Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise Book 3) (13 page)

Now I was jazzed. Kurt and I rushed to the baggage claim area in the terminal we had flown into only yesterday. We had clues. I bounced up and down on my toes.
Hurry, Collin.
I texted him our whereabouts.

“Got it. ETA two minutes,” he sent back.

“Why didn’t you tell Gabriel about your rum theory? And why did you tell him we had a phone call when we didn’t?”

Kurt rubbed his eyes. Red veins carved lines through them. “I’m suspicious of everyone now, Katie. Gabriel didn’t identify the janitor as a witness, you did. She was ignoring him and talking straight to you. And if I hadn’t realized the significance of the rum, he might have convinced you it was nothing.”

“Do you think . . .” I couldn’t get the rest of the words out. Gabriel’s insipid questioning the day before, his cheerfulness, his lack of appreciation for the rapid passing of time all cycloned in my brain. Suspicious? Maybe. But I didn’t think so. He hadn’t set off my radar.

“No, he’s probably fine. I’m sure I just got paranoid.”

Before I could say anything more, I looked up and saw my brother. He walked toward us, wearing his threadbare Hooters t-shirt and his Levi’s 501 button-fly jeans, all “Danger Zone” playing with Tom Cruise striding to his plane in
Top Gun
. That was Collin. I ran to him and threw my arms around his solid frame, bumping his big duffel bag out of the way to get to him.

“Thank you, Collin, thank you for coming,” I said. My eyes started leaking.

“I got here as fast as I could, sis. I’m sorry, so so sorry. Let’s go find Nick,” my brother said without letting go. We measured only two inches’ difference in height, but he outweighed me by a comforting fifty pounds of muscle. He released me and stuck his hand out to Kurt. They shook.

“Sir, sorry about your son. I hope I can be of some help,” Collin said.

Kurt nodded. “Thank you. I’m glad to have you here.”

Collin looked me up and down. “I don’t mean to offend, sis, but that outfit looks like something Grandma would have worn on a cruise, God rest her soul.”

“Bite me, Collin. This is my ‘blend as a tourist’ outfit. Kurt and I are a little worried that there are bad guys after us.”

“What bad guys?” he asked, his cop’s eyes pinning me to the spot in which I stood.

I spit out the details in rapid fire. “Quick version: we think Nick ran into trouble when he was investigating a death on St. Marcos for the Petro-Mex refinery. It looks like some men were following him here. And a man was overheard bragging that his partner fixed Nick’s plane. At least one of them was black and talked like he was from the islands. Now Nick and his plane are gone. A man has been asking about me, too. Oh, and there’s hints that these guys may be the hired hands for a Mexican cartel, maybe one called the Chihuahuas. Those bad guys.”

Kurt jumped in. “Talked like he was from the islands? Where did that come from, Katie?”

Oh, shit. I hadn’t told Kurt that part? My brain was fried. “I’m sorry, Kurt. From the busboy.”

Collin was shaking his head back and forth. “Holy Mother of God, Katie Connell Kovacs. The Chihuahua cartel is serious bad guys. My first partner in Anti-Drug in New Mexico was killed by them. A really nice guy, with a wife and an infant daughter. How in the world are they related to this?”

“Collin, hold that thought. I promise we’ll get right back to that question. Did you check a bag?” I asked.

“Nope. I’m traveling lean. Flexibility is the key to air power,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Just something my lady friend says. She’s an Army reservist. H-60 Black Hawk helos,” he said.

This was astonishing, to say the least. Collin with a lady friend? In the Army? A Black Hawk pilot? I didn’t know they let women fly attack helicopters, or that many wanted to. Except for Meg Ryan in
Courage Under Fire
, but that was the movies. And why would a tough woman date my outwardly chauvinistic brother? No fool am I, though. I kept my mouth shut about this last question.

Collin’s announcement didn’t faze Kurt, but then again, not much did.

I said, “We have a question for an experienced pilot. Maybe she could help us?”

“Lay it on me, and I’ll call her,” Collin said.

“Who’s her?” I asked.

“Tamara,” he said. He chucked me on the chin with his fist. “I think you’ll meet this one, sis.”

I couldn’t remember if I had ever met one of Collin’s girlfriends. Curiouser and curiouser, as they say.

We were still standing in the bustling baggage claim area. I herded us over to some empty seats by a bank of what used to be pay phones, only the phones had been ripped out of the booths. Much quieter. We sat down and Kurt explained the rum and engines to Collin, who hit speed dial as Kurt spilled the last of his theory.

We hung on every word as Collin spoke into his phone. “Babe, I made it to the DR, and I need a favor, ASAP.” Pause. “I love you, too. OK, I’m going to feed you facts, then ask you a question about them. Ready? Piper Malibu flying westward from Punta Cana, DR, to St. Marcos, U.S.V.I., three days ago at one o’clock p.m. Suspected intrusion of several bottles of rum into fuel tanks prior to takeoff. Don’t know speed traveling or altitude, but can you make a guess?” Pause. “Good. We want to know what happened to the plane. Physically, what would the rum do, and geographically, if it went down, can you give us a compass point?” Pause. Longer this time. “When could you have the info?” Pause. “You’re the best. I love you. Bye.”

Collin snapped his phone shut. “No problem. One hour. She’ll call me. Now, what do we do in the meantime?”

I grabbed his hand. “Really? That easy?”

He squeezed my hand and lifted it to his breastbone. “That easy. She has specialized knowledge, and we’re lucky today. And we’re going to stay lucky. I feel it.”

My heart lifted. More hope. “Well, we have several things left to do here. I’d like to talk to that busboy, and we should circle back with Gabriel.”

Kurt said, “Yup, I agree.”

My iPhone buzzed. I held my hand up in the stop gesture while I read the message from A. Friend: “Nick would understand. We are in jeopardy. Please do not contact us again. Best of luck to you.”

Whoa
. Not the helpful kind of friend.

I showed the screen to Kurt, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged. He had no words. For once, I had no words either.

Kurt called for Victor and I filled Collin in on the mysterious A. Friend as we made our way out of the commercial terminal. Victor ferried us back to Terminal Three, which now felt like a second home to me, if I had died and gone to hell. When we found Nick, I did not ever want to come back here, even if it was a gorgeous and inexpensive place to visit. To get back inside, we pushed our way through a sizable crowd gathered around an ambulance, the biggest crowd I’d seen at the private terminal yet.

The lunch rush had ended at the cafeteria, and only a few people were sitting in the dining area. When I asked the girl behind the cash register for the manager, she told me in a trembling voice that the manager was unavailable. I asked for our busboy friend. At this, she started to sob.

“He left, he gone. He not coming back,” she sobbed.

“Where did he go?” I asked.

“He walk out—” sob, “he walk out—” She pointed at the ambulance at the curb. “And he just fall down, and he dead. He dead,” she repeated, and then started crying too hard to speak any more.

Collin whirled around and loped out to the rubbernecking crowd. I stood in cement shoes and lost sight of him. Collin spoke Spanish like a native-born Mexican. He said it was a job necessity, working anti-drug in New Mexico. While it was not quite the same as Dominican Spanish, he would have no problems communicating here. Starting now.

Kurt spoke to the girl, his voice gentle.

She choked out, “Gracias, señor,” and ran to the swinging door that led to the kitchen.

Kurt put his arm around me. My shoulders were rigid. He pulled me to him anyway. I concentrated on drawing air in and out of the tiny space left in my lungs under the tremendous lead weight on my chest.

After what seemed like hours, Collin returned. “She had the dead part right. Someone shivved him. With a screwdriver. Poor kid.”

Kurt patted my arm with the hand he had around me. I’d talked to the boy. He was murdered because he talked to me.

Collin asked, “Any chance this is a heartbreaking coincidence, people?”

I couldn’t answer.

“None,” Kurt said.

“We’ve got to get moving, then. We don’t want to be next. Anything else we need to do before we bolt?”

They both turned to me, deferred to me. “No,” I managed to force out.

Kurt elaborated. “We were going to talk to the terminal manager, a man that has helped us. But we have what we need. Let’s go.”

Kurt pulled me along. I was falling down with each step but never hit the floor. The struggle to stay upright and keep walking brought me back to some sense of equilibrium.

So, again, we made the short trip from the airport to the hotel, and the long walk from the lobby to our casita, this time with me in quasi-zombie mode. As we walked, Collin asked us more about the possible link to the Chihuahua cartel. I forced the words out to explain their connection to Petro-Mex, and the clues that kept emerging about some mafioso-type involvement.

“I’ve read about the Chihuahuas’ feud with Petro-Mex, and I deal with them and other cartels every day. I just never imagined they would reach out this far. If you are Ramón Riojas and run the Chihuahuas, this makes sense, though, if you think it through. You said that refinery is one of the biggest in the world and supplies gasoline straight to mainland U.S.?”

I nodded. Barely.

“If the cartel could interrupt the refinery’s operations for even one day, it would raise U.S. gas prices. And the U.S. government would not exactly thank Petro-Mex for bringing their problems across the border.”

I gulped for enough air to get out my next thought. “What I don’t understand is if this is related to the Chihuahuas or some other cartel, why would they use two St. Marcos locals, and not two cartel thugs from Mexico?”

“Oh, they use local talent all the time. I wouldn’t expect anything different,” Collin answered. “How is this tied to Nick’s investigation around the guy who died in your driveway, though?”

“We have no idea,” I said.

We entered the casita and Kurt threw himself on the sofa in front of his laptop. I planted myself in front of mine at the table and Collin set down his bag and joined me.

“How can I help you, sis?”

My phone rang. Julie. I held up a finger and Collin nodded.

“Julie?”

Static. The call dropped.
Crap.
I dialed her number. No answer. I left a voicemail. Damn the phone service in the rainforest. Damn the cartel. Damn the guys who killed the busboy. I needed a hug. From Nick.

“That kid died because he talked to me, Collin.”

He shook his head. “He died because of bad people doing bad things.”

Collin’s phone rang.

“Tamara! Yo, talk to me, gorgeous. Wait, I can barely hear you. Let me walk outside.” He left the room and shut the door behind him.

My father-in-law was studying the laminated map on the table and the screen in front of him. I was the odd man out with nothing to do. Well, I needed to re-focus on mission-critical work and quit wallowing in this. A young man was dead, but my guilt wasn’t going to bring him back.

I scrolled through my email. One from José Ramirez asking me to update him, letting me know they’d found no trace of Nick visiting the refinery before he disappeared, and asking if I’d listened to his voicemail. Later. I scrolled through Nick’s email. Nothing from A. Friend. I checked my texts. Again, nothing. No voicemail, either.

Not normal. I hadn’t logged one single voicemail since we’d arrived in Punta Cana, and I normally received three to four a day. Granted, Nick always left some of those messages, but I still got one or more from a caller other than Nick every day. And when I’d talked to her earlier, Julie had said she left me a voicemail, and now Ramirez had as well.

I called it, just to be sure. “You have five new messages and one saved message.”
Mother Fuuu . . .
I hated the F word. I hated these missing voicemail even more. I hated everything about this situation, starting with a husband who had lied to me and ending with a dead busboy.

First message. Ava. Checking on me. Updating me on the slave graveyard research.

Second message. Julie. Sorry she missed the texts. Thanks for my email. She missed us. She was scared.

Third message. José Ramirez. “I reached Mrs. Monroe on her mobile number. She said that, yes, she has returned to Mexico, and does not plan to come back to St. Marcos. She said that her husband’s suicide broke her heart, and she asked me to please consider her feelings and cease the investigation. I have very mixed feelings on this, Ms. Kovacs, but I have been instructed to tell Stingray to stop investigating on our behalf. Please send me your billing up until this time. I suspect I would also be told not to give you Mrs. Monroe’s number, so I did not ask permission.” He spoke the digits into the phone.

Jesus
.
Why had the voicemail notification not worked? I scratched the number down on a yellow pad on the coffee table and pulled up the texts on my phone as I continued to listen to my messages. Sure enough, Elena’s number matched one that had texted Nick, one I had texted myself, but from which I had gotten no response.

Fourth message. Emily, my best friend from my old life in Dallas. “Katie, I just heard about Nick. I am praying for you guys. I love you.”

Fifth message. Detective Tutein. “You think you can get out of trouble by running away and leaving your mother-in-law to take your heat? The judge is gonna rule within a week on the injunction evicting your family from your house. I know the judge well. His wife is the sister of my sister’s husband. Any cooperation with me goes a long way in his court. I am a reasonable man, and I think I see ways for you to make all your troubles go away before then. Nice family, by the way. I especially like those kids of yours. I look forward to seeing you soon, lovely Katie.”