“… Authorities still have no leads on the gangland-style assassination of Girls Gone Haywire founder Rood Lear, whose bullet-riddled body was discovered…”
“… Witnesses said two young women were seen earlier in the lobby…”
“… Following a heated confrontation in Panama City Beach…”
“… Described only as ‘persons of interest’ are leaders of the activist group MAGGH, Mothers Against…”
“… Responding to an anonymous tip, police arrived at the motel room seconds after the shooting but were too late to apprehend the assailant…”
“… Meanwhile, online sales of the controversial videos continue to shatter records…”
Someone held a microphone in front of Rood’s tearful chief assistant. “… He was always giving and giving…”
Two people sat in front of a TV, convulsing with laughter.
“Whew!” Serge wiped tears from his face.
“That was a good one!” said Coleman.
Serge’s laughter bled into an expression of concentration.
“What’s the matter?” asked Coleman.
“Not sure,” said Serge. “You know how you sometimes hear something and it doesn’t seem important at the time? But days later, out of the blue, when you’re doing a completely unrelated activity, the significance suddenly dawns on you?”
“No.”
“Andy said his mother shot herself.”
“Poor kid.”
“Coleman, women take sleeping pills or jump. Men shoot themselves.”
“Maybe she didn’t have pills or bridges.”
“Can’t explain it, but I just have this feeling.”
Coleman fidgeted on the couch. “What are you doing?”
“I think I’m sitting on something.” He clicked the TV remote and reached for a beer.
“Most other people would find out what it is,” said Serge. “Maybe even get off it.”
“Really?” Coleman rolled to his side and reached down.
“My phone charger!” said Serge.
“Why’d you put it under my butt?”
“Gimme that thing.” He went to the wall and plugged it in.
The display came up. “Coleman, you made me miss a call.” He redialed. “Serge here. You rang?”
“Nice try.”
“Hey, Guillermo. Thought you’d like that touch. Guess the cops didn’t get there in time.”
“You underestimate me.”
“Likewise; I got Miguel,” said Serge. “So I guess it’s just you and me now. We’re going to have so much fun!”
“Where’s Andy?”
“Someplace safe where you’ll never find him.”
“You’re not getting my meaning,” said Guillermo. “I’m not asking you to tell me where he is. I’m asking if you know where he is.”
“What’s your point?”
Click.
Serge looked quizzically at the phone.
“What is it?” asked Coleman.
“Shit!” Serge jumped up and ran out of the room. He knocked hard on the next door.
Spooge answered.
“Andy with you guys?”
“No, thought he was with you.”
He ran to the next room and knocked again. City and Country passed joints with the rest of the gang. “Andy in here?”
“Said he was going for a walk.”
Serge’s head fell back on his neck. “Andy, Andy, Andy, what have you done?” He looked at the students again. “How long ago?”
“Just missed him.”
“Wonderful!” He turned to leave.
“Oh, Serge. You know when Melvin’s coming back? He’s got the keys to the truck and we need it.”
“What do you mean, ‘coming back’? Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. Left with this guy in a car.”
“Guy?”
“Really old dude. Your age.”
“Wouldn’t happen to remember what he was driving?”
“That’s easy. Wicked excellent ride, Delta 88.”
“You guys are supposed to be smart,” said Serge. “None of this raised any flags?”
“Thought he was alumni or something.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he was looking at the Gators bumper sticker on the pickup before Melvin went over and asked what he was doing.”
“And then what happened?”
“I got more beer.”
LAS OLAS BOULEVARD
The case dossier lay in a lap.
“Agent Mahoney’s Monaco sat in a parallel space along the bistro district. Wine, sidewalk tables, palm trees wrapped year-round in strands of white Christmas lights-just down the street from the demolished Candy Store nightclub, national birthplace of the wet T-shirt contest in the bygone spring break era, making it a church of sorts. Mahoney had rescued his share of cops from that lounge, and now the chips were due. He stared at the folder of paperwork and faded photos resting on his legs.”
Mahoney stopped talking to himself. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the answer was in there somewhere.
He started back at the beginning again, the whole strange saga of Randall Sheets. Wife’s illness, the flights, Madre-that really took him back to the old days-grand jury testimony, son pulled from kindergarten, Battle Creek-
The agent paused on the page. He took off his fedora and ran a hand through his hair. “Women don’t shoot themselves.” He fished out the autopsy, looking for caliber. “Nine-millimeter? That’s weird…”
His eyes widened. “Oh, no.”
The agent flipped open his cell and dialed.
“Bugsy, I need travel records for a specific date.”
“How long ago?”
“Fifteen years.”
“That’s almost impossible.”
“Plus I need a sealed juvenile record.”
“That is impossible.”
“And I want both in a half hour.”
“You’re crazy. What’s the big rush?”
“Someone’s going to die.”
MIDNIGHT
Rain started again.
A light drizzle, but with ocean gusts that promised a bigger show. Students in sports cars and Jeeps cruised the strip. Decent numbers, but not like the sixties, when it brought A1A to a standstill.
The rain came down harder, scattering people off sidewalks and into bars.
Or bushes.
Andy poked his head up from shrubs along the front of a seafood grill. A quick scan of the surroundings, then another hundred-yard dash south, hugging buildings, staying as far from the street as possible. Another dive into manicured hedges.
A ’73 Challenger rolled down the strip. Serge cranked his windshield wipers from intermittent to full. “How far could they have gotten?”
“Finding one person in this rain is hard enough,” said Coleman. “But two?”
“We have to find them!”
The Challenger blew through a yellow light at Sunrise Boulevard. The Crown Vic behind him ran the red. Agent Ramirez checked his watch and his gun.
Andy wiped rain from his eyes, surveying the street again from behind landscaping.
A Delta 88 crossed a drawbridge at the causeway and made the northern swing onto the strip.
“Maybe he went the other way,” said Coleman.
“You might be right.” Serge made a skidding U-turn where A1A forks at the Oasis Cafe.
Andy waited for the taillights to fade, then jumped out from behind a coconut palm at the Oasis and bolted across the street through honking traffic.
Guillermo drove past a marina just as Andy dove behind a closed ticket shack for fishing charters. But Guillermo wasn’t looking for Andy. He turned to his passenger in the front seat. “Get both hands back on the dash.”
“What are you going to do to me?” asked Melvin.
“Nothing,” said Guillermo. “Just need you to straighten something out for me.”
“Why do we keep driving back and forth?”
“Waiting for a phone call…”
Guillermo reached Oakland Park, passing a southbound Challenger in the intersection.
“I’ll never forgive myself,” said Serge. Another U-turn. And another.
Coleman rode out the centrifugal force against the passenger door. “I have no idea which way we’re going anymore.”
The driver of an ’07 Mustang tried to make the light at Sunrise, then changed his mind. Tires didn’t hold the wet street, and he spun into a lamppost.