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They made it across the street and down the crowded walk to the ivied opening that led down a narrow alley to Jimmy Ray’s.
Jimmy Ray had been born and bred on South Beach. He liked to talk about the old days, and he knew what he was talking about, too, because he had to be somewhere in his eighties. But he still worked every day, and he served the best pizza on the beach. He also had the best bar, and the lowest prices on mixed drinks. There was never a DJ there blasting dance music, though he brought in an acoustic guitarist now and then, someone with a mellow voice. People went to Jimmy Ray’s to talk, because he knew there was no talking when you had to compete with blasting speakers.
As Stuckey had predicted, the place was relatively quiet.
“Hey, Jimmy Ray!” he called as they entered.
Jimmy Ray, bald as a buzzard and equally intimidating, looked up from behind the counter. “Hey, Stuckey. Chloe.”
He didn’t greet Jack. Chloe was glad.
Stuckey had the good sense to usher her into a booth, then follow her in to sit beside her, blocking any escape. Jack Smith sat down across from them.
Stuckey rubbed his hand over the crisp white hair on his head. “All right,” he began, then stopped. Jimmy Ray had sent his waitress, Katia, over to them, her order pad in hand. “Coffee for me,” he said. “And … ah, hell, I’m here. A Mighty Meat pizza.”
“Chloe?” Katia asked. She was a very pretty girl, an immigrant from Ukraine, and had only been there for five years. In that time, she had learned English with only the trace of an accent.
Chloe smiled at her. “Iced tea, please.”
She was disturbed when Katia turned to the newcomer and smiled—familiarly. “And what would you like, Luke?”
She’d been right about one thing, Chloe thought with satisfaction. He wasn’t Jack Smith.
“Coffee, thanks, Katia,” he said.
Katia went away, and Stuckey turned to Chloe. “Seems as if we ought to start from the beginning. Chloe, this is Luke Cane. Luke, Chloe Marin.”
“Luke,” she said sweetly, staring at him.
“Miss Marin,” he returned.
“Chloe Marin,” Stuckey said, frowning, as if he wondered if he had remembered to mention her first name. “Chloe, Luke is investigating the disappearance of Colleen Rodriguez and looking into what’s going on with Rene Gonzalez.”
She stared across the table, frowning.
“But nothing’s happened to Rene—until he chased her away tonight,” she said, staring accusingly at Luke.
“Her parents have been worried,” Stuckey explained. “The last few times they called the mansion, Myra told them that Rene wasn’t there, and she didn’t know where she was or when she’d be back. And after what happened to Colleen on an agency shoot …”
“But … she … oh,” Chloe said.
“Oh what?” Stuckey asked.
Chloe shook her head. “I don’t know the whole story. But I think she’s kind of hiding from her father. He’s Cuban, very macho, very old school. He doesn’t want her modeling. It’s not what nice girls do, you know? But she’s over twenty-one, and it’s what she wants to do.”
“I’d still like to talk to her,” Luke said.
Katia brought their drinks, then discreetly slipped away.
“Why?” Chloe demanded suspiciously.
“Because of Colleen Rodriguez.”
She stiffened. She had infiltrated the agency herself because of Colleen Rodriguez.
“Why are you trying to talk to Rene specifically?” she asked, pretending she didn’t know.
“They were best friends,” Luke said.
Damn. He knew his stuff. She frowned.
“So I gather you two know each other well,” Luke said, looking from her to Stuckey as he changed the subject.
Stuckey sighed. Explaining their friendship was always difficult.
Luke sat back, one arm stretched along the seat. His eyes hadn’t lost a shred of hard silver suspicion as he stared at her. “Are you a licensed P.I.?” he asked her.
She was irritated to feel her cheeks grow red. “No. Are you?”
He nodded.
“I’d like to see your license,” she said, making no secret of her own suspicion.
He arched a brow and produced his wallet, opening it before handing it over. She stared at the insert, then glared back at him. “That’s a fishing license.”
He shrugged, not about to comply any further.
“He’s the real deal,” Stuckey said quietly, obviously getting irritated himself.
“Well, you might have said something,” she said, staring accusingly at Luke.
“Just what do you do, Miss Marin?” he asked. “Since you’re not a model.”
She had never said she was, but even so, she resented his implication that she wasn’t—something—enough to be a model.
“I’m a psychologist and an artist,” she said.
“Oh. I see.” The words were polite—and cutting.
“A sketch artist,” Stuckey put in for her. “Chloe has been of tremendous help to the department as a sketch artist. And as a psychologist, she’s helped lots of survivors—of crime, abuse, you name it—learn to cope again.”
“So you were there to sketch … models?” he asked. His tone made her teeth grate.
She decided to let Stuckey take that one.
“There’s still a lot of concern regarding Colleen Rodriguez’s disappearance. Victoria is with the Bryson Agency, and Chloe and Victoria are friends, so it was easy enough to arrange to plant Chloe there. She’s trying to see if she can discover anything in a casual way, working out of the mansion. And except for tonight, you’re being careful—right?” he said sternly, staring at her.
“I see,” Luke said, though his expression conveyed that he obviously didn’t. “Degrees in psychology—and … art?—make you qualified to investigate a woman’s disappearance and possible murder?”
“Tony told you, I know Victoria, so it’s easy for me to fit in. If anyone can learn anything about what goes on inside the agency, it’s me.” She stopped speaking. She had met Colleen, casually, and had liked her very much. This was personal for her. And she was the best person for the job. She and Vickie had been best friends ever since the event that had shattered their lives, along with Brad’s and Jared’s. Even the fact that they all traveled for both work and pleasure, and might not see each other for months at a time, didn’t change anything. When they were home, they were thick as thieves.
She thought about telling Luke that her uncle had handled more criminal investigations than he would see in ten lifetimes, and that Uncle Leo valued her opinion and had actually asked her to keep an eye out and tell him anything she learned.
But she didn’t have a chance to respond further before Stuckey’s cell phone rang. He listened for a moment, grinned, then turned to Chloe. “Yes, she’s here. I’ll tell her.” He hung up and said, “That was Victoria. When she couldn’t get you and the guard said he’d seen you heading for the beach, she figured I might have seen you.”
“Has she seen Rene?” Luke asked.
“She won’t show up again tonight. Not after someone chased her,” Chloe said, looking at him accusingly.
“Where will she go?” Luke asked her.
Even if I knew, I wouldn’t be telling you, Chloe thought. She still didn’t feel comfortable with his explanation, even if Stuckey had bought it.
“Luke, maybe you want to explain why the Gonzalezes are so concerned about their daughter,” Stuckey suggested.
Did he want to explain? she wondered. Certainly not to her. She could see that. But she could also see that he respected both Stuckey’s position and Stuckey himself, and because of that he would fill her in.
“Did you know that Colleen and Rene were longtime best friends?” he asked. “Since childhood. And their parents were friends, too.”
Chloe was silent. She didn’t think Victoria or any of the other models knew that. The girls had probably downplayed the strength of their friendship, afraid that it might hurt their individual chances of getting work if the powers that be thought they were unwilling to work separately or that jealousy would lead to trouble in the house.
“Octavio Gonzalez, Rene’s father, came to me after they couldn’t get hold of their daughter,” Luke explained. “She wouldn’t even answer her cell. They’re worried that whatever happened to Colleen Rodriguez was happening to her, too—that maybe someone was targeting her, forming a relationship with her so he could lure her away, presumably to kill her. The thing is, Colleen was over twenty-one, and her purse and passport were gone, which makes it look like she took off on her own. The authorities found nothing that suggested foul play. But Colleen’s parents are sure their daughter would never have just taken off without letting them know. So now Octavio is going crazy. The man is sure that something happened to Colleen, and he’s afraid his daughter is about to meet the same fate. The agency is no help—but then, they don’t have to be. Rene is twenty-two. They don’t have to force her to talk to her parents if she doesn’t want to. Even so, Octavio is convinced that the agency is dirty.”
“I don’t think so. I really don’t,” Chloe told him.
He leaned forward. “Is that because you’ve been doing some work for them? Or because your friend Victoria is such a success there?”
She would have stood up and gotten right in his face—if Stuckey hadn’t been blocking her in. He had no right to accuse her that way.
She clamped down hard on her teeth, realizing that she was going on the defensive, when she herself had been there to spy on whatever was going on. Colleen had been like a beautiful puppy, full of life and energy and eager anticipation. She had loved Miami and loved her parents and friends. There had been no reason for her to just up and disappear. Chloe hadn’t needed to hear that from Luke Cane, or whoever he really was.
Chloe lowered her eyes, dismayed with herself. His name was Luke Cane—Stuckey had told her so. He was a legitimate private investigator—even if he had shown her a fishing license. They had definitely gotten off on the wrong foot, but it had been a long night, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted it to go on any longer.
“I’ll do what I can to get Rene to speak with you,” she said. “Tony, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the mansion. Vickie is probably ready to go home.”
Luke reached across the table and touched her arm. She started, looking at his hand. It was large, with long fingers—maybe he should have been a guitarist or a pianist. His nails were clipped short, and they were clean. His palm felt callused; she imagined that when he wasn’t investigating someone, he indulged in some kind of manual labor. Building things, maybe. They were very masculine hands. She gritted her teeth again, wondering why his touch could send rivulets of fire streaking through her when she was absolutely convinced that she didn’t like the man.
She looked up and found him staring into her eyes. “Victoria doesn’t live at the mansion?” he asked.
Chloe shook her head. “She lives about a mile away from me. We’re in the Grove. She stays at the mansion sometimes, especially if she has to get up early for a shoot. But she does more than model. She also substitute teaches at a magnet school for the performing arts, so she prefers living at home.”
“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.
