Francesca Cruz was a police officer for the Paradise Isle Royal Police Force. She’d helped me on a couple of other cases in the past, and I felt confident that she’d be able to help me out once again. I parked my Jeep in the parking lot across the street from the PIRPF, next to a tricked-out black Escalade.
Inside, Officer Jefferson, a young, pudgy-faced fellow with one wandering eye, was seated at the front desk as usual.
“Hey, Officer Jefferson, what’s going on?” I said, coming in hot with my hand extended.
The man smiled at us. He was a likable enough fellow, and though not many of the other police officers seemed to appreciate my specific brand of cereal, Officer Jefferson was always friendly towards me.
“Not much, Drunk. It’s been a pretty quiet day.”
I nodded. “That’s always good to hear. Hey, I’m looking for Officer Cruz. Is she in by any chance?”
“Oh, yeah, she’s at her desk. I’ll get her.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
We waited while Jefferson called her to the front. Minutes later, she appeared in front of us. As always, the sight of her took my breath away. Even in her police-issued uniform, Frankie’s athletic curves stood out. She had dark, exotic eyes and a sleek black ponytail. Truth be told, I was immensely attracted to Ms. Francesca Cruz. And not just in an I-wanna-bone kind of way. No, I had too much respect for the woman to look at her like that. Not that I’d never thought about what it would be like to take her to bed. I mean, come on, I wasn’t a choirboy, after all. I had to have a lot of self-discipline when she was around. Otherwise, it was too difficult working together if I allowed my mind to wander freely.
“Danny, Mr. Becker—hey, what are you two doing here?”
Al was the first to give her a hug. “Please, Francesca, call me Al.”
She chuckled. “Good to see you, Al.”
When it was my turn, I opened up wide for a hug. “Damn, Frankie, looking good as always.”
She laughed as I enveloped her.
Squeezing her tightly, I whispered in her ear, “I missed you, woman.”
“Yeah, I noticed how much you missed me. All those missed calls and texts on my phone and all—”
“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling back to give her a sheepish smile. “I’ve been doing some soul searching. I figured I had a lot to prove to myself before we could hang out again.”
“Oh yeah? Have you finished yet?” She smiled, her hands on her hips.
“I’m getting closer.”
“Well, good. I wouldn’t mind catching up.”
“For sure. We’ll catch up. But first, Al and I are working on something. We were wondering if maybe we could ask you a couple questions. Kind of off the record.”
“Off the record?” Her shoulders crumpled. “Come on, Danny. I can’t keep doing these projects with you off the record. Every single thing we’ve worked on together has put me lower and lower on the totem pole around here. If I get any lower, I’ll be scraping gum off the bottom of Sergeant Gibson’s shoes.”
I balked. “You’re kidding. That last arrest didn’t do anything to help you move up rank towards inspector?”
“I don’t know about it helping me to move up rank,” she said with a chuckle, “but it certainly didn’t earn me any brownie points with Gibson.”
“Ugh. What’s his issue?”
She shook her head. “He just doesn’t like me. Never has.”
“Because you’re a woman?” I asked.
“Because he’s a chucklehead,” blurted Al, glancing around like he was listening but not invested in the conversation.
Frankie grinned and her head kind of bobbed. “All of the above and maybe because I lived in the States for a while. Maybe he looks at me like I’m an American? I don’t know what else it could be.”
“Okay, well, you don’t have to get involved. I just need to ask you a couple questions. That’s it. Then you can wash your hands of me.”
She chuckled. “Who said I want to wash my hands of you? We just can’t partner up anymore.”
I smiled. “That’s fine. I’ve got Al here. We can figure this out together.”
She looked at me and then at Al thoughtfully. Finally, she sighed. “Just a few questions?”
“Yeah, it’ll only take five minutes, I swear.”
“Fine. Come on.” She beckoned for us to follow her.
We walked past several closed office doors including Sergeant Gibson’s before we got to her office, which was little more than a partially enclosed cubicle amongst other partially enclosed cubicles—some with officers and/or criminals in them and some without. The whole room buzzed with activity, and the familiar pungent smell of coffee and stale cigarette smoke filled my nose, reminding me to be thankful that I wasn’t a cop anymore. Now I got to smell salt, sand, and seaweed, and I was all the better for it.
Al and I both took a seat in front of her desk. I pointed to her boss’s office. Sergeant Gibson, a stocky man with skin the color of obsidian and a voice just as deep, sat behind his desk, chatting with a very tall, broad-shouldered man in a slick black suit. The man had dark wavy hair and shiny black shoes, and he looked like if Javier Bardem and Negan from The Walking Dead had a triplet brother. “Who’s the VIP?”
“Rupert Villanueva. He’s the commissioner of customs.”
I tipped my head sideways as I looked over at Al. “No shit? That’s the guy I need to thank for raising the tariffs so high that I could barely afford to buy a new vehicle.”
Al patted my knee. “Let it go, kid. What’s done is done.”
“Danny. You bought a new car?” asked Frankie.
I tore my eyes off the commissioner and looked at Frankie. “Yeah. A Jeep. I was tired of bumming rides off people and borrowing the resort’s car.”
She nodded. “It’s a small island, but everything is so spread out you need a vehicle to get anywhere. It’s probably long overdue.”
Al pointed his finger at her. “That’s exactly what I said. He just didn’t want to spend the cash.”
“Hey, frugal is sexy.” I shrugged and gave Frankie a playful smile. “Especially after someone decided to give all my money to their brothers. I’m not naming any names, though.”
She chuckled. “Hey, you owed them. You blew up my brother’s boat!”
“And I would have taken care of that obligation.”
“Really.” She looked at me like she doubted me.
“Of course I would have. I’m a nice guy, Frankie.”
She leaned back in her seat and nodded. “I know you are, Danny. And I believe you would’ve taken care of your obligation to my brothers. Maybe I was wrong for coercing you into give them all of the money.”
I shrugged. “Coercing?” I balked. “You told me I could either give it to them or to the cops!”
I was sure I saw her blush. “And that was wrong of me. I was just trying to make it right with my brothers. I didn’t want them to get screwed over in the end because then I’d never hear the end of it.”
I leaned back in my seat. “I didn’t come here to argue with you about that, Frankie. Like you said, it really wasn’t mine to start with anyway, so it wasn’t mine to lose. Plus, I’m not completely broke. Not yet anyway.”
She nodded. “I’m proud of you for taking it so well, Danny.”
“I am too, kid,” agreed Al, patting me on the shoulder. “Good for you. I like your attitude.”
“Thank you.” I leaned forward then. “Now. About the reason we’re here…”
Frankie lowered her brows and nodded, her face taking on a more somber look. “Yeah, what’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know. First of all, I promised I would handle this on my own, so I need you to promise that this is off the record. At least for now.”
“Has a crime been committed?”
“We don’t know,” said Al.
“Not yet anyway. That’s what we’re trying to figure out. There’s a girl. No one has heard fr
om her for a while. I’m just trying to track her down.”
“A girl? How old is she?”
“Sixteen.”
Frankie nodded. “It happens. Seems like there are more and more every year.”
“You’re kidding,” said Al. “Why is that?”
She shook her head. “You know, I couldn’t really tell you. Most of them are runaways. Gibson doesn’t like wasting a lot of department resources on kids that run away and end up coming back on their own.”
“But you couldn’t—” I began.
She shook her head and cut me off before I could finish my sentence. “I can’t do anything Sergeant Gibson doesn’t want me to do. It’s just the way it is. He’s the boss, and if I ever want to get ahead, I’ve got to play by his rules.”
“So you just let young girls like that stay missing?”
“No, we start files on them. We do what we can do, but you don’t understand, Danny. Most of them return home, but occasionally there’s that one that doesn’t.”
“That’s just terrible.”
She nodded. “I completely agree.”
“Well, I’m not going to let this girl stay missing. I promised I’d do my best to find her, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“That’s very noble of you, Danny. Who’s the girl?”
“A woman that I work with has a seventeen-year-old daughter that just started a summer internship at the resort. It’s her best friend. My coworker doesn’t know that her daughter came to me. Teenage girl stuff, I guess. But I promised I’d keep it close to the vest until we got further in the investigation.”
Frankie threw up her hands. “You want me to run a background check on her?”
“I was hoping you could do that,” I said, nodding. “And maybe see if she’s in any local lockups?”
“Sure. What’s her name?” Frankie leaned forward in her seat and awakened her computer.
“Jordan Lambert.”
She typed the name into her computer system while we sat waiting. Finally, she gave me a tight grin. “Sorry, Danny. I don’t see anyone in the system with that name. As far as I can tell, she’s never been arrested.”
I sighed. “Damn it. I was hoping maybe she was sitting safely in a jail cell somewhere. That would’ve made it easy to find her.”
Frankie gave me a sympathetic smile. “Have you tried her extended family?”
“She doesn’t have any other family on the island, and I’ve checked the airport. If she left the island, it wasn’t by plane.”
“I wish I could help you more.”
I shook my head. “No, you’ve done enough. Al and I are going to have to get creative,” I said determinedly. “Right, Al?”
His head bobbed. “We’re going to do our best.”
I stood up then. “Okay, we’ll get out of your hair, Frankie. Thanks. If you hear anything about this girl or get any tips, would you keep us in the loop?”
“Oh, for sure. You didn’t even have to ask, Danny. I’ll keep my ear to the ground for you.”
“Thanks, Frankie.”
I held my arms out to give her another hug, but she glanced around the room full of other police officers and criminals and held out her hand instead. “It was good to see you again, Danny. Al.”
I chuckled as I squeezed her hand. “You too, Officer Cruz.”
11
Leaving the cop shop with little to go on, Al and I decided to follow up on the only other lead we had—the invitation to a private party I’d found in Jordan’s bedroom. Club Cobalt, located in what the locals referred to as “the District,” was a twenty-one-and-over establishment, and the fact that Jordan had an invitation to a party there made me wonder how she’d gotten it and if maybe she’d met someone there that she didn’t want Giselle to know about. I held out hope that we might find someone there that would say they’d seen her recently and might be able to give us a clue as to her whereabouts.
It was barely eleven o’clock when we pulled up in front of Club Cobalt. The sun shone brightly, the palm trees that lined the empty streets casting long, lonely shadows. The District looked like a ghost town without any cars or pedestrians in sight.
I shut off the engine and leaned forward against my steering wheel so I could look at the club’s darkly tinted glass front door. “It doesn’t look like they’re open yet.”
“You should check anyway,” said Al.
Opening my door, I hopped down out of the vehicle and walked over to the door. It was locked. The sign said they didn’t open until noon. I got back inside the Jeep and restarted the engine.
“They open?”
“Nah. Not until noon.”
“I could go for some lunch,” said Al, glancing down at his watch.
“It’s not even eleven yet.”
“Restaurants open earlier than bars, kid.”
Marveling, I stared over at him. “I don’t get it. You literally eat all day long, and yet you never grow.”
He shrugged. “I have a high metabolism.”
“You have an old metabolism. There’s a difference. You’re growing backwards. Pretty soon you’ll be so small, you’ll just be like a black hole.”
“I had a black hole once.” Al looked over at me and cracked a smile. “It was in my black sock.” He chuckled.
I rolled my eyes. “Those are the kinds of jokes that’ll get you sent to dad joke jail, Al.”
He grinned. “You know when a regular joke graduates to being a dad joke?”
I lifted a brow curiously, but before I could respond, Al answered for me.
“When it becomes apparent.” He chuckled.
“Oh, jeez. You make me wanna drink.”
“Let’s go get lunch, then. You can have a margarita. I’m in the mood for Mexican, but no more of those taquitos.”
“Yeah, you don’t have to tell me twice.” I’d only driven a few blocks when my phone rang. “Drunk here.”
“Hey, Drunk. It’s D. How’s it going?”
“Diego, hey man. It’s going alright. What’s up?” Diego Cruz was one of Frankie’s older brothers.
“Miguel asked me to call and see if you had a minute. We got something we wanna chat with you about.”
“Is that right? Well, Al and I are in town. We just saw Frankie, actually.”
“Oh, yeah? Where at?”
“At the station. We’re heading to lunch now.”
“Lunch?” Diego sounded surprised. “It’s not even eleven o’clock yet, bro.”
I shot a sideways glance over at Al. “I’m aware. But we can probably hold off a minute. Where are you? Over at the marina?”
“Yeah, man. We’ll all be here for the next hour or so if you have time to stop by.”
“Alright. We’ll be over shortly.”
“See you then.”
I hung up the phone and looked over at Al. “That was Diego. The Cruz brothers wanna have a word with me. Can we swing by the marina before we do lunch?”
Al threw up his hands. “If we must.”
“Alright. Let’s go.”
* * *
The King’s Bay Marina wasn’t far from the District. I parked in their parking lot next to a white van with a big fish-shaped magnet on the side that read Cruz Bros. Commercial Fishing and Charter Fleet.
Waiting for Al on the side of the vehicle, I looked around. The Cruz brothers had made some serious improvements since the last time I’d been there. I was pretty sure the van was a new addition as I hadn’t seen it before. The narrow wooden walkway that connected the parking lot to the little marina building had doubled in width and the marina building itself looked to have new siding, new windows and a new front door, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the entire building looked bigger than it had the last time I’d been there. I wondered if they hadn’t added onto it.
“Wow,” said Al as we walked towards the office building. “They’ve made some serious upgrades around here.”
“No shit,” I grumbled. “I bet my money had a little some
thing to do with that.” Though I wouldn’t come right out and say it, I was still a little salty about the way things had gone down.
“I’d say it did,” agreed Al, bobbing his head.
“I imagine that’s why I’m here. They probably wanted to rub my nose in their good fortune.”
Al patted me on the back. “Stay cool, kid.”
“Yeah, I know.” I gritted my teeth and forced a smile on my face as I pushed open the front door to the marina office, where Solo and Beto Cruz worked. “I got this,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Hey, Drunk! Al!” said Rico, the shortest of the Cruz brothers. He rushed over to give us each a bro hug, but Al was old-school and Rico had to settle for a handshake.
“How’s it going, Rico? Hey, fellas,” I said, nodding at the rest of the burly Cruz brothers, who were all standing around in the middle of the marina office, talking loudly and laughing. We all took a minute to exchange bro hugs or handshakes and hellos. Except Solo, the oldest and most somber of the Cruz brothers. He sat at his desk with his feet up, calmly watching the commotion. When I approached him, he made no effort to get up. He did, however, offer me a hand.
“Drunk. Good to see you.”
“You too, Solo. How’s the family?”
“They’re good. Thank you for asking.”
“I just came from seeing Frankie. She’s looking good as always.”
The almost imperceptible smile he’d had vanished, leaving behind traces of a frown. I was sure he didn’t like hearing that I was still in contact with his sister. But ultimately, he’d promised to let her lead her own life and keep his opinion to himself.
With his lips smashed together, he gave me a bit of a nod. “Mmm. Yes.” He looked over my shoulder at Al. “Mr. Becker, how are you?” Solo went out of his way to get to his feet to shake Al’s hand. Whether it was a diss to me or a tribute to being raised by his mother to stand when greeting an elder, I wasn’t sure. I decided to take it as the latter.
“Good to see you, Solo. I like what you’ve done with the place,” said Al, his eyes scanning the place.
Solo’s head bobbed as he sat back down at the desk and folded his hands across his chest. “Yes, I think it all turned out nice.”
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