by Sandra Brown
“Then he’s not?”
“He is, but he keeps track of my itinerary.”
“So he knows where you are at any given time.”
“Yes.” Minutes earlier, she’d been thinking how glad she was to have avoided one of Jasper’s debriefings late last night. Now, she was defending his husbandly concern. “It only makes sense. It’s a safety precaution.”
“Me? I’d want to put a chip in your ear.”
Again Drex’s grin lightened the tenor of the conversation and relieved the tension inside her chest that had begun to collect. She had disliked having to justify Jasper’s vigilance over her schedule.
Drex looked toward the wheelhouse. “How long have you two been together?”
“Together, a year and a half. Married, eleven months.”
“That was a short courtship.”
“Relatively.”
“He must have swept you off your feet as soon as you met. How did you?”
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
He came back around to her. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me you found each other online.”
“Well, in a sense, but not on a match-up service. We corresponded by email for several weeks before we met in person.”
His eyebrows bobbed above his sunglasses. “Do tell.”
She laughed. “It’s not at all salacious. He’d booked a trip—domestic—through our office in Savannah. When he returned, he had a complaint about one of the hotels we’d booked him into, and wanted to take up the issue with the top dog.”
“That would be you.”
“He was given my email address. I looked into his complaint, and found that it had merit. I got him a full refund for that night. He was impressed by the excellent service.”
“And proceeded to email you flowery compliments for weeks.”
“Then gave me flowers for real.”
“Smoooooth. What did the card say?”
“There wasn’t a card. He drove from Savannah to Charleston to deliver the bouquet in person.”
He whistled softly. “Even smoother.”
“It was a change from being asked out via text.”
“The suave move worked, and here you are. Happ’ly ever after.”
She looked down at her wedding band and turned it around on her finger. “Here I am.” Her soft comment was followed by a ding. She raised her head and looked across the table. “Is that your phone?”
“Yeah.” Looking resentful of the interruption, he stretched out his leg and dug into the front pocket of his shorts for his phone. He looked at the readout. “I set myself a reminder. I’m supposed to call my agent. But can I get cell service out here?”
“It extends offshore for ten or fifteen miles.”
“Then I’d better make the call. He’s expecting it.”
He was about to stand when she motioned him back into his chair and got up herself. “I’ll go inside.”
“No, stay here. I’ll go forward. Once he gets wound up, he tends to ramble.”
“It would be hard for you to hear above the wind. Besides, I need to make myself useful.”
Drex was reluctant to end their private conversation. He watched her until she was inside before he tapped in the number. It was answered immediately. “Sheriff’s office, Deputy Gray speaking.”
“Agent Easton. Did you locate the file?”
“Yes, sir.”
Early that morning, Drex had called the Monroe County sheriff’s office in Key West, Florida, figuring that whoever was working the undesirable Sunday morning shift would be junior in rank. A more senior officer wouldn’t be as impressed to be speaking with a federal agent and would have given Drex a lot more hassle.
As good fortune would have it, Gray was just such a rookie.
In their earlier conversation Drex had told him that his field office in Lexington was investigating a missing person case. “Single, affluent, middle-aged woman. It’s almost certain a kidnaping. One of our data analysts determined that some of the particulars of this disappearance are similar to a case your department investigated a few years back.”
There was no such active case in Lexington, but there was a cold case in Key West, where Marian Harris had disappeared, abandoning her yacht in a private harbor and leaving her bank accounts empty.
It could be sheer coincidence that within hours of meeting Jasper Ford, Drex had been invited to go out on a boat with him. The man might never have spent a day of his life in Key West. But Drex had played a hunch and called the sheriff’s department that morning anyway.
He was glad he’d had that foresight, and unapologetic for lying about an investigation in Lexington, because, since talking to Deputy Gray this morning, he’d learned from Talia that Jasper had a passion for being on the water and at the helm of a yacht.
Gray had asked for a few hours to locate the file. Drex had told him he would call back at a designated time. It wasn’t the most ideal time to talk, but Gray was due to go off duty soon, and, besides that, Drex was eager to hear anything the deputy could tell him.
“What have you got for me? And you’ll have to speak up. I’m outdoors.”
“This case was before I joined the department. In between performing my other duties, I’ve been reviewing it, so I have a general grasp. It would help if I knew what you’re looking for, specifically.”
“In particular, I’m seeking information on one of Ms. Harris’s acquaintances. A Daniel Knolls.” Drex spelled the last name.
He could hear Gray tapping on a keyboard. “After she went missing, Knolls was interrogated and released. He owned up to staying overnight on her yacht on several occasions. But other people did, too. Their relationship was platonic, not romantic. He was never considered a suspect. He cooperated fully with investigators.”
Drex already knew all that. Daniel Knolls had cooperated fully, then he’d bolted. He had vacated his apartment and had left no forwarding address. So far, Daniel Knolls hadn’t been heard of again. No credit card charges. No activity on the Social Security number attributed to him. No passport. Taken at face value, he had ceased to exist within two weeks of Marian Harris’s disappearance.
Drex looked toward the wheelhouse. He could see Jasper silhouetted behind the wheel. “Is there a photograph of Knolls in the file?”
“One.”
Drex knew the picture. The quality was lousy. A merging of smiling people whooping it up on the deck of Marian Harris’s yacht. Blurred figures backlit by a blazing setting sun. It could have been Drex himself standing there in the background, face averted from the camera.
He said, “Can you scan that photo and send it to the email address I gave you this morning?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Is there anything new on the case? Any recent info on Knolls?”
“Let’s see. Says here he was sought for questioning after Marian Harris’s body was discovered, but he—”
“Excuse me, what?” He plugged his free ear with this index finger. “Did you say her body was discovered?”
“Yes, sir.”
Drex’s heart began to pound. None of the previous victims had ever been found. “When was this? Where?”
“Give me a sec here, please.”
It took more than a sec. Drex thought his head would explode before the deputy said, “Okay. Here’s the skinny. A construction crew in Collier County was dredging a creek so they could replace old bridge abutments with new ones. Backhoe dug up a box.”
“Box?”
“Like a shipping crate. Wood. Dimensions were six by three by four feet. Lid was nailed shut. The remains were inside.”
“When was this?”
“Uh…Only three months ago. FBI was given a heads-up. Everything was sent to an Agent Rud…rud…”
“Rudkowski.”
“That’s it.”
That son of a bitch. Drex removed his ball cap, put his elbow on the table, and rested his forehead in his palm. The Champagne was churning hotly in his stomach. “T
he remains were positively identified as Marian Harris?”
“Using dental records.”
“Cause of death?”
“Suffocation.” Then, “Oh Jesus.”
“What?”
The boat was slowing down. They would be anchoring soon. Through the glass walls enclosing the lounge area, Drex could see Elaine and Talia laughing together as they set the dining table for lunch.
Drex said, “Gray, you still there? What?”
He heard the deputy swallow. “Man, this is grim.”
“Tell me.”
“There was blood inside the crate. On the underside of the lid. Streaks of it, like claw marks. Appears the vic was buried alive.”
Chapter 5
Gif shared Drex’s horror. “Buried alive?”
As soon as Drex had returned from the yacht cruise, he’d showered off the salt spray as well as the taint of Jasper Ford. He’d parked himself in front of the borrowed fan and placed a three-way call to Gif and Mike. They’d been waiting to hear about his afternoon excursion, but the news about Marian Harris was unexpected. It had rocked them, just as it had Drex.
“A minute after hearing that, I had to sit down across the table from him and eat chilled watercress soup and shrimp salad with his homemade rémoulade.”
“Mild or spicy?”
“Fuck, Mike,” Drex said. “That’s crass, even for you.”
“You’re right. Sorry. I’m deflecting my guilt. How did I miss that her body had been discovered?”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Gif said. “It really wouldn’t have done us any good to know before today.”
“At the time she was found, she’d been missing for almost two years,” Drex said. “A widow, no children. Most of her friends in Key West were snowbirds, vacationers, jet-setters from the U.S. and abroad. Word eventually would have gotten around to them, I’m sure, but I doubt there was a groundswell of reaction. Local news in southern Florida may have made the recovery of her remains a headline. ‘Authorities hope the discovery will provide clues into the Key West’s woman’s kidnaping and apparent murder.’ Then, on to weather and sports.
“I don’t know if there was a memorial service or observance of any sort. But it didn’t warrant national news coverage, so it was easily overlooked, Mike.”
Marian Harris’s fate was upsetting to Mike and Gif, but, because of his mother, it affected Drex in ways they couldn’t relate to.
He didn’t have any substantial memories of her, only infinitesimal snatches of recollection lurking in the dark corners of his memory. But they were meaningless because he couldn’t fit them into any context. He had no points of reference. By the time he was old enough to retain memories, she had been long absent from his life.
When he reached an age to become aware of and curious about this deficiency and had asked to see a picture of his mother, his dad had claimed not to have one. Then, as now, Drex figured that he’d been lying, or, if telling the truth, it was because he’d destroyed any pictures of his ex-wife.
Their separation had been bitter, absolute, and permanent. His father even went so far as to have his and Drex’s names legally changed so that, even if she had rethought her decision and wanted to reconcile, she wouldn’t have been able to find them. Though Drex didn’t learn of that until years later.
In his early teens, when he was going through a rebellious phase, he’d demanded to know how he could contact her. His father had refused to provide him with any information, describing their severance as an extraction and an exorcism.
The only picture Drex had of her was the one that had been circulated by the Los Angeles PD when she went missing, and he hadn’t seen it until years after the fact when no one was still actively looking for her.
It was then that he had assumed the search. He didn’t really expect to find his mother living somewhere in obscurity. He had reconciled that she’d been killed and that her remains had been left where they were unlikely ever to be found.
No, he didn’t begin searching for his mother. Rather for the man responsible for her disappearance. He had vowed not to stop until he found him. And he wouldn’t.
However, from the outset of his quest, he had avoided speculating on his mother’s manner of death. But after what he’d heard today about Marian Harris, to imagine the woman who’d birthed him suffering a similar fate, to envision how horrific her end might have been, made him break a sweat despite his recent shower and the whirring fan.
Plowing his fingers through his damp hair, he left his chair and went to stand by the window. The Fords had returned home only a few minutes behind him. He hadn’t seen either of them since. There was no sign of them now.
Were they upstairs or down? Sharing a room? A bed? A kiss? Was he caressing Talia with the same hands that had nailed shut that shipping crate with a breathing Marian Harris inside?
He inhaled deeply through his nose, exhaled through his mouth, whispering, “He buried that woman alive.”
“You say that like it means something,” Gif said. “I mean more than the obvious.”
Drex said, “We’ve been on the hunt for a con man who kills his victim solely to eliminate a witness. After learning about Marian, what’s obvious to me now is that this guy is more than that. He likes the killing.”
“Thrill kills?” Mike asked.
“Maybe not that extreme,” Drex said thoughtfully. “Close, though. He could be evolving into that.”
“His version of middle-age crazy?”
“You’re joking, Gif, but that makes a weird kind of sense. He’s getting older. He watches the news. He sees the new generation of degenerates outdoing him. To compete, he’s got to up his game.” He cursed softly. “Which means I do. I’ve got to rearrange my thinking, start looking for traits in Jasper that—”
“You don’t know that your neighbor is Knolls,” Mike said. “Or Weston Graham, or whatever the hell his real name is.”
“It’s him. I know it.”
“No, you don’t, Drex.”
He was annoyed by his cohort’s denial of what he felt—knew—in his bones, in his gut. “Did you get the picture?”
Drex had asked the deputy in Key West to send the party shot to a dummy email account to which none of the three could be linked.
“Yeah,” Mike replied. “I magnified it and compared the guy in the background to Ford’s South Carolina driver’s license picture. There’s no resemblance.”
“I trust my gut more than I do photography. Look more closely.”
“Drex—”
“Blow that picture up to the size of a fucking football field. Count every pore on the bastard’s face if you have to. It’s him.”
Quietly, Gif said, “You want it to be him.”
“All right, yes!” Drex fired back, in an angry hiss. “I want it to be him.”
Staring at the Fords’ house was only making him crazy. He went to the fridge, got a bottle of water, and returned with it to the chair. Neither of the other two spoke.
After taking a long drink and calming down a degree or two, he said, “Find out everything you can about Elaine Conner.”
He told them what he had learned about her through conversation. “The yacht is named Laney Belle, her husband’s pet name for her. It’s registered in Dover, Delaware, where he hailed from. I get a sense that he was older and had old money, but I’m guessing. She’s an attractive, rich widow.”
“Our guy’s type.”
“That occurred to me,” Drex said. “Although Elaine is more bubbly than the others. More self-assured and less needy. Gregarious. Life of the party. But he’s very courtly toward her, and she eats it up.”
“His wife isn’t jealous?” Gif asked.
“If she is, I didn’t pick up on it. She and Elaine come across as good friends.”
“What’s she like?”
“I just told you, Mike. Bubbly.”
“Not her. Talia Ford.”
“Shafer. I learned today that she goes by
her professional name.”
Mike, who had no regard for political correctness, huffed, “Women these days.”
Gif repeated Mike’s question. “What’s she like?”
I took her tray, she took my breath. Her eyes are the color of wood smoke and just as hypnotic. A smile I wanted to eat.
He cleared his throat. “She’s damn smart, I’ll say that. Told me the history of her company. Inherited, but she expanded it, sold it, and then trumped the buyer. I was intimidated.”
“A ball-breaker doesn’t sound like our man’s type.”
“She’s not a ball-breaker.”
“Huh. By the way she was flaunting her success—”
“She wasn’t flaunting,” Drex said, making his irritation plain. “Why don’t you get a clue, Mike?”
“About what?”
“Societal shifts.”
“What?”
“Never mind. You’re hopeless.”
Gif interceded. “Drex, I think what Mike is clumsily and stupidly—”
“Hey!”
“—trying to get out of you is your sense of Jasper Ford’s wife.”
“I just told you,” Drex said. “For a woman her age—”
“She’s thirty-four.”
Mike and his research. He would know her birthday, too. “Okay, then. She’s accomplished a hell of a lot in her thirty-four years.”
“She attractive?”
“You could say so, sure. All his victims have been. I thought you were looking for Shafer Travel ads from back before she sold it. No luck?”
“Found the ads,” Mike said, “but they featured a family crest–looking logo, no photos of her. I did find some pictures of her on Google, but none that good or that recent. The business has social media accounts, but they’re also under the logo. If she has personal accounts, they’re private.” After a portentous pause, he continued. “I did scare up a slick business journal that did a feature article on her shortly after she sold out. There was a picture. Close-up. Professional photographer. The piece was published a few years ago, but I doubt she’s gone to seed since then.”
Gif said, “Come on, Drex, level with us. One could say that she’s several notches above ‘attractive.’ Or was that magazine photo airbrushed?”