus if it is ready for delivery in nine months. An outrageous bonus if it is ready for delivery in six months. You will always get the full bonus, because you’ve hit your milestones long before you’ve negotiated the deal.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “In today’s market, where things are considered antiquated an hour before they are released, it isn’t as effective, but back in the eighties and nineties, we made a rather sizable fortune on that strategy alone.”

  “Well, everything old is new again. Have you been in a store lately? Things I bought for my family in the seventies are new and exciting again. Maybe we can use your strategy on some unsuspecting person. It is one more tool in the toolbox. Young people seem to think they are the first to conceive of just about everything. We were the same way when we were young, maybe we can use that to our advantage. If you go through and find what you were telling me about, I’ll use the computer and see if I can find any locations that we might be able to do something with.”

  “And just how do you do that?”

  “I have no idea, but I’ll figure it out. Turns out you can ask the Internet just about any question and you get an answer and often enough it is the right one. If you use a little common sense you can filter out the trash from treasure and find what you’re looking for.”

  EIGHT

  When Carolyn arrived, she looked happy and reenergized. “I have great news.”

  “Please share with the class.” Anna was quick with the school related comments, mostly because they always made Carolyn smile.

  “Cara has turned a corner. They say that she is well enough to go home.”

  Adeline was happy, grateful and a little annoyed. Why had her team not informed her?

  “When did you learn this? From whom?”

  “A.J. told Suzi. They talked to the doctor just moments ago. Suzi just happened to call. The O’Flynns aren’t even aware yet. We were told as I was pulling over in front of the house.”

  Adeline’s phone rang. She muttered “Better late than never” and went to confirm her suspicion that it was Roland calling to give her the news. When she emerged from her room several minutes later, Carolyn and Anna had the table set and the kettle on.

  “Roland just informed me of Cara’s improved condition. Actually, it is more the case that she has had all the tests they feel are appropriate and the answers they have found make them comfortable she has no lasting physical injury. The head trauma they were so worried about seems to be healing appropriately. She has some broken bones to continue to deal with and I’m told that she is badly bruised and looks like she’s gone three rounds with a prize fighter, but all in all she has been very fortunate, as has Barry.”

  “Barry? How has he been fortunate?”

  “I’m told there are several O’Flynns that would like to find Barry before we do.”

  “That makes perfect sense. I’d like a shot at him myself.”

  “Yes, but if they are successful, that will only further complicate the situation. We do not want to get any O’Flynns arrested because of Barry. That would add insult to heart breaking injury.”

  “I understand, but I just don’t know that there is anything else we can do. I tossed and turned all night last night and I couldn’t come up with a single thought that would help.”

  “Well, Carolyn, Adeline did that for you.”

  “What?”

  “We couldn’t sleep either and when I came out to find something to munch on – we have got to find this boy before I blow up like a balloon because I am becoming a victim of comfort eating – Adeline was up and full of good ideas. We got busy and I think we came up with something.”

  “Oh, thank God. I’m sorry you didn’t get any rest, but I’m thrilled to hear that something is moving forward. What did you find?”

  For the next thirty minutes the girls sat around the small kitchen table and discussed all the possibilities and the outcome of their late night research. By early morning, that research had resulted in a hand full of new ideas and options.

  “The first thing I want to do is drive to that area.”

  “Don’t you think we should call in your people? Roland and his group are better suited to track down these kinds of people, don’t you think?”

  “Carolyn, I can’t believe my ears. Where is your sense of adventure?”

  “It left me just about the time Suzi shared some pictures of Cara with me.”

  “Pictures of Cara? Why on earth would anyone be so cruel?”

  “Actually, it was her father who took the pictures. He said he knows she will have a very hard time looking in the mirror and he wants to have solid proof available to her to show how far she has come and how much better she looks.”

  “I guess that makes some kind of sense, but how did they end up on Suzi’s phone?”

  “Mr. O’Flynn asked Suzi to take a couple. They were being very covert. While the O’Flynns kept Cara busy, Suzi got a couple of shots with her phone.”

  “That family is just a little bit off the track.”

  “I was thinking about that too last night after Suzi showed me and then went off to bed. But as I thought about it, it became more and more clear. I’m sure that having those pictures available for Cara to gauge her progress was not their only motivation. Suzi now has a reminder of just what Barry is capable of. She can refer to that picture whenever she starts to forget. It isn’t a pretty reminder, but I’m willing to bet it is an effective one.”

  “Though I find the approach somewhat dismal, I agree that it could be useful. Now that we know Cara is healing, our mission is all the more pressing. We cannot allow Cara to return home without having Barry well in hand.”

  Anna shook her head. “If I know the O’Flynns, and to be honest I don’t know them all that well, but I do know about a close family and I doubt Cara will be going home, I would be willing to bet large sums of money that Cara will be going to the O’Flynns’ house so that her mother can nurse her back to health and they can feel secure in that neighborhood. They’ve been there for years. They know the neighbors and the neighbors know them. That’s what I’d do.”

  “I’m sure you are right. I will call Roland straightaway and have him find a way to make that area as secure as he can without alarming the neighbors or aggravating the O’Flynns. Once we have that in motion, I would like to take the drive we mentioned. I have no intention of stopping or talking to anyone or putting myself in any danger at all, I simply want to get a look at the area.”

  Anna stood. “You aren’t going without me.”

  “Or me.” Carolyn sound more resigned than enthusiastic. She already had her grandchildren to worry about, and the whole O’Flynn family, now she had to add thes
e two lovely ladies to the list.

  She could feel herself being pulled toward the morass, the depression she fought her way back from after losing her husband. It was pulling harder every day.

  Anna drove. Adeline was in the front seat with Anna’s GPS squawking at them and the maps they’d printed out before sunrise sitting on her lap. Carolyn was in the back seat lost in thought.

  The area was not as seedy as Anna assumed it would be. There were a few indicators that it was not in its prime.

  You can always tell when you are getting into a questionable part of town. There are typically more liquor stores and more check cashing places. There are more people on the street and those people are using bicycles as transport instead of entertainment.

  Anna had expected them to end up in a neighborhood one step down from that, where the people couldn’t afford bicycles so they walked for transport or worse, in an area where the bicycles were ridden on the rims because replacement tires had long ago worn off.

  Those areas often had donut marks in every intersection and people standing in doorways watchful. If they came to that area, they would simply turn around and drive away. She’d checked her gas tank level before leaving the house, her car was in good working order, and they each had a cell phone.

  There was a time she would have felt almost traitorous about such thoughts and plans, but she was older now, and wiser, and there was not a single good reason to feel guilty about protecting herself or those she cared about.

  Her plan was simple. Drive to the neighboring town they’d found when Barry and a particularly mixed up young woman mentioned some landmarks, probably as a meeting place. Take a look around. Get a feel for it. Then head back to the house and see if there was anything else they could glean from the information they had. Once they gave it some thought and allowed it to percolate a bit, if they didn’t come up with a new approach, she would suggest that Adeline get in contact with Roland and ask that he follow up. Kimberly or another computer guru at Roland’s office could do things they couldn’t do. She could check for pings on cell phones and find out where the calls came from and went. Check for deleted information. All the things you see on television. Anna simply didn’t have the knowledge to do that type of thing.

  Adeline spoke and spooked Anna out just a little bit. “I was thinking about it last night. We do not have the capabilities of Roland and company as far as technology, but we have common sense and we are intelligent enough. I believe we can figure this out. Crimes were solved more often before technological advances.”

  “I agree that more crimes were solved. You can’t fight the numbers. I’m just not sure the guilty were those that were incarcerated.”

  “True. But we know who the guilty party is, so we don’t have to concern ourselves with that.”

  They had driven through the questionable area and come out in an older but lovely area of the town. The buildings were older, but well-kept and the people seemed to move without caution. There were several buildings that could have been the meeting spot for Barry and the troubled young woman – that is the term that came to Anna’s mind every time she thought of the girl – but the place that called to Anna was a little diner on the corner. It looked pleasant. Inviting. Safe.

  “You girls want to get a cup of coffee? That diner looks interesting and wherever they met had to be right around here somewhere. We can at least get a feel for the place. I’m sure it is very different at night, but this area hardly seems the place central casting would choose if you were making a movie about this type of thing.”

  “Porn movies are all done on set.” Carolyn’s voice floated forward.

  “And how would you know that?” Anna’s reply was full of fun.

  The girls needed to lift the spirit of the adventure.

  They could feel Carolyn falling and desperately wanted to help.

  Laughter is always the best medicine.

  Anna parked the car in a small lot at the end of the building and the girls walked down to the diner.

  The waitress was straight out of central casting. She was a pudgy little thing that had seen her fiftieth birthday. Maybe more than once. She had on an apron with gingham ruffles and nametag that said Flo and a pencil stuck behind her ear.

  The girls ordered a full meal of comfort food some of which Adeline hadn’t eaten in years.

  When the waitress delivered their order she stayed to chat. “So, what brings all y’all to this part of town? I never seen you before.”

  Anna, always prepared to take advantage of a situation, pulled out her smart phone and located a picture of Barry almost instantly. “We are just wondering if maybe someone in the area has seen this young man.”

  “How do you know Barry?”

  The girls were so shocked that the waitress not only knew Barry, but knew him by his correct name, that they were stunned for just a moment.

  Carolyn didn’t stop to think. “He is my granddaughter’s husband.”

  “No disrespect, but your grandson-in-law there is a righteous freak.”

  “That is what we are coming to understand. How do you know Barry?”

  “He came down here a while back, quite a while back, looking for the girls.”

  “The girls?”

  “That’s what they call themselves.”

  Adeline, Carolyn and Anna looked at each other and tried to determine if they should laugh or change their nickname for their group.

  Adeline spoke first. “Can you tell us about them?”

  “No. It really isn’t your concern. Maybe you should talk to your granddaughter.”

  Anna motioned for Flo to sit next to her in the booth. “We did. This morning. Barry has lost his damn mind. He beat the crap out of a young woman, he’s on the run, and his wife is pregnant. We need to find him and maybe you can help us to do that. Before he does something really stupid.”

  “I told Molly he was no good. You give me about three minutes. I’ll be back.” Flo jumped up and walked to the diner’s kitchen. The girls could see her talking on a cell phone through the cutout between the kitchen and the lunch bar.

  Several minutes passed. The girls finished their food and Anna got up and filled their coffee cups. When she had a good idea of how far Flo was — and the noise coming from the kitchen area — she leaned in and whispered, “I can’t believe our luck. What are the chances that we would stop for a cup of coffee and that they would know Barry here?”

  Carolyn wasn’t as optimistic. “What are the chances that Barry’s friends are calling him right now, or that some other problem is lurking around the corner and about to come through that door?”

  Adeline didn’t seem overly concerned. “The chances of finding out something about Barry were increased immensely by the fact that we came here specifically on that mission. You’ll recall that we knew the basic area from your detective work on the computer. And I highly doubt that some nefarious squad of deviants is about to come through the door. Those types of things make for good television drama, but I hardly think such a group was waiting in the wings on the off chance three older women would happen into a diner on the other side of town.”

  The girls were smiling when Flo came back to the table. “I made a call. Talked to Molly. If you can wait a few minutes, she’ll be here to talk to you. I hope that’s alright.”

  “Thank you, Flo.”

  Flo hurried away to greet a customer that had come in the door.

  Anna was grateful to see a customer. She was beginning to become uncomfortable that the place was empty, except for them.

  It wasn’t long before Molly showed up. At six foot five or six inches tall, and weighing in at about what Anna estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred and seventy five or four hundred pounds, Molly required a chair to sit at the end of the booth. Flo carried it from the far end of the lunch counter. Anna hadn’t noticed it tucked in the corner when she went on her hunt for their coffee earlier.

  Molly was obviously a regula
r. She didn’t place an order with Flo, but Flo called in an order to the cook. It would be enough to feed three people.

  “Thank you for the lunch invitation. What can I do for you?”

  Anna pulled out her phone as Adeline talked. “We appreciate your taking the time. It is our understanding that you may know a young man by the name of Barry—” before Adeline could say his last name, Molly cut her off.

  “We don’t deal in last names here. I wouldn’t know it anyway. Do you have a picture?”

  Anna handed Molly her phone.

  “Well, I’ll be. His name really is Barry. I would have bet that he was using some kind of alias. That’s what usually happens.”

  “You know Barry?”

  “Know is an interesting term, isn’t it? I’ve met Barry. He was a very unhappy man. Came down here looking for a couple of the girls. We can’t let that happen.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “How much do you know about Barry and his…” There was a pause while Molly searched for the right word. She obviously didn’t want to offend the older women’s sensibilities.

  Anna was firm. “We’ve read the text messages. We have a pretty good idea. We aren’t interested in his proclivities, we are just trying to find him before he does something stupid.”

  “I trust that this will go no further.”

  “You have my word.” Even to a perfect stranger, the way Adeline said it, she was easily believed.

  “Alright. I run a little business.”

  The girls had already figured out that they were sitting in the presence of a huge transgendered madam.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but it isn’t like that. I have a bunch of women that work for me. Mostly women, anyway. Hard to change the voice pre-surgery. Anyway, these women provide a service, but not the one you are assuming. My girls never come in contact with the men they service. It is all about fantasy. It’s all online or text. The men know that from the git. We don’t take kindly to men – or women for that matter – breaking our rules. Not only does it put my girls in danger, because some of these idiots are real freaks, but it pops the bubble of the fantasy.”