Rising Moon: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 19) Page 11

  Of course, I thought. The man’s been serving others for more than half a century.

  “A legacy,” I said softly.

  “Yeah. A legacy. Will you do it for me, Gunny? Will you put what’s mine with what’s yours and continue doing what you do?”

  I gazed out over the calm, azure Gulf waters for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, Tank, I’m honored that you chose me.”

  “Good,” he said firmly, rising with little effort. “Now, you better call that fiancée of yours. You don’t want her thinking you got cold feet a week before the wedding.”

  “I have an idea,” I said, rising from the sand. “Fishing isn’t allowed here, but the Marquesas are right on the way back. A friend was there the other day and told me the water had warmed a little in the Gulf and the permit bite was exploding. Let’s get out of here and stop there on the way back.”

  He glanced over at the old fort. “You said this was the biggest brick building in the Western Hemisphere?”

  I nodded.

  “Seems a shame to be all the way out here and not recon the place. Fish are everywhere. This fort is in just this one place. And we may be here just this one time. There’s no guaranteed tomorrows for any of us.”

  He had a point. A particularly good point, considering what he’d told me. We shouldn’t wait until things in our bucket lists had to be rushed. Like Travis McGee, we should take our retirement in little chunks and enjoy looking around at something unusual.

  “Let’s recon the fortress,” I said with a grin, as we started walking. “It was never actually finished as a fully functioning fort. And enemy ships could easily avoid her guns.”

  “When was it built?”

  “Mid-1800s, the golden age of sail,” I replied. “The fort was way before its time, sitting so far out here in the Gulf. The ships and men who manned it needed constant provisions; there was no natural fresh water or food here. Just a big cistern below ground for rainwater, but seawater eventually seeped in.”

  “Sounds like a FOB.”

  “Exactly, a forward operating base, strategic for guarding the shipping lanes into and out of the Gulf. Her guns were for defense, but her ironclads and frigates took the fight to the enemy.”

  I waved an arm slowly to the north as we got to the sand spit. “The outer harbor could hold dozens of naval ships anchored safely from storms inside a ring of small keys, shoals, and reefs. Guarded by a half dozen fast frigates.”

  “You were born a hundred years too late,” Tank said, as we walked back to the plane.

  “Hang on,” I said. “I gotta get my satellite phone.”

  “Go ahead and make your call,” he said, continuing toward the sand path to the fort. “I’m gonna go ahead and start the recon.”

  Splashing out to Island Hopper, I climbed into the pilot’s seat and grabbed the phone. Then I stepped out onto the pontoon to have a clear line of sight to the southwestern sky.

  Savannah answered on the first ring. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Something came up and we’ll be late getting back. You and Flo take the boat back to the island and we’ll just fly straight back there.”

  “What’s wrong? You sound almost… defeated.”

  “Tank’s dying,” I said.

  “Oh, dear,” Savannah sighed. “He told you?”

  “As far as I know, I’m the only one he’s told, and now I’ve told you.”

  “Of course, I won’t breathe a word,” she said, then paused. “What is it?”

  “Cancer,” I replied, watching my mentor stop to chat with the people on the beach. The dark-haired woman had put her top back on. “His doctor told him he’s only got a few months.”

  “I’m so sorry, Jesse. I know how much you idolized him.”

  “He wants me to administer his estate,” I blurted out. “That’s why he came down here.”

  “You’ll do it, of course,” she said, as if no other option existed. “He picked the right man.”

  Tank waved at the two couples on the sand and continued toward the trail that ran along the mote surrounding the giant brick buttresses.

  “We’re at Fort Jefferson,” I said. “He wants to look around.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” she said. “We’ll see you when you get home.”

  “Thanks, babe.”

  “Oh, and Jesse?”

  “Yes?”

  “You just called your daughter Flo.”

  “I know,” I said with a chuckle. “Tank pointed it out. It was that or I insist on her calling me Jesiah.”

  I ended the call and noticed I had a text message from Chyrel. I opened it immediately.

  I figured you were out of cell range. Quick started moving again at 1200. He was there at least an hour. Headed west on 75 now.

  I’d almost forgotten about Willy Quick, the drug dealers, and Ty Sampson. I wanted to have another word with the surfboard maker. And maybe Moreno, too. But tomorrow was Christmas.

  When Vanessa woke, her head hurt and her mouth was dry. The last thing she remembered was Willy choking her. It was dark and she was lying on a smelly blanket. The pain in her head told her she wasn’t dead.

  She heard a whispered voice as she tried to raise her head. “I think she’s waking up.”

  That’s when she felt the metal shackle on her left ankle. The cold steel brought her quickly to her senses, and she sat up, looking around in the gathering darkness.

  Two figures sat cross-legged on a bare wooden floor, watching her.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  The one on the left shrugged.

  “Somewhere in a swamp,” the other said. It was a woman’s voice, but her face was shadowed behind her hair.

  The two were facing each other, sitting in the middle of an empty room, with several feet between them. Vanessa could see that they both had chains on their ankles. Their chains trailed back to two corners of the room. She looked down at her own leg and followed another chain to a third corner. In the remaining corner lay a fourth chain, an unlocked shackle on the end.

  Vanessa struggled to her feet, picked up the chain and tested it, pulling hard. It didn’t budge.

  “Don’t waste your energy,” the woman said.

  Vanessa looked over and studied them both. The quiet one appeared to be a woman, also. “What is this place?”

  “Hell,” said the quiet one.

  “Where’s Willy? Did he bring you here, too?”

  “Willy?” the first woman said, looking up sharply, her hair falling away from her face. “The monster who brought you here? You know his name?”

  Her left eye was puffy and bruised, and both eyes seemed hollow and vacant. Vanessa’s eyes darted to the inside of the woman’s elbow, which was also bruised.

  A junky.

  “Willy Quick,” Vanessa replied, moving cautiously toward the two women. “He’s a coke importer from the west coast.”

  Vanessa reached the end of her chain before getting close to either of the women. Apparently, Willy didn’t want them to come into physical contact.

  “How do you know his name?” the first woman asked.

  “He, uh…knows my boss,” Vanessa said. “I was supposed to spend the night with him.”

  “Why?” the quiet one asked. She had tracks on her arm, too.

  “It’s what I do,” Vanessa said. “And I make a thousand bucks a night.”

  “You’re a prostitute?” the first woman asked.

  “Escort, bitch.”

  She turned and followed the chain to the corner. It was connected to a large eyebolt sticking out of a heavy wooden post. She tried to twist the big metal ring, but it didn’t move.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “Do you know anything else about him? Anything that we might use to get out of here? We don’t even know where here is.”

  Vanessa looked over at them coldly. Sure, she tooted a little blow sometimes, or smoked some weed. But she drew the line at needles.

&n
bsp; “We’re about twenty miles from the city,” Vanessa said. “We drove on 75 for about fifteen minutes, then turned onto Highway 27, then a bunch of dirt backroads with no names.”

  “You were awake when he brought you here?”

  “Yeah,” Vanessa replied. “Then the asshole choked me out when we stopped at a rickety old shack. He might have driven on from there. I don’t know. Do you know what time it was when he brought me in here? What time it is now?”

  “You’ve been out for a while,” the woman replied. “It was past noon when he brought you in and shot you up.”

  Vanessa looked at her arm and touched it. There was a brown speck and the area around it was tender.

  “He gave me a—?”

  “All three of us,” the woman said. “Then he left.”

  “What is it? The shot?”

  The woman only shrugged. “I’ve smoked weed a few times, but that’s it. I don’t know what it is, but it makes the rest less painful.”

  “The rest?” Vanessa asked, looking from one to the other.

  “We don’t even know what day it is.”

  “Christmas Eve,” Vanessa said.

  The quiet one covered her face and sobbed.

  “The rest of what?” Vanessa asked again.

  “Rape,” the woman said, her head falling again.

  “How long have you been here?” Vanessa asked, then sat on the floor facing the two.

  “He grabbed me on December ninth,” the woman replied. “Broad daylight in the parking lot of a toy store. I know because it was my niece’s birthday the next day and I was shopping for something to get her.” She nodded toward the other woman. “She’s been here since before Thanksgiving.”

  Their clothes were in tatters, especially the quiet one’s. She looked frail, like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. She was probably a little younger than Vanessa. The one doing all the talking looked healthier and maybe a little older. Both were small, like her.

  “What does he want with us?”

  “He’s sick!” the quiet one shouted.

  “He comes every few days,” the woman said, her eyes glazing over in the failing light. “Sometimes he only rapes one of us, sometimes two. If he’s feeling really brutal, all three.”

  Vanessa looked over to the vacant corner and the empty chain.

  “There’s never four of us,” the woman said, and nodded to the younger one. “She told me when he first brought me here.”

  Then the woman indicated the empty shackle. “That was Margo. She’d been here since Halloween night.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She’s dead!” the younger one shouted. “Just like Jenny before her! You’re in Jenny’s place! But you’re not Jenny.” Her voice was shaky and on the verge of hysterics. She sobbed into her hands again. “And just like me when he brings another replacement.”

  “He came yesterday,” the woman said. “He unlocked Margo and took her into the other room, like he always does. We could hear him grunting and her crying. When he finished with her, we heard a big splash and then a lot of thrashing beneath the house.”

  “He fed her to the alligators,” the young girl said softly.

  Vanessa shuddered. “What’s your name?”

  “Michelle,” the older woman said. “Michelle Tate.”

  “I’m Vanessa Ramos.” She turned to the girl, expecting her to speak.

  Michelle said, “Her name’s Cobie Murphy.”

  Christmas dawned with a heavy sea fog shrouding the island. The blanket of low clouds absorbed the usual sound of waves lapping at the shoreline or splashing through the mangrove roots.

  Tank and I had returned just in time for Savannah’s sundowners on the deck. She’d pretended not to know until Tank said that it was okay, that he knew I’d already told her.

  “Told her what?” Flo had asked.

  So, Tank had explained to Flo that he was dying. He seemed to be easier with telling it to her than he had been with me.

  Flo didn’t really know Tank, but I could tell she liked him. She took the bad news like she always did. Acceptance of the fact and empathy for the man.

  I’d planned on flying Island Hopper back to the Anchor before noon, so we could help Rusty get things ready. He had a small get-together planned—a tradition he’d carried on from his father and grandfather before him—to serve an early Christmas dinner for family and close friends. Several dozen people usually attended, all exchanging simple gifts, sometimes handmade.

  I’d spent weeks tying assorted flies for some of the guides, and Savannah and Flo had made over a dozen beautiful necklaces, bracelets, and anklets for the women who would be there. Each had all sorts of tiny shells strung together. They’d used a fine bit and small drill press to make the smallest of holes in each.

  I hoped the fog would lift before noon. From the deck, nearly twenty feet above the water, I could see the trees ringing my island, as well as the tops of trees on other nearby islands. The treetops floating on a blanket of mist looked surreal, like a Dali painting.

  Flying above the fog wouldn’t be a problem, but there was no way I could take off or land in it.

  Savannah came out with a Thermos and three more mugs. “What time are we going to Rusty and Sid’s?”

  “As soon as the fog lifts,” I said, as she poured her mug and refilled mine.

  “Ahoy, the house!” Tank’s voice boomed from the mist.

  When I stood and looked down, I couldn’t see him. “Follow my voice,” I called down. “The bottom of the stairs is twenty feet to my right.”

  “This shit’s thicker than a private’s grape.”

  “Good morning, Tank,” Savannah called down, pouring another mug of coffee.

  “Apologies, ma’am,” he said, as his feet stomped up the steps in perfect, rhythmic cadence.

  “I live with a Marine,” she said when he reached the deck. “And I’m a boat captain from the South Carolina Lowcountry. I grew up within spitting distance of Parris Island and the Marine air station.”

  She offered him a mug, which he accepted. “Visibility’s better up here,” he said, taking a sip and looking around. “Mmm, you sure do make good java, Miss Savannah.”

  “It’s a special blend Rusty gets,” she offered. “From a little farm in Costa Rica called Hacienda la Minita.”

  He raised his mug as Flo appeared at the top of the steps with Finn and Woden. “Merry Christmas to all of you,” he said. “And thanks for allowing me to be here with you.”

  “Merry Christmas,” Flo said, hugging him. “Now, I need a coffee.”

  The four of us sat down. Woden sat on the deck next to Flo, as usual, and Finn curled up beside me, crossing his paws and laying his big head on them. After a moment, Woden rose and went to sit beside Tank, sniffing at him.

  “What’s with him?” Tank asked, as he reached down and rubbed the big dog’s neck.

  Woden leaned into him, turning his head up and making eye contact.

  “I don’t know,” Savannah said. “He’s not usually so affectionate with people he’s just met.”

  I’d read somewhere that some dogs had been trained to detect cancer through scent. They weren’t trained to smell it; a keen sense of smell is something they’re all born with. Rather, they were trained to recognize the scent of a person with cancer and respond to it.

  Could Woden tell Tank was sick? I wondered.

  “What’s the plan?” Tank asked, now rubbing the underside of Woden’s throat, which the dog offered with no fear.

  Savannah and I looked at one another, both of us a little bewildered by Woden’s sudden change in attitude from that of the usual stoic guardian.

  “We’ll fly down to the Rusty Anchor when the fog lifts,” I said. “Rusty’s serving Christmas dinner for a bunch of locals and family.”

  “Turkey?”

  “If that’s what you prefer,” Savannah said. “He does a few birds, and a lot of fish, crab and lobster.”

  “What time’s Dav
id coming?” I asked Flo.

  “He said he was planning to leave before noon,” Flo replied. “He should be here around sixteen hundred.” She grinned at me and Tank, then turned to Savannah. “That’s four o’clock.”

  Tank and I both laughed.

  “But Savannah brought your boat back here,” Tank said. “If we fly down, and leave Island Hopper there, how do we get back?”

  “Jimmy and Naomi are coming back here after dinner,” Savannah said. “We’ll all ride with them.”

  “Or borrow someone’s boat,” I said. “All the regulars will be there. It’s like one big extended family.”

  “And David is?”

  “My boyfriend,” Flo replied. “He’s going to stay with me a couple of days, then, after the wedding, I’m going up to stay at his parents’ until we have to go back to Gainesville for school.”

  Tank looked at me and I shrugged imperceptibly. Flo had turned nineteen last July—a grown woman. She’d even gone with Savannah and me last month to cast her vote for president. We never talked politics, and none of us revealed who we’d voted for. That wasn’t what mattered. Taking part and performing one’s duty was the real issue.

  Both Savannah and I believed that voting was more than just a right. It was each citizen’s civic obligation. If Flo could be that adult, she could choose when and where she spent time with David.

  The night before, after everyone had gone off to bed, Savannah and I had had a long talk about our upcoming wedding. We wanted to keep it small, just close friends and family.

  Rusty was going to officiate and Flo would be Savannah’s maid of honor. I hadn’t yet asked anyone to stand with me. Everyone just assumed it would be Deuce.

  “Tank, I’d like to ask you something,” I said, pausing until he looked up at me. “Will you be my best man next week?”

  He looked sharply at Savannah, then back at me. “You haven’t asked anyone yet? It’s six days away.”

  “No, I haven’t. And I can’t explain why. Will you do it?”

  He grinned. “Doesn’t seem like a tough job. I don’t have to sacrifice a goat or anything, do I?”

  “It would mean a lot to both of us,” Savannah said, reaching across and putting her hand on his.