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

  Sampson’s voice came over the speaker. “—black helicopter. But I lost it by going through downtown.”

  “A helicopter is following you and you’re coming here?” a Hispanic man responded, anger rising in his voice. “Estúpido!”

  “I haven’t seen it since Homestead, man. I’m sure I lost them.”

  “Maricón, do not come here!”

  “I got a key of some good meth,” Sampson said. “I need to unload it and get the fuck out of here. I’ll cut you a good price, man—just thirty grand.”

  There was a moment of silence, then the man I assumed was Moreno said, “Find a place to get outta sight. A parking garage or something. Then meet me at Willy’s place out on Alligator Alley at four.”

  Tank and I both looked up at each other.

  “I can’t wait that long, man!”

  “You can and you will, hijo de puta! Or you can try to sell it on the street and hope you don’t get busted.”

  “Okay,” Sampson said. “Four o’clock at the shack. But man, we need to get rid of the evidence.”

  “I’ll call him and he can meet us there. He’s bringing ten keys later tonight anyway. Let him kill the putas and get rid of the bodies. I never liked supplying him anyway.”

  “You sure?” Sampson said. “The guy’s whacked, man. Keeping three of them locked up out there? Totally crazy, man.”

  “Si, Quick is pervertido. But he is un muy peligroso hombre—extremely dangerous.”

  “Aight,” Sampson agreed. “But I don’t want anything more to do with him. Snatching the girl like that wasn’t right, man.”

  The call ended and Chyrel came back on. “Were they talking about what I think they were?”

  “Get with Deuce,” I said. “See who he has available. I want to get there before fourteen hundred. I’d bet it’s the place Willy Quick stopped at on his way home from his east coast drug run. It might be where they have Cobie.”

  “And it sounds like two others,” Tank added.

  “You’re not even close to a road,” Chyrel said. “How do you plan to get there?”

  “We’re half an hour from Flamingo,” I replied. “Any chance someone can pick us up? Or can you get us a car there?”

  “Charity was flying some tourists up from Key West. I think she was dropping them this morning at MIA for a flight out. Let me check. If not, Paul’s up at Homestead Air Reserve Base and can be in Flamingo in about an hour.”

  “Charity’s back in the States?”

  “Since Wednesday,” Chyrel replied. “She’s been staying with me. Head for Flamingo and I’ll see if I can get her there before sending Paul.”

  A sliver of light shone through the crack below the door. It was the only indication that it was daylight—the two windows in the room were boarded up tight. The crack under the door was the only visual clue. The rising temperature was a good indicator as well.

  The second night of Vanessa’s captivity went about the same as the first. Throughout each night, she’d heard strange noises from outside, made doubly frightening because she couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face. The night sounds seemed to come from all around. Terrible sounds. Branches or birds on the tin roof sounded ominous enough, but the splashing about below, and the calls of wild animals in the distance were even more nightmarish.

  The other two women in the room had slept fitfully the last two nights, the younger one sobbing several times. The intervening day hadn’t been much different, just hotter. Vanessa could smell the stench coming from her own body but rationalized that it must be from the other two, who had been kept prisoners for much longer.

  During the previous day, she’d noticed where a floorboard near each corner was broken, offering a small hole, barely big enough to get her hand through. Mosquitoes used the holes to invade and attack the three women throughout the night.

  It wasn’t until after darkness fell, when Vanessa needed to relieve her bladder, that she realized what the holes in the floor were for. It made her nauseous that she’d put her hand in.

  “Are you awake?” the older woman, Michelle asked quietly.

  “I am,” Vanessa whispered.

  “Me, too,” came the younger girl’s voice.

  “He’ll come tonight,” Michelle said. “Every other night, right, Cobie?”

  The girl mumbled something that sounded affirmative.

  “The man who got you into this,” Michelle began, in a slightly questioning tone, “you said his name was Benito Moreno and he was a drug dealer?”

  Vanessa nodded, though she could barely see the woman in the dim light. “He gets a shipment of coke every other day. Willy Quick, the man who actually brought me here, is his supplier. He probably comes here after—he told me he lives on the west coast.”

  “If one of us could get loose,” Michelle said, “do you think you could remember how to get out of here?”

  “What time does he usually come?”

  “Just before dark,” Michelle replied.

  “That’s a big if,” Vanessa said. “I remember looking up at the shack before Willy choked me out and seeing a big padlock on the door. And all the windows were boarded up, like the ones in here.”

  Michelle shifted, rattling her chain. “That light under the door is coming from somewhere.”

  “All I saw was the front,” Vanessa said, struggling to her feet. “Maybe there’s a window on one of the sides or the back.”

  She moved over to where her chain was anchored in the corner post, gripped the big eyebolt, and tried to turn it.

  “Save your energy,” Michelle said. “They won’t budge.”

  Vanessa looped the chain around the bolt, anyway, giving her more to grip. “Save it for what?” she asked, as she strained to turn the bolt.

  The chain suddenly slipped in her hands, but she couldn’t be sure if it was just the links slipping or the bolt turning. When she removed the chain links, she saw that the bolt had moved, if only a little.

  “I turned it,” she whispered. “Try wrapping the chain around your bolts for a better grip.”

  The other two went to their corners, as Vanessa once more wrapped the chain around the bolt.

  “I don’t know which way it’s supposed to turn,” Michelle said.

  “Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey,” Cobie said, her voice straining as she tried to turn her bolt.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The top of the bolt,” Vanessa said, gripping her chain. “Turn the top to the left to loosen it.”

  Vanessa twisted the bolt with all she had. It slipped another nearly imperceptible amount, but no matter how hard she tried, it wouldn’t go any farther.

  Michelle fell against the wall, dropping her chain. A second later, Cobie just slumped to the floor, also defeated.

  “We’re never getting out of here,” the younger woman said. “I’ll never see my mom again and she’ll never know what happened to me.”

  Vanessa rose and went to the center of the room, where she sat on the floor. “Don’t give up yet,” she said. “If we only had something long to put in the eye of the bolt to turn it.”

  “There’s nothing in here,” Michelle said. “Just the plastic water bottles he leaves us.”

  “Mine turned a little both times, but that’s it. It’s stuck.”

  Michelle joined her and sat a few feet away, tucking her legs under her. “Is there anything else you remember? Another house nearby? Anything?”

  “We only drove a few minutes off the interstate,” Vanessa recounted. “There was a small gas station by the exit, but I think that was it. Then he turned left onto a dirt road. I don’t remember passing any signs or anything, and once we were on that road, there was nothing but trees and swamp.”

  “Even if you got the chain off,” Cobie whispered from the corner, “the door’s locked.” Her voice rose slightly. “That light is coming up through a hole or something in the floor of the next room. It’s where he’ll dump our bodies. Even if you g
ot loose, you’d have to climb down there where the alligators are, carrying your chain, and then swim to shore to get to civilization. It’s hopeless!”

  She was becoming panicked.

  For the first time, Vanessa noticed Michelle was wearing shoes. With heels. She’d left her own pumps in Willy’s truck.

  “What about your shoes?” Vanessa said. “Maybe the heel can add more leverage to turn one of the bolts.”

  Michelle looked down at her feet. Her expensive shoes were scuffed and the seam on the back of one was splitting. “I never thought to try.”

  “Let me have one,” Vanessa said. “I budged my bolt. Maybe between the chain and the heel I can turn it enough to get it loose. He won’t be here until later, right? It’s worth a try.”

  Michelle reluctantly gave up and tossed the shoe with the nearly broken seam to her. Vanessa picked it up and went back to her corner. In the near darkness, she carefully wrapped the chain around the bolt again, lining the links up with the eye of the bolt. She worked the heel through the links and the eyebolt, then wrapped more chain around the bolt for good measure.

  Slowly, she twisted the chain the opposite way, tightening it slightly, thinking that a running start might help. Then she set herself in a position that would allow her to twist as hard as possible.

  The bolt moved back to where it had stopped before and Vanessa increased the pressure. Suddenly, it moved. A lot.

  “I got a quarter of a turn,” she said. “But the shoe’s banged up against the wall and in the way now.”

  Uncoiling the chain, she removed the shoe and did the whole thing over again.

  The other two women rose and moved to the middle of the room to watch.

  When she was ready, Vanessa put all her strength into it, twisting the ball of chain with one hand and pushing on the sole of the shoe with the other.

  Michelle and Cobie urged her on.

  The bolt slipped again, then caught. The sudden stop and tremendous pressure Vanessa was putting on the shoe snapped the heel off.

  “Dammit!”

  “What happened?” Michelle asked.

  Vanessa slumped against the wall, panting. “The heel broke. But it moved some more.”

  There was a scuttling sound and Michelle’s other shoe bumped Vanessa’s foot.

  “You have to keep trying,” Michelle pleaded. “Neither of us have the strength and yours is already loose.”

  Vanessa picked up the shoe, noting for the first time that it was a Louboutin with the red sole. An expensive pair of shoes that were high on her own wish list.

  She returned to her corner and went through the process again, this time knowing not to put as much force on the heel.

  When she was ready, she twisted the chain mostly, adding just a little force with the shoe.

  The bolt turned easier.

  She rewound the chain and did it again. Then she dropped the shoe and used just the chain. The bolt continued to turn until finally it fell free.

  “You did it!” Michelle said, as if she’d been holding her breath.

  Over the next few minutes, Vanessa tried Michelle’s chain, then Cobie’s, both to no avail. She also broke the heel on the second shoe.

  The big eyebolt at the end of her chain was of no use; it wouldn’t fit through either the links or the other bolts’ eyes.

  “It’s no use,” Vanessa said.

  “Maybe there’s something in the other room,” Michelle suggested.

  Vanessa went to the door and tried the knob. “It’s locked.”

  “It’s just an inside door,” Cobie said, hope in her voice for the first time. “It should have a little hole in the middle. Anything at all shoved in that hole will push the pin and allow it to turn.”

  Vanessa picked up one of the shoes. The broken heels were way too big to put into the little hole. She was about to drop it when she noticed the steel rod protruding slightly from the heel.

  Vanessa sat on the floor and, using the pointed end of the eyebolt, began to scrape and pry at the damaged heel, ripping away the fabric and breaking parts of the inside away from the steel reinforcement rod. Finally, she had enough of it exposed to try the lock.

  The rod fit the hole but wasn’t long enough. She’d have to expose more of it. She sat down and started working at the heel again. Her hands shook and she gouged her fingers and palms several times, until they became slick with blood. Looking around, she finally just wiped the blood off on the front of her pretty yellow dress and continued prying.

  Suddenly, the heel cracked, and the rod fell out.

  Struggling to her feet with the thin rod in her hand, Vanessa carefully inserted it into the hole in the doorknob. She felt resistance and pushed. The rod cocked at an angle and slipped past whatever it had hit.

  She tried the knob, but it was still locked.

  “It’s kinda like a pin in there,” Cobie said. “It points straight at the hole, and you gotta go in perfectly straight.”

  Vanessa tried again, using the rod to “feel” around the edges of the pin. It was tiny, smaller than the size of the hole itself. She moved the rod until she thought it was on the center of the pin, then pushed. The pin went in a little but when she tried the knob, the rod slipped, and the door still wouldn’t open.

  “Keep trying,” Cobie said. “You have to push the pin in and turn the knob at the same time.”

  Vanessa tried once more and finally, the knob turned, and she swung the door open.

  “You did it!” Michelle practically shouted. “It looks like there’s enough light to see.”

  Vanessa stepped into the room, dragging the chain, still bolted to her ankle, with every other step. The only light was coming from an opening in the floor, just as Cobie had said. It was about three feet wide and didn’t seem to have a door.

  There was a bed to the right, just a wooden frame with a bare, stain-covered mattress.

  Moving around the hole, she picked up her chain and searched the room. It didn’t take long; the bed was the only thing in it. She tried the front door. The knob turned, but the door barely moved inward when she yanked at it.

  It was padlocked from the outside.

  She went back to the room where the other women were chained.

  “There’s nothing. Not even a loose nail.”

  “Go for help,” Michelle said suddenly. “It’s our only hope.”

  “Yes,” pleaded Cobie. “Bring help.”

  Vanessa looked from one woman to the other, then nodded. “I’ll go see if there’s any way out.”

  She went back to the open hole in the floor and looked down. Judging by the shadows, it was around noon. Willy wouldn’t come for several hours. If she could get out of the house, she knew she could find help before then.

  I have to try, she decided, and knelt for a better look at the underside of the shack.

  She noted the wooden pilings the structure was built on, with a web of braces to keep them from moving. The water was dark, and she had no way of knowing how deep it was. Directly below, something lighter in color than the surrounding water floated just below the surface.

  She leaned over, steadying herself with her hands on either side of the opening. She couldn’t make out what it was. The water could be two feet deep and it was a rock, for all she knew.

  Then it moved slightly, as if it was drifting in an unseen current. It looked like a small garbage bag, or maybe a fanny pack. It rose slowly.

  The face of a young woman broke the surface, blond hair billowing around it.

  Just as Vanessa screamed, a large alligator rolled, taking the woman’s head in its massive jaws. In one fluid movement, the big bull gator dove deep, barely making a ripple.

  “What happened?” Michelle yelled. “Vanessa! Are you okay?”

  Vanessa stumbled back from the hole, her hands over her face, until she bumped the door jamb to their cell.

  “I…I saw a…a woman’s body! Down under the house. She was a blonde.”

  “Jenny!” Co
bie wailed.

  “He…he…just fed her…to the alligators.” Vanessa whispered, her voice breaking.

  “Can you…do you think you can get to shore?”

  Vanessa turned toward the two chained women, her hands now clutched below her chin. “I don’t know. I’m scared.”

  “Did you see anything else?” Michelle begged. “Any other way out?”

  The sight of the woman’s dead face disappearing into the maw of the giant alligator had unnerved her.

  “Vanessa!” Michelle shouted. “We don’t have much time.”

  Vanessa lowered her hands to her sides. She had to do something.

  “There’s like a bridge from the front door,” she said. “And some braces and big poles holding up the place. If I can get to the bridge, I can get help.”

  Vanessa moved slowly back toward the trap door, concentrating, forcing the fear and the vision of what she’d seen from her mind.

  At the edge of the opening, she stood and peered down at the dark water once more, half expecting to see the woman’s face again. But she saw nothing but the foreboding dark water. Dropping to her knees, she looked around the underside of the shack again, forcing her mind to act. The water was about eight feet below the floor. There were diagonal braces on most of the round pilings, all at forty-five degree angles. From the corner of the house, a brace went down to the next piling, supporting the back wall, then up, down, and up again to the other corner. She was sure she could move from brace to brace to reach the underside of the bridge.

  Vanessa hefted the chain in her right hand. It was heavy, but she didn’t think it was too heavy to sap her strength carrying it. She would need both hands free, though. She didn’t want to let the chain dangle and get caught on something. Or worse, get grabbed by an alligator that would yank her down into the water.

  “I think I can get over to the bridge,” she shouted back into the darkened room. “I’ll let you know when I do.”

  Taking the end of the chain, she looped it around her neck and tucked the long eyebolt under the thin strap of her dress to hold it in place. Then she sat down with her feet dangling in the opening, like she was sitting at a dock.

  The thought of an alligator jumping up and grabbing her feet caused her to pull them back up.