Don't Lose Her (22 page)

Then I stood and moved away to the north side of the second cabin, looking as if I were tending to one of the inflatables tied there. When I looked back, the two kids were being separated as protocol demanded. They sat the girl next to the door of the big cabin, and the boy over by the airboat. But they could not keep the two from making eye contact, and for some reason I rued the fact that this might be the closest they would be for the rest of their days. Then I surreptitiously lowered myself into the water from the opposite deck side and quietly swam away.

Chapter 38

T
wenty-four hours later, I was in the visitors' area of the maternity ward at Broward Health Medical Center, being briefed by my lawyer, friend, and new father, Billy Manchester.

After slipping unseen into the water of the fish camp—or perhaps not unseen at all and simply let go—I made it back to the kayak and called Mason Jumper on the cell I'd left there. He hadn't moved from our rendezvous point, even after he got a call that agents had come to his store asking for him, even after he saw the air support sweep in over the skies above the fish camp.

“How is the woman?” was all he asked before starting the engine of his airboat.

When we'd arrived back at his place, I was surprised to see that my Fury was still parked, untouched. I was not surprised to see that Nate Brown's truck was gone. If Nate dislikes anyone more than the game warden, the park rangers, or the state alcoholic beverages agents, it would be the feds. He would help me whenever I called, but he wasn't one to hang around and provide witness statements.

It was after midnight when I made it back to Sherry's place. I was exhausted, sunburned, hungry, thirsty, and not a little bewildered by the events of the past several days. My best friend's wife and newborn child were safe. The plot to kidnap a federal judge was still a mystery. The fate of two young people who had shown their humanity in the end was just as unknown to me. I had killed a man, and witnessed the birth of a precious and innocent life, in the span of a few minutes.

When Sherry arrived home, she rustled around in the kitchen for a few minutes before bringing a bucket of iced beer to the poolside lounge chair. Then she slid in next to me and didn't say a word. She knew I'd be there. She knew I'd get to it in time. We drank, went to bed, then slept and perhaps dreamed.

In the morning, I explained it all to her. She told me that Diane was listed in stable condition. The baby was still considered guarded. I had arrived at the hospital ward, showered and shaved, as Billy was emerging from Diane's room, where he said both she and the baby were asleep.

“Sh-she is three weeks pr-premature, b-but extraordinarily healthy, c-considering,” Billy said to my first question.

“She is exhausted, d-dehydrated, euphoric, and grateful,” he said to my second.

“I'm r-relieved, euphoric, and grateful,” he said to my third. And though euphoria was not something Billy did well, I believed him.

My fourth question was not answered so succinctly.

“Billy, what the hell was this all about?”

“D-diane is r-resting. Victoria is asleep. C-come, M-max. T-take a r-ride w-with m-me.”

We took the Fury, heading north, back to the federal courthouse where Diane's office now sat empty, the feds gone, and her case with Escalante on hold. While I drove within the acceptable speed range for I-95, Billy stoically explained.

“D-do you remember Judge Krome?”

“Stubby guy who does card tricks? Yeah.”

“He c-continued t-to regularly inquire on th-the st-status of the FBI s-search,” Billy said. “Wh-why s-so n-nosy? He b-barely knew m-me or D-diane. T-too interested. S-so I d-dug d-deeper.”

“No stone unturned” should have been Billy's motto, not the government's.

As we passed exits and traffic, Billy stared out ahead, spelling out the case as if in a grand jury hearing. Krome, he explained, was overseeing a disputed legal judgment involving private investment interests and Indian casinos. It was a boring white-collar feud, but with a huge amount of money at stake. A ruling, or lack thereof, would have implications across the Indian gaming industry countrywide. It probably would have been the highlight of courthouse coverage if Diane hadn't been adjudicating Escalante.

I stayed silent.

“Indian gaming is a s-seven-b-billion-d-dollar industry in th-this c-country, M-max.”

Money talks, I was thinking—nothing new there.

Billy went on to explain that the case hung on a single contract, which was due to go into effect last week. For one side to win, Krome didn't even have to actually make a ruling: he just had to keep granting extensions for the casino's lawyers until the contract went into effect. Past that date, the money had to be paid. Some people were going to be very rich. But granting such extensions is carefully watched.

“If anyone is w-watching,” Billy said, and now I was picking up a grit in my friend's speech, a hint of heat he rarely, if ever, let slip through.

“Distraction,” I said, finally getting it. “All this for distraction?”

“A m-magician's indispensable pl-ploy,” Billy said. “All eyes go t-to th-the abduction of a f-federal judge wh-who is d-deciding th-the f-fate of a c-cartel l-leader. All eyes are off th-the b-boring m-money c-case n-next d-door.”

“Provable?” I asked.

Billy sat quiet for a few seconds.

“If I have anything t-to s-say about it, yes.”

When we finally pulled up to the federal building in West Palm, I parked in the visitors' lot. Billy said we wouldn't be long.

As we walked the corridors of the courthouse, Billy was his pleasant but no-nonsense self. Several people who knew him approached to offer congratulations or simply to express their relief. He took their hands lightly, whispered “thank you,” and moved on. I let him lead us directly to Judge Krome's office. The judge's assistant recognized Billy as we walked in and rose from behind her desk.

“Mr. Manchester, we are all so relieved,” she said.

“Th-thank you, D-donna. Is th-the judge in?” he replied, pointing to the private chambers' door.

“Why, yes, let me tell him you're here,” the woman said, and began to reach for the intercom button on her phone.

“N-no!” Billy snapped. The woman's hand jerked away from the phone with the same surprised motion I adopted when the emphatic word came from my friend's mouth uncharacteristically.

I watched as Billy strode to the door, banged the handle lever down, and pushed the panel open. He stepped inside and hesitated. I waited a beat, and then followed.

“Why, Mr. Manchester, what a surprise,” the judge said as he rose from behind his ornate desk and stepped around.

Whether Billy's hesitation at the doorway was intended to bring the man out from behind the desk, I did not know. But I closed the door behind us.

Krome stepped around his desk and began to offer his hand, but Billy was already reaching into his briefcase and bringing out a sheaf of documents.

When Billy spoke, he had lost his stutter, the intensity of his anger in the presence of Krome completely overwhelming it: “This is a certification of ownership of the warehouse where my wife was held hostage for days,” he barked. I had never heard my friend bark. “Your ownership.”

Billy tossed the papers onto the corner of the desk and continued: “Here is an extensive list of the gambling debt that you owe to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino.”

I thought of the Seminole attorney Billy said owed him a favor. “Here is a police identification report linking the kidnappers to an Indian casino in Michigan whose owners are one of the primary beneficiaries of your latest nonruling on a joint appeals case.”

How Billy got that so soon, I had no idea. “And here is my petition to the court to demand a grand jury investigation of your personal participation in the kidnapping and abuse of Judge Diane Manchester and her child, Victoria Manchester.”

I don't use the word
befuddled
much, but the twitches in Krome's face, the spasms in his throat as he tried to speak, and the flash of fear in his eyes brought it to mind. “Why, I, uh, I have no idea what …” the judge uttered, trying to gather himself. But explanations were not what Billy had come for. My friend, my mild-mannered, never-get-your-hands-dirty friend, set his feet, the left slightly in front for balance and power, and delivered a straight right-hand punch that caught his judgeship square between the eyes. Krome stumbled back against a wall of legal tomes and slid down until his opulent butt was on the floor, eyes dazed, decorum finished. I might have been as stunned as he was.

Billy simply turned, opened the door, and walked out of the room. As I followed, we passed the judge's aide, who looked into the chambers as we filed out and took in the sight of her boss on the floor. When I turned to close her outer door, she looked into my eyes and gave me a big thumbs-up with her right hand.

As we marched down the courthouse hallways toward the exit, I said: “Bribery?”

“Undoubtedly,” Billy said.

“Provable?”

“D-depends on w-witnesses.”

As we continued out and across the parking lot, Billy hooked his thumb back toward the building.

“Wh-what d-do you th-think? Assault and b-battery?”

“Depends on the witness,” I said, smiling.

As we walked, I asked Billy if he'd really obtained an updated police report.

“Th-the FBI was tr-tracking IDs on th-the d-dead m-man and th-the t-two other Indians, b-but had already verified th-they w-were m-members of a Ch-chippewa tr-tribe in n-northern M-michigan,” he said.

The two living men were already “spilling” to federal interviewers that they were only hired and had no idea who Diane was, or why they were paid to take her off the street.

When I asked about the two kids, Billy's details were even sketchier. Using the girl's cell phone, they'd traced her to Traverse City, Michigan, where she apparently lived alone. But investigators had already elicited the help of a Michigan State Police homicide investigator by the name of Annette Cook, known for her skill in interviewing young female suspects, who was sent to the location tracked by text messages sent on the girl's phone.

“A friend of your young midwife, one Kelsey Preece, was quite helpful in filling in names and relationships when assured it was the only way she was going to help her friend,” Billy said.

“The Preece girl verified that the young woman, Rae McCombs, whom she called Radar, was in Florida with her boyfriend, Danny Peters, and that she thought they'd gotten in some kind of trouble.”

“Radar,” I looked quizzically at Billy, but then kept my mouth shut.

“They were apparently a couple. How they got involved and what their role was is still uncertain.”

We both went silent. The Florida sun was heating the pavement, the glaze of humidity rising, the day, even in the wake of what I considered an extraordinary event, simply moving along. As we walked, I noticed Billy shaking his right hand, as if trying to loosen something from his fingertips. When we reached my shaded car, he stopped before opening his door and grasped his hand, massaging the knuckles.

“D-does it always hurt th-this b-bad, M-max?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” I said, suppressing a grin.

He opened the door, but again hesitated before getting in.

“D-does it always f-feel th-this g-good?”

“Yeah,” I said, giving up the smile. “Sometimes.”

Epilogue

D
on't ever call me on this line again.”

“Relax, it's done now.”

“Done? It's in the shit.”

“The contract is good.”

“Christ, there's a man dead. People are in jail. Your people.”

“I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.”

“Right.”

“Like I said, the contract is good, Your Honor. They can appeal until hell freezes over. Your money is coming.”

“Great. I may need a good lawyer.”

Acknowledgments

T
o those who made this work possible. I'd like to thank Jessica for her insights on a young woman's perspective, Kathy and Twist for their early reads and advice, Rob for his guidance on weaponry, and the late Totch Brown for introducing me to and schooling me on the ways of the Everglades. Continuing thanks go to my agent, Philip Spitzer, who has been there from the start.

A Biography of Jonathon King

J
onathon King is the Edgar Award–winning author of the Max Freeman mystery series, which is set in south Florida, as well as a thriller and an award-winning historical novel.

Born in Lansing, Michigan, in the 1950s, King worked as a police and court reporter for twenty-four years, first in Philadelphia until the mid-1980s and then in Fort Lauderdale. His time at the
Philadelphia Daily News
and Fort Lauderdale's
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
laid the real-­life foundation for the creation of Max Freeman, a hardened former Philadelphia police officer who relocates to south Florida to escape his dark past. King began writing novels in 2000, when he used all the vacation days he accrued as a reporter to spend two months alone in a North Carolina cabin. During this time, he wrote
The Blue Edge of Midnight
(2002), the first title in the Max Freeman series. The novel became a national bestseller and won the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery Novel by an American Author.
A Visible Darkness
(2004), the series' second installment, highlights Max's mission to identify a dark serial killer stalking an impoverished community.
Shadow Men
(2004), the third in the series, revolves around Max's investigation of an eighty-year-old triple homicide, and
A Killing Night
(2005) tells the story of a murder investigation in which the prime suspect is Max's former mentor. After finishing
A Killing Night
, his fourth book, King left journalism to become a full-time novelist.

Since 2005, King has published his fifth, sixth, and seventh Max Freeman novels:
Acts of Nature
(2007), about a hurricane that puts Max and his girlfriend at the mercy of some of the Everglades' most menacing criminals,
Midnight Guardians
(2010), which features the dangerous reemergence of a drug kingpin from Max's past, and
Don't Lose Her
(2015), in which a federal judge is kidnapped and Max breaks all the rules to get her back. King has also published the stand-alone thriller
Eye of Vengeance
(2007), about a military-trained sniper who targets the criminals that a particular journalist has covered as a crime reporter. In 2009, King published the historical novel
The Styx
, which tells the story of a Palm Beach hotel at the turn of the twentieth century and the nearby community's black hotel employees whose homes were burned to the ground amid the violent racism of the time.

King currently divides his time between Florida, where his son is enrolled at Florida State University, and the Philadelphia area, where his daughter studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jonathon King playing basketball for his high school team, the Waverly Warriors, in Lansing, Michigan, in 1972.

King's yearbook photo from his senior year of high school in 1972.

For seven summers, from 1974 to 1980, King was a lifeguard in Ocean City, New Jersey. He's shown here in 1974 or 1975 with his best friend and fellow lifeguard, Scott Erb.

In 1976, King worked as part of a crew hired by boat owners to deliver sailboats from New Jersey to Florida at the end of the summer. He's shown here sailing a forty-foot vessel down the coast.

King's children, Jessica and Adam, at ages ten and eight, respectively, with the mascot of the University of Florida in Gainesville in 2003.

A handwritten manuscript page from King's debut novel,
The Blue Edge of Midnight
. Worried that his years as a reporter would make it difficult to write thoughtfully using a keyboard, King wrote his first two books with pencil on legal pads to avoid sounding like a journalist.

King's Edgar Award for the Best First Mystery Novel by an American Author, which he won in 2002 for
The Blue Edge of Midnight
, the debut book in the Max Freeman series. The Edgars, which are given annually by the Mystery Writers of America, are considered the most prestigious awards in the mystery genre.

King stands inside of Kim's Alley Bar, one of the oldest taverns in Ft. Lauderdale. Several scenes in the Max Freeman series take place here, particularly in
A Killing Night
, in which Max investigates the abductions of several bartenders. An actual bartender from Kim's Alley even made an appearance in the book.

King at an isolated fishing camp in the middle of the Florida Everglades.