“I know I’m grasping at straws here, Mr. Aubry,” Louis said, “but can you think of anyone who was around this ranch twenty-eight years ago who could have found their way to Palm Beach?”
“You never know what paths people are going to take,” Aubry said, “but the folks who were around here back then, especially those close to the family, they aren’t the kind of people who’d feel at home in a place like Palm Beach.”
Louis didn’t know where else to go with this. Why couldn’t he see the connection between David Archer’s world and Mark Durand’s? Who or what did they have in common?
“Louis,” Swann said, “we need to head out to the pen.”
“You fellas aren’t going anywhere in that fancy car you got,” Aubry said. “You’ll be caught in the mud for sure.”
“Will you take us?” Louis asked.
“Why? You think your missing man might be laying out there already dead?”
“It’s been twenty-four hours since he disappeared,” Swann said. “Two of the three victims were killed the same night they vanished.”
Aubry set the tray down and disappeared again down a hall. He returned wearing a rain slicker, boots, and a cowboy hat. He had a second rain parka for Louis.
“Don’t have another slicker,” Aubry said to Swann.
“No problem. I have one in my trunk.”
“You armed?” Aubry asked.
“I am,” Louis said, patting his belt beneath his windbreaker. “Andrew’s not.”
Aubry pulled two bolt-action rifles from the rack, made sure they were loaded, and handed one to Swann. Louis tried read Swann’s expression as he took the rifle. He knew the academy trained recruits in all weapons, but he doubted Swann had shot any type of gun for a good many years.
Louis put on Aubry’s slicker, and they left the house. Swann got his bright yellow raincoat from the BMW’s trunk.
It took them about ten minutes to get to the pen. For the first half-mile, the old Jeep slid over the sloppy ground with seemingly no traction. Then the tires hit something solid, and Louis knew where they were. Aubry was taking them in via the gravel road he and Mel had used on their first visit just two days ago.
Aubry brought the Jeep to a stop a few feet from the fence, the blackness before them pierced only by two foggy beams from the headlights. Between sweeps of the wipers, they stared at the labyrinth of fences.
“Let’s take a walk,” Aubry said.
They grabbed flashlights and stepped into the rain. Louis pulled up the hood of his parka. When he looked back at Swann, the fluorescent stripes on his raincoat sleeves and the words PALM BEACH POLICE stood out even in the dark.
They split up, Aubry and Swann heading to the left, Louis to the right. It was hard to hear anything over the steady beat of the rain and just as hard to see anything in the flashlight’s beam.
Louis walked slowly, sweeping the light over the dirt, searching for anything that looked out of place. A hump on the ground, a glint of a metal buckle, a gleam of pale, wet flesh. But there was nothing to see. Nothing to hear but the plink of rain and the occasional creak of a rusty gate in the wind.
Louis paused at the fence of the largest pen. He had a decent view, but he couldn’t see every inch, nor could he see what was on the other side of the small lean-to.
He looked around for the gate that he had heard, and when he didn’t see one, he slipped through the rails and into the pen. The ground was mucky, and there was a smell in the air that seemed to grow stronger with every step.
Halfway across, Louis paused, struck with one of those weird feelings that he was being watched. He leveled the flashlight and made a slow turn, but he saw nothing but the cage of wood fencing.
“Andrew?” Louis called.
“Out here,” Swann said.
Louis saw him waving his flashlight, took a breath, and walked on. There was nothing in the lean-to and nothing on the ramp, ground, or rails to indicate that anyone had been here recently. He headed back to the Jeep.
Aubry was waiting for him, sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open and shaking rain from his hat.
“Where’s Andrew?” Louis asked.
Aubry gestured toward the darkness south of the pen. Swann’s light was a fading prick of white.
“Where’s he going?” Louis asked.
“Said he wanted to look at the stream,” Aubry said. “I tried to tell him that in this rain, his little stream was gonna be more like a lake, but he was intent on going anyway.”
“Christ,” Louis said. “I’ll be right back.”
He caught up with Swann on the muddy edge of a surging swamp. Swann had his rifle in one hand and was making slow sweeps of his flashlight with the other across the surface of the brown water. The hood of his coat had blown down, and his head was soaked.
Louis stopped about six feet behind him, on higher ground. “Andrew, get your ass back up here before you get eaten by a fucking alligator.”
Swann turned and trudged from the water. He pushed past Louis without saying a word or lifting his head.
“Andrew.”
Swann walked on.
Louis watched him for a few seconds, then looked back at the water. It was running fast to the south, carrying branches that floated downstream like gnarled brown fingers.
Louis pointed his flashlight downward. But even as the beam skated across the brown water, he knew that if Byrne Kavanagh was in there, they’d never find him tonight. At least, not the three of them alone.
Louis swung the flashlight over the brown water one last time, then headed back, using the beams of the Jeep’s headlights to find his way out of the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-five
Sam eased off the gas as the sign for Clewiston came into view. The last thing she needed now was to be stopped for something as stupid as a speeding ticket. She had to be careful this time.
Not like that time five years ago, when, in her anger and impatience, she had sped through town in Hap’s big old silver Bentley. She had been lucky that night, lucky that no cop had stopped her; lucky, too, that Emilio had been so trusting.
Stupid boy…
Still, that was what had attracted her to him in the first place. He was beautiful, yes, but he wasn’t very smart, and that was what had led her to take him into her bed. He barely spoke English, but she didn’t want a man to talk. He didn’t want to stay and hold her, but she never wanted a man to linger after sex. He never asked about her life, but she didn’t want to have to tell him about her invalid husband. And best of all, he didn’t flinch when she asked him to put his hands tight around her neck during orgasm.
He never asked her for anything. So, she bought him an expensive gold crucifix to replace the cheap one he always wore. She had been angry when he told her he had given it to his sister. And when she bought him the second one and demanded that he always wear it during sex, she had enjoyed his embarrassment. He had been embarrassed, too, about the money when she offered it. But he always took it.
Stupid, stupid boy.
In the end, she was the one who was stupid. Getting giddy over martinis that day with Carolyn at Ta-boo, too impressed that she had been invited to sit at a coveted table by the fireplace, too needy that a woman like Carolyn would even have a drink with her. And then, brassy with booze, asking Carolyn if she had ever experienced “a little death” during sex. St. John Knitted-up Carolyn, whose husband-everyone knew it-had been cheating on her for years. Cautious, controlling Carolyn, who had never had the guts to take a lover of her own but had listened to Sam’s stories about Emilio with animal eyes.
She brought Emilio to the Osborn house that same night. Lots of wine, a dimly lit bedroom. But Emilio, when he realized he was expected to bed two women, had balked and bolted from the house.