“But she has a room at the mansion, right?” he persisted.
“Yes. Look, if your main interest is Rene, I can try to make her call her parents, but I can’t guarantee I’ll succeed. And you’re not going to change her mind. She believes she can make it. Her father may love her, but he’s smothered her, and she’s over twenty-one and this is America. It’s her decision to make.”
He shook his head. “You’re missing the point. It’s likely that her best friend met a very bad end, and the same thing could happen to her.”
“I haven’t missed your point. But there was no indication of foul play,” Chloe said, even though she didn’t believe Colleen had run off, not for a second. She had heard all the arguments a million times, and she was certain that something had happened, which was why she had been at the mansion tonight herself. So why was she arguing with him?
Because I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him, she reminded herself.
“Face it,” Luke said bluntly. “Colleen Rodriguez was murdered. Quite possibly by someone involved with the Bryson Agency.”
THREE
The Stirling was one of five boats berthed at the rickety docks off the Florida Bay side of Key Biscayne.
They would be tearing down the docks soon, along with the old bait-and-beer shop that had been there since the 1920s. Miami had officially been a city then, incorporated in 1896, but to many it had still been nothing but a mosquito-infested swamp, stuck between the Everglades and Biscayne Bay. Technically, the Everglades wasn’t a swamp—it was a literal “river of grass,” and a slow-moving river at that. It wasn’t that the city had been kept secret from the world—Fort Dallas had been erected on the Miami River in the early 1800s as an outpost in the Seminole Wars. After that, the city, and all the smaller municipalities that made up Greater Miami, had grown slowly. Hurricanes, heat, humidity, snakes, gators and other pests had combined to limit its expansion. There had been boom in the 1920s, but the hurricane of 1926 had stopped development in its tracks for a while. The thirties hadn’t done much for the area, either, but since the 1940s and the advent of army bases and the industry of war, the city had continually grown. Castro’s rise to power had brought a massive Cuban influx, and soon after, Miami had become the haven of choice for people from every country in the Caribbean, and South and Central America.
A lot of what had first brought Luke Cane to the area was part of a dying past. Didn’t matter. He liked the diversity of what was going on. He regularly heard Spanish, German, Russian and British accents, all in a normal day, just going out for coffee, stopping for a beer.
He would miss it, though, when the old shops and docks finally went down under the wave of the future.
The old way in the Florida Keys—especially the middle Keys—would perish more slowly. He could always move the Stirling farther south.
The causeway led to the luxury residences on Key Biscayne, to the aquarium, the beaches and one of the city’s finest magnet schools. There were research laboratories, boat rentals, picnic areas. His own little patch of heaven was behind a forested road that only the natives tended to travel. Boaters knew the bait shop, where you could also buy beer and exactly two menu items: boiled shrimp and burgers.
When he drove back home that night, he immediately recognized the visitor sitting at the end of the dock as Octavio Gonzalez.
He parked his Subaru on the sand spit that was assigned to his slip and got out. Octavio stood right away and approached him. It was almost 3:00 a.m.
He wondered how long the other man had been sitting there. Probably most of the night.
“Did you see her? Did you?” Octavio asked anxiously. “Is she all right?”
“I didn’t actually speak with her, but she was there, and I know she’s all right,” Luke assured him.
Relief flooded Octavio’s face, but then he turned anxious once again. “But you went as someone else. Why wouldn’t she see you? They have her imprisoned, don’t they?” He was about five-ten, stocky, bald on top, mustached. In his youth he had probably displayed the machismo that went with his heritage, but now he only looked broken and desperate. He set his hands on Luke’s chest, as if he could force him to make everything all right. “That woman—that Myra woman!” he continued. “She won’t let me speak with my daughter. She won’t let me on the property. She called the police when I insisted on speaking with my daughter. She even told them that she didn’t know where Rene was!”
“She told the police she didn’t know where Rene was when they went to see her. If Rene wasn’t there when the police arrived, then she wasn’t lying. She did tell the police that Rene was all right, and they’ll go back to see her again.”
“They should camp outside her door!” Octavio said furiously.
“Octavio, I know how you feel,” Luke said patiently, gently grasping the man’s hands and forcing them down. “Come aboard, sit, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
The aft deck led straight into the central cabin. For many years now, the boat had been both his home and his occupational therapy. He’d spent hours on the woodwork and the old chrome. The galley was up-to-date and fully functional; the main cabin offered an elegant teak dining table with a horseshoe-shaped bench that accommodated at least ten. Across from the table, a long, comfortably upholstered sofa invited more guests, and there were two stationary easy chairs, as well. A set of six steps led to the bridge above, while a hallway led to the master cabin at the stern, passing two additional sleeping cabins on the way, one to port and one to starboard. She was a labor of love and the perfect home, at least for the time being. The water here in a canal off the Intracoastal wasn’t the clearest he’d ever seen, and there was the noise of small boats of all kinds coming through. Still, the constant movement of the water kept it clean enough, and he liked being able to jump in for a swim whenever the hell he felt like it. People relaxed in tubes and floating chairs outside the neighboring bait-and-beer shop, and on a warm summer’s day, there was nothing like the pleasure of being right on the water.
It was a far cry from his native country.
Every once in a while, he still yearned for home, but he figured that was why God had gotten together with the Wright brothers to create airplanes.
Octavio followed him on board, a little more slowly, using the hull rail for support as he carefully crossed over to the deck. Luke led the way into the cabin, helping himself to a beer from the refrigerator as he passed.
“Octavio, beer?” he offered.
“No, no,” Octavio replied.
Luke reached into a cabinet above the sink and found a bottle of cognac. He held it up questioningly, and at first the other man looked as if he would refuse, but then he nodded. He accepted the glass Luke poured for him and sank into one of the easy chairs.
“Why?” he asked, running his fingers through what hair he had left. He sounded baffled and lost. “Why won’t she just speak to me?” He looked at Luke. “But you say she’s there—she’s alive and she’s well. Somehow we have to reach her. She can’t go on that shoot. She will die. I know this.”
Luke took the chair across from Octavio, gripping the beer bottle, feeling the sweat. “She’s definitely there, and I was able to speak with a friend of hers,” he said.
“Ay, Dios mio.” Octavio crossed himself in thanks-giving.
“I’ll try to get closer and get her to call you,” Luke said. “But we’re in a tough position. If she was in immediate and imminent danger, I could drag her out of there.”
“Yes, yes! Drag her out!”
Luke shook his head. “Octavio, I’m not averse to pulling a few tricks, but not the kind that won’t get you anywhere—and will get me thrown in jail. What you have to understand is that you can’t keep your