Rising Moon: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 19) Read online

  Once we were in deeper water, I turned to a heading that would take us to Vaca Cut, about twenty-five miles away. I left the light on and adjusted it with the remote to be able to spot any lobster trap floats ahead of us. Other than those, there wasn’t anything in the way to avoid and I brought the speed up to forty knots.

  The crossing took a little over half an hour, with both of us hunched behind the console and taking turns leaning into the tiny windshield’s slipstream to sip our coffee.

  I finally slowed as we neared Vaca Cut. It was still dark, but I turned off the spotlight. Lobstering in the cut wasn’t allowed and if anyone were coming the other way, I didn’t want to blind them.

  “That was damned exciting,” Tank said. “You know your way around these waters pretty good.”

  “Kinda have to,” I said. “But cuts and shoals change all the time, so you have to be on your game. What we just crossed is never shallower than five feet, though.”

  I outlined what I wanted to do, and Tank nodded, asking pointed questions when needed as I navigated the canals to get to Ty Sampson’s house.

  When we were a few lots from his house, I killed the engine and let the boat drift toward a sandy spot on the bank. Once the hull beached, I scrambled forward, jumped out, and pulled the boat a little higher before Tank got out.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” I said, dousing my head, arms, and legs with a liberal blast of bug spray.

  Handing him the can and the bow line, I quickly crossed the lot and moved along the edge of the trees on the wooded lot next to Sampson’s house.

  From there I’d be in the open. No cars were coming, and I didn’t see or hear anything, so I just strolled along like I belonged there.

  No lights came from Sampson’s, which I’d figured on. Drug dealers kept late hours and I was sure Ty wasn’t just a surfboard maker.

  At his driveway, I turned and headed to the back of his Volkswagen van. It was built back when bumpers were made of steel, which is why I’d chosen a tracker that was magnetic.

  Pulling it out of my pocket, I turned it on and checked it. The small red light came on and a moment later it flicked back off. I took a step closer to the van and the light came on again.

  Satisfied that the motion detector was working, I simply reached under the VW’s bumper, found a suitable spot for the magnet, and attached it. I checked that it wouldn’t move easily, and then retraced my steps to the boat.

  Tank and I shoved the Maverick into deeper water, and I restarted the engine.

  “Remember,” I said, as we approached Sampson’s dock, “make enough noise that he hears us, but not so much as to make it seem intentional.”

  “You’re sure you can get in?”

  “I was taught by one of the best lock picks there is,” I replied. “Sampson’s lock’s a cakewalk.”

  “You really think it’ll be there?”

  “Not a hundred percent,” I replied. “But I could tell he was lying about it.”

  Ty woke to the sound of something bumping his dock. He’d always been a light sleeper and had a habit of sleeping with the window cracked open a little. He picked up his phone, which activated the screen. It wasn’t even six o’clock yet.

  There it is again, he thought, hearing a noise in his backyard.

  Rising from the bed, he pulled on his jeans, went to the window, and looked out. It was dark as pitch inside his house, so he wasn’t worried about anyone seeing in. The nearly full moon had set, but there was enough starlight to see the seawall behind his house.

  A boat was out there, and Ty didn’t own one.

  He still had his phone in his hand and was about to call 911 when he saw two men climb out of the boat onto his dock. It was the same two guys who’d come to his shop asking questions three days earlier. Calling the police would be too risky.

  One of them said something, but Ty couldn’t make out what it was. They crossed the yard to his shop and the taller one knelt at the door.

  Good luck with that, asshole, Ty thought, as the man worked on the door’s heavy padlock. It was reputed to be the best lock in the business.

  After a moment, the man stood, tossed Ty’s expensive lock aside, and opened the door.

  “What the hell?” Ty breathed, barely audible. “Who are these guys?”

  A light came on inside, and Ty could easily hear them moving things around. They were searching his shop and trying to be quiet but weren’t succeeding much.

  Ty’s mind raced, trying to think of anything in there that could get him in trouble. He glanced toward the nightstand, then hurried over to it and opened the drawer. A bag of weed lay on top of a small, tightly wrapped brick of pale blue powder. Beside it sat a .38 caliber revolver.

  He picked up the gun and went back to the window, certain that he hadn’t left anything in the shop. The two guys were leaving, not even bothering to close the shop’s door or turn off the light.

  Ty was tempted to burst through the back door, firing away, but then he remembered the cold stare of the old guy when he’d lied and told them he’d sold Cobie Murphy’s wakeboard.

  That’s when he noticed the shorter man, the old guy with the threatening eyes, was carrying something.

  A wakeboard.

  Suddenly, Ty remembered that Cobie had wanted her name painted on her board.

  A moment later, he heard the boat’s engine start up and it turned around in the narrow confines of the canal. Ty waited until the two PIs had passed the trees at the back of the next lot, then left his bedroom and went to the back door. He looked out the window first, then opened the door and stepped outside, gun in hand.

  He could hear the outboard quietly burbling as the boat motored down the canal. Running across the yard, he peeked into the shop, expecting a mess. Nothing seemed to have been touched or moved. Yet he’d heard what sounded like the place being ransacked.

  Stepping inside, he looked around. The only sign that anyone had been there was the closet door standing open. The closet was large, with shelves from floor to ceiling on three sides. It was where he put finished boards to cure.

  Cobie’s board was gone.

  “Fuck!” he shouted in a low voice. Why didn’t I grind that thing into dust?

  In a near panic, Ty next checked the bottom drawer of his desk, where he kept his cash box. It was still there, unopened. He fumbled with the combination and the lid. It looked like it was all there, nearly ten grand. He scooped the cash out and thrust it into the pocket of his jeans.

  Without bothering to close the door, Ty sprinted to the house and headed to his room. He pulled out a backpack and quickly stashed his gun in the outside pocket. He took the meth and weed from his nightstand and stowed them in the bottom. Then, from his closet, he yanked several pairs of jeans and shirts from the hangers, threw in some underwear and stuffed them all into the pack on top of his stash.

  He’d rented the house fully furnished, so there wasn’t anything else he needed. The boards in his shop waiting for owners amounted to a few hundred bucks. No big loss.

  A moment later, he was out the front door with the keys to his van in one hand and the backpack in the other. He tossed the pack onto the passenger seat as he climbed in. It fell to the floor.

  Ty started the bus’s engine, then backed out of the driveway and drove away. He was living month to month and the rent was paid for five more days. His landlord wouldn’t know he was gone for at least a week.

  Ty didn’t know where he was going, but he felt pretty certain that things were getting too hot in the Keys, so that really left only one direction—north. Maybe Miami.

  He turned onto Overseas Highway with the sun lightening the clouds to his right. It’d be up soon. He’d wait and call Moreno a little later, once he was out of the Keys. He knew the Cuban partied and slept late.

  The miles ticked by, with little traffic to slow him down. It was a long drive—over a hundred miles—and would take at least two hours. He kept his speed down, not wanting to get pulled over, a
nd only sped up slightly when he got on the long bridge that connected Conch Key to Long Key.

  Halfway across, Ty spotted a helicopter. It was flying out over the Atlantic in the same direction he was driving but was silhouetted against the rising sun so he couldn’t see any kind of identifying markings. When it turned out over the water, Ty sighed in relief.

  His van had windows all the way around and he kept glancing back in the direction the helicopter had disappeared, but it was gone. As he came off the bridge onto Long Key and slowed for the town of Layton, though, he heard a rhythmic thumping sound.

  He leaned forward over the wheel, scanning the lightening sky above and all around, as best he could.

  Nothing.

  Then, when he checked his mirror, he saw the shadow of a helicopter out over Florida Bay. He slowed and turned into a Kwik Stop, got out of the van, and was just in time to see the same helicopter fly over, heading north. It was solid black and had numbers and letters on the back part, but he couldn’t tell what it said.

  He waited in the parking lot for five minutes, his heart pounding. He had no idea who the two private dicks were or what they were capable of. Could it have been them in the helicopter?

  No, he decided. They would’ve had to go in the boat to the airport first. It wasn’t far, but Ty left just minutes after them. Maybe they had others working with them. People in a helicopter waiting to follow him.

  Finally, Ty got back on the road, driving slowly, and watching all around. He saw the helicopter again as he made the turn onto Channel #5 Bridge. It was well ahead of him, again flying out over the water to the south. But it wasn’t so far away that they couldn’t see him with binoculars.

  The helicopter disappeared behind trees once he was on Lower Matecumbe Key, but he saw it again as he crossed the bridge to Upper Matecumbe. It was farther away, but still going in the same direction.

  Soon, he was passing through Key Largo and onto the long stretch of highway north of there. By then, the sun had fully risen and the sky was bright blue, broken by just a few puffy white clouds. He’d seen the helicopter enough times that he was sure it was following or keeping tabs on him. But it wouldn’t be hard to lose it in the city. He was just as sure it wouldn’t be allowed to fly between buildings, and he could easily evade it in the concrete jungle.

  The road to Homestead was elevated and he occasionally got a glimpse of open water on one side and swamp on the other. He saw the helicopter again about halfway across the long, desolate stretch far to the north.

  Had he lost them or had they given up?

  Ty figured the best thing to do was go straight through downtown Miami, just to be sure. He pulled his phone out to call Benito. He knew the Cuban would be able to take the kilo of meth off his hands and that’d give him enough cash to go somewhere else. Thirty grand plus the ten in his pocket would go a long way.

  By the time we got to East Cape Sable, the sun was above the horizon. We anchored in knee-deep water and waded toward shore, each with a lightweight fly rod in our hands.

  Fishing from the boat meant only one line in the water for the most part. I could cast okay from the small poling platform, but with my large size, it wasn’t ideal for fighting a powerful fish. I’d been pulled off balance more than once and ended up in the drink. Not the best look for a fishing guide.

  “Shuffle your feet,” I warned Tank. “You don’t want to step on a stingray. And keep a wary eye out for crocodiles.”

  He looked at me, puzzled. “You mean alligators, right?”

  “There are gators father inland,” I said. “But Florida Bay and the inland estuaries of the southwest coast are the home of saltwater crocs.”

  “Is there anything out here that won’t eat us?”

  “Very little,” I said with a chuckle. “This area probably looked the same a hundred thousand years ago. Hang around South Florida long enough and you’ll see we have some really big bugs. The state bird is the mosquito. They can suck you dry in an hour out here.”

  “What makes you think that guy won’t call the other guy in Miami?” Tank asked. “I mean, don’t you think we should have gone there by car?”

  “Cars are slow down here,” I said. “To go fifty miles up or down island takes time. On a boat, you can travel full speed, and most of the time, in a perfectly straight line. From here, my house, Deuce’s office, and Willy Quick are all within forty-five minutes at wide-open throttle. Deuce has assets close to Miami, and don’t forget my daughter and son-in-law. They’re both cops and are within minutes of Quick’s location. I just know he’s behind this somehow.”

  Tank unhooked his fly from the rod and examined it. “Unusual flies. Bigger than what I remember. You make these on that bench I saw in your living room?”

  That was Tank’s way of deflecting from a stressful situation. Go through it, around it, or build a wall and go over it. But move on.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “What’s the biggest trout you ever caught?”

  “Probably eight or ten pounds,” he said. “My dad caught a fifteen-pounder once.”

  “Bonefish get that big,” I said. “They’re long and silvery gray—shaped like a torpedo and hard to see. And they have a hard, bony plate in their mouth that a hook won’t pierce. If you hook one, you’ll have to keep constant tension, or the hook will just fall out.”

  We sight-fished for tailing bones in the shallows. Tank hadn’t used a fly rod in many years, but the muscle memory soon returned and before long, he’d hooked his first bonefish. Unfortunately, it and the next two got off the hook.

  “You really gotta keep a tight line on these guys,” he shouted from about forty yards down the beach. “And they’re a lot stronger and more agile than any trout I ever caught, that’s for sure.”

  “You just gotta be ready to zig when they zag,” I called back.

  “Well, duh,” he said with a grin, reeling his line in. “They just zag a whole lot.”

  I laughed and he joined me.

  “And those other fish you mentioned?”

  “Permit can reach thirty or forty pounds,” I said, as we walked around the point. “An average tarpon is as big as me. And they all have double the fight per pound over any trout.”

  “Is that right?”

  He’ll understand the first time a tarpon bends his rod, I thought.

  “There!” I pointed about a hundred feet down the beach.

  “Those swirls?”

  “Yeah, looks like a couple of pompano, tailing around a rock or something.”

  We separated and began our casts. I wanted to try to put my fly on the water the same time Tank did his. Maybe we could get a double bite.

  “You take the one on the right,” I whispered, whipping my line back at the same time he did.

  While they didn’t hit at exactly the same time, it was close enough, and the water exploded from the double hits.

  Some species of pompano could get to colossal proportions—up to nearly four feet in length and fifty pounds for the African pompano. They were usually found in much deeper water. The Florida pompano rarely got over eight pounds and favored the flats and shoals that their big cousins couldn’t get to.

  I knew right away that the one I had was going to be at least five or six pounds. It took us both a good ten minutes to tire the two big fish and get them close enough to grab.

  “Hot damn!” Tank yelled, lifting his from the water with a grin that nearly wrapped around his whole head. “That’s a fish!”

  “That’s dinner,” I said, lifting my own out of the water by its forked tail. “Enough for all of us.”

  Once we’d carried the fish and our rods back to the boat, I opened the live well and switched on the pump. It filled quickly and we dropped the fish in.

  “Why do you suppose he stopped?” Tank asked, throwing a leg up onto the gunwale.

  “Sampson? That ten-minute stop on Long Key? I don’t know. Maybe he needed gas or a bite to eat or something.”

  “Where is he now?�
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  I took my phone from the charger and looked at the tracker app. Where he went wasn’t as important as why. Taking off after seeing us steal Cobie’s board from his workshop gave me all the proof I needed that he was involved in her disappearance. The police couldn’t use it, but I damned sure could.

  “Downtown Miami,” I replied. “Headed north.”

  I watched the little flashing dot on the phone’s screen for a moment. It moved for a few seconds, then stopped again.

  “A lot of lights and rush-hour traffic,” I said. “I was hoping he’d go to Moreno’s, but he should have stayed on the interstate, not drive right through the heart of downtown with all those tall office buildings and condos.”

  “We should head back,” Tank said. “You said earlier that the big swamp ape was sitting tight on the other side of the state, and it’s obvious Sampson’s not going there. Maybe Chyrel will have some information from any phone calls they make.”

  “She’d call if there was anything important.”

  “Your phone gets a signal way out here?” he asked, looking around.

  “This one doesn’t need a signal for the tracker to work,” I replied. “She’d call my satellite phone. We could try for another bonefish if you’re game.”

  “To tell you the truth, Jesse, I’m a bit worn out already. I get tired pretty easy these days.”

  I studied his eyes. He was stripped down to just his cargo shorts, same as me, and he looked as fit as ever, but there was a sallowness to his eyes. They looked weary and in sharp contrast to the rest of the man. He still looked like he could eat iron and spit nails.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get these home and kick back with a couple of beers.”

  He swung his other leg over the gunwale and stood up. “Now you’re talking.”

  As I climbed aboard, my sat phone chirped. I picked it up, saw Chyrel’s name on the display, and clicked the Talk button.

  “Sampson is talking to Moreno,” she said. “I’ll mute both of us and patch you in.”

  I heard a couple of clicks and put the phone on speaker so Tank could hear.