Lost (24 page)

That shuts me up for a while. The giddy spike of hope quickly dissolves into low-level anxiety. Don’t think about Kelly, or what might be happening to her at this very moment, just concentrate on keeping the Hummer in sight.

They’ve gotten one light ahead, but are at the moment frozen in gridlock. We could get out and walk.

“Okay, we haven’t found her yet, but it does mean a lot, identifying the plane,” Shane explains, sensing my plummeting mood. “She’s almost certainly being held somewhere in Southern Florida, probably in a location just as remote as the hidden landing strip. Quite possibly within the Nakosha territory.”

We’re not moving. Slowed to a crawl, now we’re not even crawling. Stuck in gridlock just like the Hummer, what Kelly gleefully calls a Hum Job. Downtown Miami makes the LIE look like a trek in the remote wilderness. I turn in the seat, wanting to look Shane in the eye. “You think Indians did this? Kidnapped Kelly?”

The big guy shrugs, rubbing at his injured leg. “Don’t know. The men who came to inspect the aircraft were white. Redneck white. But the airstrip is right in the middle of tribal territory, so there has to be some sort of relationship. Could be someone in the tribe leases it out to smugglers. Lot of that went on in the old days. Tribe looks the other way, eventually makes some money out of the deal, in a way that can’t easily be traced or connected to the smuggling operation.”

“Is that what this is about. Smuggling? You think Kelly’s flyboy was running drugs?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “At a glance, yes, it looks that way. Drug deal gone bad. Except that Edwin Manning is involved, and somehow I don’t think a billionaire running a billionaire’s hedge fund is consorting with drugs dealers trying to turn a quick profit.”

I shake my head. “Look, I’m mad enough at this boy to strangle him. Seth I mean. For putting my daughter in danger. But you saw the pictures. He gets his kicks from airplanes and motorcycles and parachutes.”

“Agreed,” says Shane. “Smuggling drugs is low probability. Unless it was for the thrill of it. Like skydiving.”

“Now you’re really scaring me.”

Shane strokes, strokes thoughtfully at his carefully trimmed beard. “Whatever happened, we can know that Manning has been contacted. Demands have been made. He admitted that much.”

“Yeah, but what kind of demands?” I want to know.

“That’s the billion-dollar question.”

I’m grumbling at the stalled traffic when a light goes on over my dim, undercaffeinated brain.

“Give me your hat,” I say, snatching the ball cap off his head. “Take the wheel.”

I put the car in Park, engine idling. In a moment I’m out the door, dodging bumpers. Horns honk at me, but so what? Let ‘em honk. Let ‘em shoot me the digit, who cares?

In a few strides I’m clear of traffic and on the crowded sidewalk, giving a thumbs-up to a very startled Randall Shane as he tries to get his long legs behind the wheel, take control of the vehicle.

Pulling down the brim on the oversize hat, I head for the Hum Job.

14. Planet Ricky

Four miles to the south, more or less, in the gated enclave of Cable Grove, Myla methodically gnaws the glitter off her fingernails and wonders what should she do about Ricky. Munching nails in the cabana because that’s where she’s been hiding for the past five hours. Okay, not hiding, exactly, that’s the wrong word because Ricky hasn’t exactly been trying to find her. More like she moved her butt to the pool cabana because the house is simply too scary to share when Ricky Lang starts conversing with invisible people.

Talking with ghosts or whatever.

It began at three or so in the morning, with Myla sound asleep, snuggled under the covers because the AC is on frosty, just the way she likes it. Hot as a bug outside, where she left Ricky on a lounger by the pool, lying with his enormous forearms crossed under his head, staring up at the stars. Talking about how the stars hold stories of the ancient days, the days when the animal gods roamed the world and spoke to men in their true voices. Which was sort of romantic, until the clouds came rolling in and the rain started and Ricky would not stir from the lounger. Telling her the rain was good for her soul, if she had one.

If she had one.
What did he mean by that? Everybody has a soul, right? You get it when you’re born. It comes with. So, feeling a little petulant, a little put out, she’d left him there in the spattering rain and gone to bed. To be awakened hours later by a weird, high-pitched yowl that sounded like a raccoon caught in trap. She was instantly awake, ice water
in her veins, skin crawling. Because she knew it was Ricky making the noise.

She found him in Tyler’s bedroom, curled up on the little race-car bed. Hanging off the sides, actually, because he’s way too big. Eyes closed, his high cheekbones glistening with tears. And when he opens his eyes, responding to the light she switches on, he roars, shut that fucking off you bitch! and leaps to his feet, as agile and jumpy as some cougar on bad crank. Brushing her aside with a shrug of his powerful shoulders. Slamming her into the wall—although he didn’t mean to—it was as if she didn’t exist. As if he didn’t know who she was.

Right after the incident in Tyler’s room he starts talking, and not to her. Yakking and gesturing with someone who isn’t there. Pausing for the voices only he can hear, and then arguing with himself.

Myla has no idea what he’s talking about because he’s speaking what he calls pidgin. Nakosha words and phrases mixed with English and then stirred with a Spanish swizzle stick, is how he once explained it to her, bragging about the private language of his clan, understood by less than a hundred people on planet Earth. A planet no longer occupied by Ricky Lang, apparently.

Having no experience or understanding of active psychotic episodes, Myla assumes he’s on drugs. Eating mushrooms or buttons or whatever Indians do. All she knows is that he’s scarier than usual, and that’s when she decides to hang in the cabana for a while, until he calms down.

Hours go by. He never shuts up. Raging and laughing, crying and pleading, mostly in his own private language. Meanwhile Myla makes a nest for herself in the chlorine-smelling cabana, tries to nap on some deck-chair cushions but she can’t get comfortable. She thinks about calling someone—she has her cell—

but who would she call? His family? Not an option. The cops? Ricky would kill her, really and truly kill her to death.

Truth is, Myla has no ideas, no options, other than to wait for whatever happens next.

Last thing she expects is a gentle knock on the cabana’s flimsy door. “Myla? Time for breakfast, honey.”

The door opens and there’s Ricky, showered and wearing a change of clothes. The tight black Calvin Klein muscle shirt she likes, the one that shows off his amazing pecs. Loose khaki cargo pants cinched with a leather belt at his narrow waist, bare feet with his brown toes splayed. What a guy. His eyes are deep, dark and haunted, but he looks so powerful, her own personal Incredible Hulk. Like he’s ready, willing, and able to leap into the air and fly to the ends of the earth, if that’s what it takes to make things right.

At the moment, making things right means breakfast.

“Scrambled eggs and toast,” he says, smiling and showing his strong white teeth.

Myla isn’t sure if he wants her to prepare the food or if he’s already made it just for her. Not that it matters. Either way is okay because it means they’ll be together.

She takes his arm, tracing her fingertips over his taut bicep. “Did you sleep okay, baby?” she wants to know.

Stuck in rush-hour gridlock, Shane blames it on sleep. If he wasn’t still groggy from his unplanned nap, no way would his client have managed to slip out of the vehicle before he stopped her. Instead he sits here like a goof, watching in astonishment as Jane Garner flips the bird to at least three honking drivers, then strides up the sidewalk with a purpose. He powers down the window so he can see better. She’s moving fast, dodging pedestrians. Medium height but she’s
got long legs when she wants to. Great legs, come to think, and a nice look in those trim linen slacks. A little rumpled for having nodded off in a chair, but on her, rumpled looks … sexy.

He puts on the brakes, the mental brakes that stop this kind of salacious thinking. Reminds himself that Mrs. Garner is a client, experiencing tremendous stress and anxiety over a missing child. No matter how attractive, she’s vulnerable and therefore off-limits.

Don’t go there, don’t even think about it.

Having taken an icy shower, mentally, he concentrates on keeping her in view. Not easy because at this time of day, in this part of the city, the sidewalks are loaded. Folks on their way to work, or out to the shops, or intent on grabbing a flaky, guava-filled pastelito. A strolling mix of business suits and guayaberras, because it’s one those high-traffic areas where everything comes together, the various ethnicities and business interests, from international banking to hand-rolled cigars, from hole-in-the-wall con leche stands to bright new Starbucks. Old men play dominoes at social clubs while their children congregate in Wi-Fi cafés. Past, present and future, all sharing the same space, feeding off the same energy.

In other circumstances it might be fun to explore the neighborhood. Grab a stool somewhere and watch the world go by. But given the circumstances, the doomsday clock counting down on the missing girl, all he wants is Mrs. Garner back in the vehicle where he can keep her safe.

“Espresso,
señor?
”

Smiling mischievously as she hands him a little paper cup through the open window. And then, her timing immaculate, slipping into the passenger side just as the traffic starts moving. Knocking back her own shot of black, heavily
sugared Cuban coffee, she holds up the empty cup and says, “These are like those hospital cups, where they put your medication. Or those shots of vodka Jell-O at the bars? Do they still do that at the bars, serve shots of vodka Jell-O from trays? I haven’t been for ages. And by the way, confirmation on Manning being in the Hummer. He’s on the phone, very intent. Maybe he’s talking to the kidnapper? Is that possible?”

Words coming out of her in a rush, all the pent-up anxiety and excitement. Her green eyes gleaming with hope. Shane can’t bring himself to rain on her parade, forces himself to say that yes, there’s every possibility Edwin Manning is about to make a payoff.

Jane Garner listens politely and then sighs. “You’re just being nice,” she decides. “You don’t really believe this will work out.”

“Short-term, we’ll see. Maybe this is something, maybe it isn’t. But long-term, I’m a believer. Keep working the angles, we’ll find a way in. We’ll get your daughter back.”

“Coffee okay?”

“Coffee is great. Amazing how much caffeine they pack into that little cup.”

Staring straight ahead as they pick up speed, she asks, very carefully, “Ever had one of these go bad?”

Shane doesn’t know what to say, but the lady obviously expects a truthful answer. “It happens,” he admits. “Depends on the circumstances.”

“Like what sort of circumstances?” she wants to know.

“Worst-case scenario is a psychotic pedophile who preys on young children.”

“A monster.”

“Yes.”

“Use the kid and throw it away.”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Garner, Jane, keeps her silence for the length of a city block. “So what’s the best-case scenario? Is there one?”

Shane touches the brakes. Both hands on the wheel, ten and two, as cautious at twenty miles per hour as he is at one hundred. “Best case is the kid ran away and I find him or her. Which has happened. Next best case is what we’ve got—an apparent abduction for extortion, payoff, or some other business purpose. Which is actually quite rare in this country, thank God. The money scenario has a rational component, rather than a psychosexual component.”

“So in a way this is good?”

“In a way. Better if it never happened at all.”

“Turn signal,” she announces.

Shane sees it, too. The blinkers indicate the target vehicle is changing lanes, headed for an exit.

“Expressway,” he says, following, eyes picking up the signs. “Wherever they’re headed, it’s not the International House of Pancakes.”

15. Scream Like A Girl

Forty-five minutes later we’re circling the enormous parking lot at Nakosha Nation Casinos & Resort. Or rather the access road that feeds all four satellite parking lots. Acres of blacktop under the brutal sun, more or less surrounding the new casino complex, which includes a shimmering, palm-green hotel tower that would not be out of place in Las Vegas. Situated not far from the Everglades, on tribal land. I know this because the last three miles has been punctuated by various signs reminding us that we’ve entered a sovereign
nation, and therefore must abide by the laws and regulations of the Nakosha Tribal Council.

What those laws are, and how they might be different from the laws of the United States, is not spelled out. Not enough room on the signs, apparently.

“I think mostly it means gambling is legal here,” Shane opines when prompted. “Plus no tax on tobacco products.”

We’re circling the parking lots—hiding, really—because we don’t want Edwin Manning and his goons to spot us as they slot the Hummer and saunter into the casino, and because, frankly, Randall Shane isn’t sure what to do next.

“If they’re making a payoff, I don’t want to spook the deal,” he says, sounding sick with worry. “Manning knows what I look like. So does his chief of security.”

“You think? Six-foot-five white dude made them pee their pants with fear, you think they’d remember?”

“Sometimes being tall has disadvantages,” he admits.

“Get me near the entrance.”

“They know what you look like, too,” he protests.

“Not with your hat and my dark glasses. I already proved that, okay?”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I very much doubt they’d be able to pick me out of a crowd. Not to be a noodge, but their attention was focused on you. I can blend, you can’t.”

“It could be dangerous,” he reminds me.

“Dangerous is whatever happened to Kelly. They get scary, I’ll scream like a girl.”